It is also the temper of a people always
prepared in the face of danger to subordinate these native impulses. The
one tendency and the other opposing tendency are alike based on the
history and traditions of the race. Fifteen centuries ago, Sidonius
Apollinaris gazed inquisitively at the Saxon barbarians, most ferocious
of all foes, who came to Aquitania, with faces daubed with blue paint
and hair pushed back over their foreheads; shy and awkward among the
courtiers, free and turbulent when back again in their ships, they were
all teaching and learning at once, and counted even shipwreck as good
training. One would think, the Bishop remarks, that each oarsman was
himself the arch-pirate.[1] These were the men who so largely went to
the making of the "Anglo-Saxon," and Sidonius might doubtless still
utter the same comment could he observe their descendants in England
to-day. Every Englishman believes in his heart, however modestly he may
conceal the conviction, that he could himself organise as large an army as
Kitchener and organise it better. But there is not only the instinct to
order and to teach but also to learn and to obey. For every Englishman
is the descendant of sailors, and even this island of Britain seemed to
men of old like a great ship anchored in the sea. Nothing can overcome
the impulse of the sailor to stand by his post at the moment of danger,
and to play his sailorly part, whatever his individual convictions may
be concerning the expedition to Rochelle or the expedition to the
Dardanelles, or even concerning his right to play no part at all.
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