The New York herald., 1874-10-14
Foreign Views OF America.

The London Standard has improved the
Brooklyn scandal to give us its ideas about
American society. We are blessed with some
English journals at home whose haziness Of
view and wlldness Of criticism afford constant
amusement. It is, therefore, not as necessary
now as it was in the past to look to London
for foreign opinion of American affairs.
Every now and then the impulse to improve
current events here with rawlings and admo-
nitions about America seems to seize the
English press, and of course we could not
escape the temptation Of the Brooklyn scan
dal The Standard marvels at the prominence
given to the Beecher case in the newspapers
as ''repulsive to English taste" We can
better understand English taste, perhaps,
when we remember that the London news
papers for six months were compelled to sur
render their available space to the Tichborne
case, in itself social revelation that might be
commented upon, hinging, as it did, upon
the story Of cousin seducing a cousin under
promise of marriage. We are reminded of
what Thomas Moore said of us when he came
to America: frank without ripeness, quick
ened without SUM-" that our "fruits were
crude at the outside, rotten at the core" This
sentiment was repeated and indorsed, SO the
Standard tells us, by Mr.. Dickens, who quoted
Moore's lines, ''the only literary. quotation
contained in the whole of the great novelist's
works" ~~.-..e.
Throughout the American character there
runs 'the curious vein of sentimentality'
which contrasts SO oddly with its eager,
practical cleverness." "The American wo-
man in cities is suffused with sentiment; 80
very often is the American man when he is
not occupied with business. The poetry which
is read in America is nearly oil sentimental;
the very war songs are songs of sentiment"
Accordingly this Beecher business is nothing
more than phase of the national character.
We can understand how critics are apt to form
their Judgment Of other nationalities by what
they happen to see. The typical Frenchman,
Oh, seen with English eyes; the typical Eng
lishman, as seen with French eyes; the typi-
cal American, as we find him abroad, not to
speak of our own ideas Of the foreigner, are
amusing caricatures of the true men as they
really are. That o Frenchman drinks
absinthe, eats frogs; that the Englishman
drinks beer and gin, and has no other amuse-
ment but to beat his wife; that the Irishman
is really what Mr.. Williams presents to us
every night-a roaring, skipping creature in
gray coat, with pipe in his hat; this is
no more surprising than that the Frenchman
should form his impression of the Yankee
from the types of our beloved countrymen
who may be seen in the courtyards of
the Grand Hotel loudly wondering why
Bismarck had not abolished the nation.
We cannot altogether marvel that the foreign
mind should fancy that all Americans abroad,
even our foreign Ministers, are agents for a
sewing machine company. This is about as
true and as probable as it is that all French
men eat frogs And we cannot be amazed,
therefore, when we find our foreign critics
calmly contemplating Mr.. Beecher as repre-
sentative OF our Christianity and Mr.. Moulton
as the representative American gentleman.
There is this criticism to be made upon the
tone OF comment, as seen in America and
England. We read the many books that have
been written by Englishmen about America,
and, with the exception OF the work of Sir
Charles Dixie, there is not one that is not un-
fair and unjust Moore came here seventy
years ago, and found us ''arrived at maturit,
in most Of the vices and all OF the pride Of
civilization" and. so far removed from its
higher characteristics as to 'presage sure
decay" His poems were pointed with
coarse and brutal assault on jefferson, such
On assault as no American writer could think
of committing on the Prince Of Wales, even
after the Mordaunt trial. Dickens found forty
Years lateE that Moons estimate vas correct