DIAGNOSIS OF THE ENGLISHMAN 1 JOHN GALSWORTHY [John Galsworthy (1867- ) lives in Devonshire, England, and is one of the best-known contemporary novelists and dramatists. His chief novels are "The Man of Property" (1906) and "The Freelands" (1915); his best-known play "Justice" (1910). This skillful analysis originally appeared in the Amsterdamer Revue; it was reprinted later in the Fortnightly Review for May, 1915. Its stern vigor well reflects the strength of feeling in regard to the World War on the part of even the most cultivated and fastidious Englishmen.] In attempting to understand the real nature of the Englishman, certain salient facts must be borne in mind. THE SEA. To be surrounded generation after generation by the sea has developed in him a suppressed idealism, a peculiar impermeability, a turn for adventure, a faculty for wandering, and for being sufficient unto himself, in far surroundings. THE CLIMATE. Whoso weathers for centuries a climate that, though healthy and never extreme, is, perhaps, the least reliable and one of the wettest in the world, must needs grow in himself a counterbalance of dry philosophy, a defiant humor, an enforced medium temperature of soul. The Englishman is no more given to extremes than is his climate; against its damp and perpetual changes he has become coated with a sort of bluntness. THE POLITICAL AGE OF HIS COUNTRY. This is by far the oldest settled Western Power, politically speaking. For eight hundred and fifty years England has known no serious military disturbance from without; for over one hundred and 1 From "A Sheaf." Copyright, 1916, by Charles Scribner's Sons. Reprinted by permission. fifty she has known no military disturbance and no serious political turmoil within. This is partly the outcome of her isolation, partly the happy accident of her political constitution, partly the result of the Englishman's habit of looking before he leaps, which comes, no doubt, from the mixture in his blood and the mixture in his climate. THE GREAT PREPONDERANCE FOR SEVERAL GENERATIONS OF TOWN OVER COUNTRY LIFE. Taken in conjunction with centuries of political stability, this is the main cause of a certain deeply engrained humaneness, of which, speaking generally, the Englishman appears to be rather ashamed than otherwise. THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. This potent element in the formation of the modern Englishman, not only of the upper, but of all classes, is something that one rather despairs of making understood in countries that have no similar institution. But Imagine one hundred thousand youths of the wealthiest, healthiest, and most influential classes, passed, during each generation, at the most impressionable age, into a sort of ethical mold, emerging therefrom stamped to the core with the impress of a uniform morality, uniform manners, uniform way of looking at life; remembering always that these youths fill seven eighths of the important positions in the professional administration of their country and the conduct of its commercial enterprise; remembering, too, that through perpetual contact with every other class, their standard of morality and way of looking at life filters down into the very toes of the land. This great character-forming machine is remarkable for an unself-consciousness which gives it enormous strength and elasticity. Not inspired by the State, it inspires the State. The characteristics of the philosophy it enjoins are mainly negative, and, for that, the stronger. "Never show your feelings to do so is not manly, and bores your fellows. Don't cry out when you're hurt, making yourself a nuisance to other people. Tell no tales about your companions, and no lies about yourself. Avoid all 'swank,' 'side,' 'swagger,' braggadocio of speech or manner, on pain of being laughed at. (This maxim is carried to such a pitch that the Englishman, except in his Press, habitually understates everything.) "Think little of money, and speak less of it. Play games hard, and keep the rules of them, even when your blood is hot and you are tempted to disregard them. In three words: PLAY THE GAME" - a little phrase which may be taken as the characteristic understatement of the modern Englishman's creed of honor, in all classes. This great, unconscious machine has considerable defects. It tends to the formation of "caste"; it is a poor teacher of sheer learning; and, æsthetically, with its universal suppression of all interesting and queer individual traits of personality it is almost horrid. But it imparts a remarkable incorruptibility to English life; it conserves vitality, by suppressing all extremes; and it implants everywhere a kind of unassuming stoicism and respect for the rules of the great game - Life. Through its unconscious example, and through its cult of games, it has vastly influenced even the classes not directly under its control. The Englishman must have a thing brought under his nose before he will act; bring it there and he will go on acting after everybody else has stopped. He lives very much in the moment because he is essentially a man of facts and not a man of imagination. Want of imagination makes him, philosophically speaking, rather ludicrous; in practical affairs it handicaps him at the start; but once he has "got going" as we say it is of incalculable assistance to his stamina. The Englishman, partly through this lack of imagination and nervous sensibility, partly through his inbred dislike of extremes, and habit of minimizing the expression of everything, is a perfect example of the conservation of energy. It is very difficult to come to the end of him. Add to this unimaginative, practical, tenacious moderation an inherent spirit of competition not to say pugnacity - so strong that it will often show through the coating of his "Live and let live," half-surly, half-good-humored manner; add a peculiar, ironic, "don't care" sort of humor; an underground but inveterate humaneness, and an ashamed idealism - and you get some notion of the pudding of English character. Its main feature is a kind of terrible coolness, a rather awful level-headedness. The Englishman makes constant small blunders; but few, almost no, deep mistakes. He is a slow starter, but there is no stronger finisher, because he has by temperament and training the faculty of getting through any job that he gives his mind to with a minimum expenditure of vital energy; nothing is wasted in expression, style, spreadeagleism; everything is instinctively kept as near to the practical heart of the matter as possible. He is to the eye of an artist — distressingly matter-of-fact, a tempting mark for satire. And yet he is in truth an idealist; though it is his nature to snub, disguise, and mock his own inherent optimism. To admit enthusiasms is "bad form" if he is a "gentleman"; and “swank," or mere waste of good heat, if he is not a "gentleman." England produces more than its proper percentage of cranks and poets; it may be taken that this is Nature's way of redressing the balance in a country where feelings are not shown, sentiments not expressed, and extremes laughed at. Not that the Englishman lacks heart; he is not cold, as is generally supposed — on the contrary, he is warmhearted and feels very strongly; but just as peasants, for lack of words to express their feelings, become stolid, so it is with the Englishman, from sheer lack of the habit of selfexpression. Nor is the Englishman deliberately hypocritical; but his tenacity, combined with his powerlessness to express his feelings, often gives him the appearance of a hypocrite. He is inarticulate; has not the clear and fluent cynicism of expansive natures, wherewith to confess exactly how he stands. It is the habit of men of all nations to want to have things both ways; the Englishman is unfortunately so unable to express himself even to himself, that he has never realized this truth, much less confessed it - hence his appearance of hypocrisy. He is quite wrongly credited with being attached to money. His island position, his early discoveries of coal, iron, and processes of manufacture, have made him, of course, into a confirmed industrialist and trader; but he is more of an adventurer in wealth than a heaper-up of it. He is far from sitting on his money-bags - has absolutely no vein of proper avarice; and for national ends will spill out his money like water, when he is convinced of the necessity. - he In everything it comes to that with the Englishman must be convinced; and he takes a lot of convincing. He absorbs ideas slowly, reluctantly, he would rather not imagine anything unless he is obliged; but in proportion to the slowness with which he can be moved is the slowness with which he can be removed! Hence the symbol of the bulldog. When he does see and seize a thing, he seizes it with the whole of his weight, and wastes no breath in telling you that he has got hold. That is why his Press is so untypical; it gives the impression that he does waste breath. And, while he has hold he gets in more mischief in a shorter time than any other dog, because of his capacity for concentrating on the present, without speculating on the past or future. For the particular situation which the Englishman has now to face, he is terribly well adapted. Because he has so little imagination, so little power of expression, he is saving nerve all the time. Because he never goes to extremes, he is saving energy of body and spirit. That the men of all nations are about equally endowed with courage and self-sacrifice has been proved in these last six months; it is to other qualities that one must look for final victory in a war of exhaustion. The Englishman does not look into himself; he does not brood; he sees no further forward than is necessary; and he must have his joke. These are fearful and wonderful advantages. Examine the letters and diaries of the various combatants, and you will see how far less imaginative and reflecting (though shrewd, practical, and humorous) the English are than any others; you will gain, too, a profound, a deadly |