Avoid all
'swank,' 'side,' 'swagger,' braggadocio of speech or manner, on pain of
being laughed at." (This maxim is carried to such a pitch that the
Englishman, except in his press, habitually understates everything.)
"Think little of money, and speak less of it. Play games hard, and keep
the rules of them even when your blood is hot and you are tempted to
disregard them. In three words, 'play the game,'" a little phrase which
may be taken as the characteristic understatement of the modern
Englishman's creed of honor in all classes. This great, unconscious
machine has considerable defects. It tends to the formation of "caste";
it is a poor teacher of sheer learning, and, aesthetically, with its
universal suppression of all interesting and queer individual traits of
personality, it is almost horrid. But it imparts a remarkable
incorruptibility to English life; it conserves vitality by suppressing
all extremes, and it implants everywhere a kind of unassuming stoicism
and respect for the rules of the great game--Life. Through its
unconscious example and through its cult of games it has vastly
influenced even the classes not directly under its control.
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