At an inn in the north I once heard three men talking at their breakfast
on the question of diet. They agreed that most people ate too much meat,
and one of them went so far as to declare that, for his part, he rather
preferred vegetables and fruit. "Why," he said, "will you believe me
that I sometimes make a breakfast of apples?" This announcement was
received in silence; evidently the two listeners didn't quite know what
to think of it. Thereupon the speaker, in rather a blustering tone,
cried out, "Yes, I can make a very good breakfast on _two or three pounds
of apples_."
Wasn't it amusing? And wasn't it characteristic? This honest Briton had
gone too far in frankness. 'Tis all very well to like vegetables and
fruits up to a certain point; but to breakfast on apples! His
companions' silence proved that they were just a little ashamed of him;
his confession savoured of poverty or meanness; to right himself in their
opinion, nothing better occurred to the man than to protest that he ate
apples, yes, but not merely one or two; he ate them largely, _by the
pound_! I laughed at the fellow, but I thoroughly understood him; so
would every Englishman; for at the root of our being is a hatred of
parsimony. This manifests itself in all sorts of ludicrous or
contemptible forms, but no less is it the source of our finest qualities.
An Englishman desires, above all, to live largely; on that account he not
only dreads, but hates and despises, poverty. His virtues are those of
the free-handed and warm-hearted opulent man; his weaknesses come of the
sense of inferiority (intensely painful and humiliating) which attaches
in his mind to one who cannot spend and give; his vices, for the most
part, originate in loss of self-respect due to loss of secure position.