It has become the Englishman's habit, one might almost say the Englishman's instinct, to take himself for the head and front of the universe. The order of creation began, we are told, in protoplasm. It has achieved at length the Englishman. Herein are the culmination and ultimate glory of evolutionary processes. Nature, like the seventh-standard boy in a board school, "can get no higher." She has made the Englishman, and her work therefore is done. For the continued progress of the world and all that in it is has become the Englishman's habit, one might almost say the Englishman's instinct, to take himself for the head and front of the universe. The order of creation began, we are told, in protoplasm. It has achieved at length the Englishman. Herein are the culmination and ultimate glory of evolutionary processes.
There is little that can be considered distinguishable English which does not reflect this point of view. As an easy-going, entirely confident, imperturbable piece of arrogance, the Englishman has certainly no mammalian compeer. Even in the blackest of his troubles he perceives that he is great. "I shall muddle through," he says. He is expected and understood to muddle through; and, muddle through or not, he invariably believes he has done it.
One is inclined to think, however, that, while the supremacy and superiority of the Englishman have been received without traverse in his own dominions, there are those in outer darkness—on the Continent, in Ireland, and even in Scotland—who admit no such supremacy and no such superiority
That the English concept of sport should allow the bloodletting, excitement, and partying that occur in squares, football fields, racing courses, and cricket, indicates that despite everything that has been said and sung in praise, the English concept of sport is a very sad one And sorry. It is natural that people who are offered to show and get money for the unnecessary luxuries that money can buy must be great