BITTERS NEAT
Book Author Rudyard Kipling
DescriptionThis is a cynical and rather tragic little anecdote, written when Kipling was only twenty-one, in much the same vein as “Yoked with an Unbeliever†(Plain Tales from the Hillsâ€), which is headed by the quotation 'I am dying for you, and you are dying for another', attributed by the author to a 'Punjabi proverb'.
"Bitters Neat" concerns a dull man named Surrey and a very otdinary girl called Miss Tallaght, who falls madly in love with him for no apparent reason. Surrey, who 'never bothered his head about women', is unaware of her feelings. Another man falls in love with her and proposes, but she turns him down, much to the disgust of the aunt with whom she is living.