England Author:Beckles Willson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III England's Expansion Not the lone desert can the traveller know Where, great of soul, thy children have not wrought; Far as the deathless mind hat... more »h hewn its way Toiling have reached thy caravans of thought: England—All hail 1 Thomas Rbdcam. In every department of modern western civilization the English have assisted as pioneers, and one only need read Leasing, Goethe, or Kant to know how much our own culture owes to Anglo-Saxon impulse.—Dr. Carl Peters. He had faith in England and in her absolutely—in her pride and power—in her virtue, benevolence and philanthropy, in her expansiveness and tenacity, in her Imperial destiny. In fine, of him it may be written, he was a true Englishman!—Sir R. Temple of Sir John Hawley Glovfr. PARLIAMENTARY government, then, is, as we see, not England's greatest gift to the world, but only a manifestation of a far more potent quality which is England's real glory and the secret of her greatness. The distinctive elements of the English character were present and active centuries before Chaucer illustrated them in the first great English literature. Of the nature of the Anglo-Saxon Lowell says that " his genius ishis solidity, an admirable foundation of national character. . . . You cannot move him ; he and rich earth have a natural power of cohesion." He is " not quarrelsome, but with indefatigable durability of fight in him." His honesty and simplicity are dwelt upon, together with that " dogged sense of justice " and that " equilibrium of thought which springs from clear-sighted understanding" which makes " the beauty of the Saxon nature." From the Conquest until the Reformation England is seen in process of consolidating herself and endeavouring to throw off, or else absorb, any and all of the alien influences whic...« less