The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-12-24
AMERICAN LIBERTY
 IS UNKNOWN QUANTITY

London, Dec 23.-(Specia1.) )-Accordins to Filson Young, who has written an article in the English Review, Americans are hypocritical, sentimental, cruel, and they lack the one thing that they think they have-liberty.
 Here are few of his wise remarks in that organ of England's cultured classes:
 '"The traveller from the old world finds that whatever other good things may flourish in America. whatever fine insti- tutions may have reared themselves on her soil, and whatever splendid and mo- ble harvests may be ripening in her wide seed fields. the things that he knows as liberty does not exist there.
 sYou hear a great deal about culture in America, and every American who spends money is laudably anxious to ac- ouire culture also, and he goes out to get it in the same spirit that he set out to get money-that is to get as much of it as possible in as short time as pos slble. He treats it as though it were a product, something that could be bought or acquired rapidly by any one concern trating himself on the enterprise. But or course it eludes him.
 '"rhe difference between so-called Amer ican culture and true refinement or cul- tiyation is the difference between a pine board that has had coat of varnish ap- piled to it and a piece Of old mahogany that has been rubbed and polished through years of use and care until 1t wears an almost indestructible brilliancy.
 .The time of literature in America is not yet. There are many American char acteristics that seem to me likely to pro- duce a real foundation for literature, the chief of these is probably the love of ritual. The love of ritual rests chiefly on the dramatic sense. which is highly devel- oped in the Americans, although their theatre is beneath contempt,
 .'Boston, of which they are so proud is sooiled by distressing and prlggish self-consciousnes that makes even genu- inc scholarship repellant
 "The American is always talking of speed and quickness, but he will waste five minutes in telling you that he hae so many things to do that he has not minute to spare
 ..The ordinary English business man gets to his office between and 10, takes an hour and half for luncheon, and probably leaves before ): and he will have done more business in that day than his American counterpart in New York, who Is at his office at in the morning. rusles out and swallows quick lunch in 20 minutes and perhaps does not leave his
 
 amount of talk were any criterion of the amount of business done. or of quick ness in doing it, then, indeed, the Amer ican would have the palm. l cannot find that quickness is an American charac- teristic What is mistaken for quickness is a kind of nervous fidgets. It was Amer lea that invented that triumph in the achievement of two opposite things at once-the rocking chair. So restless and nervous is the American that even when he is resting he wants to be moving.
 "American women are notoriously among the most assiduous and successful in the pursuit of those feminine arts by which the person is rendered alluring and provocative. This innate vein of hard ness can be traced in the typical Ameri- can countenance. even in the women. The face of typical beautiful America. woman (and American women at their best are very lovely) Is often marred by a line of hardness in the mouth, which may be assumed to indicate some won derful virtue of character. but indeed does