lishman, quotha? Why, what country in the world can show
such multifarious, vigorous and cordial co-operation, in all ranks, but
especially, of course, among the intelligent, for ends which concern the
common good? Unsociable! Why, go where you will in England you can
hardly find a man--nowadays, indeed, scarce an educated woman--who does
not belong to some alliance, for study or sport, for municipal or
national benefit, and who will not be seen, in leisure time, doing his
best as a social being. Take the so-called sleepy market-town; it is
bubbling with all manner of associated activities, and these of the quite
voluntary kind, forms of zealously united effort such as are never dreamt
of in the countries supposed to be eminently "social." Sociability does
not consist in a readiness to talk at large with the first comer. It is
not dependent upon natural grace and suavity; it is compatible, indeed,
with thoroughly awkward and all but brutal manners. The English have
never (at all events, for some two centuries past) inclined to the purely
ceremonial or mirthful forms of sociability; but as regards every prime
interest of the community--health and comfort, well-being of body and of
soul--their social instinct is supreme.

Yet it is so difficult to reconcile this indisputable fact with that
other fact, no less obvious, that your common Englishman seems to have no
geniality. From the one point of view, I admire and laud my fellow
countryman; from the other, I heartily dislike him and wish to see as
little of him as possible. One is wont to think of the English as a
genial folk. Have they lost in this respect? Has the century of science
and money-making sensibly affected the national character? I think
always of my experience at the English inn, where it is impossible not to
feel a brutal indifference to the humane features of life; where food is
bolted without attention, liquor swallowed out of mere habit, where even
good-natured accost is a thing so rare as to be remarkable.

Two things have to be borne in mind: the extraordinary difference of
demeanour which exists between the refined and the vulgar English, and
the natural difficulty of an Englishman in revealing his true self save
under the most favourable circumstances.

So striking is the difference of manner between class and class that the
hasty observer might well imagine a corresponding and radical difference
of mind and character. In Russia, I suppo