But there is one thought which rises supreme at this particular moment of these tremendous times:  The period of surprise is over; the forces known; the issue fully joined.  It is now a case of “Pull devil, pull baker,” and a question of the fibre of the combatants.  For this reason it may not be amiss to try to present to any whom it may concern as detached a picture as one can of the real nature of that combatant who is called the Englishman, especially since ignorance in Central Europe of his character was the chief cause of this war, and speculation as to the future is useless without right comprehension of this curious creature.

The Englishman is taken advisedly because he represents four-fifths of the population of the British Isles and eight-ninths of the character and sentiment therein.

And, first, let it be said that there is no more deceptive, unconsciously deceptive person on the face of the globe.  The Englishman certainly does not know himself, and outside England he is but guessed at.  Only a pure Englishman—­and he must be an odd one—­really knows the Englishman, just as, for inspired judgment of art, one must go to the inspired artist.

Racially, the Englishman is so complex and so old a blend that no one can say what he is.  In character he is just as complex.  Physically, there are two main types—­one inclining to length of limb, narrowness of face and head, (you will see nowhere such long and narrow heads as in our islands,) and bony jaws; the other approximating more to the ordinary “John Bull.”  The first type is gaining on the second.  There is little or no difference in the main character behind.

In attempting to understand the real nature of the Englishman certain salient facts must be borne in mind: 

THE SEA.—­To be surrounded generation after generation by the sea has developed in him a suppressed idealism, a peculiar impermeability, a turn for adventure, a faculty for wandering, and for being sufficient unto himself in far surroundings.

THE CLIMATE.—­Whoso weathers for centuries a climate that, though healthy and never extreme, is perhaps the least reliable and one of the wettest in the world, must needs grow in himself a counterbalance of dry philosophy, a defiant humor, an enforced medium temperature of soul.  The Englishman is no more given to extremes than is his climate; against its damp and perpetual changes he has become coated with a sort of bluntness.

THE POLITICAL AGE OF HIS COUNTRY.—­This is by far the oldest settled Western power, politically speaking.  For eight hundred and fifty years England has known no serious military disturbance from without; for over one hundred and fifty she has known no military disturbance, and no serious political turmoil within.  This is partly the outcome of her isolation, partly the happy accident of her political constitution, partly the result of the Englishman’s habit of looking before he leaps, which comes, no doubt, from the mixture in his blood and the mixture in his climate.