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235
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
·
George Gissing
223
XXI.
I
make
use
of
the
present
tense,
but
am
I
speaking
truly
of
present
England?
Such
powerful
agencies
of
change
have
been
at
work
during
the
last
thirty
years;
and
it
is
difficult,
nay
impossible,
to
ascertain
in
what
degree
they
have
affected
the
national
character,
thus
far.
One
notes
the
obvious:
decline
of
conventional
religion,
free
discussion
of
the
old
moral
standards;
therewith,
a
growth
of
materialism
which
favours
every
anarchic
tendency.
Is
it
to
be
feared
that
self-righteousness
may
be
degenerating
into
the
darker
vice
of
true
hypocrisy?
For
the
English
to
lose
belief
in
themselves--not
merely
in
their
potential
goodness,
but
in
their
pre-eminence
as
examples
and
agents
of
good--would
mean
as
hopeless
a
national
corruption
as
any
recorded
in
history.
To
doubt
their
genuine
worship,
in
the
past,
of
a
very
high
(though
not,
of
course,
the
highest)
ethical
ideal,
is
impossible
for
any
one
born
and
bred
in
England;
no
less
impossible
to
deny
that
those
who
are
rightly
deemed
"best"
among
us,
the
men
and
women
of
gentle
or
humble
birth
who
are
not
infected
by
the
evils
of
the
new
spirit,
still
lead,
in
a
very
true
sense,
"honest,
sober,
and
godly"
lives.
Such
folk,
one
knows,
were
never
in
a
majority,
but
of
old
they
had
a
power
which
made
them
veritable
representatives
of
the
English
ethos.
If
they
thought
highly
of
themselves,
why,
the
fact
justified
them;
if
they
spoke,
at
times,
as
Pharisees,
it
was
a
fault
of
temper
which
carried
with
it
no
grave
condemnation.
Hypocrisy
was,
of
all
forms
of
baseness,
that
which
they
most
abhorred.
So
is
it
still
with
their
descendants.
Whether
these
continue
to
speak
among
us
with
authority,
no
man
can
certainly
say.
If
their
power
is
lost,
and
those
who
talk
of
English
hypocrisy
no
longer
use
the
word
amiss,
we
shall
soon
know
it.
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