"...the talk of the manifold talker, glancing lightly from topic to topic, suggesting deep things in a jest, unfolding unanswerable arguments in an absurd illustration, expounding nothing, completing nothing, exhausting nothing, yet really suggesting the lessons of a wider experience, embodying the results of a more finely tested philosophy, passing with a more Shakespearian transition, connecting topics with a more subtle link, refining on them with an acuter perception, and what is more to the purpose, pleasing.
---Bagehot.
It says something, perhaps, when you find greater charm in the language than in the people.
The character of the English people: dull and boring. But then again, isn't that just everyone? There's something about dullness that can act as a bulwark against fanaticism and abstractions-as long as it isn't too dull, I suppose. Of course, in England there are no intellectuals, just as there are no public places. (Hurrah! Is there anything worse than a French intellectual?)Notions such as 'the life of the mind' would elicit derisory howls of laughter. And what of that much vaunted eccentricity, then? That's just a clever ruse if truth be told. A society that produces rows and rows of back-to-back houses, that delights in its subjects patiently standing in line as if it was a virtue to be ranked amongst those of any medieval saint, could hardly be said to foster eccentricity. Huxley was perhaps right after all: Bentham and straight lines.
Granted, the sea-faring history may have allowed a certain amount of paranoia to seep in, but if there is anything like an essence of a people then it is this: plodders and planners, foul-natured, self-centred to such a degree that even wild criticism will be of more interest to them than a moderate and balanced appraisal that sets no great store by such frivolous categories as "a people"; in addition to that, an incredible lack of generosity of spirit that perhaps befits an island race.
There are no wild places in England. Rolling hills, a scenic beauty: yes, that's true, but is this domestication of nature, rows and hedges, the enclosure movement, is this not symptomatic also of a certain love of 'home' and a dreary suburban 'deadness' of spirit that wishes above all else that one not be disturbed? What passes as conversation in such strange isles: the weather, beer, football and celebrity gossip. Is there anything more depressing than the blank and vacant look on the faces of your fellow travelers, faces that are only briefly and silently illuminated, as from within, when the thought of sun and holidays provides a temporary respite from the grey drudgery of the routines of 'getting and spending'?
One of their greatest characteristics, however, is irreverence (although it is often forgotten just how deep a role reverence and conformity play in all our lives. In this case, it is not to religion, which usually gets the two finger treatment, but to class). But no, if there's one word that stands to define the English-and there isn't- then it's 'liberty'. Can there be liberty without irreverence, or a sense of humour?
---Bagehot.
It says something, perhaps, when you find greater charm in the language than in the people.
The character of the English people: dull and boring. But then again, isn't that just everyone? There's something about dullness that can act as a bulwark against fanaticism and abstractions-as long as it isn't too dull, I suppose. Of course, in England there are no intellectuals, just as there are no public places. (Hurrah! Is there anything worse than a French intellectual?)Notions such as 'the life of the mind' would elicit derisory howls of laughter. And what of that much vaunted eccentricity, then? That's just a clever ruse if truth be told. A society that produces rows and rows of back-to-back houses, that delights in its subjects patiently standing in line as if it was a virtue to be ranked amongst those of any medieval saint, could hardly be said to foster eccentricity. Huxley was perhaps right after all: Bentham and straight lines.
Granted, the sea-faring history may have allowed a certain amount of paranoia to seep in, but if there is anything like an essence of a people then it is this: plodders and planners, foul-natured, self-centred to such a degree that even wild criticism will be of more interest to them than a moderate and balanced appraisal that sets no great store by such frivolous categories as "a people"; in addition to that, an incredible lack of generosity of spirit that perhaps befits an island race.
There are no wild places in England. Rolling hills, a scenic beauty: yes, that's true, but is this domestication of nature, rows and hedges, the enclosure movement, is this not symptomatic also of a certain love of 'home' and a dreary suburban 'deadness' of spirit that wishes above all else that one not be disturbed? What passes as conversation in such strange isles: the weather, beer, football and celebrity gossip. Is there anything more depressing than the blank and vacant look on the faces of your fellow travelers, faces that are only briefly and silently illuminated, as from within, when the thought of sun and holidays provides a temporary respite from the grey drudgery of the routines of 'getting and spending'?
One of their greatest characteristics, however, is irreverence (although it is often forgotten just how deep a role reverence and conformity play in all our lives. In this case, it is not to religion, which usually gets the two finger treatment, but to class). But no, if there's one word that stands to define the English-and there isn't- then it's 'liberty'. Can there be liberty without irreverence, or a sense of humour?
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