l
contact with every other class their standard of morality and way of
looking at life filters down into the very toes of the land. This great
character-forming machine is remarkable for an unself-consciousness
which gives it enormous strength and elasticity. Not inspired by the
State, it inspires the State. The characteristics of the philosophy it
enjoins are mainly negative and, for that, the stronger. "Never show
your feelings--to do so is not manly and bores your fellows. Don't cry
out when you're hurt, making yourself a nuisance to other people. Tell
no tales about your companions, and no lies about yourself. 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.

Three more main facts must be borne in mind:

THE ESSENTIAL DEMOCRACY OF THE GOVERNMENT.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND THE PRESS.

ABSENCE OF COMPULSORY MILITARY SERVICE.

These, the outcome of the quiet and stable home life of an island
people, have done more than anything to make the Englishman a deceptive
personality to the outside eye. He has for centuries been permitted to
grumble. There is no such confirmed grumbler--until he really has
something to grumble at, and then no one who grumbles less. There is no
such confirmed carper at the condition of his country, yet no one really
so profoundly convinced of its perfection. A stranger might well think
from his ut