We, who possess in common the English language—“best result of the confusion of tongues” Lowell called it—that most superb instrument for the making of word-music, for the telling of the truth, and the expression of the imagination, may well remember this: That, in the use we make of it, in the breadth, justice, and humanity of our thoughts, the vigour, restraint, clarity, and beauty of the setting we give to them, we have our greatest chance to make our Countries lovely and beloved, to further the happiness of mankind, and to keep immortal the priceless comradeship between us.
II
AMERICAN AND BRITON
On the mutual understanding of each other by Americans and Britons, the future happiness of nations depends more than on any other world cause. Ignorance in Central Europe of the nature of American and Englishman tipped the balance in favour of war; and the course of the future will surely be improved by right comprehension of their characters.
Well, I know something at least of the Englishman, who represents four-fifths of the population of the British Isles.
And, first, there exists no more unconsciously deceptive person on the face of the globe. The Englishman does not know himself; outside England he is only guessed at.
Racially the Englishman is so complex and so old a blend that no one can say precisely what he is. In character he is just as complex. Physically, there are two main types; one inclining to length of limb, bony jaws, and narrowness of face and head (you will nowhere see such long and narrow heads as in our island); the other approximating more to the legendary John Bull. The first type is gaining on the second. There is little or no difference in the main mental character behind these two.
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 counterbalance of dry philosophy, a defiant humour, an enforced medium temperature of soul. The Englishman is no more given to extremes than his climate; and against its damp and perpetual changes he has become coated with a sort of protective bluntness.