The practical power of the English rests on their sincerity. Alfred, whom the affection of the nation makes the type of their race, is called by a writer at the Norman Conquest, the "truth-speaker." The phrase of the lowest of the people is "honour-bright," and their praise, "his word is as good as his bond." They confide in each other—English believes in English. Madame de Staël says that the English irritated Napoleon mainly because they have found out how to unite success with honesty. The ruling passion of an Englishman is a terror of humbug.
The English race are reputed morose. They have enjoyed a reputation for taciturnity for six or seven hundred years. Cold, repressive manners prevail, and there is a wooden deadness in certain Englishmen which surpasses all other countrymen. In the power of saying rude truth no men rival them. They are proud and private, and even if disposed to recreation will avoid an open garden. They are full of coarse strength, butcher's meat, and sound sleep. They are good lovers, good haters, slow but obstinate admirers, and very much steeped in their temperament, like men hardly awaked from deep sleep which they enjoy.
The English have a mild aspect, and ringing, cheerful voice. Of absolute stoutness of spirit, no nation has more or better examples. They are good at storming redoubts, at boarding frigates, at dying in the last ditch, or any desperate service which has daylight and honour in it. They stoutly carry into every nook and corner of the earth their turbulent sense of inquiry, leaving no lie uncontradicted, no pretension unexamined.
They are very conscious of their advantageous position in history. I suppose that all men of English blood in America, Europe, or Asia, have a secret feeling of joy that they are not Frenchmen. They only are not foreigners. In short, I am afraid that the English nature is so rank and aggressive as to be a little incompatible with any other. The world is not wide enough for two. More intellectual than other races, when they live with other races they do not take their language, but bestow their own. They subsidise other nations, and are not subsidised. They proselytise and are not proselytised. They assimilate other nations to themselves and are not assimilated.
III.—Wealth, Aristocracy, and Religion
There is no country in which so absolute a homage is paid to wealth. There is a mixture of religion in it. The Englishman esteems wealth a final certificate. He believes that every man has himself to thank if he does not mend his condition. To pay their debts is their national point of honour. The British armies are solvent, and pay for what they take. The British empire is solvent. It is their maxim that the weight of taxes must be calculated not by what is taken but by what is left. They say without shame: "I cannot afford it." Such is their enterprise, that there is enough wealth in England to support the entire population in idleness one year. The proudest result of this creation of wealth is that great and refined forces are put at the disposal of the private citizen, and in the social world the Englishman to-day has the best lot. I much prefer the condition of an English gentleman of the better class to that of any potentate in Europe.
The feudal character of the English state, now that it is getting obsolete, glares a little in contrast with democratic tendencies. But the frame of society is aristocratic. Every man who becomes rich buys land, and does what he can to fortify the nobility, into which he hopes to rise. The taste of the people is conservative. They are proud of the castles, language, and symbols of chivalry. English history is aristocracy with the doors open. Who has courage and faculty, let him come in.
All nobility in its beginnings was somebody's natural superiority. The things these English have done were not done without peril of life, nor without wisdom of conduct, and the first hands, it may be presumed, were often challenged to show their right to their honours, or yield them to better men.
Comity, social talent, and fine manners no doubt have had their part also. The lawyer, the farmer, the silk mercer lies perdu under the coronet, and winks to the antiquary to say nothing. They were nobody's sons who did some piece of work at a nice moment.
The English names are excellent—they spread an atmosphere of legendary melody over the land. Older than epics and histories, which clothe a nation, this undershirt sits close to the body. What stores of primitive and savage observation it infolds! Cambridge is the bridge of the Cam; Sheffield the field of the river Sheaf; Leicester the camp of Lear; Waltham is Strong Town; Radcliffe is Red Cliff, and so on—a sincerity and use in naming very striking to an American, whose country is whitewashed all over with unmeaning names, the cast-off clothes of the country from which the emigrants came, or named at a pinch from a psalm tune.