I make use of the present tense, but am I speaking truly of present England? Such powerful agencies of change have been at work during the last thirty years; and it is difficult, nay impossible, to ascertain in what degree they have affected the national character thus far. One notes the obvious: decline of conventional religion, free discussion of the old moral standards; therewith, a growth of materialism which favours every anarchic tendency. Is it to be feared that self-righteousness may be degenerating into the darker vice of true hypocrisy? For the English to lose belief in themselves -- not merely in their potential goodness, but in their preeminence as examples and agents of good -- would mean as hopeless a national corruption as any recorded in history. To doubt their genuine worship, in the past, of a very high (though not, of course, the highest) ethical ideal is impossible for any one born and bred in England; no less impossible to deny that those who are rightly deemed "best" among us, the men and women of gentle or humble birth who are not infected by the evils of the new spirit, still lead, in a very true sense, "honest, sober, and godly" lives. Such folk, one knows, were never in a majority, but of old they had a power which made them veritable representatives of the English ethos. If they thought highly of themselves, why, the fact justified them; if they spoke, at times, as Pharisees, it was a fault of temper which carried with it no grave condemnation. Hypocrisy was, of all forms of baseness, that which they most abhorred. So is it still with their descendants. Whether these continue to speak among us with authority, no man can certainly say. If their power is lost, and those who talk of English hypocrisy no longer use the word amiss, we shall soon know it.
我使用的是现在时态,但是我讲的真的是现在的英国吗?在过去的三十年间，如此有力的变革一直都在进行中。要确定时至今日它们在何种程度上影响到了我们的民族性,是很困难的;不,简直是不可能的。一些变化显而易见:传统宗教的没落,对古老的道德标准的自由讨论，以及随之而来的唯物主义的发展,它对每一种无政府主义倾向都抱持费成的态度。对于自以为是有可能堕落成为更加黑暗的恶行一一真正的虚伪，人们是否应该感到担心呢?如果英国人丧失了信仰,那么,如同历史上所记载的类似情况一样,将意味着毫无希望的民族堕落;这种信仰不仅包含他们潜在的善良,也包括他们作为善良的楷模和代表的优越感。对于任何一个生长在英国的人来说,对自己过去所真正崇拜的一种非常高尚的(当然,尽管不是最高尚的)道德理想提出质疑,是不可能做到的事情;同样不可否认的是,我们之中被公认为“最好”的那一部分人一一那些无论出身贵贱,但都没有被新精神的罪恶之处所污染的人们一一仍然过着一种真正意义上的“诚实、清醒而虔诚”的生活。我们知道,这样的人为数不多,但在从前,他们有一种力量,使自己成为了名副其实的英国民族精神的代表。即使他们自视甚高,那也是因为事实赋予了他们这样做的权利;即使他们有时像法利赛教徒一样讲话,那也只是一种在脾气秉性方面的缺陷,而并非严重的罪过。在所有形式的卑劣行为中,他们最憎恶的就是虚伪。他们的后代也是这样。这些人的讲话在我们中间是否仍然具有权威,尚无定论。他们是否已经丧失了自己的力量,那些说英国人虚伪的人是否措辞不当一我们很快就会知晓答案。
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