A Myth Exploded.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIIC, Issue 14141, 26 February 1910, Page 4 (Supplement)

A Myth Exploded.

THE "SILENT ENGLISHMAN?' says the \'Argus^" r .few - less • credible myths than the myth, of the "strong, silent Englishman." Kipling, in a- recent*, poem, points the contrast between the Celt, who talks r and the, Englishman, wh<>-acts:' We'diould not have expected- Mr -Kipling to be still- a. -victim of this .monstrous delusion. The most powerful, upholder of the legend was probably. Carlyle, who never wearied : of praising John Bull for his silence. | As. a. matter of fact, John Bull is a personage of almost boundless loquacity, arid it is quite time we erased ' contrasting him with the garrulous Irishman' and the chattering Freuehman. The picture of the typical Englishman who can perform great cctions but^cannot describe them is a picture 'which will not- bear a moment's examination. The itypical Englishman is only ..too fond of describing -»ven his smallest action with minute circumstantiality and conscientious attention to detail —as everyone knows whom an inclement fate .has compelled to listen to a typical Englishman describing his -last, game of golf. Carlyle is fond of "holding up his "heroes" to our admiration as strong, silent men; but of his English heroes,"' at "least—Oliver Cromwell and Samuel Johnson —the description strikes us as inexact. Cromwell and Johnson were endless talkers —as garrulous as Coleridge, as Macaulay, as Carlyle himself. These are the great;, talkers of history;' no other nation can match'them. The French'have had good, talkers, but the French, idea of a talk includes something of the giyefand-take 0 f polite conversation, =while ;the English idea of good talk is uninterrupted monologue. Where are we to look for the silent Englishman, that we may a'dmire him ? Among our statesmen. Was Chatham a silent nian, or Gladstone? Among our naval and military heroes? Marlborough- was a talkative man; so was Nelson. "Our admirals," says Stevenson, "were not only great-hearted, but big-spoken." The Duke of Wellinaton was, indeed, a silent man; but then the Duke of Wellington was an Irishman. No; the Englishman who speaks with his brethren in "straight-flung words and few'" > niust go the wav of 'other poetic fictions. The typical Englishman, after a talkative boyhood and a garrulous middle age, falls into his anecdotage; and even.cn his death-bed he cannot be silent; Enslish History is full of deathbed, speeches. We Australians showed our English descent the other day when those of us.,who happened to be Mayors ; bailed Lord Kitchener's visit • as a heave.n-sent opportunity to unloose .the flood-gates of our eloquence. Lord Kitchener, by the way. does really appear to be a strong, silent, man, a man after. Carlyle's own heart. He is an exception. (And he was bom . in Ireland.) ••'"..