The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1914-04-17
THE OBSERVATORY.


LAS Others See Us" by John Gra-
ham Brooks. Published by the Nc
milan Company.
Here's book of delight. The au-
thor during some years, for his own
enjoyment collected and read all the
books he could find written about the
United States by foreigners during the
Nineteenth Century. Judging from
kwhat he says one would judge that
sometimes his feelings were strange
medley Of indignation and amusement,
till at last, getting the right cue, anu
sement predominated; he Classics his
subject in such a way that one gets a
full view of the matter from all sides,
discovers the causes and the whyness
of the adverse criticisms, and shows
how the later Englishmen and French
men frankly own up that their pre-
decesSors' and their own earlier judg
ments were often wide of the mark.
Prominent among such writers is
James Bryce, than whom America
has never had truer friend and more
kindly critic, unless it be Sir George
Otto Trevelyan, in his American Re-
volution, who apparently has a won
derful insight into the real character
of the American in the Colonial
period. And some of the later En-
glish writers and critics fully partake
of the present prevalent spirit of
honesty among writers. AS witness
the following, told the author and not
put into book, Says Mr.. Brooks:
Sir James Card was sent to this
country by the English government
to report on the feeling of our people
after the affair of the (Confederate)
Alabama. He told me that on one Of
our trains he thought he had lost
some of his luggage. He sent for the
conductor, saying to him rather gruf-
lily that his luggage must be looked
up. | assumed said Sir James, that
your conductors were like guards on
an English train. | at once found out
my error! The tall Yankee took out
his glasses and looked down at me
with great deliberation, saying finally,
Who are you? | lost my temper,
saying to him that was a member of
Parliament, commissioned by my
government, etc, etc. To all of which
the tall Yankee listened grimly till !
had finished. He then said, as if ex-
amining a specimen, 'Weil-Ill be,
II you don't look just as | expected
member OF Parliament to look. Good
dayE he returned in a moment and
SAID, 1t you go and ask the baggage
master perhaps he'll look after your
trunk. Sir James added that he had
never known before what degree of
rage he was capable of. After some
days he learned that the conductor
was rather like the captain of
steamer and in no way like a guard on
an English train. | finally say that
had made a fool OF myself and after
that never had the slightest trouble.
This kindly Englishman could. oil
course, have had that same circus
every day of his stay in the United
States, ii he had not dropped that
tone and air. His own misreckoninp
created the situation, lust as thous7
andS OF Americans in Europe create
all sorts OF awkwardness and iIl-feel-
ing because in some moment OF mis- |
they have no key to the |
SITUATION, They are in unwonted |
conditions where they have not learn
ed the human approach.
AS Jov1al nature as Dickens GER
.ainly had not learned it on his first
journey to this country. He had
great weakness for playing the dandy
IN his dress. He was much beieweled |
and we have only to picture him, with |
his button hole boquet, walking about |
IN a town of the Mississippi valley in
lS42. Every ultra effect of his person
was bound to create among those |
rustics all manner of 'impertent
curiositles. The Gods could not have
protected him. When. on his second
trip, he said nothing would induce him
to write another book (about Amer
lca) We see he had learned some
thing"
The first of these books with which
Mr.. Brooks begins is that Of CAPTAIN
Basil Hall. an aristocratic Englishman
who visited our country in 1878 The
OF Americans among whom
he travelled had many still living who
had participated in the war of 1925
And Tor them to simply know that he
was an ex-ofhcer of the English army
would be enough for them to turn
heir rough side to him. And he came
With the idea that was to find plent
u arguments against Democratic in
'titutions; and with all his English
feeling it was not hard
or him to find things to fit his theory !
TO him the fact that with us the old
st son did not inherit all the titles
md property, and that we had no es-
ablished state church were fatal de-
ects for society; and if there was no
ociety modelled after the English
ashton II was evident enough that re-
publican theories and form of govern
nent must all be wrog, or askew
Nell, he went home and published
'ook which everybody in England
we're reading the next few years; that
means the educated classes, mostly
he gentry and nobility; and very
hortly the book got across the At
antic, and long quotations from il
we're published in all the city and
ountry newspapers of America. In
tead OF laughing at his stupidities
nd plumbers as We do now, they were
mostly to our people like rubbing salt
nto raw wound. | can recall CON /
ersations of old people in my boy
lood in the east, the burden OF which
'ften was that some day America
1ould square account" with En-
land for her outrageous treatment ~ /