England produces more than its proper percentage of cranks and poets; it may be taken that this is Nature’s way of redressing the balance in a country where feelings are not shown, sentiments not expressed, and extremes laughed at.  Not that the Englishman lacks heart; he is not cold, as is generally supposed—­on the contrary he is warm-hearted and feels very strongly; but just as peasants, for lack of words to express their feelings, become stolid, so it is with the Englishman from sheer lack of the habit of self-expression.  Nor is the Englishman deliberately hypocritical; but his tenacity, combined with his powerlessness to express his feelings, often gives him the appearance of a hypocrite.  He is inarticulate, has not the clear and fluent cynicism of expansive natures wherewith to confess exactly how he stands.  It is the habit of men of all nations to want to have things both ways; the Englishman is unfortunately so unable to express himself, even to himself, that he has never realized this truth, much less confessed it—­hence his appearance of hypocrisy.

He is quite wrongly credited with being attached to money.  His island position, his early discoveries of coal, iron, and processes of manufacture have made him, of course, into a confirmed industrialist and trader; but he is more of an adventurer in wealth than a heaper-up of it.  He is far from sitting on his money-bags—­has absolutely no vein of proper avarice, and for national ends will spill out his money like water, when he is convinced of the necessity.

In everything it comes to that with the Englishman—­he must be convinced, and he takes a lot of convincing.  He absorbs ideas slowly, reluctantly; he would rather not imagine anything unless he is obliged, but in proportion to the slowness with which he can be moved is the slowness with which he can be removed!  Hence the symbol of the bulldog.  When he does see and seize a thing he seizes it with the whole of his weight, and wastes no breath in telling you that he has got hold.  That is why his press is so untypical; it gives the impression that he does waste breath.  And, while he has hold, he gets in more mischief in a shorter time than any other dog because of his capacity for concentrating on the present, without speculating on the past or future.

For the particular situation which the Englishman has now to face he is terribly well adapted.  Because he has so little imagination, so little power of expression, he is saving nerve all the time.  Because he never goes to extremes, he is saving energy of body and spirit.  That the men of all nations are about equally endowed with courage and self-sacrifice has been proved in these last six months; it is to other qualities that one must look for final victory in a war of exhaustion.  The Englishman does not look into himself; he does not brood; he sees no further forward than is necessary, and he must have his joke.  These are fearful and wonderful advantages.  Examine the letters and diaries of the various combatants and you will see how far less imaginative and reflecting, (though shrewd, practical, and humorous,) the English are than any others; you will gain, too, a profound, a deadly conviction that behind them is a fibre like rubber, that may be frayed, and bent a little this way and that, but can neither be permeated nor broken.