LIVING OUTDOORS 27 



embowered in vines, decorated with flowers, softly illuminated 

 with hidden lights, free from flies and mosquitoes, and as serene 

 and cool as the lake itself. 



But better than another meal or any mechanical device is the 

 spirit of eating which one acquires naturally in England. We 

 Americans may eat a lot of expensive foods, but do we get the 

 hearty satisfaction out of eating that Englishmen do? Do we 

 take a cordial interest in anybody who eats and what he eats? 

 Just as Mr. Roosevelt never tires of commending the man with a 

 large family, so the Englishman steadily approves of the man who 

 fulfils the other great duty toward the race, viz., eating. The 

 English make a lot of mistakes in eating. Even Americans say 

 they eat too much meat. And public tea is usually brewed so as 

 to deliver the maximum amount of tannic acid. But the spirit 

 in which they eat makes for long life and pink cheeks. It is 

 worth a trip to England simply to learn how to eat, but if one can- 

 not do that one can learn from the novels of Charles 

 Dickens. 



Next to eating, an Englishman loves sport, and justly, for it 

 is the great national school where character is made. Somehow, the 

 school room does not, in any country, develop character as much 

 as it ought to, and as we all hope it will. The two virtues which 

 the English deify are pluck and fair play. The first is learned 

 by hunting the fox, the second on the cricket field. Both sports 

 are peculiarly British. I do not see how you can explain in any 

 other way why so many Oxford and Cambridge graduates in past 

 centuries have been so efficient in public life. For the traditional 

 attitude of the English students is to resist learning at every step, 

 and formerly the dons had no conception of inspiration or of lab- 

 oratory methods only of trepanning the skull and inserting the 



