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235
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
·
George Gissing
219
XX.
Is
it
true
that
the
English
are
deeply
branded
with
the
vice
of
hypocrisy?
The
accusation,
of
course,
dates
from
the
time
of
the
Round-
heads;
before
that,
nothing
in
the
national
character
could
have
suggested
it.
The
England
of
Chaucer,
the
England
of
Shakespeare,
assuredly
was
not
hypocrite.
The
change
wrought
by
Puritanism
introduced
into
the
life
of
the
people
that
new
element
which
ever
since,
more
or
less
notably,
has
suggested
to
the
observer
a
habit
of
double-dealing
in
morality
and
religion.
The
scorn
of
the
Cavalier
is
easily
understood;
it
created
a
traditional
Cromwell,
who,
till
Carlyle
arose,
figured
before
the
world
as
our
arch-dissembler.
With
the
decline
of
genuine
Puritanism
came
that
peculiarly
English
manifestation
of
piety
and
virtue
which
is
represented
by
Mr.
Pecksniff--a
being
so
utterly
different
from
Tartufe,
and
perhaps
impossible
to
be
understood
save
by
Englishmen
themselves.
But
it
is
in
our
own
time
that
the
familiar
reproach
has
been
persistently
levelled
at
us.
It
often
sounds
upon
the
lips
of
our
emancipated
youth;
it
is
stereotyped
for
daily
impression
in
the
offices
of
Continental
newspapers.
And
for
the
reason
one
has
not
far
to
look.
When
Napoleon
called
us
a
"nation
of
shop-keepers,"
we
were
nothing
of
the
kind;
since
his
day
we
have
become
so,
in
the
strictest
sense
of
the
word;
and
consider
the
spectacle
of
a
flourishing
tradesman,
anything
but
scrupulous
in
his
methods
of
business,
who
loses
no
opportunity
of
bidding
all
mankind
to
regard
him
as
a
religious
and
moral
exemplar.
This
is
the
actual
show
of
things
with
us;
this
is
the
England
seen
by
our
bitterest
censors.
There
is
an
excuse
for
those
who
charge
us
with
"hypocrisy."
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