Yet this young man took a high classical degree, and is, I know for a fact, an admirable schoolmaster, sensible, effective, and even wise; he makes his boys work, and work contentedly, and he is not only popular but really trusted by the boys.  He would never do a mean thing or an unkind thing; he is absolutely manly, straightforward, and honourable, and I gladly admit that a man’s behaviour on a social occasion is a very trivial thing beside these greater qualities.  But what is it, then, which causes this curious gruffness and rudeness, this apparent assumption that every one is slightly grotesque, low-minded, and dishonest?  For the style of humour which this type develops is the humour that consists in calling attention in public to any deficiencies that you may observe in a man’s appearance, manner, and surroundings, and also taking for granted that his motives for action are bad.  I do not mean to say that my young friend considers me grotesque or dishonest, but his idea of humour is to make a pretence of thinking so.  He would be distressed if he thought that he had given me pain; his intention is to diffuse a genial good-humour into the scene; and if he were bantered in the same way, he would take it as an evidence of friendly feeling.

The truth is that it is really schoolboy humour belatedly prolonged.  Vituperation is the schoolboy’s idea of friendly banter.  The schoolboy does not so much consider the feelings of his victim as his companions’ need for amusement.  But I am sure that the tendency nowadays is, somehow or other, to prolong the hobbledehoy days.  There is so much more organisation of everything at schools that young men remain boys longer than they used to do.  Partly, too, in the case of this young man, it arises from his never having had a change of atmosphere.  He remained a jolly schoolboy till the end of his University days, and then he went back to the society of schoolboys.  He is simply undeveloped; and the mistake he makes is to consider himself a man of the world.

But partly, too, it arises from national characteristics, the preference for bluntness and frankness and outspokenness; the tendency to believe that a display of courtesy and emotion and consideration is essentially insincere.  One does not at all want to get rid of frankness and outspokenness.  Combined with a certain degree of deference and sympathy, they are the most delightful graces in the world.  But though the attitude which I have been describing prides itself upon being above all things unaffected, it is in reality a highly affected mood, because it is all based on a kind of false shame.  Such a man as my young friend does not really say what he thinks, and very rarely thinks what he says.  He is, as I have said, a high-minded, intelligent, and sensible man; but he thinks it priggish to let his real opinions be known, and thus is priggish without perceiving it.  The essence of priggishness is the disapproving attitude, and it is priggish to wish to appear superior; but my young friend, in the back of his mind, does think himself the superior of courteous, sympathetic, and emotional persons.