THE ENGLISHMAN: IS H HAUGHTY OR SHY?

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 282, 2 December 1935, Page 10

THE ENGLISHMAN : IS H HAUGHTY OR SHY?

Some

[ HAVE OBSERVED (and not without regret) a tendency among Lulled otuiud ticiztiib Lu rugaid dulisu subjects as naughty and aiuui, says uu American writer, Air Harold Nieoisoii. Oiten have 1 been puzzled by tins misapprehension. 1 know all Lou well thui my compatriots are in fact diffident to the point of cringing modesty, benevolent to the verge ol foolishness, and gregarious to a degree where it is an agony fur them to drink, or even Lu feel, by themselves. The legend, none the Itiss, persists Ln the United States has arisen a conventional picture ol the Englishman as of a man be-spatted and be-inonocled, uliinless yet toothful, patronising and “dumb.” This legendary Englishman, when confronted by the outstretched hospitable hands of America, tenders two lingers, making the while some vague movement of the adenoids, exhaling the “haw-haw” of Lord Dundreary. How comes it that this legend, this unhappy misapprehension, has arisen? How comes it that the two sundered branches ot a race which speaks a language of identical origin, which shares in so many things of identical point of view, should have allowed this fetish to join forces with such other causes of estrangement as steam heating, token payments, the really admirable Senator Borah, and the Battle of Bunker Hill? Let me examine this conundrum.

Are we to blame? Arc you to blame? I should conclude, I suppose, that the guilt is equally divided. On the one hand you have the American citizen. 11 she be a woman, she has been taught to expect a greater degree of adulation than she will receive in any but Latin countries. If .he be a man, lie has been brought up on the ‘‘American Idea”— a fallacy which, with bis intellect, he knows to be a fallacy but which in his turbulent patriotic soul he believes to be an emotional reality which lie is still called upon to cherish and defend. A man, again, who lias inherited 1 ruin hi; pioneer ancestors an instinct lor being on the defensive; who therefore approaches his environment in terms, if not ol actual suspicion, then at least ol alert awareness; a man, therelore, who has an acute consciousness ol personal status and who is often unable to take for granted the effect which he is, or is not, producing upon his foreign acquaintances. If one excepts the Prussian, the American male is the most sentitive animal in lhe civilised world. Ho starts by being out for psychological trouble.

On the other hand, you have the Englishman. A man who is told on all sides that the “British Idea” is not applicable to the modern world and yet who remains quite unaffected by such information. A man who emotionally is undisturbed by logical argument and who feels and even thinks that the “British Idea” is as applicable to-day as it was in 1815. A man who, through generations of ancestors who have been closely connected with the English soil, has inherited a belief in the static and a distrust of the dynamic; a man, therefore, who is little concerned with the competitive in life, who is more aware of the soil than of personal status, and who approaches his environment in terms not of distrust but of somewhat lethargic acceptance. A man, therefore, who approaches foreigners, and especially Americans, in a state of mind which has little curiosity in its content, and no defensiveness, but which is composed of several rather stupid layers of unawareness. The American thus feels he is right hut thinks he is wrong: the Englishman both thinks he is right and feels be is right. And when it comes to self-confi-dence what one thinks and feels is more valuable than what one only feels It is for this reason that the Englishman is more assured than the American and that the latter mistakes this assurance for haughtiness or pride. Abroad, the United States tourist is faced by differences of custom, tradition and language. He is unduly sensitive (bless his gentle heart) to all such things. He reacts against them in a fashion which is often noisy and sometimes self-assertive. But get him in his own enormous and untidy conti-

■•ent, get h mi „.|, en I laid Hal upun h ls ba,l' 'J ms an,!, b, tt i„ |, ytilni -« taele oi the ir;i\ fllll , ■ a . s-.., '■’B »• l< .1 '•Just euue llllh ■ ue an idiot, voint s with ~ iI,C " L ' " Ill; , J lincbs in Aim in a try (with the p us ril)i tf Seamlimivian euuntrie.) ; J convey. .Most Auiwi gi „ s mid to the dem-pit intr me J there is somethiug B . . W welcome wh ch j 5 ”*■ a tonic.

Ah I'h'u. . f .■ arc intioMi;-. i; Vv n uatmal iiiti. vei t>. theii training k.u <_ ti ll lu tu .W verted manner. Tins ls qU]i '■ velopim nt an,| is ,| IK . Ul ■ revolution an-i the W spirit’ which it produtfti. a. 0.11 th, I i ~ were both sllevHtu! .'himt'd. Ilr , J k .... „ J just ns much as they lik«iM is considered “bad lurm'J Voiec in pulrii• .to 1:1114 t>-,B to >lic<l o\' ii 1-.>i'. T| lb( . Uf]( J Hon, tin.- st-iingc illibion.(9 the uh \at i. hi, ai-Hii th.. the Englrh "m nilvinan’’ ICtlsll. L' t Hi'- < .X.illHliv ellrlOUi Ot nil cailUlll.'iillu-ijtiM When th- iimbilc lencc in I'.njaini, and called) “pullin '’ schools vttiM to train ill. ir iliildnn, tiiisfl of thu pan - o| thcjo was that tin _\ >lmulil be tu be ;ne,ni>li<i!ile ly. 'I In- unlultimate thingn|M rlin.-'-ii ivi whom Thomas Atnold no notion ol how the among themselves. All the inaiiin r in which the i haved to th* middle reserved manner. They thu ■ the oi roi 'Upp'-singthalaH i ol' cold reserve was tbaM stinet of the English successful were they in i doetrim , that in two I had inh” ted the I do not think I am , am pel loot l\ • ortuhi that as Lord ( hc-terlii'la the ■ purii-' i English . day, he would have “deficient in the ■ might diinl\ have that nmnm r whith he . adopt in his relations

maker in London. ]t is too late, however, the days oi Lord Derby, to-morrow, the House ul Lords shocked to the soul. > tic freedom oi manner land, lhe public schools to behavi to others as a eighti.” nth < ■ ntiin vanl.s that is, with but with icy reserve. strange ie;i>on, mol prefer to b( called rather than to be a gentleman,' this eaten deep into our souk What is the resiiltHjM s< - - - tnjveremn li'i.i bix-ii such si holustic ""'J that we lire terribly lien l that tu,|, v - , airaid or “shy.” It haughtv ue are roll' Yet that -byaess It is invelted kicl thus no re,,-:ou fee) ollemled by thu ■ manner '! here is «elever, why H man with sliaine, l'“ rl of '‘hadlm m ”and‘‘ are essentially all.