The English, of any people in the universe, have the least of a national character;unless this very singularity may pass for such.

Nations are what their deeds are. Every Englishman will say: We are the men who navigate the ocean, and have the commerce of the world; to whom the East Indies belong and their riches; who have a parliament, juries, etc.

The stream of World-History has altered its complexion; Romans are dead out, English are come in … To this English People in World-History, there have been … two grand tasks assigned: the grand Industrial task of conquering some half or more of this Terraqueous Planet for the use of man; then secondly, the grand Constitutional task of sharing, in some pacific endurable manner, the fruit of said conquest, and showing all people how it might be done.

It will be found that the modern character of England, as it has come to be since the Middle Ages, may … be most briefly described on the whole by saying that England has been expanding into Greater Britain.