Grace under pressure.

If there is one poem that sums up the British cult of stoicism, the stiffupper- lip, it is "If" by Rudyard Kipling. Around the world as in Britain, political and moral leaders, commentators and ordinary citizens are urging their fellow citizens to respond with dispassionate resilience, often by invoking it as a supposedly distinctive national trait. Britain is most indebted to the Victorians for its love affair with the Stoic ideal. Though Britain remains, by European comparison, at a relatively early stage of the virus's spread, the Telegraph on 8 March published a column claiming: "Coronavirus could be the start of a historic comeback for British stoicism.". [Extracted from the article]

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