The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft

The word hypocrisy is perhaps most of all applied to our behaviour in matters of sexual morality, and here with specially flagrant misuse. Multitudes of Englishmen have thrown aside the national religious dogma, but very few indeed have abandoned the conviction that the rules of morality publicly upheld in England are the best known in the world. Any one interested in doing so can but too easily demonstrate that English social life is no purer than that of most other countries. Scandals of peculiar grossness, at no long intervals, give rich opportunity to the scoffer. The streets of our great towns nightly present an exhibition the like of which cannot be seen elsewhere in the world. Despite all this, your average Englishman takes for granted his country's moral superiority, and loses no chance of proclaiming it at the expense of other peoples. To call him hypocrite, is simply not to know the man. He may, for his own part, be gross-minded and lax of life; that has nothing to do with the matter; he believes in virtue. Tell him that English morality is mere lip-service, and he will blaze with as honest anger as man ever felt. He is a monument of self-righteousness, again not personal but national.