The Englishman

From The New Criterion’s Weblog we find an odd quote from Santayana: What governs the Englishman is his inner atmosphere, the weather in his soul. Instinctively the Englishman is no missionary, no conqueror. He prefers the country to the town, and home to foreign parts. He is rather glad and relieved if only natives will … Continue reading “The Englishman”

From The New Criterion’s Weblog we find an odd quote from Santayana:

What governs the Englishman is his inner atmosphere, the weather in his soul. Instinctively the Englishman is no missionary, no conqueror. He prefers the country to the town, and home to foreign parts. He is rather glad and relieved if only natives will remain natives and strangers strangers, and at a comfortable distance from himself. Yet outwardly he is most hospitable and accepts almost anybody for the time being; he travels and conquers without a settled design, because he has the instinct of exploration. His adventures are all external; they change him so little that he is not afraid of them. He carries his English weather in his heart wherever he goes, and it becomes a cool spot in the desert, and a steady and sane oracle amongst all the deliriums of mankind. Never since the heroic days of Greece has the world had such a sweet, just, boyish master. It will be a black day for the human race when scientific blackguards, conspirators, churls, and fanatics manage to supplant him.

Scientific blackguards? I had no idea the Englishman was anti-science. Now we know who settled Kansas, the place where science is on trial.