A summary of Notes on the English Character by E.M.Forster

Notes on the English Character is a speech essay written by E.M. Forster. We can find five general notes made by Foster on the English Character which is followed by the conclusion in the last two paragraphs.

First note: The character of the English class is essentially middle class owing to commercial and political reasons. The Industrial Revolution and Reform Bill of 1832 have been the key driving forces behind this respectively. The middle classes have been in power for one hundred and fifty years.

Therefore the characteristics of the middle class such as solidity, integrity, efficiency hypocrisy, and lack of imagination, represent the national characteristics as well.

John Bull with his top hat, comfortable clothes and substantial stomach as well as substantial bank balance is the national figure of England. Even though St. George is the Patron Saint of England, it is John Bull representing the middle classes who runs the country in every sense of the word. (It is not religion but everyday labor which create a living.)

Just as every nation is symbolized by one class or the other, England has been represented by the middle class while for instance, Russia has been symbolized by the peasant or the factory worker and Japan by the samurai.

Second note: The author points out that the heart of the middle classes is the public school system, and the public school system has a great influence on the young people either when they are in school or out of school. Thus those from the public schools form well-developed bodies, fairly developed mind, and undeveloped hearts.

Explanation:
The heart of the middle classes lie in the public school system and it is local. It flourishes only where the Anglo-Saxon middle classes are as they created it even though this system has inspired other institutions in other parts of the world, for instance, their model was adopted in Aligarh and also in some schools in the United States.

The characteristics of English public school system are boarding houses, compulsory games, and a system of prefects and fagging which cannot be found elsewhere in the British Isles. It insists on good conduct and form as well as a spirit of mutual loyalty and pride for their schools (esprit de corps).  This system thereby moulds them for their future in whichever career they embark on, for instance, army or business right after leaving the school or barrister, doctor, civil servant, schoolmaster or journalist after their university education.

Their love for the public schools goes as far as that they believe that their school is the miniature version of the world and that they should love their schools like they love their country.
They join groups such as Old Boys’ Society just to prolong their time with the golden days of their lives. An instance of their worship for their schools is found in the quote “The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.” This remark is attributed to the Duke of Wellington, an Anglo-Irish man who was the Commander in the Battle of Waterloo. He won the legendary battle with Napoleon. The English because of their love for Eton College has made such a comment on his behalf. They even feel that the Duke should have made such a remark as he was educated in Eton College.

The author points out that their public schooling system make them blind to the fact that the world is composed of other culture and dimensions. He says that the Englishmen go into the world with well-developed bodies, fairly-developed minds and undeveloped hearts.

Third note: In the third note E. M. Forster elaborates on the undeveloped heart of the Englishmen. He stresses the fact that their hearts are not cold but undeveloped due to the influence of the public school. Public school has taught them that feeling is bad form and that they must bottle up their emotions unless the occasion demands for it.

Forster illustrates the difficulty of the Englishmen to express their emotions using an anecdote in which Forster and an Indian friend have gone for a week’s holiday. After a week of enjoyment, when the time for parting came they reacted in different ways. The friend was filled with despair while our author being an Englishman did not find the temporary parting to be an instance to be emotional. Since they could meet again in a month or two and write a letter in between, he asked his friend to ‘buck up’. But his friend refused to do so.

However, in the next month they met again and the author scolded his friend for displaying so much of emotion in an insignificant circumstance. When he called it as “inappropriate”, the Indian friend was furious and he retorted by saying that one cannot measure ones emotions like potatoes. Forster hated the simile of potatoes. He replied by saying that emotions should be expressed according to the situation and that it should be appropriate. It is better to measuring them like potatoes instead of splashing them like water from a pail. The friend instigated by the simile of the pail decided to part forever. He added by saying that “emotion has nothing to do with appropriateness. It only matters that it shall be sincere.”

The author was impressed by these words but he could not agree with it for he felt that one would end up “bankrupt” if one pours out emotions even in the smallest of occasions. He was reserving the emotions for greater crises of life. He then draws out a difference between the Oriental and the Occidental (East vs. West).

The Oriental has a legacy of kingly munificence but the Englishmen under the tradition of middleclass prudence feels that his resources are limited. The author says that the approach of the Orientals regarding material resources is unwise as money and other materials are not endless. Once spent they cannot be replenished. But emotions or “the resources of the spirit” on the other hand are endless. He agrees reluctantly with his Indian friend in this matter. He also quotes Shelley, a Romantic poet in this regard:

“True love in this differs from gold and clay,

That to divide is not to take away.”

Love like other emotions (“wealth of the spirit”) can multiply itself unlike material resources such as gold and clay which when divided diminishes in course of time. He concludes the third note by saying that Shelley has spoken like a true Englishman.

Fourth note: The author makes a note on the slowness of the English character. Forster claims that the slowness of the English character is the real reason for the coldness and unemotionality of the English character. He narrates another anecdote to illustrate the fourth note.
When a coach carrying some Englishmen and Frenchmen was driving over the Alps, the horses ran away, the coach tottered and nearly fell off the bridge to the ravine below. The Frenchmen were frantic and they screamed and gesticulated and flung themselves about. But the Englishmen were calm. After an hour when the coach was drawn to an inn to change horses the Frenchmen had forgotten all about the danger while the Englishmen had a nervous breakdown and had to go to bed.
Here Forster says that the Englishmen were practical even though they were slow in their response. It was their instinct which had stopped them from throwing themselves about in the coach as otherwise the coach would have tipped over. So the Englishmen were postponing their feeling for later in the face of the disaster. The author appreciates this aspect of the English character by saying that they are brave in the face of emergencies because the English nervous system acts promptly and feels slowly, i.e, only when the action is over can they feel.

He further moves on to consider the great literature especially great poetry created by the Englishmen to prove that the Englishmen have an undeveloped heart not a cold one. He asks a pertinent question as to how the English character could produce such great poems with a cold heart. He states that if the nation could produce such exemplary works such as that of the Elizabethan Drama (works of Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, etc.) and Lake Poets (Romantic Poets from the Lake District) which speaks the language of the heart then the English cannot be cold and unpoetical.
He compares poems to fire and states that fire cannot come out of ice, i.e., a cold heart cannot produce such great poetry. He says that there are hidden springs of fire in the English nature and that it is a national character.
He goes on to claim that the air of simplicity exhibited by the English character is misleading. Forster draws a comparison between the East and the West and states that the West is also mysterious like the East.

He uses the metaphor of sea to convey the depths of English character. The sea which looks of one colour from a distance, when looked at a closer distance from a boat will reveal a dozen colours and fish swimming in its depths. The sea represents the English character, calm and not easy to understand at first sight. The depths and colours of the sea represent the English romanticism and their sensitiveness.

The fish represents the English emotions which does not know how to come to the surface of the sea. When they do succeed, the onlookers exclaim in disbelief that the English do have emotions. Forster then compares English literature with the flying fish which occasionally rises out of the water into the air and the sunlight. The comparison of flying fish with the English emotion reinforces the notion that there is life, beauty and emotion beneath the surface of the inhospitable sea.

Forster next moves onto the attitude of Englishmen towards criticism to further his claim on the undeveloped heart of Englishmen. They are not annoyed by criticism. They reject it with a smile and blame it on the jealousy of the other person. They compare the situation to the witty works of Bernard Shaw and refers to criticism as monkey tricks. This attitude blinds them to the constructive aspect of criticism. His self-satisfaction is so deep that he does not see criticism as a step of improvement.
Forster again draws a comparison of the English with the Oriental and the Europeans. He states that they resent criticism as it hurts them which is proved by their snappy answers which actually masks their determination to improve themselves.

Forster draws in the example of the British magazine, Punch which catered to the everyday and mundane information of the English life. There is no wit, laughter or satire in the magazine but such events which resemble the life a typical Englishman. He sniggers at how a man falls off his horse or on how a colonel misses a golf ball while reading Punch. If in those pages he finds a drawing by Max Beerbohm (a caricaturist who was a contemporary of Forster, he was well known for his witty depiction of the English character), he was thrown off guard and his smug smile would disappear. In such instances he would reject the fellow as an eccentric or a crank.

This insensitive attitude of the Englishmen makes Forster reflect at whether the Englishmen are completely indifferent to the things of the spirit. His attitude towards religion is practical. He uses religion as a means to achieve right conduct: to make him a better man in daily life, to be kind and merciful, and to fight off the evil and to protect the good.

For the Englishmen religion is just an ethical code. They do not realize that through religion they can enter into a direct connection with the divine. Forster says that this might be the reason why there are few prophets in England such as found in Judaism or Islam. He states that in other countries this is not the case. There is the example of Joan of Arc in France, a mere peasant girl who chosen and directed by God, was able to win The Hundred Years' War with England but was later burnt alive on charges of witchcraft. Then he states the example of Savonarola, an Italian friar and preacher who was also hanged and burnt as he stood against papacy on grounds of clerical corruption and exploitation of the poor.

When in Germany Martin Luther, a monk and priest effected Reformation by rejecting some of the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, the same happened in England due to palace intrigue. Forster states that it is a relief that religion helps the English to live a decent life with a steady life of piety and that the Englishmen are not entirely unspiritual.

He again draws a comparison between the East and the West. He rejects the accusation that the West is materialistic. He says that the West is also spiritual even though it never expresses their belief in fasting and visions, not through prophetic rapture but in their common and daily lives. This might make the Englishmen incomplete, but not cold and unspiritual.

Fifth note: Then he launches the reader into the fifth note. He tries to rid the English of the accusation of hypocrisy. Forster says that all nations are accused of one low quality or the other. For instance, the Germans are called brutal, the Spanish cruel, the Americans superficial while the prime charge made against the Englishmen is hypocrisy (perfide Albion). They have built up an “Empire with a Bible in one hand, a pistol in the other and financial concessions in both pockets.”
Foster moves on to analyse whether the charge of hypocrisy is true. Is it conscious deceit or unconscious deceit? Or is it muddle-headedness? He states that the Englishmen have little of the Renaissance Villain about them. They take a wrong action because of their muddle-headedness which cannot be rectified even by a public school education. He cites an example from the novel “Sense and Sensibility” by Jane Austen. He states that Jane Austen has a marvellous insight into the English mind and that her characters never commit any scarlet sins.

He uses the example of the character of old Mr. Dashwood in the novel. On his death bed he asks his son John, from the first marriage to support his wife and three daughters from the second marriage. Even though John agrees moved by his father’s last wish, he ends up providing nothing to the second wife or the daughters.

At first John mentally decides to give each of his sisters a thousand pounds. But when he reveals this to his wife, she opposes the idea as such a large sum will deprive their own little boy. Therefore John decides to give five hundred pounds each to his sisters. Even that seems to be a large sum to him. He eventually decides to present them either a sum of fifty pounds or fish occasionally. In the end he does not help them in anyway. Forster here launches a question as to whether the John Dashwoods are hypocrites.

Forster points out that John was not able to understand the evil forces he was succumbing to. His wife who has the worst character was also self-deceived. She was thinking of her own child when she heard of old Mr. Dashwood’s dying wish. Forster blames her way of thinking on muddle-headedness, which he states as the typical character of the men and women in England. Forster then moves on to find a similarity between national faults and national diseases.

He states that cancer and consumption should be the national diseases of England as they are slow and insidious (harmful), pretending to be something else. On the other hand the diseases proper to the South are cholera and plague as they kill a man quickly. Here Mr and Mrs Dashwood are moral consumptives who gradually collapses without realizing that they are sinning. Therefore they are not dramatic and violent and they cannot be called villains.

Forster further investigates on the other charges such as treachery, cruelty and fanaticism laid against the English as a nation. He rejects the accusation saying that all those charges are conscious sins, sins committed knowingly and deliberately like Tartuffe and Iago. Iago, a character in Shakespeare’s “Othello” effects the downfall of Othello through deliberate scheming, a General. He was Othello's trusted, but jealous and traitorous ensign. Tartuffe in “Tartuffe, or The Impostor, or The Hypocrite” written by Molière is a religious hypocrite who worships the Devil as he prefers evil to good.

But the average English are not villains like them. Forster states that their character which does not let them rise to certain heights will also not let them sink to such depths. The Englishmen are neither saints nor villains. They neither produce mystics or prophets nor do they produce anarchists or fanatics. He says that we can find cruel and treacherous people in England in the police courts and such examples of public infamy as found in the Amritsar Massacre. But the soul of England lies with the common Englishmen who are not villains and their soul cannot be found in the police courts or the military mind. Even then it is always the treacherous and cruel character that is highlighted by the critics when it comes to England. Forster believes that the critics are annoyed with certain genuine defects and they blame them on cruelty. This misplaced accusation makes the world believe in a falsehood.

He concludes by saying that the English character is incomplete like any other nation. But the defects in the English character annoys the foreign observer. They are self-complacent, unsympathetic and reserved on the surface. They never use their emotions. When it comes to their brain power which is there in plenty they use it to “confirm prejudices than to dispel them.” All these account to their unpopularity. Forster confirms that there is “little vice” in the English and no real coldness.
He blames everything on the machinery. He hopes for a change in the national character in the next twenty years, into something which is less unique and more loveable. The middle class supremacy will end probably. He keeps faith in the working class and hopes that they will not be educated in the public schools.

It is secondary that these notes blame or praise the English character. Forster says that he is just a student trying to find the truth and that he expects the assistance of the others in this regard. He states that the diplomacy cannot re-call the cats which are already out of their bags.  He has no faith in the governments but he keeps immense faith in the truth. He calls for the understanding of other nations without the intervention of the governments. He believes in the power of communication which will eradicate all the misconceptions.