Our English gift is originality. Our English keynote is individuality. Let us cling to those precious heirlooms of our Celtic ancestry, and refuse to be Teutonised. Let us discard the lessons of the Potsdam grenadiers. Let us write on the pediment of our educational temple, "No German need apply." Let us disclaim that silly phrase "A mere amateur." Let us return to the simple faith in direct observation that made English science supreme in Europe. And may the Lord gi'e us Britons a guid conceit o' oorsel's! XII. _A SQUALID VILLAGE._ Strange that the wealthiest class in the wealthiest country in the world should so long have been content to inhabit a squalid village! I'm not going to compare London, as Englishmen often do, with Paris or Vienna. I won't do two great towns that gross injustice. And, indeed, comparison here is quite out of the question. You don't compare Oxford with Little Peddlington, or Edinburgh with Thrums, and then ask which is the handsomest. Things must be alike in kind before you can begin to compare them. And London and Paris are not alike in kind. One is a city, and a noble city; the other is a village, and a squalid village. No; I will not even take a humbler standard of comparison, and look at London side by side with Brussels, Antwerp, Munich, Turin. Each of those is a city, and a fine city in its way; but each of them is small. Still, even by their side, London is again but a squalid village. I insist upon that point, because, misled by their ancient familiarity with London, most Englishmen have had their senses and understandings so blunted on this issue, that they really don't know what is meant by a town, or a fine town, when they see one. And don't suppose it's because London is in Britain and these other towns out of it that I make these remarks: for Bath is a fine town, Edinburgh is a fine town, even Glasgow and Newcastle are towns, while London is still a straggling, sprawling, invertebrate, inchoate, overgrown village. I am as free, I hope, from anti-patriotic as from patriotic prejudice. The High Street in Oxford, Milsom Street in Bath, Princes Street in Edinburgh, those are all fine streets that would attract attention even in France or Germany. But the Strand, Piccadilly, Regent Street, Oxford Street--good Lord, deliver us!