下载文档原格式
中英文散文赏析：郁达夫《故都的秋》中英文散文赏析：郁达夫《故都的秋》秋天，无论在地方的秋天，总是好的；可是啊，北国的秋，却特别地来得清，来得静，来得悲凉。
我的不远千里，要从杭州赶上青岛，更要从青岛赶上北平来的理由，也不过想饱尝一尝这“秋”，这故都的秋味。
Autumn, wherever it is, always has something to recommend itself. In North China, however, it is particularly limpid, serene and melancholy. To enjoy its atmosphere to the full in the onetime capital, I have, therefore, made light of travelling a long distance from Hangzhou to Qingdao, and thence to Peiping.江南，秋当然也是有的，但草木凋得慢，空气来得润，天的颜色显得淡，并且又时常多而少风；一个人夹在苏州上海杭州，或厦门香港广州的市民中间，混混沌沌地过去，只能感到一点点清凉，秋的味，秋的色，秋的意境与姿态，总看不饱，尝不透，赏玩不到十足。
秋并不是名花，也并不是美酒，那一种半开、半醉的状态，在领略秋的过程上，是不合适的。
There is of course autumn in the South too, but over there plants wither slowly, the air is moist, the sky pallid, and it is more often rainy than windy. While muddling along all by myself among theurban dwellers of Suzhou, Shanghai, Xianmen, Hong Kong or Guangzhou, I feel nothing but a little chill in the air, without ever relishing to my hear t’s content the flavour, colour, mood and style of the season. Unlike famous flowers which are most attractive when half opening, good wine which is most tempting when one is half drunk, autumn, however, is best appreciated in itsentirety.不逢北国之秋，已将近十余年了。
中英对照英国散文欣赏中英对照英国散文欣赏(一)（编者注：以下中英对照英国散文选段摘自杨自伍编的《英国散文名篇欣赏》，其中有些译文编者根据自己所好重新作了翻译，目的一是让年轻人知道有这么本好书，也许他们会自己找来阅读；二是让成天钻在英语考题中的初三至高三的同学们了解到：英语中原来还有这么美好的东西，远比他们的练习题和考卷有趣。
文章后面摘录的英语单词，只须按一下电子辞典就明白了。
）1. I went out in the afternoon. It was too early in the year fora heavy fallof leaves, but nevertheless the garden was covered. They were washed to the sides of the roads, and lay heaped up over the road-gratings, masses of gorgeous harmonies in red, brown, and yellow. The chestnuts andacorns dropped in showers, and the patter on the gravel was a little weird.The chestnut husks split wide open when they came to the ground,revealing the polished brown of the shy fruit.(nevertheless, gorgeous, harmony, weird, reveal, polish)这天下午我信步出门。
还不到一年中落叶纷飞的季节，花园却已被枯叶覆盖。
它们被雨水冲到路边，堆积在阴沟格栅上，红色的，褐色的，黄色的，一堆堆，一丛丛，既绚丽多彩，又和谐悦目。
橡实雨点般纷纷坠下，嗒嗒地拍打在鹅卵石上，给人一种神秘感。
经典英语散文欣赏英语散文的发展历程十分曲折,散文大家风格多变,兼之中英语言个性殊异,若要成功地把英语散文大家的作品翻译到中文,既须了解英语散文发展的概况,又须注意保证气韵逻辑通畅,文气沛然,才能传神译出,曲尽其妙,令汉语读者获得相同或相近的审美感受。
下面店铺为大家带来经典英语散文欣赏，欢迎大家阅读!经典英语散文：孤独的割麦女BEHOLD her, single in the field,Yon solitary Highland Lass!Reaping and singing by herself，Stop here, or gently pass!Alone she cuts and binds the grain,And sings a melancholy strain;O listen! for the Vale profoundIs overflowing with the sound.No Nightingale did ever chauntMore welcome notes to weary bandsOf travelers in some shady haunt,Among Arabian sands:A voice so thrilling ne'er was heardIn spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,Breaking the silence of the seasAmong the farthest Hebrides.Will no one tell me what she sings?—Perhaps the plaintive numbers flowFor old, unhappy, far-off things,And battles long ago:Or is it some more humble lay,Familiar matter of to-day?Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, That has been, and may be again? Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sangAs if her song could have no ending;I saw her singing at her work,And o'er the sickle bending;——I listen'd, motionless and still; And, as I mounted up the hill,The music in my heart I bore,Long after it was heard no more. 看，一个孤独的高原姑娘，在远远的田野间收割，一边割一边独自歌唱，请你站住.或者俏悄走过!她独自把麦子割了又捆，唱出无限悲凉的歌声，屏息听吧!深广的谷地已被歌声涨满而漫溢!还从未有过夜莺百啭，唱出过如此迷人的歌，在沙漠中的绿荫间抚慰过疲惫的旅客;还从未有过杜鹃迎春，声声啼得如此震动灵魂，在遥远的赫布利底群岛打破过大海的寂寥。
外国散文：《古瓷》【英】查尔斯·兰姆《古瓷》【英】查尔斯·兰姆我对古瓷几乎具有一种女性般的偏爱。
每逢进入豪门巨室，我总是要首先索看它的瓷橱，然后才去观察它的画室。
为什么会是这样先此后彼，我讲不出，但是我们身上的某种癖嗜爱好却往往不是来自一朝一夕，这样年长日久，我们自己便也追忆不起某种癖好是何时养成。
我至今仍能记起我所观看过的第一出戏和第一次画展；但是至于瓷瓶与瓷碟是何时唤起我的美好想像，我已经无从追忆。
我自过去——更遑论现在？——便对那些小巧玲珑、无章可循但面敷天青色泽的奇形异状的什物，那些上有男女人物、凌空飘浮，全然不受任何自然的限制而且也全然不解透视学为何物的东西——例如一件细瓷杯盏，我从来便对此不无酷爱。
我喜爱看到我的那些老友——按在这里距离并不曾使他们变小——飘逸于半空之中（至少对我们的视觉来说是如此）而同时却又仿佛是脚踏实地——因为我们对此必须善为解释，才说得通为什么那里凭空出现一抹深蓝；我们体会，那位谨严的画师为了在这里不留漏洞，故让那片颜色飞升在他们的脚下。
我喜爱见到这里的男人具有女性般的面容，我甚至愿意这里的女子带有更多的女性的表情。
这里便是一幅仕女图，一位年青恭谨的官吏正托着杯盏向一贵妇献茶——而两人站得有二里地远！请注意这里距离即暗寓礼貌！而此处这同一位妇人，也或许另一位——按在茶具上容貌往往是颇有雷同的——正在款移莲步，拟欲踏入一只画舫，画舫即停泊在这座寂静园中溪流的岸旁，而照她举步的正确角度推测（依照我们西方的角度原理），必然只能使她进入到一片鲜花烂漫的草地中去——进入到这条怪河对岸的老远以外。
再向远处些——如果在这个世界当中尚有远近距离可言——我们还可以见到马匹、树木、高塔等物，以及舞蹈着的人们。
另外在这里还可以看到牛与兔昂首蹲踞，而且广延相同——可能在那古老天国的清明的眼光当中，事物便应是这等画法。
昨天傍晚，一杯熙春在手（这里附带一句，我们的喝茶仍是那老式饮法，不加糖奶），我还对我们最近新购得的一套非常古老的烧青茶具上的种种speciosamiracula和我的姐姐品评了一番，因为这些杯盏我们还是第一次拿出来享用；这时我不免说道，近些年我们的家境确实颇有好转，所以我们才有可能摩娑一下这类玩物——听了这话，我的这位好友不禁翠黛微颦，悄然凝思起来。
英语散文名篇欣赏三篇英语散文名篇欣赏三篇相信朋友们对散文这样的文学体裁并不陌生，那么关于英语的名篇朋友们又看过多少呢?下面是关于英语散文名篇欣赏三篇的内容，欢迎阅读！英语散文名篇欣赏篇一生活之路The lives of most men are determined by their environment. They accept the circumstances amid which fate has thrown them not only resignation but even with good will. They are like streetcars running contentedly on their rails and they despise the sprightly flitter that dashes in and out of the traffic and speeds so jauntily across the open country. I respect them; they are good citizens, good husbands, and good fathers, and of course somebody has to pay the taxes; but I do not find them exciting.大多数人的生活被他们身处的环境所决定。
他们不仅接受既定的命运，而且顺从命运的安排。
他们就像街上的有轨电车一样，在他们既定的轨道上行驶，而对于那些不时出没于车水马龙间和欢快地奔驰在旷野上的廉价小汽车却不屑一顾。
我尊重他们，他们是好市民、好丈夫和好父亲。
当然，总得有些人来支付税收，但是，他们并没有令人激动的地方。
I am fascinated by the men, few enough in all conscience, who take life in their own hands and seem to mould it in to their own liking. It may be that we have no such thing as free will, but at all events, we have the illusion of it. At a cross-road it does seem to us that we might go either to the right or to the left and, the choice once made, it is difficult to see that the whole course of the world's history obliged us to take the turning we did.另外有一些人，他把生活掌握在自己的手里，可以按照自己的喜好去创造生活，尽管这样的人少之又少，但我却被他们深深地吸引着。
英国著名散文家德昆西散文《流沙》双语（经典版）编制人：__________________审核人：__________________审批人：__________________编制单位：__________________编制时间：____年____月____日序言下载提示：该文档是本店铺精心编制而成的，希望大家下载后，能够帮助大家解决实际问题。
文档下载后可定制修改，请根据实际需要进行调整和使用，谢谢!并且，本店铺为大家提供各种类型的经典范文，如工作报告、致辞讲话、条据书信、合同范本、规章制度、应急预案、心得体会、教学资料、作文大全、其他范文等等，想了解不同范文格式和写法，敬请关注!Download tips: This document is carefully compiled by this editor. I hope that after you download it, it can help you solve practical problems. The document can be customized and modified after downloading, please adjust and use it according to actual needs, thank you!Moreover, our store provides various types of classic sample essays, such as work reports, speeches, policy letters, contract templates, rules and regulations, emergency plans, insights, teaching materials, essay encyclopedias, and other sample essays. If you want to learn about different sample formats and writing methods, please pay attention!英国著名散文家德昆西散文《流沙》双语托马斯德昆西他的散文作品热情洋溢，经常达到语气庄重，韵律优美如诗的效果，与弥尔顿等伟大诗人的作品相似。
英语散文名篇欣赏带翻译阅读阅读英语散文，不仅能够感受语言之美，领悟语言之用，还能产生学习语言的兴趣。
下面为大家带来英语散文名篇欣赏，欢迎大家阅读！Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not amatter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple kn ees. It is a matter of the will, quality of the imag in ati on, vigor of the emoti ons; it is the fresh ness of the deep spri ngs of life.青春不是人生的一段时间，而是一种心态；青春不在于满面红光，嘴唇红润，腿脚麻利，而在于意志刚强，想象丰富，情感饱满；青春是生命之泉的明澈清新。
Y outh means a temperame ntal predo minance of courageover timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This ofte n exists in a man of 60 more tha n a boy of 20.Nobody grows old merely by a nu mber of years.We grow old by desert ing our ideals.青春意味着在气质上勇敢战胜怯懦，进取精神战胜安逸享受。
这种气质在60岁的老人中比在20岁的青年中更常见。
仅仅一把年纪决不会导致衰老。
我们之所以老态龙钟，是因为我们放弃了对理想的追求。
Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrin kles thesoul. Worry, fear, self distrust blows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.岁月的流逝会在皮肤上留下皱纹，而热情的丧失却会给灵魂刻下皱纹。
英语散文名篇欣赏英语散文名篇欣赏散文是最自由的文体，不讲究音韵，不讲究排比，没有任何的束缚及限制，也是中国最早出现的行文体例。
以下是小编分享的英语散文名篇欣赏，欢迎大家阅读!英语散文名篇欣赏(一)Love and Time 爱和时间Once upon a time, there was an island where all the feelings lived: Happiness, Sadness, Knowledge, and all of the others, including Love. One day it was announced to the feelings that the island would sink, so all constructed boats and left. Except for Love.Love was the only one who stayed. Love wanted to hold out until the last possible moment.When the island had almost sunk, Love decided to ask for help.Richness was passing by Love in a grand boat. Love said,"Richness, can you take me with you?"Richness answered, "No, I can't. There is a lot of gold and silver in my boat. There is no place here for you."Love decided to ask Vanity who was also passing by in a beautiful vessel. "Vanity, please help me!""I can't help you, Love. You are all wet and might damage my boat," Vanity answered.Sadness was close by so Love asked, "Sadness, let me go with you.""Oh . . . Love, I am so sad that I need to be by myself!"Happiness passed by Love, too, but she was so happy that she did not even hear when Love called her.Suddenly, there was a voice, "Come, Love, I will take you." It was an elder. So blessed and overjoyed, Love even forgot to ask the elder where they were going. When they arrived at dry land, the elder went her own way. Realizing how much was owed the elder,Love asked Knowledge, another elder, "Who Helped me?""It was Time," Knowledge answered."Time?" asked Love. "But why did Time help me?"Knowledge smiled with deep wisdom and answered, "Because only Time is capable of understanding how valuable Love is."爱和时间从前有一个岛，所有的情感都住在那里：幸福、悲伤、知识和所有其它的，爱也不例外。
汉译英散文佳作赏析：冯骥才《西式幽默》第一篇：汉译英散文佳作赏析：冯骥才《西式幽默》免费？宅在家学英语？怎么报名？最牛英语口语培训模式：躺在家里练口语，全程外教一对一，三个月畅谈无阻！洛基英语，免费体验全部在线一对一课程：（报名网址）西式幽默Western Humour冯骥才 Feng Jicai学院请来一位洋教师，长得挺怪，红脸，金发，连鬓大胡须，有几根胡子一直逾过面颊，挨近鼻子，他个子足有二米，每迸屋门必须低头，才能躲过门框子的拦击，叫人误以为他进门先鞠躬，这不太讲究礼貌了吗？Our institute employed an English teacher.He looked very strange red-faced, golden-haired, with a thick growth of whiskers that reached all the way to the nose.He was really tall--no less than six foot five.When he came in through the door, he had to lower his head to avoid banging against the door frame.It looked as though he always bowed to you at the door and that was much too polite.顶怪的是，他每每与中国学生聊天，聊到可笑之处时，他不笑，脸上也没表情，好象他不喜欢玩笑；可是有时毫不可笑的事，他会冷不防放声大笑，笑得翻江倒洛基英语是中国英语培训市场上的一朵奇葩，是全球已被验证的东方人英语学习的最佳模式。
洛基英语是中国专业在线英语培训机构，通过电话英语、视频英语与外教一对一的模式提高学员英语口语水平，提供英语口语培训，成人英语培训，商务英语培训，企业英语培训等课程。
英国散文欣赏：Notes on the English Character by E.M. Forster First note. I had better let the cat out of the bag at once and record my opinion that the character of the English is essentially middle class. There is a sound historical reason for this, for, since the end of the eighteenth century, the middle classes have been the dominant force in our community. They gained wealth by the Industrial Revolution, political power by the Reform Bill of 1832; they are connected with the rise and organization of the British Empire; they are responsible for the literature of the nineteenth century. Solidity, caution, integrity, efficiency. Lack of imagination, hypocrisy. These qualities characterize the middle classes in every country, but in England they are national characteristics also, because only in England have the middle classes been in power for one hundred and fifty years. Napoleon, in his rude way, called us "a nation of shopkeepers." We prefer to call ourselves "a great commercial nation" -- it sounds more dignified -- but the two phrases amount to the same. Of course there are other classes：there is an aristocracy, there are the poor. But it is on the middle classes that the eye of the critic rests -- just as it rests on the poor in Russia and on the aristocracy in Japan. Russia is symbolized by the peasant or by the factory worker; Japan by the samurai; the national figure of England is Mr. Bull with his top hat, his comfortable clothes, his substantial stomach, and his substantial balance at the bank. Saint George may caper on banners and in the speeches of politicians, but it is John Bull who delivers the goods. And even Saint George-- if Gibbon is correct-- wore a top hat once; he was an army contractor and supplied indifferent bacon. It all amounts to the same in the end.Second Note. Just as the heart of England is the middle classes, so the heart of the middle classes is the public school system. This extraordinary institution is local. It does not even exist all over the British Isles. It is unknown in Ireland, almost unknown in Scotland （countries excluded from my survey）, and though it may inspire other great institutions--Aligarh, for example, and some of the schools in the United States--it remains unique, because it was created by the Anglo-Saxon middle classes, and can flourish only where they flourish. How perfectly it expresses their character -- far better for instance, than does the university, into which social and spiritual complexities have already entered. With its boarding-houses, its compulsory games, its system of prefects and fagging, its insistence on good form and on esprit de corps, it produces a type whose weight is out of all proportion to its numbers. On leaving his school, the boy either sets to work at once -- goes into the army or into business, or emigrates -- or else proceeds to the university, and after three or four years there enters some other profession -- becomes a barrister, doctor, civil servant, schoolmaster, or journalist. （If through some mishap he does not become a manual worker or an artist.）In all these careers his education, or the absence of it, influences him. Its memories influence him also. Many men look back on their school days as the happiest of their lives. They remember with regret that golden time when life, though hard, was not yet complex, when they all worked together and played together and thought together, so far as they thought at all; when they were taught that school is theworld in miniature and believed that no one can love his country who does not love his school. And they prolong that time as best they can by joining their Old Boys' society：indeed, some of them remain Old Boys and nothing else for the rest of their lives. They attribute all good to the school. They worship it. They quote the remark that "The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton." It is nothing to them that the remark is inapplicable historically and was never made by the Duke of Wellington, and that the Duke of Wellington was an Irishman. They go on quoting it because it expresses their sentiments; they feel that if the Duke of Wellington didn't make it he ought to have, and if he wasn't an Englishman he ought to have been. And they go forth into a world that is not entirely composed of public-school men or even of Anglo-Saxons, but of men who are as various as the sands of the sea; into a world of whose richness and subtlety they have no conception. They go forth into it with well-developed bodies, fairly developed minds, and undeveloped hearts. And it is this undeveloped heart that is largely responsible for the difficulties of Englishmen abroad. An undeveloped heart--not a cold one. The difference is important, and on it my next note will be based.For it is not that the Englishman can't feel -- it is that he is afraid to feel. He has been taught at his public school that feeling is bad form. He must not express great joy or sorrow, or even open his mouth too wide when he talks--his pipe might fall out if he did. He must bottle up his emotions, or let them out only on a very special occasion.Once upon a time （this is an anecdote）I went for a week's holiday on the Continent with an Indian friend. We both enjoyed ourselves and were sorry when the week was over, but on parting our behaviour was absolutely different. He was plunged in despair.He felt that because the holiday was over all happiness was over until the world ended. He could not express his sorrow too much. But in me the Englishman came out strong. I reflected that we should meet again in a month or two, and could write in the interval if we had anything to say; and under these circumstances I could not see what there was to make a fuss about. It wasn't as if we were parting forever or dying. "Buck up," I said, "do buck up." He refused to buck up, and I left him plunged in gloom.The conclusion of the anecdote is even more instructive. For when we met the next month our conversation threw a good deal of light on the English character. I began by scolding my friend. I told him that he had been wrong to feel and display so much emotion upon so slight an occasion; that it was inappropriate. The word "inappropriate" roused him to fury. "What？" he cried. "Do you measure out your emotions as if they were potatoes？" I did not like the simile of the potatoes, but after a moment's reflection I said："Yes, I do; and what's more, I think I ought to. A small occasion demands a little emotion just as a large occasion demands a great one. I would like my emotions to be appropriate. This may be measuring them like potatoes, but it is better than slopping them about like water from a pail, which is what you did." He did not like the simile of the pail. "If those are your opinions, they part us forever," he cried, and left the room. Returning immediately, he added："No--but your whole attitude toward emotion is wrong. Emotion has nothing to do with appropriateness. It matters only that it shall be sincere. I happened to feel deeply. I showedit. It doesn't matter whether I ought to have felt deeply or not."This remark impressed me very much. Yet I could not agree with it, and said that I valued emotion as much as he did, but used it differently; if I poured it out on small occasions I was afraid of having none left for the great ones, and of being bankrupt at the crises of life. Note the word "bankrupt." I spoke as a member of a prudent middle-class nation, always anxious to meet my liabilities, but my friend spoke as an Oriental, and the Oriental has behind him a tradition, not of middle-class prudence but of kingly munificence and splendour. He feels his resources are endless, just as John Bull feels his are finite. As regards material resources, the Oriental is clearly unwise. Money isn't endless. If we spend or give away all the money we have, we haven't any more, and must take the consequences, which are frequently unpleasant. But, as regards the resources of the spirit, he may be right. The emotions may be endless. The more we express them, the more we may have to express. True love in this differs from gold and clay, That to divide is not to take away.Says Shelley. Shelley, at all events, believes that the wealth of the spirit is endless; that we may express it copiously, passionately, and always; that we can never feel sorrow or joy too acutely.In the above anecdote, I have figured as a typical Englishman. I will now descend from that dizzy and somewhat unfamiliar height, and return to my business of notetaking. A note on the slowness of the English character. The Englishman appears to be cold and unemotional because he is really slow. When an event happens, he may understand it quickly enough with his mind, but he takes quite a while to feel it. Once upon a time a coach, containing some Englishmen and some Frenchmen, was driving over the Alps. The horses ran away, and as they were dashing across a bridge the coach caught on the stonework, tottered, and nearly fell into the ravine below. The Frenchmen were frantic with terror：they screamed and gesticulated and flung themselves about, as Frenchmen would. The Englishmen sat quite calm. An hour later, the coach drew up at an inn to change horses, and by that time the situations were exactly reversed. The Frenchmen had forgotten all about the danger, and were chattering gaily; the Englishmen had just begun to feel it, and one had a nervous breakdown and was obliged to go to bed. We have here a clear physical difference between the two races--a difference that goes deep into character. The Frenchmen responded at once; the Englishmen responded in time. They were slow and they were also practical. Their instinct forbade them to throw themselves about in the coach, because it was more likely to tip over if they did. They had this extraordinary appreciation of fact that we shall notice again and again. When a disaster comes, the English instinct is to do what can be done first, and to postpone the feeling as long as possible. Hence they are splendid at emergencies. No doubt they are brave--no one will deny that--bravery is partly an affair of the nerves, and the English nervous system is well equipped for meeting physical emergency.It acts promptly and feels slowly. Such a combination is fruitful, and anyone who possesses it has gone a long way toward being brave. And when the action is over, then the Englishman can feel.There is one more consideration -- a most important one. If the English nature is cold, how is it that it has produced a great literature and a literature that is particularly great in poetry？Judged by its prose, English literature would not stand in the first rank. It is its poetry that raises it to the level of Greek, Persian, or French. And yet the English are supposed to be so unpoetical. How is this？The nation that produced the Elizabethan drama and the Lake Poets cannot be a could, unpoetical nation. We can't get fire out of ice. Since literature always rests upon national character, there must be in the English nature hidden springs of fire to produce the fire we see. The warm sympathy, the romance, the imagination, that we look for in Englishmen whom we meet, and too often vainly look for, must exist in the nation as a whole, or we could not have this outburst of national song. An undeveloped heart--not a cold one.The trouble is that the English nature is not at all easy to understand. It has a great air of simplicity, it advertises itself as simple, but the more we consider it, the greater the problems we shall encounter. People talk of the mysterious East, but the West also is mysterious. It has depths that do not reveal themselves at the first gaze. We know what the sea looks like from a distance：it is of one color, and level, and obviously cannot contain such creatures as fish. But if we look into the sea over the edge of a boat, we see a dozen colors, and depth below depth, and fish swimming in them. That sea is the English character--apparently imperturbable and even. These depths and the colors are the English romanticism and the English sensitiveness--we do not expect to find such things, but they exist. And -- to continue my metaphor--the fish are the English emotions, which are always trying to get up to the surface, but don't quite know how. For the most part we see them moving far below, distorted and obscure. Now and then they succeed and we exclaim, "Why, the Englishman has emotions！He actually can feel！" And occasionally we see that beautiful creature the flying fish, which rises out of the water altogether into the air and the sunlight. English literature is a flying fish. It is a sample of the life that goes on day after day beneath the surface; it is a proof that beauty and emotion exist in the salt, inhospitable sea.And now let's get back to terra firma. The Englishman's attitude toward criticism will give us another starting point. He is not annoyed by criticism. He listens or not as the case may be smiles and passes on, saying, "Oh, the fellow's jealous"; "Oh, I'm used to Bernard Shaw; monkey tricks don't hurt me." It never occurs to him that the fellow may be accurate as well as jealous, and that he might do well to take the criticism to heart and profit by it. It never strikes him--except as a form of words -- that he is capable of improvement; his self-complacency is abysmal. Other nations, both Oriental and European, have an uneasy feeling that they are not quite perfect. In consequence they resent criticism. It hurts them; and their snappy answers often mask a determination to improve themselves. Not so the Englishman. He has no uneasy feeling. Let the critics bark. And the "tolerant humorous attitude" with which he confronts them is not really humorous, because it is bounded by the titter and the guffaw.Turn over the pages of Punch. There is neither wit, laughter, nor satire in our nationaljester--only the snigger of a suburban householder who can understand nothing that does not resemble himself. Week after week, under Mr Punch's supervision, a man falls off his horse, or a colonel misses a golfball, or a little girl makes a mistake in her prayers. Week after week ladies show not too much of their legs, foreigners are deprecated, originality condemned. Week after week a bricklayer does not do as much work as he ought and a futurist does more than he need. It is all supposed to be so good-tempered and clean; it is also supposed to be funny. It is actually an outstanding example of our attitude toward criticism：the middle-class Englishman, with a smile on his clean-shaven lips, is engaged in admiring himself and ignoring the rest of mankind. If, in those colorless pages, he came across anything that really was funny -- a drawing by Max Beerbohm, for instance -- his smile would disappear, and he would say to himself, "The fellow's a bit of a crank," and pass on.This particular attitude reveals such insensitiveness as to suggest a more serious charge：is the Englishman altogether indifferent to the things of the spirit？Let us glance for a moment at his religion -- not, indeed, at his theology, which would not merit inspection, but at the action on his daily life of his belief in the unseen. Here again his attitude is practical. But an innate decency comes out：he is thinking of others rather than of himself. Right conduct is his aim. He asks of his religion that it shall make him a better man in daily life：that he shall be more kind, more just, more merciful, more desirous to fight what is evil and to protect what is good. No one could call this a low conception. It is, as far as it goes, a spiritual one. Yet -- and this seems to be typical of the race -- it is only half the religious idea. Religion is more than an ethical code with a divine sanction. It is also a means through which man may get into direct connection with the divine, and, judging by history, few Englishmen have succeeded in doing this. We have produced no series of prophets, as has Judaism or Islam. We have not even produced a Joan of Arc, or a Savonarola. We have produced few saints. In Germany the Reformation was due to the passionate conviction of Luther. In England it was due to palace intrigue. We can show a steady level of piety, a fixed determination to live decently according to our lights -- little more.Well, it is something. It clears us of the charge of being an unspiritual nation. That facile contrast between the spiritual East and the materialistic West can be pushed too far. The West also is spiritual. Only it expresses its belief, not in fasting and visions, not in prophetic rapture, but in the daily round, the common task. An incomplete expression, if you like. I agree. But the argument underlying these scattered notes is that the Englishman is an incomplete person. Not a cold or an unspiritual one. But undeveloped, incomplete.I have suggested earlier that the English are sometimes hypocrites, and it is not my duty to develop this rather painful subject. Hypocrisy is the prime charge that is always brought against us. The Germans are called brutal, the Spanish cruel, the Americans superficial, and so on; but we are perfide Albion, the island of hypocrites, the people who have built up an Empire with a Bible in one hand, a pistol in the other and financial concessions in both pockets. Is the charge true？I think it is; but what we mean byhypocrisy？Do we mean conscious deceit？Well, the English are comparatively guiltless of this; they have little of the Renaissance villain about them. Do we mean unconscious deceit？Muddle-headedness？Of this I believe them to be guilty. When an Englishman has been led into a course of wrong action, he has nearly always begun by muddling himself.A public-school education does not make for mental clearness, and he possesses to a very high degree the power of confusing his own mind. How does it work in the domain of conduct？Jane Austen may seem an odd authority to cite, but Jane Austen has, within her limits, a marvelous insight into the English mind. Her range is limited, her characters never attempt any of the more scarlet sins. But she has a merciless eye for questions of conduct, and the classical example of two English people muddling themselves before they embark upon a wrong course of action is to be found in the opening chapters of Sense and Sensibility. Old Mr. Dashwood has just died. He has been twice married. By his first marriage he has a son, John; by his second marriage three daughters. The son is well off; the young ladies and their mother -- for Mr. Dashwood's second wife survives him -- are badly off. He has called his son to his death-bed and has solemnly adjured him to provide for the second family. Much moved, the young man promises, and mentally decides to give each of his sisters a thousand pounds：and then the comedy begins. For he announces his generous intention to his wife, and Mrs. John Dashwood by no means approves of depriving their own little boy of so large a sum. The thousand pounds are accordingly reduced to five hundred. But even this seems rather much. Might not an annuity to the stepmother be less of a wrench？Yes -- but though less of a wrench it might be more of a drain, for "she is very stout and healthy, and scarcely forty." An occasional present of fifty pounds will be better, "and will, I think, be amply discharging my promise to my father." Or, better still, an occasional present of fish. And in the end nothing is done, nothing; the four impecunious ladies are not even helped in the moving of their furniture.Well, are the John Dashwoods hypocrites？It depends upon our definition of hypocrisy. The young man could not see his evil impulses as they gathered force and gained on him. And even his wife, though a worse character, is also self-deceived. She reflects that old Mr. Dashwood may have been out of his mind at his death. She thinks of her own little boy -- and surely a mother ought to think of her own child. She has muddled herself so completely that in one sentence she can refuse the ladies the income that would enable them to keep a carriage and in the next can say that they will not be keeping a carriage and so will have no expenses. No doubt men and women in other lands can muddle themselves, too, yet the state of mind of Mr. and Mrs. John Dashwood seems to me typical of England. They are slow -- they take time even to do wrong; whereas people in other lands do wrong quickly.There are national faults as there are national diseases, and perhaps one can draw a parallel between them. It has always impressed me that the national diseases of England should be cancer and consumption -- slow, insidious, pretending to be something else; while the diseases proper to the South should be cholera and plague, which strike at a manwhen he is perfectly well and may leave him a corpse by evening. Mr. and Mrs. John Dashwood are moral consumptives. They collapse gradually without realizing what the disease is. There is nothing dramatic or violent about their sin. You cannot call them villains.Here is the place to glance at some of the other charges that have been brought against the English as a nation. They have, for instance, been accused of treachery, cruelty, and fanaticism, In these charges I have never been able to see the least point, because treachery and cruelty are conscious sins. The man knows he is doing wrong, and does it deliberately, like Tartuffe or Iago. He betrays his friend because he wishes to. He tortures his prisoners because he enjoys seeing the blood flow. He worships the Devil because he prefers evil to good. From villainies such as these the average Englishman is free. His character, which prevents his rising to certain heights, also prevents him from sinking to these depths. Because he doesn't produce mystics he doesn't produce villains either; he gives the world no prophets, but no anarchists, no fanatics--religious or political.Of course there are cruel and treacherous people in England -- one has only to look at the police courts -- and examples of public infamy can be found, such as the Amritsar massacre. But one does not look at the police courts or the military mind to find the soul of any nation; and the more English people one meets the more convinced one becomes that the charges as a whole are untrue. Yet foreign critics often make them. Why？Partly because they are annoyed with certain genuine defects in the English character, and in their irritation throw in cruelty in order to make the problem simpler. Moral indignation is always agreeable, but nearly always misplaced. It is indulged in both by the English and by the critics of the English. They all find it great fun. The drawback is that while they are amusing themselves the world becomes neither wiser nor better.The main point of these notes is that the English character is incomplete. No national character is complete. We have to look for some qualities in one part of the world and others in another. But the English character is incomplete in a way that is particularly annoying to the foreign observer. It has a bad surface -- self complacent, unsympathetic, and reserved. There is plenty of emotion further down, but it never gets used. There is plenty of brain power, but it is more often used to confirm prejudices than to dispel them. With such an equipment the Englishman cannot be popular. Only I would repeat：there is little vice in him and no real coldness. It is the machinery that is wrong.I hope and believe myself that in the next twenty years we shall see a great change, and that the national character will alter into something that is less unique but more lovable. The supremacy of the middle classes is probably ending. What new element the working classes will introduce one cannot say, but at all events they will not have been educated at public schools. And whether these notes praise or blame the English character -- that is only incidental. They are the notes of a student who is trying to get at the truth and would value the assistance of others. I believe myself that the truth is great and that it shall prevail. I have no faith in official caution and reticence. The cats are all out of their bags, and diplomacy cannot recall them. The nations must understand one another and quickly; and without the interposition of their governments, for the shrinkage of the globeis throwing them into one another's arms. To that understanding these notes are a feeble contribution -- notes on the English character as it has struck a novelist.。
