The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1867-04-25
Pleasing Miscellany.
America i'm Enal;.b rv..

A friend of mine who was about to cross the
Atlantic on book making errand. came to
talk with me before he took his departure con-
eernlne his plans. Like all persons who have
never visited the United States, he was COLI
Vheed he should lind no lack of matter to de-
scribe, and remarked to me that he meant TO
do what never had been done before-to de-
scribe the common life of Americans. For
instance, said he, Il shall give an exact de-
serlpuon Of New England dinner party,
MY answer was that the idea was excellent IL
he had been writing for Frenehman, but that;
as an American dinner party was the fac s5n,tle
OF an English one, description OF 1T would
possess no especial interest tor English readers.
My friend, need hardly say, left me convinced
that my powers OF observation were extremely
limited but before he had been week in
America he discovered that the old country
and the new were very much alike--too much
alike, indeed, Tor the purposes OF the descrip-
tive writer
In truth, all the elaborate aud ingenious the
cries which were propounded during the late
war, for The ediiication OF our newspaper read
eTs, were based upon the Assumption that
Americans We're fundamentally different from
Englishinen; and the reason why all these the
orles prove so lamentably and ludicrously
wrong hay in the fact that the assumption in
question was radically false. If critics could
once make up their Minds to recognize the sim
pie truth that Americans are neither more nor
less than Enghshmen placed under conditions
than our own, the American question, SO to
speak, would present singuiarly little difficulty
OF solution. There is infinitely less difference
Between Chicago and Southampton than there
is between Dover and Calais, though the for
mer are separated by twice as many hundred
miles as there are single miles between the lat
ter. If you want to understand America, you
must try and picture to yourself how the or
binary Englishmen you know would act under
circumstances analogous to those existing
across the Atlantic; and it is highly to Mr.
Dixon's credit that he has appreciated this
simple truth, and acted on it.
There is something absolutely ludiorous, if
il were not matter Of grave import, in the
conventional comic way OF regarding all
American subjects adopted by our literary
men. Mr. Dickens, for instance has travelled
in America, and has seen much OF Anne leans
in Europe. Yet only the other day, in Mugby
junction, he describes a Yankee traveller as
addressing a lady at the Mugby retreshment
counter in terms which he must know as
well as | do that you might travel through the
United States for years and never hear such
speech uttered out of lunatic asylum. A
duller or less humorous bo,ly of men than
American railroad travellersit was never my
misfortune to meet, and yet the public, who
read his works and know nothing of America,
believe that this Yankee, making little al
lowance for comic license, is fair type In
language of bis countTymen.
How can we wonder Americans do not love
us, when, as Hawthorne said with too much
truth, mot an EnglishInan of them all
ever spared America for courtesys sake or
kindness" Happily Mr.. Hepworth Dixon
has the good sense and good taste to write
about America as we do about other nations,
fairly and respectfully. Possibly if he had
written an ill-natured work he might have
had more readers, but he would not have con-
tributed, as he has done, very valuable adj
dtion to our knowledge of our transatlantic
kinsmen.-Edacard Dicey In Macmillan.s
Magazine. -i