ENGLISH AND " AMERICANS." I. I speak with the freedom of history, and I hope without offence - BURKE. THERE is often a restful charm in generalisation. This word stands at times for possibilities of intelligent pleasure to be indulged in without any of the irritation sure to be aroused in well-ordered minds by crackling paradox. A child busies itself by the hour with iron-filings and a magnet; and grown-up babies find a similar but keener pleasure in tempering pet magnets of their own, and then in proudly proving their attracting and co-ordinating power throughout the apparent chaos of the world's facts. But unsuccessful generalisation worries rather than comforts, even though it suggest. So that when an English friend of mind the other day thought to mark for me the present drift of society in the North American United States by saying that in that country, in its supposed aping of English manners, the rest of the civilised world was enjoying the amusing spectacle of an entire nation playing the part of the prodigal son, - of a nation that had sought after strange gods in other lands, and was now returning in repentance to the ancestral mansion and the lordly park, I too, in my turn, ventured to be amused, and made the generalisation of my own that there is everything in the point of view. On the text of this remark I began with him a monologue, contrasting English and American life. Now and then I trod upon my friend's insular toes. But I am bound to say that he was too well-bred, and not quite insular enough, having read much and travelled widely, at the time to wince. However, he promised to answer me at our next meeting. Meanwhile I have looked over the matter anew, and put down some preliminary notes, English and New English, to guide him in his reply. I warn him that every word I utter is either quite meaningless or altogether false apart from its entire context. The vitality of England is shown in her power of successful colonisation; and there is an English superstition that her safety lies, and that it has always lain, in being beloved by Poseidon. To argue this point completely would require a quiet discussion of what kind of safety is worth having for a nation; and on this point there are many notions. But England, at all events, has not been very vague as regards her |