What made me hesitate was something more important than the date at which the letters were written. There is in them a note of exasperation which I would have wished to remove if I could. But I could not, without a complete rewriting, by which, even if it were possible to me, more would have been lost than gained. It is this note of exasperation which has induced me hitherto to keep the letters back, in spite of requests to the contrary from American friends and publishers. But the opportunity of adding them as a pendant to letters from the East, where they fall naturally into their place as a complement and a contrast, has finally overcome my scruples; the more so, as much that is said of America is as typical of all the West, as it is foreign to all the East. That this Western civilisation, against which I have so much to say, is nevertheless the civilisation in which I would choose to live, in which I believe, and about which all my hopes centre, I have endeavoured to make clear in the concluding essay. And my readers, I hope, if any of them persevere to the end, will feel that they have been listening, after all, to the voice of a friend, even if the friend be of that disagreeable kind called "candid."
[Footnote 1: These Fellowships, each of the value of £660, were established to enable the persons appointed to them to travel round the world. The Trust is administered at the University of London, and full information regarding it can be obtained from the Principal, Sir Henry Miers, F.R.S., who is Honorary Secretary to the Trustees.]
"But why do you do it?" said the Frenchman. From the saloon above came a sound of singing, and I recognised a well-known hymn. The sun was blazing on a foam-flecked sea; a range of islands lifted red rocks into the glare; the wind blew fresh; and, from above,
"Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to Thy cross I cling."
Male voices were singing; voices whose owners, beyond a doubt, had no idea of clinging to anything. Female voices, too, of clingers, perhaps, but hardly to a cross. "Why do you do it?"--I began to explain. "For the same reason that we play deck-quoits and shuffle-board; for the same reason that we dress for dinner. It's the system." "The system?" "Yes. What I call Anglicanism. It's a form of idealism. It consists in doing the proper thing." "But why should the proper thing be done?" "That question ought not to be asked. Anglicanism is an idealistic creed. It is anti-utilitarian and anti-rational. It does not ask questions; it has faith. The proper thing is the proper thing, and because it is the proper thing it is done." "At least," he said, "you do not pretend that this is religion?" "No. It has nothing to do with religion. But neither is it, as you too simply suppose, hypocrisy. Hypocrisy implies that you know what religion is, and counterfeit it. But these people do not know, and they are not counterfeiting. When they go to church they are not thinking of religion. They are thinking of the social system. The officers and civilians singing up there first learned to sing in the village church. They walked to the church from the great house; the great house stood in its park; the park was enclosed by the estate; and the estate was surrounded by other estates. The service in the village church stood for all that. And the service in the saloon stands for it still. At bottom, what that hymn means is not that these men are Christians, but that they are carrying England to India, to Burma, to China." "It is a funny thing," the Frenchman mused, "to carry to 300 million Hindus and Mahometans, and 400 million Confucians, Buddhists, and devil-worshippers. What do they do with it when they get there?" "They plant it down in little oases all over the country, and live in it. It is the shell that protects them in those oceans of impropriety. And from that shell they govern the world." "But how can they govern what they can't even see?" "They govern all the better. If once they could see, they would be lost. Doubt would enter in. And it is the virtue of the Englishman that he never doubts. That is what the system does for him."