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though I took pains not to say anything unjust or merely of momentary signifi-
cance. I think the point where you and I would differ is, as usual, a question of
relative proportions. The consciousness of belonging to a very great nation
with a high and peculiar task (or destiny) before it acts in two ways. First, a
sort of Noblesse Oblige; an Athenian, or an Englishman, is bound in self-respect
to be in various ways better than his neighbours, worthy of his country. This
feeling I recognize frankly as existing in numbers of people of the Rhodes or
Kipling type, and, though it often seems to me (and no doubt to you) rather blatant
and lacking in self-criticism, I respect it and think it a powerful instrument
for good. Secondly, there is a perversion of this. "An Englishman never tells a
lie" and "an Englishman always likes fair-play" and suchlike principles, which
are really statements of ideals, are taken as statements of fact. The majority of
men easily get to think that their countrimen are really Ideal Englishmen and
have all the ideal English virtues, and that foreigners are inferior creatures.
(A generous mistake in its way, and better than the converse mistake of my own
bitter and suspicious friends.) Thirdly, I cannot help seeing in modern England