sh as to expect them to be talking about the philosophy of
St. Thomas Aquinas. But if they were two English business men I should
not expect them to be talking about business. Probably it would be about
some sport; and most probably some sport in which they themselves never
dreamed of indulging. The approximate difference is that the American
talks about his work and the Englishman about his holidays. His ideal is
not labour but leisure. Like every other national characteristic, this
is not primarily a point for praise or blame; in essence it involves
neither and in effect it involves both. It is certainly connected with
that snobbishness which is the great sin of English society. The
Englishman does love to conceive himself as a sort of country gentleman;
and his castles in the air are all castles in Scotland rather than in
Spain. For, as an ideal, a Scotch castle is as English as a Welsh
rarebit or an Irish stew. And if he talks less about money I fear it is
sometimes because in one sense he thinks more of it. Money is a mystery
in the old and literal sense of something too sacred for speech. Gold is
a god; and like the god of some agnostics has no name and is worshipped
only in his works. It is true in a sense that the English gentleman
wishes to have enough money to be able to forget it. But it may be
questioned whether he does entirely forget it. As against this weakness
the American has succeeded, at the price of a great deal of crudity and
clatter, in making general a very real respect for work. He has partly
disenchanted the dangerous glamour of the gentleman, and in that sense
has achieved some degree of democracy; which is the most difficult
achievement in the world.

On the other hand, there is a good side to the Englishman's day-dream of
leisure, and one which the American spirit tends to miss. It may be
expressed in the word 'holiday' or still better in the word 'hobby.' The
Englishman, in his character of Robin Hood, really has got two strings
to his bow. Indeed the Englishman really is well represented by Robin
Hood; for there is always something about him that may literally be
called outlawed, in the sense of being extra-legal or outside the rules.
A Frenchman said of Browning that his centre was not in the middle; and
it may be said of many an Englishman that his heart is not where his
treasure is. Browning expressed a very English sentiment when he said:--

I like to know a butcher paints,