Is it true that the English are deeply branded with the vice of
hypocrisy? The accusation, of course, dates from the time of the Round-
heads; before that, nothing in the national character could have
suggested it. The England of Chaucer, the England of Shakespeare,
assuredly was not hypocrite. The change wrought by Puritanism introduced
into the life of the people that new element which ever since, more or
less notably, has suggested to the observer a habit of double-dealing in
morality and religion. The scorn of the Cavalier is easily understood;
it created a traditional Cromwell, who, till Carlyle arose, figured
before the world as our arch-dissembler. With the decline of genuine
Puritanism came that peculiarly English manifestation of piety and virtue
which is represented by Mr. Pecksniff--a being so utterly different from
Tartufe, and perhaps impossible to be understood save by Englishmen
themselves. But it is in our own time that the familiar reproach has
been persistently levelled at us. It often sounds upon the lips of our
emancipated youth; it is stereotyped for daily impression in the offices
of Continental newspapers. And for the reason one has not far to look.
When Napoleon called us a "nation of shop-keepers," we were nothing of
the kind; since his day we have become so, in the strictest sense of the
word; and consider the spectacle of a flourishing tradesman, anything but
scrupulous in his methods of business, who loses no opportunity of
bidding all mankind to regard him as a religious and moral exemplar. This
is the actual show of things with us; this is the England seen by our
bitterest censors. There is an excuse for those who charge us with
"hypocrisy."
But the word is ill-chosen, and indicates a misconception. The
characteristic of your true hypocrite is the assumption of a virtue which
not only he has not, but which he is incapable of possessing, and in
which he does not believe. The hypocrite may have, most likely has, (for
he is a man of brains,) a conscious rule of life, but it is never that of
the person to whom his hypocrisy is directed. Tartufe incarnates him
once for all. Tartufe is by conviction an atheist and a sensualist; he
despises all who regard life from the contrasted point of view. But
among Englishmen such an attitude of mind has always been extremely rare;
to presume it in our typical money-maker who has edifying sentiments on
his lips is to fall into a grotesque error of judgment. No doubt that
error is committed by the ordinary foreign journalist, a man who knows
less than little of English civilization. More enlightened critics, if
they use the word at all, do so carelessly; when speaking with more
precision, they call the English "pharisaic"--and come nearer the truth.
Our vice is self-righteousness. We are essentially an Old Testament
people; Christianity has never entered into our soul we see ourselves as
the Chosen, and by no effort of spiritual aspiration can attain unto
humility. In this there is nothing hypocritic. The blatant upstart who
builds a church, lays out his money in that way not merely to win social
consideration; in his curious little soul he believes (so far as he can
believe anything) that what he has done is pleasing to God and beneficial
to mankind. He may have lied and cheated for every sovereign he
possesses; he may have polluted his life with uncleanness; he may have
perpetrated many kinds of cruelty and baseness--but all these things has
he done against his conscience, and, as soon as the opportunity comes, he
will make atonement for them in the way suggested by such faith as he
has, the way approved by public opinion. His religion, strictly defined,
is _an ineradicable belief in his own religiousness_. As an Englishman,
he holds as birthright the true Piety, the true Morals. That he has
"gone wrong" is, alas, undeniable, but never--even when leering most
satirically--did he deny his creed. When, at public dinners and
elsewhere, he tuned his voice to the note of edification, this man did
not utter the lie of the hypocrite he _meant every word he said_.
Uttering high sentiments, he spoke, not as an individual, but as an
Englishman, and most thoroughly did he believe that all who heard him
owed in their hearts allegiance to the same faith. He is, if you like, a
Pharisee--but do not misunderstand; his Pharisaism has nothing personal.
That would be quite another kind of man; existing, to be sure, in
England, but not as a national type. No; he is a Pharisee in the minor
degree with regard to those of his countrymen who differ from him in
dogma; he is Pharisee absolute with regard to the foreigner. And there
he stands, representing an Empire.
The word hypocrisy is perhaps most of all applied to our behaviour in
matters of sexual morality, and here with specially flagrant misuse.
Multitudes of Englishmen have thrown aside the national religious dogma,
but very few indeed have abandoned the conviction that the rules of
morality publicly upheld in England are the best known in the world. Any
one interested in doing so can but too easily demonstrate that English
social life is no purer than that of most other countries. Scandals of
peculiar grossness, at no long intervals, give rich opportunity to the
scoffer. The streets of our great towns nightly present an exhibition
the like of which cannot be seen elsewhere in the world. Despite all
this, your average Englishman takes for granted his country's moral
superiority, and loses no chance of proclaiming it at the expense of
other peoples. To call him hypocrite, is simply not to know the man. He
may, for his own part, be gross-minded and lax of life; that has nothing
to do with the matter; _he believes in virtue_. Tell him that English
morality is mere lip-service, and he will blaze with as honest anger as
man ever felt. He is a monument of self-righteousness, again not
personal but national.