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Updated: May 26, 2025
Oscar Wilde stopped where the religion of Goethe began; he was far more of a pagan and individualist than the great German; he lived for the beautiful and extraordinary, but not for the Good and still less for the Whole; he acknowledged no moral obligation; "in commune bonis" was an ideal which never said anything to him; he cared nothing for the common weal; he held himself above the mass of the people with an Englishman's extravagant insularity and aggressive pride.
But there is only one Lloyd George, and, whatever else he lack, he doesn't lack life. It wasn't "oratory," but it was well said and well meant. They know how badly they need help and they do mean to be as good to us as their benignant insularity will permit. They are changing. I can't describe the great difference that the war has made in them. They'll almost become docile in a little more time.
I might also advert to the facilities which the situation of Fernando Po, at the estuaries of so many great rivers, together with its insularity, holds out for extending and protecting our commercial relations with Central Africa, and probably extending the blessings of civilization amongst its inhabitants; these, however, although important, were minor considerations with the British Government.
Think these things out, and try to measure them on the globe. And when you speak of Abroad, do please specify what part of it. Abroad is not all alike. There are differences between Poland, Peru, and Palestine. What is true of France is not true of Fiji. Distinguish carefully between Timbuctoo, Tobolsk, and Toledo. It is not our insularity that makes us so insular.
With a mixture of wonder and amusement Selwyn watched the spectacle of these people of more than average education and intelligence contenting themselves with a perpetual routine of small-talk and genteel insularity, and he wondered how it was that a race so gifted with the blessed quality of humour could evolve a state of society offering such a butt to the shafts of ridicule.
Escott has an instructive chapter on this in his excellent book on England. He notices that the English character is losing its insularity, is more accessible to foreign influences, and is adopting foreign, especially French, modes of living.
Now and again some startling feat attracted the world's attention, as when the English Channel was first crossed by air and England was made to realize that her insularity was gone. For a moment this feat held public interest, but again without a true realization of its significance. There seemed nothing which would drive man to develop the gift which had been put within his reach.
The constant repetition of three names on the stones in the burying grounds Attwooll, Pearce and Stone will bring home to the stranger the insularity of the "Isle of Slingers." The royal manor of Portland antedates the Conquest. It then included Wyke, Weymouth and Melcombe.
Hers was that common insularity of mind that makes human creatures believe that their color, creed, and politics are best and right and that other human creatures scattered over the world are less fortunately placed than they.
Finally young Tom Verity home on his first long leave having accompanied the family party from Canton Magna and feeling his sense of humour unequal to the continued strain of their sublime insularity, benevolently herded two stately, though shivering, turbanned native gentlemen, who reached Deadham during the early stages of the ceremony no one quite knew whence or when.
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