They are passionate, and they
are idealists, but they are also a practical people, and they dare not
give the rein to a passion or an idea. They know that in this world an
unmitigated principle simply will not work; that a clean cut will never
take you through the maze. So they restrain themselves, and listen, and
seem patient. They are not so patient as they seem; they must be
hypocrites! A cruder, simpler people like the Germans feel indignation,
not unmixed perhaps with envy, when they hear the quiet voice and see
the white lips of the thoroughbred Englishman who is angry. It is not
manly or honest, they think, to be angry without getting red in the
face. They certainly feel pride in their own honesty when they give
explosive vent to their emotions. They have not learned the elements of
self-distrust. The Englishman is seldom quite content to be himself;
often his thoughts are troubled by something better. He suffers from the
divided mind; and earns the reputation of a hypocrite. But the simpler
nature that indulges itself and believes in itself has an even heavier
penalty to pay.
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