Diagnosis of the Englishman
By John Galsworthy
This article originally appeared in the Amsterdaemer Revue, having been written during the lull of the war while England fitted her volunteer armies for the Spring campaign, and is here published by special permission of the author.
After six months of war search for the cause thereof borders on the academic. Comment on the physical facts of the situation does not come within the scope of one who, by disposition and training, is concerned with states of mind. Speculation on what the future may bring forth may be left to those with an aptitude for prophecy.
But there is one thought which rises supreme at this particular moment of these tremendous times: The period of surprise is over; the forces known; the issue fully joined. It is now a case of "Pull devil, pull baker," and a question of the fibre of the combatants. For this reason it may not be amiss to try to present to any whom it may concern as detached a picture as one can of the real nature of that combatant who is called the Englishman, especially since ignorance in Central Europe of his character was the chief cause of this war, and speculation as to the future is useless without right comprehension of this curious creature.
The Englishman is taken advisedly because he represents four-fifths of the population of the British Isles and eight-ninths of the character and sentiment therein.
And, first, let it be said that there is no more deceptive, unconsciously deceptive person on the face of the globe. The Englishman certainly does not know himself, and outside England he is but guessed at. Only a pure Englishman—and he must be an odd one—really knows the Englishman, just as, for inspired judgment of art, one must go to the inspired artist.
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.