• A CHANGE . IN ENGLISH CHARACTER.
TT is one of the many peculiarities of Englishmen for which I it is so difficult to find a rational explanation, that a foreigner's descriptions of England, its society, and its manners always appear to them slightly comic. They are not annoyed by outside criticism, as some nations are, more especially the Italians and Americans, being at heart far too proud to believe that criticism upon themselves can be both just and in- cisive ; but they have a fixed idea that foreigners cannot know them, and are inclined to smile at foreign descriptions as elderly people do at children's accounts of a party, or at hobbedehoys' declarations of calf-love. There is no malignity in the simile, sometimes there is even a condescending appreciation; but there is a feeling that our criticism of England is born of ignorance, and that with more knowledge it would turn to an intelli- gent admiration. There is a gentle pride in knowing so much more than the foreigner, particularly if he makes any slight mistake as to matters of fact. It is part of the order of nature, for instance, that there should be round holes in London pavements with iron trap-doors above them, for how else could coals 'be delivered in London houses P and when Londoners heard that Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg had ridden out every evening for a fortnight in a vain endeavour to find out, without asking, the meaning of those holes, they had a pleasurable feeling of superior intelligence. The Prince might be, as he was, the most calmly reflective mind in Europe, competent to build a little State like Belgium or govern an empire like the Byzantine ; but he could not rise to the height of comprehending all English devices for household comfort,--- and how pleasant it was to perceive that ! There is superiority in perceiving it, and a languid superiority is the governing English feeling about foreign comment. One sees it in the criticisms upon Dr. Hillebrand's letters just appearing iu the Nineieenth Cent,nry, and the gentle ridicule with which they are • treated ; and yet Dr. Hillebrand has some sort of right to be heard, oven when he offers, in a singularly modest way, his impressions of England. A German of the highest cultiva- tion, well acquainted with Prance, for "Pearly twenty years a studious' resident in Italy, better informed in English literature than most English professors, and an intimate of many Eng- lish circles, Dr. Hillebrand is one of the most cosmopolitan men in Europe, as well entitled to form and express an opinion as the most shrewd and inquisitive of ambassadors. It seems hard that he should be ridiculed, even though he sometimes uses a Greek compound to express an idea,• and is the least bit pedantic on his pet subject, the place of Art in national thought. It seems to us, who are English--and consequently, probably remarks Dr: Hille- brand, who is capable of sarcasm, just a little stupid—that ho has hit upon the most interesting fact in our whole present position,—the appearance among us, or rather, among a section of our people, of a. spirit of receptivity. Dr. Hillebrand calls it tolerance, Xenomania, and all sorts of fine things ; but it is really a readiness to receive impressions and ideas, and is, so far as we are capable of observing, by far the greatest change • observable among us. Its operation is limited, of course, and may be more limited than Dr. Hillebrand or we ourselves think, for all men live unconsciously in cliques ; but within those limits, whatever they are, it is certain that English society is pene- trated by a, new spirit, that it is honestly ready not only to tolerate, but to receive, any new idea or system of thought or theology, and that, so far from hating those who propound novelties, it accords them a certain respect, and even—we select the word with care and with intention—with a, certain gratitude. Society which would once have repelled the novelty with a certain brutality of scorn, or dislike, or even hate, now listens seriously and gravely; and though it does not adopt it--Dr. Hillebrand. is mistaken there, confusing tolerance with agreement—will place it on the shelves of its mind, as one of many alternatives to be respectfully considered. The new idea may be in the most violent conceivable opposition to " English instincts," may be atheistic, or communistic, or absolutist, or ascetic, or immoral, any of these in an extreme degree, and yet it will be con- sidered as carefully and as respectfully as if it were a theory of a new motive-power likely to return to its patentees cent. per cent., and enlarge the entire business of Great Britain. Grave men will discuss the theory among themselves, it will,be reduced to words so clear that " society " can comprehend them, and repeat them at dinner—English is getting as clear and as simple as French, in the new desire of society to understand what is said to it---
it will be cleverly popularised in magazines, and final!y, a few men will accept it as something, for a short time, to be preached. Nor is this readiness to listen altogether superficial or Athenian, a merely intellectual pleasure in novel thought. There is a a visible hope that if one hearkens genuin.e desire to attend, long enough some light may be gained, a real detachment from the old and crusted kinds of thought,—so real a one, that none listen more earnestly or in a better intellectual temper than those Who, if the new ideas are true, whether in religion, politics, or literature, will be utterly 'destroyed by their operation.
That is a singular change, and one which a foreigner is surely observant rather than presuniptuous in remarking, as Dr. Hillebrand, in very polite and even flattering terns, has done. No one will deny that it has occurred, and it is by no means certain that it will prove evanescent, or will be limited, as it is now; to London society, or rather to a section of it. The mental stubborness, unreceptiveness, conservatism—the name does not matter—of the English mind, which we have all con- sidered for so long to be its distinctive peculiarity, may be a result of an insular position which, in the region of thought, is disappearing, and of an ignorance which events tend every (Jay to dissipate. No nation makes its changes so complete as the English, no nation is more affected by emigration---that is, by new influences— -and no nation, when become cosmopolitan, retains so little of its ancient mental peculiarities. To-day, anaesthetics are au affront to Providence, an impions attempt to limit God's decrees ; to-morrow, they are used whenever a decayed tooth is to be extracted. At home, a pl6biscite is a
monstrosity ; in the colonies, plebiscites tend to become the grand method of utterance of the sovereign and irreversible popular will. Smith living in England is a . John Bull, but Smith resident for twenty years abroad is a different creature,—an Anglo-Frenchman, or Anglo-Italian, or Anglo- Indian, very objectionable perhaps, but mentally as widely different from the typical Englishman as an English Rector is from the Christian teacher who would have been the ideal of a Syrian, Greek, or Mesopotamian convert. No people have started such original theories, or have occasionally departed so widely from what they have been accustomed to consider usual. They are said to carry England everywhere, but who over saw an American or an English colonist who was monarch- ical, or devoted to a Church establishment, or in favour of creat- ing governing nobles P and if Englishmen have iron ideas, they are in favour of monarchy, parishes, and fixed gradations of rank, Is it not possible that the English unreceptiveness or mental conservatism may pass away with the stream of know- ledge which is pouring in, till the race is as receptive of new mental impressions as the Teuton-Italian Professor—who "has no party feeling," but who would probably hang most clerics
up—says it has become. The change would be too monstrous P Would it be more monstrous than that which has made of
cultivated Jews—the most stiff-necked, Conservative, non. receptive of races—a class so receptive that amidst every people they are specially of that people, till distinctively German, French, Italian patriots and writers are disdovered to be Hebrews, and receptivity has become the first intellectual mark of the most separate and mentally insular of mankind. The English are not more stiff-necked than the Jews, although they may be stupider. There were certainly no subjects upon which.they were so impenetrable as religion and land-tenure, and now their toleralce is so wide that it strikes even a cos- mopolitan with amazement, and he protests against their Xeno-. mania, their readiness to embrace ideas from foreign, and espe- cially from French, sources, He affirms that they take their foreigners too seriously, and do not allow sufficiently for the levity with which Frenchmen in particular hold many of their apparent ideas,—a levity well understood by the cultivated Eng- lishman of a century ago. He is right in his observation, and may be right in his protest, and the change indicated by both is one the effects of which cannot fail to be most extensive. If all Englishmen became as receptive as cultivated society now is, the national character would be seriously modified ; and such a change, far off as it may appear, is not impossible. The results of culture flowdownwards, if culture itself does not, and there are vast strata of English society in which the readiness to re- ceive new ideas is already great, though the cause is not so much impressionableness, as a temporary sense that the old ideas are uncomfortable or imperfect. The rapidity with which for a year or two the old English notion of the " kingdom" was suppressed in favour of the idea of the "Empire " was symptomatic, and the change, had the Ministry been only ordinarily successful, would have histed years, and perhaps have permanently influenced the future of the world. It is the same in religion, the same even in social arrangements, the majority listening calmly to ideas which half a century ago would have called out hootings, if not showers of stones. There is a new and an increasing readiness to tolerate strange opinions which, whether bad or good—and certainly, in our judgment, oue-half the opinions are dangerous —cannot exist without exercising a profound influence upon a country where, as Dr. Hillebrand says, there is so much public life, that every current of opinion tends to become for a time irresistible, all men discussing the same things and feeling the impact of the same opinions. It seems to us that Dr. Ellie- brand, even though his illustrations be a little pedantic or far- fetched, has displayed great keenness of observation, and de- serves, not ridicule, but attention, even though he does raise the English gentleman into a sort of demi-god. When he has studied them from below, as well as from the same platform, he
will perhaps recognise more clearly the shades in character which prevent our well-born barbarians, who "live in the open air, and never open a book," from being quite perfect ; but meanwhile, such an opinion should secure to Dr. Hillebrand. hearing, even from those who still ask,—" What can a foreigner know P"— " I have always thought that the true English gentleman (I mean gentleman not in the modern sense—for jamprident sera vocabuta, reruns amisimvs—but in the good old sense of the word, because with a strong race like the Teutonic it requires the education of genera- tions to refine the rough nature and bring out a higher type)—I have always been of opinion that tho Englishman of good birth, well balanced in body and soul, a master of manly sport, but fed with the classical education of an English university, accustomed to liberty and public life, having seen the Continent and understood it, never shrinking from responsibility, fall of national pride, but putting truth higher than blind loco of his country, and having the courage to de- nounce his country's shortcomings—that such an Englishman comes nearer than any other national type of modern times to the haloka- gethia of the ancients. Doubtless he has not in a general way the artistic nor the speculative bent of mind which oven the Dorian pos- sessed so eminently, but in amends he has often an almost virginal delicacy of feeling, coming out in his family life as well as in his love and poetry, and which was utterly unknown to the ancients."
Previous page
