Racially the Englishman is so complex and so old a blend that no one can say what he is. In character he is just as complex. Physically, there are two main types: one inclining to length of limb, narrowness of face and head (you will see nowhere such long and narrow heads as in our islands), and bony jaws; the other approximating more to the ordinary “John Bull.” The first type is gaining on the second. There is little or no difference in the main character behind.
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 and awkward 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 counter-balance of dry philosophy, a defiant humour, 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 nearly two hundred she has known 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 climate and the mixture of his blood. This political stability has been a tremendous factor in the formation of English character, has given the Englishman of all ranks a certain deep slow sense of form and order, an engrained culture—if one may pirate the word—that makes no show, being in the bones of the man, as it were.
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 growing inarticulate humaneness, of which—speaking generally—the Englishman appears to be rather ashamed.
The Public Schools.—This potent element in the formation of the modern Englishman, not only in the upper but of all classes, is something that one rather despairs of making understood—in countries which 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 mould, 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 honour, in all classes. This great, unconscious machine has great 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. Yet 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.
Three more main facts must be borne in mind:—
Essential Democracy of Government.
Freedom of Speech and the Press.