There is a curious conflict going on at the present time in English
life between light-mindedness and solemnity; there is a great
appetite for living, a love of amusement, a tendency to subordinate
the interests of the future to the pleasure of the moment, and to
think that the one serious evil is boredom; that is a healthy
manifestation enough in its way, because it stands for interest and
delight in life; but there is another strain in our nature, that of
a rather heavy pietism, inherited from our Puritan ancestors. It
must not be forgotten that the Puritan got a good deal of interest
out of his sense of sin; as the old combative elements of feudal
ages disappeared, the soldierly blood retained the fighting
instinct, and turned it into moral regions. The sense of adventure
is impelled to satiate itself, and the Pilgrim's Progress is a
clear enough proof that the old combativeness was all there,
revelling in danger, and exulting in the thought that the human
being was in the midst of foes. Sin represented itself to the
Puritan as a thing out of which he could get a good deal of fun;
not the fun of yielding to it, but the fun of whipping out his
sword and getting in some shrewd blows.
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