One of the traditional strengths of the English race was our often impressive levels of emotional self-control. What foreigners often described as coldness, we appreciated as restraint. We were a people who valued the ability to control the emotions, to respect the emotional privacy of others, and to know the value of not imposing our troubles and griefs on those who might not wish to share them.
None of this meant that we did not have feelings. It meant that we were, like the Japanese on the other side of the globe, a society in which social order mattered, a society that considered self-restraint important, and a society that used etiquette, politeness and social rules restraining the most demonstrative displays of emotion as a matter of course.
It was part of what it meant to be civilized.
At it’s best, this attitude informed every aspect of what was good in our culture. It helped people bear misfortunes with dignity, it allowed a certain space and a set of rules by which people could overcome despair, and it offered the greatest twin politeness of all, which was avoiding imposing our feelings on others whilst allowing them a little privacy when struggling with negative feelings of their own. There was a sort of considerate turning aside from those in the grip of emotions beyond their control, motivated more by respect than by callousness.
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