It will not do to have
ascertained the limits of Lent; you must be up in the
Michaelmases and Whitmondays, and the minor saints' days. When
once you have mastered this difficult science, you will realize
what a colossal transaction the disestablishment of the English
Church in England would be, and how it would affect the whole
social fabric.
But, even when you have learned your lesson, it will not be to
you as that knowledge which has been lived, and which has no more
need ever to question itself than the habitual pronunciation of
words. If one has moved in good English society, one has no need
ever to ask how a word is pronounced, far less to go to the
dictionary; one pronounces it as one has always heard it
pronounced. The sense of this gives the American a sort of
despair, like that of a German or French speaking foreigner, who
perceives that he never will be able to speak English. The
American is rather worse off, for he has to subdue an inward
rebellion, and to form even the wish to pronounce some English
words as the English do.
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