New institutions do not flourish in England. The town is a comparatively
modern innovation; it has never, so to say, caught on. Most schemes of
town-planning are schemes for pretending that you live in the country.
This is one of the most persistent of our many hypocrisies. Wherever
working people inhabit a street of continuous red-brick cottages, the
names that they give to their homes are one long catalogue of romantic
lies. The houses have no gardens, and the only prospect that they
command is the view of over the way. But read their names--The Dingle,
The Elms, Pine Grove, Windermere, The Nook, The Nest. Even social
pretence, which is said to be one of our weaknesses, and which may be
read in such names as Belvoir or Apsley House, is less in evidence than
the Englishman's passion for the country. He cannot bear to think that
he lives in a town. He does not much respect the institutions of a town.
A policeman, before he has been long in the force, has to face the fact
that he is generally regarded as a comic character. The police are
Englishmen and good fellows, and they accept a situation which would
rouse any continental gendarme to heroic indignation.
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