We Anglo-Saxons are mostly optimists at heart; we love to have things comfortable, and to pretend that they are comfortable when they obviously are not.  The brisk Anglo-Saxon, if he cannot reach the grapes, does not say that the grapes are sour, but protests that he does not really care about grapes.  A story is told of a great English proconsul who desired to get a loan from the Treasury of the Government over which he practically, though not nominally, presided.  He went to the Financial Secretary and said:  “Look here, T——­, you must get me a loan for a business I have very much at heart.”  The secretary whistled, and then said:  “Well, I will try; but it is not the least use.”  “Oh, you will manage it somehow,” said the proconsul, “and I may tell you confidentially it is absolutely essential.”  The following morning the secretary came to report:  “I told you it was no use, sir, and it wasn’t; the Board would not hear of it.”  “Damnation!” said the proconsul, and went on writing.  A week after he met the secretary, who felt a little shy.  “By the way, T——­,” said the great man, “I have been thinking over that matter of the loan, and it was a mercy you were not successful; it would have been a hopeless precedent, and we are much better without it.”

That is the true Anglo-Saxon spirit of optimism.  The most truly British person I know is a man who will move heaven and earth to secure a post or to compass an end; but when he fails, as he does not often fail, he says genially that he is more thankful than he can say; it would have been ruin to him if he had been successful.  The same quality runs through our philosophy and our religion.  Who but an Anglo-Saxon would have invented the robust theory, to account for the fact that prayers are often not granted, that prayers are always directly answered whether you attain your desire or not?  The Greeks prayed that the gods would grant them what was good even if they did not desire it, and withhold what was evil even if they did desire it.  The shrewd Roman said:  “The gods will give us what is most appropriate; man is dearer to them than to himself.”  But the faithful Anglo-Saxon maintains that his prayer is none the less answered even if it be denied, and that it is made up to him in some roundabout way.  It is inconceivable to the Anglo-Saxon that there may be a strain of sadness and melancholy in the very mind of God; he cannot understand that there can be any beauty in sorrow.  To the Celt, sorrow itself is dear and beautiful, and the mournful wailing of winds, the tears of the lowering cloud, afford him sweet and even luxurious sensations.  The memory of grief is one of the good things that remains to him, as life draws to its close; for love is to him the sister of grief rather than the mother of joy.  But this is to the Anglo-Saxon mind a morbid thing.  The hours in which sorrow has overclouded him are wasted, desolated hours, to be forgotten and obliterated as soon as possible.  There is nothing sacred about