and strictly in need of direction--are the same, to a great extent,

as those of the well-bred man. He does not represent--though
seeming to do so--a nation apart. To understand this multitude, you

must get below its insufferable manners, and learn that very fine
civic qualities can consist with a personal bearing almost wholly

repellent.
Then, as to the dogged reserve of the educated man, why, I have only

to look into myself. I, it is true, am not quite a representative
Englishman; my self-consciousness, my meditative habit of mind,

rather dim my national and social characteristics; but set me among
a few specimens of the multitude, and am I not at once aware of that

instinctive antipathy, that shrinking into myself, that something
like unto scorn, of which the Englishman is accused by foreigners

who casually meet him? Peculiar to me is the effort to overcome
this first impulse--an effort which often enough succeeds. If I

know myself at all, I am not an ungenial man; and yet I am quite
sure that many people who have known me casually would say that my

fault is a lack of geniality. To show my true self, I must be in
the right mood and the right circumstances--which, after all, is

merely as much as saying that I am decidedly English.
XIX

On my breakfast table there is a pot of honey. Not the manufactured
stuff sold under that name in shops, but honey of the hive, brought

to me by a neighbouring cottager whose bees often hum in my garden.
It gives, I confess, more pleasure to my eye than to my palate; but

I like to taste of it, because it is honey.
There is as much difference, said Johnson, between a lettered and an

unlettered man as between the living and the dead; and, in a way, it
was no extravagance. Think merely how one's view of common things

is affected" target="_blank" title="a.做作的；假装的">affected by literary association. What were honey to me if I
knew nothing of Hymettus and Hybla?--if my mind had no stores of

poetry, no memories of romance? Suppose me town-pent, the name
might bring with it some pleasantness of rustic odour; but of what

poor significance even that, if the country were to me mere grass
and corn and vegetables, as to the man who has never read nor wished

to read. For the Poet is indeed a Maker: above the world of sense,
trodden by hidebound humanity, he builds that world of his own

whereto is summoned the unfettered spirit. Why does it delight me
to see the bat flitting at dusk before my window, or to hear the

hoot of the owl when all the ways are dark? I might regard the bat
with disgust, and the owl either with vague superstition or not heed

it at all. But these have their place in the poet's world, and
carry me above this idle present.

I once passed a night in a little market-town where I had arrived
tired and went to bed early. I slept forthwith, but was presently

awakened by I knew not what; in the darkness there sounded a sort of
music, and, as my brain cleared, I was aware of the soft chiming of

church bells. Why, what hour could it be? I struck a light and
looked at my watch. Midnight. Then a glow came over me. "We have

heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow!" Never till then had
I heard them. And the town in which I slept was Evesham, but a few

miles from Stratford-on-Avon. What if those midnight bells had been
to me but as any other, and I had reviled them for breaking my

sleep?--Johnson did not much exaggerate.
XX

It is the second Jubilee. Bonfires blaze upon the hills, making one
think of the watchman on Agamemnon's citadel. (It were more germane

to the matter to think of Queen Elizabeth and the Armada.) Though
wishing the uproar happily over, I can see the good in it as well as

another man. English monarchy, as we know it, is a triumph of
English common sense. Grant that men cannot do without an overlord;

how to make that over-lordship consist with the largest practical
measure of national and individual liberty? We, at all events, have

for a time solved the question. For a time only, of course; but
consider the history of Europe, and our jubilation is perhaps

justified.
For sixty years has the British Republic held on its way under one

President. It is wide of the mark to object that other Republics,
which change their President more frequently, support the semblance

of over-lordship at considerably less cost to the people. Britons
are minded for the present that the Head of their State shall be

called King or Queen; the name is pleasant to them; it corresponds
to a popular sentiment, vaguely understood, but still operative,

which is called loyalty. The majority thinking thus, and the system
being found to work more than tolerably well, what purpose could be

served by an attempt at novas res? The nation is content to pay the
price; it is the nation's affair. Moreover, who can feel the least

assurance that a change to one of the common forms of Republicanism
would be for the general advantage? Do we find that countries which

have made the experiment are so very much better off than our own in
point of stable, quiet government and of national welfare? The

theorist scoffs at forms which have survived their meaning, at
privilege which will bear no examination, at compromises which sound

ludicrous, at submissions which seem contemptible; but let him put
forward his practical scheme for making all men rational,

consistent, just. Englishmen, I imagine, are not endowed with these
qualities in any extraordinary degree. Their strength, politically

speaking, lies in a recognition of expediency, complemented by
respect for the established fact. One of the facts particularly

clear to them is the suitability to their minds, their tempers,
their habits, of a system of polity which has been established by

the slow effort of generations within this sea-girt realm. They
have nothing to do with ideals: they never trouble themselves to

think about the Rights of Man. If you talk to them (long enough)
about the rights of the shopman, or the ploughman, or the cat's-

meat-man, they will lend ear, and, when the facts of any such case
have been examined, they will find a way of dealing with them. This

characteristic of theirs they call Common Sense. To them, all
things considered, it has been of vast service; one may even say

that the rest of the world has profited by it not a little. That
Uncommon Sense might now and then have stood them even in better

stead is nothing to the point. The Englishman deals with things as
they are, and first and foremost accepts his own being.

This Jubilee declares a legitimatetriumph of the average man. Look
back for threescore years, and who shall affect to doubt that the

time has been marked by many improvements in the material life of
the English people? Often have they been at loggerheads among

themselves, but they have never flown at each other's throats, and
from every grave dispute has resulted some substantial gain. They

are a cleaner people and a more sober; in every class there is a
diminution of brutality; education--stand for what it may--has

notably extended; certain forms of tyranny have been abolished;
certain forms of suffering, due to heedlessness or ignorance, have

been abated. True, these are mere details; whether they indicate a
solid advance in civilization cannot yet be determined. But

assuredly the average Briton has cause to jubilate; for the
progressive features of the epoch are such as he can understand and

approve, whereas the doubt which may be cast upon its ethical
complexion is for him either non-existent or unintelligible. So let

cressets flare into the night from all the hills! It is no
purchased exultation, no servile flattery. The People acclaims

itself, yet not without genuinegratitude and affection towards the
Representative of its glory and its power. The Constitutional

Compact has been well preserved. Review the record of kingdoms, and
say how often it has come to pass that sovereign and people rejoiced

together over bloodless victories.
XXI

At an inn in the north I once heard three men talking at their
breakfast on the question of diet. They agreed that most people ate

too much meat, and one of them went so far as to declare that, for
his part, he rather preferred vegetables and fruit. "Why," he said,

"will you believe me that I sometimes make a breakfast of apples?"
This announcement was received in silence; evidently the two

listeners didn't quite know what to think of it. Thereupon the
speaker, in rather a blustering tone, cried out, "Yes, I can make a

very good breakfast on TWO OR THREE POUNDS OF APPLES."
Wasn't it amusing? And wasn't it characteristic? This honest

Briton had gone too far in frankness. 'Tis all very well to like
vegetables and fruits up to a certain point; but to breakfast on

apples! His companions' silence proved that they were just a little