More imposing even than Westminster is St.
Paul's. I am not thinking so much of the memorials or the tombs
or the statues there, but of the tattered battleflags bearing the
names of battles fought by the English in every crack and cranny
of the world, from Quebec to Ladysmith, and from Lucknow to Khartum.
Beholding them there, draped above the tombs, some faded but still
intact, some mere clotted wisps of ragged silk clinging to blackened
standards, gives one an uplifting conception of the spirit that
has sent the British soldier forth to girth the globe, never
faltering, never slackening pace, never giving back a step to-day
but that he took two steps forward to-morrow; never stopping--except
for tea.
The fool hath said in his heart that he would go to England and
come away and write something about his impressions, but never
write a single, solitary word about the Englishman's tea-drinking
habit, or the Englishman's cricket-playing habit, or the Englishman's
lack of a sense of humor. I was that fool. But it cannot be done.
Lacking these things England would not be England. It would be
Hamlet without Hamlet or the Ghost or the wicked Queen or mad
Ophelia or her tiresome old pa; for most English life and the bulk
of English conversation center about sporting topics, with the
topic of cricket predominating. And at a given hour of the day
the wheels of the empire stop, and everybody in the empire--from
the king in the counting house counting up his money, to the maid
in the garden hanging out the clothes--drops what he or she may
be doing and imbibes tea until further orders.
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