CREDO OF ENGLAND

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4348, 18 January 1938, Page 2

CREDO OF ENGLAND

A STRANGE MIXTURE HISTORY AND CHARACTER BELIEFS THAT WORK The Englishman’s credo, certainly the most elusive of all faiths, is, like lie Baby in “ Alice in Wonderland,” apt, while you watch, to take on other and less attractive forms (writes Osbert Sitwell in the 1 Sunday Times’). But first, before proceeding to attempt any definition, 1 feel obliged to demand of myself what my qualifications may be for speaking of it. At any rate, I suppose I qualify for it by antecedents and ancestry, having educated myself at two private and one > bli<? schools, and having been in the army for seven years or more, and though, as a result of this, I often abhor the average view, finding myself in a minority of horrified dissent, at least 1 am the typical Englishman in that I am by blood partly Irish and partly Scotch as well. ‘ ‘ Thus from a mixture of all kinds began that heterogenous thing, an Englishman.” So wrote Daniel Defoe, the father of the English novel, in a poem, the rest of which tends, though excelcellently phrased, towards violence and defamation. But to this admirable English characteristic of self-criticism—-often, indeed, of self-blackguarding—l will refer later. To begin with, then, let us only say that the Englishman is prouder of Ins faults than of his virtues and will always listen with delight to any preacher who tells him of them. There is another side to this, a certain smugness. But, banishing for the moment all thoughts of complacency and the refusal to face facts, let us examine the national character in its more congenial aspects, remembering, even then, that these other, less pleasing qualities possess also their attendant merits, and that when, for example, Napoelon complained that the English never knew when they were beaten, he was only alluding to what others, myself among them, have described as this national refusal to face facts.

NURSERY AS AN INDEX

The nursery is a good index to national character; the things that nurses in Germany, France, and England are continually warning their charges not to do are obviously precisely the things which the German, French, and English children tend to do naturally, and will do when they grow up. Thus here is an old adage of which the English nurse is continually reminding her charges : <l You cannot' have your cake and eat it a very necessary caution, for though the pursuit of such antithetical ends may often bring unuippiness, it is in this direction that the inclination of the Englishman invariably leads him, and in which indeed, he has often found his most celebrated and singular triumphs. Thus the Englishman desired to be independent of the sovereign in matters of government and 3 T et to have a King—the result was Constitutional Monarcln ; to have religious freedom combined with a State religion—the result was the Church of England; for his children to have the chance of education if they wanted it, and yet not be obliged to learn anything—the result was the English public school system. It will be seen, then, that above all an Englishman believes in fluidity, as against any rigid application of theory or principle. The horrors of the Inquisition, of martyrdom on points of faith, are not the things to which he inclines. The origin of other attributes is to be sought in the facts of history and geography. That, for example, we live on an island has largely shaped both our aims and characters; and in this the Japanese and ourselves are, indeed, comparable. Isolation from other countries and their particular needs has fostered the growth, far down in the consciousness of both peoples, that they are a race apart, different from others, and of a high destiny.

DUTY AND SERVICE

It seems, also, to have implanted in them an idea of duty and service, and a tendency to accept the conditions in which they find themselves. The sea always fathers a sense of patriotism, by making it difficult to observe, and still more to comprehend, the manners and ways of other countries, and it has also infused in both races a deep moral distrust of the neighbouring continent. as wily and degenerate. Isolation, to, affects even now the whole of life. A century and a-half ago the Venetian traveller and adventurer, Casanova, visited England, and records that all our ways, habits, and manners are precisely the opposite of those he has met in other countries — a criticism often directed towards the Japanese. And this perversity has made, no doubt, for individuality, just as it is also born of it. . . ; And even in these days of standardisation, the Englishman, 1 find, likes to think for himself, to drive on the left, and to he as wrong-headed as he wishes. But, if this geographical conditioning of us is simple, the historical facts are more mysterious, less explicable. The two most unexpected and extravagant facts in our history have been the evolution of the English tongue and the emergence, within 150 years, of an alian conquest and subsequent domination of the beginnings ot the English parliamentary system. That is to say, that without a murderous revolt or struggle the English people had come out of their troubles and were governing themselves—in a time when that could be said of very few nations.

TONGUE AND CHARACTER.

As for our language, the subtlety it has derived from Latin sources and the power and breadth it has denyed from Teutonic have helped to fashion and mould the English character, have produced the finest poetry in Europe, and a humour of a kind not to be found elsewhere. Without the leavening of Norman-French—and how curious that a class so numerically inferior to the English masses should have effected so tremendous a change—the English language would have been but a blunt and clumsy instrument, and ourselves an obedient herd of Teutons, with more philosophy and less poetry. But already by the time of Chaucer, who so admirably blends English poetry, realism, and humour, the English tongue and character fit one another like hand in glove, and in his work

every Englishman will find a portrait of himself. And it was in the time of this great poet, near enough, that the English gentleman first makes his appearance; the English gentleman, that most elusive of all ideals and most mysterious of all historical facts. Of the ideal itself no exact definition can ever be made, nor can it ever be explained—or even described—to a foreigner. The dictionary defines him as a ‘‘ man of chivalrous instincts, fine feelings, and good breeding.” Originally it meant doubtless a man entitled to bear arms, though not of noble descent. But this meaning had already been largely superseded. And Edmund Howes, writing in the beginning of the seventeenth century, shows that it had by then been -long established in its present indefinable significance. It is sufficient to say that every Englishman, from prince to plumber, takes - it for granted that he is a gentleman, and that the nearest you can approach to it is in Robert Louis Stevenson’s description “ It is a high calling to which a man must first be born and then devote himself for life. . . .” Even Shakespeare, a player in days when no actor would have been admitted to a night club or a golf club, and who most surely was not in need of adventitious aids to self-respect, describes himself in his will as a “ gentleman ” ; and that, indeed, is almost all we know of him, except his plays. Even the gentleman ideal, however, has been submitted to English ridicule, 'l it the Englishman loves criticism of himself, so loner as it is by an Englishman or an Irishman (he rather resents it from a Scot!). English poetry is the most typical, and contradictory, product of the English race; and there are few English poets—and those mostly bad ones—who have not criticised their country and countrymen. Tolerance, the English spirit of tolerance, forbids their being persecuted. They may rail at English stupidity ; but they must also tolerate it. . . . But it is in the worst

it. . . . But it is in the worst poetry, rather than the best, in ‘ Excelsior ’ and ‘ The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck,’ or in our early ballads, that we find reflected the code of conduct of the Englishman, and his particular respect for steadfastness and a sense of duty. Kindness, too. and charity, he values. There is in the English character, I believe, an innate kindness and simplicity, still, of the islander; while the kindness may in part be due to physical and historical causes. For nearly 900 years England has been free from invasion; and during that time, as a rule—and, of course, always with several and horrible exceptions—her people have had enough to eat; food at least has been more plentiful than in Continental countries, and this is always a factor in making towards amiability. There was, too. from the earliest times, a much better chance for the worker in England to improve his position than prevailed upon the Continent. Whether this was the result, or cause, of a national love of justice, it is difficult at this distance to decide; but certainly the merchant who had started life as a working man was able, through his own endeavours, to enter the ranks of the feudal barons at a time when, on the Continent, he would have found himself resolutely debarred, and every class of an iron mould apparently for ever fixed. Moreover, in considering the peaceful and amiable disposition of the Englishman, we must remember that not only has his country been free from the ravages of foreign armies for nine centuries, not only is the English climate gentle, even though we continually despair of it, and not given- to volcanic storms, but there has been no major civil disturbance since the time of Cromwell. The civil wars, which have never been forgotten, wrought a deep and abiding impression in English hearts. To sum up, the Englishman believes, among other things, that he is the only sane person in a mad world, the only man in step in the regiment; and that he has been appointed by Providence to set things right. He admires, above all things, loyalty and steadfastness to a cause (and rates them more highly than the cause itself), and kindness. It is the duty of all men to be kind to children and animals. He places more reliance on instinct than intelligence, and he believes that no causes are above compromise, and that two quite contrary opinions can be brought, lion and lanib, to lie together. . . . The results have been splendid for himself and for the world.