Its main feature is a kind of
terrible coolness, a rather awful level-headedness. The Englishman makes
constant small blunders; but few, almost no, deep mistakes. He is a slow
starter, but there is no stronger finisher because he has by temperament
and training the faculty of getting through any job that he gives his
mind to with a minimum expenditure of vital energy; nothing is wasted in
expression, style, spread-eagleism; everything is instinctively kept as
near to the practical heart of the matter as possible. He is--to the eye
of an artist--distressingly matter-of-fact, a tempting mark for satire.
And yet he is in truth an idealist, though it is his nature to snub,
disguise, and mock his own inherent optimism. To admit enthusiasms is
"bad form" if he is a "gentleman"; "swank" or mere waste of good heat if
he is not a "gentleman." England produces more than its proper
percentage of cranks and poets; it may be taken that this is Nature's
way of redressing the balance in a country where feelings are not shown,
sentiments not expressed, and extremes laughed at. Not that the
Englishman lacks heart; he is not cold, as is generally supposed--on the
contrary he is warm-hearted and feels very strongly; but just as
peasants, for lack of words to express their feelings, become stolid, so
it is with the Englishman from sheer lack of the habit of
self-expression.
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