England and the English [pp. 233-247]

ENGLAND AND THE ENGLISH.
considered, a rather reasonable characteristic. Few nations
can refer to so much in their history which flatters the sentiment
of self-importance. No other people of modern times stand upon
such a ground-work of solid achievement-a fact which never
budges from the British contemplation. The pride springing
from this is self-poised, insular, despotic. They are proud of
their martial performance, their civil ability, their economic wisdom, their capacity to say no, their bluff speech, the very eccentricities which, while they disfigure their ensemble, yet serve to
describe their identity.
Egotism, in the English, is almost a dignified sentiment, it is
so downright, grave and candid. They are coolly and implacably convinced that they are the greatest people in the world,
and do not keep the conviction in ambush. They tell it to
you with a frankness of statement, an unconsciousness of foible
and a conclusive array of wherefores which invest it with the
specific gravity of a logical proposition.
Their admiration of the foreign is relative and qualified.
They say of a thing, " it is very well-for a Frenchman." If they
desire to be extravagantly complimentary, they allow of a matter that it is-English. After that, all superlatives are weak and
pithless. The vocabulary of encomiumn is plucked and bald.
Of course, we laugh at this vanity, as in duty bound; but there
is just enough ground for fellow feeling in the infirmity to attemper our mirth to a good-humored strain. In no other trait,
assuredly, is our Anglo-Saxon paternity more unanswerably witnessed.
Tile pronunciation of the English does not differ, in many
essential respects, from our own. Leaving out of view the broad
sound which they habitually give to the letter a, the distinctions
that remain are few and venial. And yet it is impossible for an
Englishman and American to have a five minutes' conversation
together without a mutual discovery of nationality. The clews
to this discovery lie in the inflections of voice, in the methods of
pronunnciation, rather than in the pronunciation itself. In order
to distinguish these peculiarities by comparison, I should say,
generalizing, by the effect produced on the ear, that the English
pronounced with the middle of the tongue, the Americans with
thle tip, and the Germans with the tail.
Every people are more or less addicted to the use of pet
words. The two which I have encountered oftenest among the
English are," nasty" and "nonsense." The multiform connections in which "-nasty "-pronounced narsty-is compelled to do
service are really astonishing. Bad weather is "nasty;" an
unpopular fashion of bonnet is "nasty;" an obnoxious phrase is
"nasty;" ill behavior is "nasty;" dowdyism is "nasty;" vulgar
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