It is easy to understand that common judgment of foreigners regarding the
English people. Go about in England as a stranger, travel by rail, live
at hotels, see nothing but the broadly public aspect of things, and the
impression left upon you will be one of hard egoism, of gruffness and
sullenness; in a word, of everything that contrasts most strongly with
the ideal of social and civic life. And yet, as a matter of fact, no
nation possesses in so high a degree the social and civic virtues. The
unsociable Englishman, quotha? Why, what country in the world can show
such multifarious, vigorous and cordial co-operation, in all ranks, but
especially, of course, among the intelligent, for ends which concern the
common good? Unsociable! Why, go where you will in England you can
hardly find a man--nowadays, indeed, scarce an educated woman--who does
not belong to some alliance, for study or sport, for municipal or
national benefit, and who will not be seen, in leisure time, doing his
best as a social being. Take the so-called sleepy market-town; it is
bubbling with all manner of associated activities, and these of the quite
voluntary kind, forms of zealously united effort such as are never dreamt
of in the countries supposed to be eminently "social." Sociability does
not consist in a readiness to talk at large with the first comer. It is
not dependent upon natural grace and suavity; it is compatible, indeed,
with thoroughly awkward and all but brutal manners. The English have
never (at all events, for some two centuries past) inclined to the purely
ceremonial or mirthful forms of sociability; but as regards every prime
interest of the community--health and comfort, well-being of body and of
soul--their social instinct is supreme.
Yet it is so difficult to reconcile this indisputable fact with that
other fact, no less obvious, that your common Englishman seems to have no
geniality. From the one point of view, I admire and laud my fellow
countryman; from the other, I heartily dislike him and wish to see as
little of him as possible. One is wont to think of the English as a
genial folk. Have they lost in this respect? Has the century of science
and money-making sensibly affected the national character? I think
always of my experience at the English inn, where it is impossible not to
feel a brutal indifference to the humane features of life; where food is
bolted without attention, liquor swallowed out of mere habit, where even
good-natured accost is a thing so rare as to be remarkable.
Two things have to be borne in mind: the extraordinary difference of
demeanour which exists between the refined and the vulgar English, and
the natural difficulty of an Englishman in revealing his true self save
under the most favourable circumstances.
So striking is the difference of manner between class and class that the
hasty observer might well imagine a corresponding and radical difference
of mind and character. In Russia, I suppose, the social extremities are
seen to be pretty far apart, but, with that possible exception, I should
think no European country can show such a gap as yawns to the eye between
the English gentleman and the English boor. The boor, of course, is the
multitude; the boor impresses himself upon the traveller. When relieved
from his presence, one can be just to him; one can remember that his
virtues--though elementary, and strictly in need of direction--are the
same, to a great extent, as those of the well-bred man. He does not
represent--though seeming to do so--a nation apart. To understand this
multitude, you must get below its insufferable manners, and learn that
very fine civic qualities can consist with a personal bearing almost
wholly repellent.
Then, as to the dogged reserve of the educated man, why, I have only to
look into myself. I, it is true, am not quite a representative
Englishman; my self-consciousness, my meditative habit of mind, rather
dim my national and social characteristics; but set me among a few
specimens of the multitude, and am I not at once aware of that
instinctive antipathy, that shrinking into myself, that something like
unto scorn, of which the Englishman is accused by foreigners who casually
meet him? Peculiar to me is the effort to overcome this first impulse--an
effort which often enough succeeds. If I know myself at all, I am not an
ungenial man; and yet I am quite sure that many people who have known me
casually would say that my fault is a lack of geniality. To show my true
self, I must be in the right mood and the right circumstances--which,
after all, is merely as much as saying that I am decidedly English.