, 1879-09-11
English VS.. American.

are TO the c0nUlhehVdl counO'ieH' eh'y arc
the only foreigners who come among us
~ visitors and tourists, more or less
mart from business purposes. We say
sforciqners" with special intention. In
s,;te of all the continental rubbish OF
n,blia dinners about our community Of
hlood and language, there are hardly two
c;vili2ed nations farther apart in all
essentials than the United States and
tLe United Kingdom; no two nations
are more ready to take ill-natured note
.f one another's faults and follies, and to
observe each other through the yellow
instead of the rose-colored lens of the
snectacles. Only with us, in individual
cases, passion for all things American
il bv no means uncommon; while to find
one Of our cousins-german (very particu-
lary German, with a strong dash of
Irish mixture) who returns the compli-
ment is so rare as to be practically a
thing unknown.
Perhaps what seemed to us entirely
from our point OF view) the most char
.cteristic American illusion is their i'm
movable belief that every Englishman,
without exception, is an insular, conserva-
tive creature, who can never escape from
A ixed groove of thoughts and ways, but
who despises all thoughts and ways that
are not his own; while the American is an
omen minncd cosmopolitan. Acting upon
this principle, scarcely any American
scruples to find fault with everything
he or she finds here in such way as to
msh candor between the bounds of po-
iiteness, and to set down the very mild
est attempt at defense or apology as the
stfcnecked stubbornness of man who
lives on an island On the other hand,
fan Englishman presumes to find fault
with anything American, from morals to
manners, from marriage and murder to
close stoves, that is to set down to the
same stif.necked insularity at least, if
not to a purpose of intentional insult;
40 that in an American is cosmopolitan
Oaudor is held to be boorish stupidity in
an Englishman. Sauce for the goose is
by no means sauce for the gander. 1t
il the commonest thing to hear Ameri-
cans dilate upon the discomforts, incon-
veniences, stupidities and so forth, for
the sake of which they have foregone
the civilization Of New York and Paris.
They expect us to acquiesce without
question. But woe to the Englishman,
whether in his country or their own,
who ventures to suggest, however,
tmidly and politely, that a So
ourn in London hotel, broken by u
duty pilgrimage to Stratford.upon-Avon,
in company with predetermination to
iraw unfavorable comparisons, is not the
way to know us through and through.
He viii be set down as o blockhead and
a boor--in short, as an EngIishman.
But worse will be the woe to him if he
let's drop hint that he actually prefers
liS own native country to any other, or
that any sort of aristocracy is better
than mere plutocracy, or that there is no
tyranny like that of a majority, or that
the English language is not extinct
among US, or that American humor is a
little hackneyed, or that there is a
slightly provincial air Of too wholly
MUTUAL admirat,o on about the culture Of
BoSton--in these and n thousand other
cases he will most assuredly raise
tempest. For, odd as it may seem,
while we in Cur hearts care exceedingly
little, if anything at all, what Americans
think about us, those intensely clever
and cultivated people care a great deal
about what is thought about them by
our own stupid selves. If it be true
tAat we have the masculine vanity of
%lteontent, in spite of our absurd
NATIONAL habit of seif-dcpreciatiOn, they
certainly display the feminine vanity of
Oeihg discontented il they are not openly
admired.
IN effect, despite mutual batteries in
Y hooks and speeches, the typical Ameri-
can looks upon the typical Englishman
AZ @larrow-mindcd, prejudiced, oredulous
Mu concelted; the typical Englishman
retqms the compliment by thinking the
Ymcal American conceited, credulous,
g'emdiced and narrow-minded The
oaance is hard to strike; it is possible
mat both may be q little right and both
an'tIo wrong. But one thing is certain.
. . certain quality, no doubt learned in
EnFll, makes the typical American