When the foreigner, often out of very pique, follows him thither, he is met with the same indifference shown him in his own land. Visiting strangers may come or go: while they are in England, they are treated with civility; when they choose to depart, they are not pressed to remain. This tranquil self-sufficiency is galling to the majority, who go away to sulk, and to denounce the English as a race of “dull snobs.” Yet they come back again—and again; and continue to hammer at the door labelled “British Reserve,” and to be snubbed, and to swallow their pride and begin anew, until finally they pry their way in by sheer obstinacy—and because no one cares very much, after all, whether they are in or not. London is so vast and so diverse, in its social ramifications, it can admit thousands of aliens a year and remain quite unconscious of them.
Americans in particular are quick to realize this, and, out of their natural arrogance, bitterly to resent it. At home they explain rather piteously, they are “someone”; here, their money is accepted, but they themselves are despised—or, at best, barely tolerated. They who are used to carry all before them find themselves patronized, smiled at indulgently—or, worst of all, ignored. In short, the inexperienced young actors come before an audience of seasoned critics, whom they cannot persuade to take them seriously. For they soon discover that there is no “bluffing” these calmly judicial people, but that merit alone—of one sort or another—succeeds with them.
They are not to be “impressed” by tales of reckless expenditure or intimate allusions to grand dukes and princesses seen on the promenades of Continental “cures.” On the contrary, they are won over in no time by something the American would never think of using as a wedge—unaffected simplicity. But why should one want to win them—whether one be American or French, Spanish, German, or any other self-respecting egoist-on-one’s-own? Why does one always want to win the critical?
Because they set a standard. The English have set standards since ever they were at all: wise standards, foolish standards, some broad and finely tolerant, others absurdly narrow and short-sighted. But always they live by strict established rule, to which they demand of themselves exacting conformity. Each class has its individual ten commandments—as is possible where classes are so definitely graded and set apart; each man is born to obey the decalogue of his class—or to be destroyed. Practically limitless personal liberty is his, within the laws of his particular section of society; but let him once overstep these, and he soon finds himself in gaol of one kind or another.
Foreigners feel all this, and respond to it; just as they respond to the French criterion of beauty, the American criterion of wealth. England for centuries has stood for the précieux of society, in the large significance of the term; before her unwavering ideal of race, other people voluntarily come to be judged for distinction, as they go to Paris to be judged for their artistic quality, to New York for their powers of accomplishment. Today more than ever, London confers the social diploma of the world which makes it, of course, the world’s Mecca and chief meeting-place.
This has completely changed the character of the conservative old city, from a provincial insular capital into a great cosmopolitan centre. Necessarily it has leavened the traditional British self-satisfaction, while that colossus slept, by the introduction of new principles, new problems, new points of view. The critic remains the critic, but he must march with the times—or lose his station. And conservatism is a dotard nowadays. Each new republic, as it comes along, shoves the old man a foot further towards his grave. Expansion is the battle-cry of the present, and critics and actors alike must look alive, and modulate their voices to the chorus.
A bewildering babel of tunes is the natural result in this transition period, but many of them are fine and all are interesting. England lifts her voice to announce that she is not an island but an Empire; and it is the fashion in London now to treat Colonials with civility, even actually to fête them. Autre temps, autre mœurs! We have heard Mr. Bernard Shaw’s charwoman ask her famous daughter of the Halls: “But what’ll his duchess mother be thinkin’ if the dook marries a ballyrina, with me for a mother-in-law!” And the answer: “Indeed, she says she’s glad he’ll have somebody to pay his income tax, when it goes to twenty shillings in the pound!”
The outcry against American peeresses and musical comedy marchionesses has long since died into a murmur, and a feeble murmur at that. Since another astute playwright suggested that the race of Vere de Vere might be distinctly improved by the infusion of some healthy vulgar blood, and a chin or two amongst them, the aristocratic gates have opened almost eagerly to receive these alien beauties. In politics, too, new blood is welcomed; as it is in the Church, in the universities, and even in that haughtiest of citadels, the county. The egoism of England is becoming a more practical egoism: she is beginning to see where she can use the things she has hitherto disdained, and is almost pathetically anxious to make up for lost time. But, for ballast, she has always her uncompromising standards, by which both things and people must be weighed and found good, before being accepted.
In short, while the bugaboo of invasion and the more serious menace of Socialism have grown up to lead pessimists to predict ruin for the country, subtler influences have been at work to make her greater than ever before. The signs of conflict are almost always hopeful signs; only stagnation spells ruin. And where once the English delighted to stagnate—or at least to sit within their insular shell and admire themselves without qualification—now they are looking keenly about, to acquire useful men and methods from every possible source. Finding, a bit to their own surprise, that, rather than diminishing their prestige in the process, they are strengthening it.
The routine is being amplified, made to fit the spirit of the time, which is a spirit of progress above all things. John Bull has evolved from a hard-riding, hard-drinking, provincial squire into a keen-thinking tactician with cosmopolitan tendencies and breadth of view. From London as his reviewing-stand, he scrutinizes the nations as they pass; and his judgment—but that is for another chapter.