He was an odd
mixture of awkwardness and complacency, a desire to be courteous
struggling with a desire to show his independence; he had no ease of
manner, no bonhomie, but a gruff and ugly kind of jocosity, which I am
sure was not really natural to him, but was his protest against the
possibility of my considering him to be shy. He seemed anxious to show
that he was as good a man as myself, which I was quite ready to take
for granted. He jested about the dulness of the country; said that he
thought it made people jolly mouldy. He did not see that it was a pity
to press that fact upon me; the truth was that he was thinking of
himself for the time being, though he was no egoist. And whereas the
courtly egoist pays you compliments first and then returns to a more
congenial self-contemplation, my burly young friend would, I have not
the slightest doubt, grow more companionable and considerate every day
that one knew him. But his manner was the manner of the common-room and
the cricket field, that odd British humour, that, without meaning to be
unkind, thrusts its darts clumsily in the weak points of the armour. It
is this, I think, that makes English public school life so good a
discipline, if one unlearns its methods as soon as one has done with
it, because it makes men tolerant of criticism and even ridicule; its
absence of sentiment makes them tough; its absence of courtesy makes
them strong.
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