"Still," I ventured modestly, "it would be kind in Americans to overlook this youthful folly of ours. At the present time there is a growing bitterness between the two countries that may become serious unless a great deal of wise tolerance is shown."
"Oh, it can't become serious. Perhaps it might a hundred years from now, when Canada may have a population approaching ours, but just now—" And he made a large "shoo fly!" gesture that dismissed the whole matter as unworthy of consideration.
There was no question about it. I must go away from there or there would be an explosion that would reduce my gravity to a total loss. And when I finally got away from the flood of kindly candor that was sweeping over me I got the finest thrill of all.
I had mastered the art of that exasperating English modesty that had always been my despair! This was more than an intellectual triumph! It was balm to a bruised and wounded spirit!
One time in my salad days two London club-men entertained me kindly and provoked me to entertain them. By making the customary modest deprecatory remarks about Great Britain, they induced me to unbosom myself with honest candor. After two months at the seat of the Empire I felt competent to tell them many things that were amiss. And being a native-born Canadian I was able to astonish them (my word!) with my accounts of the resources and possibilities of Canada. Almost twenty years later I admit freely that most of my criticisms and boasts have been proven true, but that is not the point. The point is that those two Englishmen got me to turn myself inside out for their amusement, but it was not until I had suffered several more experiences with English modesty that the truth dawned on me with humiliating force. Knowing how they must have chuckled over my expansiveness afterwards, I used to writhe every time I thought of it. Sometimes in the stillness of the night I would remember the incident and be tempted to jump from bed, dress, hunt up those Englishmen, and beat them with a coarse colonial directness. But now the hurt is healed. Having had that American at my mercy—as the chauffeur of the borrowed car would say, "I owned him for a few minutes"—I felt a new sense of power in expressing national egotism and meeting it. Come to think of it, Canada must have a national status or I could not have achieved it—but let that pass. Ever since meeting the charge of national "cockiness" with modesty, I have been in the mood to wave my hand at those two Englishmen through the mists of memory and confess a bond of Imperial brotherhood. I have proven that on occasion I can be as modest as they are.
But pshaw! what am I doing? I am boasting about my modesty! That is the trouble with even the most excellent virtues! They must be practised in moderation. True modesty is the crowning grace of high achievement. But conscious modesty is an offence to all who are forced to endure it.
However, there is a test of modesty which may be worth having in mind. When the rewards of achievement are within reach, if you find the modest person shrinking in the limelight and taking everything he can lay his hands on, you may appraise his modesty at its true worth.
All who feel that their withers have been wrung by this chapter are at liberty to think this out in its varied implications and apply it as they choose.