CHAPTER EIGHT
THE FATHER OF THE MAN
THE FATHER OF THE MAN
Among the higher English castes it is not good form to appear deeply interested in any thing, or to hold any serious views about anything, or to possess any special knowledge about anything. In fact, the more you know the less you say, and the more passionately you are interested in a matter, the less you "enthuse" about it. That is the Public School Attitude in a nutshell. It is a pose which entirely misleads foreigners and causes them to regard the English as an incredibly stupid and indifferent nation.
An American gentleman, we will say, with all an American's insatiable desire to "see the wheels go round" and get to the root of the matter, finds himself sitting beside a pleasant English stranger at a public dinner. They will converse, possibly about sport, or politics, or wireless telegraphy. The pleasant Englishman may be one of the best game shots in the country, or a Privy Councillor, or a scientist of European reputation, but the chances are that the American will never discover from the conversation that he is anything more than a rather superficial or diffident amateur. Again, supposing
the identity of the stranger is known: the American will endeavour to draw him out. But the expert will decline to enter deeply into his own subject, for that would be talking "shop"; and under no circumstances will he consent to discuss his own achievements therein, for that would be "side."
Shop and Side—let us never lose sight of them. An Englishman dislikes brains almost as much as he worships force of character. If you call him "clever" he will regard you with resentment and suspicion. To his mind cleverness is associated with moral suppleness and sharp practice. In politics he may describe the leader of the other side as "clever"; but not his own leader. He is "able." But the things that he fears most are "shop" and "side." He is so frightened of being thought to take a pleasure in his work—he likes it to be understood that he only does it because he has to—and so terrified of being considered egotistical, that he prefers upon the whole to be regarded as lazy or dunderheaded. In most cases the brains are there, and the cleverness is there, and above all the passion for and pride in his work are there; but he prefers to keep these things to himself and present a careless or flippant front to the world.
