登陆注册
4712000000069

第69章

England is the best of actual nations. It is no ideal framework, it is an old pile built in different ages, with repairs, additions, and makeshifts; but you see the poor best you have got.

London is the epitome of our times, and the Rome of to-day.

Broad-fronted broad-bottomed Teutons, they stand in solid phalanx foursquare to the points of compass; they constitute the modern world, they have earned their vantage-ground, and held it through ages of adverse possession. They are well marked and differing from other leading races. England is tender-hearted. Rome was not.

England is not so public in its bias; private life is its place of honor. Truth in private life, untruth in public, marks these home-loving men. Their political conduct is not decided by general views, but by internal intrigues and personal and family interest.

They cannot readily see beyond England. The history of Rome and Greece, when written by their scholars, degenerates into English party pamphlets. They cannot see beyond England, nor in England can they transcend the interests of the governing classes. "English principles" mean a primary regard to the interests of property.

England, Scotland, and Ireland combine to check the colonies.

England and Scotland combine to check Irish manufactures and trade.

England rallies at home to check Scotland. In England, the strong classes check the weaker. In the home population of near thirty millions, there are but one million voters. The Church punishes dissent, punishes education. Down to a late day, marriages performed by dissenters were illegal. A bitter class-legislation gives power to those who are rich enough to buy a law. The game-laws are a proverb of oppression. Pauperism incrusts and clogs the state, and in hard times becomes hideous. In bad seasons, the porridge was diluted. Multitudes lived miserably by shell-fish and sea-ware. In cities, the children are trained to beg, until they shall be old enough to rob. Men and women were convicted of poisoning scores of children for burial-fees. In Irish districts, men deteriorated in size and shape, the nose sunk, the gums were exposed, with diminished brain and brutal form. During the Australian emigration, multitudes were rejected by the commissioners as being too emaciated for useful colonists. During the Russian war, few of those that offered as recruits were found up to the medical standard, though it had been reduced.

The foreign policy of England, though ambitious and lavish of money, has not often been generous or just. It has a principal regard to the interest of trade, checked however by the aristocratic bias of the ambassador, which usually puts him in sympathy with the continental Courts. It sanctioned the partition of Poland, it betrayed Genoa, Sicily, Parga, Greece, Turkey, Rome, and Hungary.

Some public regards they have. They have abolished slavery in the West Indies, and put an end to human sacrifices in the East. At home they have a certain statute hospitality. England keeps open doors, as a trading country must, to all nations. It is one of their fixed ideas, and wrathfully supported by their laws in unbroken sequence for a thousand years. In _Magna Charta_ it was ordained, that all "merchants shall have safe and secure conduct to go out and come into England, and to stay there, and to pass as well by land as by water, to buy and sell by the ancient allowed customs, without any evil toll, except in time of war, or when they shall be of any nation at war with us." It is a statute and obliged hospitality, and peremptorily maintained. But this shop-rule had one magnificent effect. It extends its cold unalterable courtesy to political exiles of every opinion, and is a fact which might give additional light to that portion of the planet seen from the farthest star. But this perfunctory hospitality puts no sweetness into their unaccommodating manners, no check on that puissant nationality which makes their existence incompatible with all that is not English.

What we must say about a nation is a superficial dealing with symptoms. We cannot go deep enough into the biography of the spirit who never throws himself entire into one hero, but delegates his energy in parts or spasms to vicious and defective individuals. But the wealth of the source is seen in the plenitude of English nature.

同类推荐
  • 孔子弟子考

    孔子弟子考

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 佛说较量寿命经

    佛说较量寿命经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 六门陀罗尼经

    六门陀罗尼经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 大毗卢遮那佛眼修行仪轨

    大毗卢遮那佛眼修行仪轨

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 象田即念禅师语录

    象田即念禅师语录

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 不灭神之传说

    不灭神之传说

    王界的父母是两个敌对家族的子女,他们的在一起不被两大家族承认,而王界更是不被他们所容许。在混沌大陆得到不灭之心,顺着未来的自己指引的道路,一步步的飞升。圣界、天界、人界、仙界都有他的足迹。突破最终的桎梏,与天地一争,胜而为神。封号不灭,长古久存。
  • 坟墓里的钢模子

    坟墓里的钢模子

    己亥(1899)年,龙阳一带遭遇大旱,六至十月不雨。田中禾苗,皆枯如茅草。消息报给巡抚,巡抚无意赈灾,厘局钱庄趁机勒索盘剥,以致谷价昂贵,饥民采蕨根、茅根为食。龙阳县境内有炭窑窑主冯德乾联络骁勇,密谋起事。农历腊月初三,冯德乾与众好汉歃血盟酒,喊出劫富济贫的口号,自封将军,率七百余人奔袭县城,杀官绅,烧毁厘局,没收当铺财产,开官仓设粥厂三处。街上贴满了石灰标语,饥民欢呼雀跃。冯德乾下令设点招募新兵。顷刻间,报名者排起了长队。
  • 实用社交文书写作大全

    实用社交文书写作大全

    这是一套以促进现代应用文写作规范化为主要目的,以当代常用且新颖的应用文写作为主要内容,以企事业单位与政府机关的文书写作者和使用者、普通高校师生为主要服务对象,兼具教材性质的工具书。
  • 万古最强丹帝

    万古最强丹帝

    六道大帝被杀重生。曾经的仇人,要一个一个死在自己脚下。闯圣域、灭帝宗、踏古门、毁轮回!天要挡我,我要捅破这天!我六道大帝,誓要毁天灭地!
  • 明伦汇编交谊典乞贷部

    明伦汇编交谊典乞贷部

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 上清太上玉清隐书灭魔神慧高玄真经

    上清太上玉清隐书灭魔神慧高玄真经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 我从天上来

    我从天上来

    我从天上来,落地桃花开;他日飞升去,帝血溅仙台!南朝唯一书友群:200702009
  • 朋友圈

    朋友圈

    他想想自己和赵晓鸽,也许他们始终不会离婚,为了儿子的成长,为了有一个外人看似完整的婚姻和家庭。他心里五味杂陈,很不是滋味,他想修复,想弥补,可不知道需要多长时间。婚姻太不容易,他们都在顽强地坚守着,可心里却非常清楚,外人看似光滑如织锦,内里却布满千疮百孔。他真的很担心哪一天那些小孔洞会把平静和坚守蛀空。他觉得很累,手机看久了,眼睛开始酸涩,他甚至突然发现自己的眼睛已经大不如前。也许是花了?他闭了一会眼睛,当他再次睁开眼睛的时候,手机屏幕上的那些字变得越来越小,光线也暗淡下来,又过了数秒钟,屏幕最终完全变黑。
  • 禁忌玫瑰

    禁忌玫瑰

    在世界尽头的某处有一座从神话时代就一直存在着的城堡,那座城堡名曰‘不朽黄昏’。在‘不朽黄昏’中又有一个种着黑、绿、紫、蓝、白、黄、红七种玫瑰的玫瑰园,玫瑰园中种着世界上唯一一支真正的七色玫瑰。传说那支七色玫瑰生而三千年不死,死而三千年不倒,倒而三千年不朽,它是超越一切存在的存在。只要有人摘下七色玫瑰许愿,它便可以实现那个人的任何愿望。不过愿望只能许一个,愿望许下后七色玫瑰便会立即腐朽。因为即便你许下毁灭世界这样邪恶的愿望也会被它理所当然的实现,所以人们也将那支真正的七色玫瑰称作——【禁忌玫瑰】……
  • 超级修仙强者

    超级修仙强者

    【火爆新书,值得追读】落魄少年姜锋,无意中获得菩提仙岛的至宝《天河九书》,从此踏上修炼之路。ps:新书《极品妖孽混花都》发布,欢迎大家多多支持。