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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/27250-8.txt b/27250-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..112d42b --- /dev/null +++ b/27250-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8318 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of What I Saw in America, by G. K. Chesterton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: What I Saw in America + +Author: G. K. Chesterton + +Release Date: November 13, 2008 [EBook #27250] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT I SAW IN AMERICA *** + + + + +Produced by Irma Špehar, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + +WHAT I SAW IN AMERICA + +BY + +G. K. CHESTERTON + +HODDER AND STOUGHTON + +LIMITED LONDON + +MCMXXII + +Printed in Great Britain by T. and A. CONSTABLE LTD. at the Edinburgh +University Press + + + + +_Contents_ + + PAGE + +WHAT IS AMERICA? 1 + +A MEDITATION IN A NEW YORK HOTEL 19 + +A MEDITATION IN BROADWAY 33 + +IRISH AND OTHER INTERVIEWERS 47 + +SOME AMERICAN CITIES 63 + +IN THE AMERICAN COUNTRY 80 + +THE AMERICAN BUSINESS MAN 97 + +PRESIDENTS AND PROBLEMS 121 + +PROHIBITION IN FACT AND FANCY 145 + +FADS AND PUBLIC OPINION 163 + +THE EXTRAORDINARY AMERICAN 182 + +THE REPUBLICAN IN THE RUINS 195 + +IS THE ATLANTIC NARROWING? 208 + +LINCOLN AND LOST CAUSES 222 + +WELLS AND THE WORLD STATE 235 + +A NEW MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT 253 + +THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA 267 + +THE SPIRIT OF ENGLAND 281 + +THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY 295 + + + + +_What is America?_ + + +I have never managed to lose my old conviction that travel narrows the +mind. At least a man must make a double effort of moral humility and +imaginative energy to prevent it from narrowing his mind. Indeed there +is something touching and even tragic about the thought of the +thoughtless tourist, who might have stayed at home loving Laplanders, +embracing Chinamen, and clasping Patagonians to his heart in Hampstead +or Surbiton, but for his blind and suicidal impulse to go and see what +they looked like. This is not meant for nonsense; still less is it meant +for the silliest sort of nonsense, which is cynicism. The human bond +that he feels at home is not an illusion. On the contrary, it is rather +an inner reality. Man is inside all men. In a real sense any man may be +inside any men. But to travel is to leave the inside and draw +dangerously near the outside. So long as he thought of men in the +abstract, like naked toiling figures in some classic frieze, merely as +those who labour and love their children and die, he was thinking the +fundamental truth about them. By going to look at their unfamiliar +manners and customs he is inviting them to disguise themselves in +fantastic masks and costumes. Many modern internationalists talk as if +men of different nationalities had only to meet and mix and understand +each other. In reality that is the moment of supreme danger--the moment +when they meet. We might shiver, as at the old euphemism by which a +meeting meant a duel. + +Travel ought to combine amusement with instruction; but most travellers +are so much amused that they refuse to be instructed. I do not blame +them for being amused; it is perfectly natural to be amused at a +Dutchman for being Dutch or a Chinaman for being Chinese. Where they are +wrong is that they take their own amusement seriously. They base on it +their serious ideas of international instruction. It was said that the +Englishman takes his pleasures sadly; and the pleasure of despising +foreigners is one which he takes most sadly of all. He comes to scoff +and does not remain to pray, but rather to excommunicate. Hence in +international relations there is far too little laughing, and far too +much sneering. But I believe that there is a better way which largely +consists of laughter; a form of friendship between nations which is +actually founded on differences. To hint at some such better way is the +only excuse of this book. + +Let me begin my American impressions with two impressions I had before I +went to America. One was an incident and the other an idea; and when +taken together they illustrate the attitude I mean. The first principle +is that nobody should be ashamed of thinking a thing funny because it is +foreign; the second is that he should be ashamed of thinking it wrong +because it is funny. The reaction of his senses and superficial habits +of mind against something new, and to him abnormal, is a perfectly +healthy reaction. But the mind which imagines that mere unfamiliarity +can possibly prove anything about inferiority is a very inadequate mind. +It is inadequate even in criticising things that may really be inferior +to the things involved here. It is far better to laugh at a negro for +having a black face than to sneer at him for having a sloping skull. It +is proportionally even more preferable to laugh rather than judge in +dealing with highly civilised peoples. Therefore I put at the beginning +two working examples of what I felt about America before I saw it; the +sort of thing that a man has a right to enjoy as a joke, and the sort of +thing he has a duty to understand and respect, because it is the +explanation of the joke. + +When I went to the American consulate to regularise my passports, I was +capable of expecting the American consulate to be American. Embassies +and consulates are by tradition like islands of the soil for which they +stand; and I have often found the tradition corresponding to a truth. I +have seen the unmistakable French official living on omelettes and a +little wine and serving his sacred abstractions under the last +palm-trees fringing a desert. In the heat and noise of quarrelling Turks +and Egyptians, I have come suddenly, as with the cool shock of his own +shower-bath, on the listless amiability of the English gentleman. The +officials I interviewed were very American, especially in being very +polite; for whatever may have been the mood or meaning of Martin +Chuzzlewit, I have always found Americans by far the politest people in +the world. They put in my hands a form to be filled up, to all +appearance like other forms I had filled up in other passport offices. +But in reality it was very different from any form I had ever filled up +in my life. At least it was a little like a freer form of the game +called 'Confessions' which my friends and I invented in our youth; an +examination paper containing questions like, 'If you saw a rhinoceros +in the front garden, what would you do?' One of my friends, I remember, +wrote, 'Take the pledge.' But that is another story, and might bring Mr. +Pussyfoot Johnson on the scene before his time. + +One of the questions on the paper was, 'Are you an anarchist?' To which +a detached philosopher would naturally feel inclined to answer, 'What +the devil has that to do with you? Are you an atheist?' along with some +playful efforts to cross-examine the official about what constitutes an +[Greek: archę]. Then there was the question, 'Are you in favour of +subverting the government of the United States by force?' Against this I +should write, 'I prefer to answer that question at the end of my tour +and not the beginning.' The inquisitor, in his more than morbid +curiosity, had then written down, 'Are you a polygamist?' The answer to +this is, 'No such luck' or 'Not such a fool,' according to our +experience of the other sex. But perhaps a better answer would be that +given to W. T. Stead when he circulated the rhetorical question, 'Shall +I slay my brother Boer?'--the answer that ran, 'Never interfere in +family matters.' But among many things that amused me almost to the +point of treating the form thus disrespectfully, the most amusing was +the thought of the ruthless outlaw who should feel compelled to treat it +respectfully. I like to think of the foreign desperado, seeking to slip +into America with official papers under official protection, and sitting +down to write with a beautiful gravity, 'I am an anarchist. I hate you +all and wish to destroy you.' Or, 'I intend to subvert by force the +government of the United States as soon as possible, sticking the long +sheath-knife in my left trouser-pocket into Mr. Harding at the earliest +opportunity.' Or again, 'Yes, I am a polygamist all right, and my +forty-seven wives are accompanying me on the voyage disguised as +secretaries.' There seems to be a certain simplicity of mind about these +answers; and it is reassuring to know that anarchists and polygamists +are so pure and good that the police have only to ask them questions and +they are certain to tell no lies. + +Now that is a model of the sort of foreign practice, founded on foreign +problems, at which a man's first impulse is naturally to laugh. Nor have +I any intention of apologising for my laughter. A man is perfectly +entitled to laugh at a thing because he happens to find it +incomprehensible. What he has no right to do is to laugh at it as +incomprehensible, and then criticise it as if he comprehended it. The +very fact of its unfamiliarity and mystery ought to set him thinking +about the deeper causes that make people so different from himself, and +that without merely assuming that they must be inferior to himself. + +Superficially this is rather a queer business. It would be easy enough +to suggest that in this America has introduced a quite abnormal spirit +of inquisition; an interference with liberty unknown among all the +ancient despotisms and aristocracies. About that there will be something +to be said later; but superficially it is true that this degree of +officialism is comparatively unique. In a journey which I took only the +year before I had occasion to have my papers passed by governments which +many worthy people in the West would vaguely identify with corsairs and +assassins; I have stood on the other side of Jordan, in the land ruled +by a rude Arab chief, where the police looked so like brigands that one +wondered what the brigands looked like. But they did not ask me whether +I had come to subvert the power of the Shereef; and they did not exhibit +the faintest curiosity about my personal views on the ethical basis of +civil authority. These ministers of ancient Moslem despotism did not +care about whether I was an anarchist; and naturally would not have +minded if I had been a polygamist. The Arab chief was probably a +polygamist himself. These slaves of Asiatic autocracy were content, in +the old liberal fashion, to judge me by my actions; they did not inquire +into my thoughts. They held their power as limited to the limitation of +practice; they did not forbid me to hold a theory. It would be easy to +argue here that Western democracy persecutes where even Eastern +despotism tolerates or emancipates. It would be easy to develop the +fancy that, as compared with the sultans of Turkey or Egypt, the +American Constitution is a thing like the Spanish Inquisition. + +Only the traveller who stops at that point is totally wrong; and the +traveller only too often does stop at that point. He has found something +to make him laugh, and he will not suffer it to make him think. And the +remedy is not to unsay what he has said, not even, so to speak, to +unlaugh what he has laughed, not to deny that there is something unique +and curious about this American inquisition into our abstract opinions, +but rather to continue the train of thought, and follow the admirable +advice of Mr. H. G. Wells, who said, 'It is not much good thinking of a +thing unless you think it out.' It is not to deny that American +officialism is rather peculiar on this point, but to inquire what it +really is which makes America peculiar, or which is peculiar to America. +In short, it is to get some ultimate idea of what America _is_; and the +answer to that question will reveal something much deeper and grander +and more worthy of our intelligent interest. + +It may have seemed something less than a compliment to compare the +American Constitution to the Spanish Inquisition. But oddly enough, it +does involve a truth; and still more oddly perhaps, it does involve a +compliment. The American Constitution does resemble the Spanish +Inquisition in this: that it is founded on a creed. America is the only +nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth +with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of +Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also +theoretical politics and also great literature. It enunciates that all +men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give +them that justice, and that their authority is for that reason just. It +certainly does condemn anarchism, and it does also by inference condemn +atheism, since it clearly names the Creator as the ultimate authority +from whom these equal rights are derived. Nobody expects a modern +political system to proceed logically in the application of such dogmas, +and in the matter of God and Government it is naturally God whose claim +is taken more lightly. The point is that there is a creed, if not about +divine, at least about human things. + +Now a creed is at once the broadest and the narrowest thing in the +world. In its nature it is as broad as its scheme for a brotherhood of +all men. In its nature it is limited by its definition of the nature of +all men. This was true of the Christian Church, which was truly said to +exclude neither Jew nor Greek, but which did definitely substitute +something else for Jewish religion or Greek philosophy. It was truly +said to be a net drawing in of all kinds; but a net of a certain +pattern, the pattern of Peter the Fisherman. And this is true even of +the most disastrous distortions or degradations of that creed; and true +among others of the Spanish Inquisition. It may have been narrow +touching theology, it could not confess to being narrow about +nationality or ethnology. The Spanish Inquisition might be admittedly +Inquisitorial; but the Spanish Inquisition could not be merely Spanish. +Such a Spaniard, even when he was narrower than his own creed, had to be +broader than his own empire. He might burn a philosopher because he was +heterodox; but he must accept a barbarian because he was orthodox. And +we see, even in modern times, that the same Church which is blamed for +making sages heretics is also blamed for making savages priests. Now in +a much vaguer and more evolutionary fashion, there is something of the +same idea at the back of the great American experiment; the experiment +of a democracy of diverse races which has been compared to a +melting-pot. But even that metaphor implies that the pot itself is of a +certain shape and a certain substance; a pretty solid substance. The +melting-pot must not melt. The original shape was traced on the lines of +Jeffersonian democracy; and it will remain in that shape until it +becomes shapeless. America invites all men to become citizens; but it +implies the dogma that there is such a thing as citizenship. Only, so +far as its primary ideal is concerned, its exclusiveness is religious +because it is not racial. The missionary can condemn a cannibal, +precisely because he cannot condemn a Sandwich Islander. And in +something of the same spirit the American may exclude a polygamist, +precisely because he cannot exclude a Turk. + +Now for America this is no idle theory. It may have been theoretical, +though it was thoroughly sincere, when that great Virginian gentleman +declared it in surroundings that still had something of the character of +an English countryside. It is not merely theoretical now. There is +nothing to prevent America being literally invaded by Turks, as she is +invaded by Jews or Bulgars. In the most exquisitely inconsequent of the +_Bab Ballads_, we are told concerning Pasha Bailey Ben:-- + + + One morning knocked at half-past eight + A tall Red Indian at his gate. + In Turkey, as you 'r' p'raps aware, + Red Indians are extremely rare. + + +But the converse need by no means be true. There is nothing in the +nature of things to prevent an emigration of Turks increasing and +multiplying on the plains where the Red Indians wandered; there is +nothing to necessitate the Turks being extremely rare. The Red Indians, +alas, are likely to be rarer. And as I much prefer Red Indians to Turks, +not to mention Jews, I speak without prejudice; but the point here is +that America, partly by original theory and partly by historical +accident, does lie open to racial admixtures which most countries would +think incongruous or comic. That is why it is only fair to read any +American definitions or rules in a certain light, and relatively to a +rather unique position. It is not fair to compare the position of those +who may meet Turks in the back street with that of those who have never +met Turks except in the _Bab Ballads_. It is not fair simply to compare +America with England in its regulations about the Turk. In short, it is +not fair to do what almost every Englishman probably does; to look at +the American international examination paper, and laugh and be satisfied +with saying, 'We don't have any of that nonsense in England.' + +We do not have any of that nonsense in England because we have never +attempted to have any of that philosophy in England. And, above all, +because we have the enormous advantage of feeling it natural to be +national, because there is nothing else to be. England in these days is +not well governed; England is not well educated; England suffers from +wealth and poverty that are not well distributed. But England is +English; _esto perpetua_. England is English as France is French or +Ireland Irish; the great mass of men taking certain national traditions +for granted. Now this gives us a totally different and a very much +easier task. We have not got an inquisition, because we have not got a +creed; but it is arguable that we do not need a creed, because we have +got a character. In any of the old nations the national unity is +preserved by the national type. Because we have a type we do not need to +have a test. + +Take that innocent question, 'Are you an anarchist?' which is +intrinsically quite as impudent as 'Are you an optimist?' or 'Are you a +philanthropist?' I am not discussing here whether these things are +right, but whether most of us are in a position to know them rightly. +Now it is quite true that most Englishmen do not find it necessary to go +about all day asking each other whether they are anarchists. It is quite +true that the phrase occurs on no British forms that I have seen. But +this is not only because most of the Englishmen are not anarchists. It +is even more because even the anarchists are Englishmen. For instance, +it would be easy to make fun of the American formula by noting that the +cap would fit all sorts of bald academic heads. It might well be +maintained that Herbert Spencer was an anarchist. It is practically +certain that Auberon Herbert was an anarchist. But Herbert Spencer was +an extraordinarily typical Englishman of the Nonconformist middle class. +And Auberon Herbert was an extraordinarily typical English aristocrat of +the old and genuine aristocracy. Every one knew in his heart that the +squire would not throw a bomb at the Queen, and the Nonconformist would +not throw a bomb at anybody. Every one knew that there was something +subconscious in a man like Auberon Herbert, which would have come out +only in throwing bombs at the enemies of England; as it did come out in +his son and namesake, the generous and unforgotten, who fell flinging +bombs from the sky far beyond the German line. Every one knows that +normally, in the last resort, the English gentleman is patriotic. Every +one knows that the English Nonconformist is national even when he denies +that he is patriotic. Nothing is more notable indeed than the fact that +nobody is more stamped with the mark of his own nation than the man who +says that there ought to be no nations. Somebody called Cobden the +International Man; but no man could be more English than Cobden. +Everybody recognises Tolstoy as the iconoclast of all patriotism; but +nobody could be more Russian than Tolstoy. In the old countries where +there are these national types, the types may be allowed to hold any +theories. Even if they hold certain theories, they are unlikely to do +certain things. So the conscientious objector, in the English sense, +may be and is one of the peculiar by-products of England. But the +conscientious objector will probably have a conscientious objection to +throwing bombs. + +Now I am very far from intending to imply that these American tests are +good tests, or that there is no danger of tyranny becoming the +temptation of America. I shall have something to say later on about that +temptation or tendency. Nor do I say that they apply consistently this +conception of a nation with the soul of a church, protected by religious +and not racial selection. If they did apply that principle consistently, +they would have to exclude pessimists and rich cynics who deny the +democratic ideal; an excellent thing but a rather improbable one. What I +say is that when we realise that this principle exists at all, we see +the whole position in a totally different perspective. We say that the +Americans are doing something heroic, or doing something insane, or +doing it in an unworkable or unworthy fashion, instead of simply +wondering what the devil they are doing. + +When we realise the democratic design of such a cosmopolitan +commonwealth, and compare it with our insular reliance or instincts, we +see at once why such a thing has to be not only democratic but dogmatic. +We see why in some points it tends to be inquisitive or intolerant. Any +one can see the practical point by merely transferring into private life +a problem like that of the two academic anarchists, who might by a +coincidence be called the two Herberts. Suppose a man said, 'Buffle, my +old Oxford tutor, wants to meet you; I wish you'd ask him down for a day +or two. He has the oddest opinions, but he's very stimulating.' It would +not occur to us that the oddity of the Oxford don's opinions would lead +him to blow up the house; because the Oxford don is an English type. +Suppose somebody said, 'Do let me bring old Colonel Robinson down for +the week-end; he's a bit of a crank but quite interesting.' We should +not anticipate the colonel running amuck with a carving-knife and +offering up human sacrifice in the garden; for these are not among the +daily habits of an old English colonel; and because we know his habits, +we do not care about his opinions. But suppose somebody offered to bring +a person from the interior of Kamskatka to stay with us for a week or +two, and added that his religion was a very extraordinary religion, we +should feel a little more inquisitive about what kind of religion it +was. If somebody wished to add a Hairy Ainu to the family party at +Christmas, explaining that his point of view was so individual and +interesting, we should want to know a little more about it and him. We +should be tempted to draw up as fantastic an examination paper as that +presented to the emigrant going to America. We should ask what a Hairy +Ainu was, and how hairy he was, and above all what sort of Ainu he was. +Would etiquette require us to ask him to bring his wife? And if we did +ask him to bring his wife, how many wives would he bring? In short, as +in the American formula, is he a polygamist? Merely as a point of +housekeeping and accommodation the question is not irrelevant. Is the +Hairy Ainu content with hair, or does he wear any clothes? If the police +insist on his wearing clothes, will he recognise the authority of the +police? In short, as in the American formula, is he an anarchist? + +Of course this generalisation about America, like other historical +things, is subject to all sorts of cross divisions and exceptions, to +be considered in their place. The negroes are a special problem, because +of what white men in the past did to them. The Japanese are a special +problem, because of what men fear that they in the future may do to +white men. The Jews are a special problem, because of what they and the +Gentiles, in the past, present, and future, seem to have the habit of +doing to each other. But the point is not that nothing exists in America +except this idea; it is that nothing like this idea exists anywhere +except in America. This idea is not internationalism; on the contrary it +is decidedly nationalism. The Americans are very patriotic, and wish to +make their new citizens patriotic Americans. But it is the idea of +making a new nation literally out of any old nation that comes along. In +a word, what is unique is not America but what is called +Americanisation. We understand nothing till we understand the amazing +ambition to Americanise the Kamskatkan and the Hairy Ainu. We are not +trying to Anglicise thousands of French cooks or Italian organ-grinders. +France is not trying to Gallicise thousands of English trippers or +German prisoners of war. America is the one place in the world where +this process, healthy or unhealthy, possible or impossible, is going on. +And the process, as I have pointed out, is _not_ internationalisation. +It would be truer to say it is the nationalisation of the +internationalised. It is making a home out of vagabonds and a nation out +of exiles. This is what at once illuminates and softens the moral +regulations which we may really think faddist or fanatical. They are +abnormal; but in one sense this experiment of a home for the homeless is +abnormal. In short, it has long been recognised that America was an +asylum. It is only since Prohibition that it has looked a little like a +lunatic asylum. + +It was before sailing for America, as I have said, that I stood with the +official paper in my hand and these thoughts in my head. It was while I +stood on English soil that I passed through the two stages of smiling +and then sympathising; of realising that my momentary amusement, at +being asked if I were not an Anarchist, was partly due to the fact that +I was not an American. And in truth I think there are some things a man +ought to know about America before he sees it. What we know of a country +beforehand may not affect what we see that it is; but it will vitally +affect what we appreciate it for being, because it will vitally affect +what we expect it to be. I can honestly say that I had never expected +America to be what nine-tenths of the newspaper critics invariably +assume it to be. I never thought it was a sort of Anglo-Saxon colony, +knowing that it was more and more thronged with crowds of very different +colonists. During the war I felt that the very worst propaganda for the +Allies was the propaganda for the Anglo-Saxons. I tried to point out +that in one way America is nearer to Europe than England is. If she is +not nearer to Bulgaria, she is nearer to Bulgars; if she is not nearer +to Bohemia, she is nearer to Bohemians. In my New York hotel the head +waiter in the dining-room was a Bohemian; the head waiter in the +grill-room was a Bulgar. Americans have nationalities at the end of the +street which for us are at the ends of the earth. I did my best to +persuade my countrymen not to appeal to the American as if he were a +rather dowdy Englishman, who had been rusticating in the provinces and +had not heard the latest news about the town. I shall record later some +of those arresting realities which the traveller does not expect; and +which, in some cases I fear, he actually does not see because he does +not expect. I shall try to do justice to the psychology of what Mr. +Belloc has called 'Eye-Openers in Travel.' But there are some things +about America that a man ought to see even with his eyes shut. One is +that a state that came into existence solely through its repudiation and +abhorrence of the British Crown is not likely to be a respectful copy of +the British Constitution. Another is that the chief mark of the +Declaration of Independence is something that is not only absent from +the British Constitution, but something which all our constitutionalists +have invariably thanked God, with the jolliest boasting and bragging, +that they had kept out of the British Constitution. It is the thing +called abstraction or academic logic. It is the thing which such jolly +people call theory; and which those who can practise it call thought. +And the theory or thought is the very last to which English people are +accustomed, either by their social structure or their traditional +teaching. It is the theory of equality. It is the pure classic +conception that no man must aspire to be anything more than a citizen, +and that no man should endure to be anything less. It is by no means +especially intelligible to an Englishman, who tends at his best to the +virtues of the gentleman and at his worst to the vices of the snob. The +idealism of England, or if you will the romance of England, has not been +primarily the romance of the citizen. But the idealism of America, we +may safely say, still revolves entirely round the citizen and his +romance. The realities are quite another matter, and we shall consider +in its place the question of whether the ideal will be able to shape +the realities or will merely be beaten shapeless by them. The ideal is +besieged by inequalities of the most towering and insane description in +the industrial and economic field. It may be devoured by modern +capitalism, perhaps the worst inequality that ever existed among men. Of +all that we shall speak later. But citizenship is still the American +ideal; there is an army of actualities opposed to that ideal; but there +is no ideal opposed to that ideal. American plutocracy has never got +itself respected like English aristocracy. Citizenship is the American +ideal; and it has never been the English ideal. But it is surely an +ideal that may stir some imaginative generosity and respect in an +Englishman, if he will condescend to be also a man. In this vision of +moulding many peoples into the visible image of the citizen, he may see +a spiritual adventure which he can admire from the outside, at least as +much as he admires the valour of the Moslems and much more than he +admires the virtues of the Middle Ages. He need not set himself to +develop equality, but he need not set himself to misunderstand it. He +may at least understand what Jefferson and Lincoln meant, and he may +possibly find some assistance in this task by reading what they said. He +may realise that equality is not some crude fairy tale about all men +being equally tall or equally tricky; which we not only cannot believe +but cannot believe in anybody believing. It is an absolute of morals by +which all men have a value invariable and indestructible and a dignity +as intangible as death. He may at least be a philosopher and see that +equality is an idea; and not merely one of these soft-headed sceptics +who, having risen by low tricks to high places, drink bad champagne in +tawdry hotel lounges, and tell each other twenty times over, with +unwearied iteration, that equality is an illusion. + +In truth it is inequality that is the illusion. The extreme +disproportion between men, that we seem to see in life, is a thing of +changing lights and lengthening shadows, a twilight full of fancies and +distortions. We find a man famous and cannot live long enough to find +him forgotten; we see a race dominant and cannot linger to see it decay. +It is the experience of men that always returns to the equality of men; +it is the average that ultimately justifies the average man. It is when +men have seen and suffered much and come at the end of more elaborate +experiments, that they see men as men under an equal light of death and +daily laughter; and none the less mysterious for being many. Nor is it +in vain that these Western democrats have sought the blazonry of their +flag in that great multitude of immortal lights that endure behind the +fires we see, and gathered them into the corner of Old Glory whose +ground is like the glittering night. For veritably, in the spirit as +well as in the symbol, suns and moons and meteors pass and fill our +skies with a fleeting and almost theatrical conflagration; and wherever +the old shadow stoops upon the earth, the stars return. + + + + +_A Meditation in a New York Hotel_ + + +All this must begin with an apology and not an apologia. When I went +wandering about the States disguised as a lecturer, I was well aware +that I was not sufficiently well disguised to be a spy. I was even in +the worst possible position to be a sight-seer. A lecturer to American +audiences can hardly be in the holiday mood of a sight-seer. It is +rather the audience that is sight-seeing; even if it is seeing a rather +melancholy sight. Some say that people come to see the lecturer and not +to hear him; in which case it seems rather a pity that he should disturb +and distress their minds with a lecture. He might merely display himself +on a stand or platform for a stipulated sum; or be exhibited like a +monster in a menagerie. The circus elephant is not expected to make a +speech. But it is equally true that the circus elephant is not allowed +to write a book. His impressions of travel would be somewhat sketchy and +perhaps a little over-specialised. In merely travelling from circus to +circus he would, so to speak, move in rather narrow circles. Jumbo the +great elephant (with whom I am hardly so ambitious as to compare +myself), before he eventually went to the Barnum show, passed a +considerable and I trust happy part of his life in Regent's Park. But if +he had written a book on England, founded on his impressions of the Zoo, +it might have been a little disproportionate and even misleading in its +version of the flora and fauna of that country. He might imagine that +lions and leopards were commoner than they are in our hedgerows and +country lanes, or that the head and neck of a giraffe was as native to +our landscapes as a village spire. And that is why I apologise in +anticipation for a probable lack of proportion in this work. Like the +elephant, I may have seen too much of a special enclosure where a +special sort of lions are gathered together. I may exaggerate the +territorial, as distinct from the vertical space occupied by the +spiritual giraffe; for the giraffe may surely be regarded as an example +of Uplift, and is even, in a manner of speaking, a high-brow. Above all, +I shall probably make generalisations that are much too general; and are +insufficient through being exaggerative. To this sort of doubt all my +impressions are subject; and among them the negative generalisation with +which I shall begin this rambling meditation on American hotels. + +In all my American wanderings I never saw such a thing as an inn. They +may exist; but they do not arrest the traveller upon every road as they +do in England and in Europe. The saloons no longer existed when I was +there, owing to the recent reform which restricted intoxicants to the +wealthier classes. But we feel that the saloons have been there; if one +may so express it, their absence is still present. They remain in the +structure of the street and the idiom of the language. But the saloons +were not inns. If they had been inns, it would have been far harder even +for the power of modern plutocracy to root them out. There will be a +very different chase when the White Hart is hunted to the forests or +when the Red Lion turns to bay. But people could not feel about the +American saloon as they will feel about the English inns. They could not +feel that the Prohibitionist, that vulgar chucker-out, was chucking +Chaucer out of the Tabard and Shakespeare out of the Mermaid. In justice +to the American Prohibitionists it must be realised that they were not +doing quite such desecration; and that many of them felt the saloon a +specially poisonous sort of place. They did feel that drinking-places +were used only as drug-shops. So they have effected the great +reconstruction, by which it will be necessary to use only drug-shops as +drinking-places. But I am not dealing here with the problem of +Prohibition except in so far as it is involved in the statement that the +saloons were in no sense inns. Secondly, of course, there are the +hotels. There are indeed. There are hotels toppling to the stars, hotels +covering the acreage of villages, hotels in multitudinous number like a +mob of Babylonian or Assyrian monuments; but the hotels also are not +inns. + +Broadly speaking, there is only one hotel in America. The pattern of it, +which is a very rational pattern, is repeated in cities as remote from +each other as the capitals of European empires. You may find that hotel +rising among the red blooms of the warm spring woods of Nebraska, or +whitened with Canadian snows near the eternal noise of Niagara. And +before touching on this solid and simple pattern itself, I may remark +that the same system of symmetry runs through all the details of the +interior. As one hotel is like another hotel, so one hotel floor is like +another hotel floor. If the passage outside your bedroom door, or +hallway as it is called, contains, let us say, a small table with a +green vase and a stuffed flamingo, or some trifle of the sort, you may +be perfectly certain that there is exactly the same table, vase, and +flamingo on every one of the thirty-two landings of that towering +habitation. This is where it differs most perhaps from the crooked +landings and unexpected levels of the old English inns, even when they +call themselves hotels. To me there was something weird, like a magic +multiplication, in the exquisite sameness of these suites. It seemed to +suggest the still atmosphere of some eerie psychological story. I once +myself entertained the notion of a story, in which a man was to be +prevented from entering his house (the scene of some crime or calamity) +by people who painted and furnished the next house to look exactly like +it; the assimilation going to the most fantastic lengths, such as +altering the numbering of houses in the street. I came to America and +found an hotel fitted and upholstered throughout for the enactment of my +phantasmal fraud. I offer the skeleton of my story with all humility to +some of the admirable lady writers of detective stories in America, to +Miss Carolyn Wells, or Miss Mary Roberts Rhinehart, or Mrs. A. K. Green +of the unforgotten Leavenworth Case. Surely it might be possible for the +unsophisticated Nimrod K. Moose, of Yellow Dog Flat, to come to New York +and be entangled somehow in this net of repetitions or recurrences. +Surely something tells me that his beautiful daughter, the Rose of Red +Murder Gulch, might seek for him in vain amid the apparently +unmistakable surroundings of the thirty-second floor, while he was being +quietly butchered by the floor-clerk on the thirty-third floor, an agent +of the Green Claw (that formidable organisation); and all because the +two floors looked exactly alike to the virginal Western eye. The +original point of my own story was that the man to be entrapped walked +into his own house after all, in spite of it being differently painted +and numbered, simply because he was absent-minded and used to taking a +certain number of mechanical steps. This would not work in the hotel; +because a lift has no habits. It is typical of the real tameness of +machinery, that even when we talk of a man turning mechanically we only +talk metaphorically; for it is something that a mechanism cannot do. But +I think there is only one real objection to my story of Mr. Moose in the +New York hotel. And that is unfortunately a rather fatal one. It is that +far away in the remote desolation of Yellow Dog, among those outlying +and outlandish rocks that almost seem to rise beyond the sunset, there +is undoubtedly an hotel of exactly the same sort, with all its floors +exactly the same. + +Anyhow the general plan of the American hotel is commonly the same, and, +as I have said, it is a very sound one so far as it goes. When I first +went into one of the big New York hotels, the first impression was +certainly its bigness. It was called the Biltmore; and I wondered how +many national humorists had made the obvious comment of wishing they had +built less. But it was not merely the Babylonian size and scale of such +things, it was the way in which they are used. They are used almost as +public streets, or rather as public squares. My first impression was +that I was in some sort of high street or market-place during a carnival +or a revolution. True, the people looked rather rich for a revolution +and rather grave for a carnival; but they were congested in great crowds +that moved slowly like people passing through an overcrowded railway +station. Even in the dizzy heights of such a sky-scraper there could not +possibly be room for all those people to sleep in the hotel, or even to +dine in it. And, as a matter of fact, they did nothing whatever except +drift into it and drift out again. Most of them had no more to do with +the hotel than I have with Buckingham Palace. I have never been in +Buckingham Palace, and I have very seldom, thank God, been in the big +hotels of this type that exist in London or Paris. But I cannot believe +that mobs are perpetually pouring through the Hotel Cecil or the Savoy +in this fashion, calmly coming in at one door and going out of the +other. But this fact is part of the fundamental structure of the +American hotel; it is built upon a compromise that makes it possible. +The whole of the lower floor is thrown open to the public streets and +treated as a public square. But above it and all round it runs another +floor in the form of a sort of deep gallery, furnished more luxuriously +and looking down on the moving mobs beneath. No one is allowed on this +floor except the guests or clients of the hotel. As I have been one of +them myself, I trust it is not unsympathetic to compare them to active +anthropoids who can climb trees, and so look down in safety on the herds +or packs of wilder animals wandering and prowling below. Of course there +are modifications of this architectural plan, but they are generally +approximations to it; it is the plan that seems to suit the social life +of the American cities. There is generally something like a ground floor +that is more public, a half-floor or gallery above that is more private, +and above that the bulk of the block of bedrooms, the huge hive with its +innumerable and identical cells. + +The ladder of ascent in this tower is of course the lift, or, as it is +called, the elevator. With all that we hear of American hustle and +hurry it is rather strange that Americans seem to like more than we do +to linger upon long words. And indeed there is an element of delay in +their diction and spirit, very little understood, which I may discuss +elsewhere. Anyhow they say elevator when we say lift, just as they say +automobile when we say motor and stenographer when we say typist, or +sometimes (by a slight confusion) typewriter. Which reminds me of +another story that never existed, about a man who was accused of having +murdered and dismembered his secretary when he had only taken his typing +machine to pieces; but we must not dwell on these digressions. The +Americans may have another reason for giving long and ceremonious titles +to the lift. When first I came among them I had a suspicion that they +possessed and practised a new and secret religion, which was the cult of +the elevator. I fancied they worshipped the lift, or at any rate +worshipped in the lift. The details or data of this suspicion it were +now vain to collect, as I have regretfully abandoned it, except in so +far as they illustrate the social principles underlying the structural +plan of the building. Now an American gentleman invariably takes off his +hat in the lift. He does not take off his hat in the hotel, even if it +is crowded with ladies. But he always so salutes a lady in the elevator; +and this marks the difference of atmosphere. The lift is a room, but the +hotel is a street. But during my first delusion, of course, I assumed +that he uncovered in this tiny temple merely because he was in church. +There is something about the very word elevator that expresses a great +deal of his vague but idealistic religion. Perhaps that flying chapel +will eventually be ritualistically decorated like a chapel; possibly +with a symbolic scheme of wings. Perhaps a brief religious service will +be held in the elevator as it ascends; in a few well-chosen words +touching the Utmost for the Highest. Possibly he would consent even to +call the elevator a lift, if he could call it an uplift. There would be +no difficulty, except what I cannot but regard as the chief moral +problem of all optimistic modernism. I mean the difficulty of imagining +a lift which is free to go up, if it is not also free to go down. + +I think I know my American friends and acquaintances too well to +apologise for any levity in these illustrations. Americans make fun of +their own institutions; and their own journalism is full of such +fanciful conjectures. The tall building is itself artistically akin to +the tall story. The very word sky-scraper is an admirable example of an +American lie. But I can testify quite as eagerly to the solid and +sensible advantages of the symmetrical hotel. It is not only a pattern +of vases and stuffed flamingoes; it is also an equally accurate pattern +of cupboards and baths. It is a dignified and humane custom to have a +bathroom attached to every bedroom; and my impulse to sing the praises +of it brought me once at least into a rather quaint complication. I +think it was in the city of Dayton; anyhow I remember there was a +Laundry Convention going on in the same hotel, in a room very +patriotically and properly festooned with the stars and stripes, and +doubtless full of promise for the future of laundering. I was +interviewed on the roof, within earshot of this debate, and may have +been the victim of some association or confusion; anyhow, after +answering the usual questions about Labour, the League of Nations, the +length of ladies' dresses, and other great matters, I took refuge in a +rhapsody of warm and well-deserved praise of American bathrooms. The +editor, I understand, running a gloomy eye down the column of his +contributor's 'story,' and seeing nothing but metaphysical terms such as +justice, freedom, the abstract disapproval of sweating, swindling, and +the like, paused at last upon the ablutionary allusion, and his eye +brightened. 'That's the only copy in the whole thing,' he said, 'A +Bath-Tub in Every Home.' So these words appeared in enormous letters +above my portrait in the paper. It will be noted that, like many things +that practical men make a great point of, they miss the point. What I +had commended as new and national was a bathroom in every bedroom. Even +feudal and moss-grown England is not entirely ignorant of an occasional +bath-tub in the home. But what gave me great joy was what followed. I +discovered with delight that many people, glancing rapidly at my +portrait with its prodigious legend, imagined that it was a commercial +advertisement, and that I was a very self-advertising commercial +traveller. When I walked about the streets, I was supposed to be +travelling in bath-tubs. Consider the caption of the portrait, and you +will see how similar it is to the true commercial slogan: 'We offer a +Bath-Tub in Every Home.' And this charming error was doubtless clinched +by the fact that I had been found haunting the outer courts of the +temple of the ancient Guild of Lavenders. I never knew how many shared +the impression; I regret to say that I only traced it with certainty in +two individuals. But I understand that it included the idea that I had +come to the town to attend the Laundry Convention, and had made an +eloquent speech to that senate, no doubt exhibiting my tubs. + +Such was the penalty of too passionate and unrestrained an admiration +for American bathrooms; yet the connection of ideas, however +inconsequent, does cover the part of social practice for which these +American institutions can really be praised. About everything like +laundry or hot and cold water there is not only organisation, but what +does not always or perhaps often go with it, efficiency. Americans are +particular about these things of dress and decorum; and it is a virtue +which I very seriously recognise, though I find it very hard to emulate. +But with them it is a virtue; it is not a mere convention, still less a +mere fashion. It is really related to human dignity rather than to +social superiority. The really glorious thing about the American is that +he does not dress like a gentleman; he dresses like a citizen or a +civilised man. His Puritanic particularity on certain points is really +detachable from any definite social ambitions; these things are not a +part of getting into society but merely of keeping out of savagery. +Those millions and millions of middling people, that huge middle class +especially of the Middle West, are not near enough to any aristocracy +even to be sham aristocrats, or to be real snobs. But their standards +are secure; and though I do not really travel in a bath-tub, or believe +in the bath-tub philosophy and religion, I will not on this matter +recoil misanthropically from them: I prefer the tub of Dayton to the tub +of Diogenes. On these points there is really something a million times +better than efficiency, and that is something like equality. + +In short, the American hotel is not America; but it is American. In some +respects it is as American as the English inn is English. And it is +symbolic of that society in this among other things: that it does tend +too much to uniformity; but that that very uniformity disguises not a +little natural dignity. The old Romans boasted that their republic was a +nation of kings. If we really walked abroad in such a kingdom, we might +very well grow tired of the sight of a crowd of kings, of every man with +a gold crown on his head or an ivory sceptre in his hand. But it is +arguable that we ought not to grow tired of the repetition of crowns and +sceptres, any more than of the repetition of flowers and stars. The +whole imaginative effort of Walt Whitman was really an effort to absorb +and animate these multitudinous modern repetitions; and Walt Whitman +would be quite capable of including in his lyric litany of optimism a +list of the nine hundred and ninety-nine identical bathrooms. I do not +sneer at the generous effort of the giant; though I think, when all is +said, that it is a criticism of modern machinery that the effort should +be gigantic as well as generous. + +While there is so much repetition there is little repose. It is the +pattern of a kaleidoscope rather than a wall-paper; a pattern of figures +running and even leaping like the figures in a zoetrope. But even in the +groups where there was no hustle there was often something of +homelessness. I do not mean merely that they were not dining at home; +but rather that they were not at home even when dining, and dining at +their favourite hotel. They would frequently start up and dart from the +room at a summons from the telephone. It may have been fanciful, but I +could not help feeling a breath of home, as from a flap or flutter of +St. George's Cross, when I first sat down in a Canadian hostelry, and +read the announcement that no such telephonic or other summonses were +allowed in the dining-room. It may have been a coincidence, and there +may be American hotels with this merciful proviso and Canadian hotels +without it; but the thing was symbolic even if it was not evidential. I +felt as if I stood indeed upon English soil, in a place where people +liked to have their meals in peace. + +The process of the summons is called 'paging,' and consists of sending a +little boy with a large voice through all the halls and corridors of the +building, making them resound with a name. The custom is common, of +course, in clubs and hotels even in England; but in England it is a mere +whisper compared with the wail with which the American page repeats the +formula of 'Calling Mr. So and So.' I remember a particularly crowded +_parterre_ in the somewhat smoky and oppressive atmosphere of Pittsburg, +through which wandered a youth with a voice the like of which I have +never heard in the land of the living, a voice like the cry of a lost +spirit, saying again and again for ever, 'Carling Mr. Anderson.' One +felt that he never would find Mr. Anderson. Perhaps there never had been +any Mr. Anderson to be found. Perhaps he and every one else wandered in +an abyss of bottomless scepticism; and he was but the victim of one out +of numberless nightmares of eternity, as he wandered a shadow with +shadows and wailed by impassable streams. This is not exactly my +philosophy, but I feel sure it was his. And it is a mood that may +frequently visit the mind in the centres of highly active and successful +industrial civilisation. + +Such are the first idle impressions of the great American hotel, gained +by sitting for the first time in its gallery and gazing on its drifting +crowds with thoughts equally drifting. The first impression is of +something enormous and rather unnatural, an impression that is gradually +tempered by experience of the kindliness and even the tameness of so +much of that social order. But I should not be recording the sensations +with sincerity, if I did not touch in passing the note of something +unearthly about that vast system to an insular traveller who sees it for +the first time. It is as if he were wandering in another world among the +fixed stars; or worse still, in an ideal Utopia of the future. + +Yet I am not certain; and perhaps the best of all news is that nothing +is really new. I sometimes have a fancy that many of these new things in +new countries are but the resurrections of old things which have been +wickedly killed or stupidly stunted in old countries. I have looked over +the sea of little tables in some light and airy open-air café; and my +thoughts have gone back to the plain wooden bench and wooden table that +stands solitary and weather-stained outside so many neglected English +inns. We talk of experimenting in the French café, as of some fresh and +almost impudent innovation. But our fathers had the French café, in the +sense of the free-and-easy table in the sun and air. The only difference +was that French democracy was allowed to develop its café, or multiply +its tables, while English plutocracy prevented any such popular growth. +Perhaps there are other examples of old types and patterns, lost in the +old oligarchy and saved in the new democracies. I am haunted with a hint +that the new structures are not so very new; and that they remind me of +something very old. As I look from the balcony floor the crowds seem to +float away and the colours to soften and grow pale, and I know I am in +one of the simplest and most ancestral of human habitations. I am +looking down from the old wooden gallery upon the courtyard of an inn. +This new architectural model, which I have described, is after all one +of the oldest European models, now neglected in Europe and especially in +England. It was the theatre in which were enacted innumerable picaresque +comedies and romantic plays, with figures ranging from Sancho Panza to +Sam Weller. It served as the apparatus, like some gigantic toy set up in +bricks and timber, for the ancient and perhaps eternal game of tennis. +The very terms of the original game were taken from the inn courtyard, +and the players scored accordingly as they hit the buttery-hatch or the +roof. Singular speculations hover in my mind as the scene darkens and +the quadrangle below begins to empty in the last hours of night. Some +day perhaps this huge structure will be found standing in a solitude +like a skeleton; and it will be the skeleton of the Spotted Dog or the +Blue Boar. It will wither and decay until it is worthy at last to be a +tavern. I do not know whether men will play tennis on its ground floor, +with various scores and prizes for hitting the electric fan, or the +lift, or the head waiter. Perhaps the very words will only remain as +part of some such rustic game. Perhaps the electric fan will no longer +be electric and the elevator will no longer elevate, and the waiter will +only wait to be hit. But at least it is only by the decay of modern +plutocracy, which seems already to have begun, that the secret of the +structure even of this plutocratic palace can stand revealed. And after +long years, when its lights are extinguished and only the long shadows +inhabit its halls and vestibules, there may come a new noise like +thunder; of D'Artagnan knocking at the door. + + + + +_A Meditation in Broadway_ + + +When I had looked at the lights of Broadway by night, I made to my +American friends an innocent remark that seemed for some reason to amuse +them. I had looked, not without joy, at that long kaleidoscope of +coloured lights arranged in large letters and sprawling trade-marks, +advertising everything, from pork to pianos, through the agency of the +two most vivid and most mystical of the gifts of God; colour and fire. I +said to them, in my simplicity, 'What a glorious garden of wonders this +would be, to any one who was lucky enough to be unable to read.' + +Here it is but a text for a further suggestion. But let us suppose that +there does walk down this flaming avenue a peasant, of the sort called +scornfully an illiterate peasant; by those who think that insisting on +people reading and writing is the best way to keep out the spies who +read in all languages and the forgers who write in all hands. On this +principle indeed, a peasant merely acquainted with things of little +practical use to mankind, such as ploughing, cutting wood, or growing +vegetables, would very probably be excluded; and it is not for us to +criticise from the outside the philosophy of those who would keep out +the farmer and let in the forger. But let us suppose, if only for the +sake of argument, that the peasant is walking under the artificial suns +and stars of this tremendous thoroughfare; that he has escaped to the +land of liberty upon some general rumour and romance of the story of +its liberation, but without being yet able to understand the arbitrary +signs of its alphabet. The soul of such a man would surely soar higher +than the sky-scrapers, and embrace a brotherhood broader than Broadway. +Realising that he had arrived on an evening of exceptional festivity, +worthy to be blazoned with all this burning heraldry, he would please +himself by guessing what great proclamation or principle of the Republic +hung in the sky like a constellation or rippled across the street like a +comet. He would be shrewd enough to guess that the three festoons +fringed with fiery words of somewhat similar pattern stood for +'Government of the People, For the People, By the People'; for it must +obviously be that, unless it were 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.' His +shrewdness would perhaps be a little shaken if he knew that the triad +stood for 'Tang Tonic To-day; Tang Tonic To-morrow; Tang Tonic All the +Time.' He will soon identify a restless ribbon of red lettering, red hot +and rebellious, as the saying, 'Give me liberty or give me death.' He +will fail to identify it as the equally famous saying, 'Skyoline Has +Gout Beaten to a Frazzle.' Therefore it was that I desired the peasant +to walk down that grove of fiery trees, under all that golden foliage, +and fruits like monstrous jewels, as innocent as Adam before the Fall. +He would see sights almost as fine as the flaming sword or the purple +and peacock plumage of the seraphim; so long as he did not go near the +Tree of Knowledge. + +In other words, if once he went to school it would be all up; and indeed +I fear in any case he would soon discover his error. If he stood wildly +waving his hat for liberty in the middle of the road as Chunk Chutney +picked itself out in ruby stars upon the sky, he would impede the +excellent but extremely rigid traffic system of New York. If he fell on +his knees before a sapphire splendour, and began saying an Ave Maria +under a mistaken association, he would be conducted kindly but firmly by +an Irish policeman to a more authentic shrine. But though the foreign +simplicity might not long survive in New York, it is quite a mistake to +suppose that such foreign simplicity cannot enter New York. He may be +excluded for being illiterate, but he cannot be excluded for being +ignorant, nor for being innocent. Least of all can he be excluded for +being wiser in his innocence than the world in its knowledge. There is +here indeed more than one distinction to be made. New York is a +cosmopolitan city; but it is not a city of cosmopolitans. Most of the +masses in New York have a nation, whether or no it be the nation to +which New York belongs. Those who are Americanised are American, and +very patriotically American. Those who are not thus nationalised are not +in the least internationalised. They simply continue to be themselves; +the Irish are Irish; the Jews are Jewish; and all sorts of other tribes +carry on the traditions of remote European valleys almost untouched. In +short, there is a sort of slender bridge between their old country and +their new, which they either cross or do not cross, but which they +seldom simply occupy. They are exiles or they are citizens; there is no +moment when they are cosmopolitans. But very often the exiles bring with +them not only rooted traditions, but rooted truths. + +Indeed it is to a great extent the thought of these strange souls in +crude American garb that gives a meaning to the masquerade of New York. +In the hotel where I stayed the head waiter in one room was a Bohemian; +and I am glad to say that he called himself a Bohemian. I have already +protested sufficiently, before American audiences, against the pedantry +of perpetually talking about Czecho-Slovakia. I suggested to my American +friends that the abandonment of the word Bohemian in its historical +sense might well extend to its literary and figurative sense. We might +be expected to say, 'I'm afraid Henry has got into very Czecho-Slovakian +habits lately,' or 'Don't bother to dress; it's quite a Czecho-Slovakian +affair.' Anyhow my Bohemian would have nothing to do with such nonsense; +he called himself a son of Bohemia, and spoke as such in his criticisms +of America, which were both favourable and unfavourable. He was a squat +man, with a sturdy figure and a steady smile; and his eyes were like +dark pools in the depth of a darker forest, but I do not think he had +ever been deceived by the lights of Broadway. + +But I found something like my real innocent abroad, my real peasant +among the sky-signs, in another part of the same establishment. He was a +much leaner man, equally dark, with a hook nose, hungry face, and fierce +black moustaches. He also was a waiter, and was in the costume of a +waiter, which is a smarter edition of the costume of a lecturer. As he +was serving me with clam chowder or some such thing, I fell into speech +with him and he told me he was a Bulgar. I said something like, 'I'm +afraid I don't know as much as I ought to about Bulgaria. I suppose most +of your people are agricultural, aren't they?' He did not stir an inch +from his regular attitude, but he slightly lowered his low voice and +said, 'Yes. From the earth we come and to the earth we return; when +people get away from that they are lost.' + +To hear such a thing said by the waiter was alone an epoch in the life +of an unfortunate writer of fantastic novels. To see him clear away the +clam chowder like an automaton, and bring me more iced water like an +automaton or like nothing on earth except an American waiter (for piling +up ice is the cold passion of their lives), and all this after having +uttered something so dark and deep, so starkly incongruous and so +startlingly true, was an indescribable thing, but very like the picture +of the peasant admiring Broadway. So he passed, with his artificial +clothes and manners, lit up with all the ghastly artificial light of the +hotel, and all the ghastly artificial life of the city; and his heart +was like his own remote and rocky valley, where those unchanging words +were carved as on a rock. + +I do not profess to discuss here at all adequately the question this +raises about the Americanisation of the Bulgar. It has many aspects, of +some of which most Englishmen and even some Americans are rather +unconscious. For one thing, a man with so rugged a loyalty to land could +not be Americanised in New York; but it is not so certain that he could +not be Americanised in America. We might almost say that a peasantry is +hidden in the heart of America. So far as our impressions go, it is a +secret. It is rather an open secret; covering only some thousand square +miles of open prairie. But for most of our countrymen it is something +invisible, unimagined, and unvisited; the simple truth that where all +those acres are there is agriculture, and where all that agriculture is +there is considerable tendency towards distributive or decently +equalised property, as in a peasantry. On the other hand, there are +those who say that the Bulgar will never be Americanised, that he only +comes to be a waiter in America that he may afford to return to be a +peasant in Bulgaria. I cannot decide this issue, and indeed I did not +introduce it to this end. I was led to it by a certain line of +reflection that runs along the Great White Way, and I will continue to +follow it. The criticism, if we could put it rightly, not only covers +more than New York but more than the whole New World. Any argument +against it is quite as valid against the largest and richest cities of +the Old World, against London or Liverpool or Frankfort or Belfast. But +it is in New York that we see the argument most clearly, because we see +the thing thus towering into its own turrets and breaking into its own +fireworks. + +I disagree with the aesthetic condemnation of the modern city with its +sky-scrapers and sky-signs. I mean that which laments the loss of beauty +and its sacrifice to utility. It seems to me the very reverse of the +truth. Years ago, when people used to say the Salvation Army doubtless +had good intentions, but we must all deplore its methods, I pointed out +that the very contrary is the case. Its method, the method of drums and +democratic appeal, is that of the Franciscans or any other march of the +Church Militant. It was precisely its aims that were dubious, with their +dissenting morality and despotic finance. It is somewhat the same with +things like the sky-signs in Broadway. The aesthete must not ask me to +mingle my tears with his, because these things are merely useful and +ugly. For I am not specially inclined to think them ugly; but I am +strongly inclined to think them useless. As a matter of art for art's +sake, they seem to me rather artistic. As a form of practical social +work they seem to me stark stupid waste. If Mr. Bilge is rich enough to +build a tower four hundred feet high and give it a crown of golden +crescents and crimson stars, in order to draw attention to his +manufacture of the Paradise Tooth Paste or The Seventh Heaven Cigar, I +do not feel the least disposition to thank him for any serious form of +social service. I have never tried the Seventh Heaven Cigar; indeed a +premonition moves me towards the belief that I shall go down to the dust +without trying it. I have every reason to doubt whether it does any +particular good to those who smoke it, or any good to anybody except +those who sell it. In short Mr. Bilge's usefulness consists in being +useful to Mr. Bilge, and all the rest is illusion and sentimentalism. +But because I know that Bilge is only Bilge, shall I stoop to the +profanity of saying that fire is only fire? Shall I blaspheme crimson +stars any more than crimson sunsets, or deny that those moons are golden +any more than that this grass is green? If a child saw these coloured +lights, he would dance with as much delight as at any other coloured +toys; and it is the duty of every poet, and even of every critic, to +dance in respectful imitation of the child. Indeed I am in a mood of so +much sympathy with the fairy lights of this pantomime city, that I +should be almost sorry to see social sanity and a sense of proportion +return to extinguish them. I fear the day is breaking, and the broad +daylight of tradition and ancient truth is coming to end all this +delightful nightmare of New York at night. Peasants and priests and all +sorts of practical and sensible people are coming back into power, and +their stern realism may wither all these beautiful, unsubstantial, +useless things. They will not believe in the Seventh Heaven Cigar, even +when they see it shining as with stars in the seventh heaven. They will +not be affected by advertisements, any more than the priests and +peasants of the Middle Ages would have been affected by advertisements. +Only a very soft-headed, sentimental, and rather servile generation of +men could possibly be affected by advertisements at all. People who are +a little more hard-headed, humorous, and intellectually independent, see +the rather simple joke; and are not impressed by this or any other form +of self-praise. Almost any other men in almost any other age would have +seen the joke. If you had said to a man in the Stone Age, 'Ugg says Ugg +makes the best stone hatchets,' he would have perceived a lack of +detachment and disinterestedness about the testimonial. If you had said +to a medieval peasant, 'Robert the Bowyer proclaims, with three blasts +of a horn, that he makes good bows,' the peasant would have said, 'Well, +of course he does,' and thought about something more important. It is +only among people whose minds have been weakened by a sort of mesmerism +that so transparent a trick as that of advertisement could ever have +been tried at all. And if ever we have again, as for other reasons I +cannot but hope we shall, a more democratic distribution of property and +a more agricultural basis of national life, it would seem at first sight +only too likely that all this beautiful superstition will perish, and +the fairyland of Broadway with all its varied rainbows fade away. For +such people the Seventh Heaven Cigar, like the nineteenth-century city, +will have ended in smoke. And even the smoke of it will have vanished. + +But the next stage of reflection brings us back to the peasant looking +at the lights of Broadway. It is not true to say in the strict sense +that the peasant has never seen such things before. The truth is that he +has seen them on a much smaller scale, but for a much larger purpose. +Peasants also have their ritual and ornament, but it is to adorn more +real things. Apart from our first fancy about the peasant who could not +read, there is no doubt about what would be apparent to a peasant who +could read, and who could understand. For him also fire is sacred, for +him also colour is symbolic. But where he sets up a candle to light the +little shrine of St. Joseph, he finds it takes twelve hundred candles to +light the Seventh Heaven Cigar. He is used to the colours in church +windows showing red for martyrs or blue for madonnas; but here he can +only conclude that all the colours of the rainbow belong to Mr. Bilge. +Now upon the aesthetic side he might well be impressed; but it is +exactly on the social and even scientific side that he has a right to +criticise. If he were a Chinese peasant, for instance, and came from a +land of fireworks, he would naturally suppose that he had happened to +arrive at a great firework display in celebration of something; perhaps +the Sacred Emperor's birthday, or rather birthnight. It would gradually +dawn on the Chinese philosopher that the Emperor could hardly be born +every night. And when he learnt the truth the philosopher, if he was a +philosopher, would be a little disappointed ... possibly a little +disdainful. + +Compare, for instance, these everlasting fireworks with the damp squibs +and dying bonfires of Guy Fawkes Day. That quaint and even queer +national festival has been fading for some time out of English life. +Still, it was a national festival, in the double sense that it +represented some sort of public spirit pursued by some sort of popular +impulse. People spent money on the display of fireworks; they did not +get money by it. And the people who spent money were often those who had +very little money to spend. It had something of the glorious and +fanatical character of making the poor poorer. It did not, like the +advertisements, have only the mean and materialistic character of making +the rich richer. In short, it came from the people and it appealed to +the nation. The historical and religious cause in which it originated is +not mine; and I think it has perished partly through being tied to a +historical theory for which there is no future. I think this is +illustrated in the very fact that the ceremonial is merely negative and +destructive. Negation and destruction are very noble things as far as +they go, and when they go in the right direction; and the popular +expression of them has always something hearty and human about it. I +shall not therefore bring any fine or fastidious criticism, whether +literary or musical, to bear upon the little boys who drag about a +bolster and a paper mask, calling out + + + Guy Fawkes Guy + Hit him in the eye. + + +But I admit it is a disadvantage that they have not a saint or hero to +crown in effigy as well as a traitor to burn in effigy. I admit that +popular Protestantism has become too purely negative for people to +wreathe in flowers the statue of Mr. Kensit or even of Dr. Clifford. I +do not disguise my preference for popular Catholicism; which still has +statues that can be wreathed in flowers. I wish our national feast of +fireworks revolved round something positive and popular. I wish the +beauty of a Catherine Wheel were displayed to the glory of St. +Catherine. I should not especially complain if Roman candles were really +Roman candles. But this negative character does not destroy the national +character; which began at least in disinterested faith and has ended at +least in disinterested fun. There is nothing disinterested at all about +the new commercial fireworks. There is nothing so dignified as a dingy +guy among the lights of Broadway. In that thoroughfare, indeed, the very +word guy has another and milder significance. An American friend +congratulated me on the impression I produced on a lady interviewer, +observing, 'She says you're a regular guy.' This puzzled me a little at +the time. 'Her description is no doubt correct,' I said, 'but I confess +that it would never have struck me as specially complimentary.' But it +appears that it is one of the most graceful of compliments, in the +original American. A guy in America is a colourless term for a human +being. All men are guys, being endowed by their Creator with certain ... +but I am misled by another association. And a regular guy means, I +presume, a reliable or respectable guy. The point here, however, is that +the guy in the grotesque English sense does represent the dilapidated +remnant of a real human tradition of symbolising real historic ideals by +the sacramental mystery of fire. It is a great fall from the lowest of +these lowly bonfires to the highest of the modern sky-signs. The new +illumination does not stand for any national ideal at all; and what is +yet more to the point, it does not come from any popular enthusiasm at +all. That is where it differs from the narrowest national Protestantism +of the English institution. Mobs have risen in support of No Popery; no +mobs are likely to rise in defence of the New Puffery. Many a poor crazy +Orangeman has died saying, 'To Hell with the Pope'; it is doubtful +whether any man will ever, with his last breath, frame the ecstatic +words, 'Try Hugby's Chewing Gum.' These modern and mercantile legends +are imposed upon us by a mercantile minority, and we are merely passive +to the suggestion. The hypnotist of high finance or big business merely +writes his commands in heaven with a finger of fire. All men really are +guys, in the sense of dummies. We are only the victims of his +pyrotechnic violence; and it is he who hits us in the eye. + +This is the real case against that modern society that is symbolised by +such art and architecture. It is not that it is toppling, but that it is +top-heavy. It is not that it is vulgar, but rather that it is not +popular. In other words, the democratic ideal of countries like America, +while it is still generally sincere and sometimes intense, is at issue +with another tendency, an industrial progress which is of all things on +earth the most undemocratic. America is not alone in possessing the +industrialism, but she is alone in emphasising the ideal that strives +with industrialism. Industrial capitalism and ideal democracy are +everywhere in controversy; but perhaps only here are they in conflict. +France has a democratic ideal; but France is not industrial. England and +Germany are industrial; but England and Germany are not really +democratic. Of course when I speak here of industrialism I speak of +great industrial areas; there is, as will be noted later, another side +to all these countries; there is in America itself not only a great deal +of agricultural society, but a great deal of agricultural equality; +just as there are still peasants in Germany and may some day again be +peasants in England. But the point is that the ideal and its enemy the +reality are here crushed very close to each other in the high, narrow +city; and that the sky-scraper is truly named because its top, towering +in such insolence, is scraping the stars off the American sky, the very +heaven of the American spirit. + +That seems to me the main outline of the whole problem. In the first +chapter of this book, I have emphasised the fact that equality is still +the ideal though no longer the reality of America. I should like to +conclude this one by emphasising the fact that the reality of modern +capitalism is menacing that ideal with terrors and even splendours that +might well stagger the wavering and impressionable modern spirit. Upon +the issue of that struggle depends the question of whether this new +great civilisation continues to exist, and even whether any one cares if +it exists or not. I have already used the parable of the American flag, +and the stars that stand for a multitudinous equality; I might here take +the opposite symbol of these artificial and terrestrial stars flaming on +the forehead of the commercial city; and note the peril of the last +illusion, which is that the artificial stars may seem to fill the +heavens, and the real stars to have faded from sight. But I am content +for the moment to reaffirm the merely imaginative pleasure of those +dizzy turrets and dancing fires. If those nightmare buildings were +really all built for nothing, how noble they would be! The fact that +they were really built for something need not unduly depress us for a +moment, or drag down our soaring fancies. There is something about these +vertical lines that suggests a sort of rush upwards, as of great +cataracts topsy-turvy. I have spoken of fireworks, but here I should +rather speak of rockets. There is only something underneath the mind +murmuring that nothing remains at last of a flaming rocket except a +falling stick. I have spoken of Babylonian perspectives, and of words +written with a fiery finger, like that huge unhuman finger that wrote on +Belshazzar's wall.... But what did it write on Belshazzar's wall?... I +am content once more to end on a note of doubt and a rather dark +sympathy with those many-coloured solar systems turning so dizzily, far +up in the divine vacuum of the night. + +'From the earth we come and to the earth we return; when people get away +from that they are lost.' + + + + +_Irish and other Interviewers_ + + +It is often asked what should be the first thing that a man sees when he +lands in a foreign country; but I think it should be the vision of his +own country. At least when I came into New York Harbour, a sort of grey +and green cloud came between me and the towers with multitudinous +windows, white in the winter sunlight; and I saw an old brown house +standing back among the beech-trees at home, the house of only one among +many friends and neighbours, but one somehow so sunken in the very heart +of England as to be unconscious of her imperial or international +position, and out of the sound of her perilous seas. But what made most +clear the vision that revisited me was something else. Before we touched +land the men of my own guild, the journalists and reporters, had already +boarded the ship like pirates. And one of them spoke to me in an accent +that I knew; and thanked me for all I had done for Ireland. And it was +at that moment that I knew most vividly that what I wanted was to do +something for England. + +Then, as it chanced, I looked across at the statue of Liberty, and saw +that the great bronze was gleaming green in the morning light. I had +made all the obvious jokes about the statue of Liberty. I found it had a +soothing effect on earnest Prohibitionists on the boat to urge, as a +point of dignity and delicacy, that it ought to be given back to the +French, a vicious race abandoned to the culture of the vine. I proposed +that the last liquors on board should be poured out in a pagan libation +before it. And then I suddenly remembered that this Liberty was still in +some sense enlightening the world, or one part of the world; was a lamp +for one sort of wanderer, a star of one sort of seafarer. To one +persecuted people at least this land had really been an asylum; even if +recent legislation (as I have said) had made them think it a lunatic +asylum. They had made it so much their home that the very colour of the +country seemed to change with the infusion; as the bronze of the great +statue took on a semblance of the wearing of the green. + +It is a commonplace that the Englishman has been stupid in his relations +with the Irish; but he has been far more stupid in his relations with +the Americans on the subject of the Irish. His propaganda has been worse +than his practice; and his defence more ill-considered than the most +indefensible things that it was intended to defend. There is in this +matter a curious tangle of cross-purposes, which only a parallel example +can make at all clear. And I will note the point here, because it is +some testimony to its vivid importance that it was really the first I +had to discuss on American soil with an American citizen. In a double +sense I touched Ireland before I came to America. I will take an +imaginary instance from another controversy; in order to show how the +apology can be worse than the action. The best we can say for ourselves +is worse than the worst that we can do. + +There was a time when English poets and other publicists could always be +inspired with instantaneous indignation about the persecuted Jews in +Russia. We have heard less about them since we heard more about the +persecuting Jews in Russia. I fear there are a great many middle-class +Englishmen already who wish that Trotsky had been persecuted a little +more. But even in those days Englishmen divided their minds in a curious +fashion; and unconsciously distinguished between the Jews whom they had +never seen, in Warsaw, and the Jews whom they had often seen in +Whitechapel. It seemed to be assumed that, by a curious coincidence, +Russia possessed not only the very worst Anti-Semites but the very best +Semites. A moneylender in London might be like Judas Iscariot; but a +moneylender in Moscow must be like Judas Maccabaeus. + +Nevertheless there remained in our common sense an unconscious but +fundamental comprehension of the unity of Israel; a sense that some +things could be said, and some could not be said, about the Jews as a +whole. Suppose that even in those days, to say nothing of these, an +English protest against Russian Anti-Semitism had been answered by the +Russian Anti-Semites, and suppose the answer had been somewhat as +follows:-- + +'It is all very well for foreigners to complain of our denying civic +rights to our Jewish subjects; but we know the Jews better than they do. +They are a barbarous people, entirely primitive, and very like the +simple savages who cannot count beyond five on their fingers. It is +quite impossible to make them understand ordinary numbers, to say +nothing of simple economics. They do not realise the meaning or the +value of money. No Jew anywhere in the world can get into his stupid +head the notion of a bargain, or of exchanging one thing for another. +Their hopeless incapacity for commerce or finance would retard the +progress of our people, would prevent the spread of any sort of economic +education, would keep the whole country on a level lower than that of +the most prehistoric methods of barter. What Russia needs most is a +mercantile middle class; and it is unjust to ask us to swamp its small +beginnings in thousands of these rude tribesmen, who cannot do a sum of +simple addition, or understand the symbolic character of a threepenny +bit. We might as well be asked to give civic rights to cows and pigs as +to this unhappy, half-witted race who can no more count than the beasts +of the field. In every intellectual exercise they are hopelessly +incompetent; no Jew can play chess; no Jew can learn languages; no Jew +has ever appeared in the smallest part in any theatrical performance; no +Jew can give or take any pleasure connected with any musical instrument. +These people are our subjects; and we understand them. We accept full +responsibility for treating such troglodytes on our own terms.' + +It would not be entirely convincing. It would sound a little far-fetched +and unreal. But it would sound exactly like our utterances about the +Irish, as they sound to all Americans, and rather especially to +Anti-Irish Americans. That is exactly the impression we produce on the +people of the United States when we say, as we do say in substance, +something like this: 'We mean no harm to the poor dear Irish, so dreamy, +so irresponsible, so incapable of order or organisation. If we were to +withdraw from their country they would only fight among themselves; they +have no notion of how to rule themselves. There is something charming +about their unpracticability, about their very incapacity for the coarse +business of politics. But for their own sakes it is impossible to leave +these emotional visionaries to ruin themselves in the attempt to rule +themselves. They are like children; but they are our own children, and +we understand them. We accept full responsibility for acting as their +parents and guardians.' + +Now the point is not only that this view of the Irish is false, but that +it is the particular view that the Americans know to be false. While we +are saying that the Irish could not organise, the Americans are +complaining, often very bitterly, of the power of Irish organisation. +While we say that the Irishman could not rule himself, the Americans are +saying, more or less humorously, that the Irishman rules them. A highly +intelligent professor said to me in Boston, 'We have solved the Irish +problem here; we have an entirely independent Irish Government.' While +we are complaining, in an almost passionate manner, of the impotence of +mere cliques of idealists and dreamers, they are complaining, often in a +very indignant manner, of the power of great gangs of bosses and +bullies. There are a great many Americans who pity the Irish, very +naturally and very rightly, for the historic martyrdom which their +patriotism has endured. But there are a great many Americans who do not +pity the Irish in the least. They would be much more likely to pity the +English; only this particular way of talking tends rather to make them +despise the English. Thus both the friends of Ireland and the foes of +Ireland tend to be the foes of England. We make one set of enemies by +our action, and another by our apology. + +It is a thing that can from time to time be found in history; a +misunderstanding that really has a moral. The English excuse would carry +much more weight if it had more sincerity and more humility. There are +a considerable number of people in the United States who could +sympathise with us, if we would say frankly that we fear the Irish. +Those who thus despise our pity might possibly even respect our fear. +The argument I have often used in other places comes back with +prodigious and redoubled force, after hearing anything of American +opinion; the argument that the only reasonable or reputable excuse for +the English is the excuse of a patriotic sense of peril; and that the +Unionist, if he must be a Unionist, should use that and no other. When +the Unionist has said that he dare not let loose against himself a +captive he has so cruelly wronged, he has said all that he has to say; +all that he has ever had to say; all that he will ever have to say. He +is like a man who has sent a virile and rather vindictive rival unjustly +to penal servitude; and who connives at the continuance of the sentence, +not because he himself is particularly vindictive, but because he is +afraid of what the convict will do when he comes out of prison. This is +not exactly a moral strength, but it is a very human weakness; and that +is the most that can be said for it. All other talk, about Celtic frenzy +or Catholic superstition, is cant invented to deceive himself or to +deceive the world. But the vital point to realise is that it is cant +that cannot possibly deceive the American world. In the matter of the +Irishman the American is not to be deceived. It is not merely true to +say that he knows better. It is equally true to say that he knows worse. +He knows vices and evils in the Irishman that are entirely hidden in the +hazy vision of the Englishman. He knows that our unreal slanders are +inconsistent even with the real sins. To us Ireland is a shadowy Isle of +Sunset, like Atlantis, about which we can make up legends. To him it is +a positive ward or parish in the heart of his huge cities, like +Whitechapel; about which even we cannot make legends but only lies. And, +as I have said, there are some lies we do not tell even about +Whitechapel. We do not say it is inhabited by Jews too stupid to count +or know the value of a coin. + +The first thing for any honest Englishman to send across the sea is +this; that the English have not the shadow of a notion of what they are +up against in America. They have never even heard of the batteries of +almost brutal energy, of which I had thus touched a live wire even +before I landed. People talk about the hypocrisy of England in dealing +with a small nationality. What strikes me is the stupidity of England in +supposing that she is dealing with a small nationality; when she is +really dealing with a very large nationality. She is dealing with a +nationality that often threatens, even numerically, to dominate all the +other nationalities of the United States. The Irish are not decaying; +they are not unpractical; they are scarcely even scattered; they are not +even poor. They are the most powerful and practical world-combination +with whom we can decide to be friends or foes; and that is why I thought +first of that still and solid brown house in Buckinghamshire, standing +back in the shadow of the trees. + +Among my impressions of America I have deliberately put first the figure +of the Irish-American interviewer, standing on the shore more symbolic +than the statue of Liberty. The Irish interviewer's importance for the +English lay in the fact of his being an Irishman, but there was also +considerable interest in the circumstance of his being an interviewer. +And as certain wild birds sometimes wing their way far out to sea and +are the first signal of the shore, so the first Americans the traveller +meets are often American interviewers; and they are generally birds of a +feather, and they certainly flock together. In this respect, there is a +slight difference in the etiquette of the craft in the two countries, +which I was delighted to discuss with my fellow craftsmen. If I could at +that moment have flown back to Fleet Street I am happy to reflect that +nobody in the world would in the least wish to interview me. I should +attract no more attention than the stone griffin opposite the Law +Courts; both monsters being grotesque but also familiar. But supposing +for the sake of argument that anybody did want to interview me, it is +fairly certain that the fact of one paper publishing such an interview +would rather prevent the other papers from doing so. The repetition of +the same views of the same individual in two places would be considered +rather bad journalism; it would have an air of stolen thunder, not to +say stage thunder. + +But in America the fact of my landing and lecturing was evidently +regarded in the same light as a murder or a great fire, or any other +terrible but incurable catastrophe, a matter of interest to all pressmen +concerned with practical events. One of the first questions I was asked +was how I should be disposed to explain the wave of crime in New York. +Naturally I replied that it might possibly be due to the number of +English lecturers who had recently landed. In the mood of the moment it +seemed possible that, if they had all been interviewed, regrettable +incidents might possibly have taken place. But this was only the mood of +the moment, and even as a mood did not last more than a moment. And +since it has reference to a rather common and a rather unjust conception +of American journalism, I think it well to take it first as a fallacy to +be refuted, though the refutation may require a rather longer approach. + +I have generally found that the traveller fails to understand a foreign +country, through treating it as a tendency and not as a balance. But if +a thing were always tending in one direction it would soon tend to +destruction. Everything that merely progresses finally perishes. Every +nation, like every family, exists upon a compromise, and commonly a +rather eccentric compromise; using the word 'eccentric' in the sense of +something that is somehow at once crazy and healthy. Now the foreigner +commonly sees some feature that he thinks fantastic without seeing the +feature that balances it. The ordinary examples are obvious enough. An +Englishman dining inside a hotel on the boulevards thinks the French +eccentric in refusing to open a window. But he does not think the +English eccentric in refusing to carry their chairs and tables out on to +the pavement in Ludgate Circus. An Englishman will go poking about in +little Swiss or Italian villages, in wild mountains or in remote +islands, demanding tea; and never reflects that he is like a Chinaman +who should enter all the wayside public-houses in Kent and Sussex and +demand opium. But the point is not merely that he demands what he cannot +expect to enjoy; it is that he ignores even what he does enjoy. He does +not realise the sublime and starry paradox of the phrase, _vin +ordinaire_, which to him should be a glorious jest like the phrase +'common gold' or 'daily diamonds.' These are the simple and self-evident +cases; but there are many more subtle cases of the same thing; of the +tendency to see that the nation fills up its own gap with its own +substitute; or corrects its own extravagance with its own precaution. +The national antidote generally grows wild in the woods side by side +with the national poison. If it did not, all the natives would be dead. +For it is so, as I have said, that nations necessarily die of the +undiluted poison called progress. + +It is so in this much-abused and over-abused example of the American +journalist. The American interviewers really have exceedingly good +manners for the purposes of their trade, granted that it is necessary to +pursue their trade. And even what is called their hustling method can +truly be said to cut both ways, or hustle both ways; for if they hustle +in, they also hustle out. It may not at first sight seem the very +warmest compliment to a gentleman to congratulate him on the fact that +he soon goes away. But it really is a tribute to his perfection in a +very delicate social art; and I am quite serious when I say that in this +respect the interviewers are artists. It might be more difficult for an +Englishman to come to the point, particularly the sort of point which +American journalists are supposed, with some exaggeration, to aim at. It +might be more difficult for an Englishman to ask a total stranger on the +spur of the moment for the exact inscription on his mother's grave; but +I really think that if an Englishman once got so far as that he would go +very much farther, and certainly go on very much longer. The Englishman +would approach the churchyard by a rather more wandering woodland path; +but if once he had got to the grave I think he would have much more +disposition, so to speak, to sit down on it. Our own national +temperament would find it decidedly more difficult to disconnect when +connections had really been established. Possibly that is the reason why +our national temperament does not establish them. I suspect that the +real reason that an Englishman does not talk is that he cannot leave off +talking. I suspect that my solitary countrymen, hiding in separate +railway compartments, are not so much retiring as a race of Trappists as +escaping from a race of talkers. + +However this may be, there is obviously something of practical advantage +in the ease with which the American butterfly flits from flower to +flower. He may in a sense force his acquaintance on us, but he does not +force himself on us. Even when, to our prejudices, he seems to insist on +knowing us, at least he does not insist on our knowing him. It may be, +to some sensibilities, a bad thing that a total stranger should talk as +if he were a friend, but it might possibly be worse if he insisted on +being a friend before he would talk like one. To a great deal of the +interviewing, indeed much the greater part of it, even this criticism +does not apply; there is nothing which even an Englishman of extreme +sensibility could regard as particularly private; the questions involved +are generally entirely public, and treated with not a little public +spirit. But my only reason for saying here what can be said even for the +worst exceptions is to point out this general and neglected principle; +that the very thing that we complain of in a foreigner generally carries +with it its own foreign cure. American interviewing is generally very +reasonable, and it is always very rapid. And even those to whom talking +to an intelligent fellow creature is as horrible as having a tooth out +may still admit that American interviewing has many of the qualities of +American dentistry. + +Another effect that has given rise to this fallacy, this exaggeration of +the vulgarity and curiosity of the press, is the distinction between the +articles and the headlines; or rather the tendency to ignore that +distinction. The few really untrue and unscrupulous things I have seen +in American 'stories' have always been in the headlines. And the +headlines are written by somebody else; some solitary and savage cynic +locked up in the office, hating all mankind, and raging and revenging +himself at random, while the neat, polite, and rational pressman can +safely be let loose to wander about the town. + +For instance, I talked to two decidedly thoughtful fellow journalists +immediately on my arrival at a town in which there had been some labour +troubles. I told them my general view of Labour in the very largest and +perhaps the vaguest historical outline; pointing out that the one great +truth to be taught to the middle classes was that Capitalism was itself +a crisis, and a passing crisis; that it was not so much that it was +breaking down as that it had never really stood up. Slaveries could +last, and peasantries could last; but wage-earning communities could +hardly even live, and were already dying. + +All this moral and even metaphysical generalisation was most fairly and +most faithfully reproduced by the interviewer, who had actually heard it +casually and idly spoken. But on the top of this column of political +philosophy was the extraordinary announcement in enormous letters, +'Chesterton Takes Sides in Trolley Strike.' This was inaccurate. When I +spoke I not only did not know that there was any trolley strike, but I +did not know what a trolley strike was. I should have had an indistinct +idea that a large number of citizens earned their living by carrying +things about in wheel-barrows, and that they had desisted from the +beneficent activities. Any one who did not happen to be a journalist, or +know a little about journalism, American and English, would have +supposed that the same man who wrote the article had suddenly gone mad +and written the title. But I know that we have here to deal with two +different types of journalists; and the man who writes the headlines I +will not dare to describe; for I have not seen him except in dreams. + +Another innocent complication is that the interviewer does sometimes +translate things into his native language. It would not seem odd that a +French interviewer should translate them into French; and it is certain +that the American interviewer sometimes translates them into American. +Those who imagine the two languages to be the same are more innocent +than any interviewer. To take one out of the twenty examples, some of +which I have mentioned elsewhere, suppose an interviewer had said that I +had the reputation of being a nut. I should be flattered but faintly +surprised at such a tribute to my dress and dashing exterior. I should +afterwards be sobered and enlightened by discovering that in America a +nut does not mean a dandy but a defective or imbecile person. And as I +have here to translate their American phrase into English, it may be +very defensible that they should translate my English phrases into +American. Anyhow they often do translate them into American. In answer +to the usual question about Prohibition I had made the usual answer, +obvious to the point of dullness to those who are in daily contact with +it, that it is a law that the rich make knowing they can always break +it. From the printed interview it appeared that I had said, +'Prohibition! All matter of dollar sign.' This is almost avowed +translation, like a French translation. Nobody can suppose that it would +come natural to an Englishman to talk about a dollar, still less about a +dollar sign--whatever that may be. It is exactly as if he had made me +talk about the Skelt and Stevenson Toy Theatre as 'a cent plain, and two +cents coloured' or condemned a parsimonious policy as dime-wise and +dollar-foolish. Another interviewer once asked me who was the greatest +American writer. I have forgotten exactly what I said, but after +mentioning several names, I said that the greatest natural genius and +artistic force was probably Walt Whitman. The printed interview is more +precise; and students of my literary and conversational style will be +interested to know that I said, 'See here, Walt Whitman was your one +real red-blooded man.' Here again I hardly think the translation can +have been quite unconscious; most of my intimates are indeed aware that +I do not talk like that, but I fancy that the same fact would have +dawned on the journalist to whom I had been talking. And even this +trivial point carries with it the two truths which must be, I fear, the +rather monotonous moral of these pages. The first is that America and +England can be far better friends when sharply divided than when +shapelessly amalgamated. These two journalists were false reporters, but +they were true translators. They were not so much interviewers as +interpreters. And the second is that in any such difference it is often +wholesome to look beneath the surface for a superiority. For ability to +translate does imply ability to understand; and many of these +journalists really did understand. I think there are many English +journalists who would be more puzzled by so simple an idea as the +plutocratic foundation of Prohibition. But the American knew at once +that I meant it was a matter of dollar sign; probably because he knew +very well that it is. + +Then again there is a curious convention by which American interviewing +makes itself out much worse than it is. The reports are far more rowdy +and insolent than the conversations. This is probably a part of the fact +that a certain vivacity, which to some seems vitality and to some +vulgarity, is not only an ambition but an ideal. It must always be +grasped that this vulgarity is an ideal even more than it is a reality. +It is an ideal when it is not a reality. A very quiet and intelligent +young man, in a soft black hat and tortoise-shell spectacles, will ask +for an interview with unimpeachable politeness, wait for his living +subject with unimpeachable patience, talk to him quite sensibly for +twenty minutes, and go noiselessly away. Then in the newspaper next +morning you will read how he beat the bedroom door in, and pursued his +victim on to the roof or dragged him from under the bed, and tore from +him replies to all sorts of bald and ruthless questions printed in large +black letters. I was often interviewed in the evening, and had no notion +of how atrociously I had been insulted till I saw it in the paper next +morning. I had no notion I had been on the rack of an inquisitor until I +saw it in plain print; and then of course I believed it, with a faith +and docility unknown in any previous epoch of history. An interesting +essay might be written upon points upon which nations affect more vices +than they possess; and it might deal more fully with the American +pressman, who is a harmless clubman in private, and becomes a sort of +highway-robber in print. + +I have turned this chapter into something like a defence of +interviewers, because I really think they are made to bear too much of +the burden of the bad developments of modern journalism. But I am very +far from meaning to suggest that those bad developments are not very +bad. So far from wishing to minimise the evil, I would in a real sense +rather magnify it. I would suggest that the evil itself is a much larger +and more fundamental thing; and that to deal with it by abusing poor +journalists, doing their particular and perhaps peculiar duty, is like +dealing with a pestilence by rubbing at one of the spots. What is wrong +with the modern world will not be righted by attributing the whole +disease to each of its symptoms in turn; first to the tavern and then to +the cinema and then to the reporter's room. The evil of journalism is +not in the journalists. It is not in the poor men on the lower level of +the profession, but in the rich men at the top of the profession; or +rather in the rich men who are too much on top of the profession even to +belong to it. The trouble with newspapers is the Newspaper Trust, as the +trouble might be with a Wheat Trust, without involving a vilification of +all the people who grow wheat. It is the American plutocracy and not the +American press. What is the matter with the modern world is not modern +headlines or modern films or modern machinery. What is the matter with +the modern world is the modern world; and the cure will come from +another. + + + + +_Some American Cities_ + + +There is one point, almost to be called a paradox, to be noted about New +York; and that is that in one sense it is really new. The term very +seldom has any relevance to the reality. The New Forest is nearly as old +as the Conquest, and the New Theology is nearly as old as the Creed. +Things have been offered to me as the new thought that might more +properly be called the old thoughtlessness; and the thing we call the +New Poor Law is already old enough to know better. But there is a sense +in which New York is always new; in the sense that it is always being +renewed. A stranger might well say that the chief industry of the +citizens consists of destroying their city; but he soon realises that +they always start it all over again with undiminished energy and hope. +At first I had a fancy that they never quite finished putting up a big +building without feeling that it was time to pull it down again; and +that somebody began to dig up the first foundations while somebody else +was putting on the last tiles. This fills the whole of this brilliant +and bewildering place with a quite unique and unparalleled air of rapid +ruin. Ruins spring up so suddenly like mushrooms, which with us are the +growth of age like mosses, that one half expects to see ivy climbing +quickly up the broken walls as in the nightmare of the Time Machine, or +in some incredibly accelerated cinema. + +There is no sight in any country that raises my own spirits so much as +a scaffolding. It is a tragedy that they always take the scaffolding +away, and leave us nothing but a mere building. If they would only take +the building away and leave us a beautiful scaffolding, it would in most +cases be a gain to the loveliness of earth. If I could analyse what it +is that lifts the heart about the lightness and clarity of such a white +and wooden skeleton, I could explain what it is that is really charming +about New York; in spite of its suffering from the curse of +cosmopolitanism and even the provincial superstition of progress. It is +partly that all this destruction and reconstruction is an unexhausted +artistic energy; but it is partly also that it is an artistic energy +that does not take itself too seriously. It is first because man is here +a carpenter; and secondly because he is a stage carpenter. Indeed there +is about the whole scene the spirit of scene-shifting. It therefore +touches whatever nerve in us has since childhood thrilled at all +theatrical things. But the picture will be imperfect unless we realise +something which gives it unity and marks its chief difference from the +climate and colours of Western Europe. We may say that the back-scene +remains the same. The sky remained, and in the depths of winter it +seemed to be blue with summer; and so clear that I almost flattered +myself that clouds were English products like primroses. An American +would probably retort on my charge of scene-shifting by saying that at +least he only shifted the towers and domes of the earth; and that in +England it is the heavens that are shifty. And indeed we have changes +from day to day that would seem to him as distinct as different +magic-lantern slides; one view showing the Bay of Naples and the next +the North Pole. I do not mean, of course, that there are no changes in +American weather; but as a matter of proportion it is true that the most +unstable part of our scenery is the most stable part of theirs. Indeed +we might almost be pardoned the boast that Britain alone really +possesses the noble thing called weather; most other countries having to +be content with climate. It must be confessed, however, that they often +are content with it. And the beauty of New York, which is considerable, +is very largely due to the clarity that brings out the colours of varied +buildings against the equal colour of the sky. Strangely enough I found +myself repeating about this vista of the West two vivid lines in which +Mr. W. B. Yeats has called up a vision of the East:-- + + + And coloured like the eastern birds + At evening in their rainless skies. + + +To invoke a somewhat less poetic parallel, even the untravelled +Englishman has probably seen American posters and trade advertisements +of a patchy and gaudy kind, in which a white house or a yellow motor-car +are cut out as in cardboard against a sky like blue marble. I used to +think it was only New Art, but I found that it is really New York. + +It is not for nothing that the very nature of local character has gained +the nickname of local colour. Colour runs through all our experience; +and we all know that our childhood found talismanic gems in the very +paints in the paint-box, or even in their very names. And just as the +very name of 'crimson lake' really suggested to me some sanguine and +mysterious mere, dark yet red as blood, so the very name of 'burnt +sienna' became afterwards tangled up in my mind with the notion of +something traditional and tragic; as if some such golden Italian city +had really been darkened by many conflagrations in the wars of mediaeval +democracy. Now if one had the caprice of conceiving some city exactly +contrary to one thus seared and seasoned by fire, its colour might be +called up to a childish fancy by the mere name of 'raw umber'; and such +a city is New York. I used to be puzzled by the name of 'raw umber,' +being unable to imagine the effect of fried umber or stewed umber. But +the colours of New York are exactly in that key; and might be adumbrated +by phrases like raw pink or raw yellow. It is really in a sense like +something uncooked; or something which the satiric would call +half-baked. And yet the effect is not only beautiful, it is even +delicate. I had no name for this nuance; until I saw that somebody had +written of 'the pastel-tinted towers of New York'; and I knew that the +name had been found. There are no paints dry enough to describe all that +dry light; and it is not a box of colours but of crayons. If the +Englishman returning to England is moved at the sight of a block of +white chalk, the American sees rather a bundle of chalks. Nor can I +imagine anything more moving. Fairy tales are told to children about a +country where the trees are like sugar-sticks and the lakes like +treacle, but most children would feel almost as greedy for a fairyland +where the trees were like brushes of green paint and the hills were of +coloured chalks. + +But here what accentuates this arid freshness is the fragmentary look of +the continual reconstruction and change. The strong daylight finds +everywhere the broken edges of things, and the sort of hues we see in +newly-turned earth or the white sections of trees. And it is in this +respect that the local colour can literally be taken as local character. +For New York considered in itself is primarily a place of unrest, and +those who sincerely love it, as many do, love it for the romance of its +restlessness. A man almost looks at a building as he passes to wonder +whether it will be there when he comes back from his walk; and the doubt +is part of an indescribable notion, as of a white nightmare of daylight, +which is increased by the very numbering of the streets, with its tangle +of numerals which at first makes an English head reel. The detail is +merely a symbol; and when he is used to it he can see that it is, like +the most humdrum human customs, both worse and better than his own. '271 +West 52nd Street' is the easiest of all addresses to find, but the +hardest of all addresses to remember. He who is, like myself, so +constituted as necessarily to lose any piece of paper he has particular +reason to preserve, will find himself wishing the place were called +'Pine Crest' or 'Heather Crag' like any unobtrusive villa in Streatham. +But his sense of some sort of incalculable calculations, as of the +vision of a mad mathematician, is rooted in a more real impression. His +first feeling that his head is turning round is due to something really +dizzy in the movement of a life that turns dizzily like a wheel. If +there be in the modern mind something paradoxical that can find peace in +change, it is here that it has indeed built its habitation or rather is +still building and unbuilding it. One might fancy that it changes in +everything and that nothing endures but its invisible name; and even its +name, as I have said, seems to make a boast of novelty. + +That is something like a sincere first impression of the atmosphere of +New York. Those who think that is the atmosphere of America have never +got any farther than New York. We might almost say that they have never +entered America, any more than if they had been detained like +undesirable aliens at Ellis Island. And indeed there are a good many +undesirable aliens detained in Manhattan Island too. But of that I will +not speak, being myself an alien with no particular pretensions to be +desirable. Anyhow, such is New York; but such is not the New World. The +great American Republic contains very considerable varieties, and of +these varieties I necessarily saw far too little to allow me to +generalise. But from the little I did see, I should venture on the +generalisation that the great part of America is singularly and even +strikingly unlike New York. It goes without saying that New York is very +unlike the vast agricultural plains and small agricultural towns of the +Middle West, which I did see. It may be conjectured with some confidence +that it is very unlike what is called the Wild and sometimes the Woolly +West, which I did not see. But I am here comparing New York, not with +the newer states of the prairie or the mountains, but with the other +older cities of the Atlantic coast. And New York, as it seems to me, is +quite vitally different from the other historic cities of America. It is +so different that it shows them all for the moment in a false light, as +a long white searchlight will throw a light that is fantastic and +theatrical upon ancient and quiet villages folded in the everlasting +hills. Philadelphia and Boston and Baltimore are more like those quiet +villages than they are like New York. + +If I were to call this book 'The Antiquities of America,' I should give +rise to misunderstanding and possibly to annoyance. And yet the double +sense in such words is an undeserved misfortune for them. We talk of +Plato or the Parthenon or the Greek passion for beauty as parts of the +antique, but hardly of the antiquated. When we call them ancient it is +not because they have perished, but rather because they have survived. +In the same way I heard some New Yorkers refer to Philadelphia or +Baltimore as 'dead towns.' They mean by a dead town a town that has had +the impudence not to die. Such people are astonished to find an ancient +thing alive, just as they are now astonished, and will be increasingly +astonished, to find Poland or the Papacy or the French nation still +alive. And what I mean by Philadelphia and Baltimore being alive is +precisely what these people mean by their being dead; it is continuity; +it is the presence of the life first breathed into them and of the +purpose of their being; it is the benediction of the founders of the +colonies and the fathers of the republic. This tradition is truly to be +called life; for life alone can link the past and the future. It merely +means that as what was done yesterday makes some difference to-day, so +what is done to-day will make some difference to-morrow. In New York it +is difficult to feel that any day will make any difference. These +moderns only die daily without power to rise from the dead. But I can +truly claim that in coming into some of these more stable cities of the +States I felt something quite sincerely of that historic emotion which +is satisfied in the eternal cities of the Mediterranean. I felt in +America what many Americans suppose can only be felt in Europe. I have +seldom had that sentiment stirred more simply and directly than when I +saw from afar off, above the vast grey labyrinth of Philadelphia, great +Penn upon his pinnacle like the graven figure of a god who had fashioned +a new world; and remembered that his body lay buried in a field at the +turning of a lane, a league from my own door. + +For this aspect of America is rather neglected in the talk about +electricity and headlines. Needless to say, the modern vulgarity of +avarice and advertisement sprawls all over Philadelphia or Boston; but +so it does over Winchester or Canterbury. But most people know that +there is something else to be found in Canterbury or Winchester; many +people know that it is rather more interesting; and some people know +that Alfred can still walk in Winchester and that St. Thomas at +Canterbury was killed but did not die. It is at least as possible for a +Philadelphian to feel the presence of Penn and Franklin as for an +Englishman to see the ghosts of Alfred and of Becket. Tradition does not +mean a dead town; it does not mean that the living are dead but that the +dead are alive. It means that it still matters what Penn did two hundred +years ago or what Franklin did a hundred years ago; I never could feel +in New York that it mattered what anybody did an hour ago. And these +things did and do matter. Quakerism is not my favourite creed; but on +that day when William Penn stood unarmed upon that spot and made his +treaty with the Red Indians, his creed of humanity did have a triumph +and a triumph that has not turned back. The praise given to him is not a +priggish fiction of our conventional history, though such fictions have +illogically curtailed it. The Nonconformists have been rather unfair to +Penn even in picking their praises; and they generally forget that +toleration cuts both ways and that an open mind is open on all sides. +Those who deify him for consenting to bargain with the savages cannot +forgive him for consenting to bargain with the Stuarts. And the same is +true of the other city, yet more closely connected with the tolerant +experiment of the Stuarts. The state of Maryland was the first +experiment in religious freedom in human history. Lord Baltimore and his +Catholics were a long march ahead of William Penn and his Quakers on +what is now called the path of progress. That the first religious +toleration ever granted in the world was granted by Roman Catholics is +one of those little informing details with which our Victorian histories +did not exactly teem. But when I went into my hotel at Baltimore and +found two priests waiting to see me, I was moved in a new fashion, for I +felt that I touched the end of a living chain. Nor was the impression +accidental; it will always remain with me with a mixture of gratitude +and grief, for they brought a message of welcome from a great American +whose name I had known from childhood and whose career was drawing to +its close; for it was but a few days after I left the city that I +learned that Cardinal Gibbons was dead. + +On the top of a hill on one side of the town stood the first monument +raised after the Revolution to Washington. Beyond it was a new monument +saluting in the name of Lafayette the American soldiers who fell +fighting in France in the Great War. Between them were steps and stone +seats, and I sat down on one of them and talked to two children who were +clambering about the bases of the monument. I felt a profound and +radiant peace in the thought that they at any rate were not going to my +lecture. It made me happy that in that talk neither they nor I had any +names. I was full of that indescribable waking vision of the strangeness +of life, and especially of the strangeness of locality; of how we find +places and lose them; and see faces for a moment in a far-off land, and +it is equally mysterious if we remember and mysterious if we forget. I +had even stirring in my head the suggestion of some verses that I shall +never finish-- + + + If I ever go back to Baltimore + The city of Maryland. + + +But the poem would have to contain far too much; for I was thinking of a +thousand things at once; and wondering what the children would be like +twenty years after and whether they would travel in white goods or be +interested in oil, and I was not untouched (it may be said) by the fact +that a neighbouring shop had provided the only sample of the substance +called 'tea' ever found on the American continent; and in front of me +soared up into the sky on wings of stone the column of all those high +hopes of humanity a hundred years ago; and beyond there were lighted +candles in the chapels and prayers in the ante-chambers, where perhaps +already a Prince of the Church was dying. Only on a later page can I +even attempt to comb out such a tangle of contrasts, which is indeed the +tangle of America and this mortal life; but sitting there on that stone +seat under that quiet sky, I had some experience of the thronging +thousands of living thoughts and things, noisy and numberless as birds, +that give its everlasting vivacity and vitality to a dead town. + +Two other cities I visited which have this particular type of +traditional character, the one being typical of the North and the other +of the South. At least I may take as convenient anti-types the towns of +Boston and St. Louis; and we might add Nashville as being a shade more +truly southern than St. Louis. To the extreme South, in the sense of +what is called the Black Belt, I never went at all. Now English +travellers expect the South to be somewhat traditional; but they are not +prepared for the aspects of Boston in the North which are even more so. +If we wished only for an antic of antithesis, we might say that on one +side the places are more prosaic than the names and on the other the +names are more prosaic than the places. St. Louis is a fine town, and we +recognise a fine instinct of the imagination that set on the hill +overlooking the river the statue of that holy horseman who has +christened the city. But the city is not as beautiful as its name; it +could not be. Indeed these titles set up a standard to which the most +splendid spires and turrets could not rise, and below which the +commercial chimneys and sky-signs conspicuously sink. We should think it +odd if Belfast had borne the name of Joan of Arc. We should be slightly +shocked if the town of Johannesburg happened to be called Jesus Christ. +But few have noted a blasphemy, or even a somewhat challenging +benediction, to be found in the very name of San Francisco. + +But on the other hand a place like Boston is much more beautiful than +its name. And, as I have suggested, an Englishman's general information, +or lack of information, leaves him in some ignorance of the type of +beauty that turns up in that type of place. He has heard so much about +the purely commercial North as against the agricultural and +aristocratic South, and the traditions of Boston and Philadelphia are +rather too tenuous and delicate to be seen from across the Atlantic. But +here also there are traditions and a great deal of traditionalism. The +circle of old families, which still meets with a certain exclusiveness +in Philadelphia, is the sort of thing that we in England should expect +to find rather in New Orleans. The academic aristocracy of Boston, which +Oliver Wendell Holmes called the Brahmins, is still a reality though it +was always a minority and is now a very small minority. An epigram, +invented by Yale at the expense of Harvard, describes it as very small +indeed:-- + + + Here is to jolly old Boston, the home of the bean and the cod, + Where Cabots speak only to Lowells, and Lowells speak only to God. + + +But an aristocracy must be a minority, and it is arguable that the +smaller it is the better. I am bound to say, however, that the +distinguished Dr. Cabot, the present representative of the family, broke +through any taboo that may tie his affections to his Creator and to Miss +Amy Lowell, and broadened his sympathies so indiscriminately as to show +kindness and hospitality to so lost a being as an English lecturer. But +if the thing is hardly a limit it is very living as a memory; and Boston +on this side is very much a place of memories. It would be paying it a +very poor compliment merely to say that parts of it reminded me of +England; for indeed they reminded me of English things that have largely +vanished from England. There are old brown houses in the corners of +squares and streets that are like glimpses of a man's forgotten +childhood; and when I saw the long path with posts where the Autocrat +may be supposed to have walked with the schoolmistress, I felt I had +come to the land where old tales come true. + +I pause in this place upon this particular aspect of America because it +is very much missed in a mere contrast with England. I need not say that +if I felt it even about slight figures of fiction, I felt it even more +about solid figures of history. Such ghosts seemed particularly solid in +the Southern States, precisely because of the comparative quietude and +leisure of the atmosphere of the South. It was never more vivid to me +than when coming in, at a quiet hour of the night, into the +comparatively quiet hotel at Nashville in Tennessee, and mounting to a +dim and deserted upper floor where I found myself before a faded +picture; and from the dark canvas looked forth the face of Andrew +Jackson, watchful like a white eagle. + +At that moment, perhaps, I was in more than one sense alone. Most +Englishmen know a good deal of American fiction, and nothing whatever of +American history. They know more about the autocrat of the +breakfast-table than about the autocrat of the army and the people, the +one great democratic despot of modern times; the Napoleon of the New +World. The only notion the English public ever got about American +politics they got from a novel, _Uncle Tom's Cabin_; and to say the +least of it, it was no exception to the prevalence of fiction over fact. +Hundreds of us have heard of Tom Sawyer for one who has heard of Charles +Sumner; and it is probable that most of us could pass a more detailed +examination about Toddy and Budge than about Lincoln and Lee. But in +the case of Andrew Jackson it may be that I felt a special sense of +individual isolation; for I believe that there are even fewer among +Englishmen than among Americans who realise that the energy of that +great man was largely directed towards saving us from the chief evil +which destroys the nations to-day. He sought to cut down, as with a +sword of simplicity, the new and nameless enormity of finance; and he +must have known, as by a lightning flash, that the people were behind +him, because all the politicians were against him. The end of that +struggle is not yet; but if the bank is stronger than the sword or the +sceptre of popular sovereignty, the end will be the end of democracy. It +will have to choose between accepting an acknowledged dictator and +accepting dictation which it dare not acknowledge. The process will have +begun by giving power to people and refusing to give them their titles; +and it will have ended by giving the power to people who refuse to give +us their names. + +But I have a special reason for ending this chapter on the name of the +great popular dictator who made war on the politicians and the +financiers. This chapter does not profess to touch on one in twenty of +the interesting cities of America, even in this particular aspect of +their relation to the history of America, which is so much neglected in +England. If that were so, there would be a great deal to say even about +the newest of them; Chicago, for instance, is certainly something more +than the mere pork-packing yard that English tradition suggests; and it +has been building a boulevard not unworthy of its splendid position on +its splendid lake. But all these cities are defiled and even diseased +with industrialism. It is due to the Americans to remember that they +have deliberately preserved one of their cities from such defilement and +such disease. And that is the presidential city, which stands in the +American mind for the same ideal as the President; the idea of the +Republic that rises above modern money-getting and endures. There has +really been an effort to keep the White House white. No factories are +allowed in that town; no more than the necessary shops are tolerated. It +is a beautiful city; and really retains something of that classical +serenity of the eighteenth century in which the Fathers of the Republic +moved. With all respect to the colonial place of that name, I do not +suppose that Wellington is particularly like Wellington. But Washington +really is like Washington. + +In this, as in so many things, there is no harm in our criticising +foreigners, if only we would also criticise ourselves. In other words, +the world might need even less of its new charity, if it had a little +more of the old humility. When we complain of American individualism, we +forget that we have fostered it by ourselves having far less of this +impersonal ideal of the Republic or commonwealth as a whole. When we +complain, very justly, for instance, of great pictures passing into the +possession of American magnates, we ought to remember that we paved the +way for it by allowing them all to accumulate in the possession of +English magnates. It is bad that a public treasure should be in the +possession of a private man in America, but we took the first step in +lightly letting it disappear into the private collection of a man in +England. I know all about the genuine national tradition which treated +the aristocracy as constituting the state; but these very foreign +purchases go to prove that we ought to have had a state independent of +the aristocracy. It is true that rich Americans do sometimes covet the +monuments of our culture in a fashion that rightly revolts us as vulgar +and irrational. They are said sometimes to want to take whole buildings +away with them; and too many of such buildings are private and for sale. +There were wilder stories of a millionaire wishing to transplant +Glastonbury Abbey and similar buildings as if they were portable shrubs +in pots. It is obvious that it is nonsense as well as vandalism to +separate Glastonbury Abbey from Glastonbury. I can understand a man +venerating it as a ruin; and I can understand a man despising it as a +rubbish-heap. But it is senseless to insult a thing in order to +idolatrise it; it is meaningless to desecrate the shrine in order to +worship the stones. That sort of thing is the bad side of American +appetite and ambition; and we are perfectly right to see it not only as +a deliberate blasphemy but as an unconscious buffoonery. But there is +another side to the American tradition, which is really too much lacking +in our own tradition. And it is illustrated in this idea of preserving +Washington as a sort of paradise of impersonal politics without personal +commerce. Nobody could buy the White House or the Washington Monument; +it may be hinted (as by an inhabitant of Glastonbury) that nobody wants +to; but nobody could if he did want to. There is really a certain air of +serenity and security about the place, lacking in every other American +town. It is increased, of course, by the clear blue skies of that +half-southern province, from which smoke has been banished. The effect +is not so much in the mere buildings, though they are classical and +often beautiful. But whatever else they have built, they have built a +great blue dome, the largest dome in the world. And the place does +express something in the inconsistent idealism of this strange people; +and here at least they have lifted it higher than all the sky-scrapers, +and set it in a stainless sky. + + + + +_In the American Country_ + + +The sharpest pleasure of a traveller is in finding the things which he +did not expect, but which he might have expected to expect. I mean the +things that are at once so strange and so obvious that they must have +been noticed, yet somehow they have not been noted. Thus I had heard a +thousand things about Jerusalem before I ever saw it; I had heard +rhapsodies and disparagements of every description. Modern rationalistic +critics, with characteristic consistency, had blamed it for its +accumulated rubbish and its modern restoration, for its antiquated +superstition and its up-to-date vulgarity. But somehow the one +impression that had never pierced through their description was the +simple and single impression of a city on a hill, with walls coming to +the very edge of slopes that were almost as steep as walls; the turreted +city which crowns a cone-shaped hill in so many mediaeval landscapes. +One would suppose that this was at once the plainest and most +picturesque of all the facts; yet somehow, in my reading, I had always +lost it amid a mass of minor facts that were merely details. We know +that a city that is set upon a hill cannot be hid; and yet it would seem +that it is exactly the hill that is hid; though perhaps it is only hid +from the wise and the understanding. I had a similar and simple +impression when I discovered America. I cannot avoid the phrase; for it +would really seem that each man discovers it for himself. + +Thus I had heard a great deal, before I saw them, about the tall and +dominant buildings of New York. I agree that they have an instant effect +on the imagination; which I think is increased by the situation in which +they stand, and out of which they arose. They are all the more +impressive because the building, while it is vertically so vast, is +horizontally almost narrow. New York is an island, and has all the +intensive romance of an island. It is a thing of almost infinite height +upon very finite foundations. It is almost like a lofty lighthouse upon +a lonely rock. But this story of the sky-scrapers, which I had often +heard, would by itself give a curiously false impression of the freshest +and most curious characteristic of American architecture. Told only in +terms of these great towers of stone and brick in the big industrial +cities, the story would tend too much to an impression of something cold +and colossal like the monuments of Asia. It would suggest a modern +Babylon altogether too Babylonian. It would imply that a man of the new +world was a sort of new Pharaoh, who built not so much a pyramid as a +pagoda of pyramids. It would suggest houses built by mammoths out of +mountains; the cities reared by elephants in their own elephantine +school of architecture. And New York does recall the most famous of all +sky-scrapers--the tower of Babel. She recalls it none the less because +there is no doubt about the confusion of tongues. But in truth the very +reverse is true of most of the buildings in America. I had no sooner +passed out into the suburbs of New York on the way to Boston than I +began to see something else quite contrary and far more curious. I saw +forests upon forests of small houses stretching away to the horizon as +literal forests do; villages and towns and cities. And they were, in +another sense, literally like forests. They were all made of wood. It +was almost as fantastic to an English eye as if they had been all made +of cardboard. I had long outlived the silly old joke that referred to +Americans as if they all lived in the backwoods. But, in a sense, if +they do not live in the woods, they are not yet out of the wood. + +I do not say this in any sense as a criticism. As it happens, I am +particularly fond of wood. Of all the superstitions which our fathers +took lightly enough to love, the most natural seems to me the notion it +is lucky to touch wood. Some of them affect me the less as +superstitions, because I feel them as symbols. If humanity had really +thought Friday unlucky it would have talked about bad Friday instead of +good Friday. And while I feel the thrill of thirteen at a table, I am +not so sure that it is the most miserable of all human fates to fill the +places of the Twelve Apostles. But the idea that there was something +cleansing or wholesome about the touching of wood seems to me one of +those ideas which are truly popular, because they are truly poetic. It +is probable enough that the conception came originally from the healing +of the wood of the Cross; but that only clinches the divine coincidence. +It is like that other divine coincidence that the Victim was a +carpenter, who might almost have made His own cross. Whether we take the +mystical or the mythical explanation, there is obviously a very deep +connection between the human working in wood and such plain and pathetic +mysticism. It gives something like a touch of the holy childishness to +the tale, as if that terrible engine could be a toy. In the same fashion +a child fancies that mysterious and sinister horse, which was the +downfall of Troy, as something plain and staring, and perhaps spotted, +like his own rocking-horse in the nursery. + +It might be said symbolically that Americans have a taste for +rocking-horses, as they certainly have a taste for rocking-chairs. A +flippant critic might suggest that they select rocking-chairs so that, +even when they are sitting down, they need not be sitting still. +Something of this restlessness in the race may really be involved in the +matter; but I think the deeper significance of the rocking-chair may +still be found in the deeper symbolism of the rocking-horse. I think +there is behind all this fresh and facile use of wood a certain spirit +that is childish in the good sense of the word; something that is +innocent, and easily pleased. It is not altogether untrue, still less is +it unfriendly, to say that the landscape seems to be dotted with dolls' +houses. It is the true tragedy of every fallen son of Adam that he has +grown too big to live in a doll's house. These things seem somehow to +escape the irony of time by not even challenging it; they are too +temporary even to be merely temporal. These people are not building +tombs; they are not, as in the fine image of Mrs. Meynell's poem, merely +building ruins. It is not easy to imagine the ruins of a doll's house; +and that is why a doll's house is an everlasting habitation. How far it +promises a political permanence is a matter for further discussion; I am +only describing the mood of discovery; in which all these cottages built +of lath, like the palaces of a pantomime, really seemed coloured like +the clouds of morning; which are both fugitive and eternal. + +There is also in all this an atmosphere that comes in another sense from +the nursery. We hear much of Americans being educated on English +literature; but I think few Americans realise how much English children +have been educated on American literature. It is true, and it is +inevitable, that they can only be educated on rather old-fashioned +American literature. Mr. Bernard Shaw, in one of his plays, noted truly +the limitations of the young American millionaire, and especially the +staleness of his English culture; but there is necessarily another side +to it. If the American talked more of Macaulay than of Nietzsche, we +should probably talk more of Emerson than of Ezra Pound. Whether this +staleness is necessarily a disadvantage is, of course, a different +question. But, in any case, it is true that the old American books were +often the books of our childhood, even in the literal sense of the books +of our nursery. I know few men in England who have not left their +boyhood to some extent lost and entangled in the forests of _Huckleberry +Finn_. I know few women in England, from the most revolutionary +Suffragette to the most carefully preserved Early Victorian, who will +not confess to having passed a happy childhood with the Little Women of +Miss Alcott. _Helen's Babies_ was the first and by far the best book in +the modern scriptures of baby-worship. And about all this old-fashioned +American literature there was an undefinable savour that satisfied, and +even fed, our growing minds. Perhaps it was the smell of growing things; +but I am far from certain that it was not simply the smell of wood. Now +that all the memory comes back to me, it seems to come back heavy in a +hundred forms with the fragrance and the touch of timber. There was the +perpetual reference to the wood-pile, the perpetual background of the +woods. There was something crude and clean about everything; something +fresh and strange about those far-off houses, to which I could not then +have put a name. Indeed, many things become clear in this wilderness of +wood, which could only be expressed in symbol and even in fantasy. I +will not go so far as to say that it shortened the transition from Log +Cabin to White House; as if the White House were itself made of white +wood (as Oliver Wendell Holmes said), 'that cuts like cheese, but lasts +like iron for things like these.' But I will say that the experience +illuminates some other lines by Holmes himself:-- + + + Little I ask, my wants are few, + I only ask a hut of stone. + + +I should not have known, in England, that he was already asking for a +good deal even in asking for that. In the presence of this wooden world +the very combination of words seems almost a contradiction, like a hut +of marble, or a hovel of gold. + +It was therefore with an almost infantile pleasure that I looked at all +this promising expansion of fresh-cut timber and thought of the housing +shortage at home. I know not by what incongruous movement of the mind +there swept across me, at the same moment, the thought of things +ancestral and hoary with the light of ancient dawns. The last war +brought back body-armour; the next war may bring back bows and arrows. +And I suddenly had a memory of old wooden houses in London; and a model +of Shakespeare's town. + +It is possible indeed that such Elizabethan memories may receive a check +or a chill when the traveller comes, as he sometimes does, to the +outskirts of one of these strange hamlets of new frame-houses, and is +confronted with a placard inscribed in enormous letters, 'Watch Us +Grow.' He can always imagine that he sees the timbers swelling before +his eyes like pumpkins in some super-tropical summer. But he may have +formed the conviction that no such proclamation could be found outside +Shakespeare's town. And indeed there is a serious criticism here, to any +one who knows history; since the things that grow are not always the +things that remain; and pumpkins of that expansiveness have a tendency +to burst. I was always told that Americans were harsh, hustling, rather +rude and perhaps vulgar; but they were very practical and the future +belonged to them. I confess I felt a fine shade of difference; I liked +the Americans; I thought they were sympathetic, imaginative, and full of +fine enthusiasms; the one thing I could not always feel clear about was +their future. I believe they were happier in their frame-houses than +most people in most houses; having democracy, good education, and a +hobby of work; the one doubt that did float across me was something +like, 'Will all this be here at all in two hundred years?' That was the +first impression produced by the wooden houses that seemed like the +waggons of gipsies; it is a serious impression, but there is an answer +to it. It is an answer that opens on the traveller more and more as he +goes westward, and finds the little towns dotted about the vast central +prairies. And the answer is agriculture. Wooden houses may or may not +last; but farms will last; and farming will always last. + +The houses may look like gipsy caravans on a heath or common; but they +are not on a heath or common. They are on the most productive and +prosperous land, perhaps, in the modern world. The houses might fall +down like shanties, but the fields would remain; and whoever tills +those fields will count for a great deal in the affairs of humanity. +They are already counting for a great deal, and possibly for too much, +in the affairs of America. The real criticism of the Middle West is +concerned with two facts, neither of which has been yet adequately +appreciated by the educated class in England. The first is that the turn +of the world has come, and the turn of the agricultural countries with +it. That is the meaning of the resurrection of Ireland; that is the +meaning of the practical surrender of the Bolshevist Jews to the Russian +peasants. The other is that in most places these peasant societies carry +on what may be called the Catholic tradition. The Middle West is perhaps +the one considerable place where they still carry on the Puritan +tradition. But the Puritan tradition was originally a tradition of the +town; and the second truth about the Middle West turns largely on its +moral relation to the town. As I shall suggest presently, there is much +in common between this agricultural society of America and the great +agricultural societies of Europe. It tends, as the agricultural society +nearly always does, to some decent degree of democracy. The agricultural +society tends to the agrarian law. But in Puritan America there is an +additional problem, which I can hardly explain without a periphrasis. + +There was a time when the progress of the cities seemed to mock the +decay of the country. It is more and more true, I think, to-day that it +is rather the decay of the cities that seems to poison the progress and +promise of the countryside. The cinema boasts of being a substitute for +the tavern, but I think it a very bad substitute. I think so quite apart +from the question about fermented liquor. Nobody enjoys cinemas more +than I, but to enjoy them a man has only to look and not even to listen, +and in a tavern he has to talk. Occasionally, I admit, he has to fight; +but he need never move at the movies. Thus in the real village inn are +the real village politics, while in the other are only the remote and +unreal metropolitan politics. And those central city politics are not +only cosmopolitan politics but corrupt politics. They corrupt everything +that they reach, and this is the real point about many perplexing +questions. + +For instance, so far as I am concerned, it is the whole point about +feminism and the factory. It is very largely the point about feminism +and many other callings, apparently more cultured than the factory, such +as the law court and the political platform. When I see women so wildly +anxious to tie themselves to all this machinery of the modern city my +first feeling is not indignation, but that dark and ominous sort of pity +with which we should see a crowd rushing to embark in a leaking ship +under a lowering storm. When I see wives and mothers going in for +business government I not only regard it as a bad business but as a +bankrupt business. It seems to me very much as if the peasant women, +just before the French Revolution, had insisted on being made duchesses +or (as is quite as logical and likely) on being made dukes. + +It is as if those ragged women, instead of crying out for bread, had +cried out for powder and patches. By the time they were wearing them +they would be the only people wearing them. For powder and patches soon +went out of fashion, but bread does not go out of fashion. In the same +way, if women desert the family for the factory, they may find they have +only done it for a deserted factory. It would have been very unwise of +the lower orders to claim all the privileges of the higher orders in the +last days of the French monarchy. It would have been very laborious to +learn the science of heraldry or the tables of precedence when all such +things were at once most complicated and most moribund. It would be +tiresome to be taught all those tricks just when the whole bag of tricks +was coming to an end. A French satirist might have written a fine +apologue about Jacques Bonhomme coming up to Paris in his wooden shoes +and demanding to be made Gold Stick in Waiting in the name of Liberty, +Equality, and Fraternity; but I fear the stick in waiting would be +waiting still. + +One of the first topics on which I heard conversation turning in America +was that of a very interesting book called _Main Street_, which involves +many of these questions of the modern industrial and the eternal +feminine. It is simply the story, or perhaps rather the study than the +story, of a young married woman in one of the multitudinous little towns +on the great central plains of America; and of a sort of struggle +between her own more restless culture and the provincial prosperity of +her neighbours. There are a number of true and telling suggestions in +the book, but the one touch which I found tingling in the memory of many +readers was the last sentence, in which the master of the house, with +unshaken simplicity, merely asks for the whereabouts of some domestic +implement; I think it was a screw-driver. It seems to me a harmless +request, but from the way people talked about it one might suppose he +had asked for a screw-driver to screw down the wife in her coffin. And a +great many advanced persons would tell us that wooden house in which +she lived really was like a wooden coffin. But this appears to me to be +taking a somewhat funereal view of the life of humanity. + +For, after all, on the face of it at any rate, this is merely the life +of humanity, and even the life which all humanitarians have striven to +give to humanity. Revolutionists have treated it not only as the normal +but even as the ideal. Revolutionary wars have been waged to establish +this; revolutionary heroes have fought, and revolutionary martyrs have +died, only to build such a wooden house for such a worthy family. Men +have taken the sword and perished by the sword in order that the poor +gentleman might have liberty to look for his screw-driver. For there is +here a fact about America that is almost entirely unknown in England. +The English have not in the least realised the real strength of America. +We in England hear a great deal, we hear far too much, about the +economic energy of industrial America, about the money of Mr. Morgan, or +the machinery of Mr. Edison. We never realise that while we in England +suffer from the same sort of successes in capitalism and clockwork, we +have not got what the Americans have got; something at least to balance +it in the way of a free agriculture, a vast field of free farms dotted +with small freeholders. For the reason I shall mention in a moment, they +are not perhaps in the fullest and finest sense a peasantry. But they +are in the practical and political sense a pure peasantry, in that their +comparative equality is a true counterweight to the toppling injustice +of the towns. + +And, even in places like that described as Main Street, that comparative +equality can immediately be felt. The men may be provincials, but they +are certainly citizens; they consult on a common basis. And I repeat +that in this, after all, they do achieve what many prophets and +righteous men have died to achieve. This plain village, fairly +prosperous, fairly equal, untaxed by tyrants and untroubled by wars, is +after all the place which reformers have regarded as their aim; whenever +reformers have used their wits sufficiently to have any aim. The march +to Utopia, the march to the Earthly Paradise, the march to the New +Jerusalem, has been very largely the march to Main Street. And the +latest modern sensation is a book written to show how wretched it is to +live there. + +All this is true, and I think the lady might be more contented in her +coffin, which is more comfortably furnished than most of the coffins +where her fellow creatures live. Nevertheless, there is an answer to +this, or at least a modification of it. There is a case for the lady and +a case against the gentleman and the screw-driver. And when we have +noted what it really is, we have noted the real disadvantage in a +situation like that of modern America, and especially the Middle West. +And with that we come back to the truth with which I started this +speculation; the truth that few have yet realised, but of which I, for +one, am more and more convinced--that industrialism is spreading because +it is decaying; that only the dust and ashes of its dissolution are +choking up the growth of natural things everywhere and turning the green +world grey. + +In this relative agricultural equality the Americans of the Middle West +are far in advance of the English of the twentieth century. It is not +their fault if they are still some centuries behind the English of the +twelfth century. But the defect by which they fall short of being a true +peasantry is that they do not produce their own spiritual food, in the +same sense as their own material food. They do not, like some +peasantries, create other kinds of culture besides the kind called +agriculture. Their culture comes from the great cities; and that is +where all the evil comes from. + +If a man had gone across England in the Middle Ages, or even across +Europe in more recent times, he would have found a culture which showed +its vitality by its variety. We know the adventures of the three +brothers in the old fairy tales who passed across the endless plain from +city to city, and found one kingdom ruled by a wizard and another wasted +by a dragon, one people living in castles of crystal and another sitting +by fountains of wine. These are but legendary enlargements of the real +adventures of a traveller passing from one patch of peasantry to +another, and finding women wearing strange head-dresses and men singing +new songs. + +A traveller in America would be somewhat surprised if he found the +people in the city of St. Louis all wearing crowns and crusading armour +in honour of their patron saint. He might even feel some faint surprise +if he found all the citizens of Philadelphia clad in a composite +costume, combining that of a Quaker with that of a Red Indian, in honour +of the noble treaty of William Penn. Yet these are the sort of local and +traditional things that would really be found giving variety to the +valleys of mediaeval Europe. I myself felt a perfectly genuine and +generous exhilaration of freedom and fresh enterprise in new places like +Oklahoma. But you would hardly find in Oklahoma what was found in +Oberammergau. What goes to Oklahoma is not the peasant play, but the +cinema. And the objection to the cinema is not so much that it goes to +Oklahoma as that it does not come from Oklahoma. In other words, these +people have on the economic side a much closer approach than we have to +economic freedom. It is not for us, who have allowed our land to be +stolen by squires and then vulgarised by sham squires, to sneer at such +colonists as merely crude and prosaic. They at least have really kept +something of the simplicity and, therefore, the dignity of democracy; +and that democracy may yet save their country even from the calamities +of wealth and science. + +But, while these farmers do not need to become industrial in order to +become industrious, they do tend to become industrial in so far as they +become intellectual. Their culture, and to some great extent their +creed, do come along the railroads from the great modern urban centres, +and bring with them a blast of death and a reek of rotting things. It is +that influence that alone prevents the Middle West from progressing +towards the Middle Ages. + +For, after all, linked up in a hundred legends of the Middle Ages, may +be found a symbolic pattern of hammers and nails and saws; and there is +no reason why they should not have also sanctified screw-drivers. There +is no reason why the screw-driver that seemed such a trifle to the +author should not have been borne in triumph down Main Street like a +sword of state, in some pageant of the Guild of St. Joseph of the +Carpenters or St. Dunstan of the Smiths. It was the Catholic poetry and +piety that filled common life with something that is lacking in the +worthy and virile democracy of the West. Nor are Americans of +intelligence so ignorant of this as some may suppose. There is an +admirable society called the Mediaevalists in Chicago; whose name and +address will strike many as suggesting a certain struggle of the soul +against the environment. With the national heartiness they blazon their +note-paper with heraldry and the hues of Gothic windows; with the +national high spirits they assume the fancy dress of friars; but any one +who should essay to laugh at them instead of with them would find out +his mistake. For many of them do really know a great deal about +mediaevalism; much more than I do, or most other men brought up on an +island that is crowded with its cathedrals. Something of the same spirit +may be seen in the beautiful new plans and buildings of Yale, +deliberately modelled not on classical harmony but on Gothic +irregularity and surprise. The grace and energy of the mediaeval +architecture resurrected by a man like Mr. R. A. Cram of Boston has +behind it not merely artistic but historical and ethical enthusiasm; an +enthusiasm for the Catholic creed which made mediaeval civilisation. +Even on the huge Puritan plains of the Middle West the influence strays +in the strangest fashion. And it is notable that among the pessimistic +epitaphs of the Spoon River Anthology, in that churchyard compared with +which most churchyards are cheery, among the suicides and secret +drinkers and monomaniacs and hideous hypocrites of that happy village, +almost the only record of respect and a recognition of wider hopes is +dedicated to the Catholic priest. + +But Main Street is Main Street in the main. Main Street is Modern Street +in its multiplicity of mildly half-educated people; and all these +historic things are a thousand miles from them. They have not heard the +ancient noise either of arts or arms; the building of the cathedral or +the marching of the crusade. But at least they have not deliberately +slandered the crusade and defaced the cathedral. And if they have not +produced the peasant arts, they can still produce the peasant crafts. +They can sow and plough and reap and live by these everlasting things; +nor shall the foundations of their state be moved. And the memory of +those colossal fields, of those fruitful deserts, came back the more +readily into my mind because I finished these reflections in the very +heart of a modern industrial city, if it can be said to have a heart. It +was in fact an English industrial city, but it struck me that it might +very well be an American one. And it also struck me that we yield rather +too easily to America the dusty palm of industrial enterprise, and feel +far too little apprehension about greener and fresher vegetables. There +is a story of an American who carefully studied all the sights of London +or Rome or Paris, and came to the conclusion that 'it had nothing on +Minneapolis.' It seems to me that Minneapolis has nothing on Manchester. +There were the same grey vistas of shops full of rubber tyres and +metallic appliances; a man felt that he might walk a day without seeing +a blade of grass; the whole horizon was so infinite with efficiency. The +factory chimneys might have been Pittsburg; the sky-signs might have +been New York. One looked up in a sort of despair at the sky, not for a +sky-sign but in a sense for a sign, for some sentence of significance +and judgment; by the instinct that makes any man in such a scene seek +for the only thing that has not been made by men. But even that was +illogical, for it was night, and I could only expect to see the stars, +which might have reminded me of Old Glory; but that was not the sign +that oppressed me. All the ground was a wilderness of stone and all the +buildings a forest of brick; I was far in the interior of a labyrinth of +lifeless things. Only, looking up, between two black chimneys and a +telegraph pole, I saw vast and far and faint, as the first men saw it, +the silver pattern of the Plough. + + + + +_The American Business Man_ + + +It is a commonplace that men are all agreed in using symbols, and all +differ about the meaning of the symbols. It is obvious that a Russian +republican might come to identify the eagle as a bird of empire and +therefore a bird of prey. But when he ultimately escaped to the land of +the free, he might find the same bird on the American coinage figuring +as a bird of freedom. Doubtless, he might find many other things to +surprise him in the land of the free, and many calculated to make him +think that the bird, if not imperial, was at least rather imperious. But +I am not discussing those exceptional details here. It is equally +obvious that a Russian reactionary might cross the world with a vow of +vengeance against the red flag. But that authoritarian might have some +difficulties with the authorities, if he shot a man for using the red +flag on the railway between Willesden and Clapham Junction. + +But, of course, the difficulty about symbols is generally much more +subtle than in these simple cases. I have remarked elsewhere that the +first thing which a traveller should write about is the thing which he +has not read about. It may be a small or secondary thing, but it is a +thing that he has seen and not merely expected to see. + +I gave the example of the great multitude of wooden houses in America; +we might say of wooden towns and wooden cities. But after he has seen +such things, his next duty is to see the meaning of them; and here a +great deal of complication and controversy is possible. The thing +probably does not mean what he first supposes it to mean on the face of +it; but even on the face of it, it might mean many different and even +opposite things. + +For instance, a wooden house might suggest an almost savage solitude; a +rude shanty put together by a pioneer in a forest; or it might mean a +very recent and rapid solution of the housing problem, conducted cheaply +and therefore on a very large scale. A wooden house might suggest the +very newest thing in America or one of the very oldest things in +England. It might mean a grey ruin at Stratford or a white exhibition at +Earl's Court. + +It is when we come to this interpretation of international symbols that +we make most of the international mistakes. Without the smallest error +of detail, I will promise to prove that Oriental women are independent +because they wear trousers, or Oriental men subject because they wear +skirts. Merely to apply it to this case, I will take the example of two +very commonplace and trivial objects of modern life--a walking stick and +a fur coat. + +As it happened, I travelled about America with two sticks, like a +Japanese nobleman with his two swords. I fear the simile is too stately. +I bore more resemblance to a cripple with two crutches or a highly +ineffectual version of the devil on two sticks. I carried them both +because I valued them both, and did not wish to risk losing either of +them in my erratic travels. One is a very plain grey stick from the +woods of Buckinghamshire, but as I took it with me to Palestine it +partakes of the character of a pilgrim's staff. When I can say that I +have taken the same stick to Jerusalem and to Chicago, I think the stick +and I may both have a rest. The other, which I value even more, was +given me by the Knights of Columbus at Yale, and I wish I could think +that their chivalric title allowed me to regard it as a sword. + +Now, I do not know whether the Americans I met, struck by the fastidious +foppery of my dress and appearance, concluded that it is the custom of +elegant English dandies to carry two walking sticks. But I do know that +it is much less common among Americans than among Englishmen to carry +even one. The point, however, is not merely that more sticks are carried +by Englishmen than by Americans; it is that the sticks which are carried +by Americans stand for something entirely different. + +In America a stick is commonly called a cane, and it has about it +something of the atmosphere which the poet described as the nice conduct +of the clouded cane. It would be an exaggeration to say that when the +citizens of the United States see a man carrying a light stick, they +deduce that if he does that he does nothing else. But there is about it +a faint flavour of luxury and lounging, and most of the energetic +citizens of this energetic society avoid it by instinct. + +Now, in an Englishman like myself, carrying a stick may imply lounging, +but it does not imply luxury, and I can say with some firmness that it +does not imply dandyism. In a great many Englishmen it means the very +opposite even of lounging. By one of those fantastic paradoxes which +are the mystery of nationality, a walking stick often actually means +walking. It frequently suggests the very reverse of the beau with his +clouded cane; it does not suggest a town type, but rather specially a +country type. It rather implies the kind of Englishman who tramps about +in lanes and meadows and knocks the tops off thistles. It suggests the +sort of man who has carried the stick through his native woods, and +perhaps even cut it in his native woods. + +There are plenty of these vigorous loungers, no doubt, in the rural +parts of America, but the idea of a walking stick would not especially +suggest them to Americans; it would not call up such figures like a +fairy wand. It would be easy to trace back the difference to many +English origins, possibly to aristocratic origins, to the idea of the +old squire, a man vigorous and even rustic, but trained to hold a +useless staff rather than a useful tool. It might be suggested that +American citizens do at least so far love freedom as to like to have +their hands free. It might be suggested, on the other hand, that they +keep their hands for the handles of many machines. And that the hand on +a handle is less free than the hand on a stick or even a tool. But these +again are controversial questions and I am only noting a fact. + +If an Englishman wished to imagine more or less exactly what the +impression is, and how misleading it is, he could find something like a +parallel in what he himself feels about a fur coat. When I first found +myself among the crowds on the main floor of a New York hotel, my rather +exaggerated impression of the luxury of the place was largely produced +by the number of men in fur coats, and what we should consider rather +ostentatious fur coats, with all the fur outside. + +Now an Englishman has a number of atmospheric but largely accidental +associations in connection with a fur coat. I will not say that he +thinks a man in a fur coat must be a wealthy and wicked man; but I do +say that in his own ideal and perfect vision a wealthy and wicked man +would wear a fur coat. Thus I had the sensation of standing in a surging +mob of American millionaires, or even African millionaires; for the +millionaires of Chicago must be like the Knights of the Round Table +compared with the millionaires of Johannesburg. + +But, as a matter of fact, the man in the fur coat was not even an +American millionaire, but simply an American. It did not signify luxury, +but rather necessity, and even a harsh and almost heroic necessity. +Orson probably wore a fur coat; and he was brought up by bears, but not +the bears of Wall Street. Eskimos are generally represented as a furry +folk; but they are not necessarily engaged in delicate financial +operations, even in the typical and appropriate occupation called +freezing out. And if the American is not exactly an arctic traveller +rushing from pole to pole, at least he is often literally fleeing from +ice to ice. He has to make a very extreme distinction between outdoor +and indoor clothing. He has to live in an icehouse outside and a +hothouse inside; so hot that he may be said to construct an icehouse +inside that. He turns himself into an icehouse and warms himself against +the cold until he is warm enough to eat ices. But the point is that the +same coat of fur which in England would indicate the sybarite life may +here very well indicate the strenuous life; just as the same walking +stick which would here suggest a lounger would in England suggest a +plodder and almost a pilgrim. + +And these two trifles are types which I should like to put, by way of +proviso and apology, at the very beginning of any attempt at a record of +any impressions of a foreign society. They serve merely to illustrate +the most important impression of all, the impression of how false all +impressions may be. I suspect that most of the very false impressions +have come from the careful record of very true facts. They have come +from the fatal power of observing the facts without being able to +observe the truth. They came from seeing the symbol with the most vivid +clarity and being blind to all that it symbolises. It is as if a man who +knew no Greek should imagine that he could read a Greek inscription +because he took the Greek R for an English P or the Greek long E for an +English H. I do not mention this merely as a criticism on other people's +impressions of America, but as a criticism on my own. I wish it to be +understood that I am well aware that all my views are subject to this +sort of potential criticism, and that even when I am certain of the +facts I do not profess to be certain of the deductions. + +In this chapter I hope to point out how a misunderstanding of this kind +affects the common impression, not altogether unfounded, that the +Americans talk about dollars. But for the moment I am merely anxious to +avoid a similar misunderstanding when I talk about Americans. About the +dogmas of democracy, about the right of a people to its own symbols, +whether they be coins or customs, I am convinced, and no longer to be +shaken. But about the meaning of those symbols, in silver or other +substances, I am always open to correction. That error is the price we +pay for the great glory of nationality. And in this sense I am quite +ready, at the start, to warn my own readers against my own opinions. + +The fact without the truth is futile; indeed the fact without the truth +is false. I have already noted that this is especially true touching our +observations of a strange country; and it is certainly true touching one +small fact which has swelled into a large fable. I mean the fable about +America commonly summed up in the phrase about the Almighty Dollar. I do +not think the dollar is almighty in America; I fancy many things are +mightier, including many ideals and some rather insane ideals. But I +think it might be maintained that the dollar has another of the +attributes of deity. If it is not omnipotent it is in a sense +omnipresent. Whatever Americans think about dollars, it is, I think, +relatively true that they talk about dollars. If a mere mechanical +record could be taken by the modern machinery of dictaphones and +stenography, I do not think it probable that the mere word 'dollars' +would occur more often in any given number of American conversations +than the mere word 'pounds' or 'shillings' in a similar number of +English conversations. And these statistics, like nearly all statistics, +would be utterly useless and even fundamentally false. It is as if we +should calculate that the word 'elephant' had been mentioned a certain +number of times in a particular London street, or so many times more +often than the word 'thunderbolt' had been used in Stoke Poges. +Doubtless there are statisticians capable of carefully collecting those +statistics also; and doubtless there are scientific social reformers +capable of legislating on the basis of them. They would probably argue +from the elephantine imagery of the London street that such and such a +percentage of the householders were megalomaniacs and required medical +care and police coercion. And doubtless their calculations, like nearly +all such calculations, would leave out the only important point; as that +the street was in the immediate neighbourhood of the Zoo, or was yet +more happily situated under the benignant shadow of the Elephant and +Castle. And in the same way the mechanical calculation about the mention +of dollars is entirely useless unless we have some moral understanding +of why they are mentioned. It certainly does not mean merely a love of +money; and if it did, a love of money may mean a great many very +different and even contrary things. The love of money is very different +in a peasant or in a pirate, in a miser or in a gambler, in a great +financier or in a man doing some practical and productive work. Now this +difference in the conversation of American and English business men +arises, I think, from certain much deeper things in the American which +are generally not understood by the Englishman. It also arises from much +deeper things in the Englishman, of which the Englishman is even more +ignorant. + +To begin with, I fancy that the American, quite apart from any love of +money, has a great love of measurement. He will mention the exact size +or weight of things, in a way which appears to us as irrelevant. It is +as if we were to say that a man came to see us carrying three feet of +walking stick and four inches of cigar. It is so in cases that have no +possible connection with any avarice or greed for gain. An American will +praise the prodigal generosity of some other man in giving up his own +estate for the good of the poor. But he will generally say that the +philanthropist gave them a 200-acre park, where an Englishman would +think it quite sufficient to say that he gave them a park. There is +something about this precision which seems suitable to the American +atmosphere; to the hard sunlight, and the cloudless skies, and the +glittering detail of the architecture and the landscape; just as the +vaguer English version is consonant to our mistier and more +impressionist scenery. It is also connected perhaps with something more +boyish about the younger civilisation; and corresponds to the passionate +particularity with which a boy will distinguish the uniforms of +regiments, the rigs of ships, or even the colours of tram tickets. It is +a certain godlike appetite for things, as distinct from thoughts. + +But there is also, of course, a much deeper cause of the difference; and +it can easily be deduced by noting the real nature of the difference +itself. When two business men in a train are talking about dollars I am +not so foolish as to expect them to be talking about the philosophy of +St. Thomas Aquinas. But if they were two English business men I should +not expect them to be talking about business. Probably it would be about +some sport; and most probably some sport in which they themselves never +dreamed of indulging. The approximate difference is that the American +talks about his work and the Englishman about his holidays. His ideal is +not labour but leisure. Like every other national characteristic, this +is not primarily a point for praise or blame; in essence it involves +neither and in effect it involves both. It is certainly connected with +that snobbishness which is the great sin of English society. The +Englishman does love to conceive himself as a sort of country gentleman; +and his castles in the air are all castles in Scotland rather than in +Spain. For, as an ideal, a Scotch castle is as English as a Welsh +rarebit or an Irish stew. And if he talks less about money I fear it is +sometimes because in one sense he thinks more of it. Money is a mystery +in the old and literal sense of something too sacred for speech. Gold is +a god; and like the god of some agnostics has no name and is worshipped +only in his works. It is true in a sense that the English gentleman +wishes to have enough money to be able to forget it. But it may be +questioned whether he does entirely forget it. As against this weakness +the American has succeeded, at the price of a great deal of crudity and +clatter, in making general a very real respect for work. He has partly +disenchanted the dangerous glamour of the gentleman, and in that sense +has achieved some degree of democracy; which is the most difficult +achievement in the world. + +On the other hand, there is a good side to the Englishman's day-dream of +leisure, and one which the American spirit tends to miss. It may be +expressed in the word 'holiday' or still better in the word 'hobby.' The +Englishman, in his character of Robin Hood, really has got two strings +to his bow. Indeed the Englishman really is well represented by Robin +Hood; for there is always something about him that may literally be +called outlawed, in the sense of being extra-legal or outside the rules. +A Frenchman said of Browning that his centre was not in the middle; and +it may be said of many an Englishman that his heart is not where his +treasure is. Browning expressed a very English sentiment when he said:-- + + + I like to know a butcher paints, + A baker rhymes for his pursuit, + Candlestick-maker much acquaints + His soul with song, or haply mute + Blows out his brains upon the flute. + + +Stevenson touched on the same insular sentiment when he said that many +men he knew, who were meat-salesmen to the outward eye, might in the +life of contemplation sit with the saints. Now the extraordinary +achievement of the American meat-salesman is that his poetic enthusiasm +can really be for meat sales; not for money but for meat. An American +commercial traveller asked me, with a religious fire in his eyes, +whether I did not think that salesmanship could be an art. In England +there are many salesmen who are sincerely fond of art; but seldom of the +art of salesmanship. Art is with them a hobby; a thing of leisure and +liberty. That is why the English traveller talks, if not of art, then of +sport. That is why the two city men in the London train, if they are not +talking about golf, may be talking about gardening. If they are not +talking about dollars, or the equivalent of dollars, the reason lies +much deeper than any superficial praise or blame touching the desire for +wealth. In the English case, at least, it lies very deep in the English +spirit. Many of the greatest English things have had this lighter and +looser character of a hobby or a holiday experiment. Even a masterpiece +has often been a by-product. The works of Shakespeare come out so +casually that they can be attributed to the most improbable people; even +to Bacon. The sonnets of Shakespeare are picked up afterwards as if out +of a wastepaper basket. The immortality of Dr. Johnson does not rest on +the written leaves he collected, but entirely on the words he wasted, +the words he scattered to the winds. So great a thing as Pickwick is +almost a kind of accident; it began as something secondary and grew into +something primary and pre-eminent. It began with mere words written to +illustrate somebody else's pictures; and swelled like an epic expanded +from an epigram. It might almost be said that in the case of Pickwick +the author began as the servant of the artist. But, as in the same story +of Pickwick, the servant became greater than the master. This +incalculable and accidental quality, like all national qualities, has +its strength and weakness; but it does represent a certain reserve fund +of interests in the Englishman's life; and distinguishes him from the +other extreme type, of the millionaire who works till he drops, or who +drops because he stops working. It is the great achievement of American +civilisation that in that country it really is not cant to talk about +the dignity of labour. There is something that might almost be called +the sanctity of labour; but it is subject to the profound law that when +anything less than the highest becomes a sanctity, it tends also to +become a superstition. When the candlestick-maker does not blow out his +brains upon the flute there is always a danger that he may blow them out +somewhere else, owing to depressed conditions in the candlestick market. + +Now certainly one of the first impressions of America, or at any rate +of New York, which is by no means the same thing as America, is that of +a sort of mob of business men, behaving in many ways in a fashion very +different from that of the swarms of London city men who go up every day +to the city. They sit about in groups with Red-Indian gravity, as if +passing the pipe of peace; though, in fact, most of them are smoking +cigars and some of them are eating cigars. The latter strikes me as one +of the most peculiar of transatlantic tastes, more peculiar than that of +chewing gum. A man will sit for hours consuming a cigar as if it were a +sugar-stick; but I should imagine it to be a very disagreeable +sugar-stick. Why he attempts to enjoy a cigar without lighting it I do +not know; whether it is a more economical way of carrying a mere symbol +of commercial conversation; or whether something of the same queer +outlandish morality that draws such a distinction between beer and +ginger beer draws an equally ethical distinction between touching +tobacco and lighting it. For the rest, it would be easy to make a merely +external sketch full of things equally strange; for this can always be +done in a strange country. I allow for the fact of all foreigners +looking alike; but I fancy that all those hard-featured faces, with +spectacles and shaven jaws, do look rather alike, because they all like +to make their faces hard. And with the mention of their mental attitude +we realise the futility of any such external sketch. Unless we can see +that these are something more than men smoking cigars and talking about +dollars we had much better not see them at all. + +It is customary to condemn the American as a materialist because of his +worship of success. But indeed this very worship, like any worship, +even devil-worship, proves him rather a mystic than a materialist. The +Frenchman who retires from business when he has money enough to drink +his wine and eat his omelette in peace might much more plausibly be +called a materialist by those who do not prefer to call him a man of +sense. But Americans do worship success in the abstract, as a sort of +ideal vision. They follow success rather than money; they follow money +rather than meat and drink. If their national life in one sense is a +perpetual game of poker, they are playing excitedly for chips or +counters as well as for coins. And by the ultimate test of material +enjoyment, like the enjoyment of an omelette, even a coin is itself a +counter. The Yankee cannot eat chips as the Frenchman can eat chipped +potatoes; but neither can he swallow red cents as the Frenchman swallows +red wine. Thus when people say of a Yankee that he worships the dollar, +they pay a compliment to his fine spirituality more true and delicate +than they imagine. The dollar is an idol because it is an image; but it +is an image of success and not of enjoyment. + +That this romance is also a religion is shown in the fact that there is +a queer sort of morality attached to it. The nearest parallel to it is +something like the sense of honour in the old duelling days. There is +not a material but a distinctly moral savour about the implied +obligation to collect dollars or to collect chips. We hear too much in +England of the phrase about 'making good'; for no sensible Englishman +favours the needless interlarding of English with scraps of foreign +languages. But though it means nothing in English, it means something +very particular in American. There is a fine shade of distinction +between succeeding and making good, precisely because there must always +be a sort of ethical echo in the word good. America does vaguely feel a +man making good as something analogous to a man being good or a man +doing good. It is connected with his serious self-respect and his sense +of being worthy of those he loves. Nor is this curious crude idealism +wholly insincere even when it drives him to what some of us would call +stealing; any more than the duellist's honour was insincere when it +drove him to what some would call murder. A very clever American play +which I once saw acted contained a complete working model of this +morality. A girl was loyal to, but distressed by, her engagement to a +young man on whom there was a sort of cloud of humiliation. The +atmosphere was exactly what it would have been in England if he had been +accused of cowardice or card-sharping. And there was nothing whatever +the matter with the poor young man except that some rotten mine or other +in Arizona had not 'made good.' Now in England we should either be below +or above that ideal of good. If we were snobs, we should be content to +know that he was a gentleman of good connections, perhaps too much +accustomed to private means to be expected to be businesslike. If we +were somewhat larger-minded people, we should know that he might be as +wise as Socrates and as splendid as Bayard and yet be unfitted, perhaps +one should say therefore be unfitted, for the dismal and dirty gambling +of modern commerce. But whether we were snobbish enough to admire him +for being an idler, or chivalrous enough to admire him for being an +outlaw, in neither case should we ever really and in our hearts despise +him for being a failure. For it is this inner verdict of instinctive +idealism that is the point at issue. Of course there is nothing new, or +peculiar to the new world, about a man's engagement practically failing +through his financial failure. An English girl might easily drop a man +because he was poor, or she might stick to him faithfully and defiantly +although he was poor. The point is that this girl was faithful but she +was not defiant; that is, she was not proud. The whole psychology of the +situation was that she shared the weird worldly idealism of her family, +and it was wounded as her patriotism would have been wounded if he had +betrayed his country. To do them justice, there was nothing to show that +they would have had any real respect for a royal duke who had inherited +millions; what the simple barbarians wanted was a man who could 'make +good.' That the process of making good would probably drag him through +the mire of everything bad, that he would make good by bluffing, lying, +swindling, and grinding the faces of the poor, did not seem to trouble +them in the least. Against this fanaticism there is this shadow of truth +even in the fiction of aristocracy; that a gentleman may at least be +allowed to be good without being bothered to make it. + +Another objection to the phrase about the almighty dollar is that it is +an almighty phrase, and therefore an almighty nuisance. I mean that it +is made to explain everything, and to explain everything much too well; +that is, much too easily. It does not really help people to understand a +foreign country; but it gives them the fatal illusion that they do +understand it. Dollars stood for America as frogs stood for France; +because it was necessary to connect particular foreigners with +something, or it would be so easy to confuse a Moor with a Montenegrin +or a Russian with a Red Indian. The only cure for this sort of satisfied +familiarity is the shock of something really unfamiliar. When people can +see nothing at all in American democracy except a Yankee running after a +dollar, then the only thing to do is to trip them up as they run after +the Yankee, or run away with their notion of the Yankee, by the obstacle +of certain odd and obstinate facts that have no relation to that notion. +And, as a matter of fact, there are a number of such obstacles to any +such generalisation; a number of notable facts that have to be +reconciled somehow to our previous notions. It does not matter for this +purpose whether the facts are favourable or unfavourable, or whether the +qualities are merits or defects; especially as we do not even understand +them sufficiently to say which they are. The point is that we are +brought to a pause, and compelled to attempt to understand them rather +better than we do. We have found the one thing that we did not expect; +and therefore the one thing that we cannot explain. And we are moved to +an effort, probably an unsuccessful effort, to explain it. + +For instance, Americans are very unpunctual. That is the last thing that +a critic expects who comes to condemn them for hustling and haggling and +vulgar ambition. But it is almost the first fact that strikes the +spectator on the spot. The chief difference between the humdrum English +business man and the hustling American business man is that the hustling +American business man is always late. Of course there is a great deal of +difference between coming late and coming too late. But I noticed the +fashion first in connection with my own lectures; touching which I +could heartily recommend the habit of coming too late. I could easily +understand a crowd of commercial Americans not coming to my lectures at +all; but there was something odd about their coming in a crowd, and the +crowd being expected to turn up some time after the appointed hour. The +managers of these lectures (I continue to call them lectures out of +courtesy to myself) often explained to me that it was quite useless to +begin properly until about half an hour after time. Often people were +still coming in three-quarters of an hour or even an hour after time. +Not that I objected to that, as some lecturers are said to do; it seemed +to me an agreeable break in the monotony; but as a characteristic of a +people mostly engaged in practical business, it struck me as curious and +interesting. I have grown accustomed to being the most unbusinesslike +person in any given company; and it gave me a sort of dizzy exaltation +to find I was not the most unpunctual person in that company. I was +afterwards told by many Americans that my impression was quite correct; +that American unpunctuality was really very prevalent, and extended to +much more important things. But at least I was not content to lump this +along with all sorts of contrary things that I did not happen to like, +and call it America. I am not sure of what it really means, but I rather +fancy that though it may seem the very reverse of the hustling, it has +the same origin as the hustling. The American is not punctual because he +is not punctilious. He is impulsive, and has an impulse to stay as well +as an impulse to go. For, after all, punctuality belongs to the same +order of ideas as punctuation; and there is no punctuation in +telegrams. The order of clocks and set hours which English business has +always observed is a good thing in its own way; indeed I think that in a +larger sense it is better than the other way. But it is better because +it is a protection against hustling, not a promotion of it. In other +words, it is better because it is more civilised; as a great Venetian +merchant prince clad in cloth of gold was more civilised; or an old +English merchant drinking port in an oak-panelled room was more +civilised; or a little French shopkeeper shutting up his shop to play +dominoes is more civilised. And the reason is that the American has the +romance of business and is monomaniac, while the Frenchman has the +romance of life and is sane. But the romance of business really is a +romance, and the Americans are really romantic about it. And that +romance, though it revolves round pork or petrol, is really like a +love-affair in this; that it involves not only rushing but also +lingering. + +The American is too busy to have business habits. He is also too much in +earnest to have business rules. If we wish to understand him, we must +compare him not with the French shopkeeper when he plays dominoes, but +with the same French shopkeeper when he works the guns or mans the +trenches as a conscript soldier. Everybody used to the punctilious +Prussian standard of uniform and parade has noticed the roughness and +apparent laxity of the French soldier, the looseness of his clothes, the +unsightliness of his heavy knapsack, in short his inferiority in every +detail of the business of war except fighting. There he is much too +swift to be smart. He is much too practical to be precise. By a strange +illusion which can lift pork-packing almost to the level of patriotism, +the American has the same free rhythm in his romance of business. He +varies his conduct not to suit the clock but to suit the case. He gives +more time to more important and less time to less important things; and +he makes up his time-table as he goes along. Suppose he has three +appointments; the first, let us say, is some mere trifle of erecting a +tower twenty storeys high and exhibiting a sky-sign on the top of it; +the second is a business discussion about the possibility of printing +advertisements of soft drinks on the table-napkins at a restaurant; the +third is attending a conference to decide how the populace can be +prevented from using chewing-gum and the manufacturers can still manage +to sell it. He will be content merely to glance at the sky-sign as he +goes by in a trolley-car or an automobile; he will then settle down to +the discussion with his partner about the table-napkins, each speaker +indulging in long monologues in turn; a peculiarity of much American +conversation. Now if in the middle of one of these monologues, he +suddenly thinks that the vacant space of the waiter's shirt-front might +also be utilised to advertise the Gee Whiz Ginger Champagne, he will +instantly follow up the new idea in all its aspects and possibilities, +in an even longer monologue; and will never think of looking at his +watch while he is rapturously looking at his waiter. The consequence is +that he will come late into the great social movement against +chewing-gum, where an Englishman would probably have arrived at the +proper hour. But though the Englishman's conduct is more proper, it need +not be in all respects more practical. The Englishman's rules are better +for the business of life, but not necessarily for the life of business. +And it is true that for many of these Americans business is the +business of life. It is really also, as I have said, the romance of +life. We shall admire or deplore this spirit, accordingly as we are glad +to see trade irradiated with so much poetry, or sorry to see so much +poetry wasted on trade. But it does make many people happy, like any +other hobby; and one is disposed to add that it does fill their +imaginations like any other delusion. For the true criticism of all this +commercial romance would involve a criticism of this historic phase of +commerce. These people are building on the sand, though it shines like +gold, and for them like fairy gold; but the world will remember the +legend about fairy gold. Half the financial operations they follow deal +with things that do not even exist; for in that sense all finance is a +fairy tale. Many of them are buying and selling things that do nothing +but harm; but it does them good to buy and sell them. The claim of the +romantic salesman is better justified than he realises. Business really +is romance; for it is not reality. + +There is one real advantage that America has over England, largely due +to its livelier and more impressionable ideal. America does not think +that stupidity is practical. It does not think that ideas are merely +destructive things. It does not think that a genius is only a person to +be told to go away and blow his brains out; rather it would open all its +machinery to the genius and beg him to blow his brains in. It might +attempt to use a natural force like Blake or Shelley for very ignoble +purposes; it would be quite capable of asking Blake to take his tiger +and his golden lions round as a sort of Barnum's Show, or Shelley to +hang his stars and haloed clouds among the lights of Broadway. But it +would not assume that a natural force is useless, any more than that +Niagara is useless. And there is a very definite distinction here +touching the intelligence of the trader, whatever we may think of either +course touching the intelligence of the artist. It is one thing that +Apollo should be employed by Admetus, although he is a god. It is quite +another thing that Apollo should always be sacked by Admetus, because he +is a god. Now in England, largely owing to the accident of a rivalry and +therefore a comparison with France, there arose about the end of the +eighteenth century an extraordinary notion that there was some sort of +connection between dullness and success. What the Americans call a +bonehead became what the English call a hard-headed man. The merchants +of London evinced their contempt for the fantastic logicians of Paris by +living in a permanent state of terror lest somebody should set the +Thames on fire. In this as in much else it is much easier to understand +the Americans if we connect them with the French who were their allies +than with the English who were their enemies. There are a great many +Franco-American resemblances which the practical Anglo-Saxons are of +course too hard-headed (or boneheaded) to see. American history is +haunted with the shadow of the Plebiscitary President; they have a +tradition of classical architecture for public buildings. Their cities +are planned upon the squares of Paris and not upon the labyrinth of +London. They call their cities Corinth and Syracuse, as the French +called their citizens Epaminondas and Timoleon. Their soldiers wore the +French kepi; and they make coffee admirably, and do not make tea at all. +But of all the French elements in America the most French is this real +practicality. They know that at certain times the most businesslike of +all qualities is 'l'audace, et encore de l'audace, et toujours de +l'audace.' The publisher may induce the poet to do a pot-boiler; but the +publisher would cheerfully allow the poet to set the Mississippi on +fire, if it would boil his particular pot. It is not so much that +Englishmen are stupid as that they are afraid of being clever; and it is +not so much that Americans are clever as that they do not try to be any +stupider than they are. The fire of French logic has burnt that out of +America as it has burnt it out of Europe, and of almost every place +except England. This is one of the few points on which English +insularity really is a disadvantage. It is the fatal notion that the +only sort of commonsense is to be found in compromise, and that the only +sort of compromise is to be found in confusion. This must be clearly +distinguished from the commonplace about the utilitarian world not +rising to the invisible values of genius. Under this philosophy the +utilitarian does not see the utility of genius, even when it is quite +visible. He does not see it, not because he is a utilitarian, but +because he is an idealist whose ideal is dullness. For some time the +English aspired to be stupid, prayed and hoped with soaring spiritual +ambition to be stupid. But with all their worship of success, they did +not succeed in being stupid. The natural talents of a great and +traditional nation were always breaking out in spite of them. In spite +of the merchants of London, Turner did set the Thames on fire. In spite +of our repeatedly explained preference for realism to romance, Europe +persisted in resounding with the name of Byron. And just when we had +made it perfectly clear to the French that we despised all their +flamboyant tricks, that we were a plain prosaic people and there was no +fantastic glory or chivalry about us, the very shaft we sent against +them shone with the name of Nelson, a shooting and a falling star. + + + + +_Presidents and Problems_ + + +All good Americans wish to fight the representatives they have chosen. +All good Englishmen wish to forget the representatives they have chosen. +This difference, deep and perhaps ineradicable in the temperaments of +the two peoples, explains a thousand things in their literature and +their laws. The American national poet praised his people for their +readiness 'to _rise_ against the never-ending audacity of elected +persons.' The English national anthem is content to say heartily, but +almost hastily, 'Confound their politics,' and then more cheerfully, as +if changing the subject, 'God Save the King.' For this is especially the +secret of the monarch or chief magistrate in the two countries. They arm +the President with the powers of a King, that he may be a nuisance in +politics. We deprive the King even of the powers of a President, lest he +should remind us of a politician. We desire to forget the never-ending +audacity of elected persons; and with us therefore it really never does +end. That is the practical objection to our own habit of changing the +subject, instead of changing the ministry. The King, as the Irish wit +observed, is not a subject; but in that sense the English crowned head +is not a King. He is a popular figure intended to remind us of the +England that politicians do not remember; the England of horses and +ships and gardens and good fellowship. The Americans have no such +purely social symbol; and it is rather the root than the result of this +that their social luxury, and especially their sport, are a little +lacking in humanity and humour. It is the American, much more than the +Englishman, who takes his pleasures sadly, not to say savagely. + +The genuine popularity of constitutional monarchs, in parliamentary +countries, can be explained by any practical example. Let us suppose +that great social reform, The Compulsory Haircutting Act, has just begun +to be enforced. The Compulsory Haircutting Act, as every good citizen +knows, is a statute which permits any person to grow his hair to any +length, in any wild or wonderful shape, so long as he is registered with +a hairdresser who charges a shilling. But it imposes a universal +close-shave (like that which is found so hygienic during a curative +detention at Dartmoor) on all who are registered only with a barber who +charges threepence. Thus, while the ornamental classes can continue to +ornament the street with Piccadilly weepers or chin-beards if they +choose, the working classes demonstrate the care with which the State +protects them by going about in a fresher, cooler, and cleaner +condition; a condition which has the further advantage of revealing at a +glance that outline of the criminal skull, which is so common among +them. The Compulsory Haircutting Act is thus in every way a compact and +convenient example of all our current laws about education, sport, +liquor and liberty in general. Well, the law has passed and the masses, +insensible to its scientific value, are still murmuring against it. The +ignorant peasant maiden is averse to so extreme a fashion of bobbing her +hair; and does not see how she can even be a flapper with nothing to +flap. Her father, his mind already poisoned by Bolshevists, begins to +wonder who the devil does these things, and why. In proportion as he +knows the world of to-day, he guesses that the real origin may be quite +obscure, or the real motive quite corrupt. The pressure may have come +from anybody who has gained power or money anyhow. It may come from the +foreign millionaire who owns all the expensive hairdressing saloons; it +may come from some swindler in the cutlery trade who has contracted to +sell a million bad razors. Hence the poor man looks about him with +suspicion in the street; knowing that the lowest sneak or the loudest +snob he sees may be directing the government of his country. Anybody may +have to do with politics; and this sort of thing is politics. Suddenly +he catches sight of a crowd, stops, and begins wildly to cheer a +carriage that is passing. The carriage contains the one person who has +certainly not originated any great scientific reform. He is the only +person in the commonwealth who is not allowed to cut off other people's +hair, or to take away other people's liberties. He at least is kept out +of politics; and men hold him up as they did an unspotted victim to +appease the wrath of the gods. He is their King, and the only man they +know is not their ruler. We need not be surprised that he is popular, +knowing how they are ruled. + +The popularity of a President in America is exactly the opposite. The +American Republic is the last mediaeval monarchy. It is intended that +the President shall rule, and take all the risks of ruling. If the hair +is cut he is the haircutter, the magistrate that bears not the razor in +vain. All the popular Presidents, Jackson and Lincoln and Roosevelt, +have acted as democratic despots, but emphatically not as +constitutional monarchs. In short, the names have become curiously +interchanged; and as a historical reality it is the President who ought +to be called a King. + +But it is not only true that the President could correctly be called a +King. It is also true that the King might correctly be called a +President. We could hardly find a more exact description of him than to +call him a President. What is expected in modern times of a modern +constitutional monarch is emphatically that he should preside. We expect +him to take the throne exactly as if he were taking the chair. The +chairman does not move the motion or resolution, far less vote it; he is +not supposed even to favour it. He is expected to please everybody by +favouring nobody. The primary essentials of a President or Chairman are +that he should be treated with ceremonial respect, that he should be +popular in his personality and yet impersonal in his opinions, and that +he should actually be a link between all the other persons by being +different from all of them. This is exactly what is demanded of the +constitutional monarch in modern times. It is exactly the opposite to +the American position; in which the President does not preside at all. +He moves; and the thing he moves may truly be called a motion; for the +national idea is perpetual motion. Technically it is called a message; +and might often actually be called a menace. Thus we may truly say that +the King presides and the President reigns. Some would prefer to say +that the President rules; and some Senators and members of Congress +would prefer to say that he rebels. But there is no doubt that he moves; +he does not take the chair or even the stool, but rather the stump. + +Some people seem to suppose that the fall of President Wilson was a +denial of this almost despotic ideal in America. As a matter of fact it +was the strongest possible assertion of it. The idea is that the +President shall take responsibility and risk; and responsibility means +being blamed, and risk means the risk of being blamed. The theory is +that things are done by the President; and if things go wrong, or are +alleged to go wrong, it is the fault of the President. This does not +invalidate, but rather ratifies the comparison with true monarchs such +as the mediaeval monarchs. Constitutional princes are seldom deposed; +but despots were often deposed. In the simpler races of sunnier lands, +such as Turkey, they were commonly assassinated. Even in our own history +a King often received the same respectful tribute to the responsibility +and reality of his office. But King John was attacked because he was +strong, not because he was weak. Richard the Second lost the crown +because the crown was a trophy, not because it was a trifle. And +President Wilson was deposed because he had used a power which is such, +in its nature, that a man must use it at the risk of deposition. As a +matter of fact, of course, it is easy to exaggerate Mr. Wilson's real +unpopularity, and still more easy to exaggerate Mr. Wilson's real +failure. There are a great many people in America who justify and +applaud him; and what is yet more interesting, who justify him not on +pacifist and idealistic, but on patriotic and even military grounds. It +is especially insisted by some that his demonstration, which seemed +futile as a threat against Mexico, was a very far-sighted preparation +for the threat against Prussia. But in so far as the democracy did +disagree with him, it was but the occasional and inevitable result of +the theory by which the despot has to anticipate the democracy. + +Thus the American King and the English President are the very opposite +of each other; yet they are both the varied and very national +indications of the same contemporary truth. It is the great weariness +and contempt that have fallen upon common politics in both countries. It +may be answered, with some show of truth, that the new American +President represents a return to common politics; and that in that sense +he marks a real rebuke to the last President and his more uncommon +politics. And it is true that many who put Mr. Harding in power regard +him as the symbol of something which they call normalcy; which may +roughly be translated into English by the word normality. And by this +they do mean, more or less, the return to the vague capitalist +conservatism of the nineteenth century. They might call Mr. Harding a +Victorian if they had ever lived under Victoria. Perhaps these people do +entertain the extraordinary notion that the nineteenth century was +normal. But there are very few who think so, and even they will not +think so long. The blunder is the beginning of nearly all our present +troubles. The nineteenth century was the very reverse of normal. It +suffered a most unnatural strain in the combination of political +equality in theory with extreme economic inequality in practice. +Capitalism was not a normalcy but an abnormalcy. Property is normal, and +is more normal in proportion as it is universal. Slavery may be normal +and even natural, in the sense that a bad habit may be second nature. +But Capitalism was never anything so human as a habit; we may say it was +never anything so good as a bad habit. It was never a custom; for men +never grew accustomed to it. It was never even conservative; for before +it was even created wise men had realised that it could not be +conserved. It was from the first a problem; and those who will not even +admit the Capitalist problem deserve to get the Bolshevist solution. All +things considered, I cannot say anything worse of them than that. + +The recent Presidential election preserved some trace of the old Party +System of America; but its tradition has very nearly faded like that of +the Party System of England. It is easy for an Englishman to confess +that he never quite understood the American Party System. It would +perhaps be more courageous in him, and more informing, to confess that +he never really understood the British Party System. The planks in the +two American platforms may easily be exhibited as very disconnected and +ramshackle; but our own party was as much of a patchwork, and indeed I +think even more so. Everybody knows that the two American factions were +called 'Democrat' and 'Republican.' It does not at all cover the case to +identify the former with Liberals and the latter with Conservatives. The +Democrats are the party of the South and have some true tradition from +the Southern aristocracy and the defence of Secession and State Rights. +The Republicans rose in the North as the party of Lincoln, largely +condemning slavery. But the Republicans are also the party of Tariffs, +and are at least accused of being the party of Trusts. The Democrats are +the party of Free Trade; and in the great movement of twenty years ago +the party of Free Silver. The Democrats are also the party of the Irish; +and the stones they throw at Trusts are retorted by stones thrown at +Tammany. It is easy to see all these things as curiously sporadic and +bewildering; but I am inclined to think that they are as a whole more +coherent and rational than our own old division of Liberals and +Conservatives. There is even more doubt nowadays about what is the +connecting link between the different items in the old British party +programmes. I have never been able to understand why being in favour of +Protection should have anything to do with being opposed to Home Rule; +especially as most of the people who were to receive Home Rule were +themselves in favour of Protection. I could never see what giving people +cheap bread had to do with forbidding them cheap beer; or why the party +which sympathises with Ireland cannot sympathise with Poland. I cannot +see why Liberals did not liberate public-houses or Conservatives +conserve crofters. I do not understand the principle upon which the +causes were selected on both sides; and I incline to think that it was +with the impartial object of distributing nonsense equally on both +sides. Heaven knows there is enough nonsense in American politics too; +towering and tropical nonsense like a cyclone or an earthquake. But when +all is said, I incline to think that there was more spiritual and +atmospheric cohesion in the different parts of the American party than +in those of the English party; and I think this unity was all the more +real because it was more difficult to define. The Republican party +originally stood for the triumph of the North, and the North stood for +the nineteenth century; that is for the characteristic commercial +expansion of the nineteenth century; for a firm faith in the profit and +progress of its great and growing cities, its division of labour, its +industrial science, and its evolutionary reform. The Democratic party +stood more loosely for all the elements that doubted whether this +development was democratic or was desirable; all that looked back to +Jeffersonian idealism and the serene abstractions of the eighteenth +century, or forward to Bryanite idealism and some simplified Utopia +founded on grain rather than gold. Along with this went, not at all +unnaturally, the last and lingering sentiment of the Southern squires, +who remembered a more rural civilisation that seemed by comparison +romantic. Along with this went, quite logically, the passions and the +pathos of the Irish, themselves a rural civilisation, whose basis is a +religion or what the nineteenth century tended to call a superstition. +Above all, it was perfectly natural that this tone of thought should +favour local liberties, and even a revolt on behalf of local liberties, +and should distrust the huge machine of centralised power called the +Union. In short, something very near the truth was said by a suicidally +silly Republican orator, who was running Blaine for the Presidency, when +he denounced the Democratic party as supported by 'Rome, rum, and +rebellion.' They seem to me to be three excellent things in their place; +and that is why I suspect that I should have belonged to the Democratic +party, if I had been born in America when there was a Democratic party. +But I fancy that by this time even this general distinction has become +very dim. If I had been an American twenty years ago, in the time of the +great Free Silver campaign, I should certainly never have hesitated for +an instant about my sympathies or my side. My feelings would have been +exactly those that are nobly expressed by Mr. Vachell Lindsay, in a poem +bearing the characteristic title of 'Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan.' And, +by the way, nobody can begin to sympathise with America whose soul does +not to some extent begin to swing and dance to the drums and gongs of +Mr. Vachell Lindsay's great orchestra; which has the note of his whole +nation in this: that a refined person can revile it a hundred times over +as violent and brazen and barbarous and absurd, but not as insincere; +there is something in it, and that something is the soul of many million +men. But the poet himself, in the political poem referred to, speaks of +Bryan's fall over Free Silver as 'defeat of my boyhood, defeat of my +dream'; and it is only too probable that the cause has fallen as well as +the candidate. The William Jennings Bryan of later years is not the man +whom I should have seen in my youth, with the visionary eyes of Mr. +Vachell Lindsay. He has become a commonplace Pacifist, which is in its +nature the very opposite of a revolutionist; for if men will fight +rather than sacrifice humanity on a golden cross, it cannot be wrong for +them to resist its being sacrificed to an iron cross. I came into very +indirect contact with Mr. Bryan when I was in America, in a fashion that +made me realise how hard it has become to recover the illusions of a +Bryanite. I believe that my lecture agent was anxious to arrange a +debate, and I threw out a sort of loose challenge to the effect that +woman's suffrage had weakened the position of woman; and while I was +away in the wilds of Oklahoma my lecture agent (a man of blood-curdling +courage and enterprise) asked Mr. Bryan to debate with me. Now Mr. Bryan +is one of the greatest orators of modern history, and there is no +conceivable reason why he should trouble to debate with a wandering +lecturer. But as a matter of fact he expressed himself in the most +magnanimous and courteous terms about my personal position, but said (as +I understood) that it would be improper to debate on female suffrage as +it was already a part of the political system. And when I heard that, I +could not help a sigh; for I recognised something that I knew only too +well on the front benches of my own beloved land. The great and glorious +demagogue had degenerated into a statesman. I had never expected for a +moment that the great orator could be bothered to debate with me at all; +but it had never occurred to me, as a general moral principle, that two +educated men were for ever forbidden to talk sense about a particular +topic, because a lot of other people had already voted on it. What is +the matter with that attitude is the loss of the freedom of the mind. +There can be no liberty of thought unless it is ready to unsettle what +has recently been settled, as well as what has long been settled. We are +perpetually being told in the papers that what is wanted is a strong man +who will do things. What is wanted is a strong man who will undo things; +and that will be a real test of strength. + +Anyhow, we could have believed, in the time of the Free Silver fight, +that the Democratic party was democratic with a small d. In Mr. Wilson +it was transfigured, his friends would say into a higher and his foes +into a hazier thing. And the Republican reaction against him, even where +it has been healthy, has also been hazy. In fact, it has been not so +much the victory of a political party as a relapse into repose after +certain political passions; and in that sense there is a truth in the +strange phrase about normalcy; in the sense that there is nothing more +normal than going to sleep. But an even larger truth is this; it is most +likely that America is no longer concentrated on these faction fights at +all, but is considering certain large problems upon which those factions +hardly troubled to take sides. They are too large even to be classified +as foreign policy distinct from domestic policy. They are so large as to +be inside as well as outside the state. From an English standpoint the +most obvious example is the Irish; for the Irish problem is not a +British problem, but also an American problem. And this is true even of +the great external enigma of Japan. The Japanese question may be a part +of foreign policy for America, but it is a part of domestic policy for +California. And the same is true of that other intense and intelligent +Eastern people, the genius and limitations of which have troubled the +world so much longer. What the Japs are in California, the Jews are in +America. That is, they are a piece of foreign policy that has become +imbedded in domestic policy; something which is found inside but still +has to be regarded from the outside. On these great international +matters I doubt if Americans got much guidance from their party system; +especially as most of these questions have grown very recently and +rapidly to enormous size. Men are left free to judge of them with fresh +minds. And that is the truth in the statement that the Washington +Conference has opened the gates of a new world. + +On the relations to England and Ireland I will not attempt to dwell +adequately here. I have already noted that my first interview was with +an Irishman, and my first impression from that interview a vivid sense +of the importance of Ireland in Anglo-American relations; and I have +said something of the Irish problem, prematurely and out of its proper +order, under the stress of that sense of urgency. Here I will only add +two remarks about the two countries respectively. A great many British +journalists have recently imagined that they were pouring oil upon the +troubled waters, when they were rather pouring out oil to smooth the +downward path; and to turn the broad road to destruction into a +butter-slide. They seem to have no notion of what to do, except to say +what they imagine the very stupidest of their readers would be pleased +to hear, and conceal whatever the most intelligent of their readers +would probably like to know. They therefore informed the public that +'the majority of Americans' had abandoned all sympathy with Ireland, +because of its alleged sympathy with Germany; and that this majority of +Americans was now ardently in sympathy with its English brothers across +the sea. Now to begin with, such critics have no notion of what they are +saying when they talk about the majority of Americans. To anybody who +has happened to look in, let us say, on the city of Omaha, Nebraska, the +remark will have something enormous and overwhelming about it. It is +like saying that the majority of the inhabitants of China would agree +with the Chinese Ambassador in a preference for dining at the Savoy +rather than the Ritz. There are millions and millions of people living +in those great central plains of the North American Continent of whom +it would be nearer the truth to say that they have never heard of +England, or of Ireland either, than to say that their first emotional +movement is a desire to come to the rescue of either of them. It is +perfectly true that the more monomaniac sort of Sinn Feiner might +sometimes irritate this innocent and isolated American spirit by being +pro-Irish. It is equally true that a traditional Bostonian or Virginian +might irritate it by being pro-English. The only difference is that +large numbers of pure Irishmen are scattered in those far places, and +large numbers of pure Englishmen are not. But it is truest of all to say +that neither England nor Ireland so much as crosses the mind of most of +them once in six months. Painting up large notices of 'Watch Us Grow,' +making money by farming with machinery, together with an occasional +hold-up with six-shooters and photographs of a beautiful murderess or +divorcée, fill up the round of their good and happy lives, and fleet the +time carelessly as in the golden age. + +But putting aside all this vast and distant democracy, which is the real +'majority of Americans,' and confining ourselves to that older culture +on the eastern coast which the critics probably had in mind, we shall +find the case more comforting but not to be covered with cheap and false +comfort. Now it is perfectly true that any Englishman coming to this +eastern coast, as I did, finds himself not only most warmly welcomed as +a guest, but most cordially complimented as an Englishman. Men recall +with pride the branches of their family that belong to England or the +English counties where they were rooted; and there are enthusiasms for +English literature and history which are as spontaneous as patriotism +itself. Something of this may be put down to a certain promptitude and +flexibility in all American kindness, which is never sufficiently stodgy +to be called good nature. The Englishman does sometimes wonder whether +if he had been a Russian, his hosts would not have remembered remote +Russian aunts and uncles and disinterred a Muscovite great-grandmother; +or whether if he had come from Iceland, they would not have known as +much about Icelandic sagas and been as sympathetic about the absence of +Icelandic snakes. But with a fair review of the proportions of the case +he will dismiss this conjecture, and come to the conclusion that a +number of educated Americans are very warmly and sincerely sympathetic +with England. + +What I began to feel, with a certain creeping chill, was that they were +only too sympathetic with England. The word sympathetic has sometimes +rather a double sense. The impression I received was that all these +chivalrous Southerners and men mellow with Bostonian memories were +_rallying_ to England. They were on the defensive; and it was poor old +England that they were defending. Their attitude implied that somebody +or something was leaving her undefended, or finding her indefensible. +The burden of that hearty chorus was that England was not so black as +she was painted; it seemed clear that somewhere or other she was being +painted pretty black. But there was something else that made me +uncomfortable; it was not only the sense of being somewhat boisterously +forgiven; it was also something involving questions of power as well as +morality. Then it seemed to me that a new sensation turned me hot and +cold; and I felt something I have never before felt in a foreign land. +Never had my father or my grandfather known that sensation; never during +the great and complex and perhaps perilous expansion of our power and +commerce in the last hundred years had an Englishman heard exactly that +note in a human voice. England was being _pitied_. I, as an Englishman, +was not only being pardoned but pitied. My country was beginning to be +an object of compassion, like Poland or Spain. My first emotion, full of +the mood and movement of a hundred years, was one of furious anger. But +the anger has given place to anxiety; and the anxiety is not yet at an +end. + +It is not my business here to expound my view of English politics, still +less of European politics or the politics of the world; but to put down +a few impressions of American travel. On many points of European +politics the impression will be purely negative; I am sure that most +Americans have no notion of the position of France or the position of +Poland. But if English readers want the truth, I am sure this is the +truth about their notion of the position of England. They are wondering, +or those who are watching are wondering, whether the term of her success +is come and she is going down the dark road after Prussia. Many are +sorry if this is so; some are glad if it is so; but all are seriously +considering the probability of its being so. And herein lay especially +the horrible folly of our Black-and-Tan terrorism over the Irish people. +I have noted that the newspapers told us that America had been chilled +in its Irish sympathies by Irish detachment during the war. It is the +painful truth that any advantage we might have had from this we +ourselves immediately proceeded to destroy. Ireland _might_ have put +herself wrong with America by her attitude about Belgium, if England had +not instantly proceeded to put herself more wrong by her attitude +towards Ireland. It is quite true that two blacks do not make a white; +but you cannot send a black to reproach people with tolerating +blackness; and this is quite as true when one is a Black Brunswicker and +the other a Black-and-Tan. It is true that since then England has made +surprisingly sweeping concessions; concessions so large as to increase +the amazement that the refusal should have been so long. But +unfortunately the combination of the two rather clinches the conception +of our decline. If the concession had come before the terror, it would +have looked like an attempt to emancipate, and would probably have +succeeded. Coming so abruptly after the terror, it looked only like an +attempt to tyrannise, and an attempt that failed. It was partly an +inheritance from a stupid tradition, which tried to combine what it +called firmness with what it called conciliation; as if when we made up +our minds to soothe a man with a five-pound note, we always took care to +undo our own action by giving him a kick as well. The English politician +has often done that; though there is nothing to be said of such a fool, +except that he has wasted a fiver. But in this case he gave the kick +first, received a kicking in return, and _then_ gave up the money; and +it was hard for the bystanders to say anything except that he had been +badly beaten. The combination and sequence of events seems almost as if +it were arranged to suggest the dark and ominous parallel. The first +action looked only too like the invasion of Belgium, and the second like +the evacuation of Belgium. So that vast and silent crowd in the West +looked at the British Empire, as men look at a great tower that has +begun to lean. Thus it was that while I found real pleasure, I could not +find unrelieved consolation in the sincere compliments paid to my +country by so many cultivated Americans; their memories of homely +corners of historic counties from which their fathers came, of the +cathedral that dwarfs the town, or the inn at the turning of the road. +There was something in their voices and the look in their eyes which +from the first disturbed me. So I have heard good Englishmen, who died +afterwards the death of soldiers, cry aloud in 1914, 'It seems +impossible, of those jolly Bavarians!' or, 'I will never believe it, +when I think of the time I had at Heidelberg!' + +But there are other things besides the parallel of Prussia or the +problem of Ireland. The American press is much freer than our own; the +American public is much more familiar with the discussion of corruption +than our own; and it is much more conscious of the corruption of our +politics than we are. Almost any man in America may speak of the Marconi +Case; many a man in England does not even know what it means. Many +imagine that it had something to do with the propriety of politicians +speculating on the Stock Exchange. So that it means a great deal to +Americans to say that one figure in that drama is ruling India and +another is ruling Palestine. And this brings me to another problem, +which is also dealt with much more openly in America than in England. I +mention it here only because it is a perfect model of the +misunderstandings in the modern world. If any one asks for an example +of exactly how the important part of every story is left out, and even +the part that is reported is not understood, he could hardly have a +stronger case than the story of Henry Ford of Detroit. + +When I was in Detroit I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Ford, and it +really was a pleasure. He is a man quite capable of views which I think +silly to the point of insanity; but he is not the vulgar benevolent +boss. It must be admitted that he is a millionaire; but he cannot really +be convicted of being a philanthropist. He is not a man who merely wants +to run people; it is rather his views that run him, and perhaps run away +with him. He has a distinguished and sensitive face; he really invented +things himself, unlike most men who profit by inventions; he is +something of an artist and not a little of a fighter. A man of that type +is always capable of being wildly wrong, especially in the sectarian +atmosphere of America; and Mr. Ford has been wrong before and may be +wrong now. He is chiefly known in England for a project which I think +very preposterous; that of the Peace Ship, which came to Europe during +the war. But he is not known in England at all in connection with a much +more important campaign, which he has conducted much more recently and +with much more success; a campaign against the Jews like one of the +Anti-Semitic campaigns of the Continent. Now any one who knows anything +of America knows exactly what the Peace Ship would be like. It was a +national combination of imagination and ignorance, which has at least +some of the beauty of innocence. Men living in those huge, hedgeless +inland plains know nothing about frontiers or the tragedy of a fight for +freedom; they know nothing of alarum and armaments or the peril of a +high civilisation poised like a precious statue within reach of a mailed +fist. They are accustomed to a cosmopolitan citizenship, in which men of +all bloods mingle and in which men of all creeds are counted equal. +Their highest moral boast is humanitarianism; their highest mental boast +is enlightenment. In a word, they are the very last men in the world who +would seem likely to pride themselves on a prejudice against the Jews. +They have no religion in particular, except a sincere sentiment which +they would call 'true Christianity,' and which specially forbids an +attack on the Jews. They have a patriotism which prides itself on +assimilating all types, including the Jews. Mr. Ford is a pure product +of this pacific world, as was sufficiently proved by his pacifism. If a +man of that sort has discovered that there is a Jewish problem, it is +because there is a Jewish problem. It is certainly not because there is +an Anti-Jewish prejudice. For if there had been any amount of such +racial and religious prejudice, he would have been about the very last +sort of man to have it. His particular part of the world would have been +the very last place to produce it. We may well laugh at the Peace Ship, +and its wild course and inevitable shipwreck; but remember that its very +wildness was an attempt to sail as far as possible from the castle of +Front-de-Boeuf. Everything that made him Anti-War should have +prevented him from being Anti-Semite. We may mock him for being mad on +peace; but we cannot say that he was so mad on peace that he made war on +Israel. + +It happened that, when I was in America, I had just published some +studies on Palestine; and I was besieged by Rabbis lamenting my +'prejudice.' I pointed out that they would have got hold of the wrong +word, even if they had not got hold of the wrong man. As a point of +personal autobiography, I do not happen to be a man who dislikes Jews; +though I believe that some men do. I have had Jews among my most +intimate and faithful friends since my boyhood, and I hope to have them +till I die. But even if I did have a dislike of Jews, it would be +illogical to call that dislike a prejudice. Prejudice is a very lucid +Latin word meaning the bias which a man has before he considers a case. +I might be said to be prejudiced against a Hairy Ainu because of his +name, for I have never been on terms of such intimacy with him as to +correct my preconceptions. But if after moving about in the modern world +and meeting Jews, knowing Jews, doing business with Jews, and reading +and hearing about Jews, I came to the conclusion that I did not like +Jews, my conclusion certainly would not be a prejudice. It would simply +be an opinion; and one I should be perfectly entitled to hold; though as +a matter of fact I do not hold it. No extravagance of hatred merely +following on _experience_ of Jews can properly be called a prejudice. + +Now the point is that this new American Anti-Semitism springs from +experience and nothing but experience. There is no prejudice for it to +spring from. Or rather the prejudice is all the other way. All the +traditions of that democracy, and very creditable traditions too, are in +favour of toleration and a sort of idealistic indifference. The +sympathies in which these nineteenth-century people were reared were all +against Front-de-Boeuf and in favour of Rebecca. They inherited a +prejudice against Anti-Semitism; a prejudice of Anti-Anti-Semitism. +These people of the plains have found the Jewish problem exactly as they +might have struck oil; because it is _there_, and not even because they +were looking for it. Their view of the problem, like their use of the +oil, is not always satisfactory; and with parts of it I entirely +disagree. But the point is that the thing which I call a problem, and +others call a prejudice, has now appeared in broad daylight in a new +country where there is no priestcraft, no feudalism, no ancient +superstition to explain it. It has appeared because it _is_ a problem; +and those are the best friends of the Jews, including many of the Jews +themselves, who are trying to find a solution. That is the meaning of +the incident of Mr. Henry Ford of Detroit; and you will hardly hear an +intelligible word about it in England. + +The talk of prejudice against the Japs is not unlike the talk of +prejudice against the Jews. Only in this case our indifference has +really the excuse of ignorance. We used to lecture the Russians for +oppressing the Jews, before we heard the word Bolshevist and began to +lecture them for being oppressed by the Jews. In the same way we have +long lectured the Californians for oppressing the Japs, without allowing +for the possibility of their foreseeing that the oppression may soon be +the other way. As in the other case, it may be a persecution but it is +not a prejudice. The Californians know more about the Japanese than we +do; and our own colonists when they are placed in the same position +generally say the same thing. I will not attempt to deal adequately here +with the vast international and diplomatic problems which arise with the +name of the new power in the Far East. It is possible that Japan, having +imitated European militarism, may imitate European pacifism. I cannot +honestly pretend to know what the Japanese mean by the one any more than +by the other. But when Englishmen, especially English Liberals like +myself, take a superior and censorious attitude towards Americans and +especially Californians, I am moved to make a final remark. When a +considerable number of Englishmen talk of the grave contending claims of +our friendship with Japan and our friendship with America, when they +finally tend in a sort of summing up to dwell on the superior virtues of +Japan, I may be permitted to make a single comment. + +We are perpetually boring the world and each other with talk about the +bonds that bind us to America. We are perpetually crying aloud that +England and America are very much alike, especially England. We are +always insisting that the two are identical in all the things in which +they most obviously differ. We are always saying that both stand for +democracy, when we should not consent to stand their democracy for half +a day. We are always saying that at least we are all Anglo-Saxons, when +we are descended from Romans and Normans and Britons and Danes, and they +are descended from Irishmen and Italians and Slavs and Germans. We tell +a people whose very existence is a revolt against the British Crown that +they are passionately devoted to the British Constitution. We tell a +nation whose whole policy has been isolation and independence that with +us she can bear safely the White Man's Burden of universal empire. We +tell a continent crowded with Irishmen to thank God that the Saxon can +always rule the Celt. We tell a populace whose very virtues are lawless +that together we uphold the Reign of Law. We recognise our own +law-abiding character in people who make laws that neither they nor +anybody else can abide. We congratulate them on clinging to all they +have cast away, and on imitating everything which they came into +existence to insult. And when we have established all these nonsensical +analogies with a nonexistent nation, we wait until there is a crisis in +which we really are at one with America, and then we falter and threaten +to fail her. In a battle where we really are of one blood, the blood of +the great white race throughout the world, when we really have one +language, the fundamental alphabet of Cadmus and the script of Rome, +when we really do represent the same reign of law, the common conscience +of Christendom and the morals of men baptized, when we really have an +implicit faith and honour and type of freedom to summon up our souls as +with trumpets--_then_ many of us begin to weaken and waver and wonder +whether there is not something very nice about little yellow men, whose +heroic stories revolve round polygamy and suicide, and whose heroes wore +two swords and worshipped the ancestors of the Mikado. + + + + +_Prohibition in Fact and Fancy_ + + +I went to America with some notion of not discussing Prohibition. But I +soon found that well-to-do Americans were only too delighted to discuss +it over the nuts and wine. They were even willing, if necessary, to +dispense with the nuts. I am far from sneering at this; having a general +philosophy which need not here be expounded, but which may be symbolised +by saying that monkeys can enjoy nuts but only men can enjoy wine. But +if I am to deal with Prohibition, there is no doubt of the first thing +to be said about it. The first thing to be said about it is that it does +not exist. It is to some extent enforced among the poor; at any rate it +was intended to be enforced among the poor; though even among them I +fancy it is much evaded. It is certainly not enforced among the rich; +and I doubt whether it was intended to be. I suspect that this has +always happened whenever this negative notion has taken hold of some +particular province or tribe. Prohibition never prohibits. It never has +in history; not even in Moslem history; and it never will. Mahomet at +least had the argument of a climate and not the interest of a class. But +if a test is needed, consider what part of Moslem culture has passed +permanently into our own modern culture. You will find the one Moslem +poem that has really pierced is a Moslem poem in praise of wine. The +crown of all the victories of the Crescent is that nobody reads the +Koran and everybody reads the Rubaiyat. + +Most of us remember with satisfaction an old picture in _Punch_, +representing a festive old gentleman in a state of collapse on the +pavement, and a philanthropic old lady anxiously calling the attention +of a cabman to the calamity. The old lady says, 'I'm sure this poor +gentleman is ill,' and the cabman replies with fervour, 'Ill! I wish I +'ad 'alf 'is complaint.' + +We talk about unconscious humour; but there is such a thing as +unconscious seriousness. Flippancy is a flower whose roots are often +underground in the subconsciousness. Many a man talks sense when he +thinks he is talking nonsense; touches on a conflict of ideas as if it +were only a contradiction of language, or really makes a parallel when +he means only to make a pun. Some of the _Punch_ jokes of the best +period are examples of this; and that quoted above is a very strong +example of it. The cabman meant what he said; but he said a great deal +more than he meant. His utterance contained fine philosophical doctrines +and distinctions of which he was not perhaps entirely conscious. The +spirit of the English language, the tragedy and comedy of the condition +of the English people, spoke through him as the god spoke through a +teraph-head or brazen mask of oracle. And the oracle is an omen; and in +some sense an omen of doom. + +Observe, to begin with, the sobriety of the cabman. Note his measure, +his moderation; or to use the yet truer term, his temperance. He only +wishes to have half the old gentleman's complaint. The old gentleman is +welcome to the other half, along with all the other pomps and luxuries +of his superior social station. There is nothing Bolshevist or even +Communist about the temperance cabman. He might almost be called +Distributist, in the sense that he wishes to distribute the old +gentleman's complaint more equally between the old gentleman and +himself. And, of course, the social relations there represented are very +much truer to life than it is fashionable to suggest. By the realism of +this picture Mr. Punch made amends for some more snobbish pictures, with +the opposite social moral. It will remain eternally among his real +glories that he exhibited a picture in which the cabman was sober and +the gentleman was drunk. Despite many ideas to the contrary, it was +emphatically a picture of real life. The truth is subject to the +simplest of all possible tests. If the cabman were really and truly +drunk he would not be a cabman, for he could not drive a cab. If he had +the whole of the old gentleman's complaint, he would be sitting happily +on the pavement beside the old gentleman; a symbol of social equality +found at last, and the levelling of all classes of mankind. I do not say +that there has never been such a monster known as a drunken cabman; I do +not say that the driver may not sometimes have approximated imprudently +to three-quarters of the complaint, instead of adhering to his severe +but wise conception of half of it. But I do say that most men of the +world, if they spoke sincerely, could testify to more examples of +helplessly drunken gentlemen put inside cabs than of helplessly drunken +drivers on top of them. Philanthropists and officials, who never look at +people but only at papers, probably have a mass of social statistics to +the contrary; founded on the simple fact that cabmen can be +cross-examined about their habits and gentlemen cannot. Social workers +probably have the whole thing worked out in sections and compartments, +showing how the extreme intoxication of cabmen compares with the +parallel intoxication of costermongers; or measuring the drunkenness of +a dustman against the drunkenness of a crossing-sweeper. But there is +more practical experience embodied in the practical speech of the +English; and in the proverb that says 'as drunk as a lord.' + +Now Prohibition, whether as a proposal in England or a pretence in +America, simply means that the man who has drunk less shall have no +drink, and the man who has drunk more shall have all the drink. It means +that the old gentleman shall be carried home in the cab drunker than +ever; but that, in order to make it quite safe for him to drink to +excess, the man who drives him shall be forbidden to drink even in +moderation. That is what it means; that is all it means; that is all it +ever will mean. It tends to that in Moslem countries; where the +luxurious and advanced drink champagne, while the poor and fanatical +drink water. It means that in modern America; where the wealthy are all +at this moment sipping their cocktails, and discussing how much harder +labourers can be made to work if only they can be kept from festivity. +This is what it means and all it means; and men are divided about it +according to whether they believe in a certain transcendental concept +called 'justice,' expressed in a more mystical paradox as the equality +of men. So long as you do not believe in justice, and so long as you are +rich and really confident of remaining so, you can have Prohibition and +be as drunk as you choose. + +I see that some remarks by the Rev. R. J. Campbell, dealing with social +conditions in America, are reported in the press. They include some +observations about Sinn Fein in which, as in most of Mr. Campbell's +allusions to Ireland, it is not difficult to detect his dismal origin, +or the acrid smell of the smoke of Belfast. But the remarks about +America are valuable in the objective sense, over and above their +philosophy. He believes that Prohibition will survive and be a success, +nor does he seem himself to regard the prospect with any special +disfavour. But he frankly and freely testifies to the truth I have +asserted; that Prohibition does not prohibit, so far as the wealthy are +concerned. He testifies to constantly seeing wine on the table, as will +any other grateful guest of the generous hospitality of America; and he +implies humorously that he asked no questions about the story told him +of the old stocks in the cellars. So there is no dispute about the +facts; and we come back as before to the principles. Is Mr. Campbell +content with a Prohibition which is another name for Privilege? If so, +he has simply absorbed along with his new theology a new morality which +is different from mine. But he does state both sides of the inequality +with equal logic and clearness; and in these days of intellectual fog +that alone is like a ray of sunshine. + +Now my primary objection to Prohibition is not based on any arguments +against it, but on the one argument for it. I need nothing more for its +condemnation than the only thing that is said in its defence. It is said +by capitalists all over America; and it is very clearly and correctly +reported by Mr. Campbell himself. The argument is that employees work +harder, and therefore employers get richer. That this idea should be +taken calmly, by itself, as the test of a problem of liberty, is in +itself a final testimony to the presence of slavery. It shows that +people have completely forgotten that there is any other test except the +servile test. Employers are willing that workmen should have exercise, +as it may help them to do more work. They are even willing that workmen +should have leisure; for the more intelligent capitalists can see that +this also really means that they can do more work. But they are not in +any way willing that workmen should have fun; for fun only increases the +happiness and not the utility of the worker. Fun is freedom; and in that +sense is an end in itself. It concerns the man not as a worker but as a +citizen, or even as a soul; and the soul in that sense is an end in +itself. That a man shall have a reasonable amount of comedy and poetry +and even fantasy in his life is part of his spiritual health, which is +for the service of God; and not merely for his mechanical health, which +is now bound to the service of man. The very test adopted has all the +servile implication; the test of what we can get out of him, instead of +the test of what he can get out of life. + +Mr. Campbell is reported to have suggested, doubtless rather as a +conjecture than a prophecy, that England may find it necessary to become +teetotal in order to compete commercially with the efficiency and +economy of teetotal America. Well, in the eighteenth and early +nineteenth centuries there was in America one of the most economical and +efficient of all forms of labour. It did not happen to be feasible for +the English to compete with it by copying it. There were so many +humanitarian prejudices about in those days. But economically there +seems to be no reason why a man should not have prophesied that England +would be forced to adopt American Slavery then, as she is urged to adopt +American Prohibition now. Perhaps such a prophet would have prophesied +rightly. Certainly it is not impossible that universal Slavery might +have been the vision of Calhoun as universal Prohibition seems to be the +vision of Campbell. The old England of 1830 would have said that such a +plea for slavery was monstrous; but what would it have said of a plea +for enforced water-drinking? Nevertheless, the nobler Servile State of +Calhoun collapsed before it could spread to Europe. And there is always +the hope that the same may happen to the far more materialistic Utopia +of Mr. Campbell and Soft Drinks. + +Abstract morality is very important; and it may well clear the mind to +consider what would be the effect of Prohibition in America, if it were +introduced there. It would, of course, be a decisive departure from the +tradition of the Declaration of Independence. Those who deny that are +hardly serious enough to demand attention. It is enough to say that they +are reduced to minimising that document in defence of Prohibition, +exactly as the slave-owners were reduced to minimising it in defence of +Slavery. They are reduced to saying that the Fathers of the Republic +meant no more than that they would not be ruled by a king. And they are +obviously open to the reply which Lincoln gave to Douglas on the slavery +question; that if that great charter was limited to certain events in +the eighteenth century, it was hardly worth making such a fuss about in +the nineteenth--or in the twentieth. But they are also open to another +reply which is even more to the point, when they pretend that +Jefferson's famous preamble only means to say that monarchy is wrong. +They are maintaining that Jefferson only meant to say something that he +does not say at all. The great preamble does not say that all +monarchical government must be wrong; on the contrary, it rather implies +that most government is right. It speaks of human governments in general +as justified by the necessity of defending certain personal rights. I +see no reason whatever to suppose that it would not include any royal +government that does defend those rights. Still less do I doubt what it +would say of a republican government that does destroy those rights. + +But what are those rights? Sophists can always debate about their +degree; but even sophists cannot debate about their direction. Nobody in +his five wits will deny that Jeffersonian democracy wished to give the +law a general control in more public things, but the citizens a more +general liberty in private things. Wherever we draw the line, liberty +can only be personal liberty; and the most personal liberties must at +least be the last liberties we lose. But to-day they are the first +liberties we lose. It is not a question of drawing the line in the right +place, but of beginning at the wrong end. What are the rights of man, if +they do not include the normal right to regulate his own health, in +relation to the normal risks of diet and daily life? Nobody can pretend +that beer is a poison as prussic acid is a poison; that all the millions +of civilised men who drank it all fell down dead when they had touched +it. Its use and abuse is obviously a matter of judgment; and there can +be no personal liberty, if it is not a matter of private judgment. It +is not in the least a question of drawing the line between liberty and +licence. If this is licence, there is no such thing as liberty. It is +plainly impossible to find any right more individual or intimate. To say +that a man has a right to a vote, but not a right to a voice about the +choice of his dinner, is like saying that he has a right to his hat but +not a right to his head. + +Prohibition, therefore, plainly violates the rights of man, if there are +any rights of man. What its supporters really mean is that there are +none. And in suggesting this, they have all the advantages that every +sceptic has when he supports a negation. That sort of ultimate +scepticism can only be retorted upon itself, and we can point out to +them that they can no more prove the right of the city to be oppressive +than we can prove the right of the citizen to be free. In the primary +metaphysics of such a claim, it would surely be easier to make it out +for a single conscious soul than for an artificial social combination. +If there are no rights of men, what are the rights of nations? Perhaps a +nation has no claim to self-government. Perhaps it has no claim to good +government. Perhaps it has no claim to any sort of government or any +sort of independence. Perhaps they will say _that_ is not implied in the +Declaration of Independence. But without going deep into my reasons for +believing in natural rights, or rather in supernatural rights (and +Jefferson certainly states them as supernatural), I am content here to +note that a man's treatment of his own body, in relation to traditional +and ordinary opportunities for bodily excess, is as near to his +self-respect as social coercion can possibly go; and that when that is +gone there is nothing left. If coercion applies to that, it applies to +everything; and in the future of this controversy it obviously will +apply to everything. When I was in America, people were already applying +it to tobacco. I never can see why they should not apply it to talking. +Talking often goes with tobacco as it goes with beer; and what is more +relevant, talking may often lead both to beer and tobacco. Talking often +drives a man to drink, both negatively in the form of nagging and +positively in the form of bad company. If the American Puritan is so +anxious to be a _censor morum_, he should obviously put a stop to the +evil communications that really corrupt good manners. He should +reintroduce the Scold's Bridle among the other Blue Laws for a land of +blue devils. He should gag all gay deceivers and plausible cynics; he +should cut off all flattering lips and the tongue that speaketh proud +things. Nobody can doubt that nine-tenths of the harm in the world is +done simply by talking. Jefferson and the old democrats allowed people +to talk, not because they were unaware of this fact, but because they +were fettered by this old fancy of theirs about freedom and the rights +of man. But since we have already abandoned that doctrine in a final +fashion, I cannot see why the new principle should not be applied +intelligently; and in that case it would be applied to the control of +conversation. The State would provide us with forms already filled up +with the subjects suitable for us to discuss at breakfast; perhaps +allowing us a limited number of epigrams each. Perhaps we should have to +make a formal application in writing, to be allowed to make a joke that +had just occurred to us in conversation. And the committee would +consider it in due course. Perhaps it would be effected in a more +practical fashion, and the private citizens would be shut up as the +public-houses were shut up. Perhaps they would all wear gags, which the +policeman would remove at stated hours; and their mouths would be opened +from one to three, as now in England even the public-houses are from +time to time accessible to the public. To some this will sound +fantastic; but not so fantastic as Jefferson would have thought +Prohibition. But there is one sense in which it is indeed fantastic, for +by hypothesis it leaves out the favouritism that is the fundamental of +the whole matter. The only sense in which we can say that logic will +never go so far as this is that logic will never go the length of +equality. It is perfectly possible that the same forces that have +forbidden beer may go on to forbid tobacco. But they will in a special +and limited sense forbid tobacco--but not cigars. Or at any rate not +expensive cigars. In America, where large numbers of ordinary men smoke +rather ordinary cigars, there would be doubtless a good opportunity of +penalising a very ordinary pleasure. But the Havanas of the millionaire +will be all right. So it will be if ever the Puritans bring back the +Scold's Bridle and the statutory silence of the populace. It will only +be the populace that is silent. The politicians will go on talking. + +These I believe to be the broad facts of the problem of Prohibition; but +it would not be fair to leave it without mentioning two other causes +which, if not defences, are at least excuses. The first is that +Prohibition was largely passed in a sort of fervour or fever of +self-sacrifice, which was a part of the passionate patriotism of America +in the war. As I have remarked elsewhere, those who have any notion of +what that national unanimity was like will smile when they see America +made a model of mere international idealism. Prohibition was partly a +sort of patriotic renunciation; for the popular instinct, like every +poetic instinct, always tends at great crises to great gestures of +renunciation. But this very fact, while it makes the inhumanity far more +human, makes it far less final and convincing. Men cannot remain +standing stiffly in such symbolical attitudes; nor can a permanent +policy be founded on something analogous to flinging a gauntlet or +uttering a battle-cry. We might as well expect all the Yale students to +remain through life with their mouths open, exactly as they were when +they uttered the college yell. It would be as reasonable as to expect +them to remain through life with their mouths shut, while the wine-cup +which has been the sacrament of all poets and lovers passed round among +all the youth of the world. This point appeared very plainly in a +discussion I had with a very thoughtful and sympathetic American critic, +a clergyman writing in an Anglo-Catholic magazine. He put the sentiment +of these healthier Prohibitionists, which had so much to do with the +passing of Prohibition, by asking, 'May not a man who is asked to give +up his blood for his country be asked to give up his beer for his +country?' And this phrase clearly illuminates all the limitations of the +case. I have never denied, in principle, that it might in some abnormal +crisis be lawful for a government to lock up the beer, or to lock up the +bread. In that sense I am quite prepared to treat the sacrifice of beer +in the same way as the sacrifice of blood. But is my American critic +really ready to treat the sacrifice of blood in the same way as the +sacrifice of beer? Is bloodshed to be as prolonged and protracted as +Prohibition? Is the normal noncombatant to shed his gore as often as he +misses his drink? I can imagine people submitting to a special +regulation, as I can imagine them serving in a particular war. I do +indeed despise the political knavery that deliberately passes drink +regulations as war measures and then preserves them as peace measures. +But that is not a question of whether drink and drunkenness are wrong, +but of whether lying and swindling are wrong. But I never denied that +there might need to be exceptional sacrifices for exceptional occasions; +and war is in its nature an exception. Only, if war is the exception, +why should Prohibition be the rule? If the surrender of beer is worthy +to be compared to the shedding of blood, why then blood ought to be +flowing for ever like a fountain in the public squares of Philadelphia +and New York. If my critic wants to complete his parallel, he must draw +up rather a remarkable programme for the daily life of the ordinary +citizens. He must suppose that, through all their lives, they are +paraded every day at lunch time and prodded with bayonets to show that +they will shed their blood for their country. He must suppose that every +evening, after a light repast of poison gas and shrapnel, they are made +to go to sleep in a trench under a permanent drizzle of shell-fire. It +is surely obvious that if this were the normal life of the citizen, the +citizen would have no normal life. The common sense of the thing is that +sacrifices of this sort are admirable but abnormal. It is not normal for +the State to be perpetually regulating our days with the discipline of a +fighting regiment; and it is not normal for the State to be perpetually +regulating our diet with the discipline of a famine. To say that every +citizen must be subject to control in such bodily things is like saying +that every Christian ought to tear himself with red-hot pincers because +the Christian martyrs did their duty in time of persecution. A man has a +right to control his body, though in a time of martyrdom he may give his +body to be burned; and a man has a right to control his bodily health, +though in a state of siege he may give his body to be starved. Thus, +though the patriotic defence was a sincere defence, it is a defence that +comes back on the defenders like a boomerang. For it proves only that +Prohibition ought to be ephemeral, unless war ought to be eternal. + +The other excuse is much less romantic and much more realistic. I have +already said enough of the cause which is really realistic. The real +power behind Prohibition is simply the plutocratic power of the pushing +employers who wish to get the last inch of work out of their workmen. +But before the progress of modern plutocracy had reached this stage, +there was a predetermining cause for which there was a much better case. +The whole business began with the problem of black labour. I have not +attempted in this book to deal adequately with the question of the +negro. I have refrained for a reason that may seem somewhat sensational; +that I do not think I have anything particularly valuable to say or +suggest. I do not profess to understand this singularly dark and +intricate matter; and I see no use in men who have no solution filling +up the gap with sentimentalism. The chief thing that struck me about the +coloured people I saw was their charming and astonishing cheerfulness. +My sense of pathos was appealed to much more by the Red Indians; and +indeed I wish I had more space here to do justice to the Red Indians. +They did heroic service in the war; and more than justified their +glorious place in the day-dreams and nightmares of our boyhood. But the +negro problem certainly demands more study than a sight-seer could give +it; and this book is controversial enough about things that I have +really considered, without permitting it to exhibit me as a sight-seer +who shoots at sight. But I believe that it was always common ground to +people of common sense that the enslavement and importation of negroes +had been the crime and catastrophe of American history. The only +difference was originally that one side thought that, the crime once +committed, the only reparation was their freedom; while the other +thought that, the crime once committed, the only safety was their +slavery. It was only comparatively lately, by a process I shall have to +indicate elsewhere, that anything like a positive case for slavery +became possible. Now among the many problems of the presence of an alien +and at least recently barbaric figure among the citizens, there was a +very real problem of drink. Drink certainly has a very exceptionally +destructive effect upon negroes in their native countries; and it was +alleged to have a peculiarly demoralising effect upon negroes in the +United States; to call up the passions that are the particular +temptation of the race and to lead to appalling outrages that are +followed by appalling popular vengeance. However this may be, many of +the states of the American Union, which first forbade liquor to +citizens, meant simply to forbid it to negroes. But they had not the +moral courage to deny that negroes are citizens. About all their +political expedients necessarily hung the load that hangs so heavy on +modern politics; hypocrisy. The superior race had to rule by a sort of +secret society organised against the inferior. The American politicians +dared not disfranchise the negroes; so they coerced everybody in theory +and only the negroes in practice. The drinking of the white men became +as much a conspiracy as the shooting by the white horsemen of the +Ku-Klux Klan. And in that connection, it may be remarked in passing that +the comparison illustrates the idiocy of supposing that the moral sense +of mankind will ever support the prohibition of drinking as if it were +something like the prohibition of shooting. Shooting in America is +liable to take a free form, and sometimes a very horrible form; as when +private bravos were hired to kill workmen in the capitalistic interests +of that pure patron of disarmament, Carnegie. But when some of the rich +Americans gravely tell us that their drinking cannot be interfered with, +because they are only using up their existing stocks of wine, we may +well be disposed to smile. When I was there, at any rate, they were +using them up very fast; and with no apparent fears about the supply. +But if the Ku-Klux Klan had started suddenly shooting everybody they +didn't like in broad daylight, and had blandly explained that they were +only using up the stocks of their ammunition, left over from the Civil +War, it seems probable that there would at least have been a little +curiosity about how much they had left. There might at least have been +occasional inquiries about how long it was likely to go on. It is even +conceivable that some steps might have been taken to stop it. + +No steps are taken to stop the drinking of the rich, chiefly because +the rich now make all the rules and therefore all the exceptions, but +partly because nobody ever could feel the full moral seriousness of this +particular rule. And the truth is, as I have indicated, that it was +originally established as an exception and not as a rule. The +emancipated negro was an exception in the community, and a certain plan +was, rightly or wrongly, adopted to meet his case. A law was made +professedly for everybody and practically only for him. Prohibition is +only important as marking the transition by which the trick, tried +successfully on black labour, could be extended to all labour. We in +England have no right to be Pharisaic at the expense of the Americans in +this matter; for we have tried the same trick in a hundred forms. The +true philosophical defence of the modern oppression of the poor would be +to say frankly that we have ruled them so badly that they are unfit to +rule themselves. But no modern oligarch is enough of a man to say this. +For like all virile cynicism it would have an element of humility; which +would not mix with the necessary element of hypocrisy. So we proceed, +just as the Americans do, to make a law for everybody and then evade it +for ourselves. We have not the honesty to say that the rich may bet +because they can afford it; so we forbid any man to bet in any place; +and then say that a place is not a place. It is exactly as if there were +an American law allowing a negro to be murdered because he is not a man +within the meaning of the Act. We have not the honesty to drive the poor +to school because they are ignorant; so we pretend to drive everybody; +and then send inspectors to the slums but not to the smart streets. We +apply the same ingenuous principle; and are quite as undemocratic as +Western democracy. Nevertheless there is an element in the American case +which cannot be present in ours; and this chapter may well conclude upon +so important a change. + +America can now say with pride that she has abolished the colour bar. In +this matter the white labourer and the black labourer have at last been +put upon an equal social footing. White labour is every bit as much +enslaved as black labour; and is actually enslaved by a method and a +model only intended for black labour. We might think it rather odd if +the exact regulations about flogging negroes were reproduced as a plan +for punishing strikers; or if industrial arbitration issued its reports +in the precise terminology of the Fugitive Slave Law. But this is in +essentials what has happened; and one could almost fancy some negro orgy +of triumph, with the beating of gongs and all the secret violence of +Voodoo, crying aloud to some ancestral Mumbo Jumbo that the Poor White +Trash was being treated according to its name. + + + + +_Fads and Public Opinion_ + + +A foreigner is a man who laughs at everything except jokes. He is +perfectly entitled to laugh at anything, so long as he realises, in a +reverent and religious spirit, that he himself is laughable. I was a +foreigner in America; and I can truly claim that the sense of my own +laughable position never left me. But when the native and the foreigner +have finished with seeing the fun of each other in things that are meant +to be serious, they both approach the far more delicate and dangerous +ground of things that are meant to be funny. The sense of humour is +generally very national; perhaps that is why the internationalists are +so careful to purge themselves of it. I had occasion during the war to +consider the rights and wrongs of certain differences alleged to have +arisen between the English and American soldiers at the front. And, +rightly or wrongly, I came to the conclusion that they arose from the +failure to understand when a foreigner is serious and when he is +humorous. And it is in the very nature of the best sort of joke to be +the worst sort of insult if it is not taken as a joke. + +The English and the American types of humour are in one way directly +contrary. The most American sort of fun involves a soaring imagination, +piling one house on another in a tower like that of a sky-scraper. The +most English humour consists of a sort of bathos, of a man returning to +the earth his mother in a homely fashion; as when he sits down suddenly +on a butter-slide. English farce describes a man as being in a hole. +American fantasy, in its more aspiring spirit, describes a man as being +up a tree. The former is to be found in the cockney comic songs that +concern themselves with hanging out the washing or coming home with the +milk. The latter is to be found in those fantastic yarns about machines +that turn live pigs into pig-skin purses or burning cities that serve to +hatch an egg. But it will be inevitable, when the two come first into +contact, that the bathos will sound like vulgarity and the extravagance +will sound like boasting. + +Suppose an American soldier said to an English soldier in the trenches, +'The Kaiser may want a place in the sun; I reckon he won't have a place +in the solar system when we begin to hustle.' The English soldier will +very probably form the impression that this is arrogance; an impression +based on the extraordinary assumption that the American means what he +says. The American has merely indulged in a little art for art's sake, +and abstract adventure of the imagination; he has told an American short +story. But the Englishman, not understanding this, will think the other +man is boasting, and reflecting on the insufficiency of the English +effort. The English soldier is very likely to say something like, 'Oh, +you'll be wanting to get home to your old woman before that, and asking +for a kipper with your tea.' And it is quite likely that the American +will be offended in his turn at having his arabesque of abstract beauty +answered in so personal a fashion. Being an American, he will probably +have a fine and chivalrous respect for his wife; and may object to her +being called an old woman. Possibly he in turn may be under the +extraordinary delusion that talking of the old woman really means that +the woman is old. Possibly he thinks the mysterious demand for a kipper +carries with it some charge of ill-treating his wife; which his national +sense of honour swiftly resents. But the real cross-purposes come from +the contrary direction of the two exaggerations, the American making +life more wild and impossible than it is, and the Englishman making it +more flat and farcical than it is; the one escaping from the house of +life by a skylight and the other by a trap-door. + +This difficulty of different humours is a very practical one for +practical people. Most of those who profess to remove all international +differences are not practical people. Most of the phrases offered for +the reconciliation of severally patriotic peoples are entirely serious +and even solemn phrases. But human conversation is not conducted in +those phrases. The normal man on nine occasions out of ten is rather a +flippant man. And the normal man is almost always the national man. +Patriotism is the most popular of all the virtues. The drier sort of +democrats who despise it have the democracy against them in every +country in the world. Hence their international efforts seldom go any +farther than to effect an international reconciliation of all +internationalists. But we have not solved the normal and popular problem +until we have an international reconciliation of all nationalists. + +It is very difficult to see how humour can be translated at all. When +Sam Weller is in the Fleet Prison and Mrs. Weller and Mr. Stiggins sit +on each side of the fireplace and weep and groan with sympathy, old Mr. +Weller observes, 'Vell, Sammy, I hope you find your spirits rose by this +'ere lively visit.' I have never looked up this passage in the popular +and successful French version of _Pickwick_; but I confess I am curious +as to what French past-participle conveys the precise effect of the word +'rose.' A translator has not only to give the right translation of the +right word but the right translation of the wrong word. And in the same +way I am quite prepared to suspect that there are English jokes which an +Englishman must enjoy in his own rich and romantic solitude, without +asking for the sympathy of an American. But Englishmen are generally +only too prone to claim this fine perception, without seeing that the +fine edge of it cuts both ways. I have begun this chapter on the note of +national humour because I wish to make it quite clear that I realise how +easily a foreigner may take something seriously that is not serious. +When I think something in America is really foolish, it may be I that am +made a fool of. It is the first duty of a traveller to allow for this; +but it seems to be the very last thing that occurs to some travellers. +But when I seek to say something of what may be called the fantastic +side of America, I allow beforehand that some of it may be meant to be +fantastic. And indeed it is very difficult to believe that some of it is +meant to be serious. But whether or no there is a joke, there is +certainly an inconsistency; and it is an inconsistency in the moral +make-up of America which both puzzles and amuses me. + +The danger of democracy is not anarchy but convention. There is even a +sort of double meaning in the word 'convention'; for it is also used for +the most informal and popular sort of parliament; a parliament not +summoned by any king. The Americans come together very easily without +any king; but their coming together is in every sense a convention, and +even a very conventional convention. In a democracy riot is rather the +exception and respectability certainly the rule. And though a +superficial sight-seer should hesitate about all such generalisations, +and certainly should allow for enormous exceptions to them, he does +receive a general impression of unity verging on uniformity. Thus +Americans all dress well; one might almost say that American women all +look well; but they do not, as compared with Europeans, look very +different. They are in the fashion; too much in the fashion even to be +conspicuously fashionable. Of course there are patches, both Bohemian +and Babylonian, of which this is not true, but I am talking of the +general tone of a whole democracy. I have said there is more +respectability than riot; but indeed in a deeper sense the same spirit +is behind both riot and respectability. It is the same social force that +makes it possible for the respectable to boycott a man and for the +riotous to lynch him. I do not object to it being called 'the herd +instinct,' so long as we realise that it is a metaphor and not an +explanation. + +Public opinion can be a prairie fire. It eats up everything that opposes +it; and there is the grandeur as well as the grave disadvantages of a +natural catastrophe in that national unity. Pacifists who complained in +England of the intolerance of patriotism have no notion of what +patriotism can be like. If they had been in America, after America had +entered the war, they would have seen something which they have always +perhaps subconsciously dreaded, and would then have beyond all their +worst dreams detested; and the name of it is democracy. They would have +found that there are disadvantages in birds of a feather flocking +together; and that one of them follows on a too complacent display of +the white feather. The truth is that a certain flexible sympathy with +eccentrics of this kind is rather one of the advantages of an +aristocratic tradition. The imprisonment of Mr. Debs, the American +Pacifist, which really was prolonged and oppressive, would probably have +been shortened in England where his opinions were shared by aristocrats +like Mr. Bertrand Russell and Mr. Ponsonby. A man like Lord Hugh Cecil +could be moved to the defence of conscientious objectors, partly by a +true instinct of chivalry; but partly also by the general feeling that a +gentleman may very probably have aunts and uncles who are quite as mad. +He takes the matter personally, in the sense of being able to imagine +the psychology of the persons. But democracy is no respecter of persons. +It is no respecter of them, either in the bad and servile or in the good +and sympathetic sense. And Debs was nothing to democracy. He was but one +of the millions. This is a real problem, or question in the balance, +touching different forms of government; which is, of course, quite +neglected by the idealists who merely repeat long words. There was +during the war a society called the Union of Democratic Control, which +would have been instantly destroyed anywhere where democracy had any +control, or where there was any union. And in this sense the United +States have most emphatically got a union. Nevertheless I think there is +something rather more subtle than this simple popular solidity behind +the assimilation of American citizens to each other. There is something +even in the individual ideals that drives towards this social sympathy. +And it is here that we have to remember that biological fancies like the +herd instinct are only figures of speech, and cannot really cover +anything human. For the Americans are in some ways a very self-conscious +people. To compare their social enthusiasm to a stampede of cattle is to +ask us to believe in a bull writing a diary or a cow looking in a +looking-glass. Intensely sensitive by their very vitality, they are +certainly conscious of criticism and not merely of a blind and brutal +appetite. But the peculiar point about them is that it is this very +vividness in the self that often produces the similarity. It may be that +when they are unconscious they are like bulls and cows. But it is when +they are self-conscious that they are like each other. + +Individualism is the death of individuality. It is so, if only because +it is an 'ism.' Many Americans become almost impersonal in their worship +of personality. Where their natural selves might differ, their ideal +selves tend to be the same. Anybody can see what I mean in those strong +self-conscious photographs of American business men that can be seen in +any American magazine. Each may conceive himself to be a solitary +Napoleon brooding at St. Helena; but the result is a multitude of +Napoleons brooding all over the place. Each of them must have the eyes +of a mesmerist; but the most weak-minded person cannot be mesmerised by +more than one millionaire at a time. Each of the millionaires must +thrust forward his jaw, offering (if I may say so) to fight the world +with the same weapon as Samson. Each of them must accentuate the length +of his chin, especially, of course, by always being completely +clean-shaven. It would be obviously inconsistent with Personality to +prefer to wear a beard. These are of course fantastic examples on the +fringe of American life; but they do stand for a certain assimilation, +not through brute gregariousness, but rather through isolated dreaming. +And though it is not always carried so far as this, I do think it is +carried too far. There is not quite enough unconsciousness to produce +real individuality. There is a sort of worship of will-power in the +abstract, so that people are actually thinking about how they can will, +more than about what they want. To this I do think a certain corrective +could be found in the nature of English eccentricity. Every man in his +humour is most interesting when he is unconscious of his humour; or at +least when he is in an intermediate stage between humour in the old +sense of oddity and in the new sense of irony. Much is said in these +days against negative morality; and certainly most Americans would show +a positive preference for positive morality. The virtues they venerate +collectively are very active virtues; cheerfulness and courage and vim, +otherwise zip, also pep and similar things. But it is sometimes +forgotten that negative morality is freer than positive morality. +Negative morality is a net of a larger and more open pattern, of which +the lines or cords constrict at longer intervals. A man like Dr. Johnson +could grow in his own way to his own stature in the net of the Ten +Commandments; precisely because he was convinced there were only ten of +them. He was not compressed into the mould of positive beauty, like +that of the Apollo Belvedere or the American citizen. + +This criticism is sometimes true even of the American woman, who is +certainly a much more delightful person than the mesmeric millionaire +with his shaven jaw. Interviewers in the United States perpetually asked +me what I thought of American women, and I confessed a distaste for such +generalisations which I have not managed to lose. The Americans, who are +the most chivalrous people in the world, may perhaps understand me; but +I can never help feeling that there is something polygamous about +talking of women in the plural at all; something unworthy of any +American except a Mormon. Nevertheless, I think the exaggeration I +suggest does extend in a less degree to American women, fascinating as +they are. I think they too tend too much to this cult of impersonal +personality. It is a description easy to exaggerate even by the faintest +emphasis; for all these things are subtle and subject to striking +individual exceptions. To complain of people for being brave and bright +and kind and intelligent may not unreasonably appear unreasonable. And +yet there is something in the background that can only be expressed by a +symbol, something that is not shallowness but a neglect of the +subconsciousness and the vaguer and slower impulses; something that can +be missed amid all that laughter and light, under those starry +candelabra of the ideals of the happy virtues. Sometimes it came over +me, in a wordless wave, that I should like to see a sulky woman. How she +would walk in beauty like the night, and reveal more silent spaces full +of older stars! These things cannot be conveyed in their delicate +proportion even in the most detached description. But the same thing +was in the mind of a white-bearded old man I met in New York, an Irish +exile and a wonderful talker, who stared up at the tower of gilded +galleries of the great hotel, and said with that spontaneous movement of +style which is hardly heard except from Irish talkers: 'And I have been +in a village in the mountains where the people could hardly read or +write; but all the men were like soldiers, and all the women had pride.' + +It sounds like a poem about an Earthly Paradise to say that in this land +the old women can be more beautiful than the young. Indeed, I think Walt +Whitman, the national poet, has a line somewhere almost precisely to +that effect. It sounds like a parody upon Utopia, and the image of the +lion lying down with the lamb, to say it is a place where a man might +almost fall in love with his mother-in-law. But there is nothing in +which the finer side of American gravity and good feeling does more +honourably exhibit itself than in a certain atmosphere around the older +women. It is not a cant phrase to say that they grow old gracefully; for +they do really grow old. In this the national optimism really has in it +the national courage. The old women do not dress like young women; they +only dress better. There is another side to this feminine dignity in the +old, sometimes a little lost in the young, with which I shall deal +presently. The point for the moment is that even Whitman's truly poetic +vision of the beautiful old women suffers a little from that bewildering +multiplicity and recurrence that is indeed the whole theme of Whitman. +It is like the green eternity of Leaves of Grass. When I think of the +eccentric spinsters and incorrigible grandmothers of my own country, I +cannot imagine that any one of them could possibly be mistaken for +another, even at a glance. And in comparison I feel as if I had been +travelling in an Earthly Paradise of more decorative harmonies; and I +remember only a vast cloud of grey and pink as of the plumage of +cherubim in an old picture. But on second thoughts, I think this may be +only the inevitable effect of visiting any country in a swift and +superficial fashion; and that the grey and pink cloud is probably an +illusion, like the spinning prairies scattered by the wheel of the +train. + +Anyhow there is enough of this equality, and of a certain social unity +favourable to sanity, to make the next point about America very much of +a puzzle. It seems to me a very real problem, to which I have never seen +an answer even such as I shall attempt here, why a democracy should +produce fads; and why, where there is so genuine a sense of human +dignity, there should be so much of an impossible petty tyranny. I am +not referring solely or even specially to Prohibition, which I discuss +elsewhere. Prohibition is at least a superstition, and therefore next +door to a religion; it has some imaginable connection with moral +questions, as have slavery or human sacrifice. But those who ask us to +model ourselves on the States which punish the sin of drink forget that +there are States which punish the equally shameless sin of smoking a +cigarette in the open air. The same American atmosphere that permits +Prohibition permits of people being punished for kissing each other. In +other words, there are States psychologically capable of making a man a +convict for wearing a blue neck-tie or having a green front-door, or +anything else that anybody chooses to fancy. There is an American +atmosphere in which people may some day be shot for shaking hands, or +hanged for writing a post-card. + +As for the sort of thing to which I refer, the American newspapers are +full of it and there is no name for it but mere madness. Indeed it is +not only mad, but it calls itself mad. To mention but one example out of +many, it was actually boasted that some lunatics were teaching children +to take care of their health. And it was proudly added that the children +were 'health-mad.' That it is not exactly the object of all mental +hygiene to make people mad did not occur to them; and they may still be +engaged in their earnest labours to teach babies to be valetudinarians +and hypochondriacs in order to make them healthy. In such cases, we may +say that the modern world is too ridiculous to be ridiculed. You cannot +caricature a caricature. Imagine what a satirist of saner days would +have made of the daily life of a child of six, who was actually admitted +to be mad on the subject of his own health. These are not days in which +that great extravaganza could be written; but I dimly see some of its +episodes like uncompleted dreams. I see the child pausing in the middle +of a cart-wheel, or when he has performed three-quarters of a +cart-wheel, and consulting a little note-book about the amount of +exercise per diem. I see him pausing half-way up a tree, or when he has +climbed exactly one-third of a tree; and then producing a clinical +thermometer to take his own temperature. But what would be the good of +imaginative logic to prove the madness of such people, when they +themselves praise it for being mad? + +There is also the cult of the Infant Phenomenon, of which Dickens made +fun and of which educationalists make fusses. When I was in America +another newspaper produced a marvellous child of six who had the +intellect of a child of twelve. The only test given, and apparently one +on which the experiment turned, was that she could be made to understand +and even to employ the word 'annihilate.' When asked to say something +proving this, the happy infant offered the polished aphorism, 'When +common sense comes in, superstition is annihilated.' In reply to which, +by way of showing that I also am as intelligent as a child of twelve, +and there is no arrested development about me, I will say in the same +elegant diction, 'When psychological education comes in, common sense is +annihilated.' Everybody seems to be sitting round this child in an +adoring fashion. It did not seem to occur to anybody that we do not +particularly want even a child of twelve to talk about annihilating +superstition; that we do not want a child of six to talk like a child of +twelve, or a child of twelve to talk like a man of fifty, or even a man +of fifty to talk like a fool. And on the principle of hoping that a +little girl of six will have a massive and mature brain, there is every +reason for hoping that a little boy of six will grow a magnificent and +bushy beard. + +Now there is any amount of this nonsense cropping up among American +cranks. Anybody may propose to establish coercive Eugenics; or enforce +psychoanalysis--that is, enforce confession without absolution. And I +confess I cannot connect this feature with the genuine democratic spirit +of the mass. I can only suggest, in concluding this chapter, two +possible causes rather peculiar to America, which may have made this +great democracy so unlike all other democracies, and in this so +manifestly hostile to the whole democratic idea. + +The first historical cause is Puritanism; but not Puritanism merely in +the sense of Prohibitionism. The truth is that prohibitions might have +done far less harm as prohibitions, if a vague association had not +arisen, on some dark day of human unreason, between prohibition and +progress. And it was the progress that did the harm, not the +prohibition. Men can enjoy life under considerable limitations, if they +can be sure of their limited enjoyments; but under Progressive +Puritanism we can never be sure of anything. The curse of it is not +limitation; it is unlimited limitation. The evil is not in the +restriction; but in the fact that nothing can ever restrict the +restriction. The prohibitions are bound to progress point by point; more +and more human rights and pleasures must of necessity be taken away; for +it is of the nature of this futurism that the latest fad is the faith of +the future, and the most fantastic fad inevitably makes the pace. Thus +the worst thing in the seventeenth-century aberration was not so much +Puritanism as sectarianism. It searched for truth not by synthesis but +by subdivision. It not only broke religion into small pieces, but it was +bound to choose the smallest piece. There is in America, I believe, a +large religious body that has felt it right to separate itself from +Christendom because it cannot believe in the morality of wearing +buttons. I do not know how the schism arose; but it is easy to suppose, +for the sake of argument, that there had originally existed some Puritan +body which condemned the frivolity of ribbons though not of buttons. I +was going to say of badges but not buttons; but on reflection I cannot +bring myself to believe that any American, however insane, would object +to wearing badges. But the point is that as the holy spirit of +progressive prophesy rested on the first sect because it had invented a +new objection to ribbons, so that holy spirit would then pass from it to +the new sect who invented a further objection to buttons. And from them +it must inevitably pass to any rebel among them who shall choose to rise +and say that he disapproves of trousers because of the existence of +trouser-buttons. Each secession in turn must be right because it is +recent, and progress must progress by growing smaller and smaller. That +is the progressive theory, the legacy of seventeenth-century +sectarianism, the dogma implied in much modern politics, and the evident +enemy of democracy. Democracy is reproached with saying that the +majority is always right. But progress says that the minority is always +right. Progressives are prophets; and fortunately not all the people are +prophets. Thus in the atmosphere of this slowly dying sectarianism +anybody who chooses to prophesy and prohibit can tyrannise over the +people. If he chooses to say that drinking is always wrong, or that +kissing is always wrong, or that wearing buttons is always wrong, people +are afraid to contradict him for fear they should be contradicting their +own great-grandchild. For their superstition is an inversion of the +ancestor-worship of China; and instead of vainly appealing to something +that is dead, they appeal to something that may never be born. + +There is another cause of this strange servile disease in American +democracy. It is to be found in American feminism, and feminist America +is an entirely different thing from feminine America. I should say that +the overwhelming majority of American girls laugh at their female +politicians at least as much as the majority of American men despise +their male politicians. But though the aggressive feminists are a +minority, they are in this atmosphere which I have tried to analyse; the +atmosphere in which there is a sort of sanctity about the minority. And +it is this superstition of seriousness that constitutes the most solid +obstacle and exception to the general and almost conventional pressure +of public opinion. When a fad is frankly felt to be anti-national, as +was Abolitionism before the Civil War, or Pro-Germanism in the Great +War, or the suggestion of racial admixture in the South at all times, +then the fad meets far less mercy than anywhere else in the world; it is +snowed under and swept away. But when it does not thus directly +challenge patriotism or popular ideas, a curious halo of hopeful +solemnity surrounds it, merely because it is a fad, but above all if it +is a feminine fad. The earnest lady-reformer who really utters a warning +against the social evil of beer or buttons is seen to be walking clothed +in light, like a prophetess. Perhaps it is something of the holy aureole +which the East sees shining around an idiot. + +But I think there is another explanation, feminine rather than feminist, +and proceeding from normal women and not from abnormal idiots. It is +something that involves an old controversy, but one upon which I have +not, like so many politicians, changed my opinion. It concerns the +particular fashion in which women tend to regard, or rather to +disregard, the formal and legal rights of the citizen. In so far as this +is a bias, it is a bias in the directly opposite direction from that now +lightly alleged. There is a sort of underbred history going about, +according to which women in the past have always been in the position of +slaves. It is much more to the point to note that women have always been +in the position of despots. They have been despotic because they ruled +in an area where they had too much common sense to attempt to be +constitutional. You cannot grant a constitution to a nursery; nor can +babies assemble like barons and extort a Great Charter. Tommy cannot +plead a Habeas Corpus against going to bed; and an infant cannot be +tried by twelve other infants before he is put in the corner. And as +there can be no laws or liberties in a nursery, the extension of +feminism means that there shall be no more laws or liberties in a state +than there are in a nursery. The woman does not really regard men as +citizens but as children. She may, if she is a humanitarian, love all +mankind; but she does not respect it. Still less does she respect its +votes. Now a man must be very blind nowadays not to see that there is a +danger of a sort of amateur science or pseudo-science being made the +excuse for every trick of tyranny and interference. Anybody who is not +an anarchist agrees with having a policeman at the corner of the street; +but the danger at present is that of finding the policeman half-way down +the chimney or even under the bed. In other words, it is a danger of +turning the policeman into a sort of benevolent burglar. Against this +protests are already being made, and will increasingly be made, if men +retain any instinct of independence or dignity at all. But to complain +of the woman interfering in the home will always sound like complaining +of the oyster intruding into the oyster-shell. To object that she has +too much power over education will seem like objecting to a hen having +too much to do with eggs. She has already been given an almost +irresponsible power over a limited region in these things; and if that +power is made infinite it will be even more irresponsible. If she adds +to her own power in the family all these alien fads external to the +family, her power will not only be irresponsible but insane. She will be +something which may well be called a nightmare of the nursery; a mad +mother. But the point is that she will be mad about other nurseries as +well as her own, or possibly instead of her own. The results will be +interesting; but at least it is certain that under this softening +influence government of the people, by the people, for the people, will +most assuredly perish from the earth. + +But there is always another possibility. Hints of it may be noted here +and there like muffled gongs of doom. The other day some people +preaching some low trick or other, for running away from the glory of +motherhood, were suddenly silenced in New York; by a voice of deep and +democratic volume. The prigs who potter about the great plains are +pygmies dancing round a sleeping giant. That which sleeps, so far as +they are concerned, is the huge power of human unanimity and intolerance +in the soul of America. At present the masses in the Middle West are +indifferent to such fancies or faintly attracted by them, as fashions of +culture from the great cities. But any day it may not be so; some +lunatic may cut across their economic rights or their strange and buried +religion; and then he will see something. He will find himself running +like a nigger who has wronged a white woman or a man who has set the +prairie on fire. He will see something which the politicians fan in its +sleep and flatter with the name of the people, which many reactionaries +have cursed with the name of the mob, but which in any case has had +under its feet the crowns of many kings. It was said that the voice of +the people is the voice of God; and this at least is certain, that it +can be the voice of God to the wicked. And the last antics of their +arrogance shall stiffen before something enormous, such as towers in the +last words that Job heard out of the whirlwind; and a voice they never +knew shall tell them that his name is Leviathan, and he is lord over all +the children of pride. + + + + +_The Extraordinary American_ + + +When I was in America I had the feeling that it was far more foreign +than France or even than Ireland. And by foreign I mean fascinating +rather than repulsive. I mean that element of strangeness which marks +the frontier of any fairyland, or gives to the traveller himself the +almost eerie title of the stranger. And I saw there more clearly than in +countries counted as more remote from us, in race or religion, a paradox +that is one of the great truths of travel. + +We have never even begun to understand a people until we have found +something that we do not understand. So long as we find the character +easy to read, we are reading into it our own character. If when we see +an event we can promptly provide an explanation, we may be pretty +certain that we had ourselves prepared the explanation before we saw the +event. It follows from this that the best picture of a foreign people +can probably be found in a puzzle picture. If we can find an event of +which the meaning is really dark to us, it will probably throw some +light on the truth. I will therefore take from my American experiences +one isolated incident, which certainly could not have happened in any +other country I have ever clapped eyes on. I have really no notion of +what it meant. I have heard even from Americans about five different +conjectures about its meaning. But though I do not understand it, I do +sincerely believe that if I did understand it, I should understand +America. + +It happened in the city of Oklahoma, which would require a book to +itself, even considered as a background. The State of Oklahoma is a +district in the south-west recently reclaimed from the Red Indian +territory. What many, quite incorrectly, imagine about all America is +really true of Oklahoma. It is proud of having no history. It is glowing +with the sense of having a great future--and nothing else. People are +just as likely to boast of an old building in Nashville as in Norwich; +people are just as proud of old families in Boston as in Bath. But in +Oklahoma the citizens do point out a colossal structure, arrogantly +affirming that it wasn't there last week. It was against the colours of +this crude stage scenery, as of a pantomime city of pasteboard, that the +fantastic figure appeared which still haunts me like a walking note of +interrogation. I was strolling down the main street of the city, and +looking in at a paper-stall vivid with the news of crime, when a +stranger addressed me; and asked me, quite politely but with a curious +air of having authority to put the question, what I was doing in that +city. + +He was a lean brown man, having rather the look of a shabby tropical +traveller, with a grey moustache and a lively and alert eye. But the +most singular thing about him was that the front of his coat was covered +with a multitude of shining metallic emblems made in the shape of stars +and crescents. I was well accustomed by this time to Americans adorning +the lapels of their coats with little symbols of various societies; it +is a part of the American passion for the ritual of comradeship. There +is nothing that an American likes so much as to have a secret society +and to make no secret of it. But in this case, if I may put it so, the +rash of symbolism seemed to have broken out all over the man, in a +fashion that indicated that the fever was far advanced. Of this minor +mystery, however, his first few sentences offered a provisional +explanation. In answer to his question, touching my business in +Oklahoma, I replied with restraint that I was lecturing. To which he +replied without restraint, but rather with an expansive and radiant +pride, 'I also am lecturing. I am lecturing on astronomy.' + +So far a certain wild rationality seemed to light up the affair. I knew +it was unusual, in my own country, for the Astronomer Royal to walk down +the Strand with his coat plastered all over with the Solar System. +Indeed, it was unusual for any English astronomical lecturer to +advertise the subject of his lectures in this fashion. But though it +would be unusual, it would not necessarily be unreasonable. In fact, I +think it might add to the colour and variety of life, if specialists did +adopt this sort of scientific heraldry. I should like to be able to +recognise an entomologist at sight by the decorative spiders and +cockroaches crawling all over his coat and waistcoat. I should like to +see a conchologist in a simple costume of shells. An osteopath, I +suppose, would be agreeably painted so as to resemble a skeleton, while +a botanist would enliven the street with the appearance of a +Jack-in-the-Green. So while I regarded the astronomical lecturer in the +astronomical coat as a figure distinguishable, by a high degree of +differentiation, from the artless astronomers of my island home (enough +their simple loveliness for me) I saw in him nothing illogical, but +rather an imaginative extreme of logic. And then came another turn of +the wheel of topsy-turvydom, and all the logic was scattered to the +wind. + +Expanding his starry bosom and standing astraddle, with the air of one +who owned the street, the strange being continued, 'Yes, I am lecturing +on astronomy, anthropology, archaeology, palaeontology, embryology, +eschatology,' and so on in a thunderous roll of theoretical sciences +apparently beyond the scope of any single university, let alone any +single professor. Having thus introduced himself, however, he got to +business. He apologised with true American courtesy for having +questioned me at all, and excused it on the ground of his own exacting +responsibilities. I imagined him to mean the responsibility of +simultaneously occupying the chairs of all the faculties already +mentioned. But these apparently were trifles to him, and something far +more serious was clouding his brow. + +'I feel it to be my duty,' he said, 'to acquaint myself with any +stranger visiting this city; and it is an additional pleasure to welcome +here a member of the Upper Ten.' I assured him earnestly that I knew +nothing about the Upper Ten, except that I did not belong to them; I +felt, not without alarm, that the Upper Ten might be another secret +society. He waved my abnegation aside and continued, 'I have a great +responsibility in watching over this city. My friend the mayor and I +have a great responsibility.' And then an extraordinary thing happened. +Suddenly diving his hand into his breast-pocket, he flashed something +before my eyes like a hand-mirror; something which disappeared again +almost as soon as it appeared. In that flash I could only see that it +was some sort of polished metal plate, with some letters engraved on it +like a monogram. But the reward of a studious and virtuous life, which +has been spent chiefly in the reading of American detective stories, +shone forth for me in that hour of trial; I received at last the prize +of a profound scholarship in the matter of imaginary murders in +tenth-rate magazines. I remembered who it was who in the Yankee +detective yarn flashes before the eyes of Slim Jim or the Lone Hand +Crook a badge of metal sometimes called a shield. Assuming all the +desperate composure of Slim Jim himself, I replied, 'You mean you are +connected with the police authorities here, don't you? Well, if I commit +a murder here, I'll let you know.' Whereupon that astonishing man waved +a hand in deprecation, bowed in farewell with the grace of a dancing +master; and said, 'Oh, those are not things we expect from members of +the Upper Ten.' + +Then that moving constellation moved away, disappearing in the dark +tides of humanity, as the vision passed away down the dark tides from +Sir Galahad and, starlike, mingled with the stars. + +That is the problem I would put to all Americans, and to all who claim +to understand America. Who and what was that man? Was he an astronomer? +Was he a detective? Was he a wandering lunatic? If he was a lunatic who +thought he was an astronomer, why did he have a badge to prove he was a +detective? If he was a detective pretending to be an astronomer, why did +he tell a total stranger that he was a detective two minutes after +saying he was an astronomer? If he wished to watch over the city in a +quiet and unobtrusive fashion, why did he blazon himself all over with +all the stars of the sky, and profess to give public lectures on all the +subjects of the world? Every wise and well-conducted student of murder +stories is acquainted with the notion of a policeman in plain clothes. +But nobody could possibly say that this gentleman was in plain clothes. +Why not wear his uniform, if he was resolved to show every stranger in +the street his badge? Perhaps after all he had no uniform; for these +lands were but recently a wild frontier rudely ruled by vigilance +committees. Some Americans suggested to me that he was the Sheriff; the +regular hard-riding, free-shooting Sheriff of Bret Harte and my +boyhood's dreams. Others suggested that he was an agent of the Ku-Klux +Klan, that great nameless revolution of the revival of which there were +rumours at the time; and that the symbol he exhibited was theirs. But +whether he was a sheriff acting for the law, or a conspirator against +the law, or a lunatic entirely outside the law, I agree with the former +conjectures upon one point. I am perfectly certain he had something else +in his pocket besides a badge. And I am perfectly certain that under +certain circumstances he would have handled it instantly, and shot me +dead between the gay bookstall and the crowded trams. And that is the +last touch to the complexity; for though in that country it often seems +that the law is made by a lunatic, you never know when the lunatic may +not shoot you for keeping it. Only in the presence of that citizen of +Oklahoma I feel I am confronted with the fullness and depth of the +mystery of America. Because I understand nothing, I recognise the thing +that we call a nation; and I salute the flag. + +But even in connection with this mysterious figure there is a moral +which affords another reason for mentioning him. Whether he was a +sheriff or an outlaw, there was certainly something about him that +suggested the adventurous violence of the old border life of America; +and whether he was connected with the police or no, there was certainly +violence enough in his environment to satisfy the most ardent policeman. +The posters in the paper-shop were placarded with the verdict in the +Hamon trial; a _cause célčbre_ which reached its crisis in Oklahoma +while I was there. Senator Hamon had been shot by a girl whom he had +wronged, and his widow demanded justice, or what might fairly be called +vengeance. There was very great excitement culminating in the girl's +acquittal. Nor did the Hamon case appear to be entirely exceptional in +that breezy borderland. The moment the town had received the news that +Clara Smith was free, newsboys rushed down the street shouting, 'Double +stabbing outrage near Oklahoma,' or 'Banker's throat cut on Main +Street,' or otherwise resuming their regular mode of life. It seemed as +much as to say, 'Do not imagine that our local energies are exhausted in +shooting a Senator,' or 'Come, now, the world is young, even if Clara +Smith is acquitted, and the enthusiasm of Oklahoma is not yet cold.' + +But my particular reason for mentioning the matter is this. Despite my +friend's mystical remarks about the Upper Ten, he lived in an atmosphere +of something that was at least the very reverse of a respect for +persons. Indeed, there was something in the very crudity of his social +compliment that smacked, strangely enough, of that egalitarian soil. In +a vaguely aristocratic country like England, people would never dream +of telling a total stranger that he was a member of the Upper Ten. For +one thing, they would be afraid that he might be. Real snobbishness is +never vulgar; for it is intended to please the refined. Nobody licks the +boots of a duke, if only because the duke does not like his boots +cleaned in that way. Nobody embraces the knees of a marquis, because it +would embarrass that nobleman. And nobody tells him he is a member of +the Upper Ten, because everybody is expected to know it. But there is a +much more subtle kind of snobbishness pervading the atmosphere of any +society trial in England. And the first thing that struck me was the +total absence of that atmosphere in the trial at Oklahoma. Mr. Hamon was +presumably a member of the Upper Ten, if there is such a thing. He was a +member of the Senate or Upper House in the American Parliament; he was a +millionaire and a pillar of the Republican party, which might be called +the respectable party; he is said to have been mentioned as a possible +President. And the speeches of Clara Smith's counsel, who was known by +the delightfully Oklahomite title of Wild Bill McLean, were wild enough +in all conscience; but they left very little of my friend's illusion +that members of the Upper Ten could not be accused of crimes. Nero and +Borgia were quite presentable people compared with Senator Hamon when +Wild Bill McLean had done with him. But the difference was deeper, and +even in a sense more delicate than this. There is a certain tone about +English trials, which does at least begin with a certain scepticism +about people prominent in public life being abominable in private life. +People do vaguely doubt the criminality of 'a man in that position'; +that is, the position of the Marquise de Brinvilliers or the Marquis de +Sade. _Prima facie_, it would be an advantage to the Marquis de Sade +that he was a marquis. But it was certainly against Hamon that he was a +millionaire. Wild Bill did not minimise him as a bankrupt or an +adventurer; he insisted on the solidity and size of his fortune, he made +mountains out of the 'Hamon millions,' as if they made the matter much +worse; as indeed I think they do. But that is because I happen to share +a certain political philosophy with Wild Bill and other wild buffaloes +of the prairies. In other words, there is really present here a +democratic instinct against the domination of wealth. It does not +prevent wealth from dominating; but it does prevent the domination from +being regarded with any affection or loyalty. Despite the man in the +starry coat, the Americans have not really any illusions about the Upper +Ten. McLean was appealing to an implicit public opinion when he pelted +the Senator with his gold. + +But something more is involved. I became conscious, as I have been +conscious in reading the crime novels of America, that the millionaire +was taken as a type and not an individual. This is the great difference; +that America recognises rich crooks as a _class_. Any Englishman might +recognise them as individuals. Any English romance may turn on a crime +in high life; in which the baronet is found to have poisoned his wife, +or the elusive burglar turns out to be the bishop. But the English are +not always saying, either in romance or reality, 'What's to be done, if +our food is being poisoned by all these baronets?' They do not murmur in +indignation, 'If bishops will go on burgling like this, something must +be done.' The whole point of the English romance is the exceptional +character of a crime in high life. That is not the tone of American +novels or American newspapers or American trials like the trial in +Oklahoma. Americans may be excited when a millionaire crook is caught, +as when any other crook is caught; but it is at his being caught, not at +his being discovered. To put the matter shortly, England recognises a +criminal class at the bottom of the social scale. America also +recognises a criminal class at the top of the social scale. In both, for +various reasons, it may be difficult for the criminals to be convicted; +but in America the upper class of criminals is recognised. In both +America and England, of course, it exists. + +This is an assumption at the back of the American mind which makes a +great difference in many ways; and in my opinion a difference for the +better. I wrote merely fancifully just now about bishops being burglars; +but there is a story in New York, illustrating this, which really does +in a sense attribute a burglary to a bishop. The story was that an +Anglican Lord Spiritual, of the pompous and now rather antiquated +school, was pushing open the door of a poor American tenement with all +the placid patronage of the squire and rector visiting the cottagers, +when a gigantic Irish policeman came round the corner and hit him a +crack over the head with a truncheon on the assumption that he was a +house-breaker. I hope that those who laugh at the story see that the +laugh is not altogether against the policeman; and that it is not only +the policeman, but rather the bishop, who had failed to recognise some +fine logical distinctions. The bishop, being a learned man, might well +be called upon (when he had sufficiently recovered from the knock on +the head) to define what is the exact difference between a house-breaker +and a home-visitor; and why the home-visitor should not be regarded as a +house-breaker when he will not behave as a guest. An impartial +intelligence will be much less shocked at the policeman's disrespect for +the home-visitor than by the home-visitor's disrespect for the home. + +But that story smacks of the western soil, precisely because of the +element of brutality there is in it. In England snobbishness and social +oppression are much subtler and softer; the manifestations of them at +least are more mellow and humane. In comparison there is indeed +something which people call ruthless about the air of America, +especially the American cities. The bishop may push open the door +without an apology, but he would not break open the door with a +truncheon; but the Irish policeman's truncheon hits both ways. It may be +brutal to the tenement dweller as well as to the bishop; but the +difference and distinction is that it might really be brutal to the +bishop. It is because there is after all, at the back of all that +barbarism, a sort of a negative belief in the brotherhood of men, a dark +democratic sense that men are really men and nothing more, that the +coarse and even corrupt bureaucracy is not resented exactly as +oligarchic bureaucracies are resented. There is a sense in which +corruption is not so narrow as nepotism. It is upon this queer cynical +charity, and even humility, that it has been possible to rear so high +and uphold so long that tower of brass, Tammany Hall. The modern police +system is in spirit the most inhuman in history, and its evil belongs +to an age and not to a nation. But some American police methods are evil +past all parallel; and the detective can be more crooked than a hundred +crooks. But in the States it is not only possible that the policeman is +worse than the convict, it is by no means certain that he thinks that he +is any better. In the popular stories of O. Henry there are light +allusions to tramps being kicked out of hotels which will make any +Christian seek relief in strong language and a trust in heaven--not to +say in hell. And yet books even more popular than O. Henry's are those +of the 'sob-sisterhood' who swim in lachrymose lakes after love-lorn +spinsters, who pass their lives in reclaiming and consoling such tramps. +There are in this people two strains of brutality and sentimentalism +which I do not understand, especially where they mingle; but I am fairly +sure they both work back to the dim democratic origin. The Irish +policeman does not confine himself fastidiously to bludgeoning bishops; +his truncheon finds plenty of poor people's heads to hit; and yet I +believe on my soul he has a sort of sympathy with poor people not to be +found in the police of more aristocratic states. I believe he also reads +and weeps over the stories of the spinsters and the reclaimed tramps; in +fact, there is much of such pathos in an American magazine (my sole +companion on many happy railway journeys) which is not only devoted to +detective stories, but apparently edited by detectives. In these stories +also there is the honest, popular astonishment at the Upper Ten +expressed by the astronomical detective, if indeed he was a detective +and not a demon from the dark Red-Indian forests that faded to the +horizon behind him. But I have set him as the head and text of this +chapter because with these elements of the Third Degree of devilry and +the Seventh Heaven of sentimentalism I touch on elements that I do not +understand; and when I do not understand, I say so. + + + + +_The Republican in the Ruins_ + + +The heathen in his blindness bows down to wood and stone; especially to +a wood-cut or a lithographic stone. Modern people put their trust in +pictures, especially scientific pictures, as much as the most +superstitious ever put it in religious pictures. They publish a portrait +of the Missing Link as if he were the Missing Man, for whom the police +are always advertising; for all the world as if the anthropoid had been +photographed before he absconded. The scientific diagram may be a +hypothesis; it may be a fancy; it may be a forgery. But it is always an +idol in the true sense of an image; and an image in the true sense of a +thing mastering the imagination and not the reason. The power of these +talismanic pictures is almost hypnotic to modern humanity. We can never +forget that we have seen a portrait of the Missing Link; though we +should instantly detect the lapse of logic into superstition, if we were +told that the old Greek agnostics had made a statue of the Unknown God. +But there is a still stranger fashion in which we fall victims to the +same trick of fancy. We accept in a blind and literal spirit, not only +images of speculation, but even figures of speech. The nineteenth +century prided itself on having lost its faith in myths, and proceeded +to put all its faith in metaphors. It dismissed the old doctrines about +the way of life and the light of the world; and then it proceeded to +talk as if the light of truth were really and literally a light, that +could be absorbed by merely opening our eyes; or as if the path of +progress were really and truly a path, to be found by merely following +our noses. Thus the purpose of God is an idea, true or false; but the +purpose of Nature is merely a metaphor; for obviously if there is no God +there is no purpose. Yet while men, by an imaginative instinct, spoke of +the purpose of God with a grand agnosticism, as something too large to +be seen, something reaching out to worlds and to eternities, they speak +of the purpose of Nature in particular and practical problems of curing +babies or cutting up rabbits. This power of the modern metaphor must be +understood, by way of an introduction, if we are to understand one of +the chief errors, at once evasive and pervasive, which perplex the +problem of America. + +America is always spoken of as a young nation; and whether or no this be +a valuable and suggestive metaphor, very few people notice that it is a +metaphor at all. If somebody said that a certain deserving charity had +just gone into trousers, we should recognise that it was a figure of +speech, and perhaps a rather surprising figure of speech. If somebody +said that a daily paper had recently put its hair up, we should know it +could only be a metaphor, and possibly a rather strained metaphor. Yet +these phrases would mean the only thing that can possibly be meant by +calling a corporate association of all sorts of people 'young'; that is, +that a certain institution has only existed for a certain time. I am not +now denying that such a corporate nationality may happen to have a +psychology comparatively analogous to the psychology of youth. I am not +even denying that America has it. I am only pointing out, to begin with, +that we must free ourselves from the talismanic tyranny of a metaphor +which we do not recognise as a metaphor. Men realised that the old +mystical doctrines were mystical; they do not realise that the new +metaphors are metaphorical. They have some sort of hazy notion that +American society must be growing, must be promising, must have the +virtues of hope or the faults of ignorance, merely _because_ it has only +had a separate existence since the eighteenth century. And that is +exactly like saying that a new chapel must be growing taller, or that a +limited liability company will soon have its second teeth. + +Now in truth this particular conception of American hopefulness would be +anything but hopeful for America. If the argument really were, as it is +still vaguely supposed to be, that America must have a long life before +it, because it only started in the eighteenth century, we should find a +very fatal answer by looking at the other political systems that did +start in the eighteenth century. The eighteenth century was called the +Age of Reason; and there is a very real sense in which the other systems +were indeed started in a spirit of reason. But starting from reason has +not saved them from ruin. If we survey the Europe of to-day with real +clarity and historic comprehension, we shall see that it is precisely +the most recent and the most rationalistic creations that have been +ruined. The two great States which did most definitely and emphatically +deserve to be called modern states were Prussia and Russia. There was no +real Prussia before Frederick the Great; no real Russian Empire before +Peter the Great. Both those innovators recognised themselves as +rationalists bringing a new reason and order into an indeterminate +barbarism; and doing for the barbarians what the barbarians could not do +for themselves. They did not, like the kings of England or France or +Spain or Scotland, inherit a sceptre that was the symbol of a historic +and patriotic people. In this sense there was no Russia but only an +Emperor of Russia. In this sense Prussia was a kingdom before it was a +nation; if it ever was a nation. But anyhow both men were particularly +modern in their whole mood and mind. They were modern to the extent of +being not only anti-traditional, but almost anti-patriotic. Peter forced +the science of the West on Russia to the regret of many Russians. +Frederick talked the French of Voltaire and not the German of Luther. +The two experiments were entirely in the spirit of Voltairean +rationalism; they were built in broad daylight by men who believed in +nothing but the light of common day; and already their day is done. + +If then the promise of America were in the fact that she is one of the +latest births of progress, we should point out that it is exactly the +latest born that were the first to die. If in this sense she is praised +as young, it may be answered that the young have died young, and have +not lived to be old. And if this be confused with the argument that she +came in an age of clarity and scepticism, uncontaminated by old +superstitions, it could still be retorted that the works of superstition +have survived the works of scepticism. But the truth is, of course, that +the real quality of America is much more subtle and complex than this; +and is mixed not only of good and bad, and rational and mystical, but +also of old and new. That is what makes the task of tracing the true +proportions of American life so interesting and so impossible. + +To begin with, such a metaphor is always as distracting as a mixed +metaphor. It is a double-edged tool that cuts both ways; and +consequently opposite ways. We use the same word 'young' to mean two +opposite extremes. We mean something at an early stage of growth, and +also something having the latest fruits of growth. We might call a +commonwealth young if it conducted all its daily conversation by +wireless telegraphy; meaning that it was progressive. But we might also +call it young if it conducted all its industry with chipped flints; +meaning that it was primitive. These two meanings of youth are +hopelessly mixed up when the word is applied to America. But what is +more curious, the two elements really are wildly entangled in America. +America is in some ways what is called in advance of the times, and in +some ways what is called behind the times; but it seems a little +confusing to convey both notions by the same word. + +On the one hand, Americans often are successful in the last inventions. +And for that very reason they are often neglectful of the last but one. +It is true of men in general, dealing with things in general, that while +they are progressing in one thing, such as science, they are going back +in another thing, such as art. What is less fully realised is that this +is true even as between different methods of science. The perfection of +wireless telegraphy might well be followed by the gross imperfection of +wires. The very enthusiasm of American science brings this out very +vividly. The telephone in New York works miracles all day long. Replies +from remote places come as promptly as in a private talk; nobody cuts +anybody off; nobody says, 'Sorry you've been troubled.' But then the +postal service of New York does not work at all. At least I could never +discover it working. Letters lingered in it for days and days, as in +some wild village of the Pyrenees. When I asked a taxi-driver to drive +me to a post-office, a look of far-off vision and adventure came into +his eyes, and he said he had once heard of a post-office somewhere near +West Ninety-Seventh Street. Men are not efficient in everything, but +only in the fashionable thing. This may be a mark of the march of +science; it does certainly in one sense deserve the description of +youth. We can imagine a very young person forgetting the old toy in the +excitement of a new one. + +But on the other hand, American manners contain much that is called +young in the contrary sense; in the sense of an earlier stage of +history. There are whole patches and particular aspects that seem to me +quite Early Victorian. I cannot help having this sensation, for +instance, about the arrangement for smoking in the railway carriages. +There are no smoking carriages, as a rule; but a corner of each of the +great cars is curtained off mysteriously, that a man may go behind the +curtain and smoke. Nobody thinks of a woman doing so. It is regarded as +a dark, bohemian, and almost brutally masculine indulgence; exactly as +it was regarded by the dowagers in Thackeray's novels. Indeed, this is +one of the many such cases in which extremes meet; the extremes of +stuffy antiquity and cranky modernity. The American dowager is sorry +that tobacco was ever introduced; and the American suffragette and +social reformer is considering whether tobacco ought not to be +abolished. The tone of American society suggests some sort of +compromise, by which women will be allowed to smoke, but men forbidden +to do so. + +In one respect, however, America is very old indeed. In one respect +America is more historic than England; I might almost say more +archaeological than England. The record of one period of the past, +morally remote and probably irrevocable, is there preserved in a more +perfect form as a pagan city is preserved at Pompeii. In a more general +sense, of course, it is easy to exaggerate the contrast as a mere +contrast between the old world and the new. There is a superficial +satire about the millionaire's daughter who has recently become the wife +of an aristocrat; but there is a rather more subtle satire in the +question of how long the aristocrat has been aristocratic. There is +often much misplaced mockery of a marriage between an upstart's daughter +and a decayed relic of feudalism; when it is really a marriage between +an upstart's daughter and an upstart's grandson. The sentimental +socialist often seems to admit the blue blood of the nobleman, even when +he wants to shed it; just as he seems to admit the marvellous brains of +the millionaire, even when he wants to blow them out. Unfortunately (in +the interests of social science, of course) the sentimental socialist +never does go so far as bloodshed or blowing out brains; otherwise the +colour and quality of both blood and brains would probably be a +disappointment to him. There are certainly more American families that +really came over in the _Mayflower_ than English families that really +came over with the Conqueror; and an English county family clearly +dating from the time of the _Mayflower_ would be considered a very +traditional and historic house. Nevertheless, there are ancient things +in England, though the aristocracy is hardly one of them. There are +buildings, there are institutions, there are even ideas in England which +do preserve, as in a perfect pattern, some particular epoch of the past, +and even of the remote past. A man could study the Middle Ages in +Lincoln as well as in Rouen; in Canterbury as well as in Cologne. Even +of the Renaissance the same is true, at least on the literary side; if +Shakespeare was later he was also greater than Ronsard. But the point is +that the spirit and philosophy of the periods were present in fullness +and in freedom. The guildsmen were as Christian in England as they were +anywhere; the poets were as pagan in England as they were anywhere. +Personally I do not admit that the men who served patrons were freer +than those who served patron saints. But each fashion had its own kind +of freedom; and the point is that the English, in each case, had the +fullness of that kind of freedom. But there was another ideal of freedom +which the English never had at all; or, anyhow, never expressed at all. +There was another ideal, the soul of another epoch, round which we built +no monuments and wrote no masterpieces. You will find no traces of it in +England; but you will find them in America. + +The thing I mean was the real religion of the eighteenth century. Its +religion, in the more defined sense, was generally Deism, as in +Robespierre or Jefferson. In the more general way of morals and +atmosphere it was rather Stoicism, as in the suicide of Wolfe Tone. It +had certain very noble and, as some would say, impossible ideals; as +that a politician should be poor, and should be proud of being poor. It +knew Latin; and therefore insisted on the strange fancy that the +Republic should be a public thing. Its Republican simplicity was +anything but a silly pose; unless all martyrdom is a silly pose. Even of +the prigs and fanatics of the American and French Revolutions we can +often say, as Stevenson said of an American, that 'thrift and courage +glowed in him.' And its virtue and value for us is that it did remember +the things we now most tend to forget; from the dignity of liberty to +the danger of luxury. It did really believe in self-determination, in +the self-determination of the self, as well as of the state. And its +determination was really determined. In short, it believed in +self-respect; and it is strictly true even of its rebels and regicides +that they desired chiefly to be respectable. But there were in it the +marks of religion as well as respectability; it had a creed; it had a +crusade. Men died singing its songs; men starved rather than write +against its principles. And its principles were liberty, equality, and +fraternity, or the dogmas of the Declaration of Independence. This was +the idea that redeemed the dreary negations of the eighteenth century; +and there are still corners of Philadelphia or Boston or Baltimore where +we can feel so suddenly in the silence its plain garb and formal +manners, that the walking ghost of Jefferson would hardly surprise us. + +There is not the ghost of such a thing in England. In England the real +religion of the eighteenth century never found freedom or scope. It +never cleared a space in which to build that cold and classic building +called the Capitol. It never made elbow-room for that free if sometimes +frigid figure called the Citizen. + +In eighteenth-century England he was crowded out, partly perhaps by the +relics of better things of the past, but largely at least by the +presence of much worse things in the present. The worst things kept out +the best things of the eighteenth century. The ground was occupied by +legal fictions; by a godless Erastian church and a powerless Hanoverian +king. Its realities were an aristocracy of Regency dandies, in costumes +made to match Brighton Pavilion; a paganism not frigid but florid. It +was a touch of this aristocratic waste in Fox that prevented that great +man from being a glorious exception. It is therefore well for us to +realise that there is something in history which we did not experience; +and therefore probably something in Americans that we do not understand. +There was this idealism at the very beginning of their individualism. +There was a note of heroic publicity and honourable poverty which +lingers in the very name of Cincinnati. + +But I have another and special reason for noting this historical fact; +the fact that we English never made anything upon the model of a +capitol, while we can match anybody with the model of a cathedral. It is +far from improbable that the latter model may again be a working model. +For I have myself felt, naturally and for a long time, a warm sympathy +with both those past ideals, which seem to some so incompatible. I have +felt the attraction of the red cap as well as the red cross, of the +Marseillaise as well as the Magnificat. And even when they were in +furious conflict I have never altogether lost my sympathy for either. +But in the conflict between the Republic[1] and the Church, the point +often made against the Church seems to me much more of a point against +the Republic. It is emphatically the Republic and not the Church that I +venerate as something beautiful but belonging to the past. In fact I +feel exactly the same sort of sad respect for the republican ideal that +many mid-Victorian free-thinkers felt for the religious ideal. The most +sincere poets of that period were largely divided between those who +insisted, like Arnold and Clough, that Christianity might be a ruin, but +after all it must be treated as a picturesque ruin; and those, like +Swinburne, who insisted that it might be a picturesque ruin, but after +all it must be treated as a ruin. But surely their own pagan temple of +political liberty is now much more of a ruin than the other; and I fancy +I am one of the few who still take off their hats in that ruined temple. +That is why I went about looking for the fading traces of that lost +cause, in the old-world atmosphere of the new world. + +But I do not, as a fact, feel that the cathedral is a ruin; I doubt if I +should feel it even if I wished to lay it in ruins. I doubt if Mr. +M'Cabe really thinks that Catholicism is dying, though he might deceive +himself into saying so. Nobody could be naturally moved to say that the +crowded cathedral of St. Patrick in New York was a ruin, or even that +the unfinished Anglo-Catholic cathedral at Washington was a ruin, though +it is not yet a church; or that there is anything lost or lingering +about the splendid and spirited Gothic churches springing up under the +inspiration of Mr. Cram of Boston. As a matter of feeling, as a matter +of fact, as a matter quite apart from theory or opinion, it is not in +the religious centres that we now have the feeling of something +beautiful but receding, of something loved but lost. It is exactly in +the spaces cleared and levelled by America for the large and sober +religion of the eighteenth century; it is where an old house in +Philadelphia contains an old picture of Franklin, or where the men of +Maryland raised above their city the first monument of Washington. It is +there that I feel like one who treads alone some banquet hall deserted, +whose lights are fled, whose garlands dead, and all save he departed. It +is then that I feel as if I were the last Republican. + +But when I say that the Republic of the Age of Reason is now a ruin, I +should rather say that at its best it is a ruin. At its worst it has +collapsed into a death-trap or is rotting like a dunghill. What is the +real Republic of our day as distinct from the ideal Republic of our +fathers, but a heap of corrupt capitalism crawling with worms; with +those parasites, the professional politicians? I was re-reading +Swinburne's bitter but not ignoble poem, 'Before a Crucifix,' in which +he bids Christ, or the ecclesiastical image of Christ, stand out of the +way of the onward march of a political idealism represented by United +Italy or the French Republic. I was struck by the strange and ironic +exactitude with which every taunt he flings at the degradation of the +old divine ideal would now fit the degradation of his own human ideal. +The time has already come when we can ask his Goddess of Liberty, as +represented by the actual Liberals, 'Have _you_ filled full men's +starved-out souls; have _you_ brought freedom on the earth?' For every +engine in which these old free-thinkers firmly and confidently trusted +has itself become an engine of oppression and even of class oppression. +Its free parliament has become an oligarchy. Its free press has become a +monopoly. If the pure Church has been corrupted in the course of two +thousand years, what about the pure Republic that has rotted into a +filthy plutocracy in less than a hundred? + + + O, hidden face of man, whereover + The years have woven a viewless veil, + If thou wert verily man's lover + What did thy love or blood avail? + Thy blood the priests make poison of; + And in gold shekels coin thy love. + + +Which has most to do with shekels to-day, the priests or the +politicians? Can we say in any special sense nowadays that clergymen, as +such, make a poison out of the blood of the martyrs? Can we say it in +anything like the real sense, in which we do say that yellow journalists +make a poison out of the blood of the soldiers? + +But I understand how Swinburne felt when confronted by the image of the +carven Christ, and, perplexed by the contrast between its claims and its +consequences, he said his strange farewell to it, hastily indeed, but +not without regret, not even really without respect. I felt the same +myself when I looked for the last time on the Statue of Liberty. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[1] In the conclusion of this chapter I mean by the Republic +not merely the American Republic, but the whole modern representative +system, as in France or even in England. + + + + +_Is the Atlantic Narrowing?_ + + +A certain kind of question is asked very earnestly in our time. Because +of a certain logical quality in it, connected with premises and data, it +is very difficult to answer. Thus people will ask what is the hidden +weakness in the Celtic race that makes them everywhere fail or fade +away; or how the Germans contrived to bring all their organisation into +a state of such perfect efficiency; and what was the significance of the +recent victory of Prussia. Or they will ask by what stages the modern +world has abandoned all belief in miracles; and the modern newspapers +ceased to print any news of murders. They will ask why English politics +are free from corruption; or by what mental and moral training certain +millionaires were enabled to succeed by sheer force of character; in +short, they will ask why plutocrats govern well and how it is that pigs +fly, spreading their pink pinions to the breeze or delighting us as they +twitter and flutter from tree to tree. The logical difficulty of +answering these questions is connected with an old story about Charles +the Second and a bowl of goldfish, and with another anecdote about a +gentleman who was asked, 'When did you leave off beating your wife?' But +there is something analogous to it in the present discussions about the +forces drawing England and America together. It seems as if the +reasoners hardly went far enough back in their argument, or took +trouble enough to disentangle their assumptions. They are still moving +with the momentum of the peculiar nineteenth-century notion of progress; +of certain very simple tendencies perpetually increasing and needing no +special analysis. It is so with the international _rapprochement_ I have +to consider here. + +In other places I have ventured to express a doubt about whether nations +can be drawn together by an ancient rumour about races; by a sort of +prehistoric chit-chat or the gossip of the Stone Age. I have ventured +farther; and even expressed a doubt about whether they ought to be drawn +together, or rather dragged together, by the brute violence of the +engines of science and speed. But there is yet another horrible doubt +haunting my morbid mind, which it will be better for my constitution to +confess frankly. And that is the doubt about whether they are being +drawn together at all. + +It has long been a conversational commonplace among the enlightened that +all countries are coming closer and closer to each other. It was a +conversational commonplace among the enlightened, somewhere about the +year 1913, that all wars were receding farther and farther into a +barbaric past. There is something about these sayings that seems simple +and familiar and entirely satisfactory when we say them; they are of +that consoling sort which we can say without any of the mental pain of +thinking what we are saying. But if we turn our attention from the +phrases we use to the facts that we talk about, we shall realise at +least that there are a good many facts on the other side and examples +pointing the other way. For instance, it does happen occasionally, from +time to time, that people talk about Ireland. He would be a very +hilarious humanitarian who should maintain that Ireland and England have +been more and more assimilated during the last hundred years. The very +name of Sinn Fein is an answer to it, and the very language in which +that phrase is spoken. Curran and Sheil would no more have dreamed of +uttering the watchword of 'Repeal' in Gaelic than of uttering it in +Zulu. Grattan could hardly have brought himself to believe that the real +repeal of the Union would actually be signed in London in the strange +script as remote as the snaky ornament of the Celtic crosses. It would +have seemed like Washington signing the Declaration of Independence in +the picture-writing of the Red Indians. Ireland has clearly grown away +from England; and her language, literature, and type of patriotism are +far less English than they were. On the other hand, no one will pretend +that the mass of modern Englishmen are much nearer to talking Gaelic or +decorating Celtic crosses. A hundred years ago it was perfectly natural +that Byron and Moore should walk down the street arm in arm. Even the +sight of Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Mr. W. B. Yeats walking down the street +arm in arm would now arouse some remark. + +I could give any number of other examples of the same new estrangement +of nations. I could cite the obvious facts that Norway and Sweden parted +company not very long ago, that Austria and Hungary have again become +separate states. I could point to the mob of new nations that have +started up after the war; to the fact that the great empires are now +nearly all broken up; that the Russian Empire no longer directs Poland, +that the Austrian Empire no longer directs Bohemia, that the Turkish +Empire no longer directs Palestine. Sinn Fein is the separatism of the +Irish. Zionism is the separatism of the Jews. But there is one simple +and sufficing example, which is here more to my purpose, and is at least +equally sufficient for it. And that is the deepening national difference +between the Americans and the English. + +Let me test it first by my individual experience in the matter of +literature. When I was a boy I read a book like _The Autocrat of the +Breakfast-Table_ exactly as I read another book like _The Book of +Snobs_. I did not think of it as an American book, but simply as a book. +Its wit and idiom were like those of the English literary tradition; and +its few touches of local colour seemed merely accidental, like those of +an Englishman who happened to be living in Switzerland or Sweden. My +father and my father's friends were rightly enthusiastic for the book; +so that it seemed to come to me by inheritance like _Gulliver's Travels_ +or _Tristram Shandy_. Its language was as English as Ruskin, and a great +deal more English than Carlyle. Well, I have seen in later years an +almost equally wide and well-merited popularity of the stories of O. +Henry. But never for one moment could I or any one else reading them +forget that they were stories by an American about America. The very +first fact about them is that they are told with an American accent, +that is, in the unmistakable tones of a brilliant and fascinating +foreigner. And the same is true of every other recent work of which the +fame has managed to cross the Atlantic. We did not say that _The Spoon +River Anthology_ was a new book, but that it was a new book from +America. It was exactly as if a remarkable realistic novel was reported +from Russia or Italy. We were in no danger of confusing it with the +'Elegy in a Country Churchyard.' People in England who heard of Main +Street were not likely to identify it with a High Street; with the +principal thoroughfare in any little town in Berkshire or +Buckinghamshire. But when I was a boy I practically identified the +boarding-house of the Autocrat with any boarding-house I happened to +know in Brompton or Brighton. No doubt there were differences; but the +point is that the differences did not pierce the consciousness or prick +the illusion. I said to myself, 'People are like this in +boarding-houses,' not 'People are like this in Boston.' + +This can be seen even in the simple matter of language, especially in +the sense of slang. Take, for instance, the delightful sketch in the +causerie of Oliver Wendell Holmes; the character of the young man called +John. He is the very modern type in every modern country who does +specialise in slang. He is the young fellow who is something in the +City; the everyday young man of the Gilbertian song, with a stick and a +pipe and a half-bred black-and-tan. In every country he is at once witty +and commonplace. In every country, therefore, he tends both to the +vivacity and the vulgarity of slang. But when he appeared in Holmes's +book, his language was not very different from what it would have been +in a Brighton instead of a Boston boarding-house; or, in short, if the +young man called John had more commonly been called 'Arry. If he had +appeared in a modern American book, his language would have been almost +literally unintelligible. At the least an Englishman would have had to +read some of the best sentences twice, as he sometimes has to read the +dizzy and involved metaphors of O. Henry. Nor is it an answer that this +depended on the personalities of the particular writers. A comparison +between the real journalism of the time of Holmes and the real +journalism of the time of Henry reveals the same thing. It is the +expansion of a slight difference of style into a luxuriant difference of +idiom; and the process continued indefinitely would certainly produce a +totally different language. After a few centuries the signatures of +American ambassadors would look as fantastic as Gaelic, and the very +name of the Republic be as strange as Sinn Fein. + +It is true that there has been on the surface a certain amount of give +and take; or at least, as far as the English are concerned, of take +rather than give. But it is true that it was once all the other way; and +indeed the one thing is something like a just nemesis of the other. +Indeed, the story of the reversal is somewhat singular, when we come to +think of it. It began in a certain atmosphere and spirit of certain +well-meaning people who talked about the English-speaking race; and were +apparently indifferent to how the English was spoken, whether in the +accent of a Jamaican negro or a convict from Botany Bay. It was their +logical tendency to say that Dante was a Dago. It was their logical +punishment to say that Disraeli was an Englishman. Now there may have +been a period when this Anglo-American amalgamation included more or +less equal elements from England and America. It never included the +larger elements, or the more valuable elements of either. But, on the +whole, I think it true to say that it was not an allotment but an +interchange of parts; and that things first went all one way and then +all the other. People began by telling the Americans that they owed all +their past triumphs to England; which was false. They ended up by +telling the English that they would owe all their future triumphs to +America; which is if possible still more false. Because we chose to +forget that New York had been New Amsterdam, we are now in danger of +forgetting that London is not New York. Because we insisted that Chicago +was only a pious imitation of Chiswick, we may yet see Chiswick an +inferior imitation of Chicago. Our Anglo-Saxon historians attempted that +conquest in which Howe and Burgoyne had failed, and with infinitely less +justification on their side. They attempted the great crime of the +Anglicisation of America. They have called down the punishment of the +Americanisation of England. We must not murmur; but it is a heavy +punishment. + +It may lift a little of its load, however, if we look at it more +closely; we shall then find that though it is very much on top of us, it +is only on top. In that sense such Americanisation as there is is very +superficial. For instance, there is a certain amount of American slang +picked up at random; it appears in certain pushing types of journalism +and drama. But we may easily dwell too much on this tragedy; of people +who have never spoken English beginning to speak American. I am far from +suggesting that American, like any other foreign language, may not +frequently contribute to the common culture of the world phrases for +which there is no substitute; there are French phrases so used in +England and English phrases in France. The word 'high-brow,' for +instance, is a real discovery and revelation, a new and necessary name +for something that walked nameless but enormous in the modern world, a +shaft of light and a stroke of lightning. That comes from America and +belongs to the world, as much as 'The Raven' or _The Scarlet Letter_ or +the novels of Henry James belong to the world. In fact, I can imagine +Henry James originating it in the throes of self-expression, and +bringing out a word like 'high-browed,' with a sort of gentle jerk, at +the end of searching sentences which groped sensitively until they found +the phrase. But most of the American slang that is borrowed seems to be +borrowed for no particular reason. It either has no point or the point +is lost by translation into another context and culture. It is either +something which does not need any grotesque and exaggerative +description, or of which there already exists a grotesque and +exaggerative description more native to our tongue and soil. For +instance, I cannot see that the strong and simple expression 'Now it is +for you to pull the police magistrate's nose' is in any way strengthened +by saying, 'Now it is up to you to pull the police magistrate's nose.' +When Tennyson says of the men of the Light Brigade 'Theirs but to do and +die,' the expression seems to me perfectly lucid. 'Up to them to do and +die' would alter the metre without especially clarifying the meaning. +This is an example of ordinary language being quite adequate; but there +is a further difficulty that even wild slang comes to sound like +ordinary language. Very often the English have already as humorous and +fanciful idiom of their own, only that through habit it has lost its +humour. When Keats wrote the line, 'What pipes and timbrels, what wild +ecstasy!' I am willing to believe that the American humorist would have +expressed the same sentiment by beginning the sentence with 'Some +pipe!' When that was first said, somewhere in the wilds of Colorado, it +was really funny; involving a powerful understatement and the suggestion +of a mere sample. If a spinster has informed us that she keeps a bird, +and we find it is an ostrich, there will be considerable point in the +Colorado satirist saying inquiringly, 'Some bird?' as if he were +offering us a small slice of a small plover. But if we go back to this +root and rationale of a joke, the English language already contains +quite as good a joke. It is not necessary to say, 'Some bird'; there is +a far finer irony in the old expression, 'Something like a bird.' It +suggests that the speaker sees something faintly and strangely birdlike +about a bird; that it remotely and almost irrationally reminds him of a +bird; and that there is about ostrich plumes a yard long something like +the faint and delicate traces of a feather. It has every quality of +imaginative irony, except that nobody even imagines it to be ironical. +All that happens is that people get tired of that turn of phrase, take +up a foreign phrase and get tired of that, without realising the point +of either. All that happens is that a number of weary people who used to +say, 'Something like a bird,' now say, 'Some bird,' with undiminished +weariness. But they might just as well use dull and decent English; for +in both cases they are only using jocular language without seeing the +joke. + +There is indeed a considerable trade in the transplantation of these +American jokes to England just now. They generally pine and die in our +climate, or they are dead before their arrival; but we cannot be certain +that they were never alive. There is a sort of unending frieze or +scroll of decorative designs unrolled ceaselessly before the British +public, about a hen-pecked husband, which is indistinguishable to the +eye from an actual self-repeating pattern like that of the Greek Key, +but which is imported as if it were as precious and irreplaceable as the +Elgin Marbles. Advertisement and syndication make mountains out of the +most funny little mole-hills; but no doubt the mole-hills are +picturesque enough in their own landscape. In any case there is nothing +so national as humour; and many things, like many people, can be +humorous enough when they are at home. But these American jokes are +boomed as solemnly as American religions; and their supporters gravely +testify that they are funny, without seeing the fun of it for a moment. +This is partly perhaps the spirit of spontaneous institutionalism in +American democracy, breaking out in the wrong place. They make humour an +institution; and a man will be set to tell an anecdote as if to play the +violin. But when the story is told in America it really is amusing; and +when these jokes are reprinted in England they are often not even +intelligible. With all the stupidity of the millionaire and the +monopolist, the enterprising proprietor prints jokes in England which +are necessarily unintelligible to nearly every English person; jokes +referring to domestic and local conditions quite peculiar to America. I +saw one of these narrative caricatures the other day in which the whole +of the joke (what there was of it) turned on the astonishment of a +housewife at the absurd notion of not having an ice-box. It is perfectly +true that nearly every ordinary American housewife possesses an ice-box. +An ordinary English housewife would no more expect to possess an +ice-box than to possess an iceberg. And it would be about as sensible to +tow an iceberg to an English port all the way from the North Pole, as to +trail that one pale and frigid joke to Fleet Street all the way from the +New York papers. It is the same with a hundred other advertisements and +adaptations. I have already confessed that I took a considerable delight +in the dancing illuminations of Broadway--in Broadway. Everything there +is suitable to them, the vast interminable thoroughfare, the toppling +houses, the dizzy and restless spirit of the whole city. It is a city of +dissolving views, and one may almost say a city in everlasting +dissolution. But I do not especially admire a burning fragment of +Broadway stuck up opposite the old Georgian curve of Regent Street. I +would as soon express sympathy with the Republic of Switzerland by +erecting a small Alp, with imitation snow, in the middle of St. James's +Park. + +But all this commercial copying is very superficial; and above all, it +never copies anything that is really worth copying. Nations never +_learn_ anything from each other in this way. We have many things to +learn from America; but we only listen to those Americans who have still +to learn them. Thus, for instance, we do not import the small farm but +only the big shop. In other words, we hear nothing of the democracy of +the Middle West, but everything of the plutocracy of the middleman, who +is probably as unpopular in the Middle West as the miller in the Middle +Ages. If Mr. Elihu K. Pike could be transplanted bodily from the +neighbourhood of his home town of Marathon, Neb., with his farm and his +frame-house and all its fittings, and they could be set down exactly in +the spot now occupied by Selfridge's (which could be easily cleared away +for the purpose), I think we could really get a great deal of good by +watching him, even if the watching were inevitably a little too like +watching a wild beast in a cage or an insect under a glass case. Urban +crowds could collect every day behind a barrier or railing, and gaze at +Mr. Pike pottering about all day in his ancient and autochthonous +occupations. We could see him growing Indian corn with all the gravity +of an Indian; though it is impossible to imagine Mrs. Pike blessing the +cornfield in the manner of Minnehaha. As I have said, there is a certain +lack of humane myth and mysticism about this Puritan peasantry. But we +could see him transforming the maize into pop-corn, which is a very +pleasant domestic ritual and pastime, and is the American equivalent of +the glory of roasting chestnuts. Above all, many of us would learn for +the first time that a man can really live and walk about upon something +more productive than a pavement; and that when he does so he can really +be a free man, and have no lord but the law. Instead of that, America +can give nothing to London but those multiple modern shops, of which it +has too many already. I know that many people entertain the innocent +illusion that big shops are more efficient than small ones; but that is +only because the big combinations have the monopoly of advertisement as +well as trade. The big shop is not in the least remarkable for +efficiency; it is only too big to be blamed for its inefficiency. It is +secure in its reputation for always sacking the wrong man. A big shop, +considered as a place to shop in, is simply a village of small shops +roofed in to keep out the light and air; and one in which none of the +shopkeepers is really responsible for his shop. If any one has any +doubts on this matter, since I have mentioned it, let him consider this +fact: that in practice we never do apply this method of commercial +combination to anything that matters very much. We do not go to the +surgical department of the Stores to have a portion of our brain removed +by a delicate operation; and then pass on to the advocacy department to +employ one or any of its barristers, when we are in temporary danger of +being hanged. We go to men who own their own tools and are responsible +for the use of their own talents. And the same truth applies to that +other modern method of advertisement, which has also so largely fallen +across us like the gigantic shadow of America. Nations do not arm +themselves for a mortal struggle by remembering which sort of submarine +they have seen most often on the hoardings. They can do it about +something like soap, precisely because a nation will not perish by +having a second-rate sort of soap, as it might by having a second-rate +sort of submarine. A nation may indeed perish slowly by having a +second-rate sort of food or drink or medicine; but that is another and +much longer story, and the story is not ended yet. But nobody wins a +great battle at a great crisis because somebody has told him that +Cadgerboy's Cavalry Is the Best. It may be that commercial enterprise +will eventually cover these fields also, and advertisement-agents will +provide the instruments of the surgeon and the weapons of the soldier. +When that happens, the armies will be defeated and the patients will +die. But though we modern people are indeed patients, in the sense of +being merely receptive and accepting things with astonishing patience, +we are not dead yet; and we have lingering gleams of sanity. + +For the best things do not travel. As I appear here as a traveller, I +may say with all modesty that the best people do not travel either. Both +in England and America the normal people are the national people; and I +repeat that I think they are growing more and more national. I do not +think the abyss is being bridged by cosmopolitan theories; and I am sure +I do not want it bridged by all this slang journalism and blatant +advertisement. I have called all that commercial publicity the gigantic +shadow of America. It may be the shadow of America, but it is not the +light of America. The light lies far beyond, a level light upon the +lands of sunset, where it shines upon wide places full of a very simple +and a very happy people; and those who would see it must seek for it. + + + + +_Lincoln and Lost Causes_ + + +It has already been remarked here that the English know a great deal +about past American literature, but nothing about past American history. +They do not know either, of course, as well as they know the present +American advertising, which is the least important of the three. But it +is worth noting once more how little they know of the history, and how +illogically that little is chosen. They have heard, no doubt, of the +fame and the greatness of Henry Clay. He is a cigar. But it would be +unwise to cross-examine any Englishman, who may be consuming that luxury +at the moment, about the Missouri Compromise or the controversies with +Andrew Jackson. And just as the statesman of Kentucky is a cigar, so the +state of Virginia is a cigarette. But there is perhaps one exception, or +half-exception, to this simple plan. It would perhaps be an exaggeration +to say that Plymouth Rock is a chicken. Any English person keeping +chickens, and chiefly interested in Plymouth Rocks considered as +chickens, would nevertheless have a hazy sensation of having seen the +word somewhere before. He would feel subconsciously that the Plymouth +Rock had not always been a chicken. Indeed, the name connotes something +not only solid but antiquated; and is not therefore a very tactful name +for a chicken. There would rise up before him something memorable in +the haze that he calls his history; and he would see the history books +of his boyhood and old engravings of men in steeple-crowned hats +struggling with sea-waves or Red Indians. The whole thing would suddenly +become clear to him if (by a simple reform) the chickens were called +Pilgrim Fathers. + +Then he would remember all about it. The Pilgrim Fathers were champions +of religious liberty; and they discovered America. It is true that he +has also heard of a man called Christopher Columbus; but that was in +connection with an egg. He has also heard of somebody known as Sir +Walter Raleigh; and though his principal possession was a cloak, it is +also true that he had a potato, not to mention a pipe of tobacco. Can it +be possible that he brought it from Virginia, where the cigarettes come +from? Gradually the memories will come back and fit themselves together +for the average hen-wife who learnt history at the English elementary +schools, and who has now something better to do. Even when the narrative +becomes consecutive, it will not necessarily become correct. It is not +strictly true to say that the Pilgrim Fathers discovered America. But it +is quite as true as saying that they were champions of religious +liberty. If we said that they were martyrs who would have died +heroically in torments rather than tolerate any religious liberty, we +should be talking something like sense about them, and telling the real +truth that is their due. The whole Puritan movement, from the Solemn +League and Covenant to the last stand of the last Stuarts, was a +struggle _against_ religious toleration, or what they would have called +religious indifference. The first religious equality on earth was +established by a Catholic cavalier in Maryland. Now there is nothing in +this to diminish any dignity that belongs to any real virtues and +virilities in the Pilgrim Fathers; on the contrary, it is rather to the +credit of their consistency and conviction. But there is no doubt that +the note of their whole experiment in New England was intolerance, and +even inquisition. And there is no doubt that New England was then only +the newest and not the oldest of these colonial experiments. At least +two Cavaliers had been in the field before any Puritans. And they had +carried with them much more of the atmosphere and nature of the normal +Englishman than any Puritan could possibly carry. They had established +it especially in Virginia, which had been founded by a great Elizabethan +and named after the great Elizabeth. Before there was any New England in +the North, there was something very like Old England in the South. +Relatively speaking, there is still. + +Whenever the anniversary of the _Mayflower_ comes round, there is a +chorus of Anglo-American congratulation and comradeship, as if this at +least were a matter on which all can agree. But I knew enough about +America, even before I went there, to know that there are a good many +people there at any rate who do not agree with it. Long ago I wrote a +protest in which I asked why Englishmen had forgotten the great state of +Virginia, the first in foundation and long the first in leadership; and +why a few crabbed Nonconformists should have the right to erase a record +that begins with Raleigh and ends with Lee, and incidentally includes +Washington. The great state of Virginia was the backbone of America +until it was broken in the Civil War. From Virginia came the first great +Presidents and most of the Fathers of the Republic. Its adherence to +the Southern side in the war made it a great war, and for a long time a +doubtful war. And in the leader of the Southern armies it produced what +is perhaps the one modern figure that may come to shine like St. Louis +in the lost battle, or Hector dying before holy Troy. + +Again, it is characteristic that while the modern English know nothing +about Lee they do know something about Lincoln; and nearly all that they +know is wrong. They know nothing of his Southern connections, nothing of +his considerable Southern sympathy, nothing of the meaning of his +moderation in face of the problem of slavery, now lightly treated as +self-evident. Above all, they know nothing about the respect in which +Lincoln was quite un-English, was indeed the very reverse of English; +and can be understood better if we think of him as a Frenchman, since it +seems so hard for some of us to believe that he was an American. I mean +his lust for logic for its own sake, and the way he kept mathematical +truths in his mind like the fixed stars. He was so far from being a +merely practical man, impatient of academic abstractions, that he +reviewed and revelled in academic abstractions, even while he could not +apply them to practical life. He loved to repeat that slavery was +intolerable while he tolerated it, and to prove that something ought to +be done while it was impossible to do it. This was probably very +bewildering to his brother-politicians; for politicians always whitewash +what they do not destroy. But for all that this inconsistent consistency +beat the politicians at their own game, and this abstracted logic proved +the most practical of all. For when the chance did come to do something, +there was no doubt about the thing to be done. The thunderbolt fell +from the clear heights of heaven; it had not been tossed about and lost +like a common missile in the market-place. The matter is worth +mentioning, because it has a moral for a much larger modern question. A +wise man's attitude towards industrial capitalism will be very like +Lincoln's attitude towards slavery. That is, he will manage to endure +capitalism; but he will not endure a defence of capitalism. He will +recognise the value, not only of knowing what he is doing, but of +knowing what he would like to do. He will recognise the importance of +having a thing clearly labelled in his own mind as bad, long before the +opportunity comes to abolish it. He may recognise the risk of even worse +things in immediate abolition, as Lincoln did in abolitionism. He will +not call all business men brutes, any more than Lincoln would call all +planters demons; because he knows they are not. He will regard many +alternatives to capitalism as crude and inhuman, as Lincoln regarded +John Brown's raid; because they are. But he will clear his _mind_ from +cant about capitalism; he will have no doubt of what is the truth about +Trusts and Trade Combines and the concentration of capital; and it is +the truth that they endure under one of the ironic silences of heaven, +over the pageants and the passing triumphs of hell. + +But the name of Lincoln has a more immediate reference to the +international matters I am considering here. His name has been much +invoked by English politicians and journalists in connection with the +quarrel with Ireland. And if we study the matter, we shall hardly admire +the tact and sagacity of those journalists and politicians. + +History is an eternal tangle of cross-purposes; and we could not take a +clearer case, or rather a more complicated case, of such a tangle, than +the facts lying behind a political parallel recently mentioned by many +politicians. I mean the parallel between the movement for Irish +independence and the attempted secession of the Southern Confederacy in +America. Superficially any one might say that the comparison is natural +enough; and that there is much in common between the quarrel of the +North and South in Ireland and the quarrel of the North and South in +America. In both cases the South was on the whole agricultural, the +North on the whole industrial. True, the parallel exaggerates the +position of Belfast; to complete it we must suppose the whole Federal +system to have consisted of Pittsburg. In both the side that was more +successful was felt by many to be less attractive. In both the same +political terms were used, such as the term 'Union' and 'Unionism.' An +ordinary Englishman comes to America, knowing these main lines of +American history, and knowing that the American knows the similar main +lines of Irish history. He knows that there are strong champions of +Ireland in America; possibly he also knows that there are very genuine +champions of England in America. By every possible historical analogy, +he would naturally expect to find the pro-Irish in the South and the +pro-English in the North. As a matter of fact, he finds almost exactly +the opposite. He finds Boston governed by Irishmen, and Nashville +containing people more pro-English than Englishmen. He finds Virginians +not only of British blood, like George Washington, but of British +opinions almost worthy of George the Third. + +But I do not say this, as will be seen in a moment, as a criticism of +the comparative Toryism of the South. I say it as a criticism of the +superlative stupidity of English propaganda. On another page I remark on +the need for a new sort of English propaganda; a propaganda that should +be really English and have some remote reference to England. Now if it +were a matter of making foreigners feel the real humours and humanities +of England, there are no Americans so able or willing to do it as the +Americans of the Southern States. As I have already hinted, some of them +are so loyal to the English humanities, that they think it their duty to +defend even the English inhumanities. New England is turning into New +Ireland. But Old England can still be faintly traced in Old Dixie. It +contains some of the best things that England herself has had, and +therefore (of course) the things that England herself has lost, or is +trying to lose. But above all, as I have said, there are people in these +places whose historic memories and family traditions really hold them to +us, not by alliance but by affection. Indeed, they have the affection in +spite of the alliance. They love us in spite of our compliments and +courtesies and hands across the sea; all our ambassadorial salutations +and speeches cannot kill their love. They manage even to respect us in +spite of the shady Jew stockbrokers we send them as English envoys, or +the 'efficient' men, who are sent out to be tactful with foreigners +because they have been too tactless with trades unionists. This type of +traditional American, North or South, really has some traditions +connecting him with England; and though he is now in a very small +minority, I cannot imagine why England should wish to make it smaller. +England once sympathised with the South. The South still sympathises +with England. It would seem that the South, or some elements in the +South, had rather the advantage of us in political firmness and +fidelity; but it does not follow that that fidelity will stand every +shock. And at this moment, and in this matter, of all things in the +world, our political propagandists must try to bolster British +Imperialism up, by kicking Southern Secession when it is down. The +English politicians eagerly point out that we shall be justified in +crushing Ireland exactly as Sumner and Stevens crushed the most English +part of America. It does not seem to occur to them that this comparison +between the Unionist triumph in America and a Unionist triumph in +Britain is rather hard upon our particular sympathisers, who did not +triumph. When England exults in Lincoln's victory over his foes, she is +exulting in his victory over her own friends. If her diplomacy continues +as delicate and chivalrous as it is at present, they may soon be her +only friends. England will be defending herself at the expense of her +only defenders. But however this may be, it is as well to bear witness +to some of the elements of my own experience; and I can answer for it, +at least, that there are some people in the South who will not be +pleased at being swept into the rubbish heap of history as rebels and +ruffians; and who will not, I regret to say, by any means enjoy even +being classed with Fenians and Sinn Feiners. + +Now touching the actual comparison between the conquest of the +Confederacy and the conquest of Ireland, there are, of course, a good +many things to be said which politicians cannot be expected to +understand. Strange to say, it is not certain that a lost cause was +never worth winning; and it would be easy to argue that the world lost +very much indeed when that particular cause was lost. These are not days +in which it is exactly obvious that an agricultural society was more +dangerous than an industrial one. And even Southern slavery had this one +moral merit, that it was decadent; it has this one historic advantage, +that it is dead. The Northern slavery, industrial slavery, or what is +called wage slavery, is not decaying but increasing; and the end of it +is not yet. But in any case, it would be well for us to realise that the +reproach of resembling the Confederacy does not ring in all ears as an +unanswerable condemnation. It is scarcely a self-evident or sufficient +argument, to some hearers, even to prove that the English are as +delicate and philanthropic as Sherman, still less that the Irish are as +criminal and lawless as Lee. Nor will it soothe every single soul on the +American continent to say that the English victory in Ireland will be +followed by a reconstruction, like the reconstruction exhibited in the +film called 'The Birth of a Nation.' And, indeed, there is a further +inference from that fine panorama of the exploits of the Ku-Klux Klan. +It would be easy, as I say, to turn the argument entirely in favour of +the Confederacy. It would be easy to draw the moral, not that the +Southern Irish are as wrong as the Southern States, but that the +Southern States were as right as the Southern Irish. But upon the whole, +I do not incline to accept the parallel in that sense any more than in +the opposite sense. For reasons I have already given elsewhere, I do +believe that in the main Abraham Lincoln was right. But right in what? + +If Lincoln was right, he was right in guessing that there was not +really a Northern nation and a Southern nation, but only one American +nation. And if he has been proved right, he has been proved right by the +fact that men in the South, as well as the North, do now feel a +patriotism for that American nation. His wisdom, if it really was +wisdom, was justified not by his opponents being conquered, but by their +being converted. Now, if the English politicians must insist on this +parallel, they ought to see that the parallel is fatal to themselves. +The very test which proved Lincoln right has proved them wrong. The very +judgment which may have justified him quite unquestionably condemns +them. We have again and again conquered Ireland, and have never come an +inch nearer to converting Ireland. We have had not one Gettysburg, but +twenty Gettysburgs; but we have had no Union. And that is where, as I +have remarked, it is relevant to remember that flying fantastic vision +on the films that told so many people what no histories have told them. +I heard when I was in America rumours of the local reappearance of the +Ku-Klux Klan; but the smallness and mildness of the manifestation, as +compared with the old Southern or the new Irish case, is alone a +sufficient example of the exception that proves the rule. To approximate +to any resemblance to recent Irish events, we must imagine the Ku-Klux +Klan riding again in more than the terrors of that vision, wild as the +wind, white as the moon, terrible as an army with banners. If there were +really such a revival of the Southern action, there would equally be a +revival of the Southern argument. It would be clear that Lee was right +and Lincoln was wrong; that the Southern States were national and were +as indestructible as nations. If the South were as rebellious as +Ireland, the North would be as wrong as England. + +But I desire a new English diplomacy that will exhibit, not the things +in which England is wrong but the things in which England is right. And +England is right in England, just as she is wrong in Ireland; and it is +exactly that rightness of a real nation in itself that it is at once +most difficult and most desirable to explain to foreigners. Now the +Irishman, and to some extent the American, has remained alien to +England, largely because he does not truly realise that the Englishman +loves England, still less can he really imagine why the Englishman loves +England. That is why I insist on the stupidity of ignoring and insulting +the opinions of those few Virginians and other Southerners who really +have some inherited notion of why Englishmen love England; and even love +it in something of the same fashion themselves. Politicians who do not +know the English spirit when they see it at home, cannot of course be +expected to recognise it abroad. Publicists are eloquently praising +Abraham Lincoln, for all the wrong reasons; but fundamentally for that +worst and vilest of all reasons--that he succeeded. None of them seems +to have the least notion of how to look for England in England; and they +would see something fantastic in the figure of a traveller who found it +elsewhere, or anywhere but in New England. And it is well, perhaps, that +they have not yet found England where it is hidden in England; for if +they found it, they would kill it. + +All I am concerned to consider here is the inevitable failure of this +sort of Anglo-American propaganda to create a friendship. To praise +Lincoln as an Englishman is about as appropriate as if we were praising +Lincoln as an English town. We are talking about something totally +different. And indeed the whole conversation is rather like some such +cross-purposes about some such word as 'Lincoln'; in which one party +should be talking about the President and the other about the cathedral. +It is like some wild bewilderment in a farce, with one man wondering how +a President could have a church-spire, and the other wondering how a +church could have a chin-beard. And the moral is the moral on which I +would insist everywhere in this book; that the remedy is to be found in +disentangling the two and not in entangling them further. You could not +produce a democrat of the logical type of Lincoln merely out of the +moral materials that now make up an English cathedral town, like that on +which Old Tom of Lincoln looks down. But on the other hand, it is quite +certain that a hundred Abraham Lincolns, working for a hundred years, +could not build Lincoln Cathedral. And the farcical allegory of an +attempt to make Old Tom and Old Abe embrace to the glory of the +illogical Anglo-Saxon language is but a symbol of something that is +always being attempted, and always attempted in vain. It is not by +mutual imitation that the understanding can come. It is not by erecting +New York sky-scrapers in London that New York can learn the sacred +significance of the towers of Lincoln. It is not by English dukes +importing the daughters of American millionaires that England can get +any glimpse of the democratic dignity of American men. I have the best +of all reasons for knowing that a stranger can be welcomed in America; +and just as he is courteously treated in the country as a stranger, so +he should always be careful to treat it as a strange land. That sort of +imaginative respect, as for something different and even distant, is the +only beginning of any attachment between patriotic peoples. The English +traveller may carry with him at least one word of his own great language +and literature; and whenever he is inclined to say of anything 'This is +passing strange,' he may remember that it was no inconsiderable +Englishman who appended to it the answer, 'And therefore as a stranger +give it welcome.' + + + + +_Wells and the World State_ + + +There was recently a highly distinguished gathering to celebrate the +past, present, and especially future triumphs of aviation. Some of the +most brilliant men of the age, such as Mr. H. G. Wells and Mr. J. L. +Garvin, made interesting and important speeches, and many scientific +aviators luminously discussed the new science. Among their graceful +felicitations and grave and quiet analyses a word was said, or a note +was struck, which I myself can never hear, even in the most harmless +after-dinner speech, without an impulse to leap up and yell, and smash +the decanters and wreck the dinner-table. + +Long ago, when I was a boy, I heard it with fury; and never since have I +been able to understand any free man hearing it without fury. I heard it +when Bloch, and the old prophets of pacifism by panic, preached that war +would become too horrible for patriots to endure. It sounded to me like +saying that an instrument of torture was being prepared by my dentist, +that would finally cure me of loving my dog. And I felt it again when +all these wise and well-meaning persons began to talk about the +inevitable effect of aviation in bridging the Atlantic, and establishing +alliance and affection between England and America. + +I resent the suggestion that a machine can make me bad. But I resent +quite equally the suggestion that a machine can make me good. It might +be the unfortunate fact that a coolness had arisen between myself and +Mr. Fitzarlington Blenkinsop, inhabiting the suburban villa and garden +next to mine; and I might even be largely to blame for it. But if +somebody told me that a new kind of lawn-mower had just been invented, +of so cunning a structure that I should be forced to become a +bosom-friend of Mr. Blenkinsop whether I liked it or not, I should be +very much annoyed. I should be moved to say that if that was the only +way of cutting my grass I would not cut my grass, but continue to cut my +neighbour. Or suppose the difference were even less defensible; suppose +a man had suffered from a trifling shindy with his wife. And suppose +somebody told him that the introduction of an entirely new +vacuum-cleaner would compel him to a reluctant reconciliation with his +wife. It would be found, I fancy, that human nature abhors that vacuum. +Reasonably spirited human beings will not be ordered about by bicycles +and sewing-machines; and a sane man will not be made good, let alone +bad, by the things he has himself made. I have occasionally dictated to +a typewriter, but I will not be dictated to by a typewriter, even of the +newest and most complicated mechanism; nor have I ever met a typewriter, +however complex, that attempted such a tyranny. + +Yet this and nothing else is what is implied in all such talk of the +aeroplane annihilating distinctions as well as distances; and an +international aviation abolishing nationalities. This and nothing else +was really implied in one speaker's prediction that such aviation will +almost necessitate an Anglo-American friendship. Incidentally, I may +remark, it is not a true suggestion even in the practical and +materialistic sense; and the speaker's phrase refuted the speaker's +argument. He said that international relations must be more friendly +when men can get from England to America in a day. Well, men can already +get from England to Germany in a day; and the result was a mutual +invitation of which the formalities lasted for five years. Men could get +from the coast of England to the coast of France very quickly, through +nearly all the ages during which those two coasts were bristling with +arms against each other. They could get there very quickly when Nelson +went down by that Burford Inn to embark for Trafalgar; they could get +there very quickly when Napoleon sat in his tent in that camp at +Boulogne that filled England with alarums of invasion. Are these the +amiable and pacific relations which will unite England and America, when +Englishmen can get to America in a day? The shortening of the distance +seems quite as likely, so far as that argument goes, to facilitate that +endless guerilla warfare which raged across the narrow seas in the +Middle Ages; when French invaders carried away the bells of Rye, and the +men of those flats of East Sussex gloriously pursued and recovered them. +I do not know whether American privateers, landing at Liverpool, would +carry away a few of the more elegant factory chimneys as a substitute +for the superstitious symbols of the past. I know not if the English, on +ripe reflection, would essay with any enthusiasm to get them back. But +anyhow it is anything but self-evident that people cannot fight each +other because they are near to each other; and if it were true, there +would never have been any such thing as border warfare in the world. As +a fact, border warfare has often been the one sort of warfare which it +was most difficult to bring under control. And our own traditional +position in face of this new logic is somewhat disconcerting. We have +always supposed ourselves safer because we were insular and therefore +isolated. We have been congratulating ourselves for centuries on having +enjoyed peace because we were cut off from our neighbours. And now they +are telling us that we shall only enjoy peace when we are joined up with +our neighbours. We have pitied the poor nations with frontiers, because +a frontier only produces fighting; and now we are trusting to a frontier +as the only thing that will produce friendship. But, as a matter of +fact, and for a far deeper and more spiritual reason, a frontier will +not produce friendship. Only friendliness produces friendship. And we +must look far deeper into the soul of man for the thing that produces +friendliness. + +But apart from this fallacy about the facts, I feel, as I say, a strong +abstract anger against the idea, or what some would call the ideal. If +it were true that men could be taught and tamed by machines, even if +they were taught wisdom or tamed to amiability, I should think it the +most tragic truth in the world. A man so improved would be, in an +exceedingly ugly sense, losing his soul to save it. But in truth he +cannot be so completely coerced into good; and in so far as he is +incompletely coerced, he is quite as likely to be coerced into evil. Of +the financial characters who figure as philanthropists and philosophers +in such cases, it is strictly true to say that their good is evil. The +light in their bodies is darkness, and the highest objects of such men +are the lowest objects of ordinary men. Their peace is mere safety, +their friendship is mere trade; their international friendship is mere +international trade. The best we can say of that school of capitalism is +that it will be unsuccessful. It has every other vice, but it is not +practical. It has at least the impossibility of idealism; and so far as +remoteness can carry it, that Inferno is indeed a Utopia. All the +visible manifestations of these men are materialistic; but at least +their visions will not materialise. The worst we suffer; but the best we +shall at any rate escape. We may continue to endure the realities of +cosmopolitan capitalism; but we shall be spared its ideals. + +But I am not primarily interested in the plutocrats whose vision takes +so vulgar a form. I am interested in the same thing when it takes a far +more subtle form, in men of genius and genuine social enthusiasm like +Mr. H. G. Wells. It would be very unfair to a man like Mr. Wells to +suggest that in his vision the Englishman and the American are to +embrace only in the sense of clinging to each other in terror. He is a +man who understands what friendship is, and who knows how to enjoy the +motley humours of humanity. But the political reconstruction which he +proposes is too much determined by this old nightmare of +necessitarianism. He tells us that our national dignities and +differences must be melted into the huge mould of a World State, or else +(and I think these are almost his own words) we shall be destroyed by +the instruments and machinery we have ourselves made. In effect, men +must abandon patriotism or they will be murdered by science. After this, +surely no one can accuse Mr. Wells of an undue tenderness for scientific +over other types of training. Greek may be a good thing or no; but +nobody says that if Greek scholarship is carried past a certain point, +everybody will be torn in pieces like Orpheus, or burned up like Semele, +or poisoned like Socrates. Philosophy, theology and logic may or may not +be idle academic studies; but nobody supposes that the study of +philosophy, or even of theology, ultimately forces its students to +manufacture racks and thumb-screws against their will; or that even +logicians need be so alarmingly logical as all that. Science seems to be +the only branch of study in which people have to be waved back from +perfection as from a pestilence. But my business is not with the +scientific dangers which alarm Mr. Wells, but with the remedy he +proposes for them; or rather with the relation of that remedy to the +foundation and the future of America. Now it is not too much to say that +Mr. Wells finds his model in America. The World State is to be the +United States of the World. He answers almost all objections to the +practicability of such a peace among states, by pointing out that the +American States have such a peace, and by adding, truly enough, that +another turn of history might easily have seen them broken up by war. +The pattern of the World State is to be found in the New World. + +Oddly enough, as it seems to me, he proposes almost cosmic conquests for +the American Constitution, while leaving out the most successful thing +in that Constitution. The point appeared in answer to a question which +many, like myself, must have put in this matter; the question of +despotism and democracy. I cannot understand any democrat not seeing the +danger of so distant and indirect a system of government. It is hard +enough anywhere to get representatives to represent. It is hard enough +to get a little town council to fulfil the wishes of a little town, +even when the townsmen meet the town councillors every day in the +street, and could kick them down the street if they liked. What the same +town councillors would be like if they were ruling all their +fellow-creatures from the North Pole or the New Jerusalem, is a vision +of Oriental despotism beyond the towering fancies of Tamberlane. This +difficulty in all representative government is felt everywhere, and not +least in America. But I think that if there is one truth apparent in +such a choice of evils, it is that monarchy is at least better than +oligarchy; and that where we have to act on a large scale, the most +genuine popularity can gather round a particular person like a Pope or a +President of the United States, or even a dictator like Caesar or +Napoleon, rather than round a more or less corrupt committee which can +only be defined as an obscure oligarchy. And in that sense any oligarchy +is obscure. For people to continue to trust twenty-seven men it is +necessary, as a preliminary formality, that people should have heard of +them. And there are no twenty-seven men of whom everybody has heard as +everybody in France had heard of Napoleon, as all Catholics have heard +of the Pope or all Americans have heard of the President. I think the +mass of ordinary Americans do really elect their President; and even +where they cannot control him at least they watch him, and in the long +run they judge him. I think, therefore, that the American Constitution +has a real popular institution in the Presidency. But Mr. Wells would +appear to want the American Constitution without the Presidency. If I +understand his words rightly, he seems to want the great democracy +without its popular institution. Alluding to this danger, that the +World State might be a world tyranny, he seems to take tyranny entirely +in the sense of autocracy. He asks whether the President of the World +State would not be rather too tremendous a person, and seems to suggest +in answer that there need not even be any such person. He seems to imply +that the committee controlling the planet could meet almost without any +one in the chair, certainly without any one on the throne. I cannot +imagine anything more manifestly made to be a tyranny than such an +acephalous aristocracy. But while Mr. Wells's decision seems to me +strange, his reason for it seems to me still more extraordinary. + +He suggests that no such dictator will be needed in his World State +because 'there will be no wars and no diplomacy.' A World State ought +doubtless to go round the world; and going round the world seems to be a +good training for arguing in a circle. Obviously there will be no wars +and no war-diplomacy if something has the power to prevent them; and we +cannot deduce that the something will not want any power. It is rather +as if somebody, urging that the Germans could only be defeated by +uniting the Allied commands under Marshal Foch, had said that after all +it need not offend the British Generals because the French supremacy +need only be a fiction, the Germans being defeated. We should naturally +say that the German defeat would only be a reality because the Allied +command was not a fiction. So the universal peace would only be a +reality if the World State were not a fiction. And it could not be even +a state if it were not a government. This argument amounts to saying, +first that the World State will be needed because it is strong, and +then that it may safely be weak because it will not be needed. + +Internationalism is in any case hostile to democracy. I do not say it is +incompatible with it; but any combination of the two will be a +compromise between the two. The only purely popular government is local, +and founded on local knowledge. The citizens can rule the city because +they know the city; but it will always be an exceptional sort of citizen +who has or claims the right to rule over ten cities, and these remote +and altogether alien cities. All Irishmen may know roughly the same sort +of things about Ireland; but it is absurd to say they all know the same +things about Iceland, when they may include a scholar steeped in +Icelandic sagas or a sailor who has been to Iceland. To make all +politics cosmopolitan is to create an aristocracy of globe-trotters. If +your political outlook really takes in the Cannibal Islands, you depend +of necessity upon a superior and picked minority of the people who have +been to the Cannibal Islands; or rather of the still smaller and more +select minority who have come back. + +Given this difficulty about quite direct democracy over large areas, I +think the nearest thing to democracy is despotism. At any rate I think +it is some sort of more or less independent monarchy, such as Andrew +Jackson created in America. And I believe it is true to say that the two +men whom the modern world really and almost reluctantly regards with +impersonal respect, as clothed by their office with something historic +and honourable, are the Pope and the President of the United States. + +But to admire the United States as the United States is one thing. To +admire them as the World State is quite another. The attempt of Mr. +Wells to make America a sort of model for the federation of all the free +nations of the earth, though it is international in intention, is really +as narrowly national, in the bad sense, as the desire of Mr. Kipling to +cover the world with British Imperialism, or of Professor Treitschke to +cover it with Prussian Pan-Germanism. Not being schoolboys, we no longer +believe that everything can be settled by painting the map red. Nor do I +believe it can be done by painting it blue with white spots, even if +they are called stars. The insufficiency of British Imperialism does not +lie in the fact that it has always been applied by force of arms. As a +matter of fact, it has not. It has been effected largely by commerce, by +colonisation of comparatively empty places, by geographical discovery +and diplomatic bargain. Whether it be regarded as praise or blame, it is +certainly the truth that among all the things that have called +themselves empires, the British has been perhaps the least purely +military, and has least both of the special guilt and the special glory +that goes with militarism. The insufficiency of British Imperialism is +not that it is imperial, let alone military. The insufficiency of +British Imperialism is that it is British; when it is not merely Jewish. +It is that just as a man is no more than a man, so a nation is no more +than a nation; and any nation is inadequate as an international model. +Any state looks small when it occupies the whole earth. Any polity is +narrow as soon as it is as wide as the world. It would be just the same +if Ireland began to paint the map green or Montenegro were to paint it +black. The objection to spreading anything all over the world is that, +among other things, you have to spread it very thin. + +But America, which Mr. Wells takes as a model, is in another sense +rather a warning. Mr. Wells says very truly that there was a moment in +history when America might well have broken up into independent states +like those of Europe. He seems to take it for granted that it was in all +respects an advantage that this was avoided. Yet there is surely a case, +however mildly we put it, for a certain importance in the world still +attaching to Europe. There are some who find France as interesting as +Florida; and who think they can learn as much about history and humanity +in the marble cities of the Mediterranean as in the wooden towns of the +Middle West. Europe may have been divided, but it was certainly not +destroyed; nor has its peculiar position in the culture of the world +been destroyed. Nothing has yet appeared capable of completely eclipsing +it, either in its extension in America or its imitation in Japan. But +the immediate point here is perhaps a more important one. There is now +no creed accepted as embodying the common sense of all Europe, as the +Catholic creed was accepted as embodying it in mediaeval times. There is +no culture broadly superior to all others, as the Mediterranean culture +was superior to that of the barbarians in Roman times. If Europe were +united in modern times, it would probably be by the victory of one of +its types over others, possibly over all the others. And when America +was united finally in the nineteenth century, it _was_ by the victory of +one of its types over others. It is not yet certain that this victory +was a good thing. It is not yet certain that the world will be better +for the triumph of the North over the Southern traditions of America. +It may yet turn out to be as unfortunate as a triumph of the North +Germans over the Southern traditions of Germany and of Europe. + +The men who will not face this fact are men whose minds are not free. +They are more crushed by Progress than any pietists by Providence. They +are not allowed to question that whatever has recently happened was all +for the best. Now Progress is Providence without God. That is, it is a +theory that everything has always perpetually gone right by accident. It +is a sort of atheistic optimism, based on an everlasting coincidence far +more miraculous than a miracle. If there be no purpose, or if the +purpose permits of human free will, then in either case it is almost +insanely unlikely that there should be in history a period of steady and +uninterrupted progress; or in other words a period in which poor +bewildered humanity moves amid a chaos of complications, without making +a single mistake. What has to be hammered into the heads of most normal +newspaper-readers to-day is that Man has made a great many mistakes. +Modern Man has made a great many mistakes. Indeed, in the case of that +progressive and pioneering character, one is sometimes tempted to say +that he has made nothing but mistakes. Calvinism was a mistake, and +Capitalism was a mistake, and Teutonism and the flattery of the Northern +tribes were mistakes. In the French the persecution of Catholicism by +the politicians was a mistake, as they found out in the Great War; when +the memory gave Irish or Italian Catholics an excuse for hanging back. +In England the loss of agriculture and therefore of food-supply in war, +and the power to stand a siege, was a mistake. And in America the +introduction of the negroes was a mistake; but it may yet be found that +the sacrifice of the Southern white man to them was even more of a +mistake. + +The reason of this doubt is in one word. We have not yet seen the end of +the whole industrial experiment; and there are already signs of it +coming to a bad end. It may end in Bolshevism. It is more likely to end +in the Servile State. Indeed, the two things are not so different as +some suppose, and they grow less different every day. The Bolshevists +have already called in Capitalists to help them to crush the free +peasants. The Capitalists are quite likely to call in Labour Leaders to +whitewash their compromise as social reform or even Socialism. The +cosmopolitan Jews who are the Communists in the East will not find it so +very hard to make a bargain with the cosmopolitan Jews who are +Capitalists in the West. The Western Jews would be willing to admit a +nominal Socialism. The Eastern Jews have already admitted that their +Socialism is nominal. It was the Bolshevist leader himself who said, +'Russia is again a Capitalist country.' But whoever makes the bargain, +and whatever is its precise character, the substance of it will be +servile. It will be servile in the only rational and reliable sense; +that is, an arrangement by which a mass of men are ensured shelter and +livelihood, in return for being subjected to a law which obliges them to +continue to labour. Of course it will not be called the Servile State; +it is very probable that it will be called the Socialist State. But +nobody seems to realise how very near all the industrial countries are +to it. At any moment it may appear in the simple form of compulsory +arbitration; for compulsory arbitration dealing with private employers +is by definition slavery. When workmen receive unemployment pay, and at +the same time arouse more and more irritation by going on strike, it may +seem very natural to give them the unemployment pay for good and forbid +them the strike for good; and the combination of those two things is by +definition slavery. And Trotsky can beat any Trust magnate as a +strike-breaker; for he does not even pretend that his compulsory labour +is a free bargain. If Trotsky and the Trust magnate come to a working +compromise, that compromise will be a Servile State. But it will also be +the supreme and by far the most constructive and conclusive result of +the industrial movement in history; of the power of machinery or money; +of the huge populations of the modern cities; of scientific inventions +and resources; of all the things before which the agricultural society +of the Southern Confederacy went down. But even those who cannot see +that commercialism may end in the triumph of slavery can see that the +Northern victory has to a great extent ended in the triumph of +commercialism. And the point at the moment is that this did definitely +mean, even at the time, the triumph of one American type over another +American type; just as much as any European war might mean the triumph +of one European type over another. A victory of England over France +would be a victory of merchants over peasants; and the victory of +Northerners over Southerners was a victory of merchants over squires. So +that that very unity, which Mr. Wells contrasts so favourably with war, +was not only itself due to a war, but to a war which had one of the most +questionable and even perilous of the results of war. That result was a +change in the balance of power, the predominance of a particular +partner, the exaltation of a particular example, the eclipse of +excellent traditions when the defeated lost their international +influence. In short, it made exactly the same sort of difference of +which we speak when we say that 1870 was a disaster to Europe, or that +it was necessary to fight Prussia lest she should Prussianise the whole +world. America would have been very different if the leadership had +remained with Virginia. The world would have been very different if +America had been very different. It is quite reasonable to rejoice that +the issue went as it did; indeed, as I have explained elsewhere, for +other reasons I do on the whole rejoice in it. But it is certainly not +self-evident that it is a matter for rejoicing. One type of American +state conquered and subjugated another type of American state; and the +virtues and value of the latter were very largely lost to the world. So +if Mr. Wells insists on the parallel of a United States of Europe, he +must accept the parallel of a Civil War of Europe. He must suppose that +the peasant countries crush the industrial countries or vice versa; and +that one or other of them becomes the European tradition to the neglect +of the other. The situation which seems to satisfy him so completely in +America is, after all, the situation which would result in Europe if the +Germanic Empires, let us say, had entirely arrested the special +development of the Slavs; or if the influence of France had really +broken off short under a blow from Britain. The Old South had qualities +of humane civilisation which have not sufficiently survived; or at any +rate have not sufficiently spread. It is true that the decline of the +agricultural South has been considerably balanced by the growth of the +agricultural West. It is true, as I have occasion to emphasise in +another place, that the West does give the New America something that is +nearly a normal peasantry, as a pendant to the industrial towns. But +this is not an answer; it is rather an augmentation of the argument. In +so far as America is saved it is saved by being patchy; and would be +ruined if the Western patch had the same fate as the Southern patch. +When all is said, therefore, the advantages of American unification are +not so certain that we can apply them to a world unification. The doubt +could be expressed in a great many ways and by a great many examples. +For that matter, it is already being felt that the supremacy of the +Middle West in politics is inflicting upon other localities exactly the +sort of local injustice that turns provinces into nations struggling to +be free. It has already inflicted what amounts to religious persecution, +or the imposition of an alien morality, on the wine-growing civilisation +of California. In a word, the American system is a good one as +governments go; but it is too large, and the world will not be improved +by making it larger. And for this reason alone I should reject this +second method of uniting England and America; which is not only +Americanising England, but Americanising everything else. + +But the essential reason is that a type of culture came out on top in +America and England in the nineteenth century, which cannot and would +not be tolerated on top of the world. To unite all the systems at the +top, without improving and simplifying their social organisation below, +would be to tie all the tops of the trees together where they rise +above a dense and poisonous jungle, and make the jungle darker than +before. To create such a cosmopolitan political platform would be to +build a roof above our own heads to shut out the sunlight, on which only +usurers and conspirators clad in gold could walk about in the sun. This +is no moment when industrial intellectualism can inflict such an +artificial oppression upon the world. Industrialism itself is coming to +see dark days, and its future is very doubtful. It is split from end to +end with strikes and struggles for economic life, in which the poor not +only plead that they are starving, but even the rich can only plead that +they are bankrupt. The peasantries are growing not only more prosperous +but more politically effective; the Russian moujik has held up the +Bolshevist Government of Moscow and Petersburg; a huge concession has +been made by England to Ireland; the League of Nations has decided for +Poland against Prussia. It is not certain that industrialism will not +wither even in its own field; it is certain that its intellectual ideas +will not be allowed to cover every field; and this sort of cosmopolitan +culture is one of its ideas. Industrialism itself may perish; or on the +other hand industrialism itself may survive, by some searching and +scientific reform that will really guarantee economic security to all. +It may really purge itself of the accidental maladies of anarchy and +famine; and continue as a machine, but at least as a comparatively clean +and humanely shielded machine; at any rate no longer as a man-eating +machine. Capitalism may clear itself of its worst corruptions by such +reform as is open to it; by creating humane and healthy conditions for +labour, and setting the labouring classes to work under a lucid and +recognised law. It may make Pittsburg one vast model factory for all who +will model themselves upon factories; and may give to all men and women +in its employment a clear social status in which they can be contented +and secure. And on the day when that social security is established for +the masses, when industrial capitalism has achieved this larger and more +logical organisation and found peace at last, a strange and shadowy and +ironic triumph, like an abstract apology, will surely hover over all +those graves in the Wilderness where lay the bones of so many gallant +gentlemen; men who had also from their youth known and upheld such a +social stratification, who had the courage to call a spade a spade and a +slave a slave. + + + + +_A New Martin Chuzzlewit_ + + +The aim of this book, if it has one, is to suggest this thesis; that the +very worst way of helping Anglo-American friendship is to be an +Anglo-American. There is only one thing lower, of course, which is being +an Anglo-Saxon. It is lower, because at least Englishmen do exist and +Americans do exist; and it may be possible, though repulsive, to imagine +an American and an Englishman in some way blended together. But if +Angles and Saxons ever did exist, they are all fortunately dead now; and +the wildest imagination cannot form the weakest idea of what sort of +monster would be made by mixing one with the other. But my thesis is +that the whole hope, and the only hope, lies not in mixing two things +together, but rather in cutting them very sharply asunder. That is the +only way in which two things can succeed sufficiently in getting outside +each other to appreciate and admire each other. So long as they are +different and yet supposed to be the same, there can be nothing but a +divided mind and a staggering balance. It may be that in the first +twilight of time man and woman walked about as one quadruped. But if +they did, I am sure it was a quadruped that reared and bucked and kicked +up its heels. Then the flaming sword of some angel divided them, and +they fell in love with each other. + +Should the reader require an example a little more within historical +range, or a little more subject to critical tests, than the above +prehistoric anecdote (which I need not say was revealed to me in a +vision) it would be easy enough to supply them both in a hypothetical +and a historical form. It is obvious enough in a general way that if we +begin to subject diverse countries to an identical test, there will not +only be rivalry, but what is far more deadly and disastrous, +superiority. If we institute a competition between Holland and +Switzerland as to the relative grace and agility of their mountain +guides, it will be clear that the decision is disproportionately easy; +it will also be clear that certain facts about the configuration of +Holland have escaped our international eye. If we establish a comparison +between them in skill and industry in the art of building dykes against +the sea, it will be equally clear that the injustice falls the other +way; it will also be clear that the situation of Switzerland on the map +has received insufficient study. In both cases there will not only be +rivalry but very unbalanced and unjust rivalry; in both cases, +therefore, there will not only be enmity but very bitter or insolent +enmity. But so long as the two are sharply divided there can be no +enmity because there can be no rivalry. Nobody can argue about whether +the Swiss climb mountains better than the Dutch build dykes; just as +nobody can argue about whether a triangle is more triangular than a +circle is round. + +This fancy example is alphabetically and indeed artificially simple; +but, having used it for convenience, I could easily give similar +examples not of fancy but of fact. I had occasion recently to attend the +Christmas festivity of a club in London for the exiles of one of the +Scandinavian nations. When I entered the room the first thing that +struck my eye, and greatly raised my spirits, was that the room was +dotted with the colours of peasant costumes and the specimens of peasant +craftsmanship. There were, of course, other costumes and other crafts in +evidence; there were men dressed like myself (only better) in the garb +of the modern middle classes; there was furniture like the furniture of +any other room in London. Now, according to the ideal formula of the +ordinary internationalist, these things that we had in common ought to +have moved me to a sense of the kinship of all civilisation. I ought to +have felt that as the Scandinavian gentleman wore a collar and tie, and +I also wore a collar and tie, we were brothers and nothing could come +between us. I ought to have felt that we were standing for the same +principles of truth because we were wearing the same pair of trousers; +or rather, to speak with more precision, similar pairs of trousers. +Anyhow, the pair of trousers, that cloven pennon, ought to have floated +in fancy over my head as the banner of Europe or the League of Nations. +I am constrained to confess that no such rush of emotions overcame me; +and the topic of trousers did not float across my mind at all. So far as +those things were concerned, I might have remained in a mood of mortal +enmity, and cheerfully shot or stabbed the best dressed gentleman in the +room. Precisely what did warm my heart with an abrupt affection for that +northern nation was the very thing that is utterly and indeed lamentably +lacking in my own nation. It was something corresponding to the one +great gap in English history, corresponding to the one great blot on +English civilisation. It was the spiritual presence of a peasantry, +dressed according to its own dignity, and expressing itself by its own +creations. + +The sketch of America left by Charles Dickens is generally regarded as +something which is either to be used as a taunt or covered with an +apology. Doubtless it was unduly critical, even of the America of that +day; yet curiously enough it may well be the text for a true +reconciliation at the present day. It is true that in this, as in other +things, the Dickensian exaggeration is itself exaggerated. It is also +true that, while it is over-emphasised, it is not allowed for. Dickens +tended too much to describe the United States as a vast lunatic asylum; +but partly because he had a natural inspiration and imagination suited +to the description of lunatic asylums. As it was his finest poetic fancy +that created a lunatic over the garden wall, so it was his fancy that +created a lunatic over the western sea. To read some of the complaints, +one would fancy that Dickens had deliberately invented a low and +farcical America to be a contrast to his high and exalted England. It is +suggested that he showed America as full of rowdy bullies like Hannibal +Chollop, or ridiculous wind-bags like Elijah Pogram, while England was +full of refined and sincere spirits like Jonas Chuzzlewit, Chevy Slime, +Montague Tigg, and Mr. Pecksniff. If _Martin Chuzzlewit_ makes America a +lunatic asylum, what in the world does it make England? We can only say +a criminal lunatic asylum. The truth is, of course, that Dickens so +described them because he had a genius for that sort of description; for +the making of almost maniacal grotesques of the same type as Quilp or +Fagin. He made these Americans absurd because he was an artist in +absurdity; and no artist can help finding hints everywhere for his own +peculiar art. In a word, he created a laughable Pogram for the same +reason that he created a laughable Pecksniff; and that was only because +no other creature could have created them. + +It is often said that we learn to love the characters in romances as if +they were characters in real life. I wish we could sometimes love the +characters in real life as we love the characters in romances. There are +a great many human souls whom we should accept more kindly, and even +appreciate more clearly, if we simply thought of them as people in a +story. _Martin Chuzzlewit_ is itself indeed an unsatisfactory and even +unfortunate example; for it is, among its author's other works, a rather +unusually harsh and hostile story. I do not suggest that we should feel +towards an American friend that exact shade or tint of tenderness that +we feel towards Mr. Hannibal Chollop. Our enjoyment of the foreigner +should rather resemble our enjoyment of Pickwick than our enjoyment of +Pecksniff. But there is this amount of appropriateness even in the +particular example; that Dickens did show in both countries how men can +be made amusing to each other. So far the point is not that he made fun +of America, but that he got fun out of America. And, as I have already +pointed out, he applied exactly the same method of selection and +exaggeration to England. In the other English stories, written in a more +amiable mood, he applied it in a more amiable manner; but he could apply +it to an American too, when he was writing in that mood and manner. We +can see it in the witty and withering criticism delivered by the Yankee +traveller in the musty refreshment room of Mugby Junction; a genuine +example of a genuinely American fun and freedom satirising a genuinely +British stuffiness and snobbery. Nobody expects the American traveller +to admire the refreshments at Mugby Junction; but he might admire the +refreshment at one of the Pickwickian inns, especially if it contained +Pickwick. Nobody expects Pickwick to like Pogram; but he might like the +American who made fun of Mugby Junction. But the point is that, while he +supported him in making fun, he would also think him funny. The two +comic characters could admire each other, but they would also be amused +at each other. And the American would think the Englishman funny because +he was English; and a very good reason too. The Englishman would think +the American amusing because he was American; nor can I imagine a better +ground for his amusement. + +Now many will debate on the psychological possibility of such a +friendship founded on reciprocal ridicule, or rather on a comedy of +comparisons. But I will say of this harmony of humours what Mr. H. G. +Wells says of his harmony of states in the unity of his World State. If +it be truly impossible to have such a peace, then there is nothing +possible except war. If we cannot have friends in this fashion, then we +shall sooner or later have enemies in some other fashion. There is no +hope in the pompous impersonalities of internationalism. + +And this brings us to the real and relevant mistake of Dickens. It was +not in thinking his Americans funny, but in thinking them foolish +because they were funny. In this sense it will be noticed that Dickens's +American sketches are almost avowedly superficial; they are descriptions +of public life and not private life. Mr. Jefferson Brick had no private +life. But Mr. Jonas Chuzzlewit undoubtedly had a private life; and even +kept some parts of it exceeding private. Mr. Pecksniff was also a +domestic character; so was Mr. Quilp. Mr. Pecksniff and Mr. Quilp had +slightly different ways of surprising their families; Mr. Pecksniff by +playfully observing 'Boh!' when he came home; Mr. Quilp by coming home +at all. But we can form no picture of how Mr. Hannibal Chollop playfully +surprised his family; possibly by shooting at them; possibly by not +shooting at them. We can only say that he would rather surprise us by +having a family at all. We do not know how the Mother of the Modern +Gracchi managed the Modern Gracchi; for her maternity was rather a +public than a private office. We have no romantic moonlit scenes of the +love-making of Elijah Pogram, to balance against the love story of Seth +Pecksniff. These figures are all in a special sense theatrical; all +facing one way and lit up by a public limelight. Their ridiculous +characters are detachable from their real characters, if they have any +real characters. And the author might perfectly well be right about what +is ridiculous, and wrong about what is real. He might be as right in +smiling at the Pograms and the Bricks as in smiling at the Pickwicks and +the Boffins. And he might still be as wrong in seeing Mr. Pogram as a +hypocrite as the great Buzfuz was wrong in seeing Mr. Pickwick as a +monster of revolting heartlessness and systematic villainy. He might +still be as wrong in thinking Jefferson Brick a charlatan and a cheat as +was that great disciple of Lavater, Mrs. Wilfer, in tracing every +wrinkle of evil cunning in the face of Mrs. Boffin. For Mr. Pickwick's +spectacles and gaiters and Mrs. Boffin's bonnets and boudoir are after +all superficial jokes; and might be equally well seen whatever we saw +beneath them. A man may smile and smile and be a villain; but a man may +also make us smile and not be a villain. He may make us smile and not +even be a fool. He may make us roar with laughter and be an exceedingly +wise man. + +Now that is the paradox of America which Dickens never discovered. +Elijah Pogram was far more fantastic than his satirist thought; and the +most grotesque feature of Brick and Chollop was hidden from him. The +really strange thing was that Pogram probably did say, 'Rough he may be. +So air our bars. Wild he may be. So air our buffalers,' and yet was a +perfectly intelligent and public-spirited citizen while he said it. The +extraordinary thing is that Jefferson Brick may really have said, 'The +libation of freedom must sometimes be quaffed in blood,' and yet +Jefferson Brick may have served freedom, resisting unto blood. There +really has been a florid school of rhetoric in the United States which +has made it quite possible for serious and sensible men to say such +things. It is amusing simply as a difference of idiom or costume is +always amusing; just as English idiom and English costume are amusing to +Americans. But about this kind of difference there can be no kind of +doubt. So sturdy not to say stuffy a materialist as Ingersoll could say +of so shoddy not to say shady a financial politician as Blaine, 'Like an +arméd warrior, like a pluméd knight, James G. Blaine strode down the +hall of Congress, and flung his spear full and true at the shield of +every enemy of his country and every traducer of his fair name.' +Compared with that, the passage about bears and buffaloes, which Mr. +Pogram delivered in defence of the defaulting post-master, is really a +very reasonable and appropriate statement. For bears and buffaloes are +wild and rough and in that sense free; while pluméd knights do not throw +their lances about like the assegais of Zulus. And the defaulting +post-master was at least as good a person to praise in such a fashion as +James G. Blaine of the Little Rock Railway. But anybody who had treated +Ingersoll or Blaine merely as a fool and a figure of fun would have very +rapidly found out his mistake. But Dickens did not know Brick or Chollop +long enough to find out his mistake. It need not be denied that, even +after a full understanding, he might still have found things to smile at +or to criticise. I do not insist on his admitting that Hannibal Chollop +was as great a hero as Hannibal, or that Elijah Pogram was as true a +prophet as Elijah. But I do say very seriously that they had something +about their atmosphere and situation that made possible a sort of +heroism and even a sort of prophecy that were really less natural at +that period in that Merry England whose comedy and common sense we sum +up under the name of Dickens. When we joke about the name of Hannibal +Chollop, we might remember of what nation was the general who dismissed +his defeated soldiers at Appomatox with words which the historian has +justly declared to be worthy of Hannibal: 'We have fought through this +war together. I have done my best for you.' It is not fair to forget +Jefferson, or even Jefferson Davis, entirely in favour of Jefferson +Brick. + +For all these three things, good, bad, and indifferent, go together to +form something that Dickens missed, merely because the England of his +time most disastrously missed it. In this case, as in every case, the +only way to measure justly the excess of a foreign country is to measure +the defect of our own country. For in this matter the human mind is the +victim of a curious little unconscious trick, the cause of nearly all +international dislikes. A man treats his own faults as original sin and +supposes them scattered everywhere with the seed of Adam. He supposes +that men have then added their own foreign vices to the solid and simple +foundation of his own private vices. It would astound him to realise +that they have actually, by their strange erratic path, avoided his +vices as well as his virtues. His own faults are things with which he is +so much at home that he at once forgets and assumes them abroad. He is +so faintly conscious of them in himself that he is not even conscious of +the absence of them in other people. He assumes that they are there so +that he does not see that they are not there. The Englishman takes it +for granted that a Frenchman will have all the English faults. Then he +goes on to be seriously angry with the Frenchman for having dared to +complicate them by the French faults. The notion that the Frenchman has +the French faults and _not_ the English faults is a paradox too wild to +cross his mind. + +He is like an old Chinaman who should laugh at Europeans for wearing +ludicrous top-hats and curling up their pig-tails inside them; because +obviously all men have pig-tails, as all monkeys have tails. Or he is +like an old Chinese lady who should justly deride the high-heeled shoes +of the West, considering them a needless addition to the sufficiently +tight and secure bandaging of the foot; for, of course, all women bind +up their feet, as all women bind up their hair. What these Celestial +thinkers would not think of, or allow for, is the wild possibility that +we do not have pig-tails although we do have top-hats, or that our +ladies are not silly enough to have Chinese feet, though they are silly +enough to have high-heeled shoes. Nor should we necessarily have come an +inch nearer to the Chinese extravagances even if the chimney-pot hat +rose higher than a factory chimney or the high heels had evolved into a +sort of stilts. By the same fallacy the Englishman will not only curse +the French peasant as a miser, but will also try to tip him as a beggar. +That is, he will first complain of the man having the surliness of an +independent man, and then accuse him of having the servility of a +dependent one. Just as the hypothetical Chinaman cannot believe that we +have top-hats but not pig-tails, so the Englishman cannot believe that +peasants are not snobs even when they are savages. Or he sees that a +Paris paper is violent and sensational; and then supposes that some +millionaire owns twenty such papers and runs them as a newspaper trust. +Surely the Yellow Press is present everywhere to paint the map yellow, +as the British Empire to paint it red. It never occurs to such a critic +that the French paper is violent because it is personal, and personal +because it belongs to a real and responsible person, and not to a ring +of nameless millionaires. It is a pamphlet, and not an anonymous +pamphlet. In a hundred other cases the same truth could be illustrated; +the situation in which the black man first assumes that all mankind is +black, and then accuses the rest of the artificial vice of painting +their faces red and yellow, or the hypocrisy of white-washing +themselves after the fashion of whited sepulchres. The particular case +of it now before us is that of the English misunderstanding of America; +and it is based, as in all these cases, on the English misunderstanding +of England. + +For the truth is that England has suffered of late from not having +enough of the free shooting of Hannibal Chollop; from not understanding +enough that the libation of freedom must sometimes be quaffed in blood. +The prosperous Englishman will not admit this; but then the prosperous +Englishman will not admit that he has suffered from anything. That is +what he is suffering from. Until lately at least he refused to realise +that many of his modern habits had been bad habits, the worst of them +being contentment. For all the real virtue in contentment evaporates, +when the contentment is only satisfaction and the satisfaction is only +self-satisfaction. Now it is perfectly true that America and not England +has seen the most obvious and outrageous official denials of liberty. +But it is equally true that it has seen the most obvious flouting of +such official nonsense, far more obvious than any similar evasions in +England. And nobody who knows the subconscious violence of the American +character would ever be surprised if the weapons of Chollop began to be +used in that most lawful lawlessness. It is perfectly true that the +libation of freedom must sometimes be drunk in blood, and never more +(one would think) than when mad millionaires forbid it to be drunk in +beer. But America, as compared with England, is the country where one +can still fancy men obtaining the libation of beer by the libation of +blood. Vulgar plutocracy is almost omnipotent in both countries; but I +think there is now more kick of reaction against it in America than in +England. The Americans may go mad when they make laws; but they recover +their reason when they disobey them. I wish I could believe that there +was as much of that destructive repentance in England; as indeed there +certainly was when Cobbett wrote. It faded gradually like a dying fire +through the Victorian era; and it was one of the very few realities that +Dickens did not understand. But any one who does understand it will know +that the days of Cobbett saw the last lost fight for English democracy; +and that if he had stood at that turning of the historic road, he would +have wished a better fate to the frame-breakers and the fury against the +first machinery, and luck to the Luddite fires. + +Anyhow, what is wanted is a new Martin Chuzzlewit, told by a wiser Mark +Tapley. It is typical of something sombre and occasionally stale in the +mood of Dickens when he wrote that book, that the comic servant is not +really very comic. Mark Tapley is a very thin shadow of Sam Weller. But +if Dickens had written it in a happier mood, there might have been a +truer meaning in Mark Tapley's happiness. For it is true that this +illogical good humour amid unreason and disorder is one of the real +virtues of the English people. It is the real advantage they have in +that adventure all over the world, which they were recently and +reluctantly induced to call an Empire. That receptive ridicule remains +with them as a secret pleasure when they are colonists--or convicts. +Dickens might have written another version of the great romance, and one +in which America was really seen gaily by Mark instead of gloomily by +Martin. Mark Tapley might really have made the best of America. Then +America would have lived and danced before us like Pickwick's England, a +fairyland of happy lunatics and lovable monsters, and we might still +have sympathised as much with the rhetoric of Lafayette Kettle as with +the rhetoric of Wilkins Micawber, or with the violence of Chollop as +with the violence of Boythorn. That new Martin Chuzzlewit will never be +written; and the loss of it is more tragic than the loss of _Edwin +Drood_. But every man who has travelled in America has seen glimpses and +episodes in that untold tale; and far away on the Red-Indian frontiers +or in the hamlets in the hills of Pennsylvania, there are people whom I +met for a few hours or for a few moments, whom I none the less sincerely +like and respect because I cannot but smile as I think of them. But the +converse is also true; they have probably forgotten me; but if they +remember they laugh. + + + + +_The Spirit of America_ + + +I suggest that diplomatists of the internationalist school should spend +some of their money on staging farces and comedies of cross-purposes, +founded on the curious and prevalent idea that England and America have +the same language. I know, of course, that we both inherit the glorious +tongue of Shakespeare, not to mention the tune of the musical glasses; +but there have been moments when I thought that if we spoke Greek and +they spoke Latin we might understand each other better. For Greek and +Latin are at least fixed, while American at least is still very fluid. I +do not know the American language, and therefore I do not claim to +distinguish between the American language and the American slang. But I +know that highly theatrical developments might follow on taking the +words as part of the English slang or the English language. I have +already given the example of calling a person 'a regular guy,' which in +the States is a graceful expression of respect and esteem, but which on +the stage, properly handled, might surely lead the way towards a divorce +or duel or something lively. Sometimes coincidence merely clinches a +mistake, as it so often clinches a misprint. Every proof-reader knows +that the worst misprint is not that which makes nonsense but that which +makes sense; not that which is obviously wrong but that which is +hideously right. He who has essayed to write 'he got the book,' and has +found it rendered mysteriously as 'he got the boob' is pensively +resigned. It is when it is rendered quite lucidly as 'he got the boot' +that he is moved to a more passionate mood of regret. I have had +conversations in which this sort of accident would have wholly misled +me, if another accident had not come to the rescue. An American friend +of mine was telling me of his adventures as a cinema-producer down in +the south-west where real Red Indians were procurable. He said that +certain Indians were 'very bad actors.' It passed for me as a very +ordinary remark on a very ordinary or natural deficiency. It would +hardly seem a crushing criticism to say that some wild Arab chieftain +was not very good at imitating a farmyard; or that the Grand Llama of +Thibet was rather clumsy at making paper boats. But the remark might be +natural in a man travelling in paper boats, or touring with an invisible +farmyard for his menagerie. As my friend was a cinema-producer, I +supposed he meant that the Indians were bad cinema actors. But the +phrase has really a high and austere moral meaning, which my levity had +wholly missed. A bad actor means a man whose actions are bad or morally +reprehensible. So that I might have embraced a Red Indian who was +dripping with gore, or covered with atrocious crimes, imagining there +was nothing the matter with him beyond a mistaken choice of the +theatrical profession. Surely there are here the elements of a play, not +to mention a cinema play. Surely a New England village maiden might find +herself among the wigwams in the power of the formidable and fiendish +'Little Blue Bison,' merely through her mistaken sympathy with his +financial failure as a Film Star. The notion gives me glimpses of all +sorts of dissolving views of primeval forests and flamboyant theatres; +but this impulse of irrelevant theatrical production must be curbed. +There is one example, however, of this complication of language actually +used in contrary senses, about which the same figure can be used to +illustrate a more serious fact. + +Suppose that, in such an international interlude, an English girl and an +American girl are talking about the fiancé of the former, who is coming +to call. The English girl will be haughty and aristocratic (on the +stage), the American girl will of course have short hair and skirts and +will be cynical; Americans being more completely free from cynicism than +any people in the world. It is the great glory of Americans that they +are not cynical; for that matter, English aristocrats are hardly ever +haughty; they understand the game much better than that. But on the +stage, anyhow, the American girl may say, referring to her friend's +fiancé, with a cynical wave of the cigarette, 'I suppose he's bound to +come and see you.' And at this the blue blood of the Vere de Veres will +boil over; the English lady will be deeply wounded and insulted at the +suggestion that her lover only comes to see her because he is forced to +do so. A staggering stage quarrel will then ensue, and things will go +from bad to worse; until the arrival of an Interpreter who can talk both +English and American. He stands between the two ladies waving two pocket +dictionaries, and explains the error on which the quarrel turns. It is +very simple; like the seed of all tragedies. In English 'he is bound to +come and see you' means that he is obliged or constrained to come and +see you. In American it does not. In American it means that he is bent +on coming to see you, that he is irrevocably resolved to do so, and will +surmount any obstacle to do it. The two young ladies will then embrace +as the curtain falls. + +Now when I was lecturing in America I was often told, in a radiant and +congratulatory manner, that such and such a person was bound to come and +hear me lecture. It seemed a very cruel form of conscription, and I +could not understand what authority could have made it compulsory. In +the course of discovering my error, however, I thought I began to +understand certain American ideas and instincts that lie behind this +American idiom. For as I have urged before, and shall often urge again, +the road to international friendship is through really understanding +jokes. It is in a sense through taking jokes seriously. It is quite +legitimate to laugh at a man who walks down the street in three white +hats and a green dressing gown, because it is unfamiliar; but after all +the man has _some_ reason for what he does; and until we know the reason +we do not understand the story, or even understand the joke. So the +outlander will always seem outlandish in custom or costume; but serious +relations depend on our getting beyond the fact of difference to the +things wherein it differs. A good symbolical figure for all this may be +found among the people who say, perhaps with a self-revealing +simplicity, that they are bound to go to a lecture. + +If I were asked for a single symbolic figure summing up the whole of +what seems eccentric and interesting about America to an Englishman, I +should be satisfied to select that one lady who complained of Mrs. +Asquith's lecture and wanted her money back. I do not mean that she was +typically American in complaining; far from it. I, for one, have a great +and guilty knowledge of all that amiable American audiences will endure +without complaint. I do not mean that she was typically American in +wanting her money; quite the contrary. That sort of American spends +money rather than hoards it; and when we convict them of vulgarity we +acquit them of avarice. Where she was typically American, summing up a +truth individual and indescribable in any other way, is that she used +these words: 'I've risen from a sick-bed to come and hear her, and I +want my money back.' + +The element in that which really amuses an Englishman is precisely the +element which, properly analysed, ought to make him admire an American. +But my point is that only by going through the amusement can he reach +the admiration. The amusement is in the vision of a tragic sacrifice for +what is avowedly a rather trivial object. Mrs. Asquith is a candid lady +of considerable humour; and I feel sure she does not regard the +experience of hearing her read her diary as an ecstasy for which the +sick should thus suffer martyrdom. She also is English; and had no other +claim but to amuse Americans and possibly to be amused by them. This +being so, it is rather as if somebody said, 'I have risked my life in +fire and pestilence to find my way to the music hall,' or, 'I have +fasted forty days in the wilderness sustained by the hope of seeing +Totty Toddles do her new dance.' And there is something rather more +subtle involved here. There is something in an Englishman which would +make him feel faintly ashamed of saying that he had fasted to hear +Totty Toddles, or risen from a sick-bed to hear Mrs. Asquith. He would +feel that it was undignified to confess that he had wanted mere +amusement so much; and perhaps that he had wanted anything so much. He +would not like, so to speak, to be seen rushing down the street after +Totty Toddles, or after Mrs. Asquith, or perhaps after anybody. But +there is something in it distinct from a mere embarrassment at admitting +enthusiasm. He might admit the enthusiasm if the object seemed to +justify it; he might perfectly well be serious about a serious thing. +But he cannot understand a person being proud of serious sacrifices for +what is not a serious thing. He does not like to admit that a little +thing can excite him; that he can lose his breath in running, or lose +his balance in reaching, after something that might be called silly. + +Now that is where the American is fundamentally different. To him the +enthusiasm itself is meritorious. To him the excitement itself is +dignified. He counts it a part of his manhood to fast or fight or rise +from a bed of sickness for something, or possibly for anything. His +ideal is not to be a lock that only a worthy key can open, but a 'live +wire' that anything can touch or anybody can use. In a word, there is a +difference in the very definition of virility and therefore of virtue. A +live wire is not only active, it is also sensitive. Thus sensibility +becomes actually a part of virility. Something more is involved than the +vulgar simplification of the American as the irresistible force and the +Englishman as the immovable post. As a fact, those who speak of such +things nowadays generally mean by something irresistible something +simply immovable, or at least something unalterable, motionless even in +motion, like a cannon ball; for a cannon ball is as dead as a cannon. +Prussian militarism was praised in that way--until it met a French force +of about half its size on the banks of the Marne. But that is not what +an American means by energy; that sort of Prussian energy is only +monotony without repose. American energy is not a soulless machine; for +it is the whole point that he puts his soul into it. It is a very small +box for so big a thing; but it is not an empty box. But the point is +that he is not only proud of his energy, he is proud of his excitement. +He is not ashamed of his emotion, of the fire or even the tear in his +manly eye, when he tells you that the great wheel of his machine breaks +four billion butterflies an hour. + +That is the point about American sport; that it is not in the least +sportive. It is because it is not very sportive that we sometimes say it +is not very sporting. It has the vices of a religion. It has all the +paradox of original sin in the service of aboriginal faith. It is +sometimes untruthful because it is sincere. It is sometimes treacherous +because it is loyal. Men lie and cheat for it as they lied for their +lords in a feudal conspiracy, or cheated for their chieftains in a +Highland feud. We may say that the vassal readily committed treason; but +it is equally true that he readily endured torture. So does the American +athlete endure torture. Not only the self-sacrifice but the solemnity of +the American athlete is like that of the American Indian. The athletes +in the States have the attitude of the athletes among the Spartans, the +great historical nation without a sense of humour. They suffer an +ascetic régime not to be matched in any monasticism and hardly in any +militarism. If any tradition of these things remains in a saner age, +they will probably be remembered as a mysterious religious order of +fakirs or dancing dervishes, who shaved their heads and fasted in honour +of Hercules or Castor and Pollux. And that is really the spiritual +atmosphere though the gods have vanished; and the religion is +subconscious and therefore irrational. For the problem of the modern +world is that it has continued to be religious when it has ceased to be +rational. Americans really would starve to win a cocoa-nut shy. They +would fast or bleed to win a race of paper boats on a pond. They would +rise from a sick-bed to listen to Mrs. Asquith. + +But it is the real reason that interests me here. It is certainly not +that Americans are so stupid as not to know that cocoa-nuts are only +cocoa-nuts and paper boats only made of paper. Americans are, on an +average, rather more intelligent than Englishmen; and they are well +aware that Hercules is a myth and that Mrs. Asquith is something of a +mythologist. It is not that they do not know that the object is small in +itself; it is that they do really believe that the enthusiasm is great +in itself. They admire people for being impressionable. They admire +people for being excited. An American so struggling for some +disproportionate trifle (like one of my lectures) really feels in a +mystical way that he is right, because it is his whole morality to be +keen. So long as he wants something very much, whatever it is, he feels +he has his conscience behind him, and the common sentiment of society +behind him, and God and the whole universe behind him. Wedged on one leg +in a hot crowd at a trivial lecture, he has self-respect; his dignity +is at rest. That is what he means when he says he is bound to come to +the lecture. + +Now the Englishman is fond of occasional larks. But these things are not +larks; nor are they occasional. It is the essential of the Englishman's +lark that he should think it a lark; that he should laugh at it even +when he does it. Being English myself, I like it; but being English +myself, I know it is connected with weaknesses as well as merits. In its +irony there is condescension and therefore embarrassment. This patronage +is allied to the patron, and the patron is allied to the aristocratic +tradition of society. The larks are a variant of laziness because of +leisure; and the leisure is a variant of the security and even supremacy +of the gentleman. When an undergraduate at Oxford smashes half a hundred +windows he is well aware that the incident is merely a trifle. He can be +trusted to explain to his parents and guardians that it was merely a +trifle. He does not say, even in the American sense, that he was bound +to smash the windows. He does not say that he had risen from a sick-bed +to smash the windows. He does not especially think he has risen at all; +he knows he has descended (though with delight, like one diving or +sliding down the banisters) to something flat and farcical and full of +the English taste for the bathos. He has collapsed into something +entirely commonplace; though the owners of the windows may possibly not +think so. This rather indescribable element runs through a hundred +English things, as in the love of bathos shown even in the sound of +proper names; so that even the yearning lover in a lyric yearns for +somebody named Sally rather than Salome, and for a place called Wapping +rather than a place called Westermain. Even in the relapse into +rowdiness there is a sort of relapse into comfort. There is also what is +so large a part of comfort; carelessness. The undergraduate breaks +windows because he does not care about windows, not because he does care +about more fresh air like a hygienist, or about more light like a German +poet. Still less does he heroically smash a hundred windows because they +come between him and the voice of Mrs. Asquith. But least of all does he +do it because he seriously prides himself on the energy apart from its +aim, and on the will-power that carries it through. He is not 'bound' to +smash the windows, even in the sense of being bent upon it. He is not +bound at all but rather relaxed; and his violence is not only a +relaxation but a laxity. Finally, this is shown in the fact that he only +smashes windows when he is in the mood to smash windows; when some +fortunate conjunction of stars and all the tints and nuances of nature +whisper to him that it would be well to smash windows. But the American +is always ready, at any moment, to waste his energies on the wilder and +more suicidal course of going to lectures. And this is because to him +such excitement is not a mood but a moral ideal. As I note in another +connection, much of the English mystery would be clear to Americans if +they understood the word 'mood.' Englishmen are very moody, especially +when they smash windows. But I doubt if many Americans understand +exactly what we mean by the mood; especially the passive mood. + +It is only by trying to get some notion of all this that an Englishman +can enjoy the final crown and fruit of all international friendship; +which is really liking an American to be American. If we only think that +parts of him are excellent because parts of him are English, it would be +far more sensible to stop at home and possibly enjoy the society of a +whole complete Englishman. But anybody who does understand this can take +the same pleasure in an American being American that he does in a +thunderbolt being swift and a barometer being sensitive. He can see that +a vivid sensibility and vigilance really radiate outwards through all +the ramifications of machinery and even of materialism. He can see that +the American uses his great practical powers upon very small +provocation; but he can also see that there is a kind of sense of +honour, like that of a duellist, in his readiness to be provoked. +Indeed, there is some parallel between the American man of action, +however vulgar his aims, and the old feudal idea of the gentleman with a +sword at his side. The gentleman may have been proud of being strong or +sturdy; he may too often have been proud of being thick-headed; but he +was not proud of being thick-skinned. On the contrary, he was proud of +being thin-skinned. He also seriously thought that sensitiveness was a +part of masculinity. It may be very absurd to read of two Irish +gentlemen trying to kill each other for trifles, or of two +Irish-American millionaires trying to ruin each other for trash. But the +very pettiness of the pretext and even the purpose illustrates the same +conception; which may be called the virtue of excitability. And it is +really this, and not any rubbish about iron will-power and masterful +mentality, that redeems with romance their clockwork cosmos and its +industrial ideals. Being a live wire does not mean that the nerves +should be like wires; but rather that the very wires should be like +nerves. + +Another approximation to the truth would be to say that an American is +really not ashamed of curiosity. It is not so simple as it looks. Men +will carry off curiosity with various kinds of laughter and bravado, +just as they will carry off drunkenness or bankruptcy. But very few +people are really proud of lying on a door-step, and very few people are +really proud of longing to look through a key-hole. I do not speak of +looking through it, which involves questions of honour and self-control; +but few people feel that even the desire is dignified. Now I fancy the +American, at least by comparison with the Englishman, does feel that his +curiosity is consistent with his dignity, because dignity is consistent +with vivacity. He feels it is not merely the curiosity of Paul Pry, but +the curiosity of Christopher Columbus. He is not a spy but an explorer; +and he feels his greatness rather grow with his refusal to turn back, as +a traveller might feel taller and taller as he neared the source of the +Nile or the North-West Passage. Many an Englishman has had that feeling +about discoveries in dark continents; but he does not often have it +about discoveries in daily life. The one type does believe in the +indignity and the other in the dignity of the detective. It has nothing +to do with ethics in the merely external sense. It involves no +particular comparison in practical morals and manners. It is something +in the whole poise and posture of the self; of the way a man carries +himself. For men are not only affected by what they are; but still more, +when they are fools, by what they think they are; and when they are +wise, by what they wish to be. + +There are truths that have almost become untrue by becoming untruthful. +There are statements so often stale and insincere that one hesitates to +use them, even when they stand for something more subtle. This point +about curiosity is not the conventional complaint against the American +interviewer. It is not the ordinary joke against the American child. And +in the same way I feel the danger of it being identified with the cant +about 'a young nation' if I say that it has some of the attractions, not +of American childhood, but of real childhood. There is some truth in the +tradition that the children of wealthy Americans tend to be too +precocious and luxurious. But there is a sense in which we can really +say that if the children are like adults, the adults are like children. +And that sense is in the very best sense of childhood. It is something +which the modern world does not understand. It is something that modern +Americans do not understand, even when they possess it; but I think they +do possess it. + +The devil can quote Scripture for his purpose; and the text of Scripture +which he now most commonly quotes is, 'The kingdom of heaven is within +you.' That text has been the stay and support of more Pharisees and +prigs and self-righteous spiritual bullies than all the dogmas in +creation; it has served to identify self-satisfaction with the peace +that passes all understanding. And the text to be quoted in answer to it +is that which declares that no man can receive the kingdom except as a +little child. What we are to have inside is the childlike spirit; but +the childlike spirit is not entirely concerned about what is inside. It +is the first mark of possessing it that one is interested in what is +outside. The most childlike thing about a child is his curiosity and his +appetite and his power of wonder at the world. We might almost say that +the whole advantage of having the kingdom within is that we look for it +somewhere else. + + + + +_The Spirit of England_ + + +Nine times out of ten a man's broad-mindedness is necessarily the +narrowest thing about him. This is not particularly paradoxical; it is, +when we come to think of it, quite inevitable. His vision of his own +village may really be full of varieties; and even his vision of his own +nation may have a rough resemblance to the reality. But his vision of +the world is probably smaller than the world. His vision of the universe +is certainly much smaller than the universe. Hence he is never so +inadequate as when he is universal; he is never so limited as when he +generalises. This is the fallacy in the many modern attempts at a +creedless creed, at something variously described as essential +Christianity or undenominational religion or a world faith to embrace +all the faiths in the world. It is that every sectarian is more +sectarian in his unsectarianism than he is in his sect. The emancipation +of a Baptist is a very Baptist emancipation. The charity of a Buddhist +is a very Buddhist charity, and very different from Christian charity. +When a philosophy embraces everything it generally squeezes everything, +and squeezes it out of shape; when it digests it necessarily +assimilates. When a theosophist absorbs Christianity it is rather as a +cannibal absorbs Christian missionaries. In this sense it is even +possible for the larger thing to be swallowed by the smaller; and for +men to move about not only in a Clapham sect but in a Clapham cosmos +under Clapham moon and stars. + +But if this danger exists for all men, it exists especially for the +Englishman. The Englishman is never so insular as when he is imperial; +except indeed when he is international. In private life he is a good +friend and in practical politics generally a good ally. But theoretical +politics are more practical than practical politics. And in theoretical +politics the Englishman is the worst ally the world ever saw. This is +all the more curious because he has passed so much of his historical +life in the character of an ally. He has been in twenty great alliances +and never understood one of them. He has never been farther away from +European politics than when he was fighting heroically in the thick of +them. I myself think that this splendid isolation is sometimes really +splendid; so long as it is isolation and does not imagine itself to be +imperialism or internationalism. With the idea of being international, +with the idea of being imperial, comes the frantic and farcical idea of +being impartial. Generally speaking, men are never so mean and false and +hypocritical as when they are occupied in being impartial. They are +performing the first and most typical of all the actions of the devil; +they are claiming the throne of God. Even when it is not hypocrisy but +only mental confusion, it is always a confusion worse and worse +confounded. We see it in the impartial historians of the Victorian Age, +who now seem far more Victorian than the partial historians. Hallam +wrote about the Middle Ages; but Hallam was far less mediaeval than +Macaulay; for Macaulay was at least a fighter. Huxley had more mediaeval +sympathies than Herbert Spencer for the same reason; that Huxley was a +fighter. They both fought in many ways for the limitations of their own +rationalistic epoch; but they were nearer the truth than the men who +simply assumed those limitations as rational. The war of the +controversionalists was a wider thing than the peace of the arbiters. +And in the same way the Englishman never cuts a less convincing figure +before other nations than when he tries to arbitrate between them. + +I have by this time heard a great deal about the necessity of saving +Anglo-American friendship, a necessity which I myself feel rather too +strongly to be satisfied with the ambassadorial and editorial style of +achieving it. I have already said that the worst style of all is to be +Anglo-American; or, as the more illiterate would express, to be +Anglo-Saxon. I am more and more convinced that the way for the +Englishman to do it is to be English; but to know that he is English and +not everything else as well. Thus the only sincere answer to Irish +nationalism is English nationalism, which is a reality; and not English +imperialism, which is a reactionary fiction, or English +internationalism, which is a revolutionary one. + +For the English are reviled for their imperialism because they are not +imperialistic. They dislike it, which is the real reason why they do it +badly; and they do it badly, which is the real reason why they are +disliked when they do it. Nobody calls France imperialistic because she +has absorbed Brittany. But everybody calls England imperialistic because +she has not absorbed Ireland. The Englishman is fixed and frozen for +ever in the attitude of a ruthless conqueror; not because he has +conquered such people, but because he has not conquered them; but he is +always trying to conquer them with a heroism worthy of a better cause. +For the really native and vigorous part of what is unfortunately called +the British Empire is not an empire at all, and does not consist of +these conquered provinces at all. It is not an empire but an adventure; +which is probably a much finer thing. It was not the power of making +strange countries similar to our own, but simply the pleasure of seeing +strange countries because they were different from our own. The +adventurer did indeed, like the third son, set out to seek his fortune, +but not primarily to alter other people's fortunes; he wished to trade +with people rather than to rule them. But as the other people remained +different from him, so did he remain different from them. The adventurer +saw a thousand strange things and remained a stranger. He was the +Robinson Crusoe on a hundred desert islands; and on each he remained as +insular as on his own island. + +What is wanted for the cause of England to-day is an Englishman with +enough imagination to love his country from the outside as well as the +inside. That is, we need somebody who will do for the English what has +never been done for them, but what is done for any outlandish peasantry +or even any savage tribe. We want people who can make England +attractive; quite apart from disputes about whether England is strong or +weak. We want somebody to explain, not that England is everywhere, but +what England is anywhere; not that England is or is not really dying, +but why we do not want her to die. For this purpose the official and +conventional compliments or claims can never get any farther than +pompous abstractions about Law and Justice and Truth; the ideals which +England accepts as every civilised state accepts them, and violates as +every civilised state violates them. That is not the way in which the +picture of any people has ever been painted on the sympathetic +imagination of the world. Enthusiasts for old Japan did not tell us that +the Japs recognised the existence of abstract morality; but that they +lived in paper houses or wrote letters with paint-brushes. Men who +wished to interest us in Arabs did not confine themselves to saying that +they are monotheists or moralists; they filled our romances with the +rush of Arab steeds or the colours of strange tents or carpets. What we +want is somebody who will do for the Englishman with his front garden +what was done for the Jap and his paper house; who shall understand the +Englishman with his dog as well as the Arab with his horse. In a word, +what nobody has really tried to do is the one thing that really wants +doing. It is to make England attractive as a nationality, and even as a +small nationality. + +For it is a wild folly to suppose that nations will love each other +because they are alike. They will never really do that unless they are +really alike; and then they will not be nations. Nations can love each +other as men and women love each other, not because they are alike but +because they are different. It can easily be shown, I fancy, that in +every case where a real public sympathy was aroused for some unfortunate +foreign people, it has always been accompanied with a particular and +positive interest in their most foreign customs and their most foreign +externals. The man who made a romance of the Scotch High-lander made a +romance of his kilt and even of his dirk; the friend of the Red Indians +was interested in picture writing and had some tendency to be +interested in scalping. To take a more serious example, such nations as +Serbia had been largely commended to international consideration by the +study of Serbian epics, or Serbian songs. The epoch of negro +emancipation was also the epoch of negro melodies. Those who wept over +Uncle Tom also laughed over Uncle Remus. And just as the admiration for +the Redskin almost became an apology for scalping, the mysterious +fascination of the African has sometimes almost led us into the fringes +of the black forest of Voodoo. But the sort of interest that is felt +even in the scalp-hunter and the cannibal, the torturer and the +devil-worshipper, that sort of interest has never been felt in the +Englishman. + +And this is the more extraordinary because the Englishman is really very +interesting. He is interesting in a special degree in this special +manner; he is interesting because he is individual. No man in the world +is more misrepresented by everything official or even in the ordinary +sense national. A description of English life must be a description of +private life. In that sense there is no public life. In that sense there +is no public opinion. There have never been those prairie fires of +public opinion in England which often sweep over America. At any rate, +there have never been any such popular revolutions since the popular +revolutions of the Middle Ages. The English are a nation of amateurs; +they are even a nation of eccentrics. An Englishman is never more +English than when he is considered a lunatic by the other Englishmen. +This can be clearly seen in a figure like Dr. Johnson, who has become +national not by being normal but by being extraordinary. To express this +mysterious people, to explain or suggest why they like tall hedges and +heavy breakfasts and crooked roads and small gardens with large fences, +and why they alone among Christians have kept quite consistently the +great Christian glory of the open fireplace, here would be a strange and +stimulating opportunity for any of the artists in words, who study the +souls of strange peoples. That would be the true way to create a +friendship between England and America, or between England and anything +else; yes, even between England and Ireland. For this justice at least +has already been done to Ireland; and as an indignant patriot I demand a +more equal treatment for the two nations. + +I have already noted the commonplace that in order to teach +internationalism we must talk nationalism. We must make the nations as +nations less odious or mysterious to each other. We do not make men love +each other by describing a monster with a million arms and legs, but by +describing the men as men, with their separate and even solitary +emotions. As this has a particular application to the emotions of the +Englishman, I will return to the topic once more. Now Americans have a +power that is the soul and success of democracy, the power of +spontaneous social organisation. Their high spirits, their humane ideals +are really creative, they abound in unofficial institutions; we might +almost say in unofficial officialism. Nobody who has felt the presence +of all the leagues and guilds and college clubs will deny that Whitman +was national when he said he would build states and cities out of the +love of comrades. When all this communal enthusiasm collides with the +Englishman, it too often seems literally to leave him cold. They say he +is reserved; they possibly think he is rude. And the Englishman, having +been taught his own history all wrong, is only too likely to take the +criticism as a compliment. He admits that he is reserved because he is +stern and strong; or even that he is rude because he is shrewd and +candid. But as a fact he is not rude and not especially reserved; at +least reserve is not the meaning of his reluctance. The real difference +lies, I think, in the fact that American high spirits are not only high +but level; that the hilarious American spirit is like a plateau, and the +humorous English spirit like a ragged mountain range. + +The Englishman is moody; which does not in the least mean that the +Englishman is morose. Dickens, as we all feel in reading his books, was +boisterously English. Dickens was moody when he wrote _Oliver Twist_; +but he was also moody when he wrote _Pickwick_. That is, he was in +another and much healthier mood. The mood was normal to him in the sense +that nine times out of ten he felt and wrote in that humorous and +hilarious mood. But he was, if ever there was one, a man of moods; and +all the more of a typical Englishman for being a man of moods. But it +was because of this, almost entirely, that he had a misunderstanding +with America. + +In America there are no moods, or there is only one mood. It is the same +whether it is called hustle or uplift; whether we regard it as the +heroic love of comrades or the last hysteria of the herd instinct. It +has been said of the typical English aristocrats of the Government +offices that they resemble certain ornamental fountains and play from +ten till four; and it is true that an Englishman, even an English +aristocrat, is not always inclined to play any more than to work. But +American sociability is not like the Trafalgar fountains. It is like +Niagara. It never stops, under the silent stars or the rolling storms. +There seems always to be the same human heat and pressure behind it; it +is like the central heating of hotels as explained in the advertisements +and announcements. The temperature can be regulated; but it is not. And +it is always rather overpowering for an Englishman, whose mood changes +like his own mutable and shifting sky. The English mood is very like the +English weather; it is a nuisance and a national necessity. + +If any one wishes to understand the quarrel between Dickens and the +Americans, let him turn to that chapter in _Martin Chuzzlewit_, in which +young Martin has to receive endless defiles and deputations of total +strangers each announced by name and demanding formal salutation. There +are several things to be noticed about this incident. To begin with, it +did not happen to Martin Chuzzlewit; but it did happen to Charles +Dickens. Dickens is incorporating almost without alteration a passage +from a diary in the middle of a story; as he did when he included the +admirable account of the prison petition of John Dickens as the prison +petition of Wilkins Micawber. There is no particular reason why even the +gregarious Americans should so throng the portals of a perfectly obscure +steerage passenger like young Chuzzlewit. There was every reason why +they should throng the portals of the author of _Pickwick_ and _Oliver +Twist_. And no doubt they did. If I may be permitted the aleatory image, +you bet they did. Similar troops of sociable human beings have visited +much more insignificant English travellers in America, with some of whom +I am myself acquainted. I myself have the luck to be a little more +stodgy and less sensitive than many of my countrymen; and certainly less +sensitive than Dickens. But I know what it was that annoyed him about +that unending and unchanging stream of American visitors; it was the +unending and unchanging stream of American sociability and high spirits. +A people living on such a lofty but level tableland do not understand +the ups and downs of the English temperament; the temper of a nation of +eccentrics or (as they used to be called) of humorists. There is +something very national in the very name of the old play of _Every Man +in His Humour_. But the play more often acted in real life is 'Every Man +Out of His Humour.' It is true, as Matthew Arnold said, that an +Englishman wants to do as he likes; but it is not always true even that +he likes what he likes. An Englishman can be friendly and yet not feel +friendly. Or he can be friendly and yet not feel hospitable. Or he can +feel hospitable and yet not welcome those whom he really loves. He can +think, almost with tears of tenderness, about people at a distance who +would be bores if they came in at the door. + +American sociability sweeps away any such subtlety. It cannot be +expected to understand the paradox or perversity of the Englishman, who +thus can feel friendly and avoid friends. That is the truth in the +suggestion that Dickens was sentimental. It means that he probably felt +most sociable when he was solitary. In all these attempts to describe +the indescribable, to indicate the real but unconscious differences +between the two peoples, I have tried to balance my words without the +irrelevant bias of praise and blame. Both characteristics always cut +both ways. On one side this comradeship makes possible a certain +communal courage, a democratic derision of rich men in high places, +that is not easy in our smaller and more stratified society. On the +other hand the Englishman has certainly more liberty, if less equality +and fraternity. But the richest compensation of the Englishman is not +even in the word 'liberty,' but rather in the word 'poetry.' That humour +of escape or seclusion, that genial isolation, that healing of wounded +friendship by what Christian Science would call absent treatment, that +is the best atmosphere of all for the creation of great poetry; and out +of that came 'bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang' and +'Thou wast not made for death, immortal bird.' In this sense it is +indeed true that poetry is emotion remembered in tranquillity; which may +be extended to mean affection remembered in loneliness. There is in it a +spirit not only of detachment but even of distance; a spirit which does +desire, as in the old English rhyme, to be not only over the hills but +also far away. In other words, in so far as it is true that the +Englishman is an exception to the great truth of Aristotle, it is +because he is not so near to Aristotle as he is to Homer. In so far as +he is not by nature a political animal, it is because he is a poetical +animal. We see it in his relations to the other animals; his quaint and +almost illogical love of dogs and horses and dependants whose political +rights cannot possibly be defined in logic. Many forms of hunting or +fishing are but an excuse for the same thing which the shameless +literary man does without any excuse. Sport is speechless poetry. It +would be easy for a foreigner, by taking a few liberties with the facts, +to make a satire about the sort of silent Shelley who decides ultimately +to shoot the skylark. It would be easy to answer these poetic +suggestions by saying that he himself might be responsible for ruining +the choirs where late the sweet birds sang, or that the immortal bird +was likely to be mortal when he was out with his gun. But these +international satires are never just; and the real relations of an +Englishman and an English bird are far more delicate. It would be +equally easy and equally unjust to suggest a similar satire against +American democracy; and represent Americans merely as birds of a feather +who can do nothing but flock together. But this would leave out the fact +that at least it is not the white feather; that democracy is capable of +defiance and of death for an idea. Touching the souls of great nations, +these criticisms are generally false because they are critical. + +But when we are quite sure that we rejoice in a nation's strength, then +and not before we are justified in judging its weakness. I am quite sure +that I rejoice in any democratic success without _arričre pensée_; and +nobody who knows me will credit me with a covert sneer at civic +equality. And this being granted, I do think there is a danger in the +gregariousness of American society. The danger of democracy is not +anarchy; on the contrary, it is monotony. And it is touching this that +all my experience has increased my conviction that a great deal that is +called female emancipation has merely been the increase of female +convention. Now the males of every community are far too conventional; +it was the females who were individual and criticised the conventions of +the tribe. If the females become conventional also, there is a danger of +individuality being lost. This indeed is not peculiar to America; it is +common to the whole modern industrial world, and to everything which +substitutes the impersonal atmosphere of the State for the personal +atmosphere of the home. But it is emphasised in America by the curious +contradiction that Americans do in theory value and even venerate the +individual. But individualism is still the foe of individuality. Where +men are trying to compete with each other they are trying to copy each +other. They become featureless by 'featuring' the same part. +Personality, in becoming a conscious ideal, becomes a common ideal. In +this respect perhaps there is really something to be learnt from the +Englishman with his turn or twist in the direction of private life. +Those who have travelled in such a fashion as to see all the American +hotels and none of the American houses are sometimes driven to the +excess of saying that the Americans have no private life. But even if +the exaggeration has a hint of truth, we must balance it with the +corresponding truth; that the English have no public life. They on their +side have still to learn the meaning of the public thing, the republic; +and how great are the dangers of cowardice and corruption when the very +State itself has become a State secret. + +The English are patriotic; but patriotism is the unconscious form of +nationalism. It is being national without understanding the meaning of a +nation. The Americans are on the whole too self-conscious, kept moving +too much in the pace of public life, with all its temptations to +superficiality and fashion; too much aware of outside opinion and with +too much appetite for outside criticism. But the English are much too +unconscious; and would be the better for an increase in many forms of +consciousness, including consciousness of sin. But even their sin is +ignorance of their real virtue. The most admirable English things are +not the things that are most admired by the English, or for which the +English admire themselves. They are things now blindly neglected and in +daily danger of being destroyed. It is all the worse that they should be +destroyed, because there is really nothing like them in the world. That +is why I have suggested a note of nationalism rather than patriotism for +the English; the power of seeing their nation as a nation and not as the +nature of things. We say of some ballad from the Balkans or some peasant +costume in the Netherlands that it is unique; but the good things of +England really are unique. Our very isolation from continental wars and +revolutionary reconstructions have kept them unique. The particular kind +of beauty there is in an English village, the particular kind of humour +there is in an English public-house, are things that cannot be found in +lands where the village is far more simply and equally governed, or +where the vine is far more honourably served and praised. Yet we shall +not save them by merely sinking into them with the conservative sort of +contentment, even if the commercial rapacity of our plutocratic reforms +would allow us to do so. We must in a sense get far away from England in +order to behold her; we must rise above patriotism in order to be +practically patriotic; we must have some sense of more varied and remote +things before these vanishing virtues can be seen suddenly for what they +are; almost as one might fancy that a man would have to rise to the +dizziest heights of the divine understanding before he saw, as from a +peak far above a whirlpool, how precious is his perishing soul. + + + + +_The Future of Democracy_ + + +The title of this final chapter requires an apology. I do not need to be +reminded, alas, that the whole book requires an apology. It is written +in accordance with a ritual or custom in which I could see no particular +harm, and which gives me a very interesting subject, but a custom which +it would be not altogether easy to justify in logic. Everybody who goes +to America for a short time is expected to write a book; and nearly +everybody does. A man who takes a holiday at Trouville or Dieppe is not +confronted on his return with the question, 'When is your book on France +going to appear?' A man who betakes himself to Switzerland for the +winter sports is not instantly pinned by the statement, 'I suppose your +History of the Helvetian Republic is coming out this spring?' Lecturing, +at least my kind of lecturing, is not much more serious or meritorious +than ski-ing or sea-bathing; and it happens to afford the holiday-maker +far less opportunity of seeing the daily life of the people. Of all this +I am only too well aware; and my only defence is that I am at least +sincere in my enjoyment and appreciation of America, and equally sincere +in my interest in its most serious problem, which I think a very serious +problem indeed; the problem of democracy in the modern world. Democracy +may be a very obvious and facile affair for plutocrats and politicians +who only have to use it as a rhetorical term. But democracy is a very +serious problem for democrats. I certainly do not apologise for the word +democracy; but I do apologise for the word future. I am no Futurist; and +any conjectures I make must be taken with the grain of salt which is +indeed the salt of the earth; the decent and moderate humility which +comes from a belief in free will. That faith is in itself a divine +doubt. I do not believe in any of the scientific predictions about +mankind; I notice that they always fail to predict any of the purely +human developments of men; I also notice that even their successes prove +the same truth as their failures; for their successful predictions are +not about men but about machines. But there are two things which a man +may reasonably do, in stating the probabilities of a problem, which do +not involve any claim to be a prophet. The first is to tell the truth, +and especially the neglected truth, about the tendencies that have +already accumulated in human history; any miscalculation about which +must at least mislead us in any case. We cannot be certain of being +right about the future; but we can be almost certain of being wrong +about the future, if we are wrong about the past. The other thing that +he can do is to note what ideas necessarily go together by their own +nature; what ideas will triumph together or fall together. Hence it +follows that this final chapter must consist of two things. The first is +a summary of what has really happened to the idea of democracy in recent +times; the second a suggestion of the fundamental doctrine which is +necessary for its triumph at any time. + +The last hundred years has seen a general decline in the democratic +idea. If there be anybody left to whom this historical truth appears a +paradox, it is only because during that period nobody has been taught +history, least of all the history of ideas. If a sort of intellectual +inquisition had been established, for the definition and differentiation +of heresies, it would have been found that the original republican +orthodoxy had suffered more and more from secessions, schisms, and +backslidings. The highest point of democratic idealism and conviction +was towards the end of the eighteenth century, when the American +Republic was 'dedicated to the proposition that all men are equal.' It +was then that the largest number of men had the most serious sort of +conviction that the political problem could be solved by the vote of +peoples instead of the arbitrary power of princes and privileged orders. +These men encountered various difficulties and made various compromises +in relation to the practical politics of their time; in England they +preserved aristocracy; in America they preserved slavery. But though +they had more difficulties, they had less doubts. Since their time +democracy has been steadily disintegrated by doubts; and these political +doubts have been contemporary with and often identical with religious +doubts. This fact could be followed over almost the whole field of the +modern world; in this place it will be more appropriate to take the +great American example of slavery. I have found traces in all sorts of +intelligent quarters of an extraordinary idea that all the Fathers of +the Republic owned black men like beasts of burden because they knew no +better, until the light of liberty was revealed to them by John Brown +and Mrs. Beecher Stowe. One of the best weekly papers in England said +recently that even those who drew up the Declaration of Independence did +not include negroes in its generalisation about humanity. This is quite +consistent with the current convention, in which we were all brought up; +the theory that the heart of humanity broadens in ever larger circles of +brotherhood, till we pass from embracing a black man to adoring a black +beetle. Unfortunately it is quite inconsistent with the facts of +American history. The facts show that, in this problem of the Old South, +the eighteenth century was _more_ liberal than the nineteenth century. +There was _more_ sympathy for the negro in the school of Jefferson than +in the school of Jefferson Davis. Jefferson, in the dark estate of his +simple Deism, said the sight of slavery in his country made him tremble, +remembering that God is just. His fellow Southerners, after a century of +the world's advance, said that slavery in itself was good, when they did +not go farther and say that negroes in themselves were bad. And they +were supported in this by the great and growing modern suspicion that +nature is unjust. Difficulties seemed inevitably to delay justice, to +the mind of Jefferson; but so they did to the mind of Lincoln. But that +the slave was human and the servitude inhuman--that was, if anything, +clearer to Jefferson than to Lincoln. The fact is that the utter +separation and subordination of the black like a beast was a _progress_; +it was a growth of nineteenth-century enlightenment and experiment; a +triumph of science over superstition. It was 'the way the world was +going,' as Matthew Arnold reverentially remarked in some connection; +perhaps as part of a definition of God. Anyhow, it was not Jefferson's +definition of God. He fancied, in his far-off patriarchal way, a Father +who had made all men brothers; and brutally unbrotherly as was the +practice, such democratical Deists never dreamed of denying the theory. +It was not until the scientific sophistries began that brotherhood was +really disputed. Gobineau, who began most of the modern talk about the +superiority and inferiority of racial stocks, was seized upon eagerly by +the less generous of the slave-owners and trumpeted as a new truth of +science and a new defence of slavery. It was not really until the dawn +of Darwinism, when all our social relations began to smell of the +monkey-house, that men thought of the barbarian as only a first and the +baboon as a second cousin. The full servile philosophy has been a modern +and even a recent thing; made in an age whose invisible deity was the +Missing Link. The Missing Link was a true metaphor in more ways than +one; and most of all in its suggestion of a chain. + +By a symbolic coincidence, indeed, slavery grew more brazen and brutal +under the encouragement of more than one movement of the progressive +sort. Its youth was renewed for it by the industrial prosperity of +Lancashire; and under that influence it became a commercial and +competitive instead of a patriarchal and customary thing. We may say +with no exaggerative irony that the unconscious patrons of slavery were +Huxley and Cobden. The machines of Manchester were manufacturing a great +many more things than the manufacturers knew or wanted to know; but they +were certainly manufacturing the fetters of the slave, doubtless out of +the best quality of steel and iron. But this is a minor illustration of +the modern tendency, as compared with the main stream of scepticism +which was destroying democracy. Evolution became more and more a vision +of the break-up of our brotherhood, till by the end of the nineteenth +century the genius of its greatest scientific romancer saw it end in the +anthropophagous antics of the Time Machine. So far from evolution +lifting us above the idea of enslaving men, it was providing us at least +with a logical and potential argument for eating them. In the case of +the American negroes, it may be remarked, it does at any rate permit the +preliminary course of roasting them. All this materialistic hardening, +which replaced the remorse of Jefferson, was part of the growing +evolutionary suspicion that savages were not a part of the human race, +or rather that there was really no such thing as the human race. The +South had begun by agreeing reluctantly to the enslavement of men. The +South ended by agreeing equally reluctantly to the emancipation of +monkeys. + +That is what had happened to the democratic ideal in a hundred years. +Anybody can test it by comparing the final phase, I will not say with +the ideal of Jefferson, but with the ideal of Johnson. There was far +more horror of slavery in an eighteenth-century Tory like Dr. Johnson +than in a nineteenth-century Democrat like Stephen Douglas. Stephen +Douglas may be mentioned because he is a very representative type of the +age of evolution and expansion; a man thinking in continents, like Cecil +Rhodes, human and hopeful in a truly American fashion, and as a +consequence cold and careless rather than hostile in the matter of the +old mystical doctrines of equality. He 'did not care whether slavery was +voted up or voted down.' His great opponent Lincoln did indeed care +very much. But it was an intense individual conviction with Lincoln +exactly as it was with Johnson. I doubt if the spirit of the age was not +much more behind Douglas and his westward expansion of the white race. I +am sure that more and more men were coming to be in the particular +mental condition of Douglas; men in whom the old moral and mystical +ideals had been undermined by doubt but only with a negative effect of +indifference. Their positive convictions were all concerned with what +some called progress and some imperialism. It is true that there was a +sincere sectional enthusiasm against slavery in the North; and that the +slaves were actually emancipated in the nineteenth century. But I doubt +whether the Abolitionists would ever have secured Abolition. Abolition +was a by-product of the Civil War; which was fought for quite other +reasons. Anyhow, if slavery had somehow survived to the age of Rhodes +and Roosevelt and evolutionary imperialism, I doubt if the slaves would +ever have been emancipated at all. Certainly if it had survived till the +modern movement for the Servile State, they would never have been +emancipated at all. Why should the world take the chains off the black +man when it was just putting them on the white? And in so far as we owe +the change to Lincoln, we owe it to Jefferson. Exactly what gives its +real dignity to the figure of Lincoln is that he stands invoking a +primitive first principle of the age of innocence, and holding up the +tables of an ancient law, _against_ the trend of the nineteenth century; +repeating, 'We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are +created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator, etc.,' to a +generation that was more and more disposed to say something like this: +'We hold these truths to be probable enough for pragmatists; that all +things looking like men were evolved somehow, being endowed by heredity +and environment with no equal rights, but very unequal wrongs,' and so +on. I do not believe that creed, left to itself, would ever have founded +a state; and I am pretty certain that, left to itself, it would never +have overthrown a slave state. What it did do, as I have said, was to +produce some very wonderful literary and artistic flights of sceptical +imagination. The world did have new visions, if they were visions of +monsters in the moon and Martians striding about like spiders as tall as +the sky, and the workmen and capitalists becoming two separate species, +so that one could devour the other as gaily and greedily as a cat +devours a bird. No one has done justice to the meaning of Mr. Wells and +his original departure in fantastic fiction; to these nightmares that +were the last apocalypse of the nineteenth century. They meant that the +bottom had fallen out of the mind at last, that the bridge of +brotherhood had broken down in the modern brain, letting up from the +chasms this infernal light like a dawn. All had grown dizzy with degree +and relativity; so that there would not be so very much difference +between eating dog and eating darkie, or between eating darkie and +eating dago. There were different sorts of apes; but there was no doubt +that we were the superior sort. + +Against all this irresistible force stood one immovable post. Against +all this dance of doubt and degree stood something that can best be +symbolised by a simple example. An ape cannot be a priest, but a negro +can be a priest. The dogmatic type of Christianity, especially the +Catholic type of Christianity, had riveted itself irrevocably to the +manhood of all men. Where its faith was fixed by creeds and councils it +could not save itself even by surrender. It could not gradually dilute +democracy, as could a merely sceptical or secular democrat. There stood, +in fact or in possibility, the solid and smiling figure of a black +bishop. And he was either a man claiming the most towering spiritual +privileges of a man, or he was the mere buffoonery and blasphemy of a +monkey in a mitre. That is the point about Christian and Catholic +democracy; it is not that it is necessarily at any moment more +democratic, it is that its indestructible minimum of democracy really is +indestructible. And by the nature of things that mystical democracy was +destined to survive, when every other sort of democracy was free to +destroy itself. And whenever democracy destroying itself is suddenly +moved to save itself, it always grasps at rag or tag of that old +tradition that alone is sure of itself. Hundreds have heard the story +about the mediaeval demagogue who went about repeating the rhyme + + + When Adam delved and Eve span, + Who was then the gentleman? + + +Many have doubtless offered the obvious answer to the question, 'The +Serpent.' But few seem to have noticed what would be the more modern +answer to the question, if that innocent agitator went about propounding +it. 'Adam never delved and Eve never span, for the simple reason that +they never existed. They are fragments of a Chaldeo-Babylonian mythos, +and Adam is only a slight variation of Tag-Tug, pronounced Uttu. For the +real beginning of humanity we refer you to Darwin's _Origin of +Species_.' And then the modern man would go on to justify plutocracy to +the mediaeval man by talking about the Struggle for Life and the +Survival of the Fittest; and how the strongest man seized authority by +means of anarchy, and proved himself a gentleman by behaving like a cad. +Now I do not base my beliefs on the theology of John Ball, or on the +literal and materialistic reading of the text of Genesis; though I think +the story of Adam and Eve infinitely less absurd and unlikely than that +of the prehistoric 'strongest man' who could fight a hundred men. But I +do note the fact that the idealism of the leveller could be put in the +form of an appeal to Scripture, and could not be put in the form of an +appeal to Science. And I do note also that democrats were still driven +to make the same appeal even in the very century of Science. Tennyson +was, if ever there was one, an evolutionist in his vision and an +aristocrat in his sympathies. He was always boasting that John Bull was +evolutionary and not revolutionary, even as these Frenchmen. He did not +pretend to have any creed beyond faintly trusting the larger hope. But +when human dignity is really in danger, John Bull has to use the same +old argument as John Ball. He tells Lady Clara Vere de Vere that 'the +gardener Adam and his wife smile at the claim of long descent'; their +own descent being by no means long. Lady Clara might surely have scored +off him pretty smartly by quoting from 'Maud' and 'In Memoriam' about +evolution and the eft that was lord of valley and hill. But Tennyson has +evidently forgotten all about Darwin and the long descent of man. If +this was true of an evolutionist like Tennyson, it was naturally ten +times truer of a revolutionist like Jefferson. The Declaration of +Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created +all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they +were certainly evolved unequal. + +There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine +origin of man. That is a perfectly simple fact which the modern world +will find out more and more to be a fact. Every other basis is a sort of +sentimental confusion, full of merely verbal echoes of the older creeds. +Those verbal associations are always vain for the vital purpose of +constraining the tyrant. An idealist may say to a capitalist, 'Don't you +sometimes feel in the rich twilight, when the lights twinkle from the +distant hamlet in the hills, that all humanity is a holy family?' But it +is equally possible for the capitalist to reply with brevity and +decision, 'No, I don't,' and there is no more disputing about it further +than about the beauty of a fading cloud. And the modern world of moods +is a world of clouds, even if some of them are thunderclouds. + +For I have only taken here, as a convenient working model, the case of +negro slavery; because it was long peculiar to America and is popularly +associated with it. It is more and more obvious that the line is no +longer running between black and white but between rich and poor. As I +have already noted in the case of Prohibition, the very same arguments +of the inevitable suicide of the ignorant, of the impossibility of +freedom for the unfit, which were once applied to barbarians brought +from Africa are now applied to citizens born in America. It is argued +even by industrialists that industrialism has produced a class submerged +below the status of emancipated mankind. They imply that the Missing +Link is no longer missing, even from England or the Northern States, and +that the factories have manufactured their own monkeys. Scientific +hypotheses about the feeble-minded and the criminal type will supply the +masters of the modern world with more and more excuses for denying the +dogma of equality in the case of white labour as well as black. And any +man who knows the world knows perfectly well that to tell the +millionaires, or their servants, that they are disappointing the +sentiments of Thomas Jefferson, or disregarding a creed composed in the +eighteenth century, will be about as effective as telling them that they +are not observing the creed of St. Athanasius or keeping the rule of St. +Benedict. + +The world cannot keep its own ideals. The secular order cannot make +secure any one of its own noble and natural conceptions of secular +perfection. That will be found, as time goes on, the ultimate argument +for a Church independent of the world and the secular order. What has +become of all those ideal figures from the Wise Man of the Stoics to the +democratic Deist of the eighteenth century? What has become of all that +purely human hierarchy of chivalry, with its punctilious pattern of the +good knight, its ardent ambition in the young squire? The very name of +knight has come to represent the petty triumph of a profiteer, and the +very word squire the petty tyranny of a landlord. What has become of all +that golden liberality of the Humanists, who found on the high +tablelands of the culture of Hellas the very balance of repose in beauty +that is most lacking in the modern world? The very Greek language that +they loved has become a mere label for snuffy and snobbish dons, and a +mere cock-shy for cheap and half-educated utilitarians, who make it a +symbol of superstition and reaction. We have lived to see a time when +the heroic legend of the Republic and the Citizen, which seemed to +Jefferson the eternal youth of the world, has begun to grow old in its +turn. We cannot recover the earthly estate of knighthood, to which all +the colours and complications of heraldry seemed as fresh and natural as +flowers. We cannot re-enact the intellectual experiences of the +Humanists, for whom the Greek grammar was like the song of a bird in +spring. The more the matter is considered the clearer it will seem that +these old experiences are now only alive, where they have found a +lodgment in the Catholic tradition of Christendom, and made themselves +friends for ever. St. Francis is the only surviving troubadour. St. +Thomas More is the only surviving Humanist. St. Louis is the only +surviving knight. + +It would be the worst sort of insincerity, therefore, to conclude even +so hazy an outline of so great and majestic a matter as the American +democratic experiment, without testifying my belief that to this also +the same ultimate test will come. So far as that democracy becomes or +remains Catholic and Christian, that democracy will remain democratic. +In so far as it does not, it will become wildly and wickedly +undemocratic. Its rich will riot with a brutal indifference far beyond +the feeble feudalism which retains some shadow of responsibility or at +least of patronage. Its wage-slaves will either sink into heathen +slavery, or seek relief in theories that are destructive not merely in +method but in aim; since they are but the negations of the human +appetites of property and personality. Eighteenth-century ideals, +formulated in eighteenth-century language, have no longer in themselves +the power to hold all those pagan passions back. Even those documents +depended upon Deism; their real strength will survive in men who are +still Deists; and the men who are still Deists are more than Deists. Men +will more and more realise that there is no meaning in democracy if +there is no meaning in anything; and that there is no meaning in +anything if the universe has not a centre of significance and an +authority that is the author of our rights. There is truth in every +ancient fable, and there is here even something of it in the fancy that +finds the symbol of the Republic in the bird that bore the bolts of +Jove. Owls and bats may wander where they will in darkness, and for them +as for the sceptics the universe may have no centre; kites and vultures +may linger as they like over carrion, and for them as for the plutocrats +existence may have no origin and no end; but it was far back in the land +of legends, where instincts find their true images, that the cry went +forth that freedom is an eagle, whose glory is gazing at the sun. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's What I Saw in America, by G. K. 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Chesterton. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + text-indent: 0px; + } /* page numbers */ + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .tbrk {margin-bottom: 3.5em;} + + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem div {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + + /* index */ + + div.index ul li { padding-top: 1em ;text-align: left; } + + div.index ul ul ul, div.index ul li ul li { padding: 0; text-align: left; } + + div.index ul { list-style: none; margin: 0; } + + div.index ul, div.index ul ul ul li { display: inline; } + + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of What I Saw in America, by G. K. Chesterton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: What I Saw in America + +Author: G. K. Chesterton + +Release Date: November 13, 2008 [EBook #27250] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT I SAW IN AMERICA *** + + + + +Produced by Irma Špehar, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h1><i>What I saw in America</i></h1> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p> + +<div class="center"><img src="images/titlepage.jpg" width='426' height='700' alt="WHAT I SAW IN AMERICA BY G. K. CHESTERTON HODDER AND STOUGHTON LIMITED LONDON MCMXXII" /></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h4>Printed in Great Britain by T. and A. <span class="smcap">Constable Ltd.</span><br />at the Edinburgh +University Press</h4> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> + +<h2><i>Contents</i></h2> + +<div class="index"> +<ul> +<li><a href="#What_is_America">WHAT IS AMERICA?</a></li> +<li><a href="#A_Meditation_in_a_New_York_Hotel">A MEDITATION IN A NEW YORK HOTEL</a></li> +<li><a href="#A_Meditation_in_Broadway">A MEDITATION IN BROADWAY</a></li> +<li><a href="#Irish_and_other_Interviewers">IRISH AND OTHER INTERVIEWERS</a></li> +<li><a href="#Some_American_Cities">SOME AMERICAN CITIES</a></li> +<li><a href="#In_the_American_Country">IN THE AMERICAN COUNTRY</a></li> +<li><a href="#The_American_Business_Man">THE AMERICAN BUSINESS MAN</a></li> +<li><a href="#Presidents_and_Problems">PRESIDENTS AND PROBLEMS</a></li> +<li><a href="#Prohibition_in_Fact_and_Fancy">PROHIBITION IN FACT AND FANCY</a></li> +<li><a href="#Fads_and_Public_Opinion">FADS AND PUBLIC OPINION</a></li> +<li><a href="#The_Extraordinary_American">THE EXTRAORDINARY AMERICAN</a></li> +<li><a href="#The_Republican_in_the_Ruins">THE REPUBLICAN IN THE RUINS</a></li> +<li><a href="#Is_the_Atlantic_Narrowing">IS THE ATLANTIC NARROWING?</a></li> +<li><a href="#Lincoln_and_Lost_Causes">LINCOLN AND LOST CAUSES</a></li> +<li><a href="#Wells_and_the_World_State">WELLS AND THE WORLD STATE</a></li> +<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span><a href="#A_New_Martin_Chuzzlewit">A NEW MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT</a></li> +<li><a href="#The_Spirit_of_America">THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA</a></li> +<li><a href="#The_Spirit_of_England">THE SPIRIT OF ENGLAND</a></li> +<li><a href="#The_Future_of_Democracy">THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY</a></li> +</ul> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="What_is_America" id="What_is_America"></a><i>What is America?</i></h2> + +<p>I have never managed to lose my old conviction that travel narrows the +mind. At least a man must make a double effort of moral humility and +imaginative energy to prevent it from narrowing his mind. Indeed there +is something touching and even tragic about the thought of the +thoughtless tourist, who might have stayed at home loving Laplanders, +embracing Chinamen, and clasping Patagonians to his heart in Hampstead +or Surbiton, but for his blind and suicidal impulse to go and see what +they looked like. This is not meant for nonsense; still less is it meant +for the silliest sort of nonsense, which is cynicism. The human bond +that he feels at home is not an illusion. On the contrary, it is rather +an inner reality. Man is inside all men. In a real sense any man may be +inside any men. But to travel is to leave the inside and draw +dangerously near the outside. So long as he thought of men in the +abstract, like naked toiling figures in some classic frieze, merely as +those who labour and love their children and die, he was thinking the +fundamental truth about them. By going to look at their unfamiliar +manners and customs he is inviting them to disguise themselves in +fantastic masks and costumes. Many modern internationalists talk as if +men of different nationalities had only to meet and mix and understand +each other. In reality that is the moment of supreme danger—the moment +when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> they meet. We might shiver, as at the old euphemism by which a +meeting meant a duel.</p> + +<p>Travel ought to combine amusement with instruction; but most travellers +are so much amused that they refuse to be instructed. I do not blame +them for being amused; it is perfectly natural to be amused at a +Dutchman for being Dutch or a Chinaman for being Chinese. Where they are +wrong is that they take their own amusement seriously. They base on it +their serious ideas of international instruction. It was said that the +Englishman takes his pleasures sadly; and the pleasure of despising +foreigners is one which he takes most sadly of all. He comes to scoff +and does not remain to pray, but rather to excommunicate. Hence in +international relations there is far too little laughing, and far too +much sneering. But I believe that there is a better way which largely +consists of laughter; a form of friendship between nations which is +actually founded on differences. To hint at some such better way is the +only excuse of this book.</p> + +<p>Let me begin my American impressions with two impressions I had before I +went to America. One was an incident and the other an idea; and when +taken together they illustrate the attitude I mean. The first principle +is that nobody should be ashamed of thinking a thing funny because it is +foreign; the second is that he should be ashamed of thinking it wrong +because it is funny. The reaction of his senses and superficial habits +of mind against something new, and to him abnormal, is a perfectly +healthy reaction. But the mind which imagines that mere unfamiliarity +can possibly prove anything about inferiority is a very inadequate mind. +It is inadequate even in criticising things that may really be inferior +to the things involved<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> here. It is far better to laugh at a negro for +having a black face than to sneer at him for having a sloping skull. It +is proportionally even more preferable to laugh rather than judge in +dealing with highly civilised peoples. Therefore I put at the beginning +two working examples of what I felt about America before I saw it; the +sort of thing that a man has a right to enjoy as a joke, and the sort of +thing he has a duty to understand and respect, because it is the +explanation of the joke.</p> + +<p>When I went to the American consulate to regularise my passports, I was +capable of expecting the American consulate to be American. Embassies +and consulates are by tradition like islands of the soil for which they +stand; and I have often found the tradition corresponding to a truth. I +have seen the unmistakable French official living on omelettes and a +little wine and serving his sacred abstractions under the last +palm-trees fringing a desert. In the heat and noise of quarrelling Turks +and Egyptians, I have come suddenly, as with the cool shock of his own +shower-bath, on the listless amiability of the English gentleman. The +officials I interviewed were very American, especially in being very +polite; for whatever may have been the mood or meaning of Martin +Chuzzlewit, I have always found Americans by far the politest people in +the world. They put in my hands a form to be filled up, to all +appearance like other forms I had filled up in other passport offices. +But in reality it was very different from any form I had ever filled up +in my life. At least it was a little like a freer form of the game +called 'Confessions' which my friends and I invented in our youth; an +examination paper containing questions like, 'If you saw a rhinoceros<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> +in the front garden, what would you do?' One of my friends, I remember, +wrote, 'Take the pledge.' But that is another story, and might bring Mr. +Pussyfoot Johnson on the scene before his time.</p> + +<p>One of the questions on the paper was, 'Are you an anarchist?' To which +a detached philosopher would naturally feel inclined to answer, 'What +the devil has that to do with you? Are you an atheist?' along with some +playful efforts to cross-examine the official about what constitutes an +ἁρχη [Greek: archê]. Then there was the question, 'Are you in favour of +subverting the government of the United States by force?' Against this I +should write, 'I prefer to answer that question at the end of my tour +and not the beginning.' The inquisitor, in his more than morbid +curiosity, had then written down, 'Are you a polygamist?' The answer to +this is, 'No such luck' or 'Not such a fool,' according to our +experience of the other sex. But perhaps a better answer would be that +given to W. T. Stead when he circulated the rhetorical question, 'Shall +I slay my brother Boer?'—the answer that ran, 'Never interfere in +family matters.' But among many things that amused me almost to the +point of treating the form thus disrespectfully, the most amusing was +the thought of the ruthless outlaw who should feel compelled to treat it +respectfully. I like to think of the foreign desperado, seeking to slip +into America with official papers under official protection, and sitting +down to write with a beautiful gravity, 'I am an anarchist. I hate you +all and wish to destroy you.' Or, 'I intend to subvert by force the +government of the United States as soon as possible, sticking the long +sheath-knife in my left trouser-pocket into Mr. Harding at the earliest +opportunity.' Or again, 'Yes, I am a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> polygamist all right, and my +forty-seven wives are accompanying me on the voyage disguised as +secretaries.' There seems to be a certain simplicity of mind about these +answers; and it is reassuring to know that anarchists and polygamists +are so pure and good that the police have only to ask them questions and +they are certain to tell no lies.</p> + +<p>Now that is a model of the sort of foreign practice, founded on foreign +problems, at which a man's first impulse is naturally to laugh. Nor have +I any intention of apologising for my laughter. A man is perfectly +entitled to laugh at a thing because he happens to find it +incomprehensible. What he has no right to do is to laugh at it as +incomprehensible, and then criticise it as if he comprehended it. The +very fact of its unfamiliarity and mystery ought to set him thinking +about the deeper causes that make people so different from himself, and +that without merely assuming that they must be inferior to himself.</p> + +<p>Superficially this is rather a queer business. It would be easy enough +to suggest that in this America has introduced a quite abnormal spirit +of inquisition; an interference with liberty unknown among all the +ancient despotisms and aristocracies. About that there will be something +to be said later; but superficially it is true that this degree of +officialism is comparatively unique. In a journey which I took only the +year before I had occasion to have my papers passed by governments which +many worthy people in the West would vaguely identify with corsairs and +assassins; I have stood on the other side of Jordan, in the land ruled +by a rude Arab chief, where the police looked so like brigands that one +wondered what the brigands looked like. But they did not ask me whether<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +I had come to subvert the power of the Shereef; and they did not exhibit +the faintest curiosity about my personal views on the ethical basis of +civil authority. These ministers of ancient Moslem despotism did not +care about whether I was an anarchist; and naturally would not have +minded if I had been a polygamist. The Arab chief was probably a +polygamist himself. These slaves of Asiatic autocracy were content, in +the old liberal fashion, to judge me by my actions; they did not inquire +into my thoughts. They held their power as limited to the limitation of +practice; they did not forbid me to hold a theory. It would be easy to +argue here that Western democracy persecutes where even Eastern +despotism tolerates or emancipates. It would be easy to develop the +fancy that, as compared with the sultans of Turkey or Egypt, the +American Constitution is a thing like the Spanish Inquisition.</p> + +<p>Only the traveller who stops at that point is totally wrong; and the +traveller only too often does stop at that point. He has found something +to make him laugh, and he will not suffer it to make him think. And the +remedy is not to unsay what he has said, not even, so to speak, to +unlaugh what he has laughed, not to deny that there is something unique +and curious about this American inquisition into our abstract opinions, +but rather to continue the train of thought, and follow the admirable +advice of Mr. H. G. Wells, who said, 'It is not much good thinking of a +thing unless you think it out.' It is not to deny that American +officialism is rather peculiar on this point, but to inquire what it +really is which makes America peculiar, or which is peculiar to America. +In short, it is to get some ultimate idea of what America <i>is</i>;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> and the +answer to that question will reveal something much deeper and grander +and more worthy of our intelligent interest.</p> + +<p>It may have seemed something less than a compliment to compare the +American Constitution to the Spanish Inquisition. But oddly enough, it +does involve a truth; and still more oddly perhaps, it does involve a +compliment. The American Constitution does resemble the Spanish +Inquisition in this: that it is founded on a creed. America is the only +nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth +with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of +Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also +theoretical politics and also great literature. It enunciates that all +men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give +them that justice, and that their authority is for that reason just. It +certainly does condemn anarchism, and it does also by inference condemn +atheism, since it clearly names the Creator as the ultimate authority +from whom these equal rights are derived. Nobody expects a modern +political system to proceed logically in the application of such dogmas, +and in the matter of God and Government it is naturally God whose claim +is taken more lightly. The point is that there is a creed, if not about +divine, at least about human things.</p> + +<p>Now a creed is at once the broadest and the narrowest thing in the +world. In its nature it is as broad as its scheme for a brotherhood of +all men. In its nature it is limited by its definition of the nature of +all men. This was true of the Christian Church, which was truly said to +exclude neither Jew nor Greek, but which did definitely substitute +something else for Jewish religion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> or Greek philosophy. It was truly +said to be a net drawing in of all kinds; but a net of a certain +pattern, the pattern of Peter the Fisherman. And this is true even of +the most disastrous distortions or degradations of that creed; and true +among others of the Spanish Inquisition. It may have been narrow +touching theology, it could not confess to being narrow about +nationality or ethnology. The Spanish Inquisition might be admittedly +Inquisitorial; but the Spanish Inquisition could not be merely Spanish. +Such a Spaniard, even when he was narrower than his own creed, had to be +broader than his own empire. He might burn a philosopher because he was +heterodox; but he must accept a barbarian because he was orthodox. And +we see, even in modern times, that the same Church which is blamed for +making sages heretics is also blamed for making savages priests. Now in +a much vaguer and more evolutionary fashion, there is something of the +same idea at the back of the great American experiment; the experiment +of a democracy of diverse races which has been compared to a +melting-pot. But even that metaphor implies that the pot itself is of a +certain shape and a certain substance; a pretty solid substance. The +melting-pot must not melt. The original shape was traced on the lines of +Jeffersonian democracy; and it will remain in that shape until it +becomes shapeless. America invites all men to become citizens; but it +implies the dogma that there is such a thing as citizenship. Only, so +far as its primary ideal is concerned, its exclusiveness is religious +because it is not racial. The missionary can condemn a cannibal, +precisely because he cannot condemn a Sandwich Islander. And in +something of the same spirit the American<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> may exclude a polygamist, +precisely because he cannot exclude a Turk.</p> + +<p>Now for America this is no idle theory. It may have been theoretical, +though it was thoroughly sincere, when that great Virginian gentleman +declared it in surroundings that still had something of the character of +an English countryside. It is not merely theoretical now. There is +nothing to prevent America being literally invaded by Turks, as she is +invaded by Jews or Bulgars. In the most exquisitely inconsequent of the +<i>Bab Ballads</i>, we are told concerning Pasha Bailey Ben:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>One morning knocked at half-past eight</div> +<div>A tall Red Indian at his gate.</div> +<div>In Turkey, as you 'r' p'raps aware,</div> +<div>Red Indians are extremely rare.</div> +</div></div> + +<p>But the converse need by no means be true. There is nothing in the +nature of things to prevent an emigration of Turks increasing and +multiplying on the plains where the Red Indians wandered; there is +nothing to necessitate the Turks being extremely rare. The Red Indians, +alas, are likely to be rarer. And as I much prefer Red Indians to Turks, +not to mention Jews, I speak without prejudice; but the point here is +that America, partly by original theory and partly by historical +accident, does lie open to racial admixtures which most countries would +think incongruous or comic. That is why it is only fair to read any +American definitions or rules in a certain light, and relatively to a +rather unique position. It is not fair to compare the position of those +who may meet Turks in the back street with that of those who have never +met Turks except in the <i>Bab Ballads</i>. It is not fair simply to compare +America with England in its regulations about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> the Turk. In short, it is +not fair to do what almost every Englishman probably does; to look at +the American international examination paper, and laugh and be satisfied +with saying, 'We don't have any of that nonsense in England.'</p> + +<p>We do not have any of that nonsense in England because we have never +attempted to have any of that philosophy in England. And, above all, +because we have the enormous advantage of feeling it natural to be +national, because there is nothing else to be. England in these days is +not well governed; England is not well educated; England suffers from +wealth and poverty that are not well distributed. But England is +English; <i>esto perpetua</i>. England is English as France is French or +Ireland Irish; the great mass of men taking certain national traditions +for granted. Now this gives us a totally different and a very much +easier task. We have not got an inquisition, because we have not got a +creed; but it is arguable that we do not need a creed, because we have +got a character. In any of the old nations the national unity is +preserved by the national type. Because we have a type we do not need to +have a test.</p> + +<p>Take that innocent question, 'Are you an anarchist?' which is +intrinsically quite as impudent as 'Are you an optimist?' or 'Are you a +philanthropist?' I am not discussing here whether these things are +right, but whether most of us are in a position to know them rightly. +Now it is quite true that most Englishmen do not find it necessary to go +about all day asking each other whether they are anarchists. It is quite +true that the phrase occurs on no British forms that I have seen. But +this is not only because most of the Englishmen are not anarchists. It +is even more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> because even the anarchists are Englishmen. For instance, +it would be easy to make fun of the American formula by noting that the +cap would fit all sorts of bald academic heads. It might well be +maintained that Herbert Spencer was an anarchist. It is practically +certain that Auberon Herbert was an anarchist. But Herbert Spencer was +an extraordinarily typical Englishman of the Nonconformist middle class. +And Auberon Herbert was an extraordinarily typical English aristocrat of +the old and genuine aristocracy. Every one knew in his heart that the +squire would not throw a bomb at the Queen, and the Nonconformist would +not throw a bomb at anybody. Every one knew that there was something +subconscious in a man like Auberon Herbert, which would have come out +only in throwing bombs at the enemies of England; as it did come out in +his son and namesake, the generous and unforgotten, who fell flinging +bombs from the sky far beyond the German line. Every one knows that +normally, in the last resort, the English gentleman is patriotic. Every +one knows that the English Nonconformist is national even when he denies +that he is patriotic. Nothing is more notable indeed than the fact that +nobody is more stamped with the mark of his own nation than the man who +says that there ought to be no nations. Somebody called Cobden the +International Man; but no man could be more English than Cobden. +Everybody recognises Tolstoy as the iconoclast of all patriotism; but +nobody could be more Russian than Tolstoy. In the old countries where +there are these national types, the types may be allowed to hold any +theories. Even if they hold certain theories, they are unlikely to do +certain things. So the conscientious objector, in the English sense,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> +may be and is one of the peculiar by-products of England. But the +conscientious objector will probably have a conscientious objection to +throwing bombs.</p> + +<p>Now I am very far from intending to imply that these American tests are +good tests, or that there is no danger of tyranny becoming the +temptation of America. I shall have something to say later on about that +temptation or tendency. Nor do I say that they apply consistently this +conception of a nation with the soul of a church, protected by religious +and not racial selection. If they did apply that principle consistently, +they would have to exclude pessimists and rich cynics who deny the +democratic ideal; an excellent thing but a rather improbable one. What I +say is that when we realise that this principle exists at all, we see +the whole position in a totally different perspective. We say that the +Americans are doing something heroic, or doing something insane, or +doing it in an unworkable or unworthy fashion, instead of simply +wondering what the devil they are doing.</p> + +<p>When we realise the democratic design of such a cosmopolitan +commonwealth, and compare it with our insular reliance or instincts, we +see at once why such a thing has to be not only democratic but dogmatic. +We see why in some points it tends to be inquisitive or intolerant. Any +one can see the practical point by merely transferring into private life +a problem like that of the two academic anarchists, who might by a +coincidence be called the two Herberts. Suppose a man said, 'Buffle, my +old Oxford tutor, wants to meet you; I wish you'd ask him down for a day +or two. He has the oddest opinions, but he's very stimulating.' It would +not occur to us that the oddity of the Oxford<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> don's opinions would lead +him to blow up the house; because the Oxford don is an English type. +Suppose somebody said, 'Do let me bring old Colonel Robinson down for +the week-end; he's a bit of a crank but quite interesting.' We should +not anticipate the colonel running amuck with a carving-knife and +offering up human sacrifice in the garden; for these are not among the +daily habits of an old English colonel; and because we know his habits, +we do not care about his opinions. But suppose somebody offered to bring +a person from the interior of Kamskatka to stay with us for a week or +two, and added that his religion was a very extraordinary religion, we +should feel a little more inquisitive about what kind of religion it +was. If somebody wished to add a Hairy Ainu to the family party at +Christmas, explaining that his point of view was so individual and +interesting, we should want to know a little more about it and him. We +should be tempted to draw up as fantastic an examination paper as that +presented to the emigrant going to America. We should ask what a Hairy +Ainu was, and how hairy he was, and above all what sort of Ainu he was. +Would etiquette require us to ask him to bring his wife? And if we did +ask him to bring his wife, how many wives would he bring? In short, as +in the American formula, is he a polygamist? Merely as a point of +housekeeping and accommodation the question is not irrelevant. Is the +Hairy Ainu content with hair, or does he wear any clothes? If the police +insist on his wearing clothes, will he recognise the authority of the +police? In short, as in the American formula, is he an anarchist?</p> + +<p>Of course this generalisation about America, like other historical +things, is subject to all sorts of cross<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> divisions and exceptions, to +be considered in their place. The negroes are a special problem, because +of what white men in the past did to them. The Japanese are a special +problem, because of what men fear that they in the future may do to +white men. The Jews are a special problem, because of what they and the +Gentiles, in the past, present, and future, seem to have the habit of +doing to each other. But the point is not that nothing exists in America +except this idea; it is that nothing like this idea exists anywhere +except in America. This idea is not internationalism; on the contrary it +is decidedly nationalism. The Americans are very patriotic, and wish to +make their new citizens patriotic Americans. But it is the idea of +making a new nation literally out of any old nation that comes along. In +a word, what is unique is not America but what is called +Americanisation. We understand nothing till we understand the amazing +ambition to Americanise the Kamskatkan and the Hairy Ainu. We are not +trying to Anglicise thousands of French cooks or Italian organ-grinders. +France is not trying to Gallicise thousands of English trippers or +German prisoners of war. America is the one place in the world where +this process, healthy or unhealthy, possible or impossible, is going on. +And the process, as I have pointed out, is <i>not</i> internationalisation. +It would be truer to say it is the nationalisation of the +internationalised. It is making a home out of vagabonds and a nation out +of exiles. This is what at once illuminates and softens the moral +regulations which we may really think faddist or fanatical. They are +abnormal; but in one sense this experiment of a home for the homeless is +abnormal. In short, it has long been recognised that America was an +asylum. It is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> only since Prohibition that it has looked a little like a +lunatic asylum.</p> + +<p>It was before sailing for America, as I have said, that I stood with the +official paper in my hand and these thoughts in my head. It was while I +stood on English soil that I passed through the two stages of smiling +and then sympathising; of realising that my momentary amusement, at +being asked if I were not an Anarchist, was partly due to the fact that +I was not an American. And in truth I think there are some things a man +ought to know about America before he sees it. What we know of a country +beforehand may not affect what we see that it is; but it will vitally +affect what we appreciate it for being, because it will vitally affect +what we expect it to be. I can honestly say that I had never expected +America to be what nine-tenths of the newspaper critics invariably +assume it to be. I never thought it was a sort of Anglo-Saxon colony, +knowing that it was more and more thronged with crowds of very different +colonists. During the war I felt that the very worst propaganda for the +Allies was the propaganda for the Anglo-Saxons. I tried to point out +that in one way America is nearer to Europe than England is. If she is +not nearer to Bulgaria, she is nearer to Bulgars; if she is not nearer +to Bohemia, she is nearer to Bohemians. In my New York hotel the head +waiter in the dining-room was a Bohemian; the head waiter in the +grill-room was a Bulgar. Americans have nationalities at the end of the +street which for us are at the ends of the earth. I did my best to +persuade my countrymen not to appeal to the American as if he were a +rather dowdy Englishman, who had been rusticating in the provinces and +had not heard the latest news about the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> town. I shall record later some +of those arresting realities which the traveller does not expect; and +which, in some cases I fear, he actually does not see because he does +not expect. I shall try to do justice to the psychology of what Mr. +Belloc has called 'Eye-Openers in Travel.' But there are some things +about America that a man ought to see even with his eyes shut. One is +that a state that came into existence solely through its repudiation and +abhorrence of the British Crown is not likely to be a respectful copy of +the British Constitution. Another is that the chief mark of the +Declaration of Independence is something that is not only absent from +the British Constitution, but something which all our constitutionalists +have invariably thanked God, with the jolliest boasting and bragging, +that they had kept out of the British Constitution. It is the thing +called abstraction or academic logic. It is the thing which such jolly +people call theory; and which those who can practise it call thought. +And the theory or thought is the very last to which English people are +accustomed, either by their social structure or their traditional +teaching. It is the theory of equality. It is the pure classic +conception that no man must aspire to be anything more than a citizen, +and that no man should endure to be anything less. It is by no means +especially intelligible to an Englishman, who tends at his best to the +virtues of the gentleman and at his worst to the vices of the snob. The +idealism of England, or if you will the romance of England, has not been +primarily the romance of the citizen. But the idealism of America, we +may safely say, still revolves entirely round the citizen and his +romance. The realities are quite another matter, and we shall consider +in its place the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> question of whether the ideal will be able to shape +the realities or will merely be beaten shapeless by them. The ideal is +besieged by inequalities of the most towering and insane description in +the industrial and economic field. It may be devoured by modern +capitalism, perhaps the worst inequality that ever existed among men. Of +all that we shall speak later. But citizenship is still the American +ideal; there is an army of actualities opposed to that ideal; but there +is no ideal opposed to that ideal. American plutocracy has never got +itself respected like English aristocracy. Citizenship is the American +ideal; and it has never been the English ideal. But it is surely an +ideal that may stir some imaginative generosity and respect in an +Englishman, if he will condescend to be also a man. In this vision of +moulding many peoples into the visible image of the citizen, he may see +a spiritual adventure which he can admire from the outside, at least as +much as he admires the valour of the Moslems and much more than he +admires the virtues of the Middle Ages. He need not set himself to +develop equality, but he need not set himself to misunderstand it. He +may at least understand what Jefferson and Lincoln meant, and he may +possibly find some assistance in this task by reading what they said. He +may realise that equality is not some crude fairy tale about all men +being equally tall or equally tricky; which we not only cannot believe +but cannot believe in anybody believing. It is an absolute of morals by +which all men have a value invariable and indestructible and a dignity +as intangible as death. He may at least be a philosopher and see that +equality is an idea; and not merely one of these soft-headed sceptics +who, having risen by low tricks to high places, drink bad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> champagne in +tawdry hotel lounges, and tell each other twenty times over, with +unwearied iteration, that equality is an illusion.</p> + +<p>In truth it is inequality that is the illusion. The extreme +disproportion between men, that we seem to see in life, is a thing of +changing lights and lengthening shadows, a twilight full of fancies and +distortions. We find a man famous and cannot live long enough to find +him forgotten; we see a race dominant and cannot linger to see it decay. +It is the experience of men that always returns to the equality of men; +it is the average that ultimately justifies the average man. It is when +men have seen and suffered much and come at the end of more elaborate +experiments, that they see men as men under an equal light of death and +daily laughter; and none the less mysterious for being many. Nor is it +in vain that these Western democrats have sought the blazonry of their +flag in that great multitude of immortal lights that endure behind the +fires we see, and gathered them into the corner of Old Glory whose +ground is like the glittering night. For veritably, in the spirit as +well as in the symbol, suns and moons and meteors pass and fill our +skies with a fleeting and almost theatrical conflagration; and wherever +the old shadow stoops upon the earth, the stars return.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="A_Meditation_in_a_New_York_Hotel" id="A_Meditation_in_a_New_York_Hotel"></a><i>A Meditation in a New York Hotel</i></h2> + +<p>All this must begin with an apology and not an apologia. When I went +wandering about the States disguised as a lecturer, I was well aware +that I was not sufficiently well disguised to be a spy. I was even in +the worst possible position to be a sight-seer. A lecturer to American +audiences can hardly be in the holiday mood of a sight-seer. It is +rather the audience that is sight-seeing; even if it is seeing a rather +melancholy sight. Some say that people come to see the lecturer and not +to hear him; in which case it seems rather a pity that he should disturb +and distress their minds with a lecture. He might merely display himself +on a stand or platform for a stipulated sum; or be exhibited like a +monster in a menagerie. The circus elephant is not expected to make a +speech. But it is equally true that the circus elephant is not allowed +to write a book. His impressions of travel would be somewhat sketchy and +perhaps a little over-specialised. In merely travelling from circus to +circus he would, so to speak, move in rather narrow circles. Jumbo the +great elephant (with whom I am hardly so ambitious as to compare +myself), before he eventually went to the Barnum show, passed a +considerable and I trust happy part of his life in Regent's Park. But if +he had written a book on England, founded on his impressions of the Zoo, +it might have been a little disproportionate and even misleading in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> its +version of the flora and fauna of that country. He might imagine that +lions and leopards were commoner than they are in our hedgerows and +country lanes, or that the head and neck of a giraffe was as native to +our landscapes as a village spire. And that is why I apologise in +anticipation for a probable lack of proportion in this work. Like the +elephant, I may have seen too much of a special enclosure where a +special sort of lions are gathered together. I may exaggerate the +territorial, as distinct from the vertical space occupied by the +spiritual giraffe; for the giraffe may surely be regarded as an example +of Uplift, and is even, in a manner of speaking, a high-brow. Above all, +I shall probably make generalisations that are much too general; and are +insufficient through being exaggerative. To this sort of doubt all my +impressions are subject; and among them the negative generalisation with +which I shall begin this rambling meditation on American hotels.</p> + +<p>In all my American wanderings I never saw such a thing as an inn. They +may exist; but they do not arrest the traveller upon every road as they +do in England and in Europe. The saloons no longer existed when I was +there, owing to the recent reform which restricted intoxicants to the +wealthier classes. But we feel that the saloons have been there; if one +may so express it, their absence is still present. They remain in the +structure of the street and the idiom of the language. But the saloons +were not inns. If they had been inns, it would have been far harder even +for the power of modern plutocracy to root them out. There will be a +very different chase when the White Hart is hunted to the forests or +when the Red Lion turns to bay. But people could not feel about the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> +American saloon as they will feel about the English inns. They could not +feel that the Prohibitionist, that vulgar chucker-out, was chucking +Chaucer out of the Tabard and Shakespeare out of the Mermaid. In justice +to the American Prohibitionists it must be realised that they were not +doing quite such desecration; and that many of them felt the saloon a +specially poisonous sort of place. They did feel that drinking-places +were used only as drug-shops. So they have effected the great +reconstruction, by which it will be necessary to use only drug-shops as +drinking-places. But I am not dealing here with the problem of +Prohibition except in so far as it is involved in the statement that the +saloons were in no sense inns. Secondly, of course, there are the +hotels. There are indeed. There are hotels toppling to the stars, hotels +covering the acreage of villages, hotels in multitudinous number like a +mob of Babylonian or Assyrian monuments; but the hotels also are not +inns.</p> + +<p>Broadly speaking, there is only one hotel in America. The pattern of it, +which is a very rational pattern, is repeated in cities as remote from +each other as the capitals of European empires. You may find that hotel +rising among the red blooms of the warm spring woods of Nebraska, or +whitened with Canadian snows near the eternal noise of Niagara. And +before touching on this solid and simple pattern itself, I may remark +that the same system of symmetry runs through all the details of the +interior. As one hotel is like another hotel, so one hotel floor is like +another hotel floor. If the passage outside your bedroom door, or +hallway as it is called, contains, let us say, a small table with a +green vase and a stuffed flamingo, or some trifle of the sort, you may +be perfectly certain that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> there is exactly the same table, vase, and +flamingo on every one of the thirty-two landings of that towering +habitation. This is where it differs most perhaps from the crooked +landings and unexpected levels of the old English inns, even when they +call themselves hotels. To me there was something weird, like a magic +multiplication, in the exquisite sameness of these suites. It seemed to +suggest the still atmosphere of some eerie psychological story. I once +myself entertained the notion of a story, in which a man was to be +prevented from entering his house (the scene of some crime or calamity) +by people who painted and furnished the next house to look exactly like +it; the assimilation going to the most fantastic lengths, such as +altering the numbering of houses in the street. I came to America and +found an hotel fitted and upholstered throughout for the enactment of my +phantasmal fraud. I offer the skeleton of my story with all humility to +some of the admirable lady writers of detective stories in America, to +Miss Carolyn Wells, or Miss Mary Roberts Rhinehart, or Mrs. A. K. Green +of the unforgotten Leavenworth Case. Surely it might be possible for the +unsophisticated Nimrod K. Moose, of Yellow Dog Flat, to come to New York +and be entangled somehow in this net of repetitions or recurrences. +Surely something tells me that his beautiful daughter, the Rose of Red +Murder Gulch, might seek for him in vain amid the apparently +unmistakable surroundings of the thirty-second floor, while he was being +quietly butchered by the floor-clerk on the thirty-third floor, an agent +of the Green Claw (that formidable organisation); and all because the +two floors looked exactly alike to the virginal Western eye. The +original point of my own story was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> that the man to be entrapped walked +into his own house after all, in spite of it being differently painted +and numbered, simply because he was absent-minded and used to taking a +certain number of mechanical steps. This would not work in the hotel; +because a lift has no habits. It is typical of the real tameness of +machinery, that even when we talk of a man turning mechanically we only +talk metaphorically; for it is something that a mechanism cannot do. But +I think there is only one real objection to my story of Mr. Moose in the +New York hotel. And that is unfortunately a rather fatal one. It is that +far away in the remote desolation of Yellow Dog, among those outlying +and outlandish rocks that almost seem to rise beyond the sunset, there +is undoubtedly an hotel of exactly the same sort, with all its floors +exactly the same.</p> + +<p>Anyhow the general plan of the American hotel is commonly the same, and, +as I have said, it is a very sound one so far as it goes. When I first +went into one of the big New York hotels, the first impression was +certainly its bigness. It was called the Biltmore; and I wondered how +many national humorists had made the obvious comment of wishing they had +built less. But it was not merely the Babylonian size and scale of such +things, it was the way in which they are used. They are used almost as +public streets, or rather as public squares. My first impression was +that I was in some sort of high street or market-place during a carnival +or a revolution. True, the people looked rather rich for a revolution +and rather grave for a carnival; but they were congested in great crowds +that moved slowly like people passing through an overcrowded railway +station. Even in the dizzy heights of such a sky-scraper there could not +possibly be room<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> for all those people to sleep in the hotel, or even to +dine in it. And, as a matter of fact, they did nothing whatever except +drift into it and drift out again. Most of them had no more to do with +the hotel than I have with Buckingham Palace. I have never been in +Buckingham Palace, and I have very seldom, thank God, been in the big +hotels of this type that exist in London or Paris. But I cannot believe +that mobs are perpetually pouring through the Hotel Cecil or the Savoy +in this fashion, calmly coming in at one door and going out of the +other. But this fact is part of the fundamental structure of the +American hotel; it is built upon a compromise that makes it possible. +The whole of the lower floor is thrown open to the public streets and +treated as a public square. But above it and all round it runs another +floor in the form of a sort of deep gallery, furnished more luxuriously +and looking down on the moving mobs beneath. No one is allowed on this +floor except the guests or clients of the hotel. As I have been one of +them myself, I trust it is not unsympathetic to compare them to active +anthropoids who can climb trees, and so look down in safety on the herds +or packs of wilder animals wandering and prowling below. Of course there +are modifications of this architectural plan, but they are generally +approximations to it; it is the plan that seems to suit the social life +of the American cities. There is generally something like a ground floor +that is more public, a half-floor or gallery above that is more private, +and above that the bulk of the block of bedrooms, the huge hive with its +innumerable and identical cells.</p> + +<p>The ladder of ascent in this tower is of course the lift, or, as it is +called, the elevator. With all that we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> hear of American hustle and +hurry it is rather strange that Americans seem to like more than we do +to linger upon long words. And indeed there is an element of delay in +their diction and spirit, very little understood, which I may discuss +elsewhere. Anyhow they say elevator when we say lift, just as they say +automobile when we say motor and stenographer when we say typist, or +sometimes (by a slight confusion) typewriter. Which reminds me of +another story that never existed, about a man who was accused of having +murdered and dismembered his secretary when he had only taken his typing +machine to pieces; but we must not dwell on these digressions. The +Americans may have another reason for giving long and ceremonious titles +to the lift. When first I came among them I had a suspicion that they +possessed and practised a new and secret religion, which was the cult of +the elevator. I fancied they worshipped the lift, or at any rate +worshipped in the lift. The details or data of this suspicion it were +now vain to collect, as I have regretfully abandoned it, except in so +far as they illustrate the social principles underlying the structural +plan of the building. Now an American gentleman invariably takes off his +hat in the lift. He does not take off his hat in the hotel, even if it +is crowded with ladies. But he always so salutes a lady in the elevator; +and this marks the difference of atmosphere. The lift is a room, but the +hotel is a street. But during my first delusion, of course, I assumed +that he uncovered in this tiny temple merely because he was in church. +There is something about the very word elevator that expresses a great +deal of his vague but idealistic religion. Perhaps that flying chapel +will eventually be ritualistically decorated like a chapel;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> possibly +with a symbolic scheme of wings. Perhaps a brief religious service will +be held in the elevator as it ascends; in a few well-chosen words +touching the Utmost for the Highest. Possibly he would consent even to +call the elevator a lift, if he could call it an uplift. There would be +no difficulty, except what I cannot but regard as the chief moral +problem of all optimistic modernism. I mean the difficulty of imagining +a lift which is free to go up, if it is not also free to go down.</p> + +<p>I think I know my American friends and acquaintances too well to +apologise for any levity in these illustrations. Americans make fun of +their own institutions; and their own journalism is full of such +fanciful conjectures. The tall building is itself artistically akin to +the tall story. The very word sky-scraper is an admirable example of an +American lie. But I can testify quite as eagerly to the solid and +sensible advantages of the symmetrical hotel. It is not only a pattern +of vases and stuffed flamingoes; it is also an equally accurate pattern +of cupboards and baths. It is a dignified and humane custom to have a +bathroom attached to every bedroom; and my impulse to sing the praises +of it brought me once at least into a rather quaint complication. I +think it was in the city of Dayton; anyhow I remember there was a +Laundry Convention going on in the same hotel, in a room very +patriotically and properly festooned with the stars and stripes, and +doubtless full of promise for the future of laundering. I was +interviewed on the roof, within earshot of this debate, and may have +been the victim of some association or confusion; anyhow, after +answering the usual questions about Labour, the League of Nations, the +length of ladies'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> dresses, and other great matters, I took refuge in a +rhapsody of warm and well-deserved praise of American bathrooms. The +editor, I understand, running a gloomy eye down the column of his +contributor's 'story,' and seeing nothing but metaphysical terms such as +justice, freedom, the abstract disapproval of sweating, swindling, and +the like, paused at last upon the ablutionary allusion, and his eye +brightened. 'That's the only copy in the whole thing,' he said, 'A +Bath-Tub in Every Home.' So these words appeared in enormous letters +above my portrait in the paper. It will be noted that, like many things +that practical men make a great point of, they miss the point. What I +had commended as new and national was a bathroom in every bedroom. Even +feudal and moss-grown England is not entirely ignorant of an occasional +bath-tub in the home. But what gave me great joy was what followed. I +discovered with delight that many people, glancing rapidly at my +portrait with its prodigious legend, imagined that it was a commercial +advertisement, and that I was a very self-advertising commercial +traveller. When I walked about the streets, I was supposed to be +travelling in bath-tubs. Consider the caption of the portrait, and you +will see how similar it is to the true commercial slogan: 'We offer a +Bath-Tub in Every Home.' And this charming error was doubtless clinched +by the fact that I had been found haunting the outer courts of the +temple of the ancient Guild of Lavenders. I never knew how many shared +the impression; I regret to say that I only traced it with certainty in +two individuals. But I understand that it included the idea that I had +come to the town to attend the Laundry Convention, and had made an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> +eloquent speech to that senate, no doubt exhibiting my tubs.</p> + +<p>Such was the penalty of too passionate and unrestrained an admiration +for American bathrooms; yet the connection of ideas, however +inconsequent, does cover the part of social practice for which these +American institutions can really be praised. About everything like +laundry or hot and cold water there is not only organisation, but what +does not always or perhaps often go with it, efficiency. Americans are +particular about these things of dress and decorum; and it is a virtue +which I very seriously recognise, though I find it very hard to emulate. +But with them it is a virtue; it is not a mere convention, still less a +mere fashion. It is really related to human dignity rather than to +social superiority. The really glorious thing about the American is that +he does not dress like a gentleman; he dresses like a citizen or a +civilised man. His Puritanic particularity on certain points is really +detachable from any definite social ambitions; these things are not a +part of getting into society but merely of keeping out of savagery. +Those millions and millions of middling people, that huge middle class +especially of the Middle West, are not near enough to any aristocracy +even to be sham aristocrats, or to be real snobs. But their standards +are secure; and though I do not really travel in a bath-tub, or believe +in the bath-tub philosophy and religion, I will not on this matter +recoil misanthropically from them: I prefer the tub of Dayton to the tub +of Diogenes. On these points there is really something a million times +better than efficiency, and that is something like equality.</p> + +<p>In short, the American hotel is not America; but it is American. In some +respects it is as American<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> as the English inn is English. And it is +symbolic of that society in this among other things: that it does tend +too much to uniformity; but that that very uniformity disguises not a +little natural dignity. The old Romans boasted that their republic was a +nation of kings. If we really walked abroad in such a kingdom, we might +very well grow tired of the sight of a crowd of kings, of every man with +a gold crown on his head or an ivory sceptre in his hand. But it is +arguable that we ought not to grow tired of the repetition of crowns and +sceptres, any more than of the repetition of flowers and stars. The +whole imaginative effort of Walt Whitman was really an effort to absorb +and animate these multitudinous modern repetitions; and Walt Whitman +would be quite capable of including in his lyric litany of optimism a +list of the nine hundred and ninety-nine identical bathrooms. I do not +sneer at the generous effort of the giant; though I think, when all is +said, that it is a criticism of modern machinery that the effort should +be gigantic as well as generous.</p> + +<p>While there is so much repetition there is little repose. It is the +pattern of a kaleidoscope rather than a wall-paper; a pattern of figures +running and even leaping like the figures in a zoetrope. But even in the +groups where there was no hustle there was often something of +homelessness. I do not mean merely that they were not dining at home; +but rather that they were not at home even when dining, and dining at +their favourite hotel. They would frequently start up and dart from the +room at a summons from the telephone. It may have been fanciful, but I +could not help feeling a breath of home, as from a flap or flutter of +St. George's Cross, when I first sat down in a Canadian hostelry, and +read the announcement that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> no such telephonic or other summonses were +allowed in the dining-room. It may have been a coincidence, and there +may be American hotels with this merciful proviso and Canadian hotels +without it; but the thing was symbolic even if it was not evidential. I +felt as if I stood indeed upon English soil, in a place where people +liked to have their meals in peace.</p> + +<p>The process of the summons is called 'paging,' and consists of sending a +little boy with a large voice through all the halls and corridors of the +building, making them resound with a name. The custom is common, of +course, in clubs and hotels even in England; but in England it is a mere +whisper compared with the wail with which the American page repeats the +formula of 'Calling Mr. So and So.' I remember a particularly crowded +<i>parterre</i> in the somewhat smoky and oppressive atmosphere of Pittsburg, +through which wandered a youth with a voice the like of which I have +never heard in the land of the living, a voice like the cry of a lost +spirit, saying again and again for ever, 'Carling Mr. Anderson.' One +felt that he never would find Mr. Anderson. Perhaps there never had been +any Mr. Anderson to be found. Perhaps he and every one else wandered in +an abyss of bottomless scepticism; and he was but the victim of one out +of numberless nightmares of eternity, as he wandered a shadow with +shadows and wailed by impassable streams. This is not exactly my +philosophy, but I feel sure it was his. And it is a mood that may +frequently visit the mind in the centres of highly active and successful +industrial civilisation.</p> + +<p>Such are the first idle impressions of the great American hotel, gained +by sitting for the first time in its gallery and gazing on its drifting +crowds with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> thoughts equally drifting. The first impression is of +something enormous and rather unnatural, an impression that is gradually +tempered by experience of the kindliness and even the tameness of so +much of that social order. But I should not be recording the sensations +with sincerity, if I did not touch in passing the note of something +unearthly about that vast system to an insular traveller who sees it for +the first time. It is as if he were wandering in another world among the +fixed stars; or worse still, in an ideal Utopia of the future.</p> + +<p>Yet I am not certain; and perhaps the best of all news is that nothing +is really new. I sometimes have a fancy that many of these new things in +new countries are but the resurrections of old things which have been +wickedly killed or stupidly stunted in old countries. I have looked over +the sea of little tables in some light and airy open-air café; and my +thoughts have gone back to the plain wooden bench and wooden table that +stands solitary and weather-stained outside so many neglected English +inns. We talk of experimenting in the French café, as of some fresh and +almost impudent innovation. But our fathers had the French café, in the +sense of the free-and-easy table in the sun and air. The only difference +was that French democracy was allowed to develop its café, or multiply +its tables, while English plutocracy prevented any such popular growth. +Perhaps there are other examples of old types and patterns, lost in the +old oligarchy and saved in the new democracies. I am haunted with a hint +that the new structures are not so very new; and that they remind me of +something very old. As I look from the balcony floor the crowds seem to +float away and the colours to soften and grow pale, and I know I am in +one of the simplest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> and most ancestral of human habitations. I am +looking down from the old wooden gallery upon the courtyard of an inn. +This new architectural model, which I have described, is after all one +of the oldest European models, now neglected in Europe and especially in +England. It was the theatre in which were enacted innumerable picaresque +comedies and romantic plays, with figures ranging from Sancho Panza to +Sam Weller. It served as the apparatus, like some gigantic toy set up in +bricks and timber, for the ancient and perhaps eternal game of tennis. +The very terms of the original game were taken from the inn courtyard, +and the players scored accordingly as they hit the buttery-hatch or the +roof. Singular speculations hover in my mind as the scene darkens and +the quadrangle below begins to empty in the last hours of night. Some +day perhaps this huge structure will be found standing in a solitude +like a skeleton; and it will be the skeleton of the Spotted Dog or the +Blue Boar. It will wither and decay until it is worthy at last to be a +tavern. I do not know whether men will play tennis on its ground floor, +with various scores and prizes for hitting the electric fan, or the +lift, or the head waiter. Perhaps the very words will only remain as +part of some such rustic game. Perhaps the electric fan will no longer +be electric and the elevator will no longer elevate, and the waiter will +only wait to be hit. But at least it is only by the decay of modern +plutocracy, which seems already to have begun, that the secret of the +structure even of this plutocratic palace can stand revealed. And after +long years, when its lights are extinguished and only the long shadows +inhabit its halls and vestibules, there may come a new noise like +thunder; of D'Artagnan knocking at the door.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="A_Meditation_in_Broadway" id="A_Meditation_in_Broadway"></a><i>A Meditation in Broadway</i></h2> + +<p>When I had looked at the lights of Broadway by night, I made to my +American friends an innocent remark that seemed for some reason to amuse +them. I had looked, not without joy, at that long kaleidoscope of +coloured lights arranged in large letters and sprawling trade-marks, +advertising everything, from pork to pianos, through the agency of the +two most vivid and most mystical of the gifts of God; colour and fire. I +said to them, in my simplicity, 'What a glorious garden of wonders this +would be, to any one who was lucky enough to be unable to read.'</p> + +<p>Here it is but a text for a further suggestion. But let us suppose that +there does walk down this flaming avenue a peasant, of the sort called +scornfully an illiterate peasant; by those who think that insisting on +people reading and writing is the best way to keep out the spies who +read in all languages and the forgers who write in all hands. On this +principle indeed, a peasant merely acquainted with things of little +practical use to mankind, such as ploughing, cutting wood, or growing +vegetables, would very probably be excluded; and it is not for us to +criticise from the outside the philosophy of those who would keep out +the farmer and let in the forger. But let us suppose, if only for the +sake of argument, that the peasant is walking under the artificial suns +and stars of this tremendous thoroughfare; that he has escaped to the +land of liberty upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> some general rumour and romance of the story of +its liberation, but without being yet able to understand the arbitrary +signs of its alphabet. The soul of such a man would surely soar higher +than the sky-scrapers, and embrace a brotherhood broader than Broadway. +Realising that he had arrived on an evening of exceptional festivity, +worthy to be blazoned with all this burning heraldry, he would please +himself by guessing what great proclamation or principle of the Republic +hung in the sky like a constellation or rippled across the street like a +comet. He would be shrewd enough to guess that the three festoons +fringed with fiery words of somewhat similar pattern stood for +'Government of the People, For the People, By the People'; for it must +obviously be that, unless it were 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.' His +shrewdness would perhaps be a little shaken if he knew that the triad +stood for 'Tang Tonic To-day; Tang Tonic To-morrow; Tang Tonic All the +Time.' He will soon identify a restless ribbon of red lettering, red hot +and rebellious, as the saying, 'Give me liberty or give me death.' He +will fail to identify it as the equally famous saying, 'Skyoline Has +Gout Beaten to a Frazzle.' Therefore it was that I desired the peasant +to walk down that grove of fiery trees, under all that golden foliage, +and fruits like monstrous jewels, as innocent as Adam before the Fall. +He would see sights almost as fine as the flaming sword or the purple +and peacock plumage of the seraphim; so long as he did not go near the +Tree of Knowledge.</p> + +<p>In other words, if once he went to school it would be all up; and indeed +I fear in any case he would soon discover his error. If he stood wildly +waving his hat for liberty in the middle of the road as Chunk<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> Chutney +picked itself out in ruby stars upon the sky, he would impede the +excellent but extremely rigid traffic system of New York. If he fell on +his knees before a sapphire splendour, and began saying an Ave Maria +under a mistaken association, he would be conducted kindly but firmly by +an Irish policeman to a more authentic shrine. But though the foreign +simplicity might not long survive in New York, it is quite a mistake to +suppose that such foreign simplicity cannot enter New York. He may be +excluded for being illiterate, but he cannot be excluded for being +ignorant, nor for being innocent. Least of all can he be excluded for +being wiser in his innocence than the world in its knowledge. There is +here indeed more than one distinction to be made. New York is a +cosmopolitan city; but it is not a city of cosmopolitans. Most of the +masses in New York have a nation, whether or no it be the nation to +which New York belongs. Those who are Americanised are American, and +very patriotically American. Those who are not thus nationalised are not +in the least internationalised. They simply continue to be themselves; +the Irish are Irish; the Jews are Jewish; and all sorts of other tribes +carry on the traditions of remote European valleys almost untouched. In +short, there is a sort of slender bridge between their old country and +their new, which they either cross or do not cross, but which they +seldom simply occupy. They are exiles or they are citizens; there is no +moment when they are cosmopolitans. But very often the exiles bring with +them not only rooted traditions, but rooted truths.</p> + +<p>Indeed it is to a great extent the thought of these strange souls in +crude American garb that gives a meaning to the masquerade of New York. +In the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> hotel where I stayed the head waiter in one room was a Bohemian; +and I am glad to say that he called himself a Bohemian. I have already +protested sufficiently, before American audiences, against the pedantry +of perpetually talking about Czecho-Slovakia. I suggested to my American +friends that the abandonment of the word Bohemian in its historical +sense might well extend to its literary and figurative sense. We might +be expected to say, 'I'm afraid Henry has got into very Czecho-Slovakian +habits lately,' or 'Don't bother to dress; it's quite a Czecho-Slovakian +affair.' Anyhow my Bohemian would have nothing to do with such nonsense; +he called himself a son of Bohemia, and spoke as such in his criticisms +of America, which were both favourable and unfavourable. He was a squat +man, with a sturdy figure and a steady smile; and his eyes were like +dark pools in the depth of a darker forest, but I do not think he had +ever been deceived by the lights of Broadway.</p> + +<p>But I found something like my real innocent abroad, my real peasant +among the sky-signs, in another part of the same establishment. He was a +much leaner man, equally dark, with a hook nose, hungry face, and fierce +black moustaches. He also was a waiter, and was in the costume of a +waiter, which is a smarter edition of the costume of a lecturer. As he +was serving me with clam chowder or some such thing, I fell into speech +with him and he told me he was a Bulgar. I said something like, 'I'm +afraid I don't know as much as I ought to about Bulgaria. I suppose most +of your people are agricultural, aren't they?' He did not stir an inch +from his regular attitude, but he slightly lowered his low voice and +said, 'Yes. From the earth we come and to the earth we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> return; when +people get away from that they are lost.'</p> + +<p>To hear such a thing said by the waiter was alone an epoch in the life +of an unfortunate writer of fantastic novels. To see him clear away the +clam chowder like an automaton, and bring me more iced water like an +automaton or like nothing on earth except an American waiter (for piling +up ice is the cold passion of their lives), and all this after having +uttered something so dark and deep, so starkly incongruous and so +startlingly true, was an indescribable thing, but very like the picture +of the peasant admiring Broadway. So he passed, with his artificial +clothes and manners, lit up with all the ghastly artificial light of the +hotel, and all the ghastly artificial life of the city; and his heart +was like his own remote and rocky valley, where those unchanging words +were carved as on a rock.</p> + +<p>I do not profess to discuss here at all adequately the question this +raises about the Americanisation of the Bulgar. It has many aspects, of +some of which most Englishmen and even some Americans are rather +unconscious. For one thing, a man with so rugged a loyalty to land could +not be Americanised in New York; but it is not so certain that he could +not be Americanised in America. We might almost say that a peasantry is +hidden in the heart of America. So far as our impressions go, it is a +secret. It is rather an open secret; covering only some thousand square +miles of open prairie. But for most of our countrymen it is something +invisible, unimagined, and unvisited; the simple truth that where all +those acres are there is agriculture, and where all that agriculture is +there is considerable tendency towards distributive or decently +equalised property, as in a peasantry. On<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> the other hand, there are +those who say that the Bulgar will never be Americanised, that he only +comes to be a waiter in America that he may afford to return to be a +peasant in Bulgaria. I cannot decide this issue, and indeed I did not +introduce it to this end. I was led to it by a certain line of +reflection that runs along the Great White Way, and I will continue to +follow it. The criticism, if we could put it rightly, not only covers +more than New York but more than the whole New World. Any argument +against it is quite as valid against the largest and richest cities of +the Old World, against London or Liverpool or Frankfort or Belfast. But +it is in New York that we see the argument most clearly, because we see +the thing thus towering into its own turrets and breaking into its own +fireworks.</p> + +<p>I disagree with the aesthetic condemnation of the modern city with its +sky-scrapers and sky-signs. I mean that which laments the loss of beauty +and its sacrifice to utility. It seems to me the very reverse of the +truth. Years ago, when people used to say the Salvation Army doubtless +had good intentions, but we must all deplore its methods, I pointed out +that the very contrary is the case. Its method, the method of drums and +democratic appeal, is that of the Franciscans or any other march of the +Church Militant. It was precisely its aims that were dubious, with their +dissenting morality and despotic finance. It is somewhat the same with +things like the sky-signs in Broadway. The aesthete must not ask me to +mingle my tears with his, because these things are merely useful and +ugly. For I am not specially inclined to think them ugly; but I am +strongly inclined to think them useless. As a matter of art for art's +sake, they seem to me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> rather artistic. As a form of practical social +work they seem to me stark stupid waste. If Mr. Bilge is rich enough to +build a tower four hundred feet high and give it a crown of golden +crescents and crimson stars, in order to draw attention to his +manufacture of the Paradise Tooth Paste or The Seventh Heaven Cigar, I +do not feel the least disposition to thank him for any serious form of +social service. I have never tried the Seventh Heaven Cigar; indeed a +premonition moves me towards the belief that I shall go down to the dust +without trying it. I have every reason to doubt whether it does any +particular good to those who smoke it, or any good to anybody except +those who sell it. In short Mr. Bilge's usefulness consists in being +useful to Mr. Bilge, and all the rest is illusion and sentimentalism. +But because I know that Bilge is only Bilge, shall I stoop to the +profanity of saying that fire is only fire? Shall I blaspheme crimson +stars any more than crimson sunsets, or deny that those moons are golden +any more than that this grass is green? If a child saw these coloured +lights, he would dance with as much delight as at any other coloured +toys; and it is the duty of every poet, and even of every critic, to +dance in respectful imitation of the child. Indeed I am in a mood of so +much sympathy with the fairy lights of this pantomime city, that I +should be almost sorry to see social sanity and a sense of proportion +return to extinguish them. I fear the day is breaking, and the broad +daylight of tradition and ancient truth is coming to end all this +delightful nightmare of New York at night. Peasants and priests and all +sorts of practical and sensible people are coming back into power, and +their stern realism may wither all these beautiful, unsubstantial,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> +useless things. They will not believe in the Seventh Heaven Cigar, even +when they see it shining as with stars in the seventh heaven. They will +not be affected by advertisements, any more than the priests and +peasants of the Middle Ages would have been affected by advertisements. +Only a very soft-headed, sentimental, and rather servile generation of +men could possibly be affected by advertisements at all. People who are +a little more hard-headed, humorous, and intellectually independent, see +the rather simple joke; and are not impressed by this or any other form +of self-praise. Almost any other men in almost any other age would have +seen the joke. If you had said to a man in the Stone Age, 'Ugg says Ugg +makes the best stone hatchets,' he would have perceived a lack of +detachment and disinterestedness about the testimonial. If you had said +to a medieval peasant, 'Robert the Bowyer proclaims, with three blasts +of a horn, that he makes good bows,' the peasant would have said, 'Well, +of course he does,' and thought about something more important. It is +only among people whose minds have been weakened by a sort of mesmerism +that so transparent a trick as that of advertisement could ever have +been tried at all. And if ever we have again, as for other reasons I +cannot but hope we shall, a more democratic distribution of property and +a more agricultural basis of national life, it would seem at first sight +only too likely that all this beautiful superstition will perish, and +the fairyland of Broadway with all its varied rainbows fade away. For +such people the Seventh Heaven Cigar, like the nineteenth-century city, +will have ended in smoke. And even the smoke of it will have vanished.</p> + +<p>But the next stage of reflection brings us back to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> the peasant looking +at the lights of Broadway. It is not true to say in the strict sense +that the peasant has never seen such things before. The truth is that he +has seen them on a much smaller scale, but for a much larger purpose. +Peasants also have their ritual and ornament, but it is to adorn more +real things. Apart from our first fancy about the peasant who could not +read, there is no doubt about what would be apparent to a peasant who +could read, and who could understand. For him also fire is sacred, for +him also colour is symbolic. But where he sets up a candle to light the +little shrine of St. Joseph, he finds it takes twelve hundred candles to +light the Seventh Heaven Cigar. He is used to the colours in church +windows showing red for martyrs or blue for madonnas; but here he can +only conclude that all the colours of the rainbow belong to Mr. Bilge. +Now upon the aesthetic side he might well be impressed; but it is +exactly on the social and even scientific side that he has a right to +criticise. If he were a Chinese peasant, for instance, and came from a +land of fireworks, he would naturally suppose that he had happened to +arrive at a great firework display in celebration of something; perhaps +the Sacred Emperor's birthday, or rather birthnight. It would gradually +dawn on the Chinese philosopher that the Emperor could hardly be born +every night. And when he learnt the truth the philosopher, if he was a +philosopher, would be a little disappointed ... possibly a little +disdainful.</p> + +<p>Compare, for instance, these everlasting fireworks with the damp squibs +and dying bonfires of Guy Fawkes Day. That quaint and even queer +national festival has been fading for some time out of English life. +Still, it was a national festival, in the double<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> sense that it +represented some sort of public spirit pursued by some sort of popular +impulse. People spent money on the display of fireworks; they did not +get money by it. And the people who spent money were often those who had +very little money to spend. It had something of the glorious and +fanatical character of making the poor poorer. It did not, like the +advertisements, have only the mean and materialistic character of making +the rich richer. In short, it came from the people and it appealed to +the nation. The historical and religious cause in which it originated is +not mine; and I think it has perished partly through being tied to a +historical theory for which there is no future. I think this is +illustrated in the very fact that the ceremonial is merely negative and +destructive. Negation and destruction are very noble things as far as +they go, and when they go in the right direction; and the popular +expression of them has always something hearty and human about it. I +shall not therefore bring any fine or fastidious criticism, whether +literary or musical, to bear upon the little boys who drag about a +bolster and a paper mask, calling out</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>Guy Fawkes Guy</div> +<div>Hit him in the eye.</div> +</div></div> + +<p>But I admit it is a disadvantage that they have not a saint or hero to +crown in effigy as well as a traitor to burn in effigy. I admit that +popular Protestantism has become too purely negative for people to +wreathe in flowers the statue of Mr. Kensit or even of Dr. Clifford. I +do not disguise my preference for popular Catholicism; which still has +statues that can be wreathed in flowers. I wish our national feast of +fireworks revolved round something positive and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> popular. I wish the +beauty of a Catherine Wheel were displayed to the glory of St. +Catherine. I should not especially complain if Roman candles were really +Roman candles. But this negative character does not destroy the national +character; which began at least in disinterested faith and has ended at +least in disinterested fun. There is nothing disinterested at all about +the new commercial fireworks. There is nothing so dignified as a dingy +guy among the lights of Broadway. In that thoroughfare, indeed, the very +word guy has another and milder significance. An American friend +congratulated me on the impression I produced on a lady interviewer, +observing, 'She says you're a regular guy.' This puzzled me a little at +the time. 'Her description is no doubt correct,' I said, 'but I confess +that it would never have struck me as specially complimentary.' But it +appears that it is one of the most graceful of compliments, in the +original American. A guy in America is a colourless term for a human +being. All men are guys, being endowed by their Creator with certain ... +but I am misled by another association. And a regular guy means, I +presume, a reliable or respectable guy. The point here, however, is that +the guy in the grotesque English sense does represent the dilapidated +remnant of a real human tradition of symbolising real historic ideals by +the sacramental mystery of fire. It is a great fall from the lowest of +these lowly bonfires to the highest of the modern sky-signs. The new +illumination does not stand for any national ideal at all; and what is +yet more to the point, it does not come from any popular enthusiasm at +all. That is where it differs from the narrowest national Protestantism +of the English institution. Mobs have risen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> in support of No Popery; no +mobs are likely to rise in defence of the New Puffery. Many a poor crazy +Orangeman has died saying, 'To Hell with the Pope'; it is doubtful +whether any man will ever, with his last breath, frame the ecstatic +words, 'Try Hugby's Chewing Gum.' These modern and mercantile legends +are imposed upon us by a mercantile minority, and we are merely passive +to the suggestion. The hypnotist of high finance or big business merely +writes his commands in heaven with a finger of fire. All men really are +guys, in the sense of dummies. We are only the victims of his +pyrotechnic violence; and it is he who hits us in the eye.</p> + +<p>This is the real case against that modern society that is symbolised by +such art and architecture. It is not that it is toppling, but that it is +top-heavy. It is not that it is vulgar, but rather that it is not +popular. In other words, the democratic ideal of countries like America, +while it is still generally sincere and sometimes intense, is at issue +with another tendency, an industrial progress which is of all things on +earth the most undemocratic. America is not alone in possessing the +industrialism, but she is alone in emphasising the ideal that strives +with industrialism. Industrial capitalism and ideal democracy are +everywhere in controversy; but perhaps only here are they in conflict. +France has a democratic ideal; but France is not industrial. England and +Germany are industrial; but England and Germany are not really +democratic. Of course when I speak here of industrialism I speak of +great industrial areas; there is, as will be noted later, another side +to all these countries; there is in America itself not only a great deal +of agricultural society, but a great deal of agricultural equality; +just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> as there are still peasants in Germany and may some day again be +peasants in England. But the point is that the ideal and its enemy the +reality are here crushed very close to each other in the high, narrow +city; and that the sky-scraper is truly named because its top, towering +in such insolence, is scraping the stars off the American sky, the very +heaven of the American spirit.</p> + +<p>That seems to me the main outline of the whole problem. In the first +chapter of this book, I have emphasised the fact that equality is still +the ideal though no longer the reality of America. I should like to +conclude this one by emphasising the fact that the reality of modern +capitalism is menacing that ideal with terrors and even splendours that +might well stagger the wavering and impressionable modern spirit. Upon +the issue of that struggle depends the question of whether this new +great civilisation continues to exist, and even whether any one cares if +it exists or not. I have already used the parable of the American flag, +and the stars that stand for a multitudinous equality; I might here take +the opposite symbol of these artificial and terrestrial stars flaming on +the forehead of the commercial city; and note the peril of the last +illusion, which is that the artificial stars may seem to fill the +heavens, and the real stars to have faded from sight. But I am content +for the moment to reaffirm the merely imaginative pleasure of those +dizzy turrets and dancing fires. If those nightmare buildings were +really all built for nothing, how noble they would be! The fact that +they were really built for something need not unduly depress us for a +moment, or drag down our soaring fancies. There is something about these +vertical lines that suggests a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> sort of rush upwards, as of great +cataracts topsy-turvy. I have spoken of fireworks, but here I should +rather speak of rockets. There is only something underneath the mind +murmuring that nothing remains at last of a flaming rocket except a +falling stick. I have spoken of Babylonian perspectives, and of words +written with a fiery finger, like that huge unhuman finger that wrote on +Belshazzar's wall.... But what did it write on Belshazzar's wall?... I +am content once more to end on a note of doubt and a rather dark +sympathy with those many-coloured solar systems turning so dizzily, far +up in the divine vacuum of the night.</p> + +<p>'From the earth we come and to the earth we return; when people get away +from that they are lost.'</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="Irish_and_other_Interviewers" id="Irish_and_other_Interviewers"></a><i>Irish and other Interviewers</i></h2> + +<p>It is often asked what should be the first thing that a man sees when he +lands in a foreign country; but I think it should be the vision of his +own country. At least when I came into New York Harbour, a sort of grey +and green cloud came between me and the towers with multitudinous +windows, white in the winter sunlight; and I saw an old brown house +standing back among the beech-trees at home, the house of only one among +many friends and neighbours, but one somehow so sunken in the very heart +of England as to be unconscious of her imperial or international +position, and out of the sound of her perilous seas. But what made most +clear the vision that revisited me was something else. Before we touched +land the men of my own guild, the journalists and reporters, had already +boarded the ship like pirates. And one of them spoke to me in an accent +that I knew; and thanked me for all I had done for Ireland. And it was +at that moment that I knew most vividly that what I wanted was to do +something for England.</p> + +<p>Then, as it chanced, I looked across at the statue of Liberty, and saw +that the great bronze was gleaming green in the morning light. I had +made all the obvious jokes about the statue of Liberty. I found it had a +soothing effect on earnest Prohibitionists on the boat to urge, as a +point of dignity and delicacy, that it ought to be given back to the +French, a vicious race<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> abandoned to the culture of the vine. I proposed +that the last liquors on board should be poured out in a pagan libation +before it. And then I suddenly remembered that this Liberty was still in +some sense enlightening the world, or one part of the world; was a lamp +for one sort of wanderer, a star of one sort of seafarer. To one +persecuted people at least this land had really been an asylum; even if +recent legislation (as I have said) had made them think it a lunatic +asylum. They had made it so much their home that the very colour of the +country seemed to change with the infusion; as the bronze of the great +statue took on a semblance of the wearing of the green.</p> + +<p>It is a commonplace that the Englishman has been stupid in his relations +with the Irish; but he has been far more stupid in his relations with +the Americans on the subject of the Irish. His propaganda has been worse +than his practice; and his defence more ill-considered than the most +indefensible things that it was intended to defend. There is in this +matter a curious tangle of cross-purposes, which only a parallel example +can make at all clear. And I will note the point here, because it is +some testimony to its vivid importance that it was really the first I +had to discuss on American soil with an American citizen. In a double +sense I touched Ireland before I came to America. I will take an +imaginary instance from another controversy; in order to show how the +apology can be worse than the action. The best we can say for ourselves +is worse than the worst that we can do.</p> + +<p>There was a time when English poets and other publicists could always be +inspired with instantaneous indignation about the persecuted Jews in +Russia. We have heard less about them since we heard more about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> the +persecuting Jews in Russia. I fear there are a great many middle-class +Englishmen already who wish that Trotsky had been persecuted a little +more. But even in those days Englishmen divided their minds in a curious +fashion; and unconsciously distinguished between the Jews whom they had +never seen, in Warsaw, and the Jews whom they had often seen in +Whitechapel. It seemed to be assumed that, by a curious coincidence, +Russia possessed not only the very worst Anti-Semites but the very best +Semites. A moneylender in London might be like Judas Iscariot; but a +moneylender in Moscow must be like Judas Maccabaeus.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless there remained in our common sense an unconscious but +fundamental comprehension of the unity of Israel; a sense that some +things could be said, and some could not be said, about the Jews as a +whole. Suppose that even in those days, to say nothing of these, an +English protest against Russian Anti-Semitism had been answered by the +Russian Anti-Semites, and suppose the answer had been somewhat as +follows:—</p> + +<p>'It is all very well for foreigners to complain of our denying civic +rights to our Jewish subjects; but we know the Jews better than they do. +They are a barbarous people, entirely primitive, and very like the +simple savages who cannot count beyond five on their fingers. It is +quite impossible to make them understand ordinary numbers, to say +nothing of simple economics. They do not realise the meaning or the +value of money. No Jew anywhere in the world can get into his stupid +head the notion of a bargain, or of exchanging one thing for another. +Their hopeless incapacity for commerce or finance would retard the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> +progress of our people, would prevent the spread of any sort of economic +education, would keep the whole country on a level lower than that of +the most prehistoric methods of barter. What Russia needs most is a +mercantile middle class; and it is unjust to ask us to swamp its small +beginnings in thousands of these rude tribesmen, who cannot do a sum of +simple addition, or understand the symbolic character of a threepenny +bit. We might as well be asked to give civic rights to cows and pigs as +to this unhappy, half-witted race who can no more count than the beasts +of the field. In every intellectual exercise they are hopelessly +incompetent; no Jew can play chess; no Jew can learn languages; no Jew +has ever appeared in the smallest part in any theatrical performance; no +Jew can give or take any pleasure connected with any musical instrument. +These people are our subjects; and we understand them. We accept full +responsibility for treating such troglodytes on our own terms.'</p> + +<p>It would not be entirely convincing. It would sound a little far-fetched +and unreal. But it would sound exactly like our utterances about the +Irish, as they sound to all Americans, and rather especially to +Anti-Irish Americans. That is exactly the impression we produce on the +people of the United States when we say, as we do say in substance, +something like this: 'We mean no harm to the poor dear Irish, so dreamy, +so irresponsible, so incapable of order or organisation. If we were to +withdraw from their country they would only fight among themselves; they +have no notion of how to rule themselves. There is something charming +about their unpracticability, about their very incapacity for the coarse +business of politics. But for their own sakes it is impossible to leave +these emotional<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> visionaries to ruin themselves in the attempt to rule +themselves. They are like children; but they are our own children, and +we understand them. We accept full responsibility for acting as their +parents and guardians.'</p> + +<p>Now the point is not only that this view of the Irish is false, but that +it is the particular view that the Americans know to be false. While we +are saying that the Irish could not organise, the Americans are +complaining, often very bitterly, of the power of Irish organisation. +While we say that the Irishman could not rule himself, the Americans are +saying, more or less humorously, that the Irishman rules them. A highly +intelligent professor said to me in Boston, 'We have solved the Irish +problem here; we have an entirely independent Irish Government.' While +we are complaining, in an almost passionate manner, of the impotence of +mere cliques of idealists and dreamers, they are complaining, often in a +very indignant manner, of the power of great gangs of bosses and +bullies. There are a great many Americans who pity the Irish, very +naturally and very rightly, for the historic martyrdom which their +patriotism has endured. But there are a great many Americans who do not +pity the Irish in the least. They would be much more likely to pity the +English; only this particular way of talking tends rather to make them +despise the English. Thus both the friends of Ireland and the foes of +Ireland tend to be the foes of England. We make one set of enemies by +our action, and another by our apology.</p> + +<p>It is a thing that can from time to time be found in history; a +misunderstanding that really has a moral. The English excuse would carry +much more weight if it had more sincerity and more humility. There are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> +a considerable number of people in the United States who could +sympathise with us, if we would say frankly that we fear the Irish. +Those who thus despise our pity might possibly even respect our fear. +The argument I have often used in other places comes back with +prodigious and redoubled force, after hearing anything of American +opinion; the argument that the only reasonable or reputable excuse for +the English is the excuse of a patriotic sense of peril; and that the +Unionist, if he must be a Unionist, should use that and no other. When +the Unionist has said that he dare not let loose against himself a +captive he has so cruelly wronged, he has said all that he has to say; +all that he has ever had to say; all that he will ever have to say. He +is like a man who has sent a virile and rather vindictive rival unjustly +to penal servitude; and who connives at the continuance of the sentence, +not because he himself is particularly vindictive, but because he is +afraid of what the convict will do when he comes out of prison. This is +not exactly a moral strength, but it is a very human weakness; and that +is the most that can be said for it. All other talk, about Celtic frenzy +or Catholic superstition, is cant invented to deceive himself or to +deceive the world. But the vital point to realise is that it is cant +that cannot possibly deceive the American world. In the matter of the +Irishman the American is not to be deceived. It is not merely true to +say that he knows better. It is equally true to say that he knows worse. +He knows vices and evils in the Irishman that are entirely hidden in the +hazy vision of the Englishman. He knows that our unreal slanders are +inconsistent even with the real sins. To us Ireland is a shadowy Isle of +Sunset, like Atlantis, about which we can make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> up legends. To him it is +a positive ward or parish in the heart of his huge cities, like +Whitechapel; about which even we cannot make legends but only lies. And, +as I have said, there are some lies we do not tell even about +Whitechapel. We do not say it is inhabited by Jews too stupid to count +or know the value of a coin.</p> + +<p>The first thing for any honest Englishman to send across the sea is +this; that the English have not the shadow of a notion of what they are +up against in America. They have never even heard of the batteries of +almost brutal energy, of which I had thus touched a live wire even +before I landed. People talk about the hypocrisy of England in dealing +with a small nationality. What strikes me is the stupidity of England in +supposing that she is dealing with a small nationality; when she is +really dealing with a very large nationality. She is dealing with a +nationality that often threatens, even numerically, to dominate all the +other nationalities of the United States. The Irish are not decaying; +they are not unpractical; they are scarcely even scattered; they are not +even poor. They are the most powerful and practical world-combination +with whom we can decide to be friends or foes; and that is why I thought +first of that still and solid brown house in Buckinghamshire, standing +back in the shadow of the trees.</p> + +<p>Among my impressions of America I have deliberately put first the figure +of the Irish-American interviewer, standing on the shore more symbolic +than the statue of Liberty. The Irish interviewer's importance for the +English lay in the fact of his being an Irishman, but there was also +considerable interest in the circumstance of his being an interviewer. +And as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> certain wild birds sometimes wing their way far out to sea and +are the first signal of the shore, so the first Americans the traveller +meets are often American interviewers; and they are generally birds of a +feather, and they certainly flock together. In this respect, there is a +slight difference in the etiquette of the craft in the two countries, +which I was delighted to discuss with my fellow craftsmen. If I could at +that moment have flown back to Fleet Street I am happy to reflect that +nobody in the world would in the least wish to interview me. I should +attract no more attention than the stone griffin opposite the Law +Courts; both monsters being grotesque but also familiar. But supposing +for the sake of argument that anybody did want to interview me, it is +fairly certain that the fact of one paper publishing such an interview +would rather prevent the other papers from doing so. The repetition of +the same views of the same individual in two places would be considered +rather bad journalism; it would have an air of stolen thunder, not to +say stage thunder.</p> + +<p>But in America the fact of my landing and lecturing was evidently +regarded in the same light as a murder or a great fire, or any other +terrible but incurable catastrophe, a matter of interest to all pressmen +concerned with practical events. One of the first questions I was asked +was how I should be disposed to explain the wave of crime in New York. +Naturally I replied that it might possibly be due to the number of +English lecturers who had recently landed. In the mood of the moment it +seemed possible that, if they had all been interviewed, regrettable +incidents might possibly have taken place. But this was only the mood of +the moment, and even as a mood did not last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> more than a moment. And +since it has reference to a rather common and a rather unjust conception +of American journalism, I think it well to take it first as a fallacy to +be refuted, though the refutation may require a rather longer approach.</p> + +<p>I have generally found that the traveller fails to understand a foreign +country, through treating it as a tendency and not as a balance. But if +a thing were always tending in one direction it would soon tend to +destruction. Everything that merely progresses finally perishes. Every +nation, like every family, exists upon a compromise, and commonly a +rather eccentric compromise; using the word 'eccentric' in the sense of +something that is somehow at once crazy and healthy. Now the foreigner +commonly sees some feature that he thinks fantastic without seeing the +feature that balances it. The ordinary examples are obvious enough. An +Englishman dining inside a hotel on the boulevards thinks the French +eccentric in refusing to open a window. But he does not think the +English eccentric in refusing to carry their chairs and tables out on to +the pavement in Ludgate Circus. An Englishman will go poking about in +little Swiss or Italian villages, in wild mountains or in remote +islands, demanding tea; and never reflects that he is like a Chinaman +who should enter all the wayside public-houses in Kent and Sussex and +demand opium. But the point is not merely that he demands what he cannot +expect to enjoy; it is that he ignores even what he does enjoy. He does +not realise the sublime and starry paradox of the phrase, <i>vin +ordinaire</i>, which to him should be a glorious jest like the phrase +'common gold' or 'daily diamonds.' These are the simple and self-evident +cases; but there are many more subtle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> cases of the same thing; of the +tendency to see that the nation fills up its own gap with its own +substitute; or corrects its own extravagance with its own precaution. +The national antidote generally grows wild in the woods side by side +with the national poison. If it did not, all the natives would be dead. +For it is so, as I have said, that nations necessarily die of the +undiluted poison called progress.</p> + +<p>It is so in this much-abused and over-abused example of the American +journalist. The American interviewers really have exceedingly good +manners for the purposes of their trade, granted that it is necessary to +pursue their trade. And even what is called their hustling method can +truly be said to cut both ways, or hustle both ways; for if they hustle +in, they also hustle out. It may not at first sight seem the very +warmest compliment to a gentleman to congratulate him on the fact that +he soon goes away. But it really is a tribute to his perfection in a +very delicate social art; and I am quite serious when I say that in this +respect the interviewers are artists. It might be more difficult for an +Englishman to come to the point, particularly the sort of point which +American journalists are supposed, with some exaggeration, to aim at. It +might be more difficult for an Englishman to ask a total stranger on the +spur of the moment for the exact inscription on his mother's grave; but +I really think that if an Englishman once got so far as that he would go +very much farther, and certainly go on very much longer. The Englishman +would approach the churchyard by a rather more wandering woodland path; +but if once he had got to the grave I think he would have much more +disposition, so to speak, to sit down on it. Our own national +temperament would find it decidedly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> more difficult to disconnect when +connections had really been established. Possibly that is the reason why +our national temperament does not establish them. I suspect that the +real reason that an Englishman does not talk is that he cannot leave off +talking. I suspect that my solitary countrymen, hiding in separate +railway compartments, are not so much retiring as a race of Trappists as +escaping from a race of talkers.</p> + +<p>However this may be, there is obviously something of practical advantage +in the ease with which the American butterfly flits from flower to +flower. He may in a sense force his acquaintance on us, but he does not +force himself on us. Even when, to our prejudices, he seems to insist on +knowing us, at least he does not insist on our knowing him. It may be, +to some sensibilities, a bad thing that a total stranger should talk as +if he were a friend, but it might possibly be worse if he insisted on +being a friend before he would talk like one. To a great deal of the +interviewing, indeed much the greater part of it, even this criticism +does not apply; there is nothing which even an Englishman of extreme +sensibility could regard as particularly private; the questions involved +are generally entirely public, and treated with not a little public +spirit. But my only reason for saying here what can be said even for the +worst exceptions is to point out this general and neglected principle; +that the very thing that we complain of in a foreigner generally carries +with it its own foreign cure. American interviewing is generally very +reasonable, and it is always very rapid. And even those to whom talking +to an intelligent fellow creature is as horrible as having a tooth out +may still admit that American<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> interviewing has many of the qualities of +American dentistry.</p> + +<p>Another effect that has given rise to this fallacy, this exaggeration of +the vulgarity and curiosity of the press, is the distinction between the +articles and the headlines; or rather the tendency to ignore that +distinction. The few really untrue and unscrupulous things I have seen +in American 'stories' have always been in the headlines. And the +headlines are written by somebody else; some solitary and savage cynic +locked up in the office, hating all mankind, and raging and revenging +himself at random, while the neat, polite, and rational pressman can +safely be let loose to wander about the town.</p> + +<p>For instance, I talked to two decidedly thoughtful fellow journalists +immediately on my arrival at a town in which there had been some labour +troubles. I told them my general view of Labour in the very largest and +perhaps the vaguest historical outline; pointing out that the one great +truth to be taught to the middle classes was that Capitalism was itself +a crisis, and a passing crisis; that it was not so much that it was +breaking down as that it had never really stood up. Slaveries could +last, and peasantries could last; but wage-earning communities could +hardly even live, and were already dying.</p> + +<p>All this moral and even metaphysical generalisation was most fairly and +most faithfully reproduced by the interviewer, who had actually heard it +casually and idly spoken. But on the top of this column of political +philosophy was the extraordinary announcement in enormous letters, +'Chesterton Takes Sides in Trolley Strike.' This was inaccurate. When I +spoke I not only did not know that there was any trolley strike,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> but I +did not know what a trolley strike was. I should have had an indistinct +idea that a large number of citizens earned their living by carrying +things about in wheel-barrows, and that they had desisted from the +beneficent activities. Any one who did not happen to be a journalist, or +know a little about journalism, American and English, would have +supposed that the same man who wrote the article had suddenly gone mad +and written the title. But I know that we have here to deal with two +different types of journalists; and the man who writes the headlines I +will not dare to describe; for I have not seen him except in dreams.</p> + +<p>Another innocent complication is that the interviewer does sometimes +translate things into his native language. It would not seem odd that a +French interviewer should translate them into French; and it is certain +that the American interviewer sometimes translates them into American. +Those who imagine the two languages to be the same are more innocent +than any interviewer. To take one out of the twenty examples, some of +which I have mentioned elsewhere, suppose an interviewer had said that I +had the reputation of being a nut. I should be flattered but faintly +surprised at such a tribute to my dress and dashing exterior. I should +afterwards be sobered and enlightened by discovering that in America a +nut does not mean a dandy but a defective or imbecile person. And as I +have here to translate their American phrase into English, it may be +very defensible that they should translate my English phrases into +American. Anyhow they often do translate them into American. In answer +to the usual question about Prohibition I had made the usual answer, +obvious to the point of dullness to those who are in daily contact with +it,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> that it is a law that the rich make knowing they can always break +it. From the printed interview it appeared that I had said, +'Prohibition! All matter of dollar sign.' This is almost avowed +translation, like a French translation. Nobody can suppose that it would +come natural to an Englishman to talk about a dollar, still less about a +dollar sign—whatever that may be. It is exactly as if he had made me +talk about the Skelt and Stevenson Toy Theatre as 'a cent plain, and two +cents coloured' or condemned a parsimonious policy as dime-wise and +dollar-foolish. Another interviewer once asked me who was the greatest +American writer. I have forgotten exactly what I said, but after +mentioning several names, I said that the greatest natural genius and +artistic force was probably Walt Whitman. The printed interview is more +precise; and students of my literary and conversational style will be +interested to know that I said, 'See here, Walt Whitman was your one +real red-blooded man.' Here again I hardly think the translation can +have been quite unconscious; most of my intimates are indeed aware that +I do not talk like that, but I fancy that the same fact would have +dawned on the journalist to whom I had been talking. And even this +trivial point carries with it the two truths which must be, I fear, the +rather monotonous moral of these pages. The first is that America and +England can be far better friends when sharply divided than when +shapelessly amalgamated. These two journalists were false reporters, but +they were true translators. They were not so much interviewers as +interpreters. And the second is that in any such difference it is often +wholesome to look beneath the surface for a superiority. For ability to +translate does imply ability to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>understand; and many of these +journalists really did understand. I think there are many English +journalists who would be more puzzled by so simple an idea as the +plutocratic foundation of Prohibition. But the American knew at once +that I meant it was a matter of dollar sign; probably because he knew +very well that it is.</p> + +<p>Then again there is a curious convention by which American interviewing +makes itself out much worse than it is. The reports are far more rowdy +and insolent than the conversations. This is probably a part of the fact +that a certain vivacity, which to some seems vitality and to some +vulgarity, is not only an ambition but an ideal. It must always be +grasped that this vulgarity is an ideal even more than it is a reality. +It is an ideal when it is not a reality. A very quiet and intelligent +young man, in a soft black hat and tortoise-shell spectacles, will ask +for an interview with unimpeachable politeness, wait for his living +subject with unimpeachable patience, talk to him quite sensibly for +twenty minutes, and go noiselessly away. Then in the newspaper next +morning you will read how he beat the bedroom door in, and pursued his +victim on to the roof or dragged him from under the bed, and tore from +him replies to all sorts of bald and ruthless questions printed in large +black letters. I was often interviewed in the evening, and had no notion +of how atrociously I had been insulted till I saw it in the paper next +morning. I had no notion I had been on the rack of an inquisitor until I +saw it in plain print; and then of course I believed it, with a faith +and docility unknown in any previous epoch of history. An interesting +essay might be written upon points upon which nations affect more vices +than they possess; and it might deal more fully with the American +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>pressman, who is a harmless clubman in private, and becomes a sort of +highway-robber in print.</p> + +<p>I have turned this chapter into something like a defence of +interviewers, because I really think they are made to bear too much of +the burden of the bad developments of modern journalism. But I am very +far from meaning to suggest that those bad developments are not very +bad. So far from wishing to minimise the evil, I would in a real sense +rather magnify it. I would suggest that the evil itself is a much larger +and more fundamental thing; and that to deal with it by abusing poor +journalists, doing their particular and perhaps peculiar duty, is like +dealing with a pestilence by rubbing at one of the spots. What is wrong +with the modern world will not be righted by attributing the whole +disease to each of its symptoms in turn; first to the tavern and then to +the cinema and then to the reporter's room. The evil of journalism is +not in the journalists. It is not in the poor men on the lower level of +the profession, but in the rich men at the top of the profession; or +rather in the rich men who are too much on top of the profession even to +belong to it. The trouble with newspapers is the Newspaper Trust, as the +trouble might be with a Wheat Trust, without involving a vilification of +all the people who grow wheat. It is the American plutocracy and not the +American press. What is the matter with the modern world is not modern +headlines or modern films or modern machinery. What is the matter with +the modern world is the modern world; and the cure will come from +another.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="Some_American_Cities" id="Some_American_Cities"></a><i>Some American Cities</i></h2> + +<p>There is one point, almost to be called a paradox, to be noted about New +York; and that is that in one sense it is really new. The term very +seldom has any relevance to the reality. The New Forest is nearly as old +as the Conquest, and the New Theology is nearly as old as the Creed. +Things have been offered to me as the new thought that might more +properly be called the old thoughtlessness; and the thing we call the +New Poor Law is already old enough to know better. But there is a sense +in which New York is always new; in the sense that it is always being +renewed. A stranger might well say that the chief industry of the +citizens consists of destroying their city; but he soon realises that +they always start it all over again with undiminished energy and hope. +At first I had a fancy that they never quite finished putting up a big +building without feeling that it was time to pull it down again; and +that somebody began to dig up the first foundations while somebody else +was putting on the last tiles. This fills the whole of this brilliant +and bewildering place with a quite unique and unparalleled air of rapid +ruin. Ruins spring up so suddenly like mushrooms, which with us are the +growth of age like mosses, that one half expects to see ivy climbing +quickly up the broken walls as in the nightmare of the Time Machine, or +in some incredibly accelerated cinema.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p><p>There is no sight in any country that raises my own spirits so much as +a scaffolding. It is a tragedy that they always take the scaffolding +away, and leave us nothing but a mere building. If they would only take +the building away and leave us a beautiful scaffolding, it would in most +cases be a gain to the loveliness of earth. If I could analyse what it +is that lifts the heart about the lightness and clarity of such a white +and wooden skeleton, I could explain what it is that is really charming +about New York; in spite of its suffering from the curse of +cosmopolitanism and even the provincial superstition of progress. It is +partly that all this destruction and reconstruction is an unexhausted +artistic energy; but it is partly also that it is an artistic energy +that does not take itself too seriously. It is first because man is here +a carpenter; and secondly because he is a stage carpenter. Indeed there +is about the whole scene the spirit of scene-shifting. It therefore +touches whatever nerve in us has since childhood thrilled at all +theatrical things. But the picture will be imperfect unless we realise +something which gives it unity and marks its chief difference from the +climate and colours of Western Europe. We may say that the back-scene +remains the same. The sky remained, and in the depths of winter it +seemed to be blue with summer; and so clear that I almost flattered +myself that clouds were English products like primroses. An American +would probably retort on my charge of scene-shifting by saying that at +least he only shifted the towers and domes of the earth; and that in +England it is the heavens that are shifty. And indeed we have changes +from day to day that would seem to him as distinct as different +magic-lantern slides; one view showing the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> Bay of Naples and the next +the North Pole. I do not mean, of course, that there are no changes in +American weather; but as a matter of proportion it is true that the most +unstable part of our scenery is the most stable part of theirs. Indeed +we might almost be pardoned the boast that Britain alone really +possesses the noble thing called weather; most other countries having to +be content with climate. It must be confessed, however, that they often +are content with it. And the beauty of New York, which is considerable, +is very largely due to the clarity that brings out the colours of varied +buildings against the equal colour of the sky. Strangely enough I found +myself repeating about this vista of the West two vivid lines in which +Mr. W. B. Yeats has called up a vision of the East:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>And coloured like the eastern birds</div> +<div>At evening in their rainless skies.</div> +</div></div> + +<p>To invoke a somewhat less poetic parallel, even the untravelled +Englishman has probably seen American posters and trade advertisements +of a patchy and gaudy kind, in which a white house or a yellow motor-car +are cut out as in cardboard against a sky like blue marble. I used to +think it was only New Art, but I found that it is really New York.</p> + +<p>It is not for nothing that the very nature of local character has gained +the nickname of local colour. Colour runs through all our experience; +and we all know that our childhood found talismanic gems in the very +paints in the paint-box, or even in their very names. And just as the +very name of 'crimson lake' really suggested to me some sanguine and +mysterious mere, dark yet red as blood, so the very name of 'burnt +sienna' became afterwards tangled up in my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> mind with the notion of +something traditional and tragic; as if some such golden Italian city +had really been darkened by many conflagrations in the wars of mediaeval +democracy. Now if one had the caprice of conceiving some city exactly +contrary to one thus seared and seasoned by fire, its colour might be +called up to a childish fancy by the mere name of 'raw umber'; and such +a city is New York. I used to be puzzled by the name of 'raw umber,' +being unable to imagine the effect of fried umber or stewed umber. But +the colours of New York are exactly in that key; and might be adumbrated +by phrases like raw pink or raw yellow. It is really in a sense like +something uncooked; or something which the satiric would call +half-baked. And yet the effect is not only beautiful, it is even +delicate. I had no name for this nuance; until I saw that somebody had +written of 'the pastel-tinted towers of New York'; and I knew that the +name had been found. There are no paints dry enough to describe all that +dry light; and it is not a box of colours but of crayons. If the +Englishman returning to England is moved at the sight of a block of +white chalk, the American sees rather a bundle of chalks. Nor can I +imagine anything more moving. Fairy tales are told to children about a +country where the trees are like sugar-sticks and the lakes like +treacle, but most children would feel almost as greedy for a fairyland +where the trees were like brushes of green paint and the hills were of +coloured chalks.</p> + +<p>But here what accentuates this arid freshness is the fragmentary look of +the continual reconstruction and change. The strong daylight finds +everywhere the broken edges of things, and the sort of hues we see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> in +newly-turned earth or the white sections of trees. And it is in this +respect that the local colour can literally be taken as local character. +For New York considered in itself is primarily a place of unrest, and +those who sincerely love it, as many do, love it for the romance of its +restlessness. A man almost looks at a building as he passes to wonder +whether it will be there when he comes back from his walk; and the doubt +is part of an indescribable notion, as of a white nightmare of daylight, +which is increased by the very numbering of the streets, with its tangle +of numerals which at first makes an English head reel. The detail is +merely a symbol; and when he is used to it he can see that it is, like +the most humdrum human customs, both worse and better than his own. '271 +West 52nd Street' is the easiest of all addresses to find, but the +hardest of all addresses to remember. He who is, like myself, so +constituted as necessarily to lose any piece of paper he has particular +reason to preserve, will find himself wishing the place were called +'Pine Crest' or 'Heather Crag' like any unobtrusive villa in Streatham. +But his sense of some sort of incalculable calculations, as of the +vision of a mad mathematician, is rooted in a more real impression. His +first feeling that his head is turning round is due to something really +dizzy in the movement of a life that turns dizzily like a wheel. If +there be in the modern mind something paradoxical that can find peace in +change, it is here that it has indeed built its habitation or rather is +still building and unbuilding it. One might fancy that it changes in +everything and that nothing endures but its invisible name; and even its +name, as I have said, seems to make a boast of novelty.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p><p>That is something like a sincere first impression of the atmosphere of +New York. Those who think that is the atmosphere of America have never +got any farther than New York. We might almost say that they have never +entered America, any more than if they had been detained like +undesirable aliens at Ellis Island. And indeed there are a good many +undesirable aliens detained in Manhattan Island too. But of that I will +not speak, being myself an alien with no particular pretensions to be +desirable. Anyhow, such is New York; but such is not the New World. The +great American Republic contains very considerable varieties, and of +these varieties I necessarily saw far too little to allow me to +generalise. But from the little I did see, I should venture on the +generalisation that the great part of America is singularly and even +strikingly unlike New York. It goes without saying that New York is very +unlike the vast agricultural plains and small agricultural towns of the +Middle West, which I did see. It may be conjectured with some confidence +that it is very unlike what is called the Wild and sometimes the Woolly +West, which I did not see. But I am here comparing New York, not with +the newer states of the prairie or the mountains, but with the other +older cities of the Atlantic coast. And New York, as it seems to me, is +quite vitally different from the other historic cities of America. It is +so different that it shows them all for the moment in a false light, as +a long white searchlight will throw a light that is fantastic and +theatrical upon ancient and quiet villages folded in the everlasting +hills. Philadelphia and Boston and Baltimore are more like those quiet +villages than they are like New York.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p><p>If I were to call this book 'The Antiquities of America,' I should give +rise to misunderstanding and possibly to annoyance. And yet the double +sense in such words is an undeserved misfortune for them. We talk of +Plato or the Parthenon or the Greek passion for beauty as parts of the +antique, but hardly of the antiquated. When we call them ancient it is +not because they have perished, but rather because they have survived. +In the same way I heard some New Yorkers refer to Philadelphia or +Baltimore as 'dead towns.' They mean by a dead town a town that has had +the impudence not to die. Such people are astonished to find an ancient +thing alive, just as they are now astonished, and will be increasingly +astonished, to find Poland or the Papacy or the French nation still +alive. And what I mean by Philadelphia and Baltimore being alive is +precisely what these people mean by their being dead; it is continuity; +it is the presence of the life first breathed into them and of the +purpose of their being; it is the benediction of the founders of the +colonies and the fathers of the republic. This tradition is truly to be +called life; for life alone can link the past and the future. It merely +means that as what was done yesterday makes some difference to-day, so +what is done to-day will make some difference to-morrow. In New York it +is difficult to feel that any day will make any difference. These +moderns only die daily without power to rise from the dead. But I can +truly claim that in coming into some of these more stable cities of the +States I felt something quite sincerely of that historic emotion which +is satisfied in the eternal cities of the Mediterranean. I felt in +America what many Americans suppose can only be felt in Europe. I have +seldom had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> that sentiment stirred more simply and directly than when I +saw from afar off, above the vast grey labyrinth of Philadelphia, great +Penn upon his pinnacle like the graven figure of a god who had fashioned +a new world; and remembered that his body lay buried in a field at the +turning of a lane, a league from my own door.</p> + +<p>For this aspect of America is rather neglected in the talk about +electricity and headlines. Needless to say, the modern vulgarity of +avarice and advertisement sprawls all over Philadelphia or Boston; but +so it does over Winchester or Canterbury. But most people know that +there is something else to be found in Canterbury or Winchester; many +people know that it is rather more interesting; and some people know +that Alfred can still walk in Winchester and that St. Thomas at +Canterbury was killed but did not die. It is at least as possible for a +Philadelphian to feel the presence of Penn and Franklin as for an +Englishman to see the ghosts of Alfred and of Becket. Tradition does not +mean a dead town; it does not mean that the living are dead but that the +dead are alive. It means that it still matters what Penn did two hundred +years ago or what Franklin did a hundred years ago; I never could feel +in New York that it mattered what anybody did an hour ago. And these +things did and do matter. Quakerism is not my favourite creed; but on +that day when William Penn stood unarmed upon that spot and made his +treaty with the Red Indians, his creed of humanity did have a triumph +and a triumph that has not turned back. The praise given to him is not a +priggish fiction of our conventional history, though such fictions have +illogically curtailed it. The Nonconformists have been rather unfair to +Penn even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> in picking their praises; and they generally forget that +toleration cuts both ways and that an open mind is open on all sides. +Those who deify him for consenting to bargain with the savages cannot +forgive him for consenting to bargain with the Stuarts. And the same is +true of the other city, yet more closely connected with the tolerant +experiment of the Stuarts. The state of Maryland was the first +experiment in religious freedom in human history. Lord Baltimore and his +Catholics were a long march ahead of William Penn and his Quakers on +what is now called the path of progress. That the first religious +toleration ever granted in the world was granted by Roman Catholics is +one of those little informing details with which our Victorian histories +did not exactly teem. But when I went into my hotel at Baltimore and +found two priests waiting to see me, I was moved in a new fashion, for I +felt that I touched the end of a living chain. Nor was the impression +accidental; it will always remain with me with a mixture of gratitude +and grief, for they brought a message of welcome from a great American +whose name I had known from childhood and whose career was drawing to +its close; for it was but a few days after I left the city that I +learned that Cardinal Gibbons was dead.</p> + +<p>On the top of a hill on one side of the town stood the first monument +raised after the Revolution to Washington. Beyond it was a new monument +saluting in the name of Lafayette the American soldiers who fell +fighting in France in the Great War. Between them were steps and stone +seats, and I sat down on one of them and talked to two children who were +clambering about the bases of the monument. I felt a profound and +radiant peace in the thought that they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> at any rate were not going to my +lecture. It made me happy that in that talk neither they nor I had any +names. I was full of that indescribable waking vision of the strangeness +of life, and especially of the strangeness of locality; of how we find +places and lose them; and see faces for a moment in a far-off land, and +it is equally mysterious if we remember and mysterious if we forget. I +had even stirring in my head the suggestion of some verses that I shall +never finish—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>If I ever go back to Baltimore</div> +<div>The city of Maryland.</div> +</div></div> + +<p>But the poem would have to contain far too much; for I was thinking of a +thousand things at once; and wondering what the children would be like +twenty years after and whether they would travel in white goods or be +interested in oil, and I was not untouched (it may be said) by the fact +that a neighbouring shop had provided the only sample of the substance +called 'tea' ever found on the American continent; and in front of me +soared up into the sky on wings of stone the column of all those high +hopes of humanity a hundred years ago; and beyond there were lighted +candles in the chapels and prayers in the ante-chambers, where perhaps +already a Prince of the Church was dying. Only on a later page can I +even attempt to comb out such a tangle of contrasts, which is indeed the +tangle of America and this mortal life; but sitting there on that stone +seat under that quiet sky, I had some experience of the thronging +thousands of living thoughts and things, noisy and numberless as birds, +that give its everlasting vivacity and vitality to a dead town.</p> + +<p>Two other cities I visited which have this particular<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> type of +traditional character, the one being typical of the North and the other +of the South. At least I may take as convenient anti-types the towns of +Boston and St. Louis; and we might add Nashville as being a shade more +truly southern than St. Louis. To the extreme South, in the sense of +what is called the Black Belt, I never went at all. Now English +travellers expect the South to be somewhat traditional; but they are not +prepared for the aspects of Boston in the North which are even more so. +If we wished only for an antic of antithesis, we might say that on one +side the places are more prosaic than the names and on the other the +names are more prosaic than the places. St. Louis is a fine town, and we +recognise a fine instinct of the imagination that set on the hill +overlooking the river the statue of that holy horseman who has +christened the city. But the city is not as beautiful as its name; it +could not be. Indeed these titles set up a standard to which the most +splendid spires and turrets could not rise, and below which the +commercial chimneys and sky-signs conspicuously sink. We should think it +odd if Belfast had borne the name of Joan of Arc. We should be slightly +shocked if the town of Johannesburg happened to be called Jesus Christ. +But few have noted a blasphemy, or even a somewhat challenging +benediction, to be found in the very name of San Francisco.</p> + +<p>But on the other hand a place like Boston is much more beautiful than +its name. And, as I have suggested, an Englishman's general information, +or lack of information, leaves him in some ignorance of the type of +beauty that turns up in that type of place. He has heard so much about +the purely commercial<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> North as against the agricultural and +aristocratic South, and the traditions of Boston and Philadelphia are +rather too tenuous and delicate to be seen from across the Atlantic. But +here also there are traditions and a great deal of traditionalism. The +circle of old families, which still meets with a certain exclusiveness +in Philadelphia, is the sort of thing that we in England should expect +to find rather in New Orleans. The academic aristocracy of Boston, which +Oliver Wendell Holmes called the Brahmins, is still a reality though it +was always a minority and is now a very small minority. An epigram, +invented by Yale at the expense of Harvard, describes it as very small +indeed:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>Here is to jolly old Boston, the home of the bean and the cod,</div> +<div>Where Cabots speak only to Lowells, and Lowells speak only to God.</div> +</div></div> + +<p>But an aristocracy must be a minority, and it is arguable that the +smaller it is the better. I am bound to say, however, that the +distinguished Dr. Cabot, the present representative of the family, broke +through any taboo that may tie his affections to his Creator and to Miss +Amy Lowell, and broadened his sympathies so indiscriminately as to show +kindness and hospitality to so lost a being as an English lecturer. But +if the thing is hardly a limit it is very living as a memory; and Boston +on this side is very much a place of memories. It would be paying it a +very poor compliment merely to say that parts of it reminded me of +England; for indeed they reminded me of English things that have largely +vanished from England. There are old brown houses in the corners of +squares and streets that are like glimpses of a man's forgotten +childhood; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> when I saw the long path with posts where the Autocrat +may be supposed to have walked with the schoolmistress, I felt I had +come to the land where old tales come true.</p> + +<p>I pause in this place upon this particular aspect of America because it +is very much missed in a mere contrast with England. I need not say that +if I felt it even about slight figures of fiction, I felt it even more +about solid figures of history. Such ghosts seemed particularly solid in +the Southern States, precisely because of the comparative quietude and +leisure of the atmosphere of the South. It was never more vivid to me +than when coming in, at a quiet hour of the night, into the +comparatively quiet hotel at Nashville in Tennessee, and mounting to a +dim and deserted upper floor where I found myself before a faded +picture; and from the dark canvas looked forth the face of Andrew +Jackson, watchful like a white eagle.</p> + +<p>At that moment, perhaps, I was in more than one sense alone. Most +Englishmen know a good deal of American fiction, and nothing whatever of +American history. They know more about the autocrat of the +breakfast-table than about the autocrat of the army and the people, the +one great democratic despot of modern times; the Napoleon of the New +World. The only notion the English public ever got about American +politics they got from a novel, <i>Uncle Tom's Cabin</i>; and to say the +least of it, it was no exception to the prevalence of fiction over fact. +Hundreds of us have heard of Tom Sawyer for one who has heard of Charles +Sumner; and it is probable that most of us could pass a more detailed +examination about Toddy and Budge than about Lincoln and Lee. But in +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> case of Andrew Jackson it may be that I felt a special sense of +individual isolation; for I believe that there are even fewer among +Englishmen than among Americans who realise that the energy of that +great man was largely directed towards saving us from the chief evil +which destroys the nations to-day. He sought to cut down, as with a +sword of simplicity, the new and nameless enormity of finance; and he +must have known, as by a lightning flash, that the people were behind +him, because all the politicians were against him. The end of that +struggle is not yet; but if the bank is stronger than the sword or the +sceptre of popular sovereignty, the end will be the end of democracy. It +will have to choose between accepting an acknowledged dictator and +accepting dictation which it dare not acknowledge. The process will have +begun by giving power to people and refusing to give them their titles; +and it will have ended by giving the power to people who refuse to give +us their names.</p> + +<p>But I have a special reason for ending this chapter on the name of the +great popular dictator who made war on the politicians and the +financiers. This chapter does not profess to touch on one in twenty of +the interesting cities of America, even in this particular aspect of +their relation to the history of America, which is so much neglected in +England. If that were so, there would be a great deal to say even about +the newest of them; Chicago, for instance, is certainly something more +than the mere pork-packing yard that English tradition suggests; and it +has been building a boulevard not unworthy of its splendid position on +its splendid lake. But all these cities are defiled and even diseased +with industrialism. It is due to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> Americans to remember that they +have deliberately preserved one of their cities from such defilement and +such disease. And that is the presidential city, which stands in the +American mind for the same ideal as the President; the idea of the +Republic that rises above modern money-getting and endures. There has +really been an effort to keep the White House white. No factories are +allowed in that town; no more than the necessary shops are tolerated. It +is a beautiful city; and really retains something of that classical +serenity of the eighteenth century in which the Fathers of the Republic +moved. With all respect to the colonial place of that name, I do not +suppose that Wellington is particularly like Wellington. But Washington +really is like Washington.</p> + +<p>In this, as in so many things, there is no harm in our criticising +foreigners, if only we would also criticise ourselves. In other words, +the world might need even less of its new charity, if it had a little +more of the old humility. When we complain of American individualism, we +forget that we have fostered it by ourselves having far less of this +impersonal ideal of the Republic or commonwealth as a whole. When we +complain, very justly, for instance, of great pictures passing into the +possession of American magnates, we ought to remember that we paved the +way for it by allowing them all to accumulate in the possession of +English magnates. It is bad that a public treasure should be in the +possession of a private man in America, but we took the first step in +lightly letting it disappear into the private collection of a man in +England. I know all about the genuine national tradition which treated +the aristocracy as constituting the state; but these very foreign +purchases go to prove that we ought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> to have had a state independent of +the aristocracy. It is true that rich Americans do sometimes covet the +monuments of our culture in a fashion that rightly revolts us as vulgar +and irrational. They are said sometimes to want to take whole buildings +away with them; and too many of such buildings are private and for sale. +There were wilder stories of a millionaire wishing to transplant +Glastonbury Abbey and similar buildings as if they were portable shrubs +in pots. It is obvious that it is nonsense as well as vandalism to +separate Glastonbury Abbey from Glastonbury. I can understand a man +venerating it as a ruin; and I can understand a man despising it as a +rubbish-heap. But it is senseless to insult a thing in order to +idolatrise it; it is meaningless to desecrate the shrine in order to +worship the stones. That sort of thing is the bad side of American +appetite and ambition; and we are perfectly right to see it not only as +a deliberate blasphemy but as an unconscious buffoonery. But there is +another side to the American tradition, which is really too much lacking +in our own tradition. And it is illustrated in this idea of preserving +Washington as a sort of paradise of impersonal politics without personal +commerce. Nobody could buy the White House or the Washington Monument; +it may be hinted (as by an inhabitant of Glastonbury) that nobody wants +to; but nobody could if he did want to. There is really a certain air of +serenity and security about the place, lacking in every other American +town. It is increased, of course, by the clear blue skies of that +half-southern province, from which smoke has been banished. The effect +is not so much in the mere buildings, though they are classical and +often beautiful. But whatever else they have built, they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> have built a +great blue dome, the largest dome in the world. And the place does +express something in the inconsistent idealism of this strange people; +and here at least they have lifted it higher than all the sky-scrapers, +and set it in a stainless sky.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="In_the_American_Country" id="In_the_American_Country"></a><i>In the American Country</i></h2> + +<p>The sharpest pleasure of a traveller is in finding the things which he +did not expect, but which he might have expected to expect. I mean the +things that are at once so strange and so obvious that they must have +been noticed, yet somehow they have not been noted. Thus I had heard a +thousand things about Jerusalem before I ever saw it; I had heard +rhapsodies and disparagements of every description. Modern rationalistic +critics, with characteristic consistency, had blamed it for its +accumulated rubbish and its modern restoration, for its antiquated +superstition and its up-to-date vulgarity. But somehow the one +impression that had never pierced through their description was the +simple and single impression of a city on a hill, with walls coming to +the very edge of slopes that were almost as steep as walls; the turreted +city which crowns a cone-shaped hill in so many mediaeval landscapes. +One would suppose that this was at once the plainest and most +picturesque of all the facts; yet somehow, in my reading, I had always +lost it amid a mass of minor facts that were merely details. We know +that a city that is set upon a hill cannot be hid; and yet it would seem +that it is exactly the hill that is hid; though perhaps it is only hid +from the wise and the understanding. I had a similar and simple +impression when I discovered America. I cannot avoid the phrase; for it +would really seem that each man discovers it for himself.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p><p>Thus I had heard a great deal, before I saw them, about the tall and +dominant buildings of New York. I agree that they have an instant effect +on the imagination; which I think is increased by the situation in which +they stand, and out of which they arose. They are all the more +impressive because the building, while it is vertically so vast, is +horizontally almost narrow. New York is an island, and has all the +intensive romance of an island. It is a thing of almost infinite height +upon very finite foundations. It is almost like a lofty lighthouse upon +a lonely rock. But this story of the sky-scrapers, which I had often +heard, would by itself give a curiously false impression of the freshest +and most curious characteristic of American architecture. Told only in +terms of these great towers of stone and brick in the big industrial +cities, the story would tend too much to an impression of something cold +and colossal like the monuments of Asia. It would suggest a modern +Babylon altogether too Babylonian. It would imply that a man of the new +world was a sort of new Pharaoh, who built not so much a pyramid as a +pagoda of pyramids. It would suggest houses built by mammoths out of +mountains; the cities reared by elephants in their own elephantine +school of architecture. And New York does recall the most famous of all +sky-scrapers—the tower of Babel. She recalls it none the less because +there is no doubt about the confusion of tongues. But in truth the very +reverse is true of most of the buildings in America. I had no sooner +passed out into the suburbs of New York on the way to Boston than I +began to see something else quite contrary and far more curious. I saw +forests upon forests of small houses stretching away to the horizon as +literal forests do; villages and towns<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> and cities. And they were, in +another sense, literally like forests. They were all made of wood. It +was almost as fantastic to an English eye as if they had been all made +of cardboard. I had long outlived the silly old joke that referred to +Americans as if they all lived in the backwoods. But, in a sense, if +they do not live in the woods, they are not yet out of the wood.</p> + +<p>I do not say this in any sense as a criticism. As it happens, I am +particularly fond of wood. Of all the superstitions which our fathers +took lightly enough to love, the most natural seems to me the notion it +is lucky to touch wood. Some of them affect me the less as +superstitions, because I feel them as symbols. If humanity had really +thought Friday unlucky it would have talked about bad Friday instead of +good Friday. And while I feel the thrill of thirteen at a table, I am +not so sure that it is the most miserable of all human fates to fill the +places of the Twelve Apostles. But the idea that there was something +cleansing or wholesome about the touching of wood seems to me one of +those ideas which are truly popular, because they are truly poetic. It +is probable enough that the conception came originally from the healing +of the wood of the Cross; but that only clinches the divine coincidence. +It is like that other divine coincidence that the Victim was a +carpenter, who might almost have made His own cross. Whether we take the +mystical or the mythical explanation, there is obviously a very deep +connection between the human working in wood and such plain and pathetic +mysticism. It gives something like a touch of the holy childishness to +the tale, as if that terrible engine could be a toy. In the same fashion +a child fancies that mysterious and sinister horse, which was the +downfall of Troy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> as something plain and staring, and perhaps spotted, +like his own rocking-horse in the nursery.</p> + +<p>It might be said symbolically that Americans have a taste for +rocking-horses, as they certainly have a taste for rocking-chairs. A +flippant critic might suggest that they select rocking-chairs so that, +even when they are sitting down, they need not be sitting still. +Something of this restlessness in the race may really be involved in the +matter; but I think the deeper significance of the rocking-chair may +still be found in the deeper symbolism of the rocking-horse. I think +there is behind all this fresh and facile use of wood a certain spirit +that is childish in the good sense of the word; something that is +innocent, and easily pleased. It is not altogether untrue, still less is +it unfriendly, to say that the landscape seems to be dotted with dolls' +houses. It is the true tragedy of every fallen son of Adam that he has +grown too big to live in a doll's house. These things seem somehow to +escape the irony of time by not even challenging it; they are too +temporary even to be merely temporal. These people are not building +tombs; they are not, as in the fine image of Mrs. Meynell's poem, merely +building ruins. It is not easy to imagine the ruins of a doll's house; +and that is why a doll's house is an everlasting habitation. How far it +promises a political permanence is a matter for further discussion; I am +only describing the mood of discovery; in which all these cottages built +of lath, like the palaces of a pantomime, really seemed coloured like +the clouds of morning; which are both fugitive and eternal.</p> + +<p>There is also in all this an atmosphere that comes in another sense from +the nursery. We hear much of Americans being educated on English +literature; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> I think few Americans realise how much English children +have been educated on American literature. It is true, and it is +inevitable, that they can only be educated on rather old-fashioned +American literature. Mr. Bernard Shaw, in one of his plays, noted truly +the limitations of the young American millionaire, and especially the +staleness of his English culture; but there is necessarily another side +to it. If the American talked more of Macaulay than of Nietzsche, we +should probably talk more of Emerson than of Ezra Pound. Whether this +staleness is necessarily a disadvantage is, of course, a different +question. But, in any case, it is true that the old American books were +often the books of our childhood, even in the literal sense of the books +of our nursery. I know few men in England who have not left their +boyhood to some extent lost and entangled in the forests of <i>Huckleberry +Finn</i>. I know few women in England, from the most revolutionary +Suffragette to the most carefully preserved Early Victorian, who will +not confess to having passed a happy childhood with the Little Women of +Miss Alcott. <i>Helen's Babies</i> was the first and by far the best book in +the modern scriptures of baby-worship. And about all this old-fashioned +American literature there was an undefinable savour that satisfied, and +even fed, our growing minds. Perhaps it was the smell of growing things; +but I am far from certain that it was not simply the smell of wood. Now +that all the memory comes back to me, it seems to come back heavy in a +hundred forms with the fragrance and the touch of timber. There was the +perpetual reference to the wood-pile, the perpetual background of the +woods. There was something crude and clean about everything; something +fresh and strange about those <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>far-off houses, to which I could not then +have put a name. Indeed, many things become clear in this wilderness of +wood, which could only be expressed in symbol and even in fantasy. I +will not go so far as to say that it shortened the transition from Log +Cabin to White House; as if the White House were itself made of white +wood (as Oliver Wendell Holmes said), 'that cuts like cheese, but lasts +like iron for things like these.' But I will say that the experience +illuminates some other lines by Holmes himself:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>Little I ask, my wants are few,</div> +<div>I only ask a hut of stone.</div> +</div></div> + +<p>I should not have known, in England, that he was already asking for a +good deal even in asking for that. In the presence of this wooden world +the very combination of words seems almost a contradiction, like a hut +of marble, or a hovel of gold.</p> + +<p>It was therefore with an almost infantile pleasure that I looked at all +this promising expansion of fresh-cut timber and thought of the housing +shortage at home. I know not by what incongruous movement of the mind +there swept across me, at the same moment, the thought of things +ancestral and hoary with the light of ancient dawns. The last war +brought back body-armour; the next war may bring back bows and arrows. +And I suddenly had a memory of old wooden houses in London; and a model +of Shakespeare's town.</p> + +<p>It is possible indeed that such Elizabethan memories may receive a check +or a chill when the traveller comes, as he sometimes does, to the +outskirts of one of these strange hamlets of new frame-houses, and is +confronted with a placard inscribed in enormous letters, 'Watch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> Us +Grow.' He can always imagine that he sees the timbers swelling before +his eyes like pumpkins in some super-tropical summer. But he may have +formed the conviction that no such proclamation could be found outside +Shakespeare's town. And indeed there is a serious criticism here, to any +one who knows history; since the things that grow are not always the +things that remain; and pumpkins of that expansiveness have a tendency +to burst. I was always told that Americans were harsh, hustling, rather +rude and perhaps vulgar; but they were very practical and the future +belonged to them. I confess I felt a fine shade of difference; I liked +the Americans; I thought they were sympathetic, imaginative, and full of +fine enthusiasms; the one thing I could not always feel clear about was +their future. I believe they were happier in their frame-houses than +most people in most houses; having democracy, good education, and a +hobby of work; the one doubt that did float across me was something +like, 'Will all this be here at all in two hundred years?' That was the +first impression produced by the wooden houses that seemed like the +waggons of gipsies; it is a serious impression, but there is an answer +to it. It is an answer that opens on the traveller more and more as he +goes westward, and finds the little towns dotted about the vast central +prairies. And the answer is agriculture. Wooden houses may or may not +last; but farms will last; and farming will always last.</p> + +<p>The houses may look like gipsy caravans on a heath or common; but they +are not on a heath or common. They are on the most productive and +prosperous land, perhaps, in the modern world. The houses might fall +down like shanties, but the fields would remain; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> whoever tills +those fields will count for a great deal in the affairs of humanity. +They are already counting for a great deal, and possibly for too much, +in the affairs of America. The real criticism of the Middle West is +concerned with two facts, neither of which has been yet adequately +appreciated by the educated class in England. The first is that the turn +of the world has come, and the turn of the agricultural countries with +it. That is the meaning of the resurrection of Ireland; that is the +meaning of the practical surrender of the Bolshevist Jews to the Russian +peasants. The other is that in most places these peasant societies carry +on what may be called the Catholic tradition. The Middle West is perhaps +the one considerable place where they still carry on the Puritan +tradition. But the Puritan tradition was originally a tradition of the +town; and the second truth about the Middle West turns largely on its +moral relation to the town. As I shall suggest presently, there is much +in common between this agricultural society of America and the great +agricultural societies of Europe. It tends, as the agricultural society +nearly always does, to some decent degree of democracy. The agricultural +society tends to the agrarian law. But in Puritan America there is an +additional problem, which I can hardly explain without a periphrasis.</p> + +<p>There was a time when the progress of the cities seemed to mock the +decay of the country. It is more and more true, I think, to-day that it +is rather the decay of the cities that seems to poison the progress and +promise of the countryside. The cinema boasts of being a substitute for +the tavern, but I think it a very bad substitute. I think so quite apart +from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> question about fermented liquor. Nobody enjoys cinemas more +than I, but to enjoy them a man has only to look and not even to listen, +and in a tavern he has to talk. Occasionally, I admit, he has to fight; +but he need never move at the movies. Thus in the real village inn are +the real village politics, while in the other are only the remote and +unreal metropolitan politics. And those central city politics are not +only cosmopolitan politics but corrupt politics. They corrupt everything +that they reach, and this is the real point about many perplexing +questions.</p> + +<p>For instance, so far as I am concerned, it is the whole point about +feminism and the factory. It is very largely the point about feminism +and many other callings, apparently more cultured than the factory, such +as the law court and the political platform. When I see women so wildly +anxious to tie themselves to all this machinery of the modern city my +first feeling is not indignation, but that dark and ominous sort of pity +with which we should see a crowd rushing to embark in a leaking ship +under a lowering storm. When I see wives and mothers going in for +business government I not only regard it as a bad business but as a +bankrupt business. It seems to me very much as if the peasant women, +just before the French Revolution, had insisted on being made duchesses +or (as is quite as logical and likely) on being made dukes.</p> + +<p>It is as if those ragged women, instead of crying out for bread, had +cried out for powder and patches. By the time they were wearing them +they would be the only people wearing them. For powder and patches soon +went out of fashion, but bread does not go out of fashion. In the same +way, if women desert the family for the factory, they may find they have +only done it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> for a deserted factory. It would have been very unwise of +the lower orders to claim all the privileges of the higher orders in the +last days of the French monarchy. It would have been very laborious to +learn the science of heraldry or the tables of precedence when all such +things were at once most complicated and most moribund. It would be +tiresome to be taught all those tricks just when the whole bag of tricks +was coming to an end. A French satirist might have written a fine +apologue about Jacques Bonhomme coming up to Paris in his wooden shoes +and demanding to be made Gold Stick in Waiting in the name of Liberty, +Equality, and Fraternity; but I fear the stick in waiting would be +waiting still.</p> + +<p>One of the first topics on which I heard conversation turning in America +was that of a very interesting book called <i>Main Street</i>, which involves +many of these questions of the modern industrial and the eternal +feminine. It is simply the story, or perhaps rather the study than the +story, of a young married woman in one of the multitudinous little towns +on the great central plains of America; and of a sort of struggle +between her own more restless culture and the provincial prosperity of +her neighbours. There are a number of true and telling suggestions in +the book, but the one touch which I found tingling in the memory of many +readers was the last sentence, in which the master of the house, with +unshaken simplicity, merely asks for the whereabouts of some domestic +implement; I think it was a screw-driver. It seems to me a harmless +request, but from the way people talked about it one might suppose he +had asked for a screw-driver to screw down the wife in her coffin. And a +great many advanced persons would tell us that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> wooden house in which +she lived really was like a wooden coffin. But this appears to me to be +taking a somewhat funereal view of the life of humanity.</p> + +<p>For, after all, on the face of it at any rate, this is merely the life +of humanity, and even the life which all humanitarians have striven to +give to humanity. Revolutionists have treated it not only as the normal +but even as the ideal. Revolutionary wars have been waged to establish +this; revolutionary heroes have fought, and revolutionary martyrs have +died, only to build such a wooden house for such a worthy family. Men +have taken the sword and perished by the sword in order that the poor +gentleman might have liberty to look for his screw-driver. For there is +here a fact about America that is almost entirely unknown in England. +The English have not in the least realised the real strength of America. +We in England hear a great deal, we hear far too much, about the +economic energy of industrial America, about the money of Mr. Morgan, or +the machinery of Mr. Edison. We never realise that while we in England +suffer from the same sort of successes in capitalism and clockwork, we +have not got what the Americans have got; something at least to balance +it in the way of a free agriculture, a vast field of free farms dotted +with small freeholders. For the reason I shall mention in a moment, they +are not perhaps in the fullest and finest sense a peasantry. But they +are in the practical and political sense a pure peasantry, in that their +comparative equality is a true counterweight to the toppling injustice +of the towns.</p> + +<p>And, even in places like that described as Main Street, that comparative +equality can immediately be felt. The men may be provincials, but they +are certainly citizens; they consult on a common basis. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> I repeat +that in this, after all, they do achieve what many prophets and +righteous men have died to achieve. This plain village, fairly +prosperous, fairly equal, untaxed by tyrants and untroubled by wars, is +after all the place which reformers have regarded as their aim; whenever +reformers have used their wits sufficiently to have any aim. The march +to Utopia, the march to the Earthly Paradise, the march to the New +Jerusalem, has been very largely the march to Main Street. And the +latest modern sensation is a book written to show how wretched it is to +live there.</p> + +<p>All this is true, and I think the lady might be more contented in her +coffin, which is more comfortably furnished than most of the coffins +where her fellow creatures live. Nevertheless, there is an answer to +this, or at least a modification of it. There is a case for the lady and +a case against the gentleman and the screw-driver. And when we have +noted what it really is, we have noted the real disadvantage in a +situation like that of modern America, and especially the Middle West. +And with that we come back to the truth with which I started this +speculation; the truth that few have yet realised, but of which I, for +one, am more and more convinced—that industrialism is spreading because +it is decaying; that only the dust and ashes of its dissolution are +choking up the growth of natural things everywhere and turning the green +world grey.</p> + +<p>In this relative agricultural equality the Americans of the Middle West +are far in advance of the English of the twentieth century. It is not +their fault if they are still some centuries behind the English of the +twelfth century. But the defect by which they fall short of being a true +peasantry is that they do not produce<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> their own spiritual food, in the +same sense as their own material food. They do not, like some +peasantries, create other kinds of culture besides the kind called +agriculture. Their culture comes from the great cities; and that is +where all the evil comes from.</p> + +<p>If a man had gone across England in the Middle Ages, or even across +Europe in more recent times, he would have found a culture which showed +its vitality by its variety. We know the adventures of the three +brothers in the old fairy tales who passed across the endless plain from +city to city, and found one kingdom ruled by a wizard and another wasted +by a dragon, one people living in castles of crystal and another sitting +by fountains of wine. These are but legendary enlargements of the real +adventures of a traveller passing from one patch of peasantry to +another, and finding women wearing strange head-dresses and men singing +new songs.</p> + +<p>A traveller in America would be somewhat surprised if he found the +people in the city of St. Louis all wearing crowns and crusading armour +in honour of their patron saint. He might even feel some faint surprise +if he found all the citizens of Philadelphia clad in a composite +costume, combining that of a Quaker with that of a Red Indian, in honour +of the noble treaty of William Penn. Yet these are the sort of local and +traditional things that would really be found giving variety to the +valleys of mediaeval Europe. I myself felt a perfectly genuine and +generous exhilaration of freedom and fresh enterprise in new places like +Oklahoma. But you would hardly find in Oklahoma what was found in +Oberammergau. What goes to Oklahoma is not the peasant play, but the +cinema. And the objection to the cinema is not so much that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> it goes to +Oklahoma as that it does not come from Oklahoma. In other words, these +people have on the economic side a much closer approach than we have to +economic freedom. It is not for us, who have allowed our land to be +stolen by squires and then vulgarised by sham squires, to sneer at such +colonists as merely crude and prosaic. They at least have really kept +something of the simplicity and, therefore, the dignity of democracy; +and that democracy may yet save their country even from the calamities +of wealth and science.</p> + +<p>But, while these farmers do not need to become industrial in order to +become industrious, they do tend to become industrial in so far as they +become intellectual. Their culture, and to some great extent their +creed, do come along the railroads from the great modern urban centres, +and bring with them a blast of death and a reek of rotting things. It is +that influence that alone prevents the Middle West from progressing +towards the Middle Ages.</p> + +<p>For, after all, linked up in a hundred legends of the Middle Ages, may +be found a symbolic pattern of hammers and nails and saws; and there is +no reason why they should not have also sanctified screw-drivers. There +is no reason why the screw-driver that seemed such a trifle to the +author should not have been borne in triumph down Main Street like a +sword of state, in some pageant of the Guild of St. Joseph of the +Carpenters or St. Dunstan of the Smiths. It was the Catholic poetry and +piety that filled common life with something that is lacking in the +worthy and virile democracy of the West. Nor are Americans of +intelligence so ignorant of this as some may suppose. There is an +admirable society called the Mediaevalists in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> Chicago; whose name and +address will strike many as suggesting a certain struggle of the soul +against the environment. With the national heartiness they blazon their +note-paper with heraldry and the hues of Gothic windows; with the +national high spirits they assume the fancy dress of friars; but any one +who should essay to laugh at them instead of with them would find out +his mistake. For many of them do really know a great deal about +mediaevalism; much more than I do, or most other men brought up on an +island that is crowded with its cathedrals. Something of the same spirit +may be seen in the beautiful new plans and buildings of Yale, +deliberately modelled not on classical harmony but on Gothic +irregularity and surprise. The grace and energy of the mediaeval +architecture resurrected by a man like Mr. R. A. Cram of Boston has +behind it not merely artistic but historical and ethical enthusiasm; an +enthusiasm for the Catholic creed which made mediaeval civilisation. +Even on the huge Puritan plains of the Middle West the influence strays +in the strangest fashion. And it is notable that among the pessimistic +epitaphs of the Spoon River Anthology, in that churchyard compared with +which most churchyards are cheery, among the suicides and secret +drinkers and monomaniacs and hideous hypocrites of that happy village, +almost the only record of respect and a recognition of wider hopes is +dedicated to the Catholic priest.</p> + +<p>But Main Street is Main Street in the main. Main Street is Modern Street +in its multiplicity of mildly half-educated people; and all these +historic things are a thousand miles from them. They have not heard the +ancient noise either of arts or arms; the building of the cathedral or +the marching of the crusade. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> at least they have not deliberately +slandered the crusade and defaced the cathedral. And if they have not +produced the peasant arts, they can still produce the peasant crafts. +They can sow and plough and reap and live by these everlasting things; +nor shall the foundations of their state be moved. And the memory of +those colossal fields, of those fruitful deserts, came back the more +readily into my mind because I finished these reflections in the very +heart of a modern industrial city, if it can be said to have a heart. It +was in fact an English industrial city, but it struck me that it might +very well be an American one. And it also struck me that we yield rather +too easily to America the dusty palm of industrial enterprise, and feel +far too little apprehension about greener and fresher vegetables. There +is a story of an American who carefully studied all the sights of London +or Rome or Paris, and came to the conclusion that 'it had nothing on +Minneapolis.' It seems to me that Minneapolis has nothing on Manchester. +There were the same grey vistas of shops full of rubber tyres and +metallic appliances; a man felt that he might walk a day without seeing +a blade of grass; the whole horizon was so infinite with efficiency. The +factory chimneys might have been Pittsburg; the sky-signs might have +been New York. One looked up in a sort of despair at the sky, not for a +sky-sign but in a sense for a sign, for some sentence of significance +and judgment; by the instinct that makes any man in such a scene seek +for the only thing that has not been made by men. But even that was +illogical, for it was night, and I could only expect to see the stars, +which might have reminded me of Old Glory; but that was not the sign +that oppressed me. All the ground was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> wilderness of stone and all the +buildings a forest of brick; I was far in the interior of a labyrinth of +lifeless things. Only, looking up, between two black chimneys and a +telegraph pole, I saw vast and far and faint, as the first men saw it, +the silver pattern of the Plough.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="The_American_Business_Man" id="The_American_Business_Man"></a><i>The American Business Man</i></h2> + +<p>It is a commonplace that men are all agreed in using symbols, and all +differ about the meaning of the symbols. It is obvious that a Russian +republican might come to identify the eagle as a bird of empire and +therefore a bird of prey. But when he ultimately escaped to the land of +the free, he might find the same bird on the American coinage figuring +as a bird of freedom. Doubtless, he might find many other things to +surprise him in the land of the free, and many calculated to make him +think that the bird, if not imperial, was at least rather imperious. But +I am not discussing those exceptional details here. It is equally +obvious that a Russian reactionary might cross the world with a vow of +vengeance against the red flag. But that authoritarian might have some +difficulties with the authorities, if he shot a man for using the red +flag on the railway between Willesden and Clapham Junction.</p> + +<p>But, of course, the difficulty about symbols is generally much more +subtle than in these simple cases. I have remarked elsewhere that the +first thing which a traveller should write about is the thing which he +has not read about. It may be a small or secondary thing, but it is a +thing that he has seen and not merely expected to see.</p> + +<p>I gave the example of the great multitude of wooden<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> houses in America; +we might say of wooden towns and wooden cities. But after he has seen +such things, his next duty is to see the meaning of them; and here a +great deal of complication and controversy is possible. The thing +probably does not mean what he first supposes it to mean on the face of +it; but even on the face of it, it might mean many different and even +opposite things.</p> + +<p>For instance, a wooden house might suggest an almost savage solitude; a +rude shanty put together by a pioneer in a forest; or it might mean a +very recent and rapid solution of the housing problem, conducted cheaply +and therefore on a very large scale. A wooden house might suggest the +very newest thing in America or one of the very oldest things in +England. It might mean a grey ruin at Stratford or a white exhibition at +Earl's Court.</p> + +<p>It is when we come to this interpretation of international symbols that +we make most of the international mistakes. Without the smallest error +of detail, I will promise to prove that Oriental women are independent +because they wear trousers, or Oriental men subject because they wear +skirts. Merely to apply it to this case, I will take the example of two +very commonplace and trivial objects of modern life—a walking stick and +a fur coat.</p> + +<p>As it happened, I travelled about America with two sticks, like a +Japanese nobleman with his two swords. I fear the simile is too stately. +I bore more resemblance to a cripple with two crutches or a highly +ineffectual version of the devil on two sticks. I carried them both +because I valued them both, and did not wish to risk losing either of +them in my erratic travels. One is a very plain grey stick from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> the +woods of Buckinghamshire, but as I took it with me to Palestine it +partakes of the character of a pilgrim's staff. When I can say that I +have taken the same stick to Jerusalem and to Chicago, I think the stick +and I may both have a rest. The other, which I value even more, was +given me by the Knights of Columbus at Yale, and I wish I could think +that their chivalric title allowed me to regard it as a sword.</p> + +<p>Now, I do not know whether the Americans I met, struck by the fastidious +foppery of my dress and appearance, concluded that it is the custom of +elegant English dandies to carry two walking sticks. But I do know that +it is much less common among Americans than among Englishmen to carry +even one. The point, however, is not merely that more sticks are carried +by Englishmen than by Americans; it is that the sticks which are carried +by Americans stand for something entirely different.</p> + +<p>In America a stick is commonly called a cane, and it has about it +something of the atmosphere which the poet described as the nice conduct +of the clouded cane. It would be an exaggeration to say that when the +citizens of the United States see a man carrying a light stick, they +deduce that if he does that he does nothing else. But there is about it +a faint flavour of luxury and lounging, and most of the energetic +citizens of this energetic society avoid it by instinct.</p> + +<p>Now, in an Englishman like myself, carrying a stick may imply lounging, +but it does not imply luxury, and I can say with some firmness that it +does not imply dandyism. In a great many Englishmen it means the very +opposite even of lounging. By one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> of those fantastic paradoxes which +are the mystery of nationality, a walking stick often actually means +walking. It frequently suggests the very reverse of the beau with his +clouded cane; it does not suggest a town type, but rather specially a +country type. It rather implies the kind of Englishman who tramps about +in lanes and meadows and knocks the tops off thistles. It suggests the +sort of man who has carried the stick through his native woods, and +perhaps even cut it in his native woods.</p> + +<p>There are plenty of these vigorous loungers, no doubt, in the rural +parts of America, but the idea of a walking stick would not especially +suggest them to Americans; it would not call up such figures like a +fairy wand. It would be easy to trace back the difference to many +English origins, possibly to aristocratic origins, to the idea of the +old squire, a man vigorous and even rustic, but trained to hold a +useless staff rather than a useful tool. It might be suggested that +American citizens do at least so far love freedom as to like to have +their hands free. It might be suggested, on the other hand, that they +keep their hands for the handles of many machines. And that the hand on +a handle is less free than the hand on a stick or even a tool. But these +again are controversial questions and I am only noting a fact.</p> + +<p>If an Englishman wished to imagine more or less exactly what the +impression is, and how misleading it is, he could find something like a +parallel in what he himself feels about a fur coat. When I first found +myself among the crowds on the main floor of a New York hotel, my rather +exaggerated impression of the luxury of the place was largely produced +by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> number of men in fur coats, and what we should consider rather +ostentatious fur coats, with all the fur outside.</p> + +<p>Now an Englishman has a number of atmospheric but largely accidental +associations in connection with a fur coat. I will not say that he +thinks a man in a fur coat must be a wealthy and wicked man; but I do +say that in his own ideal and perfect vision a wealthy and wicked man +would wear a fur coat. Thus I had the sensation of standing in a surging +mob of American millionaires, or even African millionaires; for the +millionaires of Chicago must be like the Knights of the Round Table +compared with the millionaires of Johannesburg.</p> + +<p>But, as a matter of fact, the man in the fur coat was not even an +American millionaire, but simply an American. It did not signify luxury, +but rather necessity, and even a harsh and almost heroic necessity. +Orson probably wore a fur coat; and he was brought up by bears, but not +the bears of Wall Street. Eskimos are generally represented as a furry +folk; but they are not necessarily engaged in delicate financial +operations, even in the typical and appropriate occupation called +freezing out. And if the American is not exactly an arctic traveller +rushing from pole to pole, at least he is often literally fleeing from +ice to ice. He has to make a very extreme distinction between outdoor +and indoor clothing. He has to live in an icehouse outside and a +hothouse inside; so hot that he may be said to construct an icehouse +inside that. He turns himself into an icehouse and warms himself against +the cold until he is warm enough to eat ices. But the point is that the +same coat of fur which in England would indicate the sybarite life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> may +here very well indicate the strenuous life; just as the same walking +stick which would here suggest a lounger would in England suggest a +plodder and almost a pilgrim.</p> + +<p>And these two trifles are types which I should like to put, by way of +proviso and apology, at the very beginning of any attempt at a record of +any impressions of a foreign society. They serve merely to illustrate +the most important impression of all, the impression of how false all +impressions may be. I suspect that most of the very false impressions +have come from the careful record of very true facts. They have come +from the fatal power of observing the facts without being able to +observe the truth. They came from seeing the symbol with the most vivid +clarity and being blind to all that it symbolises. It is as if a man who +knew no Greek should imagine that he could read a Greek inscription +because he took the Greek R for an English P or the Greek long E for an +English H. I do not mention this merely as a criticism on other people's +impressions of America, but as a criticism on my own. I wish it to be +understood that I am well aware that all my views are subject to this +sort of potential criticism, and that even when I am certain of the +facts I do not profess to be certain of the deductions.</p> + +<p>In this chapter I hope to point out how a misunderstanding of this kind +affects the common impression, not altogether unfounded, that the +Americans talk about dollars. But for the moment I am merely anxious to +avoid a similar misunderstanding when I talk about Americans. About the +dogmas of democracy, about the right of a people to its own symbols,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> +whether they be coins or customs, I am convinced, and no longer to be +shaken. But about the meaning of those symbols, in silver or other +substances, I am always open to correction. That error is the price we +pay for the great glory of nationality. And in this sense I am quite +ready, at the start, to warn my own readers against my own opinions.</p> + +<p>The fact without the truth is futile; indeed the fact without the truth +is false. I have already noted that this is especially true touching our +observations of a strange country; and it is certainly true touching one +small fact which has swelled into a large fable. I mean the fable about +America commonly summed up in the phrase about the Almighty Dollar. I do +not think the dollar is almighty in America; I fancy many things are +mightier, including many ideals and some rather insane ideals. But I +think it might be maintained that the dollar has another of the +attributes of deity. If it is not omnipotent it is in a sense +omnipresent. Whatever Americans think about dollars, it is, I think, +relatively true that they talk about dollars. If a mere mechanical +record could be taken by the modern machinery of dictaphones and +stenography, I do not think it probable that the mere word 'dollars' +would occur more often in any given number of American conversations +than the mere word 'pounds' or 'shillings' in a similar number of +English conversations. And these statistics, like nearly all statistics, +would be utterly useless and even fundamentally false. It is as if we +should calculate that the word 'elephant' had been mentioned a certain +number of times in a particular London street, or so many times more +often than the word 'thunderbolt' had been used in Stoke Poges. +Doubtless there are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> statisticians capable of carefully collecting those +statistics also; and doubtless there are scientific social reformers +capable of legislating on the basis of them. They would probably argue +from the elephantine imagery of the London street that such and such a +percentage of the householders were megalomaniacs and required medical +care and police coercion. And doubtless their calculations, like nearly +all such calculations, would leave out the only important point; as that +the street was in the immediate neighbourhood of the Zoo, or was yet +more happily situated under the benignant shadow of the Elephant and +Castle. And in the same way the mechanical calculation about the mention +of dollars is entirely useless unless we have some moral understanding +of why they are mentioned. It certainly does not mean merely a love of +money; and if it did, a love of money may mean a great many very +different and even contrary things. The love of money is very different +in a peasant or in a pirate, in a miser or in a gambler, in a great +financier or in a man doing some practical and productive work. Now this +difference in the conversation of American and English business men +arises, I think, from certain much deeper things in the American which +are generally not understood by the Englishman. It also arises from much +deeper things in the Englishman, of which the Englishman is even more +ignorant.</p> + +<p>To begin with, I fancy that the American, quite apart from any love of +money, has a great love of measurement. He will mention the exact size +or weight of things, in a way which appears to us as irrelevant. It is +as if we were to say that a man came to see us carrying three feet of +walking stick<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> and four inches of cigar. It is so in cases that have no +possible connection with any avarice or greed for gain. An American will +praise the prodigal generosity of some other man in giving up his own +estate for the good of the poor. But he will generally say that the +philanthropist gave them a 200-acre park, where an Englishman would +think it quite sufficient to say that he gave them a park. There is +something about this precision which seems suitable to the American +atmosphere; to the hard sunlight, and the cloudless skies, and the +glittering detail of the architecture and the landscape; just as the +vaguer English version is consonant to our mistier and more +impressionist scenery. It is also connected perhaps with something more +boyish about the younger civilisation; and corresponds to the passionate +particularity with which a boy will distinguish the uniforms of +regiments, the rigs of ships, or even the colours of tram tickets. It is +a certain godlike appetite for things, as distinct from thoughts.</p> + +<p>But there is also, of course, a much deeper cause of the difference; and +it can easily be deduced by noting the real nature of the difference +itself. When two business men in a train are talking about dollars I am +not so foolish as to expect them to be talking about the philosophy of +St. Thomas Aquinas. But if they were two English business men I should +not expect them to be talking about business. Probably it would be about +some sport; and most probably some sport in which they themselves never +dreamed of indulging. The approximate difference is that the American +talks about his work and the Englishman about his holidays. His ideal is +not labour but leisure. Like every other national characteristic, this +is not primarily a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> point for praise or blame; in essence it involves +neither and in effect it involves both. It is certainly connected with +that snobbishness which is the great sin of English society. The +Englishman does love to conceive himself as a sort of country gentleman; +and his castles in the air are all castles in Scotland rather than in +Spain. For, as an ideal, a Scotch castle is as English as a Welsh +rarebit or an Irish stew. And if he talks less about money I fear it is +sometimes because in one sense he thinks more of it. Money is a mystery +in the old and literal sense of something too sacred for speech. Gold is +a god; and like the god of some agnostics has no name and is worshipped +only in his works. It is true in a sense that the English gentleman +wishes to have enough money to be able to forget it. But it may be +questioned whether he does entirely forget it. As against this weakness +the American has succeeded, at the price of a great deal of crudity and +clatter, in making general a very real respect for work. He has partly +disenchanted the dangerous glamour of the gentleman, and in that sense +has achieved some degree of democracy; which is the most difficult +achievement in the world.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, there is a good side to the Englishman's day-dream of +leisure, and one which the American spirit tends to miss. It may be +expressed in the word 'holiday' or still better in the word 'hobby.' The +Englishman, in his character of Robin Hood, really has got two strings +to his bow. Indeed the Englishman really is well represented by Robin +Hood; for there is always something about him that may literally be +called outlawed, in the sense of being extra-legal or outside the rules. +A <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>Frenchman said of Browning that his centre was not in the middle; and +it may be said of many an Englishman that his heart is not where his +treasure is. Browning expressed a very English sentiment when he said:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>I like to know a butcher paints,</div> +<div>A baker rhymes for his pursuit,</div> +<div>Candlestick-maker much acquaints</div> +<div>His soul with song, or haply mute</div> +<div>Blows out his brains upon the flute.</div> +</div></div> + +<p>Stevenson touched on the same insular sentiment when he said that many +men he knew, who were meat-salesmen to the outward eye, might in the +life of contemplation sit with the saints. Now the extraordinary +achievement of the American meat-salesman is that his poetic enthusiasm +can really be for meat sales; not for money but for meat. An American +commercial traveller asked me, with a religious fire in his eyes, +whether I did not think that salesmanship could be an art. In England +there are many salesmen who are sincerely fond of art; but seldom of the +art of salesmanship. Art is with them a hobby; a thing of leisure and +liberty. That is why the English traveller talks, if not of art, then of +sport. That is why the two city men in the London train, if they are not +talking about golf, may be talking about gardening. If they are not +talking about dollars, or the equivalent of dollars, the reason lies +much deeper than any superficial praise or blame touching the desire for +wealth. In the English case, at least, it lies very deep in the English +spirit. Many of the greatest English things have had this lighter and +looser character of a hobby or a holiday experiment. Even a masterpiece +has often been a by-product.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> The works of Shakespeare come out so +casually that they can be attributed to the most improbable people; even +to Bacon. The sonnets of Shakespeare are picked up afterwards as if out +of a wastepaper basket. The immortality of Dr. Johnson does not rest on +the written leaves he collected, but entirely on the words he wasted, +the words he scattered to the winds. So great a thing as Pickwick is +almost a kind of accident; it began as something secondary and grew into +something primary and pre-eminent. It began with mere words written to +illustrate somebody else's pictures; and swelled like an epic expanded +from an epigram. It might almost be said that in the case of Pickwick +the author began as the servant of the artist. But, as in the same story +of Pickwick, the servant became greater than the master. This +incalculable and accidental quality, like all national qualities, has +its strength and weakness; but it does represent a certain reserve fund +of interests in the Englishman's life; and distinguishes him from the +other extreme type, of the millionaire who works till he drops, or who +drops because he stops working. It is the great achievement of American +civilisation that in that country it really is not cant to talk about +the dignity of labour. There is something that might almost be called +the sanctity of labour; but it is subject to the profound law that when +anything less than the highest becomes a sanctity, it tends also to +become a superstition. When the candlestick-maker does not blow out his +brains upon the flute there is always a danger that he may blow them out +somewhere else, owing to depressed conditions in the candlestick market.</p> + +<p>Now certainly one of the first impressions of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> America, or at any rate +of New York, which is by no means the same thing as America, is that of +a sort of mob of business men, behaving in many ways in a fashion very +different from that of the swarms of London city men who go up every day +to the city. They sit about in groups with Red-Indian gravity, as if +passing the pipe of peace; though, in fact, most of them are smoking +cigars and some of them are eating cigars. The latter strikes me as one +of the most peculiar of transatlantic tastes, more peculiar than that of +chewing gum. A man will sit for hours consuming a cigar as if it were a +sugar-stick; but I should imagine it to be a very disagreeable +sugar-stick. Why he attempts to enjoy a cigar without lighting it I do +not know; whether it is a more economical way of carrying a mere symbol +of commercial conversation; or whether something of the same queer +outlandish morality that draws such a distinction between beer and +ginger beer draws an equally ethical distinction between touching +tobacco and lighting it. For the rest, it would be easy to make a merely +external sketch full of things equally strange; for this can always be +done in a strange country. I allow for the fact of all foreigners +looking alike; but I fancy that all those hard-featured faces, with +spectacles and shaven jaws, do look rather alike, because they all like +to make their faces hard. And with the mention of their mental attitude +we realise the futility of any such external sketch. Unless we can see +that these are something more than men smoking cigars and talking about +dollars we had much better not see them at all.</p> + +<p>It is customary to condemn the American as a materialist because of his +worship of success. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> indeed this very worship, like any worship, +even devil-worship, proves him rather a mystic than a materialist. The +Frenchman who retires from business when he has money enough to drink +his wine and eat his omelette in peace might much more plausibly be +called a materialist by those who do not prefer to call him a man of +sense. But Americans do worship success in the abstract, as a sort of +ideal vision. They follow success rather than money; they follow money +rather than meat and drink. If their national life in one sense is a +perpetual game of poker, they are playing excitedly for chips or +counters as well as for coins. And by the ultimate test of material +enjoyment, like the enjoyment of an omelette, even a coin is itself a +counter. The Yankee cannot eat chips as the Frenchman can eat chipped +potatoes; but neither can he swallow red cents as the Frenchman swallows +red wine. Thus when people say of a Yankee that he worships the dollar, +they pay a compliment to his fine spirituality more true and delicate +than they imagine. The dollar is an idol because it is an image; but it +is an image of success and not of enjoyment.</p> + +<p>That this romance is also a religion is shown in the fact that there is +a queer sort of morality attached to it. The nearest parallel to it is +something like the sense of honour in the old duelling days. There is +not a material but a distinctly moral savour about the implied +obligation to collect dollars or to collect chips. We hear too much in +England of the phrase about 'making good'; for no sensible Englishman +favours the needless interlarding of English with scraps of foreign +languages. But though it means nothing in English, it means something +very particular in American.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> There is a fine shade of distinction +between succeeding and making good, precisely because there must always +be a sort of ethical echo in the word good. America does vaguely feel a +man making good as something analogous to a man being good or a man +doing good. It is connected with his serious self-respect and his sense +of being worthy of those he loves. Nor is this curious crude idealism +wholly insincere even when it drives him to what some of us would call +stealing; any more than the duellist's honour was insincere when it +drove him to what some would call murder. A very clever American play +which I once saw acted contained a complete working model of this +morality. A girl was loyal to, but distressed by, her engagement to a +young man on whom there was a sort of cloud of humiliation. The +atmosphere was exactly what it would have been in England if he had been +accused of cowardice or card-sharping. And there was nothing whatever +the matter with the poor young man except that some rotten mine or other +in Arizona had not 'made good.' Now in England we should either be below +or above that ideal of good. If we were snobs, we should be content to +know that he was a gentleman of good connections, perhaps too much +accustomed to private means to be expected to be businesslike. If we +were somewhat larger-minded people, we should know that he might be as +wise as Socrates and as splendid as Bayard and yet be unfitted, perhaps +one should say therefore be unfitted, for the dismal and dirty gambling +of modern commerce. But whether we were snobbish enough to admire him +for being an idler, or chivalrous enough to admire him for being an +outlaw, in neither case should we ever really and in our hearts despise +him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> for being a failure. For it is this inner verdict of instinctive +idealism that is the point at issue. Of course there is nothing new, or +peculiar to the new world, about a man's engagement practically failing +through his financial failure. An English girl might easily drop a man +because he was poor, or she might stick to him faithfully and defiantly +although he was poor. The point is that this girl was faithful but she +was not defiant; that is, she was not proud. The whole psychology of the +situation was that she shared the weird worldly idealism of her family, +and it was wounded as her patriotism would have been wounded if he had +betrayed his country. To do them justice, there was nothing to show that +they would have had any real respect for a royal duke who had inherited +millions; what the simple barbarians wanted was a man who could 'make +good.' That the process of making good would probably drag him through +the mire of everything bad, that he would make good by bluffing, lying, +swindling, and grinding the faces of the poor, did not seem to trouble +them in the least. Against this fanaticism there is this shadow of truth +even in the fiction of aristocracy; that a gentleman may at least be +allowed to be good without being bothered to make it.</p> + +<p>Another objection to the phrase about the almighty dollar is that it is +an almighty phrase, and therefore an almighty nuisance. I mean that it +is made to explain everything, and to explain everything much too well; +that is, much too easily. It does not really help people to understand a +foreign country; but it gives them the fatal illusion that they do +understand it. Dollars stood for America as frogs stood for France; +because it was necessary to connect particular<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> foreigners with +something, or it would be so easy to confuse a Moor with a Montenegrin +or a Russian with a Red Indian. The only cure for this sort of satisfied +familiarity is the shock of something really unfamiliar. When people can +see nothing at all in American democracy except a Yankee running after a +dollar, then the only thing to do is to trip them up as they run after +the Yankee, or run away with their notion of the Yankee, by the obstacle +of certain odd and obstinate facts that have no relation to that notion. +And, as a matter of fact, there are a number of such obstacles to any +such generalisation; a number of notable facts that have to be +reconciled somehow to our previous notions. It does not matter for this +purpose whether the facts are favourable or unfavourable, or whether the +qualities are merits or defects; especially as we do not even understand +them sufficiently to say which they are. The point is that we are +brought to a pause, and compelled to attempt to understand them rather +better than we do. We have found the one thing that we did not expect; +and therefore the one thing that we cannot explain. And we are moved to +an effort, probably an unsuccessful effort, to explain it.</p> + +<p>For instance, Americans are very unpunctual. That is the last thing that +a critic expects who comes to condemn them for hustling and haggling and +vulgar ambition. But it is almost the first fact that strikes the +spectator on the spot. The chief difference between the humdrum English +business man and the hustling American business man is that the hustling +American business man is always late. Of course there is a great deal of +difference between coming late and coming too late. But I noticed the +fashion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> first in connection with my own lectures; touching which I +could heartily recommend the habit of coming too late. I could easily +understand a crowd of commercial Americans not coming to my lectures at +all; but there was something odd about their coming in a crowd, and the +crowd being expected to turn up some time after the appointed hour. The +managers of these lectures (I continue to call them lectures out of +courtesy to myself) often explained to me that it was quite useless to +begin properly until about half an hour after time. Often people were +still coming in three-quarters of an hour or even an hour after time. +Not that I objected to that, as some lecturers are said to do; it seemed +to me an agreeable break in the monotony; but as a characteristic of a +people mostly engaged in practical business, it struck me as curious and +interesting. I have grown accustomed to being the most unbusinesslike +person in any given company; and it gave me a sort of dizzy exaltation +to find I was not the most unpunctual person in that company. I was +afterwards told by many Americans that my impression was quite correct; +that American unpunctuality was really very prevalent, and extended to +much more important things. But at least I was not content to lump this +along with all sorts of contrary things that I did not happen to like, +and call it America. I am not sure of what it really means, but I rather +fancy that though it may seem the very reverse of the hustling, it has +the same origin as the hustling. The American is not punctual because he +is not punctilious. He is impulsive, and has an impulse to stay as well +as an impulse to go. For, after all, punctuality belongs to the same +order of ideas as punctuation; and there is no punctuation in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>telegrams. The order of clocks and set hours which English business has +always observed is a good thing in its own way; indeed I think that in a +larger sense it is better than the other way. But it is better because +it is a protection against hustling, not a promotion of it. In other +words, it is better because it is more civilised; as a great Venetian +merchant prince clad in cloth of gold was more civilised; or an old +English merchant drinking port in an oak-panelled room was more +civilised; or a little French shopkeeper shutting up his shop to play +dominoes is more civilised. And the reason is that the American has the +romance of business and is monomaniac, while the Frenchman has the +romance of life and is sane. But the romance of business really is a +romance, and the Americans are really romantic about it. And that +romance, though it revolves round pork or petrol, is really like a +love-affair in this; that it involves not only rushing but also +lingering.</p> + +<p>The American is too busy to have business habits. He is also too much in +earnest to have business rules. If we wish to understand him, we must +compare him not with the French shopkeeper when he plays dominoes, but +with the same French shopkeeper when he works the guns or mans the +trenches as a conscript soldier. Everybody used to the punctilious +Prussian standard of uniform and parade has noticed the roughness and +apparent laxity of the French soldier, the looseness of his clothes, the +unsightliness of his heavy knapsack, in short his inferiority in every +detail of the business of war except fighting. There he is much too +swift to be smart. He is much too practical to be precise. By a strange +illusion which can lift pork-packing almost to the level of patriotism, +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> American has the same free rhythm in his romance of business. He +varies his conduct not to suit the clock but to suit the case. He gives +more time to more important and less time to less important things; and +he makes up his time-table as he goes along. Suppose he has three +appointments; the first, let us say, is some mere trifle of erecting a +tower twenty storeys high and exhibiting a sky-sign on the top of it; +the second is a business discussion about the possibility of printing +advertisements of soft drinks on the table-napkins at a restaurant; the +third is attending a conference to decide how the populace can be +prevented from using chewing-gum and the manufacturers can still manage +to sell it. He will be content merely to glance at the sky-sign as he +goes by in a trolley-car or an automobile; he will then settle down to +the discussion with his partner about the table-napkins, each speaker +indulging in long monologues in turn; a peculiarity of much American +conversation. Now if in the middle of one of these monologues, he +suddenly thinks that the vacant space of the waiter's shirt-front might +also be utilised to advertise the Gee Whiz Ginger Champagne, he will +instantly follow up the new idea in all its aspects and possibilities, +in an even longer monologue; and will never think of looking at his +watch while he is rapturously looking at his waiter. The consequence is +that he will come late into the great social movement against +chewing-gum, where an Englishman would probably have arrived at the +proper hour. But though the Englishman's conduct is more proper, it need +not be in all respects more practical. The Englishman's rules are better +for the business of life, but not necessarily for the life of business. +And it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> true that for many of these Americans business is the +business of life. It is really also, as I have said, the romance of +life. We shall admire or deplore this spirit, accordingly as we are glad +to see trade irradiated with so much poetry, or sorry to see so much +poetry wasted on trade. But it does make many people happy, like any +other hobby; and one is disposed to add that it does fill their +imaginations like any other delusion. For the true criticism of all this +commercial romance would involve a criticism of this historic phase of +commerce. These people are building on the sand, though it shines like +gold, and for them like fairy gold; but the world will remember the +legend about fairy gold. Half the financial operations they follow deal +with things that do not even exist; for in that sense all finance is a +fairy tale. Many of them are buying and selling things that do nothing +but harm; but it does them good to buy and sell them. The claim of the +romantic salesman is better justified than he realises. Business really +is romance; for it is not reality.</p> + +<p>There is one real advantage that America has over England, largely due +to its livelier and more impressionable ideal. America does not think +that stupidity is practical. It does not think that ideas are merely +destructive things. It does not think that a genius is only a person to +be told to go away and blow his brains out; rather it would open all its +machinery to the genius and beg him to blow his brains in. It might +attempt to use a natural force like Blake or Shelley for very ignoble +purposes; it would be quite capable of asking Blake to take his tiger +and his golden lions round as a sort of Barnum's Show, or Shelley to +hang his stars and haloed clouds among the lights<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> of Broadway. But it +would not assume that a natural force is useless, any more than that +Niagara is useless. And there is a very definite distinction here +touching the intelligence of the trader, whatever we may think of either +course touching the intelligence of the artist. It is one thing that +Apollo should be employed by Admetus, although he is a god. It is quite +another thing that Apollo should always be sacked by Admetus, because he +is a god. Now in England, largely owing to the accident of a rivalry and +therefore a comparison with France, there arose about the end of the +eighteenth century an extraordinary notion that there was some sort of +connection between dullness and success. What the Americans call a +bonehead became what the English call a hard-headed man. The merchants +of London evinced their contempt for the fantastic logicians of Paris by +living in a permanent state of terror lest somebody should set the +Thames on fire. In this as in much else it is much easier to understand +the Americans if we connect them with the French who were their allies +than with the English who were their enemies. There are a great many +Franco-American resemblances which the practical Anglo-Saxons are of +course too hard-headed (or boneheaded) to see. American history is +haunted with the shadow of the Plebiscitary President; they have a +tradition of classical architecture for public buildings. Their cities +are planned upon the squares of Paris and not upon the labyrinth of +London. They call their cities Corinth and Syracuse, as the French +called their citizens Epaminondas and Timoleon. Their soldiers wore the +French kepi; and they make coffee admirably, and do not make tea at all. +But of all the French elements in America the most French<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> is this real +practicality. They know that at certain times the most businesslike of +all qualities is 'l'audace, et encore de l'audace, et toujours de +l'audace.' The publisher may induce the poet to do a pot-boiler; but the +publisher would cheerfully allow the poet to set the Mississippi on +fire, if it would boil his particular pot. It is not so much that +Englishmen are stupid as that they are afraid of being clever; and it is +not so much that Americans are clever as that they do not try to be any +stupider than they are. The fire of French logic has burnt that out of +America as it has burnt it out of Europe, and of almost every place +except England. This is one of the few points on which English +insularity really is a disadvantage. It is the fatal notion that the +only sort of commonsense is to be found in compromise, and that the only +sort of compromise is to be found in confusion. This must be clearly +distinguished from the commonplace about the utilitarian world not +rising to the invisible values of genius. Under this philosophy the +utilitarian does not see the utility of genius, even when it is quite +visible. He does not see it, not because he is a utilitarian, but +because he is an idealist whose ideal is dullness. For some time the +English aspired to be stupid, prayed and hoped with soaring spiritual +ambition to be stupid. But with all their worship of success, they did +not succeed in being stupid. The natural talents of a great and +traditional nation were always breaking out in spite of them. In spite +of the merchants of London, Turner did set the Thames on fire. In spite +of our repeatedly explained preference for realism to romance, Europe +persisted in resounding with the name of Byron. And just when we had +made it perfectly clear to the French that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> we despised all their +flamboyant tricks, that we were a plain prosaic people and there was no +fantastic glory or chivalry about us, the very shaft we sent against +them shone with the name of Nelson, a shooting and a falling star.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="Presidents_and_Problems" id="Presidents_and_Problems"></a><i>Presidents and Problems</i></h2> + +<p>All good Americans wish to fight the representatives they have chosen. +All good Englishmen wish to forget the representatives they have chosen. +This difference, deep and perhaps ineradicable in the temperaments of +the two peoples, explains a thousand things in their literature and +their laws. The American national poet praised his people for their +readiness 'to <i>rise</i> against the never-ending audacity of elected +persons.' The English national anthem is content to say heartily, but +almost hastily, 'Confound their politics,' and then more cheerfully, as +if changing the subject, 'God Save the King.' For this is especially the +secret of the monarch or chief magistrate in the two countries. They arm +the President with the powers of a King, that he may be a nuisance in +politics. We deprive the King even of the powers of a President, lest he +should remind us of a politician. We desire to forget the never-ending +audacity of elected persons; and with us therefore it really never does +end. That is the practical objection to our own habit of changing the +subject, instead of changing the ministry. The King, as the Irish wit +observed, is not a subject; but in that sense the English crowned head +is not a King. He is a popular figure intended to remind us of the +England that politicians do not remember; the England of horses and +ships and gardens and good fellowship. The Americans have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> no such +purely social symbol; and it is rather the root than the result of this +that their social luxury, and especially their sport, are a little +lacking in humanity and humour. It is the American, much more than the +Englishman, who takes his pleasures sadly, not to say savagely.</p> + +<p>The genuine popularity of constitutional monarchs, in parliamentary +countries, can be explained by any practical example. Let us suppose +that great social reform, The Compulsory Haircutting Act, has just begun +to be enforced. The Compulsory Haircutting Act, as every good citizen +knows, is a statute which permits any person to grow his hair to any +length, in any wild or wonderful shape, so long as he is registered with +a hairdresser who charges a shilling. But it imposes a universal +close-shave (like that which is found so hygienic during a curative +detention at Dartmoor) on all who are registered only with a barber who +charges threepence. Thus, while the ornamental classes can continue to +ornament the street with Piccadilly weepers or chin-beards if they +choose, the working classes demonstrate the care with which the State +protects them by going about in a fresher, cooler, and cleaner +condition; a condition which has the further advantage of revealing at a +glance that outline of the criminal skull, which is so common among +them. The Compulsory Haircutting Act is thus in every way a compact and +convenient example of all our current laws about education, sport, +liquor and liberty in general. Well, the law has passed and the masses, +insensible to its scientific value, are still murmuring against it. The +ignorant peasant maiden is averse to so extreme a fashion of bobbing her +hair; and does not see how she can even be a flapper with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> nothing to +flap. Her father, his mind already poisoned by Bolshevists, begins to +wonder who the devil does these things, and why. In proportion as he +knows the world of to-day, he guesses that the real origin may be quite +obscure, or the real motive quite corrupt. The pressure may have come +from anybody who has gained power or money anyhow. It may come from the +foreign millionaire who owns all the expensive hairdressing saloons; it +may come from some swindler in the cutlery trade who has contracted to +sell a million bad razors. Hence the poor man looks about him with +suspicion in the street; knowing that the lowest sneak or the loudest +snob he sees may be directing the government of his country. Anybody may +have to do with politics; and this sort of thing is politics. Suddenly +he catches sight of a crowd, stops, and begins wildly to cheer a +carriage that is passing. The carriage contains the one person who has +certainly not originated any great scientific reform. He is the only +person in the commonwealth who is not allowed to cut off other people's +hair, or to take away other people's liberties. He at least is kept out +of politics; and men hold him up as they did an unspotted victim to +appease the wrath of the gods. He is their King, and the only man they +know is not their ruler. We need not be surprised that he is popular, +knowing how they are ruled.</p> + +<p>The popularity of a President in America is exactly the opposite. The +American Republic is the last mediaeval monarchy. It is intended that +the President shall rule, and take all the risks of ruling. If the hair +is cut he is the haircutter, the magistrate that bears not the razor in +vain. All the popular Presidents, Jackson and Lincoln and Roosevelt, +have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> acted as democratic despots, but emphatically not as +constitutional monarchs. In short, the names have become curiously +interchanged; and as a historical reality it is the President who ought +to be called a King.</p> + +<p>But it is not only true that the President could correctly be called a +King. It is also true that the King might correctly be called a +President. We could hardly find a more exact description of him than to +call him a President. What is expected in modern times of a modern +constitutional monarch is emphatically that he should preside. We expect +him to take the throne exactly as if he were taking the chair. The +chairman does not move the motion or resolution, far less vote it; he is +not supposed even to favour it. He is expected to please everybody by +favouring nobody. The primary essentials of a President or Chairman are +that he should be treated with ceremonial respect, that he should be +popular in his personality and yet impersonal in his opinions, and that +he should actually be a link between all the other persons by being +different from all of them. This is exactly what is demanded of the +constitutional monarch in modern times. It is exactly the opposite to +the American position; in which the President does not preside at all. +He moves; and the thing he moves may truly be called a motion; for the +national idea is perpetual motion. Technically it is called a message; +and might often actually be called a menace. Thus we may truly say that +the King presides and the President reigns. Some would prefer to say +that the President rules; and some Senators and members of Congress +would prefer to say that he rebels. But there is no doubt that he moves; +he does<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> not take the chair or even the stool, but rather the stump.</p> + +<p>Some people seem to suppose that the fall of President Wilson was a +denial of this almost despotic ideal in America. As a matter of fact it +was the strongest possible assertion of it. The idea is that the +President shall take responsibility and risk; and responsibility means +being blamed, and risk means the risk of being blamed. The theory is +that things are done by the President; and if things go wrong, or are +alleged to go wrong, it is the fault of the President. This does not +invalidate, but rather ratifies the comparison with true monarchs such +as the mediaeval monarchs. Constitutional princes are seldom deposed; +but despots were often deposed. In the simpler races of sunnier lands, +such as Turkey, they were commonly assassinated. Even in our own history +a King often received the same respectful tribute to the responsibility +and reality of his office. But King John was attacked because he was +strong, not because he was weak. Richard the Second lost the crown +because the crown was a trophy, not because it was a trifle. And +President Wilson was deposed because he had used a power which is such, +in its nature, that a man must use it at the risk of deposition. As a +matter of fact, of course, it is easy to exaggerate Mr. Wilson's real +unpopularity, and still more easy to exaggerate Mr. Wilson's real +failure. There are a great many people in America who justify and +applaud him; and what is yet more interesting, who justify him not on +pacifist and idealistic, but on patriotic and even military grounds. It +is especially insisted by some that his demonstration, which seemed +futile as a threat against Mexico, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> a very far-sighted preparation +for the threat against Prussia. But in so far as the democracy did +disagree with him, it was but the occasional and inevitable result of +the theory by which the despot has to anticipate the democracy.</p> + +<p>Thus the American King and the English President are the very opposite +of each other; yet they are both the varied and very national +indications of the same contemporary truth. It is the great weariness +and contempt that have fallen upon common politics in both countries. It +may be answered, with some show of truth, that the new American +President represents a return to common politics; and that in that sense +he marks a real rebuke to the last President and his more uncommon +politics. And it is true that many who put Mr. Harding in power regard +him as the symbol of something which they call normalcy; which may +roughly be translated into English by the word normality. And by this +they do mean, more or less, the return to the vague capitalist +conservatism of the nineteenth century. They might call Mr. Harding a +Victorian if they had ever lived under Victoria. Perhaps these people do +entertain the extraordinary notion that the nineteenth century was +normal. But there are very few who think so, and even they will not +think so long. The blunder is the beginning of nearly all our present +troubles. The nineteenth century was the very reverse of normal. It +suffered a most unnatural strain in the combination of political +equality in theory with extreme economic inequality in practice. +Capitalism was not a normalcy but an abnormalcy. Property is normal, and +is more normal in proportion as it is universal. Slavery may be normal +and even natural, in the sense that a bad habit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> may be second nature. +But Capitalism was never anything so human as a habit; we may say it was +never anything so good as a bad habit. It was never a custom; for men +never grew accustomed to it. It was never even conservative; for before +it was even created wise men had realised that it could not be +conserved. It was from the first a problem; and those who will not even +admit the Capitalist problem deserve to get the Bolshevist solution. All +things considered, I cannot say anything worse of them than that.</p> + +<p>The recent Presidential election preserved some trace of the old Party +System of America; but its tradition has very nearly faded like that of +the Party System of England. It is easy for an Englishman to confess +that he never quite understood the American Party System. It would +perhaps be more courageous in him, and more informing, to confess that +he never really understood the British Party System. The planks in the +two American platforms may easily be exhibited as very disconnected and +ramshackle; but our own party was as much of a patchwork, and indeed I +think even more so. Everybody knows that the two American factions were +called 'Democrat' and 'Republican.' It does not at all cover the case to +identify the former with Liberals and the latter with Conservatives. The +Democrats are the party of the South and have some true tradition from +the Southern aristocracy and the defence of Secession and State Rights. +The Republicans rose in the North as the party of Lincoln, largely +condemning slavery. But the Republicans are also the party of Tariffs, +and are at least accused of being the party of Trusts. The Democrats are +the party of Free Trade; and in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> the great movement of twenty years ago +the party of Free Silver. The Democrats are also the party of the Irish; +and the stones they throw at Trusts are retorted by stones thrown at +Tammany. It is easy to see all these things as curiously sporadic and +bewildering; but I am inclined to think that they are as a whole more +coherent and rational than our own old division of Liberals and +Conservatives. There is even more doubt nowadays about what is the +connecting link between the different items in the old British party +programmes. I have never been able to understand why being in favour of +Protection should have anything to do with being opposed to Home Rule; +especially as most of the people who were to receive Home Rule were +themselves in favour of Protection. I could never see what giving people +cheap bread had to do with forbidding them cheap beer; or why the party +which sympathises with Ireland cannot sympathise with Poland. I cannot +see why Liberals did not liberate public-houses or Conservatives +conserve crofters. I do not understand the principle upon which the +causes were selected on both sides; and I incline to think that it was +with the impartial object of distributing nonsense equally on both +sides. Heaven knows there is enough nonsense in American politics too; +towering and tropical nonsense like a cyclone or an earthquake. But when +all is said, I incline to think that there was more spiritual and +atmospheric cohesion in the different parts of the American party than +in those of the English party; and I think this unity was all the more +real because it was more difficult to define. The Republican party +originally stood for the triumph of the North, and the North stood for +the nineteenth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> century; that is for the characteristic commercial +expansion of the nineteenth century; for a firm faith in the profit and +progress of its great and growing cities, its division of labour, its +industrial science, and its evolutionary reform. The Democratic party +stood more loosely for all the elements that doubted whether this +development was democratic or was desirable; all that looked back to +Jeffersonian idealism and the serene abstractions of the eighteenth +century, or forward to Bryanite idealism and some simplified Utopia +founded on grain rather than gold. Along with this went, not at all +unnaturally, the last and lingering sentiment of the Southern squires, +who remembered a more rural civilisation that seemed by comparison +romantic. Along with this went, quite logically, the passions and the +pathos of the Irish, themselves a rural civilisation, whose basis is a +religion or what the nineteenth century tended to call a superstition. +Above all, it was perfectly natural that this tone of thought should +favour local liberties, and even a revolt on behalf of local liberties, +and should distrust the huge machine of centralised power called the +Union. In short, something very near the truth was said by a suicidally +silly Republican orator, who was running Blaine for the Presidency, when +he denounced the Democratic party as supported by 'Rome, rum, and +rebellion.' They seem to me to be three excellent things in their place; +and that is why I suspect that I should have belonged to the Democratic +party, if I had been born in America when there was a Democratic party. +But I fancy that by this time even this general distinction has become +very dim. If I had been an American twenty years ago, in the time of the +great Free Silver campaign,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> I should certainly never have hesitated for +an instant about my sympathies or my side. My feelings would have been +exactly those that are nobly expressed by Mr. Vachell Lindsay, in a poem +bearing the characteristic title of 'Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan.' And, +by the way, nobody can begin to sympathise with America whose soul does +not to some extent begin to swing and dance to the drums and gongs of +Mr. Vachell Lindsay's great orchestra; which has the note of his whole +nation in this: that a refined person can revile it a hundred times over +as violent and brazen and barbarous and absurd, but not as insincere; +there is something in it, and that something is the soul of many million +men. But the poet himself, in the political poem referred to, speaks of +Bryan's fall over Free Silver as 'defeat of my boyhood, defeat of my +dream'; and it is only too probable that the cause has fallen as well as +the candidate. The William Jennings Bryan of later years is not the man +whom I should have seen in my youth, with the visionary eyes of Mr. +Vachell Lindsay. He has become a commonplace Pacifist, which is in its +nature the very opposite of a revolutionist; for if men will fight +rather than sacrifice humanity on a golden cross, it cannot be wrong for +them to resist its being sacrificed to an iron cross. I came into very +indirect contact with Mr. Bryan when I was in America, in a fashion that +made me realise how hard it has become to recover the illusions of a +Bryanite. I believe that my lecture agent was anxious to arrange a +debate, and I threw out a sort of loose challenge to the effect that +woman's suffrage had weakened the position of woman; and while I was +away in the wilds of Oklahoma my lecture agent (a man of blood-curdling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> +courage and enterprise) asked Mr. Bryan to debate with me. Now Mr. Bryan +is one of the greatest orators of modern history, and there is no +conceivable reason why he should trouble to debate with a wandering +lecturer. But as a matter of fact he expressed himself in the most +magnanimous and courteous terms about my personal position, but said (as +I understood) that it would be improper to debate on female suffrage as +it was already a part of the political system. And when I heard that, I +could not help a sigh; for I recognised something that I knew only too +well on the front benches of my own beloved land. The great and glorious +demagogue had degenerated into a statesman. I had never expected for a +moment that the great orator could be bothered to debate with me at all; +but it had never occurred to me, as a general moral principle, that two +educated men were for ever forbidden to talk sense about a particular +topic, because a lot of other people had already voted on it. What is +the matter with that attitude is the loss of the freedom of the mind. +There can be no liberty of thought unless it is ready to unsettle what +has recently been settled, as well as what has long been settled. We are +perpetually being told in the papers that what is wanted is a strong man +who will do things. What is wanted is a strong man who will undo things; +and that will be a real test of strength.</p> + +<p>Anyhow, we could have believed, in the time of the Free Silver fight, +that the Democratic party was democratic with a small d. In Mr. Wilson +it was transfigured, his friends would say into a higher and his foes +into a hazier thing. And the Republican reaction against him, even where +it has been healthy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> has also been hazy. In fact, it has been not so +much the victory of a political party as a relapse into repose after +certain political passions; and in that sense there is a truth in the +strange phrase about normalcy; in the sense that there is nothing more +normal than going to sleep. But an even larger truth is this; it is most +likely that America is no longer concentrated on these faction fights at +all, but is considering certain large problems upon which those factions +hardly troubled to take sides. They are too large even to be classified +as foreign policy distinct from domestic policy. They are so large as to +be inside as well as outside the state. From an English standpoint the +most obvious example is the Irish; for the Irish problem is not a +British problem, but also an American problem. And this is true even of +the great external enigma of Japan. The Japanese question may be a part +of foreign policy for America, but it is a part of domestic policy for +California. And the same is true of that other intense and intelligent +Eastern people, the genius and limitations of which have troubled the +world so much longer. What the Japs are in California, the Jews are in +America. That is, they are a piece of foreign policy that has become +imbedded in domestic policy; something which is found inside but still +has to be regarded from the outside. On these great international +matters I doubt if Americans got much guidance from their party system; +especially as most of these questions have grown very recently and +rapidly to enormous size. Men are left free to judge of them with fresh +minds. And that is the truth in the statement that the Washington +Conference has opened the gates of a new world.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p><p>On the relations to England and Ireland I will not attempt to dwell +adequately here. I have already noted that my first interview was with +an Irishman, and my first impression from that interview a vivid sense +of the importance of Ireland in Anglo-American relations; and I have +said something of the Irish problem, prematurely and out of its proper +order, under the stress of that sense of urgency. Here I will only add +two remarks about the two countries respectively. A great many British +journalists have recently imagined that they were pouring oil upon the +troubled waters, when they were rather pouring out oil to smooth the +downward path; and to turn the broad road to destruction into a +butter-slide. They seem to have no notion of what to do, except to say +what they imagine the very stupidest of their readers would be pleased +to hear, and conceal whatever the most intelligent of their readers +would probably like to know. They therefore informed the public that +'the majority of Americans' had abandoned all sympathy with Ireland, +because of its alleged sympathy with Germany; and that this majority of +Americans was now ardently in sympathy with its English brothers across +the sea. Now to begin with, such critics have no notion of what they are +saying when they talk about the majority of Americans. To anybody who +has happened to look in, let us say, on the city of Omaha, Nebraska, the +remark will have something enormous and overwhelming about it. It is +like saying that the majority of the inhabitants of China would agree +with the Chinese Ambassador in a preference for dining at the Savoy +rather than the Ritz. There are millions and millions of people living +in those great central plains of the North American<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> Continent of whom +it would be nearer the truth to say that they have never heard of +England, or of Ireland either, than to say that their first emotional +movement is a desire to come to the rescue of either of them. It is +perfectly true that the more monomaniac sort of Sinn Feiner might +sometimes irritate this innocent and isolated American spirit by being +pro-Irish. It is equally true that a traditional Bostonian or Virginian +might irritate it by being pro-English. The only difference is that +large numbers of pure Irishmen are scattered in those far places, and +large numbers of pure Englishmen are not. But it is truest of all to say +that neither England nor Ireland so much as crosses the mind of most of +them once in six months. Painting up large notices of 'Watch Us Grow,' +making money by farming with machinery, together with an occasional +hold-up with six-shooters and photographs of a beautiful murderess or +divorcée, fill up the round of their good and happy lives, and fleet the +time carelessly as in the golden age.</p> + +<p>But putting aside all this vast and distant democracy, which is the real +'majority of Americans,' and confining ourselves to that older culture +on the eastern coast which the critics probably had in mind, we shall +find the case more comforting but not to be covered with cheap and false +comfort. Now it is perfectly true that any Englishman coming to this +eastern coast, as I did, finds himself not only most warmly welcomed as +a guest, but most cordially complimented as an Englishman. Men recall +with pride the branches of their family that belong to England or the +English counties where they were rooted; and there are enthusiasms for +English literature and history which are as spontaneous as patriotism<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> +itself. Something of this may be put down to a certain promptitude and +flexibility in all American kindness, which is never sufficiently stodgy +to be called good nature. The Englishman does sometimes wonder whether +if he had been a Russian, his hosts would not have remembered remote +Russian aunts and uncles and disinterred a Muscovite great-grandmother; +or whether if he had come from Iceland, they would not have known as +much about Icelandic sagas and been as sympathetic about the absence of +Icelandic snakes. But with a fair review of the proportions of the case +he will dismiss this conjecture, and come to the conclusion that a +number of educated Americans are very warmly and sincerely sympathetic +with England.</p> + +<p>What I began to feel, with a certain creeping chill, was that they were +only too sympathetic with England. The word sympathetic has sometimes +rather a double sense. The impression I received was that all these +chivalrous Southerners and men mellow with Bostonian memories were +<i>rallying</i> to England. They were on the defensive; and it was poor old +England that they were defending. Their attitude implied that somebody +or something was leaving her undefended, or finding her indefensible. +The burden of that hearty chorus was that England was not so black as +she was painted; it seemed clear that somewhere or other she was being +painted pretty black. But there was something else that made me +uncomfortable; it was not only the sense of being somewhat boisterously +forgiven; it was also something involving questions of power as well as +morality. Then it seemed to me that a new sensation turned me hot and +cold; and I felt something I have never before felt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> in a foreign land. +Never had my father or my grandfather known that sensation; never during +the great and complex and perhaps perilous expansion of our power and +commerce in the last hundred years had an Englishman heard exactly that +note in a human voice. England was being <i>pitied</i>. I, as an Englishman, +was not only being pardoned but pitied. My country was beginning to be +an object of compassion, like Poland or Spain. My first emotion, full of +the mood and movement of a hundred years, was one of furious anger. But +the anger has given place to anxiety; and the anxiety is not yet at an +end.</p> + +<p>It is not my business here to expound my view of English politics, still +less of European politics or the politics of the world; but to put down +a few impressions of American travel. On many points of European +politics the impression will be purely negative; I am sure that most +Americans have no notion of the position of France or the position of +Poland. But if English readers want the truth, I am sure this is the +truth about their notion of the position of England. They are wondering, +or those who are watching are wondering, whether the term of her success +is come and she is going down the dark road after Prussia. Many are +sorry if this is so; some are glad if it is so; but all are seriously +considering the probability of its being so. And herein lay especially +the horrible folly of our Black-and-Tan terrorism over the Irish people. +I have noted that the newspapers told us that America had been chilled +in its Irish sympathies by Irish detachment during the war. It is the +painful truth that any advantage we might have had from this we +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>ourselves immediately proceeded to destroy. Ireland <i>might</i> have put +herself wrong with America by her attitude about Belgium, if England had +not instantly proceeded to put herself more wrong by her attitude +towards Ireland. It is quite true that two blacks do not make a white; +but you cannot send a black to reproach people with tolerating +blackness; and this is quite as true when one is a Black Brunswicker and +the other a Black-and-Tan. It is true that since then England has made +surprisingly sweeping concessions; concessions so large as to increase +the amazement that the refusal should have been so long. But +unfortunately the combination of the two rather clinches the conception +of our decline. If the concession had come before the terror, it would +have looked like an attempt to emancipate, and would probably have +succeeded. Coming so abruptly after the terror, it looked only like an +attempt to tyrannise, and an attempt that failed. It was partly an +inheritance from a stupid tradition, which tried to combine what it +called firmness with what it called conciliation; as if when we made up +our minds to soothe a man with a five-pound note, we always took care to +undo our own action by giving him a kick as well. The English politician +has often done that; though there is nothing to be said of such a fool, +except that he has wasted a fiver. But in this case he gave the kick +first, received a kicking in return, and <i>then</i> gave up the money; and +it was hard for the bystanders to say anything except that he had been +badly beaten. The combination and sequence of events seems almost as if +it were arranged to suggest the dark and ominous parallel. The first +action looked only too like the invasion of Belgium, and the second like +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>evacuation of Belgium. So that vast and silent crowd in the West +looked at the British Empire, as men look at a great tower that has +begun to lean. Thus it was that while I found real pleasure, I could not +find unrelieved consolation in the sincere compliments paid to my +country by so many cultivated Americans; their memories of homely +corners of historic counties from which their fathers came, of the +cathedral that dwarfs the town, or the inn at the turning of the road. +There was something in their voices and the look in their eyes which +from the first disturbed me. So I have heard good Englishmen, who died +afterwards the death of soldiers, cry aloud in 1914, 'It seems +impossible, of those jolly Bavarians!' or, 'I will never believe it, +when I think of the time I had at Heidelberg!'</p> + +<p>But there are other things besides the parallel of Prussia or the +problem of Ireland. The American press is much freer than our own; the +American public is much more familiar with the discussion of corruption +than our own; and it is much more conscious of the corruption of our +politics than we are. Almost any man in America may speak of the Marconi +Case; many a man in England does not even know what it means. Many +imagine that it had something to do with the propriety of politicians +speculating on the Stock Exchange. So that it means a great deal to +Americans to say that one figure in that drama is ruling India and +another is ruling Palestine. And this brings me to another problem, +which is also dealt with much more openly in America than in England. I +mention it here only because it is a perfect model of the +misunderstandings in the modern world. If any one asks for an example +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> exactly how the important part of every story is left out, and even +the part that is reported is not understood, he could hardly have a +stronger case than the story of Henry Ford of Detroit.</p> + +<p>When I was in Detroit I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Ford, and it +really was a pleasure. He is a man quite capable of views which I think +silly to the point of insanity; but he is not the vulgar benevolent +boss. It must be admitted that he is a millionaire; but he cannot really +be convicted of being a philanthropist. He is not a man who merely wants +to run people; it is rather his views that run him, and perhaps run away +with him. He has a distinguished and sensitive face; he really invented +things himself, unlike most men who profit by inventions; he is +something of an artist and not a little of a fighter. A man of that type +is always capable of being wildly wrong, especially in the sectarian +atmosphere of America; and Mr. Ford has been wrong before and may be +wrong now. He is chiefly known in England for a project which I think +very preposterous; that of the Peace Ship, which came to Europe during +the war. But he is not known in England at all in connection with a much +more important campaign, which he has conducted much more recently and +with much more success; a campaign against the Jews like one of the +Anti-Semitic campaigns of the Continent. Now any one who knows anything +of America knows exactly what the Peace Ship would be like. It was a +national combination of imagination and ignorance, which has at least +some of the beauty of innocence. Men living in those huge, hedgeless +inland plains know nothing about frontiers or the tragedy of a fight for +freedom;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> they know nothing of alarum and armaments or the peril of a +high civilisation poised like a precious statue within reach of a mailed +fist. They are accustomed to a cosmopolitan citizenship, in which men of +all bloods mingle and in which men of all creeds are counted equal. +Their highest moral boast is humanitarianism; their highest mental boast +is enlightenment. In a word, they are the very last men in the world who +would seem likely to pride themselves on a prejudice against the Jews. +They have no religion in particular, except a sincere sentiment which +they would call 'true Christianity,' and which specially forbids an +attack on the Jews. They have a patriotism which prides itself on +assimilating all types, including the Jews. Mr. Ford is a pure product +of this pacific world, as was sufficiently proved by his pacifism. If a +man of that sort has discovered that there is a Jewish problem, it is +because there is a Jewish problem. It is certainly not because there is +an Anti-Jewish prejudice. For if there had been any amount of such +racial and religious prejudice, he would have been about the very last +sort of man to have it. His particular part of the world would have been +the very last place to produce it. We may well laugh at the Peace Ship, +and its wild course and inevitable shipwreck; but remember that its very +wildness was an attempt to sail as far as possible from the castle of +Front-de-Bœuf. Everything that made him Anti-War should have +prevented him from being Anti-Semite. We may mock him for being mad on +peace; but we cannot say that he was so mad on peace that he made war on +Israel.</p> + +<p>It happened that, when I was in America, I had just published some +studies on Palestine; and I was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> besieged by Rabbis lamenting my +'prejudice.' I pointed out that they would have got hold of the wrong +word, even if they had not got hold of the wrong man. As a point of +personal autobiography, I do not happen to be a man who dislikes Jews; +though I believe that some men do. I have had Jews among my most +intimate and faithful friends since my boyhood, and I hope to have them +till I die. But even if I did have a dislike of Jews, it would be +illogical to call that dislike a prejudice. Prejudice is a very lucid +Latin word meaning the bias which a man has before he considers a case. +I might be said to be prejudiced against a Hairy Ainu because of his +name, for I have never been on terms of such intimacy with him as to +correct my preconceptions. But if after moving about in the modern world +and meeting Jews, knowing Jews, doing business with Jews, and reading +and hearing about Jews, I came to the conclusion that I did not like +Jews, my conclusion certainly would not be a prejudice. It would simply +be an opinion; and one I should be perfectly entitled to hold; though as +a matter of fact I do not hold it. No extravagance of hatred merely +following on <i>experience</i> of Jews can properly be called a prejudice.</p> + +<p>Now the point is that this new American Anti-Semitism springs from +experience and nothing but experience. There is no prejudice for it to +spring from. Or rather the prejudice is all the other way. All the +traditions of that democracy, and very creditable traditions too, are in +favour of toleration and a sort of idealistic indifference. The +sympathies in which these nineteenth-century people were reared were all +against Front-de-Bœuf and in favour of Rebecca. They inherited a +prejudice against <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>Anti-Semitism; a prejudice of Anti-Anti-Semitism. +These people of the plains have found the Jewish problem exactly as they +might have struck oil; because it is <i>there</i>, and not even because they +were looking for it. Their view of the problem, like their use of the +oil, is not always satisfactory; and with parts of it I entirely +disagree. But the point is that the thing which I call a problem, and +others call a prejudice, has now appeared in broad daylight in a new +country where there is no priestcraft, no feudalism, no ancient +superstition to explain it. It has appeared because it <i>is</i> a problem; +and those are the best friends of the Jews, including many of the Jews +themselves, who are trying to find a solution. That is the meaning of +the incident of Mr. Henry Ford of Detroit; and you will hardly hear an +intelligible word about it in England.</p> + +<p>The talk of prejudice against the Japs is not unlike the talk of +prejudice against the Jews. Only in this case our indifference has +really the excuse of ignorance. We used to lecture the Russians for +oppressing the Jews, before we heard the word Bolshevist and began to +lecture them for being oppressed by the Jews. In the same way we have +long lectured the Californians for oppressing the Japs, without allowing +for the possibility of their foreseeing that the oppression may soon be +the other way. As in the other case, it may be a persecution but it is +not a prejudice. The Californians know more about the Japanese than we +do; and our own colonists when they are placed in the same position +generally say the same thing. I will not attempt to deal adequately here +with the vast international and diplomatic problems which arise with the +name of the new power in the Far East. It is possible that Japan, having +imitated European<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> militarism, may imitate European pacifism. I cannot +honestly pretend to know what the Japanese mean by the one any more than +by the other. But when Englishmen, especially English Liberals like +myself, take a superior and censorious attitude towards Americans and +especially Californians, I am moved to make a final remark. When a +considerable number of Englishmen talk of the grave contending claims of +our friendship with Japan and our friendship with America, when they +finally tend in a sort of summing up to dwell on the superior virtues of +Japan, I may be permitted to make a single comment.</p> + +<p>We are perpetually boring the world and each other with talk about the +bonds that bind us to America. We are perpetually crying aloud that +England and America are very much alike, especially England. We are +always insisting that the two are identical in all the things in which +they most obviously differ. We are always saying that both stand for +democracy, when we should not consent to stand their democracy for half +a day. We are always saying that at least we are all Anglo-Saxons, when +we are descended from Romans and Normans and Britons and Danes, and they +are descended from Irishmen and Italians and Slavs and Germans. We tell +a people whose very existence is a revolt against the British Crown that +they are passionately devoted to the British Constitution. We tell a +nation whose whole policy has been isolation and independence that with +us she can bear safely the White Man's Burden of universal empire. We +tell a continent crowded with Irishmen to thank God that the Saxon can +always rule the Celt. We tell a populace whose very virtues are lawless +that together we uphold the Reign of Law. We recognise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> our own +law-abiding character in people who make laws that neither they nor +anybody else can abide. We congratulate them on clinging to all they +have cast away, and on imitating everything which they came into +existence to insult. And when we have established all these nonsensical +analogies with a nonexistent nation, we wait until there is a crisis in +which we really are at one with America, and then we falter and threaten +to fail her. In a battle where we really are of one blood, the blood of +the great white race throughout the world, when we really have one +language, the fundamental alphabet of Cadmus and the script of Rome, +when we really do represent the same reign of law, the common conscience +of Christendom and the morals of men baptized, when we really have an +implicit faith and honour and type of freedom to summon up our souls as +with trumpets—<i>then</i> many of us begin to weaken and waver and wonder +whether there is not something very nice about little yellow men, whose +heroic stories revolve round polygamy and suicide, and whose heroes wore +two swords and worshipped the ancestors of the Mikado.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="Prohibition_in_Fact_and_Fancy" id="Prohibition_in_Fact_and_Fancy"></a><i>Prohibition in Fact and Fancy</i></h2> + +<p>I went to America with some notion of not discussing Prohibition. But I +soon found that well-to-do Americans were only too delighted to discuss +it over the nuts and wine. They were even willing, if necessary, to +dispense with the nuts. I am far from sneering at this; having a general +philosophy which need not here be expounded, but which may be symbolised +by saying that monkeys can enjoy nuts but only men can enjoy wine. But +if I am to deal with Prohibition, there is no doubt of the first thing +to be said about it. The first thing to be said about it is that it does +not exist. It is to some extent enforced among the poor; at any rate it +was intended to be enforced among the poor; though even among them I +fancy it is much evaded. It is certainly not enforced among the rich; +and I doubt whether it was intended to be. I suspect that this has +always happened whenever this negative notion has taken hold of some +particular province or tribe. Prohibition never prohibits. It never has +in history; not even in Moslem history; and it never will. Mahomet at +least had the argument of a climate and not the interest of a class. But +if a test is needed, consider what part of Moslem culture has passed +permanently into our own modern culture. You will find the one Moslem +poem that has really pierced is a Moslem poem in praise of wine. The +crown of all the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>victories of the Crescent is that nobody reads the +Koran and everybody reads the Rubaiyat.</p> + +<p>Most of us remember with satisfaction an old picture in <i>Punch</i>, +representing a festive old gentleman in a state of collapse on the +pavement, and a philanthropic old lady anxiously calling the attention +of a cabman to the calamity. The old lady says, 'I'm sure this poor +gentleman is ill,' and the cabman replies with fervour, 'Ill! I wish I +'ad 'alf 'is complaint.'</p> + +<p>We talk about unconscious humour; but there is such a thing as +unconscious seriousness. Flippancy is a flower whose roots are often +underground in the subconsciousness. Many a man talks sense when he +thinks he is talking nonsense; touches on a conflict of ideas as if it +were only a contradiction of language, or really makes a parallel when +he means only to make a pun. Some of the <i>Punch</i> jokes of the best +period are examples of this; and that quoted above is a very strong +example of it. The cabman meant what he said; but he said a great deal +more than he meant. His utterance contained fine philosophical doctrines +and distinctions of which he was not perhaps entirely conscious. The +spirit of the English language, the tragedy and comedy of the condition +of the English people, spoke through him as the god spoke through a +teraph-head or brazen mask of oracle. And the oracle is an omen; and in +some sense an omen of doom.</p> + +<p>Observe, to begin with, the sobriety of the cabman. Note his measure, +his moderation; or to use the yet truer term, his temperance. He only +wishes to have half the old gentleman's complaint. The old gentleman is +welcome to the other half, along with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> all the other pomps and luxuries +of his superior social station. There is nothing Bolshevist or even +Communist about the temperance cabman. He might almost be called +Distributist, in the sense that he wishes to distribute the old +gentleman's complaint more equally between the old gentleman and +himself. And, of course, the social relations there represented are very +much truer to life than it is fashionable to suggest. By the realism of +this picture Mr. Punch made amends for some more snobbish pictures, with +the opposite social moral. It will remain eternally among his real +glories that he exhibited a picture in which the cabman was sober and +the gentleman was drunk. Despite many ideas to the contrary, it was +emphatically a picture of real life. The truth is subject to the +simplest of all possible tests. If the cabman were really and truly +drunk he would not be a cabman, for he could not drive a cab. If he had +the whole of the old gentleman's complaint, he would be sitting happily +on the pavement beside the old gentleman; a symbol of social equality +found at last, and the levelling of all classes of mankind. I do not say +that there has never been such a monster known as a drunken cabman; I do +not say that the driver may not sometimes have approximated imprudently +to three-quarters of the complaint, instead of adhering to his severe +but wise conception of half of it. But I do say that most men of the +world, if they spoke sincerely, could testify to more examples of +helplessly drunken gentlemen put inside cabs than of helplessly drunken +drivers on top of them. Philanthropists and officials, who never look at +people but only at papers, probably have a mass of social statistics to +the contrary; founded on the simple fact that cabmen can be +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>cross-examined about their habits and gentlemen cannot. Social workers +probably have the whole thing worked out in sections and compartments, +showing how the extreme intoxication of cabmen compares with the +parallel intoxication of costermongers; or measuring the drunkenness of +a dustman against the drunkenness of a crossing-sweeper. But there is +more practical experience embodied in the practical speech of the +English; and in the proverb that says 'as drunk as a lord.'</p> + +<p>Now Prohibition, whether as a proposal in England or a pretence in +America, simply means that the man who has drunk less shall have no +drink, and the man who has drunk more shall have all the drink. It means +that the old gentleman shall be carried home in the cab drunker than +ever; but that, in order to make it quite safe for him to drink to +excess, the man who drives him shall be forbidden to drink even in +moderation. That is what it means; that is all it means; that is all it +ever will mean. It tends to that in Moslem countries; where the +luxurious and advanced drink champagne, while the poor and fanatical +drink water. It means that in modern America; where the wealthy are all +at this moment sipping their cocktails, and discussing how much harder +labourers can be made to work if only they can be kept from festivity. +This is what it means and all it means; and men are divided about it +according to whether they believe in a certain transcendental concept +called 'justice,' expressed in a more mystical paradox as the equality +of men. So long as you do not believe in justice, and so long as you are +rich and really confident of remaining so, you can have Prohibition and +be as drunk as you choose.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p><p>I see that some remarks by the Rev. R. J. Campbell, dealing with social +conditions in America, are reported in the press. They include some +observations about Sinn Fein in which, as in most of Mr. Campbell's +allusions to Ireland, it is not difficult to detect his dismal origin, +or the acrid smell of the smoke of Belfast. But the remarks about +America are valuable in the objective sense, over and above their +philosophy. He believes that Prohibition will survive and be a success, +nor does he seem himself to regard the prospect with any special +disfavour. But he frankly and freely testifies to the truth I have +asserted; that Prohibition does not prohibit, so far as the wealthy are +concerned. He testifies to constantly seeing wine on the table, as will +any other grateful guest of the generous hospitality of America; and he +implies humorously that he asked no questions about the story told him +of the old stocks in the cellars. So there is no dispute about the +facts; and we come back as before to the principles. Is Mr. Campbell +content with a Prohibition which is another name for Privilege? If so, +he has simply absorbed along with his new theology a new morality which +is different from mine. But he does state both sides of the inequality +with equal logic and clearness; and in these days of intellectual fog +that alone is like a ray of sunshine.</p> + +<p>Now my primary objection to Prohibition is not based on any arguments +against it, but on the one argument for it. I need nothing more for its +condemnation than the only thing that is said in its defence. It is said +by capitalists all over America; and it is very clearly and correctly +reported by Mr. Campbell himself. The argument is that employees work +harder, and therefore employers get richer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> That this idea should be +taken calmly, by itself, as the test of a problem of liberty, is in +itself a final testimony to the presence of slavery. It shows that +people have completely forgotten that there is any other test except the +servile test. Employers are willing that workmen should have exercise, +as it may help them to do more work. They are even willing that workmen +should have leisure; for the more intelligent capitalists can see that +this also really means that they can do more work. But they are not in +any way willing that workmen should have fun; for fun only increases the +happiness and not the utility of the worker. Fun is freedom; and in that +sense is an end in itself. It concerns the man not as a worker but as a +citizen, or even as a soul; and the soul in that sense is an end in +itself. That a man shall have a reasonable amount of comedy and poetry +and even fantasy in his life is part of his spiritual health, which is +for the service of God; and not merely for his mechanical health, which +is now bound to the service of man. The very test adopted has all the +servile implication; the test of what we can get out of him, instead of +the test of what he can get out of life.</p> + +<p>Mr. Campbell is reported to have suggested, doubtless rather as a +conjecture than a prophecy, that England may find it necessary to become +teetotal in order to compete commercially with the efficiency and +economy of teetotal America. Well, in the eighteenth and early +nineteenth centuries there was in America one of the most economical and +efficient of all forms of labour. It did not happen to be feasible for +the English to compete with it by copying it. There were so many +humanitarian prejudices about in those days. But economically there +seems to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> no reason why a man should not have prophesied that England +would be forced to adopt American Slavery then, as she is urged to adopt +American Prohibition now. Perhaps such a prophet would have prophesied +rightly. Certainly it is not impossible that universal Slavery might +have been the vision of Calhoun as universal Prohibition seems to be the +vision of Campbell. The old England of 1830 would have said that such a +plea for slavery was monstrous; but what would it have said of a plea +for enforced water-drinking? Nevertheless, the nobler Servile State of +Calhoun collapsed before it could spread to Europe. And there is always +the hope that the same may happen to the far more materialistic Utopia +of Mr. Campbell and Soft Drinks.</p> + +<p>Abstract morality is very important; and it may well clear the mind to +consider what would be the effect of Prohibition in America, if it were +introduced there. It would, of course, be a decisive departure from the +tradition of the Declaration of Independence. Those who deny that are +hardly serious enough to demand attention. It is enough to say that they +are reduced to minimising that document in defence of Prohibition, +exactly as the slave-owners were reduced to minimising it in defence of +Slavery. They are reduced to saying that the Fathers of the Republic +meant no more than that they would not be ruled by a king. And they are +obviously open to the reply which Lincoln gave to Douglas on the slavery +question; that if that great charter was limited to certain events in +the eighteenth century, it was hardly worth making such a fuss about in +the nineteenth—or in the twentieth. But they are also<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> open to another +reply which is even more to the point, when they pretend that +Jefferson's famous preamble only means to say that monarchy is wrong. +They are maintaining that Jefferson only meant to say something that he +does not say at all. The great preamble does not say that all +monarchical government must be wrong; on the contrary, it rather implies +that most government is right. It speaks of human governments in general +as justified by the necessity of defending certain personal rights. I +see no reason whatever to suppose that it would not include any royal +government that does defend those rights. Still less do I doubt what it +would say of a republican government that does destroy those rights.</p> + +<p>But what are those rights? Sophists can always debate about their +degree; but even sophists cannot debate about their direction. Nobody in +his five wits will deny that Jeffersonian democracy wished to give the +law a general control in more public things, but the citizens a more +general liberty in private things. Wherever we draw the line, liberty +can only be personal liberty; and the most personal liberties must at +least be the last liberties we lose. But to-day they are the first +liberties we lose. It is not a question of drawing the line in the right +place, but of beginning at the wrong end. What are the rights of man, if +they do not include the normal right to regulate his own health, in +relation to the normal risks of diet and daily life? Nobody can pretend +that beer is a poison as prussic acid is a poison; that all the millions +of civilised men who drank it all fell down dead when they had touched +it. Its use and abuse is obviously a matter of judgment; and there can +be no personal liberty, if it is not a matter of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> private judgment. It +is not in the least a question of drawing the line between liberty and +licence. If this is licence, there is no such thing as liberty. It is +plainly impossible to find any right more individual or intimate. To say +that a man has a right to a vote, but not a right to a voice about the +choice of his dinner, is like saying that he has a right to his hat but +not a right to his head.</p> + +<p>Prohibition, therefore, plainly violates the rights of man, if there are +any rights of man. What its supporters really mean is that there are +none. And in suggesting this, they have all the advantages that every +sceptic has when he supports a negation. That sort of ultimate +scepticism can only be retorted upon itself, and we can point out to +them that they can no more prove the right of the city to be oppressive +than we can prove the right of the citizen to be free. In the primary +metaphysics of such a claim, it would surely be easier to make it out +for a single conscious soul than for an artificial social combination. +If there are no rights of men, what are the rights of nations? Perhaps a +nation has no claim to self-government. Perhaps it has no claim to good +government. Perhaps it has no claim to any sort of government or any +sort of independence. Perhaps they will say <i>that</i> is not implied in the +Declaration of Independence. But without going deep into my reasons for +believing in natural rights, or rather in supernatural rights (and +Jefferson certainly states them as supernatural), I am content here to +note that a man's treatment of his own body, in relation to traditional +and ordinary opportunities for bodily excess, is as near to his +self-respect as social coercion can possibly go; and that when that is +gone there is nothing left.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> If coercion applies to that, it applies to +everything; and in the future of this controversy it obviously will +apply to everything. When I was in America, people were already applying +it to tobacco. I never can see why they should not apply it to talking. +Talking often goes with tobacco as it goes with beer; and what is more +relevant, talking may often lead both to beer and tobacco. Talking often +drives a man to drink, both negatively in the form of nagging and +positively in the form of bad company. If the American Puritan is so +anxious to be a <i>censor morum</i>, he should obviously put a stop to the +evil communications that really corrupt good manners. He should +reintroduce the Scold's Bridle among the other Blue Laws for a land of +blue devils. He should gag all gay deceivers and plausible cynics; he +should cut off all flattering lips and the tongue that speaketh proud +things. Nobody can doubt that nine-tenths of the harm in the world is +done simply by talking. Jefferson and the old democrats allowed people +to talk, not because they were unaware of this fact, but because they +were fettered by this old fancy of theirs about freedom and the rights +of man. But since we have already abandoned that doctrine in a final +fashion, I cannot see why the new principle should not be applied +intelligently; and in that case it would be applied to the control of +conversation. The State would provide us with forms already filled up +with the subjects suitable for us to discuss at breakfast; perhaps +allowing us a limited number of epigrams each. Perhaps we should have to +make a formal application in writing, to be allowed to make a joke that +had just occurred to us in conversation. And the committee would +consider it in due course. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>Perhaps it would be effected in a more +practical fashion, and the private citizens would be shut up as the +public-houses were shut up. Perhaps they would all wear gags, which the +policeman would remove at stated hours; and their mouths would be opened +from one to three, as now in England even the public-houses are from +time to time accessible to the public. To some this will sound +fantastic; but not so fantastic as Jefferson would have thought +Prohibition. But there is one sense in which it is indeed fantastic, for +by hypothesis it leaves out the favouritism that is the fundamental of +the whole matter. The only sense in which we can say that logic will +never go so far as this is that logic will never go the length of +equality. It is perfectly possible that the same forces that have +forbidden beer may go on to forbid tobacco. But they will in a special +and limited sense forbid tobacco—but not cigars. Or at any rate not +expensive cigars. In America, where large numbers of ordinary men smoke +rather ordinary cigars, there would be doubtless a good opportunity of +penalising a very ordinary pleasure. But the Havanas of the millionaire +will be all right. So it will be if ever the Puritans bring back the +Scold's Bridle and the statutory silence of the populace. It will only +be the populace that is silent. The politicians will go on talking.</p> + +<p>These I believe to be the broad facts of the problem of Prohibition; but +it would not be fair to leave it without mentioning two other causes +which, if not defences, are at least excuses. The first is that +Prohibition was largely passed in a sort of fervour or fever of +self-sacrifice, which was a part of the passionate patriotism of America +in the war. As I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> have remarked elsewhere, those who have any notion of +what that national unanimity was like will smile when they see America +made a model of mere international idealism. Prohibition was partly a +sort of patriotic renunciation; for the popular instinct, like every +poetic instinct, always tends at great crises to great gestures of +renunciation. But this very fact, while it makes the inhumanity far more +human, makes it far less final and convincing. Men cannot remain +standing stiffly in such symbolical attitudes; nor can a permanent +policy be founded on something analogous to flinging a gauntlet or +uttering a battle-cry. We might as well expect all the Yale students to +remain through life with their mouths open, exactly as they were when +they uttered the college yell. It would be as reasonable as to expect +them to remain through life with their mouths shut, while the wine-cup +which has been the sacrament of all poets and lovers passed round among +all the youth of the world. This point appeared very plainly in a +discussion I had with a very thoughtful and sympathetic American critic, +a clergyman writing in an Anglo-Catholic magazine. He put the sentiment +of these healthier Prohibitionists, which had so much to do with the +passing of Prohibition, by asking, 'May not a man who is asked to give +up his blood for his country be asked to give up his beer for his +country?' And this phrase clearly illuminates all the limitations of the +case. I have never denied, in principle, that it might in some abnormal +crisis be lawful for a government to lock up the beer, or to lock up the +bread. In that sense I am quite prepared to treat the sacrifice of beer +in the same way as the sacrifice of blood. But is my American critic +really ready to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> treat the sacrifice of blood in the same way as the +sacrifice of beer? Is bloodshed to be as prolonged and protracted as +Prohibition? Is the normal noncombatant to shed his gore as often as he +misses his drink? I can imagine people submitting to a special +regulation, as I can imagine them serving in a particular war. I do +indeed despise the political knavery that deliberately passes drink +regulations as war measures and then preserves them as peace measures. +But that is not a question of whether drink and drunkenness are wrong, +but of whether lying and swindling are wrong. But I never denied that +there might need to be exceptional sacrifices for exceptional occasions; +and war is in its nature an exception. Only, if war is the exception, +why should Prohibition be the rule? If the surrender of beer is worthy +to be compared to the shedding of blood, why then blood ought to be +flowing for ever like a fountain in the public squares of Philadelphia +and New York. If my critic wants to complete his parallel, he must draw +up rather a remarkable programme for the daily life of the ordinary +citizens. He must suppose that, through all their lives, they are +paraded every day at lunch time and prodded with bayonets to show that +they will shed their blood for their country. He must suppose that every +evening, after a light repast of poison gas and shrapnel, they are made +to go to sleep in a trench under a permanent drizzle of shell-fire. It +is surely obvious that if this were the normal life of the citizen, the +citizen would have no normal life. The common sense of the thing is that +sacrifices of this sort are admirable but abnormal. It is not normal for +the State to be perpetually regulating our days with the discipline of a +fighting regiment; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> it is not normal for the State to be perpetually +regulating our diet with the discipline of a famine. To say that every +citizen must be subject to control in such bodily things is like saying +that every Christian ought to tear himself with red-hot pincers because +the Christian martyrs did their duty in time of persecution. A man has a +right to control his body, though in a time of martyrdom he may give his +body to be burned; and a man has a right to control his bodily health, +though in a state of siege he may give his body to be starved. Thus, +though the patriotic defence was a sincere defence, it is a defence that +comes back on the defenders like a boomerang. For it proves only that +Prohibition ought to be ephemeral, unless war ought to be eternal.</p> + +<p>The other excuse is much less romantic and much more realistic. I have +already said enough of the cause which is really realistic. The real +power behind Prohibition is simply the plutocratic power of the pushing +employers who wish to get the last inch of work out of their workmen. +But before the progress of modern plutocracy had reached this stage, +there was a predetermining cause for which there was a much better case. +The whole business began with the problem of black labour. I have not +attempted in this book to deal adequately with the question of the +negro. I have refrained for a reason that may seem somewhat sensational; +that I do not think I have anything particularly valuable to say or +suggest. I do not profess to understand this singularly dark and +intricate matter; and I see no use in men who have no solution filling +up the gap with sentimentalism. The chief thing that struck me about the +coloured people I saw was their charming and astonishing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> cheerfulness. +My sense of pathos was appealed to much more by the Red Indians; and +indeed I wish I had more space here to do justice to the Red Indians. +They did heroic service in the war; and more than justified their +glorious place in the day-dreams and nightmares of our boyhood. But the +negro problem certainly demands more study than a sight-seer could give +it; and this book is controversial enough about things that I have +really considered, without permitting it to exhibit me as a sight-seer +who shoots at sight. But I believe that it was always common ground to +people of common sense that the enslavement and importation of negroes +had been the crime and catastrophe of American history. The only +difference was originally that one side thought that, the crime once +committed, the only reparation was their freedom; while the other +thought that, the crime once committed, the only safety was their +slavery. It was only comparatively lately, by a process I shall have to +indicate elsewhere, that anything like a positive case for slavery +became possible. Now among the many problems of the presence of an alien +and at least recently barbaric figure among the citizens, there was a +very real problem of drink. Drink certainly has a very exceptionally +destructive effect upon negroes in their native countries; and it was +alleged to have a peculiarly demoralising effect upon negroes in the +United States; to call up the passions that are the particular +temptation of the race and to lead to appalling outrages that are +followed by appalling popular vengeance. However this may be, many of +the states of the American Union, which first forbade liquor to +citizens, meant simply to forbid it to negroes. But they had not the +moral courage to deny that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> negroes are citizens. About all their +political expedients necessarily hung the load that hangs so heavy on +modern politics; hypocrisy. The superior race had to rule by a sort of +secret society organised against the inferior. The American politicians +dared not disfranchise the negroes; so they coerced everybody in theory +and only the negroes in practice. The drinking of the white men became +as much a conspiracy as the shooting by the white horsemen of the +Ku-Klux Klan. And in that connection, it may be remarked in passing that +the comparison illustrates the idiocy of supposing that the moral sense +of mankind will ever support the prohibition of drinking as if it were +something like the prohibition of shooting. Shooting in America is +liable to take a free form, and sometimes a very horrible form; as when +private bravos were hired to kill workmen in the capitalistic interests +of that pure patron of disarmament, Carnegie. But when some of the rich +Americans gravely tell us that their drinking cannot be interfered with, +because they are only using up their existing stocks of wine, we may +well be disposed to smile. When I was there, at any rate, they were +using them up very fast; and with no apparent fears about the supply. +But if the Ku-Klux Klan had started suddenly shooting everybody they +didn't like in broad daylight, and had blandly explained that they were +only using up the stocks of their ammunition, left over from the Civil +War, it seems probable that there would at least have been a little +curiosity about how much they had left. There might at least have been +occasional inquiries about how long it was likely to go on. It is even +conceivable that some steps might have been taken to stop it.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p><p>No steps are taken to stop the drinking of the rich, chiefly because +the rich now make all the rules and therefore all the exceptions, but +partly because nobody ever could feel the full moral seriousness of this +particular rule. And the truth is, as I have indicated, that it was +originally established as an exception and not as a rule. The +emancipated negro was an exception in the community, and a certain plan +was, rightly or wrongly, adopted to meet his case. A law was made +professedly for everybody and practically only for him. Prohibition is +only important as marking the transition by which the trick, tried +successfully on black labour, could be extended to all labour. We in +England have no right to be Pharisaic at the expense of the Americans in +this matter; for we have tried the same trick in a hundred forms. The +true philosophical defence of the modern oppression of the poor would be +to say frankly that we have ruled them so badly that they are unfit to +rule themselves. But no modern oligarch is enough of a man to say this. +For like all virile cynicism it would have an element of humility; which +would not mix with the necessary element of hypocrisy. So we proceed, +just as the Americans do, to make a law for everybody and then evade it +for ourselves. We have not the honesty to say that the rich may bet +because they can afford it; so we forbid any man to bet in any place; +and then say that a place is not a place. It is exactly as if there were +an American law allowing a negro to be murdered because he is not a man +within the meaning of the Act. We have not the honesty to drive the poor +to school because they are ignorant; so we pretend to drive everybody; +and then send inspectors to the slums but not to the smart streets. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> +apply the same ingenuous principle; and are quite as undemocratic as +Western democracy. Nevertheless there is an element in the American case +which cannot be present in ours; and this chapter may well conclude upon +so important a change.</p> + +<p>America can now say with pride that she has abolished the colour bar. In +this matter the white labourer and the black labourer have at last been +put upon an equal social footing. White labour is every bit as much +enslaved as black labour; and is actually enslaved by a method and a +model only intended for black labour. We might think it rather odd if +the exact regulations about flogging negroes were reproduced as a plan +for punishing strikers; or if industrial arbitration issued its reports +in the precise terminology of the Fugitive Slave Law. But this is in +essentials what has happened; and one could almost fancy some negro orgy +of triumph, with the beating of gongs and all the secret violence of +Voodoo, crying aloud to some ancestral Mumbo Jumbo that the Poor White +Trash was being treated according to its name.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="Fads_and_Public_Opinion" id="Fads_and_Public_Opinion"></a><i>Fads and Public Opinion</i></h2> + +<p>A foreigner is a man who laughs at everything except jokes. He is +perfectly entitled to laugh at anything, so long as he realises, in a +reverent and religious spirit, that he himself is laughable. I was a +foreigner in America; and I can truly claim that the sense of my own +laughable position never left me. But when the native and the foreigner +have finished with seeing the fun of each other in things that are meant +to be serious, they both approach the far more delicate and dangerous +ground of things that are meant to be funny. The sense of humour is +generally very national; perhaps that is why the internationalists are +so careful to purge themselves of it. I had occasion during the war to +consider the rights and wrongs of certain differences alleged to have +arisen between the English and American soldiers at the front. And, +rightly or wrongly, I came to the conclusion that they arose from the +failure to understand when a foreigner is serious and when he is +humorous. And it is in the very nature of the best sort of joke to be +the worst sort of insult if it is not taken as a joke.</p> + +<p>The English and the American types of humour are in one way directly +contrary. The most American sort of fun involves a soaring imagination, +piling one house on another in a tower like that of a sky-scraper. The +most English humour consists of a sort of bathos,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> of a man returning to +the earth his mother in a homely fashion; as when he sits down suddenly +on a butter-slide. English farce describes a man as being in a hole. +American fantasy, in its more aspiring spirit, describes a man as being +up a tree. The former is to be found in the cockney comic songs that +concern themselves with hanging out the washing or coming home with the +milk. The latter is to be found in those fantastic yarns about machines +that turn live pigs into pig-skin purses or burning cities that serve to +hatch an egg. But it will be inevitable, when the two come first into +contact, that the bathos will sound like vulgarity and the extravagance +will sound like boasting.</p> + +<p>Suppose an American soldier said to an English soldier in the trenches, +'The Kaiser may want a place in the sun; I reckon he won't have a place +in the solar system when we begin to hustle.' The English soldier will +very probably form the impression that this is arrogance; an impression +based on the extraordinary assumption that the American means what he +says. The American has merely indulged in a little art for art's sake, +and abstract adventure of the imagination; he has told an American short +story. But the Englishman, not understanding this, will think the other +man is boasting, and reflecting on the insufficiency of the English +effort. The English soldier is very likely to say something like, 'Oh, +you'll be wanting to get home to your old woman before that, and asking +for a kipper with your tea.' And it is quite likely that the American +will be offended in his turn at having his arabesque of abstract beauty +answered in so personal a fashion. Being an American, he will probably +have a fine and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> chivalrous respect for his wife; and may object to her +being called an old woman. Possibly he in turn may be under the +extraordinary delusion that talking of the old woman really means that +the woman is old. Possibly he thinks the mysterious demand for a kipper +carries with it some charge of ill-treating his wife; which his national +sense of honour swiftly resents. But the real cross-purposes come from +the contrary direction of the two exaggerations, the American making +life more wild and impossible than it is, and the Englishman making it +more flat and farcical than it is; the one escaping from the house of +life by a skylight and the other by a trap-door.</p> + +<p>This difficulty of different humours is a very practical one for +practical people. Most of those who profess to remove all international +differences are not practical people. Most of the phrases offered for +the reconciliation of severally patriotic peoples are entirely serious +and even solemn phrases. But human conversation is not conducted in +those phrases. The normal man on nine occasions out of ten is rather a +flippant man. And the normal man is almost always the national man. +Patriotism is the most popular of all the virtues. The drier sort of +democrats who despise it have the democracy against them in every +country in the world. Hence their international efforts seldom go any +farther than to effect an international reconciliation of all +internationalists. But we have not solved the normal and popular problem +until we have an international reconciliation of all nationalists.</p> + +<p>It is very difficult to see how humour can be translated at all. When +Sam Weller is in the Fleet Prison and Mrs. Weller and Mr. Stiggins sit +on each side<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> of the fireplace and weep and groan with sympathy, old Mr. +Weller observes, 'Vell, Sammy, I hope you find your spirits rose by this +'ere lively visit.' I have never looked up this passage in the popular +and successful French version of <i>Pickwick</i>; but I confess I am curious +as to what French past-participle conveys the precise effect of the word +'rose.' A translator has not only to give the right translation of the +right word but the right translation of the wrong word. And in the same +way I am quite prepared to suspect that there are English jokes which an +Englishman must enjoy in his own rich and romantic solitude, without +asking for the sympathy of an American. But Englishmen are generally +only too prone to claim this fine perception, without seeing that the +fine edge of it cuts both ways. I have begun this chapter on the note of +national humour because I wish to make it quite clear that I realise how +easily a foreigner may take something seriously that is not serious. +When I think something in America is really foolish, it may be I that am +made a fool of. It is the first duty of a traveller to allow for this; +but it seems to be the very last thing that occurs to some travellers. +But when I seek to say something of what may be called the fantastic +side of America, I allow beforehand that some of it may be meant to be +fantastic. And indeed it is very difficult to believe that some of it is +meant to be serious. But whether or no there is a joke, there is +certainly an inconsistency; and it is an inconsistency in the moral +make-up of America which both puzzles and amuses me.</p> + +<p>The danger of democracy is not anarchy but convention. There is even a +sort of double meaning in the word 'convention'; for it is also used for +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> most informal and popular sort of parliament; a parliament not +summoned by any king. The Americans come together very easily without +any king; but their coming together is in every sense a convention, and +even a very conventional convention. In a democracy riot is rather the +exception and respectability certainly the rule. And though a +superficial sight-seer should hesitate about all such generalisations, +and certainly should allow for enormous exceptions to them, he does +receive a general impression of unity verging on uniformity. Thus +Americans all dress well; one might almost say that American women all +look well; but they do not, as compared with Europeans, look very +different. They are in the fashion; too much in the fashion even to be +conspicuously fashionable. Of course there are patches, both Bohemian +and Babylonian, of which this is not true, but I am talking of the +general tone of a whole democracy. I have said there is more +respectability than riot; but indeed in a deeper sense the same spirit +is behind both riot and respectability. It is the same social force that +makes it possible for the respectable to boycott a man and for the +riotous to lynch him. I do not object to it being called 'the herd +instinct,' so long as we realise that it is a metaphor and not an +explanation.</p> + +<p>Public opinion can be a prairie fire. It eats up everything that opposes +it; and there is the grandeur as well as the grave disadvantages of a +natural catastrophe in that national unity. Pacifists who complained in +England of the intolerance of patriotism have no notion of what +patriotism can be like. If they had been in America, after America had +entered the war, they would have seen something which they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> have always +perhaps subconsciously dreaded, and would then have beyond all their +worst dreams detested; and the name of it is democracy. They would have +found that there are disadvantages in birds of a feather flocking +together; and that one of them follows on a too complacent display of +the white feather. The truth is that a certain flexible sympathy with +eccentrics of this kind is rather one of the advantages of an +aristocratic tradition. The imprisonment of Mr. Debs, the American +Pacifist, which really was prolonged and oppressive, would probably have +been shortened in England where his opinions were shared by aristocrats +like Mr. Bertrand Russell and Mr. Ponsonby. A man like Lord Hugh Cecil +could be moved to the defence of conscientious objectors, partly by a +true instinct of chivalry; but partly also by the general feeling that a +gentleman may very probably have aunts and uncles who are quite as mad. +He takes the matter personally, in the sense of being able to imagine +the psychology of the persons. But democracy is no respecter of persons. +It is no respecter of them, either in the bad and servile or in the good +and sympathetic sense. And Debs was nothing to democracy. He was but one +of the millions. This is a real problem, or question in the balance, +touching different forms of government; which is, of course, quite +neglected by the idealists who merely repeat long words. There was +during the war a society called the Union of Democratic Control, which +would have been instantly destroyed anywhere where democracy had any +control, or where there was any union. And in this sense the United +States have most emphatically got a union. Nevertheless I think there is +something rather more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> subtle than this simple popular solidity behind +the assimilation of American citizens to each other. There is something +even in the individual ideals that drives towards this social sympathy. +And it is here that we have to remember that biological fancies like the +herd instinct are only figures of speech, and cannot really cover +anything human. For the Americans are in some ways a very self-conscious +people. To compare their social enthusiasm to a stampede of cattle is to +ask us to believe in a bull writing a diary or a cow looking in a +looking-glass. Intensely sensitive by their very vitality, they are +certainly conscious of criticism and not merely of a blind and brutal +appetite. But the peculiar point about them is that it is this very +vividness in the self that often produces the similarity. It may be that +when they are unconscious they are like bulls and cows. But it is when +they are self-conscious that they are like each other.</p> + +<p>Individualism is the death of individuality. It is so, if only because +it is an 'ism.' Many Americans become almost impersonal in their worship +of personality. Where their natural selves might differ, their ideal +selves tend to be the same. Anybody can see what I mean in those strong +self-conscious photographs of American business men that can be seen in +any American magazine. Each may conceive himself to be a solitary +Napoleon brooding at St. Helena; but the result is a multitude of +Napoleons brooding all over the place. Each of them must have the eyes +of a mesmerist; but the most weak-minded person cannot be mesmerised by +more than one millionaire at a time. Each of the millionaires must +thrust forward his jaw, offering (if I may say so) to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> fight the world +with the same weapon as Samson. Each of them must accentuate the length +of his chin, especially, of course, by always being completely +clean-shaven. It would be obviously inconsistent with Personality to +prefer to wear a beard. These are of course fantastic examples on the +fringe of American life; but they do stand for a certain assimilation, +not through brute gregariousness, but rather through isolated dreaming. +And though it is not always carried so far as this, I do think it is +carried too far. There is not quite enough unconsciousness to produce +real individuality. There is a sort of worship of will-power in the +abstract, so that people are actually thinking about how they can will, +more than about what they want. To this I do think a certain corrective +could be found in the nature of English eccentricity. Every man in his +humour is most interesting when he is unconscious of his humour; or at +least when he is in an intermediate stage between humour in the old +sense of oddity and in the new sense of irony. Much is said in these +days against negative morality; and certainly most Americans would show +a positive preference for positive morality. The virtues they venerate +collectively are very active virtues; cheerfulness and courage and vim, +otherwise zip, also pep and similar things. But it is sometimes +forgotten that negative morality is freer than positive morality. +Negative morality is a net of a larger and more open pattern, of which +the lines or cords constrict at longer intervals. A man like Dr. Johnson +could grow in his own way to his own stature in the net of the Ten +Commandments; precisely because he was convinced there were only ten of +them. He was not compressed into the mould of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> positive beauty, like +that of the Apollo Belvedere or the American citizen.</p> + +<p>This criticism is sometimes true even of the American woman, who is +certainly a much more delightful person than the mesmeric millionaire +with his shaven jaw. Interviewers in the United States perpetually asked +me what I thought of American women, and I confessed a distaste for such +generalisations which I have not managed to lose. The Americans, who are +the most chivalrous people in the world, may perhaps understand me; but +I can never help feeling that there is something polygamous about +talking of women in the plural at all; something unworthy of any +American except a Mormon. Nevertheless, I think the exaggeration I +suggest does extend in a less degree to American women, fascinating as +they are. I think they too tend too much to this cult of impersonal +personality. It is a description easy to exaggerate even by the faintest +emphasis; for all these things are subtle and subject to striking +individual exceptions. To complain of people for being brave and bright +and kind and intelligent may not unreasonably appear unreasonable. And +yet there is something in the background that can only be expressed by a +symbol, something that is not shallowness but a neglect of the +subconsciousness and the vaguer and slower impulses; something that can +be missed amid all that laughter and light, under those starry +candelabra of the ideals of the happy virtues. Sometimes it came over +me, in a wordless wave, that I should like to see a sulky woman. How she +would walk in beauty like the night, and reveal more silent spaces full +of older stars! These things cannot be conveyed in their delicate +proportion even in the most detached<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> description. But the same thing +was in the mind of a white-bearded old man I met in New York, an Irish +exile and a wonderful talker, who stared up at the tower of gilded +galleries of the great hotel, and said with that spontaneous movement of +style which is hardly heard except from Irish talkers: 'And I have been +in a village in the mountains where the people could hardly read or +write; but all the men were like soldiers, and all the women had pride.'</p> + +<p>It sounds like a poem about an Earthly Paradise to say that in this land +the old women can be more beautiful than the young. Indeed, I think Walt +Whitman, the national poet, has a line somewhere almost precisely to +that effect. It sounds like a parody upon Utopia, and the image of the +lion lying down with the lamb, to say it is a place where a man might +almost fall in love with his mother-in-law. But there is nothing in +which the finer side of American gravity and good feeling does more +honourably exhibit itself than in a certain atmosphere around the older +women. It is not a cant phrase to say that they grow old gracefully; for +they do really grow old. In this the national optimism really has in it +the national courage. The old women do not dress like young women; they +only dress better. There is another side to this feminine dignity in the +old, sometimes a little lost in the young, with which I shall deal +presently. The point for the moment is that even Whitman's truly poetic +vision of the beautiful old women suffers a little from that bewildering +multiplicity and recurrence that is indeed the whole theme of Whitman. +It is like the green eternity of Leaves of Grass. When I think of the +eccentric spinsters and incorrigible grandmothers of my own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> country, I +cannot imagine that any one of them could possibly be mistaken for +another, even at a glance. And in comparison I feel as if I had been +travelling in an Earthly Paradise of more decorative harmonies; and I +remember only a vast cloud of grey and pink as of the plumage of +cherubim in an old picture. But on second thoughts, I think this may be +only the inevitable effect of visiting any country in a swift and +superficial fashion; and that the grey and pink cloud is probably an +illusion, like the spinning prairies scattered by the wheel of the +train.</p> + +<p>Anyhow there is enough of this equality, and of a certain social unity +favourable to sanity, to make the next point about America very much of +a puzzle. It seems to me a very real problem, to which I have never seen +an answer even such as I shall attempt here, why a democracy should +produce fads; and why, where there is so genuine a sense of human +dignity, there should be so much of an impossible petty tyranny. I am +not referring solely or even specially to Prohibition, which I discuss +elsewhere. Prohibition is at least a superstition, and therefore next +door to a religion; it has some imaginable connection with moral +questions, as have slavery or human sacrifice. But those who ask us to +model ourselves on the States which punish the sin of drink forget that +there are States which punish the equally shameless sin of smoking a +cigarette in the open air. The same American atmosphere that permits +Prohibition permits of people being punished for kissing each other. In +other words, there are States psychologically capable of making a man a +convict for wearing a blue neck-tie or having a green front-door, or +anything else that anybody chooses to fancy. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> is an American +atmosphere in which people may some day be shot for shaking hands, or +hanged for writing a post-card.</p> + +<p>As for the sort of thing to which I refer, the American newspapers are +full of it and there is no name for it but mere madness. Indeed it is +not only mad, but it calls itself mad. To mention but one example out of +many, it was actually boasted that some lunatics were teaching children +to take care of their health. And it was proudly added that the children +were 'health-mad.' That it is not exactly the object of all mental +hygiene to make people mad did not occur to them; and they may still be +engaged in their earnest labours to teach babies to be valetudinarians +and hypochondriacs in order to make them healthy. In such cases, we may +say that the modern world is too ridiculous to be ridiculed. You cannot +caricature a caricature. Imagine what a satirist of saner days would +have made of the daily life of a child of six, who was actually admitted +to be mad on the subject of his own health. These are not days in which +that great extravaganza could be written; but I dimly see some of its +episodes like uncompleted dreams. I see the child pausing in the middle +of a cart-wheel, or when he has performed three-quarters of a +cart-wheel, and consulting a little note-book about the amount of +exercise per diem. I see him pausing half-way up a tree, or when he has +climbed exactly one-third of a tree; and then producing a clinical +thermometer to take his own temperature. But what would be the good of +imaginative logic to prove the madness of such people, when they +themselves praise it for being mad?</p> + +<p>There is also the cult of the Infant Phenomenon,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> of which Dickens made +fun and of which educationalists make fusses. When I was in America +another newspaper produced a marvellous child of six who had the +intellect of a child of twelve. The only test given, and apparently one +on which the experiment turned, was that she could be made to understand +and even to employ the word 'annihilate.' When asked to say something +proving this, the happy infant offered the polished aphorism, 'When +common sense comes in, superstition is annihilated.' In reply to which, +by way of showing that I also am as intelligent as a child of twelve, +and there is no arrested development about me, I will say in the same +elegant diction, 'When psychological education comes in, common sense is +annihilated.' Everybody seems to be sitting round this child in an +adoring fashion. It did not seem to occur to anybody that we do not +particularly want even a child of twelve to talk about annihilating +superstition; that we do not want a child of six to talk like a child of +twelve, or a child of twelve to talk like a man of fifty, or even a man +of fifty to talk like a fool. And on the principle of hoping that a +little girl of six will have a massive and mature brain, there is every +reason for hoping that a little boy of six will grow a magnificent and +bushy beard.</p> + +<p>Now there is any amount of this nonsense cropping up among American +cranks. Anybody may propose to establish coercive Eugenics; or enforce +psychoanalysis—that is, enforce confession without absolution. And I +confess I cannot connect this feature with the genuine democratic spirit +of the mass. I can only suggest, in concluding this chapter, two +possible causes rather peculiar to America, which may have made this +great democracy so unlike all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> other democracies, and in this so +manifestly hostile to the whole democratic idea.</p> + +<p>The first historical cause is Puritanism; but not Puritanism merely in +the sense of Prohibitionism. The truth is that prohibitions might have +done far less harm as prohibitions, if a vague association had not +arisen, on some dark day of human unreason, between prohibition and +progress. And it was the progress that did the harm, not the +prohibition. Men can enjoy life under considerable limitations, if they +can be sure of their limited enjoyments; but under Progressive +Puritanism we can never be sure of anything. The curse of it is not +limitation; it is unlimited limitation. The evil is not in the +restriction; but in the fact that nothing can ever restrict the +restriction. The prohibitions are bound to progress point by point; more +and more human rights and pleasures must of necessity be taken away; for +it is of the nature of this futurism that the latest fad is the faith of +the future, and the most fantastic fad inevitably makes the pace. Thus +the worst thing in the seventeenth-century aberration was not so much +Puritanism as sectarianism. It searched for truth not by synthesis but +by subdivision. It not only broke religion into small pieces, but it was +bound to choose the smallest piece. There is in America, I believe, a +large religious body that has felt it right to separate itself from +Christendom because it cannot believe in the morality of wearing +buttons. I do not know how the schism arose; but it is easy to suppose, +for the sake of argument, that there had originally existed some Puritan +body which condemned the frivolity of ribbons though not of buttons. I +was going to say of badges but not buttons; but on reflection I cannot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> +bring myself to believe that any American, however insane, would object +to wearing badges. But the point is that as the holy spirit of +progressive prophesy rested on the first sect because it had invented a +new objection to ribbons, so that holy spirit would then pass from it to +the new sect who invented a further objection to buttons. And from them +it must inevitably pass to any rebel among them who shall choose to rise +and say that he disapproves of trousers because of the existence of +trouser-buttons. Each secession in turn must be right because it is +recent, and progress must progress by growing smaller and smaller. That +is the progressive theory, the legacy of seventeenth-century +sectarianism, the dogma implied in much modern politics, and the evident +enemy of democracy. Democracy is reproached with saying that the +majority is always right. But progress says that the minority is always +right. Progressives are prophets; and fortunately not all the people are +prophets. Thus in the atmosphere of this slowly dying sectarianism +anybody who chooses to prophesy and prohibit can tyrannise over the +people. If he chooses to say that drinking is always wrong, or that +kissing is always wrong, or that wearing buttons is always wrong, people +are afraid to contradict him for fear they should be contradicting their +own great-grandchild. For their superstition is an inversion of the +ancestor-worship of China; and instead of vainly appealing to something +that is dead, they appeal to something that may never be born.</p> + +<p>There is another cause of this strange servile disease in American +democracy. It is to be found in American feminism, and feminist America +is an entirely different thing from feminine America. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> should say that +the overwhelming majority of American girls laugh at their female +politicians at least as much as the majority of American men despise +their male politicians. But though the aggressive feminists are a +minority, they are in this atmosphere which I have tried to analyse; the +atmosphere in which there is a sort of sanctity about the minority. And +it is this superstition of seriousness that constitutes the most solid +obstacle and exception to the general and almost conventional pressure +of public opinion. When a fad is frankly felt to be anti-national, as +was Abolitionism before the Civil War, or Pro-Germanism in the Great +War, or the suggestion of racial admixture in the South at all times, +then the fad meets far less mercy than anywhere else in the world; it is +snowed under and swept away. But when it does not thus directly +challenge patriotism or popular ideas, a curious halo of hopeful +solemnity surrounds it, merely because it is a fad, but above all if it +is a feminine fad. The earnest lady-reformer who really utters a warning +against the social evil of beer or buttons is seen to be walking clothed +in light, like a prophetess. Perhaps it is something of the holy aureole +which the East sees shining around an idiot.</p> + +<p>But I think there is another explanation, feminine rather than feminist, +and proceeding from normal women and not from abnormal idiots. It is +something that involves an old controversy, but one upon which I have +not, like so many politicians, changed my opinion. It concerns the +particular fashion in which women tend to regard, or rather to +disregard, the formal and legal rights of the citizen. In so far as this +is a bias, it is a bias in the directly opposite direction from that now +lightly alleged. There is a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> sort of underbred history going about, +according to which women in the past have always been in the position of +slaves. It is much more to the point to note that women have always been +in the position of despots. They have been despotic because they ruled +in an area where they had too much common sense to attempt to be +constitutional. You cannot grant a constitution to a nursery; nor can +babies assemble like barons and extort a Great Charter. Tommy cannot +plead a Habeas Corpus against going to bed; and an infant cannot be +tried by twelve other infants before he is put in the corner. And as +there can be no laws or liberties in a nursery, the extension of +feminism means that there shall be no more laws or liberties in a state +than there are in a nursery. The woman does not really regard men as +citizens but as children. She may, if she is a humanitarian, love all +mankind; but she does not respect it. Still less does she respect its +votes. Now a man must be very blind nowadays not to see that there is a +danger of a sort of amateur science or pseudo-science being made the +excuse for every trick of tyranny and interference. Anybody who is not +an anarchist agrees with having a policeman at the corner of the street; +but the danger at present is that of finding the policeman half-way down +the chimney or even under the bed. In other words, it is a danger of +turning the policeman into a sort of benevolent burglar. Against this +protests are already being made, and will increasingly be made, if men +retain any instinct of independence or dignity at all. But to complain +of the woman interfering in the home will always sound like complaining +of the oyster intruding into the oyster-shell. To object that she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> has +too much power over education will seem like objecting to a hen having +too much to do with eggs. She has already been given an almost +irresponsible power over a limited region in these things; and if that +power is made infinite it will be even more irresponsible. If she adds +to her own power in the family all these alien fads external to the +family, her power will not only be irresponsible but insane. She will be +something which may well be called a nightmare of the nursery; a mad +mother. But the point is that she will be mad about other nurseries as +well as her own, or possibly instead of her own. The results will be +interesting; but at least it is certain that under this softening +influence government of the people, by the people, for the people, will +most assuredly perish from the earth.</p> + +<p>But there is always another possibility. Hints of it may be noted here +and there like muffled gongs of doom. The other day some people +preaching some low trick or other, for running away from the glory of +motherhood, were suddenly silenced in New York; by a voice of deep and +democratic volume. The prigs who potter about the great plains are +pygmies dancing round a sleeping giant. That which sleeps, so far as +they are concerned, is the huge power of human unanimity and intolerance +in the soul of America. At present the masses in the Middle West are +indifferent to such fancies or faintly attracted by them, as fashions of +culture from the great cities. But any day it may not be so; some +lunatic may cut across their economic rights or their strange and buried +religion; and then he will see something. He will find himself running +like a nigger who has wronged a white woman or a man who has set<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> the +prairie on fire. He will see something which the politicians fan in its +sleep and flatter with the name of the people, which many reactionaries +have cursed with the name of the mob, but which in any case has had +under its feet the crowns of many kings. It was said that the voice of +the people is the voice of God; and this at least is certain, that it +can be the voice of God to the wicked. And the last antics of their +arrogance shall stiffen before something enormous, such as towers in the +last words that Job heard out of the whirlwind; and a voice they never +knew shall tell them that his name is Leviathan, and he is lord over all +the children of pride.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="The_Extraordinary_American" id="The_Extraordinary_American"></a><i>The Extraordinary American</i></h2> + +<p>When I was in America I had the feeling that it was far more foreign +than France or even than Ireland. And by foreign I mean fascinating +rather than repulsive. I mean that element of strangeness which marks +the frontier of any fairyland, or gives to the traveller himself the +almost eerie title of the stranger. And I saw there more clearly than in +countries counted as more remote from us, in race or religion, a paradox +that is one of the great truths of travel.</p> + +<p>We have never even begun to understand a people until we have found +something that we do not understand. So long as we find the character +easy to read, we are reading into it our own character. If when we see +an event we can promptly provide an explanation, we may be pretty +certain that we had ourselves prepared the explanation before we saw the +event. It follows from this that the best picture of a foreign people +can probably be found in a puzzle picture. If we can find an event of +which the meaning is really dark to us, it will probably throw some +light on the truth. I will therefore take from my American experiences +one isolated incident, which certainly could not have happened in any +other country I have ever clapped eyes on. I have really no notion of +what it meant. I have heard even from Americans about five different +conjectures about its meaning. But though I do not understand it, I do +sincerely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> believe that if I did understand it, I should understand +America.</p> + +<p>It happened in the city of Oklahoma, which would require a book to +itself, even considered as a background. The State of Oklahoma is a +district in the south-west recently reclaimed from the Red Indian +territory. What many, quite incorrectly, imagine about all America is +really true of Oklahoma. It is proud of having no history. It is glowing +with the sense of having a great future—and nothing else. People are +just as likely to boast of an old building in Nashville as in Norwich; +people are just as proud of old families in Boston as in Bath. But in +Oklahoma the citizens do point out a colossal structure, arrogantly +affirming that it wasn't there last week. It was against the colours of +this crude stage scenery, as of a pantomime city of pasteboard, that the +fantastic figure appeared which still haunts me like a walking note of +interrogation. I was strolling down the main street of the city, and +looking in at a paper-stall vivid with the news of crime, when a +stranger addressed me; and asked me, quite politely but with a curious +air of having authority to put the question, what I was doing in that +city.</p> + +<p>He was a lean brown man, having rather the look of a shabby tropical +traveller, with a grey moustache and a lively and alert eye. But the +most singular thing about him was that the front of his coat was covered +with a multitude of shining metallic emblems made in the shape of stars +and crescents. I was well accustomed by this time to Americans adorning +the lapels of their coats with little symbols of various societies; it +is a part of the American passion for the ritual of comradeship. There +is nothing that an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> American likes so much as to have a secret society +and to make no secret of it. But in this case, if I may put it so, the +rash of symbolism seemed to have broken out all over the man, in a +fashion that indicated that the fever was far advanced. Of this minor +mystery, however, his first few sentences offered a provisional +explanation. In answer to his question, touching my business in +Oklahoma, I replied with restraint that I was lecturing. To which he +replied without restraint, but rather with an expansive and radiant +pride, 'I also am lecturing. I am lecturing on astronomy.'</p> + +<p>So far a certain wild rationality seemed to light up the affair. I knew +it was unusual, in my own country, for the Astronomer Royal to walk down +the Strand with his coat plastered all over with the Solar System. +Indeed, it was unusual for any English astronomical lecturer to +advertise the subject of his lectures in this fashion. But though it +would be unusual, it would not necessarily be unreasonable. In fact, I +think it might add to the colour and variety of life, if specialists did +adopt this sort of scientific heraldry. I should like to be able to +recognise an entomologist at sight by the decorative spiders and +cockroaches crawling all over his coat and waistcoat. I should like to +see a conchologist in a simple costume of shells. An osteopath, I +suppose, would be agreeably painted so as to resemble a skeleton, while +a botanist would enliven the street with the appearance of a +Jack-in-the-Green. So while I regarded the astronomical lecturer in the +astronomical coat as a figure distinguishable, by a high degree of +differentiation, from the artless astronomers of my island home (enough +their simple loveliness for me) I saw in him nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> illogical, but +rather an imaginative extreme of logic. And then came another turn of +the wheel of topsy-turvydom, and all the logic was scattered to the +wind.</p> + +<p>Expanding his starry bosom and standing astraddle, with the air of one +who owned the street, the strange being continued, 'Yes, I am lecturing +on astronomy, anthropology, archaeology, palaeontology, embryology, +eschatology,' and so on in a thunderous roll of theoretical sciences +apparently beyond the scope of any single university, let alone any +single professor. Having thus introduced himself, however, he got to +business. He apologised with true American courtesy for having +questioned me at all, and excused it on the ground of his own exacting +responsibilities. I imagined him to mean the responsibility of +simultaneously occupying the chairs of all the faculties already +mentioned. But these apparently were trifles to him, and something far +more serious was clouding his brow.</p> + +<p>'I feel it to be my duty,' he said, 'to acquaint myself with any +stranger visiting this city; and it is an additional pleasure to welcome +here a member of the Upper Ten.' I assured him earnestly that I knew +nothing about the Upper Ten, except that I did not belong to them; I +felt, not without alarm, that the Upper Ten might be another secret +society. He waved my abnegation aside and continued, 'I have a great +responsibility in watching over this city. My friend the mayor and I +have a great responsibility.' And then an extraordinary thing happened. +Suddenly diving his hand into his breast-pocket, he flashed something +before my eyes like a hand-mirror; something which disappeared again<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> +almost as soon as it appeared. In that flash I could only see that it +was some sort of polished metal plate, with some letters engraved on it +like a monogram. But the reward of a studious and virtuous life, which +has been spent chiefly in the reading of American detective stories, +shone forth for me in that hour of trial; I received at last the prize +of a profound scholarship in the matter of imaginary murders in +tenth-rate magazines. I remembered who it was who in the Yankee +detective yarn flashes before the eyes of Slim Jim or the Lone Hand +Crook a badge of metal sometimes called a shield. Assuming all the +desperate composure of Slim Jim himself, I replied, 'You mean you are +connected with the police authorities here, don't you? Well, if I commit +a murder here, I'll let you know.' Whereupon that astonishing man waved +a hand in deprecation, bowed in farewell with the grace of a dancing +master; and said, 'Oh, those are not things we expect from members of +the Upper Ten.'</p> + +<p>Then that moving constellation moved away, disappearing in the dark +tides of humanity, as the vision passed away down the dark tides from +Sir Galahad and, starlike, mingled with the stars.</p> + +<p>That is the problem I would put to all Americans, and to all who claim +to understand America. Who and what was that man? Was he an astronomer? +Was he a detective? Was he a wandering lunatic? If he was a lunatic who +thought he was an astronomer, why did he have a badge to prove he was a +detective? If he was a detective pretending to be an astronomer, why did +he tell a total stranger that he was a detective two minutes after +saying he was an astronomer? If he wished to watch over the city in a +quiet and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> unobtrusive fashion, why did he blazon himself all over with +all the stars of the sky, and profess to give public lectures on all the +subjects of the world? Every wise and well-conducted student of murder +stories is acquainted with the notion of a policeman in plain clothes. +But nobody could possibly say that this gentleman was in plain clothes. +Why not wear his uniform, if he was resolved to show every stranger in +the street his badge? Perhaps after all he had no uniform; for these +lands were but recently a wild frontier rudely ruled by vigilance +committees. Some Americans suggested to me that he was the Sheriff; the +regular hard-riding, free-shooting Sheriff of Bret Harte and my +boyhood's dreams. Others suggested that he was an agent of the Ku-Klux +Klan, that great nameless revolution of the revival of which there were +rumours at the time; and that the symbol he exhibited was theirs. But +whether he was a sheriff acting for the law, or a conspirator against +the law, or a lunatic entirely outside the law, I agree with the former +conjectures upon one point. I am perfectly certain he had something else +in his pocket besides a badge. And I am perfectly certain that under +certain circumstances he would have handled it instantly, and shot me +dead between the gay bookstall and the crowded trams. And that is the +last touch to the complexity; for though in that country it often seems +that the law is made by a lunatic, you never know when the lunatic may +not shoot you for keeping it. Only in the presence of that citizen of +Oklahoma I feel I am confronted with the fullness and depth of the +mystery of America. Because I understand nothing, I recognise the thing +that we call a nation; and I salute the flag.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p><p>But even in connection with this mysterious figure there is a moral +which affords another reason for mentioning him. Whether he was a +sheriff or an outlaw, there was certainly something about him that +suggested the adventurous violence of the old border life of America; +and whether he was connected with the police or no, there was certainly +violence enough in his environment to satisfy the most ardent policeman. +The posters in the paper-shop were placarded with the verdict in the +Hamon trial; a <i>cause célèbre</i> which reached its crisis in Oklahoma +while I was there. Senator Hamon had been shot by a girl whom he had +wronged, and his widow demanded justice, or what might fairly be called +vengeance. There was very great excitement culminating in the girl's +acquittal. Nor did the Hamon case appear to be entirely exceptional in +that breezy borderland. The moment the town had received the news that +Clara Smith was free, newsboys rushed down the street shouting, 'Double +stabbing outrage near Oklahoma,' or 'Banker's throat cut on Main +Street,' or otherwise resuming their regular mode of life. It seemed as +much as to say, 'Do not imagine that our local energies are exhausted in +shooting a Senator,' or 'Come, now, the world is young, even if Clara +Smith is acquitted, and the enthusiasm of Oklahoma is not yet cold.'</p> + +<p>But my particular reason for mentioning the matter is this. Despite my +friend's mystical remarks about the Upper Ten, he lived in an atmosphere +of something that was at least the very reverse of a respect for +persons. Indeed, there was something in the very crudity of his social +compliment that smacked, strangely enough, of that egalitarian soil. In +a vaguely <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>aristocratic country like England, people would never dream +of telling a total stranger that he was a member of the Upper Ten. For +one thing, they would be afraid that he might be. Real snobbishness is +never vulgar; for it is intended to please the refined. Nobody licks the +boots of a duke, if only because the duke does not like his boots +cleaned in that way. Nobody embraces the knees of a marquis, because it +would embarrass that nobleman. And nobody tells him he is a member of +the Upper Ten, because everybody is expected to know it. But there is a +much more subtle kind of snobbishness pervading the atmosphere of any +society trial in England. And the first thing that struck me was the +total absence of that atmosphere in the trial at Oklahoma. Mr. Hamon was +presumably a member of the Upper Ten, if there is such a thing. He was a +member of the Senate or Upper House in the American Parliament; he was a +millionaire and a pillar of the Republican party, which might be called +the respectable party; he is said to have been mentioned as a possible +President. And the speeches of Clara Smith's counsel, who was known by +the delightfully Oklahomite title of Wild Bill McLean, were wild enough +in all conscience; but they left very little of my friend's illusion +that members of the Upper Ten could not be accused of crimes. Nero and +Borgia were quite presentable people compared with Senator Hamon when +Wild Bill McLean had done with him. But the difference was deeper, and +even in a sense more delicate than this. There is a certain tone about +English trials, which does at least begin with a certain scepticism +about people prominent in public life being abominable in private life. +People do vaguely doubt the criminality of 'a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> man in that position'; +that is, the position of the Marquise de Brinvilliers or the Marquis de +Sade. <i>Prima facie</i>, it would be an advantage to the Marquis de Sade +that he was a marquis. But it was certainly against Hamon that he was a +millionaire. Wild Bill did not minimise him as a bankrupt or an +adventurer; he insisted on the solidity and size of his fortune, he made +mountains out of the 'Hamon millions,' as if they made the matter much +worse; as indeed I think they do. But that is because I happen to share +a certain political philosophy with Wild Bill and other wild buffaloes +of the prairies. In other words, there is really present here a +democratic instinct against the domination of wealth. It does not +prevent wealth from dominating; but it does prevent the domination from +being regarded with any affection or loyalty. Despite the man in the +starry coat, the Americans have not really any illusions about the Upper +Ten. McLean was appealing to an implicit public opinion when he pelted +the Senator with his gold.</p> + +<p>But something more is involved. I became conscious, as I have been +conscious in reading the crime novels of America, that the millionaire +was taken as a type and not an individual. This is the great difference; +that America recognises rich crooks as a <i>class</i>. Any Englishman might +recognise them as individuals. Any English romance may turn on a crime +in high life; in which the baronet is found to have poisoned his wife, +or the elusive burglar turns out to be the bishop. But the English are +not always saying, either in romance or reality, 'What's to be done, if +our food is being poisoned by all these baronets?' They do not murmur in +indignation, 'If bishops will go on burgling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> like this, something must +be done.' The whole point of the English romance is the exceptional +character of a crime in high life. That is not the tone of American +novels or American newspapers or American trials like the trial in +Oklahoma. Americans may be excited when a millionaire crook is caught, +as when any other crook is caught; but it is at his being caught, not at +his being discovered. To put the matter shortly, England recognises a +criminal class at the bottom of the social scale. America also +recognises a criminal class at the top of the social scale. In both, for +various reasons, it may be difficult for the criminals to be convicted; +but in America the upper class of criminals is recognised. In both +America and England, of course, it exists.</p> + +<p>This is an assumption at the back of the American mind which makes a +great difference in many ways; and in my opinion a difference for the +better. I wrote merely fancifully just now about bishops being burglars; +but there is a story in New York, illustrating this, which really does +in a sense attribute a burglary to a bishop. The story was that an +Anglican Lord Spiritual, of the pompous and now rather antiquated +school, was pushing open the door of a poor American tenement with all +the placid patronage of the squire and rector visiting the cottagers, +when a gigantic Irish policeman came round the corner and hit him a +crack over the head with a truncheon on the assumption that he was a +house-breaker. I hope that those who laugh at the story see that the +laugh is not altogether against the policeman; and that it is not only +the policeman, but rather the bishop, who had failed to recognise some +fine logical distinctions. The bishop, being a learned man, might well +be called<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> upon (when he had sufficiently recovered from the knock on +the head) to define what is the exact difference between a house-breaker +and a home-visitor; and why the home-visitor should not be regarded as a +house-breaker when he will not behave as a guest. An impartial +intelligence will be much less shocked at the policeman's disrespect for +the home-visitor than by the home-visitor's disrespect for the home.</p> + +<p>But that story smacks of the western soil, precisely because of the +element of brutality there is in it. In England snobbishness and social +oppression are much subtler and softer; the manifestations of them at +least are more mellow and humane. In comparison there is indeed +something which people call ruthless about the air of America, +especially the American cities. The bishop may push open the door +without an apology, but he would not break open the door with a +truncheon; but the Irish policeman's truncheon hits both ways. It may be +brutal to the tenement dweller as well as to the bishop; but the +difference and distinction is that it might really be brutal to the +bishop. It is because there is after all, at the back of all that +barbarism, a sort of a negative belief in the brotherhood of men, a dark +democratic sense that men are really men and nothing more, that the +coarse and even corrupt bureaucracy is not resented exactly as +oligarchic bureaucracies are resented. There is a sense in which +corruption is not so narrow as nepotism. It is upon this queer cynical +charity, and even humility, that it has been possible to rear so high +and uphold so long that tower of brass, Tammany Hall. The modern police +system is in spirit the most inhuman in history,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> and its evil belongs +to an age and not to a nation. But some American police methods are evil +past all parallel; and the detective can be more crooked than a hundred +crooks. But in the States it is not only possible that the policeman is +worse than the convict, it is by no means certain that he thinks that he +is any better. In the popular stories of O. Henry there are light +allusions to tramps being kicked out of hotels which will make any +Christian seek relief in strong language and a trust in heaven—not to +say in hell. And yet books even more popular than O. Henry's are those +of the 'sob-sisterhood' who swim in lachrymose lakes after love-lorn +spinsters, who pass their lives in reclaiming and consoling such tramps. +There are in this people two strains of brutality and sentimentalism +which I do not understand, especially where they mingle; but I am fairly +sure they both work back to the dim democratic origin. The Irish +policeman does not confine himself fastidiously to bludgeoning bishops; +his truncheon finds plenty of poor people's heads to hit; and yet I +believe on my soul he has a sort of sympathy with poor people not to be +found in the police of more aristocratic states. I believe he also reads +and weeps over the stories of the spinsters and the reclaimed tramps; in +fact, there is much of such pathos in an American magazine (my sole +companion on many happy railway journeys) which is not only devoted to +detective stories, but apparently edited by detectives. In these stories +also there is the honest, popular astonishment at the Upper Ten +expressed by the astronomical detective, if indeed he was a detective +and not a demon from the dark Red-Indian forests that faded to the +horizon behind him. But I have set him as the head and text<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> of this +chapter because with these elements of the Third Degree of devilry and +the Seventh Heaven of sentimentalism I touch on elements that I do not +understand; and when I do not understand, I say so.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="The_Republican_in_the_Ruins" id="The_Republican_in_the_Ruins"></a><i>The Republican in the Ruins</i></h2> + +<p>The heathen in his blindness bows down to wood and stone; especially to +a wood-cut or a lithographic stone. Modern people put their trust in +pictures, especially scientific pictures, as much as the most +superstitious ever put it in religious pictures. They publish a portrait +of the Missing Link as if he were the Missing Man, for whom the police +are always advertising; for all the world as if the anthropoid had been +photographed before he absconded. The scientific diagram may be a +hypothesis; it may be a fancy; it may be a forgery. But it is always an +idol in the true sense of an image; and an image in the true sense of a +thing mastering the imagination and not the reason. The power of these +talismanic pictures is almost hypnotic to modern humanity. We can never +forget that we have seen a portrait of the Missing Link; though we +should instantly detect the lapse of logic into superstition, if we were +told that the old Greek agnostics had made a statue of the Unknown God. +But there is a still stranger fashion in which we fall victims to the +same trick of fancy. We accept in a blind and literal spirit, not only +images of speculation, but even figures of speech. The nineteenth +century prided itself on having lost its faith in myths, and proceeded +to put all its faith in metaphors. It dismissed the old doctrines about +the way of life and the light of the world; and then it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> proceeded to +talk as if the light of truth were really and literally a light, that +could be absorbed by merely opening our eyes; or as if the path of +progress were really and truly a path, to be found by merely following +our noses. Thus the purpose of God is an idea, true or false; but the +purpose of Nature is merely a metaphor; for obviously if there is no God +there is no purpose. Yet while men, by an imaginative instinct, spoke of +the purpose of God with a grand agnosticism, as something too large to +be seen, something reaching out to worlds and to eternities, they speak +of the purpose of Nature in particular and practical problems of curing +babies or cutting up rabbits. This power of the modern metaphor must be +understood, by way of an introduction, if we are to understand one of +the chief errors, at once evasive and pervasive, which perplex the +problem of America.</p> + +<p>America is always spoken of as a young nation; and whether or no this be +a valuable and suggestive metaphor, very few people notice that it is a +metaphor at all. If somebody said that a certain deserving charity had +just gone into trousers, we should recognise that it was a figure of +speech, and perhaps a rather surprising figure of speech. If somebody +said that a daily paper had recently put its hair up, we should know it +could only be a metaphor, and possibly a rather strained metaphor. Yet +these phrases would mean the only thing that can possibly be meant by +calling a corporate association of all sorts of people 'young'; that is, +that a certain institution has only existed for a certain time. I am not +now denying that such a corporate nationality may happen to have a +psychology comparatively analogous to the psychology<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> of youth. I am not +even denying that America has it. I am only pointing out, to begin with, +that we must free ourselves from the talismanic tyranny of a metaphor +which we do not recognise as a metaphor. Men realised that the old +mystical doctrines were mystical; they do not realise that the new +metaphors are metaphorical. They have some sort of hazy notion that +American society must be growing, must be promising, must have the +virtues of hope or the faults of ignorance, merely <i>because</i> it has only +had a separate existence since the eighteenth century. And that is +exactly like saying that a new chapel must be growing taller, or that a +limited liability company will soon have its second teeth.</p> + +<p>Now in truth this particular conception of American hopefulness would be +anything but hopeful for America. If the argument really were, as it is +still vaguely supposed to be, that America must have a long life before +it, because it only started in the eighteenth century, we should find a +very fatal answer by looking at the other political systems that did +start in the eighteenth century. The eighteenth century was called the +Age of Reason; and there is a very real sense in which the other systems +were indeed started in a spirit of reason. But starting from reason has +not saved them from ruin. If we survey the Europe of to-day with real +clarity and historic comprehension, we shall see that it is precisely +the most recent and the most rationalistic creations that have been +ruined. The two great States which did most definitely and emphatically +deserve to be called modern states were Prussia and Russia. There was no +real Prussia before Frederick the Great; no real Russian Empire before +Peter the Great. Both those innovators recognised<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> themselves as +rationalists bringing a new reason and order into an indeterminate +barbarism; and doing for the barbarians what the barbarians could not do +for themselves. They did not, like the kings of England or France or +Spain or Scotland, inherit a sceptre that was the symbol of a historic +and patriotic people. In this sense there was no Russia but only an +Emperor of Russia. In this sense Prussia was a kingdom before it was a +nation; if it ever was a nation. But anyhow both men were particularly +modern in their whole mood and mind. They were modern to the extent of +being not only anti-traditional, but almost anti-patriotic. Peter forced +the science of the West on Russia to the regret of many Russians. +Frederick talked the French of Voltaire and not the German of Luther. +The two experiments were entirely in the spirit of Voltairean +rationalism; they were built in broad daylight by men who believed in +nothing but the light of common day; and already their day is done.</p> + +<p>If then the promise of America were in the fact that she is one of the +latest births of progress, we should point out that it is exactly the +latest born that were the first to die. If in this sense she is praised +as young, it may be answered that the young have died young, and have +not lived to be old. And if this be confused with the argument that she +came in an age of clarity and scepticism, uncontaminated by old +superstitions, it could still be retorted that the works of superstition +have survived the works of scepticism. But the truth is, of course, that +the real quality of America is much more subtle and complex than this; +and is mixed not only of good and bad, and rational and mystical, but +also of old and new. That is what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> makes the task of tracing the true +proportions of American life so interesting and so impossible.</p> + +<p>To begin with, such a metaphor is always as distracting as a mixed +metaphor. It is a double-edged tool that cuts both ways; and +consequently opposite ways. We use the same word 'young' to mean two +opposite extremes. We mean something at an early stage of growth, and +also something having the latest fruits of growth. We might call a +commonwealth young if it conducted all its daily conversation by +wireless telegraphy; meaning that it was progressive. But we might also +call it young if it conducted all its industry with chipped flints; +meaning that it was primitive. These two meanings of youth are +hopelessly mixed up when the word is applied to America. But what is +more curious, the two elements really are wildly entangled in America. +America is in some ways what is called in advance of the times, and in +some ways what is called behind the times; but it seems a little +confusing to convey both notions by the same word.</p> + +<p>On the one hand, Americans often are successful in the last inventions. +And for that very reason they are often neglectful of the last but one. +It is true of men in general, dealing with things in general, that while +they are progressing in one thing, such as science, they are going back +in another thing, such as art. What is less fully realised is that this +is true even as between different methods of science. The perfection of +wireless telegraphy might well be followed by the gross imperfection of +wires. The very enthusiasm of American science brings this out very +vividly. The telephone in New York works miracles all day long. Replies +from remote places come as promptly as in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> private talk; nobody cuts +anybody off; nobody says, 'Sorry you've been troubled.' But then the +postal service of New York does not work at all. At least I could never +discover it working. Letters lingered in it for days and days, as in +some wild village of the Pyrenees. When I asked a taxi-driver to drive +me to a post-office, a look of far-off vision and adventure came into +his eyes, and he said he had once heard of a post-office somewhere near +West Ninety-Seventh Street. Men are not efficient in everything, but +only in the fashionable thing. This may be a mark of the march of +science; it does certainly in one sense deserve the description of +youth. We can imagine a very young person forgetting the old toy in the +excitement of a new one.</p> + +<p>But on the other hand, American manners contain much that is called +young in the contrary sense; in the sense of an earlier stage of +history. There are whole patches and particular aspects that seem to me +quite Early Victorian. I cannot help having this sensation, for +instance, about the arrangement for smoking in the railway carriages. +There are no smoking carriages, as a rule; but a corner of each of the +great cars is curtained off mysteriously, that a man may go behind the +curtain and smoke. Nobody thinks of a woman doing so. It is regarded as +a dark, bohemian, and almost brutally masculine indulgence; exactly as +it was regarded by the dowagers in Thackeray's novels. Indeed, this is +one of the many such cases in which extremes meet; the extremes of +stuffy antiquity and cranky modernity. The American dowager is sorry +that tobacco was ever introduced; and the American suffragette and +social reformer is considering whether tobacco ought not to be +abolished.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> The tone of American society suggests some sort of +compromise, by which women will be allowed to smoke, but men forbidden +to do so.</p> + +<p>In one respect, however, America is very old indeed. In one respect +America is more historic than England; I might almost say more +archaeological than England. The record of one period of the past, +morally remote and probably irrevocable, is there preserved in a more +perfect form as a pagan city is preserved at Pompeii. In a more general +sense, of course, it is easy to exaggerate the contrast as a mere +contrast between the old world and the new. There is a superficial +satire about the millionaire's daughter who has recently become the wife +of an aristocrat; but there is a rather more subtle satire in the +question of how long the aristocrat has been aristocratic. There is +often much misplaced mockery of a marriage between an upstart's daughter +and a decayed relic of feudalism; when it is really a marriage between +an upstart's daughter and an upstart's grandson. The sentimental +socialist often seems to admit the blue blood of the nobleman, even when +he wants to shed it; just as he seems to admit the marvellous brains of +the millionaire, even when he wants to blow them out. Unfortunately (in +the interests of social science, of course) the sentimental socialist +never does go so far as bloodshed or blowing out brains; otherwise the +colour and quality of both blood and brains would probably be a +disappointment to him. There are certainly more American families that +really came over in the <i>Mayflower</i> than English families that really +came over with the Conqueror; and an English county family clearly +dating from the time of the <i>Mayflower</i> would be considered a very +traditional and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> historic house. Nevertheless, there are ancient things +in England, though the aristocracy is hardly one of them. There are +buildings, there are institutions, there are even ideas in England which +do preserve, as in a perfect pattern, some particular epoch of the past, +and even of the remote past. A man could study the Middle Ages in +Lincoln as well as in Rouen; in Canterbury as well as in Cologne. Even +of the Renaissance the same is true, at least on the literary side; if +Shakespeare was later he was also greater than Ronsard. But the point is +that the spirit and philosophy of the periods were present in fullness +and in freedom. The guildsmen were as Christian in England as they were +anywhere; the poets were as pagan in England as they were anywhere. +Personally I do not admit that the men who served patrons were freer +than those who served patron saints. But each fashion had its own kind +of freedom; and the point is that the English, in each case, had the +fullness of that kind of freedom. But there was another ideal of freedom +which the English never had at all; or, anyhow, never expressed at all. +There was another ideal, the soul of another epoch, round which we built +no monuments and wrote no masterpieces. You will find no traces of it in +England; but you will find them in America.</p> + +<p>The thing I mean was the real religion of the eighteenth century. Its +religion, in the more defined sense, was generally Deism, as in +Robespierre or Jefferson. In the more general way of morals and +atmosphere it was rather Stoicism, as in the suicide of Wolfe Tone. It +had certain very noble and, as some would say, impossible ideals; as +that a politician should be poor, and should be proud of being poor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> It +knew Latin; and therefore insisted on the strange fancy that the +Republic should be a public thing. Its Republican simplicity was +anything but a silly pose; unless all martyrdom is a silly pose. Even of +the prigs and fanatics of the American and French Revolutions we can +often say, as Stevenson said of an American, that 'thrift and courage +glowed in him.' And its virtue and value for us is that it did remember +the things we now most tend to forget; from the dignity of liberty to +the danger of luxury. It did really believe in self-determination, in +the self-determination of the self, as well as of the state. And its +determination was really determined. In short, it believed in +self-respect; and it is strictly true even of its rebels and regicides +that they desired chiefly to be respectable. But there were in it the +marks of religion as well as respectability; it had a creed; it had a +crusade. Men died singing its songs; men starved rather than write +against its principles. And its principles were liberty, equality, and +fraternity, or the dogmas of the Declaration of Independence. This was +the idea that redeemed the dreary negations of the eighteenth century; +and there are still corners of Philadelphia or Boston or Baltimore where +we can feel so suddenly in the silence its plain garb and formal +manners, that the walking ghost of Jefferson would hardly surprise us.</p> + +<p>There is not the ghost of such a thing in England. In England the real +religion of the eighteenth century never found freedom or scope. It +never cleared a space in which to build that cold and classic building +called the Capitol. It never made elbow-room for that free if sometimes +frigid figure called the Citizen.</p> + +<p>In eighteenth-century England he was crowded out,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> partly perhaps by the +relics of better things of the past, but largely at least by the +presence of much worse things in the present. The worst things kept out +the best things of the eighteenth century. The ground was occupied by +legal fictions; by a godless Erastian church and a powerless Hanoverian +king. Its realities were an aristocracy of Regency dandies, in costumes +made to match Brighton Pavilion; a paganism not frigid but florid. It +was a touch of this aristocratic waste in Fox that prevented that great +man from being a glorious exception. It is therefore well for us to +realise that there is something in history which we did not experience; +and therefore probably something in Americans that we do not understand. +There was this idealism at the very beginning of their individualism. +There was a note of heroic publicity and honourable poverty which +lingers in the very name of Cincinnati.</p> + +<p>But I have another and special reason for noting this historical fact; +the fact that we English never made anything upon the model of a +capitol, while we can match anybody with the model of a cathedral. It is +far from improbable that the latter model may again be a working model. +For I have myself felt, naturally and for a long time, a warm sympathy +with both those past ideals, which seem to some so incompatible. I have +felt the attraction of the red cap as well as the red cross, of the +Marseillaise as well as the Magnificat. And even when they were in +furious conflict I have never altogether lost my sympathy for either. +But in the conflict between the Republic<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> the Church, the point +often made against the Church seems to me much more of a point against +the Republic. It is emphatically the Republic and not the Church that I +venerate as something beautiful but belonging to the past. In fact I +feel exactly the same sort of sad respect for the republican ideal that +many mid-Victorian free-thinkers felt for the religious ideal. The most +sincere poets of that period were largely divided between those who +insisted, like Arnold and Clough, that Christianity might be a ruin, but +after all it must be treated as a picturesque ruin; and those, like +Swinburne, who insisted that it might be a picturesque ruin, but after +all it must be treated as a ruin. But surely their own pagan temple of +political liberty is now much more of a ruin than the other; and I fancy +I am one of the few who still take off their hats in that ruined temple. +That is why I went about looking for the fading traces of that lost +cause, in the old-world atmosphere of the new world.</p> + +<p>But I do not, as a fact, feel that the cathedral is a ruin; I doubt if I +should feel it even if I wished to lay it in ruins. I doubt if Mr. +M'Cabe really thinks that Catholicism is dying, though he might deceive +himself into saying so. Nobody could be naturally moved to say that the +crowded cathedral of St. Patrick in New York was a ruin, or even that +the unfinished Anglo-Catholic cathedral at Washington was a ruin, though +it is not yet a church; or that there is anything lost or lingering +about the splendid and spirited Gothic churches springing up under the +inspiration of Mr. Cram of Boston. As a matter of feeling, as a matter +of fact, as a matter quite apart from theory or opinion, it is not in +the religious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> centres that we now have the feeling of something +beautiful but receding, of something loved but lost. It is exactly in +the spaces cleared and levelled by America for the large and sober +religion of the eighteenth century; it is where an old house in +Philadelphia contains an old picture of Franklin, or where the men of +Maryland raised above their city the first monument of Washington. It is +there that I feel like one who treads alone some banquet hall deserted, +whose lights are fled, whose garlands dead, and all save he departed. It +is then that I feel as if I were the last Republican.</p> + +<p>But when I say that the Republic of the Age of Reason is now a ruin, I +should rather say that at its best it is a ruin. At its worst it has +collapsed into a death-trap or is rotting like a dunghill. What is the +real Republic of our day as distinct from the ideal Republic of our +fathers, but a heap of corrupt capitalism crawling with worms; with +those parasites, the professional politicians? I was re-reading +Swinburne's bitter but not ignoble poem, 'Before a Crucifix,' in which +he bids Christ, or the ecclesiastical image of Christ, stand out of the +way of the onward march of a political idealism represented by United +Italy or the French Republic. I was struck by the strange and ironic +exactitude with which every taunt he flings at the degradation of the +old divine ideal would now fit the degradation of his own human ideal. +The time has already come when we can ask his Goddess of Liberty, as +represented by the actual Liberals, 'Have <i>you</i> filled full men's +starved-out souls; have <i>you</i> brought freedom on the earth?' For every +engine in which these old free-thinkers firmly and confidently trusted +has itself become an engine of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> oppression and even of class oppression. +Its free parliament has become an oligarchy. Its free press has become a +monopoly. If the pure Church has been corrupted in the course of two +thousand years, what about the pure Republic that has rotted into a +filthy plutocracy in less than a hundred?</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>O, hidden face of man, whereover</div> +<div>The years have woven a viewless veil,</div> +<div>If thou wert verily man's lover</div> +<div>What did thy love or blood avail?</div> +<div>Thy blood the priests make poison of;</div> +<div>And in gold shekels coin thy love.</div> +</div></div> + +<p>Which has most to do with shekels to-day, the priests or the +politicians? Can we say in any special sense nowadays that clergymen, as +such, make a poison out of the blood of the martyrs? Can we say it in +anything like the real sense, in which we do say that yellow journalists +make a poison out of the blood of the soldiers?</p> + +<p>But I understand how Swinburne felt when confronted by the image of the +carven Christ, and, perplexed by the contrast between its claims and its +consequences, he said his strange farewell to it, hastily indeed, but +not without regret, not even really without respect. I felt the same +myself when I looked for the last time on the Statue of Liberty.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> In the conclusion of this chapter I mean by the Republic +not merely the American Republic, but the whole modern representative +system, as in France or even in England.</p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="Is_the_Atlantic_Narrowing" id="Is_the_Atlantic_Narrowing"></a><i>Is the Atlantic Narrowing?</i></h2> + +<p>A certain kind of question is asked very earnestly in our time. Because +of a certain logical quality in it, connected with premises and data, it +is very difficult to answer. Thus people will ask what is the hidden +weakness in the Celtic race that makes them everywhere fail or fade +away; or how the Germans contrived to bring all their organisation into +a state of such perfect efficiency; and what was the significance of the +recent victory of Prussia. Or they will ask by what stages the modern +world has abandoned all belief in miracles; and the modern newspapers +ceased to print any news of murders. They will ask why English politics +are free from corruption; or by what mental and moral training certain +millionaires were enabled to succeed by sheer force of character; in +short, they will ask why plutocrats govern well and how it is that pigs +fly, spreading their pink pinions to the breeze or delighting us as they +twitter and flutter from tree to tree. The logical difficulty of +answering these questions is connected with an old story about Charles +the Second and a bowl of goldfish, and with another anecdote about a +gentleman who was asked, 'When did you leave off beating your wife?' But +there is something analogous to it in the present discussions about the +forces drawing England and America together. It seems as if the +reasoners hardly went far enough back in their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> argument, or took +trouble enough to disentangle their assumptions. They are still moving +with the momentum of the peculiar nineteenth-century notion of progress; +of certain very simple tendencies perpetually increasing and needing no +special analysis. It is so with the international <i>rapprochement</i> I have +to consider here.</p> + +<p>In other places I have ventured to express a doubt about whether nations +can be drawn together by an ancient rumour about races; by a sort of +prehistoric chit-chat or the gossip of the Stone Age. I have ventured +farther; and even expressed a doubt about whether they ought to be drawn +together, or rather dragged together, by the brute violence of the +engines of science and speed. But there is yet another horrible doubt +haunting my morbid mind, which it will be better for my constitution to +confess frankly. And that is the doubt about whether they are being +drawn together at all.</p> + +<p>It has long been a conversational commonplace among the enlightened that +all countries are coming closer and closer to each other. It was a +conversational commonplace among the enlightened, somewhere about the +year 1913, that all wars were receding farther and farther into a +barbaric past. There is something about these sayings that seems simple +and familiar and entirely satisfactory when we say them; they are of +that consoling sort which we can say without any of the mental pain of +thinking what we are saying. But if we turn our attention from the +phrases we use to the facts that we talk about, we shall realise at +least that there are a good many facts on the other side and examples +pointing the other way. For instance, it does happen occasionally, from +time to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> time, that people talk about Ireland. He would be a very +hilarious humanitarian who should maintain that Ireland and England have +been more and more assimilated during the last hundred years. The very +name of Sinn Fein is an answer to it, and the very language in which +that phrase is spoken. Curran and Sheil would no more have dreamed of +uttering the watchword of 'Repeal' in Gaelic than of uttering it in +Zulu. Grattan could hardly have brought himself to believe that the real +repeal of the Union would actually be signed in London in the strange +script as remote as the snaky ornament of the Celtic crosses. It would +have seemed like Washington signing the Declaration of Independence in +the picture-writing of the Red Indians. Ireland has clearly grown away +from England; and her language, literature, and type of patriotism are +far less English than they were. On the other hand, no one will pretend +that the mass of modern Englishmen are much nearer to talking Gaelic or +decorating Celtic crosses. A hundred years ago it was perfectly natural +that Byron and Moore should walk down the street arm in arm. Even the +sight of Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Mr. W. B. Yeats walking down the street +arm in arm would now arouse some remark.</p> + +<p>I could give any number of other examples of the same new estrangement +of nations. I could cite the obvious facts that Norway and Sweden parted +company not very long ago, that Austria and Hungary have again become +separate states. I could point to the mob of new nations that have +started up after the war; to the fact that the great empires are now +nearly all broken up; that the Russian Empire no longer directs Poland, +that the Austrian Empire no longer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> directs Bohemia, that the Turkish +Empire no longer directs Palestine. Sinn Fein is the separatism of the +Irish. Zionism is the separatism of the Jews. But there is one simple +and sufficing example, which is here more to my purpose, and is at least +equally sufficient for it. And that is the deepening national difference +between the Americans and the English.</p> + +<p>Let me test it first by my individual experience in the matter of +literature. When I was a boy I read a book like <i>The Autocrat of the +Breakfast-Table</i> exactly as I read another book like <i>The Book of +Snobs</i>. I did not think of it as an American book, but simply as a book. +Its wit and idiom were like those of the English literary tradition; and +its few touches of local colour seemed merely accidental, like those of +an Englishman who happened to be living in Switzerland or Sweden. My +father and my father's friends were rightly enthusiastic for the book; +so that it seemed to come to me by inheritance like <i>Gulliver's Travels</i> +or <i>Tristram Shandy</i>. Its language was as English as Ruskin, and a great +deal more English than Carlyle. Well, I have seen in later years an +almost equally wide and well-merited popularity of the stories of O. +Henry. But never for one moment could I or any one else reading them +forget that they were stories by an American about America. The very +first fact about them is that they are told with an American accent, +that is, in the unmistakable tones of a brilliant and fascinating +foreigner. And the same is true of every other recent work of which the +fame has managed to cross the Atlantic. We did not say that <i>The Spoon +River Anthology</i> was a new book, but that it was a new book from +America. It was exactly as if a remarkable realistic novel was reported +from Russia or Italy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> We were in no danger of confusing it with the +'Elegy in a Country Churchyard.' People in England who heard of Main +Street were not likely to identify it with a High Street; with the +principal thoroughfare in any little town in Berkshire or +Buckinghamshire. But when I was a boy I practically identified the +boarding-house of the Autocrat with any boarding-house I happened to +know in Brompton or Brighton. No doubt there were differences; but the +point is that the differences did not pierce the consciousness or prick +the illusion. I said to myself, 'People are like this in +boarding-houses,' not 'People are like this in Boston.'</p> + +<p>This can be seen even in the simple matter of language, especially in +the sense of slang. Take, for instance, the delightful sketch in the +causerie of Oliver Wendell Holmes; the character of the young man called +John. He is the very modern type in every modern country who does +specialise in slang. He is the young fellow who is something in the +City; the everyday young man of the Gilbertian song, with a stick and a +pipe and a half-bred black-and-tan. In every country he is at once witty +and commonplace. In every country, therefore, he tends both to the +vivacity and the vulgarity of slang. But when he appeared in Holmes's +book, his language was not very different from what it would have been +in a Brighton instead of a Boston boarding-house; or, in short, if the +young man called John had more commonly been called 'Arry. If he had +appeared in a modern American book, his language would have been almost +literally unintelligible. At the least an Englishman would have had to +read some of the best sentences twice, as he sometimes has to read the +dizzy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> and involved metaphors of O. Henry. Nor is it an answer that this +depended on the personalities of the particular writers. A comparison +between the real journalism of the time of Holmes and the real +journalism of the time of Henry reveals the same thing. It is the +expansion of a slight difference of style into a luxuriant difference of +idiom; and the process continued indefinitely would certainly produce a +totally different language. After a few centuries the signatures of +American ambassadors would look as fantastic as Gaelic, and the very +name of the Republic be as strange as Sinn Fein.</p> + +<p>It is true that there has been on the surface a certain amount of give +and take; or at least, as far as the English are concerned, of take +rather than give. But it is true that it was once all the other way; and +indeed the one thing is something like a just nemesis of the other. +Indeed, the story of the reversal is somewhat singular, when we come to +think of it. It began in a certain atmosphere and spirit of certain +well-meaning people who talked about the English-speaking race; and were +apparently indifferent to how the English was spoken, whether in the +accent of a Jamaican negro or a convict from Botany Bay. It was their +logical tendency to say that Dante was a Dago. It was their logical +punishment to say that Disraeli was an Englishman. Now there may have +been a period when this Anglo-American amalgamation included more or +less equal elements from England and America. It never included the +larger elements, or the more valuable elements of either. But, on the +whole, I think it true to say that it was not an allotment but an +interchange of parts; and that things first went all one way and then +all the other.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> People began by telling the Americans that they owed all +their past triumphs to England; which was false. They ended up by +telling the English that they would owe all their future triumphs to +America; which is if possible still more false. Because we chose to +forget that New York had been New Amsterdam, we are now in danger of +forgetting that London is not New York. Because we insisted that Chicago +was only a pious imitation of Chiswick, we may yet see Chiswick an +inferior imitation of Chicago. Our Anglo-Saxon historians attempted that +conquest in which Howe and Burgoyne had failed, and with infinitely less +justification on their side. They attempted the great crime of the +Anglicisation of America. They have called down the punishment of the +Americanisation of England. We must not murmur; but it is a heavy +punishment.</p> + +<p>It may lift a little of its load, however, if we look at it more +closely; we shall then find that though it is very much on top of us, it +is only on top. In that sense such Americanisation as there is is very +superficial. For instance, there is a certain amount of American slang +picked up at random; it appears in certain pushing types of journalism +and drama. But we may easily dwell too much on this tragedy; of people +who have never spoken English beginning to speak American. I am far from +suggesting that American, like any other foreign language, may not +frequently contribute to the common culture of the world phrases for +which there is no substitute; there are French phrases so used in +England and English phrases in France. The word 'high-brow,' for +instance, is a real discovery and revelation, a new and necessary name +for something that walked <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>nameless but enormous in the modern world, a +shaft of light and a stroke of lightning. That comes from America and +belongs to the world, as much as 'The Raven' or <i>The Scarlet Letter</i> or +the novels of Henry James belong to the world. In fact, I can imagine +Henry James originating it in the throes of self-expression, and +bringing out a word like 'high-browed,' with a sort of gentle jerk, at +the end of searching sentences which groped sensitively until they found +the phrase. But most of the American slang that is borrowed seems to be +borrowed for no particular reason. It either has no point or the point +is lost by translation into another context and culture. It is either +something which does not need any grotesque and exaggerative +description, or of which there already exists a grotesque and +exaggerative description more native to our tongue and soil. For +instance, I cannot see that the strong and simple expression 'Now it is +for you to pull the police magistrate's nose' is in any way strengthened +by saying, 'Now it is up to you to pull the police magistrate's nose.' +When Tennyson says of the men of the Light Brigade 'Theirs but to do and +die,' the expression seems to me perfectly lucid. 'Up to them to do and +die' would alter the metre without especially clarifying the meaning. +This is an example of ordinary language being quite adequate; but there +is a further difficulty that even wild slang comes to sound like +ordinary language. Very often the English have already as humorous and +fanciful idiom of their own, only that through habit it has lost its +humour. When Keats wrote the line, 'What pipes and timbrels, what wild +ecstasy!' I am willing to believe that the American humorist would have +expressed the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> sentiment by beginning the sentence with 'Some +pipe!' When that was first said, somewhere in the wilds of Colorado, it +was really funny; involving a powerful understatement and the suggestion +of a mere sample. If a spinster has informed us that she keeps a bird, +and we find it is an ostrich, there will be considerable point in the +Colorado satirist saying inquiringly, 'Some bird?' as if he were +offering us a small slice of a small plover. But if we go back to this +root and rationale of a joke, the English language already contains +quite as good a joke. It is not necessary to say, 'Some bird'; there is +a far finer irony in the old expression, 'Something like a bird.' It +suggests that the speaker sees something faintly and strangely birdlike +about a bird; that it remotely and almost irrationally reminds him of a +bird; and that there is about ostrich plumes a yard long something like +the faint and delicate traces of a feather. It has every quality of +imaginative irony, except that nobody even imagines it to be ironical. +All that happens is that people get tired of that turn of phrase, take +up a foreign phrase and get tired of that, without realising the point +of either. All that happens is that a number of weary people who used to +say, 'Something like a bird,' now say, 'Some bird,' with undiminished +weariness. But they might just as well use dull and decent English; for +in both cases they are only using jocular language without seeing the +joke.</p> + +<p>There is indeed a considerable trade in the transplantation of these +American jokes to England just now. They generally pine and die in our +climate, or they are dead before their arrival; but we cannot be certain +that they were never alive. There is a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> sort of unending frieze or +scroll of decorative designs unrolled ceaselessly before the British +public, about a hen-pecked husband, which is indistinguishable to the +eye from an actual self-repeating pattern like that of the Greek Key, +but which is imported as if it were as precious and irreplaceable as the +Elgin Marbles. Advertisement and syndication make mountains out of the +most funny little mole-hills; but no doubt the mole-hills are +picturesque enough in their own landscape. In any case there is nothing +so national as humour; and many things, like many people, can be +humorous enough when they are at home. But these American jokes are +boomed as solemnly as American religions; and their supporters gravely +testify that they are funny, without seeing the fun of it for a moment. +This is partly perhaps the spirit of spontaneous institutionalism in +American democracy, breaking out in the wrong place. They make humour an +institution; and a man will be set to tell an anecdote as if to play the +violin. But when the story is told in America it really is amusing; and +when these jokes are reprinted in England they are often not even +intelligible. With all the stupidity of the millionaire and the +monopolist, the enterprising proprietor prints jokes in England which +are necessarily unintelligible to nearly every English person; jokes +referring to domestic and local conditions quite peculiar to America. I +saw one of these narrative caricatures the other day in which the whole +of the joke (what there was of it) turned on the astonishment of a +housewife at the absurd notion of not having an ice-box. It is perfectly +true that nearly every ordinary American housewife possesses an ice-box. +An ordinary English <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>housewife would no more expect to possess an +ice-box than to possess an iceberg. And it would be about as sensible to +tow an iceberg to an English port all the way from the North Pole, as to +trail that one pale and frigid joke to Fleet Street all the way from the +New York papers. It is the same with a hundred other advertisements and +adaptations. I have already confessed that I took a considerable delight +in the dancing illuminations of Broadway—in Broadway. Everything there +is suitable to them, the vast interminable thoroughfare, the toppling +houses, the dizzy and restless spirit of the whole city. It is a city of +dissolving views, and one may almost say a city in everlasting +dissolution. But I do not especially admire a burning fragment of +Broadway stuck up opposite the old Georgian curve of Regent Street. I +would as soon express sympathy with the Republic of Switzerland by +erecting a small Alp, with imitation snow, in the middle of St. James's +Park.</p> + +<p>But all this commercial copying is very superficial; and above all, it +never copies anything that is really worth copying. Nations never +<i>learn</i> anything from each other in this way. We have many things to +learn from America; but we only listen to those Americans who have still +to learn them. Thus, for instance, we do not import the small farm but +only the big shop. In other words, we hear nothing of the democracy of +the Middle West, but everything of the plutocracy of the middleman, who +is probably as unpopular in the Middle West as the miller in the Middle +Ages. If Mr. Elihu K. Pike could be transplanted bodily from the +neighbourhood of his home town of Marathon, Neb., with his farm and his +frame-house and all its fittings, and they could be set down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> exactly in +the spot now occupied by Selfridge's (which could be easily cleared away +for the purpose), I think we could really get a great deal of good by +watching him, even if the watching were inevitably a little too like +watching a wild beast in a cage or an insect under a glass case. Urban +crowds could collect every day behind a barrier or railing, and gaze at +Mr. Pike pottering about all day in his ancient and autochthonous +occupations. We could see him growing Indian corn with all the gravity +of an Indian; though it is impossible to imagine Mrs. Pike blessing the +cornfield in the manner of Minnehaha. As I have said, there is a certain +lack of humane myth and mysticism about this Puritan peasantry. But we +could see him transforming the maize into pop-corn, which is a very +pleasant domestic ritual and pastime, and is the American equivalent of +the glory of roasting chestnuts. Above all, many of us would learn for +the first time that a man can really live and walk about upon something +more productive than a pavement; and that when he does so he can really +be a free man, and have no lord but the law. Instead of that, America +can give nothing to London but those multiple modern shops, of which it +has too many already. I know that many people entertain the innocent +illusion that big shops are more efficient than small ones; but that is +only because the big combinations have the monopoly of advertisement as +well as trade. The big shop is not in the least remarkable for +efficiency; it is only too big to be blamed for its inefficiency. It is +secure in its reputation for always sacking the wrong man. A big shop, +considered as a place to shop in, is simply a village of small shops +roofed in to keep out the light and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> air; and one in which none of the +shopkeepers is really responsible for his shop. If any one has any +doubts on this matter, since I have mentioned it, let him consider this +fact: that in practice we never do apply this method of commercial +combination to anything that matters very much. We do not go to the +surgical department of the Stores to have a portion of our brain removed +by a delicate operation; and then pass on to the advocacy department to +employ one or any of its barristers, when we are in temporary danger of +being hanged. We go to men who own their own tools and are responsible +for the use of their own talents. And the same truth applies to that +other modern method of advertisement, which has also so largely fallen +across us like the gigantic shadow of America. Nations do not arm +themselves for a mortal struggle by remembering which sort of submarine +they have seen most often on the hoardings. They can do it about +something like soap, precisely because a nation will not perish by +having a second-rate sort of soap, as it might by having a second-rate +sort of submarine. A nation may indeed perish slowly by having a +second-rate sort of food or drink or medicine; but that is another and +much longer story, and the story is not ended yet. But nobody wins a +great battle at a great crisis because somebody has told him that +Cadgerboy's Cavalry Is the Best. It may be that commercial enterprise +will eventually cover these fields also, and advertisement-agents will +provide the instruments of the surgeon and the weapons of the soldier. +When that happens, the armies will be defeated and the patients will +die. But though we modern people are indeed patients, in the sense of +being merely receptive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> and accepting things with astonishing patience, +we are not dead yet; and we have lingering gleams of sanity.</p> + +<p>For the best things do not travel. As I appear here as a traveller, I +may say with all modesty that the best people do not travel either. Both +in England and America the normal people are the national people; and I +repeat that I think they are growing more and more national. I do not +think the abyss is being bridged by cosmopolitan theories; and I am sure +I do not want it bridged by all this slang journalism and blatant +advertisement. I have called all that commercial publicity the gigantic +shadow of America. It may be the shadow of America, but it is not the +light of America. The light lies far beyond, a level light upon the +lands of sunset, where it shines upon wide places full of a very simple +and a very happy people; and those who would see it must seek for it.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="Lincoln_and_Lost_Causes" id="Lincoln_and_Lost_Causes"></a><i>Lincoln and Lost Causes</i></h2> + +<p>It has already been remarked here that the English know a great deal +about past American literature, but nothing about past American history. +They do not know either, of course, as well as they know the present +American advertising, which is the least important of the three. But it +is worth noting once more how little they know of the history, and how +illogically that little is chosen. They have heard, no doubt, of the +fame and the greatness of Henry Clay. He is a cigar. But it would be +unwise to cross-examine any Englishman, who may be consuming that luxury +at the moment, about the Missouri Compromise or the controversies with +Andrew Jackson. And just as the statesman of Kentucky is a cigar, so the +state of Virginia is a cigarette. But there is perhaps one exception, or +half-exception, to this simple plan. It would perhaps be an exaggeration +to say that Plymouth Rock is a chicken. Any English person keeping +chickens, and chiefly interested in Plymouth Rocks considered as +chickens, would nevertheless have a hazy sensation of having seen the +word somewhere before. He would feel subconsciously that the Plymouth +Rock had not always been a chicken. Indeed, the name connotes something +not only solid but antiquated; and is not therefore a very tactful name +for a chicken. There would rise up before him something memorable in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> +the haze that he calls his history; and he would see the history books +of his boyhood and old engravings of men in steeple-crowned hats +struggling with sea-waves or Red Indians. The whole thing would suddenly +become clear to him if (by a simple reform) the chickens were called +Pilgrim Fathers.</p> + +<p>Then he would remember all about it. The Pilgrim Fathers were champions +of religious liberty; and they discovered America. It is true that he +has also heard of a man called Christopher Columbus; but that was in +connection with an egg. He has also heard of somebody known as Sir +Walter Raleigh; and though his principal possession was a cloak, it is +also true that he had a potato, not to mention a pipe of tobacco. Can it +be possible that he brought it from Virginia, where the cigarettes come +from? Gradually the memories will come back and fit themselves together +for the average hen-wife who learnt history at the English elementary +schools, and who has now something better to do. Even when the narrative +becomes consecutive, it will not necessarily become correct. It is not +strictly true to say that the Pilgrim Fathers discovered America. But it +is quite as true as saying that they were champions of religious +liberty. If we said that they were martyrs who would have died +heroically in torments rather than tolerate any religious liberty, we +should be talking something like sense about them, and telling the real +truth that is their due. The whole Puritan movement, from the Solemn +League and Covenant to the last stand of the last Stuarts, was a +struggle <i>against</i> religious toleration, or what they would have called +religious indifference. The first religious equality on earth was +established by a Catholic cavalier in Maryland. Now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> there is nothing in +this to diminish any dignity that belongs to any real virtues and +virilities in the Pilgrim Fathers; on the contrary, it is rather to the +credit of their consistency and conviction. But there is no doubt that +the note of their whole experiment in New England was intolerance, and +even inquisition. And there is no doubt that New England was then only +the newest and not the oldest of these colonial experiments. At least +two Cavaliers had been in the field before any Puritans. And they had +carried with them much more of the atmosphere and nature of the normal +Englishman than any Puritan could possibly carry. They had established +it especially in Virginia, which had been founded by a great Elizabethan +and named after the great Elizabeth. Before there was any New England in +the North, there was something very like Old England in the South. +Relatively speaking, there is still.</p> + +<p>Whenever the anniversary of the <i>Mayflower</i> comes round, there is a +chorus of Anglo-American congratulation and comradeship, as if this at +least were a matter on which all can agree. But I knew enough about +America, even before I went there, to know that there are a good many +people there at any rate who do not agree with it. Long ago I wrote a +protest in which I asked why Englishmen had forgotten the great state of +Virginia, the first in foundation and long the first in leadership; and +why a few crabbed Nonconformists should have the right to erase a record +that begins with Raleigh and ends with Lee, and incidentally includes +Washington. The great state of Virginia was the backbone of America +until it was broken in the Civil War. From Virginia came the first great +Presidents and most of the Fathers of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> Republic. Its adherence to +the Southern side in the war made it a great war, and for a long time a +doubtful war. And in the leader of the Southern armies it produced what +is perhaps the one modern figure that may come to shine like St. Louis +in the lost battle, or Hector dying before holy Troy.</p> + +<p>Again, it is characteristic that while the modern English know nothing +about Lee they do know something about Lincoln; and nearly all that they +know is wrong. They know nothing of his Southern connections, nothing of +his considerable Southern sympathy, nothing of the meaning of his +moderation in face of the problem of slavery, now lightly treated as +self-evident. Above all, they know nothing about the respect in which +Lincoln was quite un-English, was indeed the very reverse of English; +and can be understood better if we think of him as a Frenchman, since it +seems so hard for some of us to believe that he was an American. I mean +his lust for logic for its own sake, and the way he kept mathematical +truths in his mind like the fixed stars. He was so far from being a +merely practical man, impatient of academic abstractions, that he +reviewed and revelled in academic abstractions, even while he could not +apply them to practical life. He loved to repeat that slavery was +intolerable while he tolerated it, and to prove that something ought to +be done while it was impossible to do it. This was probably very +bewildering to his brother-politicians; for politicians always whitewash +what they do not destroy. But for all that this inconsistent consistency +beat the politicians at their own game, and this abstracted logic proved +the most practical of all. For when the chance did come to do something, +there was no doubt about the thing to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> done. The thunderbolt fell +from the clear heights of heaven; it had not been tossed about and lost +like a common missile in the market-place. The matter is worth +mentioning, because it has a moral for a much larger modern question. A +wise man's attitude towards industrial capitalism will be very like +Lincoln's attitude towards slavery. That is, he will manage to endure +capitalism; but he will not endure a defence of capitalism. He will +recognise the value, not only of knowing what he is doing, but of +knowing what he would like to do. He will recognise the importance of +having a thing clearly labelled in his own mind as bad, long before the +opportunity comes to abolish it. He may recognise the risk of even worse +things in immediate abolition, as Lincoln did in abolitionism. He will +not call all business men brutes, any more than Lincoln would call all +planters demons; because he knows they are not. He will regard many +alternatives to capitalism as crude and inhuman, as Lincoln regarded +John Brown's raid; because they are. But he will clear his <i>mind</i> from +cant about capitalism; he will have no doubt of what is the truth about +Trusts and Trade Combines and the concentration of capital; and it is +the truth that they endure under one of the ironic silences of heaven, +over the pageants and the passing triumphs of hell.</p> + +<p>But the name of Lincoln has a more immediate reference to the +international matters I am considering here. His name has been much +invoked by English politicians and journalists in connection with the +quarrel with Ireland. And if we study the matter, we shall hardly admire +the tact and sagacity of those journalists and politicians.</p> + +<p>History is an eternal tangle of cross-purposes; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> we could not take a +clearer case, or rather a more complicated case, of such a tangle, than +the facts lying behind a political parallel recently mentioned by many +politicians. I mean the parallel between the movement for Irish +independence and the attempted secession of the Southern Confederacy in +America. Superficially any one might say that the comparison is natural +enough; and that there is much in common between the quarrel of the +North and South in Ireland and the quarrel of the North and South in +America. In both cases the South was on the whole agricultural, the +North on the whole industrial. True, the parallel exaggerates the +position of Belfast; to complete it we must suppose the whole Federal +system to have consisted of Pittsburg. In both the side that was more +successful was felt by many to be less attractive. In both the same +political terms were used, such as the term 'Union' and 'Unionism.' An +ordinary Englishman comes to America, knowing these main lines of +American history, and knowing that the American knows the similar main +lines of Irish history. He knows that there are strong champions of +Ireland in America; possibly he also knows that there are very genuine +champions of England in America. By every possible historical analogy, +he would naturally expect to find the pro-Irish in the South and the +pro-English in the North. As a matter of fact, he finds almost exactly +the opposite. He finds Boston governed by Irishmen, and Nashville +containing people more pro-English than Englishmen. He finds Virginians +not only of British blood, like George Washington, but of British +opinions almost worthy of George the Third.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p><p>But I do not say this, as will be seen in a moment, as a criticism of +the comparative Toryism of the South. I say it as a criticism of the +superlative stupidity of English propaganda. On another page I remark on +the need for a new sort of English propaganda; a propaganda that should +be really English and have some remote reference to England. Now if it +were a matter of making foreigners feel the real humours and humanities +of England, there are no Americans so able or willing to do it as the +Americans of the Southern States. As I have already hinted, some of them +are so loyal to the English humanities, that they think it their duty to +defend even the English inhumanities. New England is turning into New +Ireland. But Old England can still be faintly traced in Old Dixie. It +contains some of the best things that England herself has had, and +therefore (of course) the things that England herself has lost, or is +trying to lose. But above all, as I have said, there are people in these +places whose historic memories and family traditions really hold them to +us, not by alliance but by affection. Indeed, they have the affection in +spite of the alliance. They love us in spite of our compliments and +courtesies and hands across the sea; all our ambassadorial salutations +and speeches cannot kill their love. They manage even to respect us in +spite of the shady Jew stockbrokers we send them as English envoys, or +the 'efficient' men, who are sent out to be tactful with foreigners +because they have been too tactless with trades unionists. This type of +traditional American, North or South, really has some traditions +connecting him with England; and though he is now in a very small +minority, I cannot imagine why England should wish to make it smaller.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> +England once sympathised with the South. The South still sympathises +with England. It would seem that the South, or some elements in the +South, had rather the advantage of us in political firmness and +fidelity; but it does not follow that that fidelity will stand every +shock. And at this moment, and in this matter, of all things in the +world, our political propagandists must try to bolster British +Imperialism up, by kicking Southern Secession when it is down. The +English politicians eagerly point out that we shall be justified in +crushing Ireland exactly as Sumner and Stevens crushed the most English +part of America. It does not seem to occur to them that this comparison +between the Unionist triumph in America and a Unionist triumph in +Britain is rather hard upon our particular sympathisers, who did not +triumph. When England exults in Lincoln's victory over his foes, she is +exulting in his victory over her own friends. If her diplomacy continues +as delicate and chivalrous as it is at present, they may soon be her +only friends. England will be defending herself at the expense of her +only defenders. But however this may be, it is as well to bear witness +to some of the elements of my own experience; and I can answer for it, +at least, that there are some people in the South who will not be +pleased at being swept into the rubbish heap of history as rebels and +ruffians; and who will not, I regret to say, by any means enjoy even +being classed with Fenians and Sinn Feiners.</p> + +<p>Now touching the actual comparison between the conquest of the +Confederacy and the conquest of Ireland, there are, of course, a good +many things to be said which politicians cannot be expected to +understand. Strange to say, it is not certain that a lost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> cause was +never worth winning; and it would be easy to argue that the world lost +very much indeed when that particular cause was lost. These are not days +in which it is exactly obvious that an agricultural society was more +dangerous than an industrial one. And even Southern slavery had this one +moral merit, that it was decadent; it has this one historic advantage, +that it is dead. The Northern slavery, industrial slavery, or what is +called wage slavery, is not decaying but increasing; and the end of it +is not yet. But in any case, it would be well for us to realise that the +reproach of resembling the Confederacy does not ring in all ears as an +unanswerable condemnation. It is scarcely a self-evident or sufficient +argument, to some hearers, even to prove that the English are as +delicate and philanthropic as Sherman, still less that the Irish are as +criminal and lawless as Lee. Nor will it soothe every single soul on the +American continent to say that the English victory in Ireland will be +followed by a reconstruction, like the reconstruction exhibited in the +film called 'The Birth of a Nation.' And, indeed, there is a further +inference from that fine panorama of the exploits of the Ku-Klux Klan. +It would be easy, as I say, to turn the argument entirely in favour of +the Confederacy. It would be easy to draw the moral, not that the +Southern Irish are as wrong as the Southern States, but that the +Southern States were as right as the Southern Irish. But upon the whole, +I do not incline to accept the parallel in that sense any more than in +the opposite sense. For reasons I have already given elsewhere, I do +believe that in the main Abraham Lincoln was right. But right in what?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p><p>If Lincoln was right, he was right in guessing that there was not +really a Northern nation and a Southern nation, but only one American +nation. And if he has been proved right, he has been proved right by the +fact that men in the South, as well as the North, do now feel a +patriotism for that American nation. His wisdom, if it really was +wisdom, was justified not by his opponents being conquered, but by their +being converted. Now, if the English politicians must insist on this +parallel, they ought to see that the parallel is fatal to themselves. +The very test which proved Lincoln right has proved them wrong. The very +judgment which may have justified him quite unquestionably condemns +them. We have again and again conquered Ireland, and have never come an +inch nearer to converting Ireland. We have had not one Gettysburg, but +twenty Gettysburgs; but we have had no Union. And that is where, as I +have remarked, it is relevant to remember that flying fantastic vision +on the films that told so many people what no histories have told them. +I heard when I was in America rumours of the local reappearance of the +Ku-Klux Klan; but the smallness and mildness of the manifestation, as +compared with the old Southern or the new Irish case, is alone a +sufficient example of the exception that proves the rule. To approximate +to any resemblance to recent Irish events, we must imagine the Ku-Klux +Klan riding again in more than the terrors of that vision, wild as the +wind, white as the moon, terrible as an army with banners. If there were +really such a revival of the Southern action, there would equally be a +revival of the Southern argument. It would be clear that Lee was right +and Lincoln was wrong; that the Southern States were national and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> were +as indestructible as nations. If the South were as rebellious as +Ireland, the North would be as wrong as England.</p> + +<p>But I desire a new English diplomacy that will exhibit, not the things +in which England is wrong but the things in which England is right. And +England is right in England, just as she is wrong in Ireland; and it is +exactly that rightness of a real nation in itself that it is at once +most difficult and most desirable to explain to foreigners. Now the +Irishman, and to some extent the American, has remained alien to +England, largely because he does not truly realise that the Englishman +loves England, still less can he really imagine why the Englishman loves +England. That is why I insist on the stupidity of ignoring and insulting +the opinions of those few Virginians and other Southerners who really +have some inherited notion of why Englishmen love England; and even love +it in something of the same fashion themselves. Politicians who do not +know the English spirit when they see it at home, cannot of course be +expected to recognise it abroad. Publicists are eloquently praising +Abraham Lincoln, for all the wrong reasons; but fundamentally for that +worst and vilest of all reasons—that he succeeded. None of them seems +to have the least notion of how to look for England in England; and they +would see something fantastic in the figure of a traveller who found it +elsewhere, or anywhere but in New England. And it is well, perhaps, that +they have not yet found England where it is hidden in England; for if +they found it, they would kill it.</p> + +<p>All I am concerned to consider here is the inevitable failure of this +sort of Anglo-American propaganda to create a friendship. To praise +Lincoln as an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>Englishman is about as appropriate as if we were praising +Lincoln as an English town. We are talking about something totally +different. And indeed the whole conversation is rather like some such +cross-purposes about some such word as 'Lincoln'; in which one party +should be talking about the President and the other about the cathedral. +It is like some wild bewilderment in a farce, with one man wondering how +a President could have a church-spire, and the other wondering how a +church could have a chin-beard. And the moral is the moral on which I +would insist everywhere in this book; that the remedy is to be found in +disentangling the two and not in entangling them further. You could not +produce a democrat of the logical type of Lincoln merely out of the +moral materials that now make up an English cathedral town, like that on +which Old Tom of Lincoln looks down. But on the other hand, it is quite +certain that a hundred Abraham Lincolns, working for a hundred years, +could not build Lincoln Cathedral. And the farcical allegory of an +attempt to make Old Tom and Old Abe embrace to the glory of the +illogical Anglo-Saxon language is but a symbol of something that is +always being attempted, and always attempted in vain. It is not by +mutual imitation that the understanding can come. It is not by erecting +New York sky-scrapers in London that New York can learn the sacred +significance of the towers of Lincoln. It is not by English dukes +importing the daughters of American millionaires that England can get +any glimpse of the democratic dignity of American men. I have the best +of all reasons for knowing that a stranger can be welcomed in America; +and just as he is courteously treated in the country as a stranger,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> so +he should always be careful to treat it as a strange land. That sort of +imaginative respect, as for something different and even distant, is the +only beginning of any attachment between patriotic peoples. The English +traveller may carry with him at least one word of his own great language +and literature; and whenever he is inclined to say of anything 'This is +passing strange,' he may remember that it was no inconsiderable +Englishman who appended to it the answer, 'And therefore as a stranger +give it welcome.'</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="Wells_and_the_World_State" id="Wells_and_the_World_State"></a><i>Wells and the World State</i></h2> + +<p>There was recently a highly distinguished gathering to celebrate the +past, present, and especially future triumphs of aviation. Some of the +most brilliant men of the age, such as Mr. H. G. Wells and Mr. J. L. +Garvin, made interesting and important speeches, and many scientific +aviators luminously discussed the new science. Among their graceful +felicitations and grave and quiet analyses a word was said, or a note +was struck, which I myself can never hear, even in the most harmless +after-dinner speech, without an impulse to leap up and yell, and smash +the decanters and wreck the dinner-table.</p> + +<p>Long ago, when I was a boy, I heard it with fury; and never since have I +been able to understand any free man hearing it without fury. I heard it +when Bloch, and the old prophets of pacifism by panic, preached that war +would become too horrible for patriots to endure. It sounded to me like +saying that an instrument of torture was being prepared by my dentist, +that would finally cure me of loving my dog. And I felt it again when +all these wise and well-meaning persons began to talk about the +inevitable effect of aviation in bridging the Atlantic, and establishing +alliance and affection between England and America.</p> + +<p>I resent the suggestion that a machine can make me bad. But I resent +quite equally the suggestion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> that a machine can make me good. It might +be the unfortunate fact that a coolness had arisen between myself and +Mr. Fitzarlington Blenkinsop, inhabiting the suburban villa and garden +next to mine; and I might even be largely to blame for it. But if +somebody told me that a new kind of lawn-mower had just been invented, +of so cunning a structure that I should be forced to become a +bosom-friend of Mr. Blenkinsop whether I liked it or not, I should be +very much annoyed. I should be moved to say that if that was the only +way of cutting my grass I would not cut my grass, but continue to cut my +neighbour. Or suppose the difference were even less defensible; suppose +a man had suffered from a trifling shindy with his wife. And suppose +somebody told him that the introduction of an entirely new +vacuum-cleaner would compel him to a reluctant reconciliation with his +wife. It would be found, I fancy, that human nature abhors that vacuum. +Reasonably spirited human beings will not be ordered about by bicycles +and sewing-machines; and a sane man will not be made good, let alone +bad, by the things he has himself made. I have occasionally dictated to +a typewriter, but I will not be dictated to by a typewriter, even of the +newest and most complicated mechanism; nor have I ever met a typewriter, +however complex, that attempted such a tyranny.</p> + +<p>Yet this and nothing else is what is implied in all such talk of the +aeroplane annihilating distinctions as well as distances; and an +international aviation abolishing nationalities. This and nothing else +was really implied in one speaker's prediction that such aviation will +almost necessitate an Anglo-American friendship. Incidentally, I may +remark, it is not a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> true suggestion even in the practical and +materialistic sense; and the speaker's phrase refuted the speaker's +argument. He said that international relations must be more friendly +when men can get from England to America in a day. Well, men can already +get from England to Germany in a day; and the result was a mutual +invitation of which the formalities lasted for five years. Men could get +from the coast of England to the coast of France very quickly, through +nearly all the ages during which those two coasts were bristling with +arms against each other. They could get there very quickly when Nelson +went down by that Burford Inn to embark for Trafalgar; they could get +there very quickly when Napoleon sat in his tent in that camp at +Boulogne that filled England with alarums of invasion. Are these the +amiable and pacific relations which will unite England and America, when +Englishmen can get to America in a day? The shortening of the distance +seems quite as likely, so far as that argument goes, to facilitate that +endless guerilla warfare which raged across the narrow seas in the +Middle Ages; when French invaders carried away the bells of Rye, and the +men of those flats of East Sussex gloriously pursued and recovered them. +I do not know whether American privateers, landing at Liverpool, would +carry away a few of the more elegant factory chimneys as a substitute +for the superstitious symbols of the past. I know not if the English, on +ripe reflection, would essay with any enthusiasm to get them back. But +anyhow it is anything but self-evident that people cannot fight each +other because they are near to each other; and if it were true, there +would never have been any such thing as border warfare in the world. As +a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> fact, border warfare has often been the one sort of warfare which it +was most difficult to bring under control. And our own traditional +position in face of this new logic is somewhat disconcerting. We have +always supposed ourselves safer because we were insular and therefore +isolated. We have been congratulating ourselves for centuries on having +enjoyed peace because we were cut off from our neighbours. And now they +are telling us that we shall only enjoy peace when we are joined up with +our neighbours. We have pitied the poor nations with frontiers, because +a frontier only produces fighting; and now we are trusting to a frontier +as the only thing that will produce friendship. But, as a matter of +fact, and for a far deeper and more spiritual reason, a frontier will +not produce friendship. Only friendliness produces friendship. And we +must look far deeper into the soul of man for the thing that produces +friendliness.</p> + +<p>But apart from this fallacy about the facts, I feel, as I say, a strong +abstract anger against the idea, or what some would call the ideal. If +it were true that men could be taught and tamed by machines, even if +they were taught wisdom or tamed to amiability, I should think it the +most tragic truth in the world. A man so improved would be, in an +exceedingly ugly sense, losing his soul to save it. But in truth he +cannot be so completely coerced into good; and in so far as he is +incompletely coerced, he is quite as likely to be coerced into evil. Of +the financial characters who figure as philanthropists and philosophers +in such cases, it is strictly true to say that their good is evil. The +light in their bodies is darkness, and the highest objects of such men +are the lowest objects of ordinary men. Their peace is mere safety, +their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> friendship is mere trade; their international friendship is mere +international trade. The best we can say of that school of capitalism is +that it will be unsuccessful. It has every other vice, but it is not +practical. It has at least the impossibility of idealism; and so far as +remoteness can carry it, that Inferno is indeed a Utopia. All the +visible manifestations of these men are materialistic; but at least +their visions will not materialise. The worst we suffer; but the best we +shall at any rate escape. We may continue to endure the realities of +cosmopolitan capitalism; but we shall be spared its ideals.</p> + +<p>But I am not primarily interested in the plutocrats whose vision takes +so vulgar a form. I am interested in the same thing when it takes a far +more subtle form, in men of genius and genuine social enthusiasm like +Mr. H. G. Wells. It would be very unfair to a man like Mr. Wells to +suggest that in his vision the Englishman and the American are to +embrace only in the sense of clinging to each other in terror. He is a +man who understands what friendship is, and who knows how to enjoy the +motley humours of humanity. But the political reconstruction which he +proposes is too much determined by this old nightmare of +necessitarianism. He tells us that our national dignities and +differences must be melted into the huge mould of a World State, or else +(and I think these are almost his own words) we shall be destroyed by +the instruments and machinery we have ourselves made. In effect, men +must abandon patriotism or they will be murdered by science. After this, +surely no one can accuse Mr. Wells of an undue tenderness for scientific +over other types of training. Greek may be a good thing or no; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> +nobody says that if Greek scholarship is carried past a certain point, +everybody will be torn in pieces like Orpheus, or burned up like Semele, +or poisoned like Socrates. Philosophy, theology and logic may or may not +be idle academic studies; but nobody supposes that the study of +philosophy, or even of theology, ultimately forces its students to +manufacture racks and thumb-screws against their will; or that even +logicians need be so alarmingly logical as all that. Science seems to be +the only branch of study in which people have to be waved back from +perfection as from a pestilence. But my business is not with the +scientific dangers which alarm Mr. Wells, but with the remedy he +proposes for them; or rather with the relation of that remedy to the +foundation and the future of America. Now it is not too much to say that +Mr. Wells finds his model in America. The World State is to be the +United States of the World. He answers almost all objections to the +practicability of such a peace among states, by pointing out that the +American States have such a peace, and by adding, truly enough, that +another turn of history might easily have seen them broken up by war. +The pattern of the World State is to be found in the New World.</p> + +<p>Oddly enough, as it seems to me, he proposes almost cosmic conquests for +the American Constitution, while leaving out the most successful thing +in that Constitution. The point appeared in answer to a question which +many, like myself, must have put in this matter; the question of +despotism and democracy. I cannot understand any democrat not seeing the +danger of so distant and indirect a system of government. It is hard +enough anywhere to get representatives to represent. It is hard enough +to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> get a little town council to fulfil the wishes of a little town, +even when the townsmen meet the town councillors every day in the +street, and could kick them down the street if they liked. What the same +town councillors would be like if they were ruling all their +fellow-creatures from the North Pole or the New Jerusalem, is a vision +of Oriental despotism beyond the towering fancies of Tamberlane. This +difficulty in all representative government is felt everywhere, and not +least in America. But I think that if there is one truth apparent in +such a choice of evils, it is that monarchy is at least better than +oligarchy; and that where we have to act on a large scale, the most +genuine popularity can gather round a particular person like a Pope or a +President of the United States, or even a dictator like Caesar or +Napoleon, rather than round a more or less corrupt committee which can +only be defined as an obscure oligarchy. And in that sense any oligarchy +is obscure. For people to continue to trust twenty-seven men it is +necessary, as a preliminary formality, that people should have heard of +them. And there are no twenty-seven men of whom everybody has heard as +everybody in France had heard of Napoleon, as all Catholics have heard +of the Pope or all Americans have heard of the President. I think the +mass of ordinary Americans do really elect their President; and even +where they cannot control him at least they watch him, and in the long +run they judge him. I think, therefore, that the American Constitution +has a real popular institution in the Presidency. But Mr. Wells would +appear to want the American Constitution without the Presidency. If I +understand his words rightly, he seems to want the great democracy +without its popular <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>institution. Alluding to this danger, that the +World State might be a world tyranny, he seems to take tyranny entirely +in the sense of autocracy. He asks whether the President of the World +State would not be rather too tremendous a person, and seems to suggest +in answer that there need not even be any such person. He seems to imply +that the committee controlling the planet could meet almost without any +one in the chair, certainly without any one on the throne. I cannot +imagine anything more manifestly made to be a tyranny than such an +acephalous aristocracy. But while Mr. Wells's decision seems to me +strange, his reason for it seems to me still more extraordinary.</p> + +<p>He suggests that no such dictator will be needed in his World State +because 'there will be no wars and no diplomacy.' A World State ought +doubtless to go round the world; and going round the world seems to be a +good training for arguing in a circle. Obviously there will be no wars +and no war-diplomacy if something has the power to prevent them; and we +cannot deduce that the something will not want any power. It is rather +as if somebody, urging that the Germans could only be defeated by +uniting the Allied commands under Marshal Foch, had said that after all +it need not offend the British Generals because the French supremacy +need only be a fiction, the Germans being defeated. We should naturally +say that the German defeat would only be a reality because the Allied +command was not a fiction. So the universal peace would only be a +reality if the World State were not a fiction. And it could not be even +a state if it were not a government. This argument amounts to saying, +first that the World<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> State will be needed because it is strong, and +then that it may safely be weak because it will not be needed.</p> + +<p>Internationalism is in any case hostile to democracy. I do not say it is +incompatible with it; but any combination of the two will be a +compromise between the two. The only purely popular government is local, +and founded on local knowledge. The citizens can rule the city because +they know the city; but it will always be an exceptional sort of citizen +who has or claims the right to rule over ten cities, and these remote +and altogether alien cities. All Irishmen may know roughly the same sort +of things about Ireland; but it is absurd to say they all know the same +things about Iceland, when they may include a scholar steeped in +Icelandic sagas or a sailor who has been to Iceland. To make all +politics cosmopolitan is to create an aristocracy of globe-trotters. If +your political outlook really takes in the Cannibal Islands, you depend +of necessity upon a superior and picked minority of the people who have +been to the Cannibal Islands; or rather of the still smaller and more +select minority who have come back.</p> + +<p>Given this difficulty about quite direct democracy over large areas, I +think the nearest thing to democracy is despotism. At any rate I think +it is some sort of more or less independent monarchy, such as Andrew +Jackson created in America. And I believe it is true to say that the two +men whom the modern world really and almost reluctantly regards with +impersonal respect, as clothed by their office with something historic +and honourable, are the Pope and the President of the United States.</p> + +<p>But to admire the United States as the United<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> States is one thing. To +admire them as the World State is quite another. The attempt of Mr. +Wells to make America a sort of model for the federation of all the free +nations of the earth, though it is international in intention, is really +as narrowly national, in the bad sense, as the desire of Mr. Kipling to +cover the world with British Imperialism, or of Professor Treitschke to +cover it with Prussian Pan-Germanism. Not being schoolboys, we no longer +believe that everything can be settled by painting the map red. Nor do I +believe it can be done by painting it blue with white spots, even if +they are called stars. The insufficiency of British Imperialism does not +lie in the fact that it has always been applied by force of arms. As a +matter of fact, it has not. It has been effected largely by commerce, by +colonisation of comparatively empty places, by geographical discovery +and diplomatic bargain. Whether it be regarded as praise or blame, it is +certainly the truth that among all the things that have called +themselves empires, the British has been perhaps the least purely +military, and has least both of the special guilt and the special glory +that goes with militarism. The insufficiency of British Imperialism is +not that it is imperial, let alone military. The insufficiency of +British Imperialism is that it is British; when it is not merely Jewish. +It is that just as a man is no more than a man, so a nation is no more +than a nation; and any nation is inadequate as an international model. +Any state looks small when it occupies the whole earth. Any polity is +narrow as soon as it is as wide as the world. It would be just the same +if Ireland began to paint the map green or Montenegro were to paint it +black. The objection to spreading <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>anything all over the world is that, +among other things, you have to spread it very thin.</p> + +<p>But America, which Mr. Wells takes as a model, is in another sense +rather a warning. Mr. Wells says very truly that there was a moment in +history when America might well have broken up into independent states +like those of Europe. He seems to take it for granted that it was in all +respects an advantage that this was avoided. Yet there is surely a case, +however mildly we put it, for a certain importance in the world still +attaching to Europe. There are some who find France as interesting as +Florida; and who think they can learn as much about history and humanity +in the marble cities of the Mediterranean as in the wooden towns of the +Middle West. Europe may have been divided, but it was certainly not +destroyed; nor has its peculiar position in the culture of the world +been destroyed. Nothing has yet appeared capable of completely eclipsing +it, either in its extension in America or its imitation in Japan. But +the immediate point here is perhaps a more important one. There is now +no creed accepted as embodying the common sense of all Europe, as the +Catholic creed was accepted as embodying it in mediaeval times. There is +no culture broadly superior to all others, as the Mediterranean culture +was superior to that of the barbarians in Roman times. If Europe were +united in modern times, it would probably be by the victory of one of +its types over others, possibly over all the others. And when America +was united finally in the nineteenth century, it <i>was</i> by the victory of +one of its types over others. It is not yet certain that this victory +was a good thing. It is not yet certain that the world will be better +for the triumph<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> of the North over the Southern traditions of America. +It may yet turn out to be as unfortunate as a triumph of the North +Germans over the Southern traditions of Germany and of Europe.</p> + +<p>The men who will not face this fact are men whose minds are not free. +They are more crushed by Progress than any pietists by Providence. They +are not allowed to question that whatever has recently happened was all +for the best. Now Progress is Providence without God. That is, it is a +theory that everything has always perpetually gone right by accident. It +is a sort of atheistic optimism, based on an everlasting coincidence far +more miraculous than a miracle. If there be no purpose, or if the +purpose permits of human free will, then in either case it is almost +insanely unlikely that there should be in history a period of steady and +uninterrupted progress; or in other words a period in which poor +bewildered humanity moves amid a chaos of complications, without making +a single mistake. What has to be hammered into the heads of most normal +newspaper-readers to-day is that Man has made a great many mistakes. +Modern Man has made a great many mistakes. Indeed, in the case of that +progressive and pioneering character, one is sometimes tempted to say +that he has made nothing but mistakes. Calvinism was a mistake, and +Capitalism was a mistake, and Teutonism and the flattery of the Northern +tribes were mistakes. In the French the persecution of Catholicism by +the politicians was a mistake, as they found out in the Great War; when +the memory gave Irish or Italian Catholics an excuse for hanging back. +In England the loss of agriculture and therefore of food-supply in war, +and the power<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> to stand a siege, was a mistake. And in America the +introduction of the negroes was a mistake; but it may yet be found that +the sacrifice of the Southern white man to them was even more of a +mistake.</p> + +<p>The reason of this doubt is in one word. We have not yet seen the end of +the whole industrial experiment; and there are already signs of it +coming to a bad end. It may end in Bolshevism. It is more likely to end +in the Servile State. Indeed, the two things are not so different as +some suppose, and they grow less different every day. The Bolshevists +have already called in Capitalists to help them to crush the free +peasants. The Capitalists are quite likely to call in Labour Leaders to +whitewash their compromise as social reform or even Socialism. The +cosmopolitan Jews who are the Communists in the East will not find it so +very hard to make a bargain with the cosmopolitan Jews who are +Capitalists in the West. The Western Jews would be willing to admit a +nominal Socialism. The Eastern Jews have already admitted that their +Socialism is nominal. It was the Bolshevist leader himself who said, +'Russia is again a Capitalist country.' But whoever makes the bargain, +and whatever is its precise character, the substance of it will be +servile. It will be servile in the only rational and reliable sense; +that is, an arrangement by which a mass of men are ensured shelter and +livelihood, in return for being subjected to a law which obliges them to +continue to labour. Of course it will not be called the Servile State; +it is very probable that it will be called the Socialist State. But +nobody seems to realise how very near all the industrial countries are +to it. At any moment it may appear in the simple form of compulsory +arbitration;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> for compulsory arbitration dealing with private employers +is by definition slavery. When workmen receive unemployment pay, and at +the same time arouse more and more irritation by going on strike, it may +seem very natural to give them the unemployment pay for good and forbid +them the strike for good; and the combination of those two things is by +definition slavery. And Trotsky can beat any Trust magnate as a +strike-breaker; for he does not even pretend that his compulsory labour +is a free bargain. If Trotsky and the Trust magnate come to a working +compromise, that compromise will be a Servile State. But it will also be +the supreme and by far the most constructive and conclusive result of +the industrial movement in history; of the power of machinery or money; +of the huge populations of the modern cities; of scientific inventions +and resources; of all the things before which the agricultural society +of the Southern Confederacy went down. But even those who cannot see +that commercialism may end in the triumph of slavery can see that the +Northern victory has to a great extent ended in the triumph of +commercialism. And the point at the moment is that this did definitely +mean, even at the time, the triumph of one American type over another +American type; just as much as any European war might mean the triumph +of one European type over another. A victory of England over France +would be a victory of merchants over peasants; and the victory of +Northerners over Southerners was a victory of merchants over squires. So +that that very unity, which Mr. Wells contrasts so favourably with war, +was not only itself due to a war, but to a war which had one of the most +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>questionable and even perilous of the results of war. That result was a +change in the balance of power, the predominance of a particular +partner, the exaltation of a particular example, the eclipse of +excellent traditions when the defeated lost their international +influence. In short, it made exactly the same sort of difference of +which we speak when we say that 1870 was a disaster to Europe, or that +it was necessary to fight Prussia lest she should Prussianise the whole +world. America would have been very different if the leadership had +remained with Virginia. The world would have been very different if +America had been very different. It is quite reasonable to rejoice that +the issue went as it did; indeed, as I have explained elsewhere, for +other reasons I do on the whole rejoice in it. But it is certainly not +self-evident that it is a matter for rejoicing. One type of American +state conquered and subjugated another type of American state; and the +virtues and value of the latter were very largely lost to the world. So +if Mr. Wells insists on the parallel of a United States of Europe, he +must accept the parallel of a Civil War of Europe. He must suppose that +the peasant countries crush the industrial countries or vice versa; and +that one or other of them becomes the European tradition to the neglect +of the other. The situation which seems to satisfy him so completely in +America is, after all, the situation which would result in Europe if the +Germanic Empires, let us say, had entirely arrested the special +development of the Slavs; or if the influence of France had really +broken off short under a blow from Britain. The Old South had qualities +of humane civilisation which have not sufficiently survived; or at any +rate have not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>sufficiently spread. It is true that the decline of the +agricultural South has been considerably balanced by the growth of the +agricultural West. It is true, as I have occasion to emphasise in +another place, that the West does give the New America something that is +nearly a normal peasantry, as a pendant to the industrial towns. But +this is not an answer; it is rather an augmentation of the argument. In +so far as America is saved it is saved by being patchy; and would be +ruined if the Western patch had the same fate as the Southern patch. +When all is said, therefore, the advantages of American unification are +not so certain that we can apply them to a world unification. The doubt +could be expressed in a great many ways and by a great many examples. +For that matter, it is already being felt that the supremacy of the +Middle West in politics is inflicting upon other localities exactly the +sort of local injustice that turns provinces into nations struggling to +be free. It has already inflicted what amounts to religious persecution, +or the imposition of an alien morality, on the wine-growing civilisation +of California. In a word, the American system is a good one as +governments go; but it is too large, and the world will not be improved +by making it larger. And for this reason alone I should reject this +second method of uniting England and America; which is not only +Americanising England, but Americanising everything else.</p> + +<p>But the essential reason is that a type of culture came out on top in +America and England in the nineteenth century, which cannot and would +not be tolerated on top of the world. To unite all the systems at the +top, without improving and simplifying their social organisation below, +would be to tie<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> all the tops of the trees together where they rise +above a dense and poisonous jungle, and make the jungle darker than +before. To create such a cosmopolitan political platform would be to +build a roof above our own heads to shut out the sunlight, on which only +usurers and conspirators clad in gold could walk about in the sun. This +is no moment when industrial intellectualism can inflict such an +artificial oppression upon the world. Industrialism itself is coming to +see dark days, and its future is very doubtful. It is split from end to +end with strikes and struggles for economic life, in which the poor not +only plead that they are starving, but even the rich can only plead that +they are bankrupt. The peasantries are growing not only more prosperous +but more politically effective; the Russian moujik has held up the +Bolshevist Government of Moscow and Petersburg; a huge concession has +been made by England to Ireland; the League of Nations has decided for +Poland against Prussia. It is not certain that industrialism will not +wither even in its own field; it is certain that its intellectual ideas +will not be allowed to cover every field; and this sort of cosmopolitan +culture is one of its ideas. Industrialism itself may perish; or on the +other hand industrialism itself may survive, by some searching and +scientific reform that will really guarantee economic security to all. +It may really purge itself of the accidental maladies of anarchy and +famine; and continue as a machine, but at least as a comparatively clean +and humanely shielded machine; at any rate no longer as a man-eating +machine. Capitalism may clear itself of its worst corruptions by such +reform as is open to it; by creating humane and healthy conditions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> for +labour, and setting the labouring classes to work under a lucid and +recognised law. It may make Pittsburg one vast model factory for all who +will model themselves upon factories; and may give to all men and women +in its employment a clear social status in which they can be contented +and secure. And on the day when that social security is established for +the masses, when industrial capitalism has achieved this larger and more +logical organisation and found peace at last, a strange and shadowy and +ironic triumph, like an abstract apology, will surely hover over all +those graves in the Wilderness where lay the bones of so many gallant +gentlemen; men who had also from their youth known and upheld such a +social stratification, who had the courage to call a spade a spade and a +slave a slave.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="A_New_Martin_Chuzzlewit" id="A_New_Martin_Chuzzlewit"></a><i>A New Martin Chuzzlewit</i></h2> + +<p>The aim of this book, if it has one, is to suggest this thesis; that the +very worst way of helping Anglo-American friendship is to be an +Anglo-American. There is only one thing lower, of course, which is being +an Anglo-Saxon. It is lower, because at least Englishmen do exist and +Americans do exist; and it may be possible, though repulsive, to imagine +an American and an Englishman in some way blended together. But if +Angles and Saxons ever did exist, they are all fortunately dead now; and +the wildest imagination cannot form the weakest idea of what sort of +monster would be made by mixing one with the other. But my thesis is +that the whole hope, and the only hope, lies not in mixing two things +together, but rather in cutting them very sharply asunder. That is the +only way in which two things can succeed sufficiently in getting outside +each other to appreciate and admire each other. So long as they are +different and yet supposed to be the same, there can be nothing but a +divided mind and a staggering balance. It may be that in the first +twilight of time man and woman walked about as one quadruped. But if +they did, I am sure it was a quadruped that reared and bucked and kicked +up its heels. Then the flaming sword of some angel divided them, and +they fell in love with each other.</p> + +<p>Should the reader require an example a little more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> within historical +range, or a little more subject to critical tests, than the above +prehistoric anecdote (which I need not say was revealed to me in a +vision) it would be easy enough to supply them both in a hypothetical +and a historical form. It is obvious enough in a general way that if we +begin to subject diverse countries to an identical test, there will not +only be rivalry, but what is far more deadly and disastrous, +superiority. If we institute a competition between Holland and +Switzerland as to the relative grace and agility of their mountain +guides, it will be clear that the decision is disproportionately easy; +it will also be clear that certain facts about the configuration of +Holland have escaped our international eye. If we establish a comparison +between them in skill and industry in the art of building dykes against +the sea, it will be equally clear that the injustice falls the other +way; it will also be clear that the situation of Switzerland on the map +has received insufficient study. In both cases there will not only be +rivalry but very unbalanced and unjust rivalry; in both cases, +therefore, there will not only be enmity but very bitter or insolent +enmity. But so long as the two are sharply divided there can be no +enmity because there can be no rivalry. Nobody can argue about whether +the Swiss climb mountains better than the Dutch build dykes; just as +nobody can argue about whether a triangle is more triangular than a +circle is round.</p> + +<p>This fancy example is alphabetically and indeed artificially simple; +but, having used it for convenience, I could easily give similar +examples not of fancy but of fact. I had occasion recently to attend the +Christmas festivity of a club in London for the exiles of one of the +Scandinavian nations. When I entered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> the room the first thing that +struck my eye, and greatly raised my spirits, was that the room was +dotted with the colours of peasant costumes and the specimens of peasant +craftsmanship. There were, of course, other costumes and other crafts in +evidence; there were men dressed like myself (only better) in the garb +of the modern middle classes; there was furniture like the furniture of +any other room in London. Now, according to the ideal formula of the +ordinary internationalist, these things that we had in common ought to +have moved me to a sense of the kinship of all civilisation. I ought to +have felt that as the Scandinavian gentleman wore a collar and tie, and +I also wore a collar and tie, we were brothers and nothing could come +between us. I ought to have felt that we were standing for the same +principles of truth because we were wearing the same pair of trousers; +or rather, to speak with more precision, similar pairs of trousers. +Anyhow, the pair of trousers, that cloven pennon, ought to have floated +in fancy over my head as the banner of Europe or the League of Nations. +I am constrained to confess that no such rush of emotions overcame me; +and the topic of trousers did not float across my mind at all. So far as +those things were concerned, I might have remained in a mood of mortal +enmity, and cheerfully shot or stabbed the best dressed gentleman in the +room. Precisely what did warm my heart with an abrupt affection for that +northern nation was the very thing that is utterly and indeed lamentably +lacking in my own nation. It was something corresponding to the one +great gap in English history, corresponding to the one great blot on +English civilisation. It was the spiritual presence of a peasantry, +dressed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>according to its own dignity, and expressing itself by its own +creations.</p> + +<p>The sketch of America left by Charles Dickens is generally regarded as +something which is either to be used as a taunt or covered with an +apology. Doubtless it was unduly critical, even of the America of that +day; yet curiously enough it may well be the text for a true +reconciliation at the present day. It is true that in this, as in other +things, the Dickensian exaggeration is itself exaggerated. It is also +true that, while it is over-emphasised, it is not allowed for. Dickens +tended too much to describe the United States as a vast lunatic asylum; +but partly because he had a natural inspiration and imagination suited +to the description of lunatic asylums. As it was his finest poetic fancy +that created a lunatic over the garden wall, so it was his fancy that +created a lunatic over the western sea. To read some of the complaints, +one would fancy that Dickens had deliberately invented a low and +farcical America to be a contrast to his high and exalted England. It is +suggested that he showed America as full of rowdy bullies like Hannibal +Chollop, or ridiculous wind-bags like Elijah Pogram, while England was +full of refined and sincere spirits like Jonas Chuzzlewit, Chevy Slime, +Montague Tigg, and Mr. Pecksniff. If <i>Martin Chuzzlewit</i> makes America a +lunatic asylum, what in the world does it make England? We can only say +a criminal lunatic asylum. The truth is, of course, that Dickens so +described them because he had a genius for that sort of description; for +the making of almost maniacal grotesques of the same type as Quilp or +Fagin. He made these Americans absurd because he was an artist in +absurdity; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> no artist can help finding hints everywhere for his own +peculiar art. In a word, he created a laughable Pogram for the same +reason that he created a laughable Pecksniff; and that was only because +no other creature could have created them.</p> + +<p>It is often said that we learn to love the characters in romances as if +they were characters in real life. I wish we could sometimes love the +characters in real life as we love the characters in romances. There are +a great many human souls whom we should accept more kindly, and even +appreciate more clearly, if we simply thought of them as people in a +story. <i>Martin Chuzzlewit</i> is itself indeed an unsatisfactory and even +unfortunate example; for it is, among its author's other works, a rather +unusually harsh and hostile story. I do not suggest that we should feel +towards an American friend that exact shade or tint of tenderness that +we feel towards Mr. Hannibal Chollop. Our enjoyment of the foreigner +should rather resemble our enjoyment of Pickwick than our enjoyment of +Pecksniff. But there is this amount of appropriateness even in the +particular example; that Dickens did show in both countries how men can +be made amusing to each other. So far the point is not that he made fun +of America, but that he got fun out of America. And, as I have already +pointed out, he applied exactly the same method of selection and +exaggeration to England. In the other English stories, written in a more +amiable mood, he applied it in a more amiable manner; but he could apply +it to an American too, when he was writing in that mood and manner. We +can see it in the witty and withering criticism delivered by the Yankee +traveller in the musty refreshment room of Mugby Junction;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> a genuine +example of a genuinely American fun and freedom satirising a genuinely +British stuffiness and snobbery. Nobody expects the American traveller +to admire the refreshments at Mugby Junction; but he might admire the +refreshment at one of the Pickwickian inns, especially if it contained +Pickwick. Nobody expects Pickwick to like Pogram; but he might like the +American who made fun of Mugby Junction. But the point is that, while he +supported him in making fun, he would also think him funny. The two +comic characters could admire each other, but they would also be amused +at each other. And the American would think the Englishman funny because +he was English; and a very good reason too. The Englishman would think +the American amusing because he was American; nor can I imagine a better +ground for his amusement.</p> + +<p>Now many will debate on the psychological possibility of such a +friendship founded on reciprocal ridicule, or rather on a comedy of +comparisons. But I will say of this harmony of humours what Mr. H. G. +Wells says of his harmony of states in the unity of his World State. If +it be truly impossible to have such a peace, then there is nothing +possible except war. If we cannot have friends in this fashion, then we +shall sooner or later have enemies in some other fashion. There is no +hope in the pompous impersonalities of internationalism.</p> + +<p>And this brings us to the real and relevant mistake of Dickens. It was +not in thinking his Americans funny, but in thinking them foolish +because they were funny. In this sense it will be noticed that Dickens's +American sketches are almost avowedly superficial; they are descriptions +of public life and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> not private life. Mr. Jefferson Brick had no private +life. But Mr. Jonas Chuzzlewit undoubtedly had a private life; and even +kept some parts of it exceeding private. Mr. Pecksniff was also a +domestic character; so was Mr. Quilp. Mr. Pecksniff and Mr. Quilp had +slightly different ways of surprising their families; Mr. Pecksniff by +playfully observing 'Boh!' when he came home; Mr. Quilp by coming home +at all. But we can form no picture of how Mr. Hannibal Chollop playfully +surprised his family; possibly by shooting at them; possibly by not +shooting at them. We can only say that he would rather surprise us by +having a family at all. We do not know how the Mother of the Modern +Gracchi managed the Modern Gracchi; for her maternity was rather a +public than a private office. We have no romantic moonlit scenes of the +love-making of Elijah Pogram, to balance against the love story of Seth +Pecksniff. These figures are all in a special sense theatrical; all +facing one way and lit up by a public limelight. Their ridiculous +characters are detachable from their real characters, if they have any +real characters. And the author might perfectly well be right about what +is ridiculous, and wrong about what is real. He might be as right in +smiling at the Pograms and the Bricks as in smiling at the Pickwicks and +the Boffins. And he might still be as wrong in seeing Mr. Pogram as a +hypocrite as the great Buzfuz was wrong in seeing Mr. Pickwick as a +monster of revolting heartlessness and systematic villainy. He might +still be as wrong in thinking Jefferson Brick a charlatan and a cheat as +was that great disciple of Lavater, Mrs. Wilfer, in tracing every +wrinkle of evil cunning in the face of Mrs. Boffin. For Mr. Pickwick's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> +spectacles and gaiters and Mrs. Boffin's bonnets and boudoir are after +all superficial jokes; and might be equally well seen whatever we saw +beneath them. A man may smile and smile and be a villain; but a man may +also make us smile and not be a villain. He may make us smile and not +even be a fool. He may make us roar with laughter and be an exceedingly +wise man.</p> + +<p>Now that is the paradox of America which Dickens never discovered. +Elijah Pogram was far more fantastic than his satirist thought; and the +most grotesque feature of Brick and Chollop was hidden from him. The +really strange thing was that Pogram probably did say, 'Rough he may be. +So air our bars. Wild he may be. So air our buffalers,' and yet was a +perfectly intelligent and public-spirited citizen while he said it. The +extraordinary thing is that Jefferson Brick may really have said, 'The +libation of freedom must sometimes be quaffed in blood,' and yet +Jefferson Brick may have served freedom, resisting unto blood. There +really has been a florid school of rhetoric in the United States which +has made it quite possible for serious and sensible men to say such +things. It is amusing simply as a difference of idiom or costume is +always amusing; just as English idiom and English costume are amusing to +Americans. But about this kind of difference there can be no kind of +doubt. So sturdy not to say stuffy a materialist as Ingersoll could say +of so shoddy not to say shady a financial politician as Blaine, 'Like an +arméd warrior, like a pluméd knight, James G. Blaine strode down the +hall of Congress, and flung his spear full and true at the shield of +every enemy of his country and every traducer of his fair name.' +Compared with that, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> passage about bears and buffaloes, which Mr. +Pogram delivered in defence of the defaulting post-master, is really a +very reasonable and appropriate statement. For bears and buffaloes are +wild and rough and in that sense free; while pluméd knights do not throw +their lances about like the assegais of Zulus. And the defaulting +post-master was at least as good a person to praise in such a fashion as +James G. Blaine of the Little Rock Railway. But anybody who had treated +Ingersoll or Blaine merely as a fool and a figure of fun would have very +rapidly found out his mistake. But Dickens did not know Brick or Chollop +long enough to find out his mistake. It need not be denied that, even +after a full understanding, he might still have found things to smile at +or to criticise. I do not insist on his admitting that Hannibal Chollop +was as great a hero as Hannibal, or that Elijah Pogram was as true a +prophet as Elijah. But I do say very seriously that they had something +about their atmosphere and situation that made possible a sort of +heroism and even a sort of prophecy that were really less natural at +that period in that Merry England whose comedy and common sense we sum +up under the name of Dickens. When we joke about the name of Hannibal +Chollop, we might remember of what nation was the general who dismissed +his defeated soldiers at Appomatox with words which the historian has +justly declared to be worthy of Hannibal: 'We have fought through this +war together. I have done my best for you.' It is not fair to forget +Jefferson, or even Jefferson Davis, entirely in favour of Jefferson +Brick.</p> + +<p>For all these three things, good, bad, and indifferent, go together to +form something that Dickens<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> missed, merely because the England of his +time most disastrously missed it. In this case, as in every case, the +only way to measure justly the excess of a foreign country is to measure +the defect of our own country. For in this matter the human mind is the +victim of a curious little unconscious trick, the cause of nearly all +international dislikes. A man treats his own faults as original sin and +supposes them scattered everywhere with the seed of Adam. He supposes +that men have then added their own foreign vices to the solid and simple +foundation of his own private vices. It would astound him to realise +that they have actually, by their strange erratic path, avoided his +vices as well as his virtues. His own faults are things with which he is +so much at home that he at once forgets and assumes them abroad. He is +so faintly conscious of them in himself that he is not even conscious of +the absence of them in other people. He assumes that they are there so +that he does not see that they are not there. The Englishman takes it +for granted that a Frenchman will have all the English faults. Then he +goes on to be seriously angry with the Frenchman for having dared to +complicate them by the French faults. The notion that the Frenchman has +the French faults and <i>not</i> the English faults is a paradox too wild to +cross his mind.</p> + +<p>He is like an old Chinaman who should laugh at Europeans for wearing +ludicrous top-hats and curling up their pig-tails inside them; because +obviously all men have pig-tails, as all monkeys have tails. Or he is +like an old Chinese lady who should justly deride the high-heeled shoes +of the West, considering them a needless addition to the sufficiently +tight and secure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> bandaging of the foot; for, of course, all women bind +up their feet, as all women bind up their hair. What these Celestial +thinkers would not think of, or allow for, is the wild possibility that +we do not have pig-tails although we do have top-hats, or that our +ladies are not silly enough to have Chinese feet, though they are silly +enough to have high-heeled shoes. Nor should we necessarily have come an +inch nearer to the Chinese extravagances even if the chimney-pot hat +rose higher than a factory chimney or the high heels had evolved into a +sort of stilts. By the same fallacy the Englishman will not only curse +the French peasant as a miser, but will also try to tip him as a beggar. +That is, he will first complain of the man having the surliness of an +independent man, and then accuse him of having the servility of a +dependent one. Just as the hypothetical Chinaman cannot believe that we +have top-hats but not pig-tails, so the Englishman cannot believe that +peasants are not snobs even when they are savages. Or he sees that a +Paris paper is violent and sensational; and then supposes that some +millionaire owns twenty such papers and runs them as a newspaper trust. +Surely the Yellow Press is present everywhere to paint the map yellow, +as the British Empire to paint it red. It never occurs to such a critic +that the French paper is violent because it is personal, and personal +because it belongs to a real and responsible person, and not to a ring +of nameless millionaires. It is a pamphlet, and not an anonymous +pamphlet. In a hundred other cases the same truth could be illustrated; +the situation in which the black man first assumes that all mankind is +black, and then accuses the rest of the artificial vice of painting +their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> faces red and yellow, or the hypocrisy of white-washing +themselves after the fashion of whited sepulchres. The particular case +of it now before us is that of the English misunderstanding of America; +and it is based, as in all these cases, on the English misunderstanding +of England.</p> + +<p>For the truth is that England has suffered of late from not having +enough of the free shooting of Hannibal Chollop; from not understanding +enough that the libation of freedom must sometimes be quaffed in blood. +The prosperous Englishman will not admit this; but then the prosperous +Englishman will not admit that he has suffered from anything. That is +what he is suffering from. Until lately at least he refused to realise +that many of his modern habits had been bad habits, the worst of them +being contentment. For all the real virtue in contentment evaporates, +when the contentment is only satisfaction and the satisfaction is only +self-satisfaction. Now it is perfectly true that America and not England +has seen the most obvious and outrageous official denials of liberty. +But it is equally true that it has seen the most obvious flouting of +such official nonsense, far more obvious than any similar evasions in +England. And nobody who knows the subconscious violence of the American +character would ever be surprised if the weapons of Chollop began to be +used in that most lawful lawlessness. It is perfectly true that the +libation of freedom must sometimes be drunk in blood, and never more +(one would think) than when mad millionaires forbid it to be drunk in +beer. But America, as compared with England, is the country where one +can still fancy men obtaining the libation of beer by the libation of +blood. Vulgar plutocracy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> is almost omnipotent in both countries; but I +think there is now more kick of reaction against it in America than in +England. The Americans may go mad when they make laws; but they recover +their reason when they disobey them. I wish I could believe that there +was as much of that destructive repentance in England; as indeed there +certainly was when Cobbett wrote. It faded gradually like a dying fire +through the Victorian era; and it was one of the very few realities that +Dickens did not understand. But any one who does understand it will know +that the days of Cobbett saw the last lost fight for English democracy; +and that if he had stood at that turning of the historic road, he would +have wished a better fate to the frame-breakers and the fury against the +first machinery, and luck to the Luddite fires.</p> + +<p>Anyhow, what is wanted is a new Martin Chuzzlewit, told by a wiser Mark +Tapley. It is typical of something sombre and occasionally stale in the +mood of Dickens when he wrote that book, that the comic servant is not +really very comic. Mark Tapley is a very thin shadow of Sam Weller. But +if Dickens had written it in a happier mood, there might have been a +truer meaning in Mark Tapley's happiness. For it is true that this +illogical good humour amid unreason and disorder is one of the real +virtues of the English people. It is the real advantage they have in +that adventure all over the world, which they were recently and +reluctantly induced to call an Empire. That receptive ridicule remains +with them as a secret pleasure when they are colonists—or convicts. +Dickens might have written another version of the great romance, and one +in which America was really seen gaily by Mark instead of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> gloomily by +Martin. Mark Tapley might really have made the best of America. Then +America would have lived and danced before us like Pickwick's England, a +fairyland of happy lunatics and lovable monsters, and we might still +have sympathised as much with the rhetoric of Lafayette Kettle as with +the rhetoric of Wilkins Micawber, or with the violence of Chollop as +with the violence of Boythorn. That new Martin Chuzzlewit will never be +written; and the loss of it is more tragic than the loss of <i>Edwin +Drood</i>. But every man who has travelled in America has seen glimpses and +episodes in that untold tale; and far away on the Red-Indian frontiers +or in the hamlets in the hills of Pennsylvania, there are people whom I +met for a few hours or for a few moments, whom I none the less sincerely +like and respect because I cannot but smile as I think of them. But the +converse is also true; they have probably forgotten me; but if they +remember they laugh.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="The_Spirit_of_America" id="The_Spirit_of_America"></a><i>The Spirit of America</i></h2> + +<p>I suggest that diplomatists of the internationalist school should spend +some of their money on staging farces and comedies of cross-purposes, +founded on the curious and prevalent idea that England and America have +the same language. I know, of course, that we both inherit the glorious +tongue of Shakespeare, not to mention the tune of the musical glasses; +but there have been moments when I thought that if we spoke Greek and +they spoke Latin we might understand each other better. For Greek and +Latin are at least fixed, while American at least is still very fluid. I +do not know the American language, and therefore I do not claim to +distinguish between the American language and the American slang. But I +know that highly theatrical developments might follow on taking the +words as part of the English slang or the English language. I have +already given the example of calling a person 'a regular guy,' which in +the States is a graceful expression of respect and esteem, but which on +the stage, properly handled, might surely lead the way towards a divorce +or duel or something lively. Sometimes coincidence merely clinches a +mistake, as it so often clinches a misprint. Every proof-reader knows +that the worst misprint is not that which makes nonsense but that which +makes sense; not that which is obviously wrong but that which is +hideously right. He who has essayed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> write 'he got the book,' and has +found it rendered mysteriously as 'he got the boob' is pensively +resigned. It is when it is rendered quite lucidly as 'he got the boot' +that he is moved to a more passionate mood of regret. I have had +conversations in which this sort of accident would have wholly misled +me, if another accident had not come to the rescue. An American friend +of mine was telling me of his adventures as a cinema-producer down in +the south-west where real Red Indians were procurable. He said that +certain Indians were 'very bad actors.' It passed for me as a very +ordinary remark on a very ordinary or natural deficiency. It would +hardly seem a crushing criticism to say that some wild Arab chieftain +was not very good at imitating a farmyard; or that the Grand Llama of +Thibet was rather clumsy at making paper boats. But the remark might be +natural in a man travelling in paper boats, or touring with an invisible +farmyard for his menagerie. As my friend was a cinema-producer, I +supposed he meant that the Indians were bad cinema actors. But the +phrase has really a high and austere moral meaning, which my levity had +wholly missed. A bad actor means a man whose actions are bad or morally +reprehensible. So that I might have embraced a Red Indian who was +dripping with gore, or covered with atrocious crimes, imagining there +was nothing the matter with him beyond a mistaken choice of the +theatrical profession. Surely there are here the elements of a play, not +to mention a cinema play. Surely a New England village maiden might find +herself among the wigwams in the power of the formidable and fiendish +'Little Blue Bison,' merely through her mistaken sympathy with his +financial<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> failure as a Film Star. The notion gives me glimpses of all +sorts of dissolving views of primeval forests and flamboyant theatres; +but this impulse of irrelevant theatrical production must be curbed. +There is one example, however, of this complication of language actually +used in contrary senses, about which the same figure can be used to +illustrate a more serious fact.</p> + +<p>Suppose that, in such an international interlude, an English girl and an +American girl are talking about the fiancé of the former, who is coming +to call. The English girl will be haughty and aristocratic (on the +stage), the American girl will of course have short hair and skirts and +will be cynical; Americans being more completely free from cynicism than +any people in the world. It is the great glory of Americans that they +are not cynical; for that matter, English aristocrats are hardly ever +haughty; they understand the game much better than that. But on the +stage, anyhow, the American girl may say, referring to her friend's +fiancé, with a cynical wave of the cigarette, 'I suppose he's bound to +come and see you.' And at this the blue blood of the Vere de Veres will +boil over; the English lady will be deeply wounded and insulted at the +suggestion that her lover only comes to see her because he is forced to +do so. A staggering stage quarrel will then ensue, and things will go +from bad to worse; until the arrival of an Interpreter who can talk both +English and American. He stands between the two ladies waving two pocket +dictionaries, and explains the error on which the quarrel turns. It is +very simple; like the seed of all tragedies. In English 'he is bound to +come and see you' means that he is obliged or constrained to come and +see you. In American it does not. In American it means that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> he is bent +on coming to see you, that he is irrevocably resolved to do so, and will +surmount any obstacle to do it. The two young ladies will then embrace +as the curtain falls.</p> + +<p>Now when I was lecturing in America I was often told, in a radiant and +congratulatory manner, that such and such a person was bound to come and +hear me lecture. It seemed a very cruel form of conscription, and I +could not understand what authority could have made it compulsory. In +the course of discovering my error, however, I thought I began to +understand certain American ideas and instincts that lie behind this +American idiom. For as I have urged before, and shall often urge again, +the road to international friendship is through really understanding +jokes. It is in a sense through taking jokes seriously. It is quite +legitimate to laugh at a man who walks down the street in three white +hats and a green dressing gown, because it is unfamiliar; but after all +the man has <i>some</i> reason for what he does; and until we know the reason +we do not understand the story, or even understand the joke. So the +outlander will always seem outlandish in custom or costume; but serious +relations depend on our getting beyond the fact of difference to the +things wherein it differs. A good symbolical figure for all this may be +found among the people who say, perhaps with a self-revealing +simplicity, that they are bound to go to a lecture.</p> + +<p>If I were asked for a single symbolic figure summing up the whole of +what seems eccentric and interesting about America to an Englishman, I +should be satisfied to select that one lady who complained of Mrs. +Asquith's lecture and wanted her money back.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> I do not mean that she was +typically American in complaining; far from it. I, for one, have a great +and guilty knowledge of all that amiable American audiences will endure +without complaint. I do not mean that she was typically American in +wanting her money; quite the contrary. That sort of American spends +money rather than hoards it; and when we convict them of vulgarity we +acquit them of avarice. Where she was typically American, summing up a +truth individual and indescribable in any other way, is that she used +these words: 'I've risen from a sick-bed to come and hear her, and I +want my money back.'</p> + +<p>The element in that which really amuses an Englishman is precisely the +element which, properly analysed, ought to make him admire an American. +But my point is that only by going through the amusement can he reach +the admiration. The amusement is in the vision of a tragic sacrifice for +what is avowedly a rather trivial object. Mrs. Asquith is a candid lady +of considerable humour; and I feel sure she does not regard the +experience of hearing her read her diary as an ecstasy for which the +sick should thus suffer martyrdom. She also is English; and had no other +claim but to amuse Americans and possibly to be amused by them. This +being so, it is rather as if somebody said, 'I have risked my life in +fire and pestilence to find my way to the music hall,' or, 'I have +fasted forty days in the wilderness sustained by the hope of seeing +Totty Toddles do her new dance.' And there is something rather more +subtle involved here. There is something in an Englishman which would +make him feel faintly ashamed of saying that he had fasted to hear +Totty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> Toddles, or risen from a sick-bed to hear Mrs. Asquith. He would +feel that it was undignified to confess that he had wanted mere +amusement so much; and perhaps that he had wanted anything so much. He +would not like, so to speak, to be seen rushing down the street after +Totty Toddles, or after Mrs. Asquith, or perhaps after anybody. But +there is something in it distinct from a mere embarrassment at admitting +enthusiasm. He might admit the enthusiasm if the object seemed to +justify it; he might perfectly well be serious about a serious thing. +But he cannot understand a person being proud of serious sacrifices for +what is not a serious thing. He does not like to admit that a little +thing can excite him; that he can lose his breath in running, or lose +his balance in reaching, after something that might be called silly.</p> + +<p>Now that is where the American is fundamentally different. To him the +enthusiasm itself is meritorious. To him the excitement itself is +dignified. He counts it a part of his manhood to fast or fight or rise +from a bed of sickness for something, or possibly for anything. His +ideal is not to be a lock that only a worthy key can open, but a 'live +wire' that anything can touch or anybody can use. In a word, there is a +difference in the very definition of virility and therefore of virtue. A +live wire is not only active, it is also sensitive. Thus sensibility +becomes actually a part of virility. Something more is involved than the +vulgar simplification of the American as the irresistible force and the +Englishman as the immovable post. As a fact, those who speak of such +things nowadays generally mean by something irresistible something +simply immovable, or at least<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> something unalterable, motionless even in +motion, like a cannon ball; for a cannon ball is as dead as a cannon. +Prussian militarism was praised in that way—until it met a French force +of about half its size on the banks of the Marne. But that is not what +an American means by energy; that sort of Prussian energy is only +monotony without repose. American energy is not a soulless machine; for +it is the whole point that he puts his soul into it. It is a very small +box for so big a thing; but it is not an empty box. But the point is +that he is not only proud of his energy, he is proud of his excitement. +He is not ashamed of his emotion, of the fire or even the tear in his +manly eye, when he tells you that the great wheel of his machine breaks +four billion butterflies an hour.</p> + +<p>That is the point about American sport; that it is not in the least +sportive. It is because it is not very sportive that we sometimes say it +is not very sporting. It has the vices of a religion. It has all the +paradox of original sin in the service of aboriginal faith. It is +sometimes untruthful because it is sincere. It is sometimes treacherous +because it is loyal. Men lie and cheat for it as they lied for their +lords in a feudal conspiracy, or cheated for their chieftains in a +Highland feud. We may say that the vassal readily committed treason; but +it is equally true that he readily endured torture. So does the American +athlete endure torture. Not only the self-sacrifice but the solemnity of +the American athlete is like that of the American Indian. The athletes +in the States have the attitude of the athletes among the Spartans, the +great historical nation without a sense of humour. They suffer an +ascetic régime not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> to be matched in any monasticism and hardly in any +militarism. If any tradition of these things remains in a saner age, +they will probably be remembered as a mysterious religious order of +fakirs or dancing dervishes, who shaved their heads and fasted in honour +of Hercules or Castor and Pollux. And that is really the spiritual +atmosphere though the gods have vanished; and the religion is +subconscious and therefore irrational. For the problem of the modern +world is that it has continued to be religious when it has ceased to be +rational. Americans really would starve to win a cocoa-nut shy. They +would fast or bleed to win a race of paper boats on a pond. They would +rise from a sick-bed to listen to Mrs. Asquith.</p> + +<p>But it is the real reason that interests me here. It is certainly not +that Americans are so stupid as not to know that cocoa-nuts are only +cocoa-nuts and paper boats only made of paper. Americans are, on an +average, rather more intelligent than Englishmen; and they are well +aware that Hercules is a myth and that Mrs. Asquith is something of a +mythologist. It is not that they do not know that the object is small in +itself; it is that they do really believe that the enthusiasm is great +in itself. They admire people for being impressionable. They admire +people for being excited. An American so struggling for some +disproportionate trifle (like one of my lectures) really feels in a +mystical way that he is right, because it is his whole morality to be +keen. So long as he wants something very much, whatever it is, he feels +he has his conscience behind him, and the common sentiment of society +behind him, and God and the whole universe behind him. Wedged on one leg +in a hot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> crowd at a trivial lecture, he has self-respect; his dignity +is at rest. That is what he means when he says he is bound to come to +the lecture.</p> + +<p>Now the Englishman is fond of occasional larks. But these things are not +larks; nor are they occasional. It is the essential of the Englishman's +lark that he should think it a lark; that he should laugh at it even +when he does it. Being English myself, I like it; but being English +myself, I know it is connected with weaknesses as well as merits. In its +irony there is condescension and therefore embarrassment. This patronage +is allied to the patron, and the patron is allied to the aristocratic +tradition of society. The larks are a variant of laziness because of +leisure; and the leisure is a variant of the security and even supremacy +of the gentleman. When an undergraduate at Oxford smashes half a hundred +windows he is well aware that the incident is merely a trifle. He can be +trusted to explain to his parents and guardians that it was merely a +trifle. He does not say, even in the American sense, that he was bound +to smash the windows. He does not say that he had risen from a sick-bed +to smash the windows. He does not especially think he has risen at all; +he knows he has descended (though with delight, like one diving or +sliding down the banisters) to something flat and farcical and full of +the English taste for the bathos. He has collapsed into something +entirely commonplace; though the owners of the windows may possibly not +think so. This rather indescribable element runs through a hundred +English things, as in the love of bathos shown even in the sound of +proper names; so that even the yearning lover in a lyric yearns for +somebody named Sally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> rather than Salome, and for a place called Wapping +rather than a place called Westermain. Even in the relapse into +rowdiness there is a sort of relapse into comfort. There is also what is +so large a part of comfort; carelessness. The undergraduate breaks +windows because he does not care about windows, not because he does care +about more fresh air like a hygienist, or about more light like a German +poet. Still less does he heroically smash a hundred windows because they +come between him and the voice of Mrs. Asquith. But least of all does he +do it because he seriously prides himself on the energy apart from its +aim, and on the will-power that carries it through. He is not 'bound' to +smash the windows, even in the sense of being bent upon it. He is not +bound at all but rather relaxed; and his violence is not only a +relaxation but a laxity. Finally, this is shown in the fact that he only +smashes windows when he is in the mood to smash windows; when some +fortunate conjunction of stars and all the tints and nuances of nature +whisper to him that it would be well to smash windows. But the American +is always ready, at any moment, to waste his energies on the wilder and +more suicidal course of going to lectures. And this is because to him +such excitement is not a mood but a moral ideal. As I note in another +connection, much of the English mystery would be clear to Americans if +they understood the word 'mood.' Englishmen are very moody, especially +when they smash windows. But I doubt if many Americans understand +exactly what we mean by the mood; especially the passive mood.</p> + +<p>It is only by trying to get some notion of all this that an Englishman +can enjoy the final crown and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> fruit of all international friendship; +which is really liking an American to be American. If we only think that +parts of him are excellent because parts of him are English, it would be +far more sensible to stop at home and possibly enjoy the society of a +whole complete Englishman. But anybody who does understand this can take +the same pleasure in an American being American that he does in a +thunderbolt being swift and a barometer being sensitive. He can see that +a vivid sensibility and vigilance really radiate outwards through all +the ramifications of machinery and even of materialism. He can see that +the American uses his great practical powers upon very small +provocation; but he can also see that there is a kind of sense of +honour, like that of a duellist, in his readiness to be provoked. +Indeed, there is some parallel between the American man of action, +however vulgar his aims, and the old feudal idea of the gentleman with a +sword at his side. The gentleman may have been proud of being strong or +sturdy; he may too often have been proud of being thick-headed; but he +was not proud of being thick-skinned. On the contrary, he was proud of +being thin-skinned. He also seriously thought that sensitiveness was a +part of masculinity. It may be very absurd to read of two Irish +gentlemen trying to kill each other for trifles, or of two +Irish-American millionaires trying to ruin each other for trash. But the +very pettiness of the pretext and even the purpose illustrates the same +conception; which may be called the virtue of excitability. And it is +really this, and not any rubbish about iron will-power and masterful +mentality, that redeems with romance their clockwork cosmos and its +industrial ideals. Being a live<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> wire does not mean that the nerves +should be like wires; but rather that the very wires should be like +nerves.</p> + +<p>Another approximation to the truth would be to say that an American is +really not ashamed of curiosity. It is not so simple as it looks. Men +will carry off curiosity with various kinds of laughter and bravado, +just as they will carry off drunkenness or bankruptcy. But very few +people are really proud of lying on a door-step, and very few people are +really proud of longing to look through a key-hole. I do not speak of +looking through it, which involves questions of honour and self-control; +but few people feel that even the desire is dignified. Now I fancy the +American, at least by comparison with the Englishman, does feel that his +curiosity is consistent with his dignity, because dignity is consistent +with vivacity. He feels it is not merely the curiosity of Paul Pry, but +the curiosity of Christopher Columbus. He is not a spy but an explorer; +and he feels his greatness rather grow with his refusal to turn back, as +a traveller might feel taller and taller as he neared the source of the +Nile or the North-West Passage. Many an Englishman has had that feeling +about discoveries in dark continents; but he does not often have it +about discoveries in daily life. The one type does believe in the +indignity and the other in the dignity of the detective. It has nothing +to do with ethics in the merely external sense. It involves no +particular comparison in practical morals and manners. It is something +in the whole poise and posture of the self; of the way a man carries +himself. For men are not only affected by what they are; but still more, +when they are fools, by what they think they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> are; and when they are +wise, by what they wish to be.</p> + +<p>There are truths that have almost become untrue by becoming untruthful. +There are statements so often stale and insincere that one hesitates to +use them, even when they stand for something more subtle. This point +about curiosity is not the conventional complaint against the American +interviewer. It is not the ordinary joke against the American child. And +in the same way I feel the danger of it being identified with the cant +about 'a young nation' if I say that it has some of the attractions, not +of American childhood, but of real childhood. There is some truth in the +tradition that the children of wealthy Americans tend to be too +precocious and luxurious. But there is a sense in which we can really +say that if the children are like adults, the adults are like children. +And that sense is in the very best sense of childhood. It is something +which the modern world does not understand. It is something that modern +Americans do not understand, even when they possess it; but I think they +do possess it.</p> + +<p>The devil can quote Scripture for his purpose; and the text of Scripture +which he now most commonly quotes is, 'The kingdom of heaven is within +you.' That text has been the stay and support of more Pharisees and +prigs and self-righteous spiritual bullies than all the dogmas in +creation; it has served to identify self-satisfaction with the peace +that passes all understanding. And the text to be quoted in answer to it +is that which declares that no man can receive the kingdom except as a +little child. What we are to have inside is the childlike spirit; but +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> childlike spirit is not entirely concerned about what is inside. It +is the first mark of possessing it that one is interested in what is +outside. The most childlike thing about a child is his curiosity and his +appetite and his power of wonder at the world. We might almost say that +the whole advantage of having the kingdom within is that we look for it +somewhere else.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="The_Spirit_of_England" id="The_Spirit_of_England"></a><i>The Spirit of England</i></h2> + +<p>Nine times out of ten a man's broad-mindedness is necessarily the +narrowest thing about him. This is not particularly paradoxical; it is, +when we come to think of it, quite inevitable. His vision of his own +village may really be full of varieties; and even his vision of his own +nation may have a rough resemblance to the reality. But his vision of +the world is probably smaller than the world. His vision of the universe +is certainly much smaller than the universe. Hence he is never so +inadequate as when he is universal; he is never so limited as when he +generalises. This is the fallacy in the many modern attempts at a +creedless creed, at something variously described as essential +Christianity or undenominational religion or a world faith to embrace +all the faiths in the world. It is that every sectarian is more +sectarian in his unsectarianism than he is in his sect. The emancipation +of a Baptist is a very Baptist emancipation. The charity of a Buddhist +is a very Buddhist charity, and very different from Christian charity. +When a philosophy embraces everything it generally squeezes everything, +and squeezes it out of shape; when it digests it necessarily +assimilates. When a theosophist absorbs Christianity it is rather as a +cannibal absorbs Christian missionaries. In this sense it is even +possible for the larger thing to be swallowed by the smaller; and for +men to move about not only in a Clapham sect but in a Clapham cosmos +under Clapham moon and stars.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p><p>But if this danger exists for all men, it exists especially for the +Englishman. The Englishman is never so insular as when he is imperial; +except indeed when he is international. In private life he is a good +friend and in practical politics generally a good ally. But theoretical +politics are more practical than practical politics. And in theoretical +politics the Englishman is the worst ally the world ever saw. This is +all the more curious because he has passed so much of his historical +life in the character of an ally. He has been in twenty great alliances +and never understood one of them. He has never been farther away from +European politics than when he was fighting heroically in the thick of +them. I myself think that this splendid isolation is sometimes really +splendid; so long as it is isolation and does not imagine itself to be +imperialism or internationalism. With the idea of being international, +with the idea of being imperial, comes the frantic and farcical idea of +being impartial. Generally speaking, men are never so mean and false and +hypocritical as when they are occupied in being impartial. They are +performing the first and most typical of all the actions of the devil; +they are claiming the throne of God. Even when it is not hypocrisy but +only mental confusion, it is always a confusion worse and worse +confounded. We see it in the impartial historians of the Victorian Age, +who now seem far more Victorian than the partial historians. Hallam +wrote about the Middle Ages; but Hallam was far less mediaeval than +Macaulay; for Macaulay was at least a fighter. Huxley had more mediaeval +sympathies than Herbert Spencer for the same reason; that Huxley was a +fighter. They both fought in many ways for the limitations of their own +rationalistic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> epoch; but they were nearer the truth than the men who +simply assumed those limitations as rational. The war of the +controversionalists was a wider thing than the peace of the arbiters. +And in the same way the Englishman never cuts a less convincing figure +before other nations than when he tries to arbitrate between them.</p> + +<p>I have by this time heard a great deal about the necessity of saving +Anglo-American friendship, a necessity which I myself feel rather too +strongly to be satisfied with the ambassadorial and editorial style of +achieving it. I have already said that the worst style of all is to be +Anglo-American; or, as the more illiterate would express, to be +Anglo-Saxon. I am more and more convinced that the way for the +Englishman to do it is to be English; but to know that he is English and +not everything else as well. Thus the only sincere answer to Irish +nationalism is English nationalism, which is a reality; and not English +imperialism, which is a reactionary fiction, or English +internationalism, which is a revolutionary one.</p> + +<p>For the English are reviled for their imperialism because they are not +imperialistic. They dislike it, which is the real reason why they do it +badly; and they do it badly, which is the real reason why they are +disliked when they do it. Nobody calls France imperialistic because she +has absorbed Brittany. But everybody calls England imperialistic because +she has not absorbed Ireland. The Englishman is fixed and frozen for +ever in the attitude of a ruthless conqueror; not because he has +conquered such people, but because he has not conquered them; but he is +always trying to conquer them with a heroism worthy of a better<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> cause. +For the really native and vigorous part of what is unfortunately called +the British Empire is not an empire at all, and does not consist of +these conquered provinces at all. It is not an empire but an adventure; +which is probably a much finer thing. It was not the power of making +strange countries similar to our own, but simply the pleasure of seeing +strange countries because they were different from our own. The +adventurer did indeed, like the third son, set out to seek his fortune, +but not primarily to alter other people's fortunes; he wished to trade +with people rather than to rule them. But as the other people remained +different from him, so did he remain different from them. The adventurer +saw a thousand strange things and remained a stranger. He was the +Robinson Crusoe on a hundred desert islands; and on each he remained as +insular as on his own island.</p> + +<p>What is wanted for the cause of England to-day is an Englishman with +enough imagination to love his country from the outside as well as the +inside. That is, we need somebody who will do for the English what has +never been done for them, but what is done for any outlandish peasantry +or even any savage tribe. We want people who can make England +attractive; quite apart from disputes about whether England is strong or +weak. We want somebody to explain, not that England is everywhere, but +what England is anywhere; not that England is or is not really dying, +but why we do not want her to die. For this purpose the official and +conventional compliments or claims can never get any farther than +pompous abstractions about Law and Justice and Truth; the ideals which +England accepts as every civilised state accepts them,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> and violates as +every civilised state violates them. That is not the way in which the +picture of any people has ever been painted on the sympathetic +imagination of the world. Enthusiasts for old Japan did not tell us that +the Japs recognised the existence of abstract morality; but that they +lived in paper houses or wrote letters with paint-brushes. Men who +wished to interest us in Arabs did not confine themselves to saying that +they are monotheists or moralists; they filled our romances with the +rush of Arab steeds or the colours of strange tents or carpets. What we +want is somebody who will do for the Englishman with his front garden +what was done for the Jap and his paper house; who shall understand the +Englishman with his dog as well as the Arab with his horse. In a word, +what nobody has really tried to do is the one thing that really wants +doing. It is to make England attractive as a nationality, and even as a +small nationality.</p> + +<p>For it is a wild folly to suppose that nations will love each other +because they are alike. They will never really do that unless they are +really alike; and then they will not be nations. Nations can love each +other as men and women love each other, not because they are alike but +because they are different. It can easily be shown, I fancy, that in +every case where a real public sympathy was aroused for some unfortunate +foreign people, it has always been accompanied with a particular and +positive interest in their most foreign customs and their most foreign +externals. The man who made a romance of the Scotch High-lander made a +romance of his kilt and even of his dirk; the friend of the Red Indians +was interested in picture writing and had some tendency to be +interested<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> in scalping. To take a more serious example, such nations as +Serbia had been largely commended to international consideration by the +study of Serbian epics, or Serbian songs. The epoch of negro +emancipation was also the epoch of negro melodies. Those who wept over +Uncle Tom also laughed over Uncle Remus. And just as the admiration for +the Redskin almost became an apology for scalping, the mysterious +fascination of the African has sometimes almost led us into the fringes +of the black forest of Voodoo. But the sort of interest that is felt +even in the scalp-hunter and the cannibal, the torturer and the +devil-worshipper, that sort of interest has never been felt in the +Englishman.</p> + +<p>And this is the more extraordinary because the Englishman is really very +interesting. He is interesting in a special degree in this special +manner; he is interesting because he is individual. No man in the world +is more misrepresented by everything official or even in the ordinary +sense national. A description of English life must be a description of +private life. In that sense there is no public life. In that sense there +is no public opinion. There have never been those prairie fires of +public opinion in England which often sweep over America. At any rate, +there have never been any such popular revolutions since the popular +revolutions of the Middle Ages. The English are a nation of amateurs; +they are even a nation of eccentrics. An Englishman is never more +English than when he is considered a lunatic by the other Englishmen. +This can be clearly seen in a figure like Dr. Johnson, who has become +national not by being normal but by being extraordinary. To express this +mysterious people, to explain or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> suggest why they like tall hedges and +heavy breakfasts and crooked roads and small gardens with large fences, +and why they alone among Christians have kept quite consistently the +great Christian glory of the open fireplace, here would be a strange and +stimulating opportunity for any of the artists in words, who study the +souls of strange peoples. That would be the true way to create a +friendship between England and America, or between England and anything +else; yes, even between England and Ireland. For this justice at least +has already been done to Ireland; and as an indignant patriot I demand a +more equal treatment for the two nations.</p> + +<p>I have already noted the commonplace that in order to teach +internationalism we must talk nationalism. We must make the nations as +nations less odious or mysterious to each other. We do not make men love +each other by describing a monster with a million arms and legs, but by +describing the men as men, with their separate and even solitary +emotions. As this has a particular application to the emotions of the +Englishman, I will return to the topic once more. Now Americans have a +power that is the soul and success of democracy, the power of +spontaneous social organisation. Their high spirits, their humane ideals +are really creative, they abound in unofficial institutions; we might +almost say in unofficial officialism. Nobody who has felt the presence +of all the leagues and guilds and college clubs will deny that Whitman +was national when he said he would build states and cities out of the +love of comrades. When all this communal enthusiasm collides with the +Englishman, it too often seems literally to leave him cold. They say he +is reserved; they possibly think he is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> rude. And the Englishman, having +been taught his own history all wrong, is only too likely to take the +criticism as a compliment. He admits that he is reserved because he is +stern and strong; or even that he is rude because he is shrewd and +candid. But as a fact he is not rude and not especially reserved; at +least reserve is not the meaning of his reluctance. The real difference +lies, I think, in the fact that American high spirits are not only high +but level; that the hilarious American spirit is like a plateau, and the +humorous English spirit like a ragged mountain range.</p> + +<p>The Englishman is moody; which does not in the least mean that the +Englishman is morose. Dickens, as we all feel in reading his books, was +boisterously English. Dickens was moody when he wrote <i>Oliver Twist</i>; +but he was also moody when he wrote <i>Pickwick</i>. That is, he was in +another and much healthier mood. The mood was normal to him in the sense +that nine times out of ten he felt and wrote in that humorous and +hilarious mood. But he was, if ever there was one, a man of moods; and +all the more of a typical Englishman for being a man of moods. But it +was because of this, almost entirely, that he had a misunderstanding +with America.</p> + +<p>In America there are no moods, or there is only one mood. It is the same +whether it is called hustle or uplift; whether we regard it as the +heroic love of comrades or the last hysteria of the herd instinct. It +has been said of the typical English aristocrats of the Government +offices that they resemble certain ornamental fountains and play from +ten till four; and it is true that an Englishman, even an English +aristocrat, is not always inclined to play any more than to work. But +American sociability is not like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> the Trafalgar fountains. It is like +Niagara. It never stops, under the silent stars or the rolling storms. +There seems always to be the same human heat and pressure behind it; it +is like the central heating of hotels as explained in the advertisements +and announcements. The temperature can be regulated; but it is not. And +it is always rather overpowering for an Englishman, whose mood changes +like his own mutable and shifting sky. The English mood is very like the +English weather; it is a nuisance and a national necessity.</p> + +<p>If any one wishes to understand the quarrel between Dickens and the +Americans, let him turn to that chapter in <i>Martin Chuzzlewit</i>, in which +young Martin has to receive endless defiles and deputations of total +strangers each announced by name and demanding formal salutation. There +are several things to be noticed about this incident. To begin with, it +did not happen to Martin Chuzzlewit; but it did happen to Charles +Dickens. Dickens is incorporating almost without alteration a passage +from a diary in the middle of a story; as he did when he included the +admirable account of the prison petition of John Dickens as the prison +petition of Wilkins Micawber. There is no particular reason why even the +gregarious Americans should so throng the portals of a perfectly obscure +steerage passenger like young Chuzzlewit. There was every reason why +they should throng the portals of the author of <i>Pickwick</i> and <i>Oliver +Twist</i>. And no doubt they did. If I may be permitted the aleatory image, +you bet they did. Similar troops of sociable human beings have visited +much more insignificant English travellers in America, with some of whom +I am myself acquainted. I myself have the luck to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> a little more +stodgy and less sensitive than many of my countrymen; and certainly less +sensitive than Dickens. But I know what it was that annoyed him about +that unending and unchanging stream of American visitors; it was the +unending and unchanging stream of American sociability and high spirits. +A people living on such a lofty but level tableland do not understand +the ups and downs of the English temperament; the temper of a nation of +eccentrics or (as they used to be called) of humorists. There is +something very national in the very name of the old play of <i>Every Man +in His Humour</i>. But the play more often acted in real life is 'Every Man +Out of His Humour.' It is true, as Matthew Arnold said, that an +Englishman wants to do as he likes; but it is not always true even that +he likes what he likes. An Englishman can be friendly and yet not feel +friendly. Or he can be friendly and yet not feel hospitable. Or he can +feel hospitable and yet not welcome those whom he really loves. He can +think, almost with tears of tenderness, about people at a distance who +would be bores if they came in at the door.</p> + +<p>American sociability sweeps away any such subtlety. It cannot be +expected to understand the paradox or perversity of the Englishman, who +thus can feel friendly and avoid friends. That is the truth in the +suggestion that Dickens was sentimental. It means that he probably felt +most sociable when he was solitary. In all these attempts to describe +the indescribable, to indicate the real but unconscious differences +between the two peoples, I have tried to balance my words without the +irrelevant bias of praise and blame. Both characteristics always cut +both ways. On one side this comradeship makes possible a certain +communal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> courage, a democratic derision of rich men in high places, +that is not easy in our smaller and more stratified society. On the +other hand the Englishman has certainly more liberty, if less equality +and fraternity. But the richest compensation of the Englishman is not +even in the word 'liberty,' but rather in the word 'poetry.' That humour +of escape or seclusion, that genial isolation, that healing of wounded +friendship by what Christian Science would call absent treatment, that +is the best atmosphere of all for the creation of great poetry; and out +of that came 'bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang' and +'Thou wast not made for death, immortal bird.' In this sense it is +indeed true that poetry is emotion remembered in tranquillity; which may +be extended to mean affection remembered in loneliness. There is in it a +spirit not only of detachment but even of distance; a spirit which does +desire, as in the old English rhyme, to be not only over the hills but +also far away. In other words, in so far as it is true that the +Englishman is an exception to the great truth of Aristotle, it is +because he is not so near to Aristotle as he is to Homer. In so far as +he is not by nature a political animal, it is because he is a poetical +animal. We see it in his relations to the other animals; his quaint and +almost illogical love of dogs and horses and dependants whose political +rights cannot possibly be defined in logic. Many forms of hunting or +fishing are but an excuse for the same thing which the shameless +literary man does without any excuse. Sport is speechless poetry. It +would be easy for a foreigner, by taking a few liberties with the facts, +to make a satire about the sort of silent Shelley who decides ultimately +to shoot the skylark. It would be easy to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> answer these poetic +suggestions by saying that he himself might be responsible for ruining +the choirs where late the sweet birds sang, or that the immortal bird +was likely to be mortal when he was out with his gun. But these +international satires are never just; and the real relations of an +Englishman and an English bird are far more delicate. It would be +equally easy and equally unjust to suggest a similar satire against +American democracy; and represent Americans merely as birds of a feather +who can do nothing but flock together. But this would leave out the fact +that at least it is not the white feather; that democracy is capable of +defiance and of death for an idea. Touching the souls of great nations, +these criticisms are generally false because they are critical.</p> + +<p>But when we are quite sure that we rejoice in a nation's strength, then +and not before we are justified in judging its weakness. I am quite sure +that I rejoice in any democratic success without <i>arrière pensée</i>; and +nobody who knows me will credit me with a covert sneer at civic +equality. And this being granted, I do think there is a danger in the +gregariousness of American society. The danger of democracy is not +anarchy; on the contrary, it is monotony. And it is touching this that +all my experience has increased my conviction that a great deal that is +called female emancipation has merely been the increase of female +convention. Now the males of every community are far too conventional; +it was the females who were individual and criticised the conventions of +the tribe. If the females become conventional also, there is a danger of +individuality being lost. This indeed is not peculiar to America; it is +common to the whole modern industrial world, and to everything which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> +substitutes the impersonal atmosphere of the State for the personal +atmosphere of the home. But it is emphasised in America by the curious +contradiction that Americans do in theory value and even venerate the +individual. But individualism is still the foe of individuality. Where +men are trying to compete with each other they are trying to copy each +other. They become featureless by 'featuring' the same part. +Personality, in becoming a conscious ideal, becomes a common ideal. In +this respect perhaps there is really something to be learnt from the +Englishman with his turn or twist in the direction of private life. +Those who have travelled in such a fashion as to see all the American +hotels and none of the American houses are sometimes driven to the +excess of saying that the Americans have no private life. But even if +the exaggeration has a hint of truth, we must balance it with the +corresponding truth; that the English have no public life. They on their +side have still to learn the meaning of the public thing, the republic; +and how great are the dangers of cowardice and corruption when the very +State itself has become a State secret.</p> + +<p>The English are patriotic; but patriotism is the unconscious form of +nationalism. It is being national without understanding the meaning of a +nation. The Americans are on the whole too self-conscious, kept moving +too much in the pace of public life, with all its temptations to +superficiality and fashion; too much aware of outside opinion and with +too much appetite for outside criticism. But the English are much too +unconscious; and would be the better for an increase in many forms of +consciousness, including consciousness of sin. But even their sin is +ignorance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> of their real virtue. The most admirable English things are +not the things that are most admired by the English, or for which the +English admire themselves. They are things now blindly neglected and in +daily danger of being destroyed. It is all the worse that they should be +destroyed, because there is really nothing like them in the world. That +is why I have suggested a note of nationalism rather than patriotism for +the English; the power of seeing their nation as a nation and not as the +nature of things. We say of some ballad from the Balkans or some peasant +costume in the Netherlands that it is unique; but the good things of +England really are unique. Our very isolation from continental wars and +revolutionary reconstructions have kept them unique. The particular kind +of beauty there is in an English village, the particular kind of humour +there is in an English public-house, are things that cannot be found in +lands where the village is far more simply and equally governed, or +where the vine is far more honourably served and praised. Yet we shall +not save them by merely sinking into them with the conservative sort of +contentment, even if the commercial rapacity of our plutocratic reforms +would allow us to do so. We must in a sense get far away from England in +order to behold her; we must rise above patriotism in order to be +practically patriotic; we must have some sense of more varied and remote +things before these vanishing virtues can be seen suddenly for what they +are; almost as one might fancy that a man would have to rise to the +dizziest heights of the divine understanding before he saw, as from a +peak far above a whirlpool, how precious is his perishing soul.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="The_Future_of_Democracy" id="The_Future_of_Democracy"></a><i>The Future of Democracy</i></h2> + +<p>The title of this final chapter requires an apology. I do not need to be +reminded, alas, that the whole book requires an apology. It is written +in accordance with a ritual or custom in which I could see no particular +harm, and which gives me a very interesting subject, but a custom which +it would be not altogether easy to justify in logic. Everybody who goes +to America for a short time is expected to write a book; and nearly +everybody does. A man who takes a holiday at Trouville or Dieppe is not +confronted on his return with the question, 'When is your book on France +going to appear?' A man who betakes himself to Switzerland for the +winter sports is not instantly pinned by the statement, 'I suppose your +History of the Helvetian Republic is coming out this spring?' Lecturing, +at least my kind of lecturing, is not much more serious or meritorious +than ski-ing or sea-bathing; and it happens to afford the holiday-maker +far less opportunity of seeing the daily life of the people. Of all this +I am only too well aware; and my only defence is that I am at least +sincere in my enjoyment and appreciation of America, and equally sincere +in my interest in its most serious problem, which I think a very serious +problem indeed; the problem of democracy in the modern world. Democracy +may be a very obvious and facile affair for plutocrats and politicians +who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> only have to use it as a rhetorical term. But democracy is a very +serious problem for democrats. I certainly do not apologise for the word +democracy; but I do apologise for the word future. I am no Futurist; and +any conjectures I make must be taken with the grain of salt which is +indeed the salt of the earth; the decent and moderate humility which +comes from a belief in free will. That faith is in itself a divine +doubt. I do not believe in any of the scientific predictions about +mankind; I notice that they always fail to predict any of the purely +human developments of men; I also notice that even their successes prove +the same truth as their failures; for their successful predictions are +not about men but about machines. But there are two things which a man +may reasonably do, in stating the probabilities of a problem, which do +not involve any claim to be a prophet. The first is to tell the truth, +and especially the neglected truth, about the tendencies that have +already accumulated in human history; any miscalculation about which +must at least mislead us in any case. We cannot be certain of being +right about the future; but we can be almost certain of being wrong +about the future, if we are wrong about the past. The other thing that +he can do is to note what ideas necessarily go together by their own +nature; what ideas will triumph together or fall together. Hence it +follows that this final chapter must consist of two things. The first is +a summary of what has really happened to the idea of democracy in recent +times; the second a suggestion of the fundamental doctrine which is +necessary for its triumph at any time.</p> + +<p>The last hundred years has seen a general decline<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> in the democratic +idea. If there be anybody left to whom this historical truth appears a +paradox, it is only because during that period nobody has been taught +history, least of all the history of ideas. If a sort of intellectual +inquisition had been established, for the definition and differentiation +of heresies, it would have been found that the original republican +orthodoxy had suffered more and more from secessions, schisms, and +backslidings. The highest point of democratic idealism and conviction +was towards the end of the eighteenth century, when the American +Republic was 'dedicated to the proposition that all men are equal.' It +was then that the largest number of men had the most serious sort of +conviction that the political problem could be solved by the vote of +peoples instead of the arbitrary power of princes and privileged orders. +These men encountered various difficulties and made various compromises +in relation to the practical politics of their time; in England they +preserved aristocracy; in America they preserved slavery. But though +they had more difficulties, they had less doubts. Since their time +democracy has been steadily disintegrated by doubts; and these political +doubts have been contemporary with and often identical with religious +doubts. This fact could be followed over almost the whole field of the +modern world; in this place it will be more appropriate to take the +great American example of slavery. I have found traces in all sorts of +intelligent quarters of an extraordinary idea that all the Fathers of +the Republic owned black men like beasts of burden because they knew no +better, until the light of liberty was revealed to them by John Brown +and Mrs. Beecher Stowe. One of the best weekly papers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> in England said +recently that even those who drew up the Declaration of Independence did +not include negroes in its generalisation about humanity. This is quite +consistent with the current convention, in which we were all brought up; +the theory that the heart of humanity broadens in ever larger circles of +brotherhood, till we pass from embracing a black man to adoring a black +beetle. Unfortunately it is quite inconsistent with the facts of +American history. The facts show that, in this problem of the Old South, +the eighteenth century was <i>more</i> liberal than the nineteenth century. +There was <i>more</i> sympathy for the negro in the school of Jefferson than +in the school of Jefferson Davis. Jefferson, in the dark estate of his +simple Deism, said the sight of slavery in his country made him tremble, +remembering that God is just. His fellow Southerners, after a century of +the world's advance, said that slavery in itself was good, when they did +not go farther and say that negroes in themselves were bad. And they +were supported in this by the great and growing modern suspicion that +nature is unjust. Difficulties seemed inevitably to delay justice, to +the mind of Jefferson; but so they did to the mind of Lincoln. But that +the slave was human and the servitude inhuman—that was, if anything, +clearer to Jefferson than to Lincoln. The fact is that the utter +separation and subordination of the black like a beast was a <i>progress</i>; +it was a growth of nineteenth-century enlightenment and experiment; a +triumph of science over superstition. It was 'the way the world was +going,' as Matthew Arnold reverentially remarked in some connection; +perhaps as part of a definition of God. Anyhow, it was not Jefferson's +definition of God.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> He fancied, in his far-off patriarchal way, a Father +who had made all men brothers; and brutally unbrotherly as was the +practice, such democratical Deists never dreamed of denying the theory. +It was not until the scientific sophistries began that brotherhood was +really disputed. Gobineau, who began most of the modern talk about the +superiority and inferiority of racial stocks, was seized upon eagerly by +the less generous of the slave-owners and trumpeted as a new truth of +science and a new defence of slavery. It was not really until the dawn +of Darwinism, when all our social relations began to smell of the +monkey-house, that men thought of the barbarian as only a first and the +baboon as a second cousin. The full servile philosophy has been a modern +and even a recent thing; made in an age whose invisible deity was the +Missing Link. The Missing Link was a true metaphor in more ways than +one; and most of all in its suggestion of a chain.</p> + +<p>By a symbolic coincidence, indeed, slavery grew more brazen and brutal +under the encouragement of more than one movement of the progressive +sort. Its youth was renewed for it by the industrial prosperity of +Lancashire; and under that influence it became a commercial and +competitive instead of a patriarchal and customary thing. We may say +with no exaggerative irony that the unconscious patrons of slavery were +Huxley and Cobden. The machines of Manchester were manufacturing a great +many more things than the manufacturers knew or wanted to know; but they +were certainly manufacturing the fetters of the slave, doubtless out of +the best quality of steel and iron. But this is a minor illustration of +the modern tendency, as compared with the main<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> stream of scepticism +which was destroying democracy. Evolution became more and more a vision +of the break-up of our brotherhood, till by the end of the nineteenth +century the genius of its greatest scientific romancer saw it end in the +anthropophagous antics of the Time Machine. So far from evolution +lifting us above the idea of enslaving men, it was providing us at least +with a logical and potential argument for eating them. In the case of +the American negroes, it may be remarked, it does at any rate permit the +preliminary course of roasting them. All this materialistic hardening, +which replaced the remorse of Jefferson, was part of the growing +evolutionary suspicion that savages were not a part of the human race, +or rather that there was really no such thing as the human race. The +South had begun by agreeing reluctantly to the enslavement of men. The +South ended by agreeing equally reluctantly to the emancipation of +monkeys.</p> + +<p>That is what had happened to the democratic ideal in a hundred years. +Anybody can test it by comparing the final phase, I will not say with +the ideal of Jefferson, but with the ideal of Johnson. There was far +more horror of slavery in an eighteenth-century Tory like Dr. Johnson +than in a nineteenth-century Democrat like Stephen Douglas. Stephen +Douglas may be mentioned because he is a very representative type of the +age of evolution and expansion; a man thinking in continents, like Cecil +Rhodes, human and hopeful in a truly American fashion, and as a +consequence cold and careless rather than hostile in the matter of the +old mystical doctrines of equality. He 'did not care whether slavery was +voted up or voted down.' His great opponent Lincoln did indeed care<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> +very much. But it was an intense individual conviction with Lincoln +exactly as it was with Johnson. I doubt if the spirit of the age was not +much more behind Douglas and his westward expansion of the white race. I +am sure that more and more men were coming to be in the particular +mental condition of Douglas; men in whom the old moral and mystical +ideals had been undermined by doubt but only with a negative effect of +indifference. Their positive convictions were all concerned with what +some called progress and some imperialism. It is true that there was a +sincere sectional enthusiasm against slavery in the North; and that the +slaves were actually emancipated in the nineteenth century. But I doubt +whether the Abolitionists would ever have secured Abolition. Abolition +was a by-product of the Civil War; which was fought for quite other +reasons. Anyhow, if slavery had somehow survived to the age of Rhodes +and Roosevelt and evolutionary imperialism, I doubt if the slaves would +ever have been emancipated at all. Certainly if it had survived till the +modern movement for the Servile State, they would never have been +emancipated at all. Why should the world take the chains off the black +man when it was just putting them on the white? And in so far as we owe +the change to Lincoln, we owe it to Jefferson. Exactly what gives its +real dignity to the figure of Lincoln is that he stands invoking a +primitive first principle of the age of innocence, and holding up the +tables of an ancient law, <i>against</i> the trend of the nineteenth century; +repeating, 'We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are +created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator, etc.,' to a +generation that was more and more disposed to say something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> like this: +'We hold these truths to be probable enough for pragmatists; that all +things looking like men were evolved somehow, being endowed by heredity +and environment with no equal rights, but very unequal wrongs,' and so +on. I do not believe that creed, left to itself, would ever have founded +a state; and I am pretty certain that, left to itself, it would never +have overthrown a slave state. What it did do, as I have said, was to +produce some very wonderful literary and artistic flights of sceptical +imagination. The world did have new visions, if they were visions of +monsters in the moon and Martians striding about like spiders as tall as +the sky, and the workmen and capitalists becoming two separate species, +so that one could devour the other as gaily and greedily as a cat +devours a bird. No one has done justice to the meaning of Mr. Wells and +his original departure in fantastic fiction; to these nightmares that +were the last apocalypse of the nineteenth century. They meant that the +bottom had fallen out of the mind at last, that the bridge of +brotherhood had broken down in the modern brain, letting up from the +chasms this infernal light like a dawn. All had grown dizzy with degree +and relativity; so that there would not be so very much difference +between eating dog and eating darkie, or between eating darkie and +eating dago. There were different sorts of apes; but there was no doubt +that we were the superior sort.</p> + +<p>Against all this irresistible force stood one immovable post. Against +all this dance of doubt and degree stood something that can best be +symbolised by a simple example. An ape cannot be a priest, but a negro +can be a priest. The dogmatic type of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>Christianity, especially the +Catholic type of Christianity, had riveted itself irrevocably to the +manhood of all men. Where its faith was fixed by creeds and councils it +could not save itself even by surrender. It could not gradually dilute +democracy, as could a merely sceptical or secular democrat. There stood, +in fact or in possibility, the solid and smiling figure of a black +bishop. And he was either a man claiming the most towering spiritual +privileges of a man, or he was the mere buffoonery and blasphemy of a +monkey in a mitre. That is the point about Christian and Catholic +democracy; it is not that it is necessarily at any moment more +democratic, it is that its indestructible minimum of democracy really is +indestructible. And by the nature of things that mystical democracy was +destined to survive, when every other sort of democracy was free to +destroy itself. And whenever democracy destroying itself is suddenly +moved to save itself, it always grasps at rag or tag of that old +tradition that alone is sure of itself. Hundreds have heard the story +about the mediaeval demagogue who went about repeating the rhyme</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>When Adam delved and Eve span,</div> +<div>Who was then the gentleman?</div> +</div></div> + +<p>Many have doubtless offered the obvious answer to the question, 'The +Serpent.' But few seem to have noticed what would be the more modern +answer to the question, if that innocent agitator went about propounding +it. 'Adam never delved and Eve never span, for the simple reason that +they never existed. They are fragments of a Chaldeo-Babylonian mythos, +and Adam is only a slight variation of Tag-Tug, pronounced Uttu. For the +real beginning of humanity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> we refer you to Darwin's <i>Origin of +Species</i>.' And then the modern man would go on to justify plutocracy to +the mediaeval man by talking about the Struggle for Life and the +Survival of the Fittest; and how the strongest man seized authority by +means of anarchy, and proved himself a gentleman by behaving like a cad. +Now I do not base my beliefs on the theology of John Ball, or on the +literal and materialistic reading of the text of Genesis; though I think +the story of Adam and Eve infinitely less absurd and unlikely than that +of the prehistoric 'strongest man' who could fight a hundred men. But I +do note the fact that the idealism of the leveller could be put in the +form of an appeal to Scripture, and could not be put in the form of an +appeal to Science. And I do note also that democrats were still driven +to make the same appeal even in the very century of Science. Tennyson +was, if ever there was one, an evolutionist in his vision and an +aristocrat in his sympathies. He was always boasting that John Bull was +evolutionary and not revolutionary, even as these Frenchmen. He did not +pretend to have any creed beyond faintly trusting the larger hope. But +when human dignity is really in danger, John Bull has to use the same +old argument as John Ball. He tells Lady Clara Vere de Vere that 'the +gardener Adam and his wife smile at the claim of long descent'; their +own descent being by no means long. Lady Clara might surely have scored +off him pretty smartly by quoting from 'Maud' and 'In Memoriam' about +evolution and the eft that was lord of valley and hill. But Tennyson has +evidently forgotten all about Darwin and the long descent of man. If +this was true of an evolutionist like Tennyson, it was naturally ten +times truer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> of a revolutionist like Jefferson. The Declaration of +Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created +all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they +were certainly evolved unequal.</p> + +<p>There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine +origin of man. That is a perfectly simple fact which the modern world +will find out more and more to be a fact. Every other basis is a sort of +sentimental confusion, full of merely verbal echoes of the older creeds. +Those verbal associations are always vain for the vital purpose of +constraining the tyrant. An idealist may say to a capitalist, 'Don't you +sometimes feel in the rich twilight, when the lights twinkle from the +distant hamlet in the hills, that all humanity is a holy family?' But it +is equally possible for the capitalist to reply with brevity and +decision, 'No, I don't,' and there is no more disputing about it further +than about the beauty of a fading cloud. And the modern world of moods +is a world of clouds, even if some of them are thunderclouds.</p> + +<p>For I have only taken here, as a convenient working model, the case of +negro slavery; because it was long peculiar to America and is popularly +associated with it. It is more and more obvious that the line is no +longer running between black and white but between rich and poor. As I +have already noted in the case of Prohibition, the very same arguments +of the inevitable suicide of the ignorant, of the impossibility of +freedom for the unfit, which were once applied to barbarians brought +from Africa are now applied to citizens born in America. It is argued +even by industrialists that industrialism has produced a class submerged +below the status of emancipated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> mankind. They imply that the Missing +Link is no longer missing, even from England or the Northern States, and +that the factories have manufactured their own monkeys. Scientific +hypotheses about the feeble-minded and the criminal type will supply the +masters of the modern world with more and more excuses for denying the +dogma of equality in the case of white labour as well as black. And any +man who knows the world knows perfectly well that to tell the +millionaires, or their servants, that they are disappointing the +sentiments of Thomas Jefferson, or disregarding a creed composed in the +eighteenth century, will be about as effective as telling them that they +are not observing the creed of St. Athanasius or keeping the rule of St. +Benedict.</p> + +<p>The world cannot keep its own ideals. The secular order cannot make +secure any one of its own noble and natural conceptions of secular +perfection. That will be found, as time goes on, the ultimate argument +for a Church independent of the world and the secular order. What has +become of all those ideal figures from the Wise Man of the Stoics to the +democratic Deist of the eighteenth century? What has become of all that +purely human hierarchy of chivalry, with its punctilious pattern of the +good knight, its ardent ambition in the young squire? The very name of +knight has come to represent the petty triumph of a profiteer, and the +very word squire the petty tyranny of a landlord. What has become of all +that golden liberality of the Humanists, who found on the high +tablelands of the culture of Hellas the very balance of repose in beauty +that is most lacking in the modern world? The very Greek language that +they loved has become a mere label for snuffy and snobbish dons,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> and a +mere cock-shy for cheap and half-educated utilitarians, who make it a +symbol of superstition and reaction. We have lived to see a time when +the heroic legend of the Republic and the Citizen, which seemed to +Jefferson the eternal youth of the world, has begun to grow old in its +turn. We cannot recover the earthly estate of knighthood, to which all +the colours and complications of heraldry seemed as fresh and natural as +flowers. We cannot re-enact the intellectual experiences of the +Humanists, for whom the Greek grammar was like the song of a bird in +spring. The more the matter is considered the clearer it will seem that +these old experiences are now only alive, where they have found a +lodgment in the Catholic tradition of Christendom, and made themselves +friends for ever. St. Francis is the only surviving troubadour. St. +Thomas More is the only surviving Humanist. St. Louis is the only +surviving knight.</p> + +<p>It would be the worst sort of insincerity, therefore, to conclude even +so hazy an outline of so great and majestic a matter as the American +democratic experiment, without testifying my belief that to this also +the same ultimate test will come. So far as that democracy becomes or +remains Catholic and Christian, that democracy will remain democratic. +In so far as it does not, it will become wildly and wickedly +undemocratic. Its rich will riot with a brutal indifference far beyond +the feeble feudalism which retains some shadow of responsibility or at +least of patronage. Its wage-slaves will either sink into heathen +slavery, or seek relief in theories that are destructive not merely in +method but in aim; since they are but the negations of the human +appetites of property and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> personality. Eighteenth-century ideals, +formulated in eighteenth-century language, have no longer in themselves +the power to hold all those pagan passions back. Even those documents +depended upon Deism; their real strength will survive in men who are +still Deists; and the men who are still Deists are more than Deists. Men +will more and more realise that there is no meaning in democracy if +there is no meaning in anything; and that there is no meaning in +anything if the universe has not a centre of significance and an +authority that is the author of our rights. There is truth in every +ancient fable, and there is here even something of it in the fancy that +finds the symbol of the Republic in the bird that bore the bolts of +Jove. Owls and bats may wander where they will in darkness, and for them +as for the sceptics the universe may have no centre; kites and vultures +may linger as they like over carrion, and for them as for the plutocrats +existence may have no origin and no end; but it was far back in the land +of legends, where instincts find their true images, that the cry went +forth that freedom is an eagle, whose glory is gazing at the sun.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's What I Saw in America, by G. K. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: What I Saw in America + +Author: G. K. Chesterton + +Release Date: November 13, 2008 [EBook #27250] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT I SAW IN AMERICA *** + + + + +Produced by Irma Spehar, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + +WHAT I SAW IN AMERICA + +BY + +G. K. CHESTERTON + +HODDER AND STOUGHTON + +LIMITED LONDON + +MCMXXII + +Printed in Great Britain by T. and A. CONSTABLE LTD. at the Edinburgh +University Press + + + + +_Contents_ + + PAGE + +WHAT IS AMERICA? 1 + +A MEDITATION IN A NEW YORK HOTEL 19 + +A MEDITATION IN BROADWAY 33 + +IRISH AND OTHER INTERVIEWERS 47 + +SOME AMERICAN CITIES 63 + +IN THE AMERICAN COUNTRY 80 + +THE AMERICAN BUSINESS MAN 97 + +PRESIDENTS AND PROBLEMS 121 + +PROHIBITION IN FACT AND FANCY 145 + +FADS AND PUBLIC OPINION 163 + +THE EXTRAORDINARY AMERICAN 182 + +THE REPUBLICAN IN THE RUINS 195 + +IS THE ATLANTIC NARROWING? 208 + +LINCOLN AND LOST CAUSES 222 + +WELLS AND THE WORLD STATE 235 + +A NEW MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT 253 + +THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA 267 + +THE SPIRIT OF ENGLAND 281 + +THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY 295 + + + + +_What is America?_ + + +I have never managed to lose my old conviction that travel narrows the +mind. At least a man must make a double effort of moral humility and +imaginative energy to prevent it from narrowing his mind. Indeed there +is something touching and even tragic about the thought of the +thoughtless tourist, who might have stayed at home loving Laplanders, +embracing Chinamen, and clasping Patagonians to his heart in Hampstead +or Surbiton, but for his blind and suicidal impulse to go and see what +they looked like. This is not meant for nonsense; still less is it meant +for the silliest sort of nonsense, which is cynicism. The human bond +that he feels at home is not an illusion. On the contrary, it is rather +an inner reality. Man is inside all men. In a real sense any man may be +inside any men. But to travel is to leave the inside and draw +dangerously near the outside. So long as he thought of men in the +abstract, like naked toiling figures in some classic frieze, merely as +those who labour and love their children and die, he was thinking the +fundamental truth about them. By going to look at their unfamiliar +manners and customs he is inviting them to disguise themselves in +fantastic masks and costumes. Many modern internationalists talk as if +men of different nationalities had only to meet and mix and understand +each other. In reality that is the moment of supreme danger--the moment +when they meet. We might shiver, as at the old euphemism by which a +meeting meant a duel. + +Travel ought to combine amusement with instruction; but most travellers +are so much amused that they refuse to be instructed. I do not blame +them for being amused; it is perfectly natural to be amused at a +Dutchman for being Dutch or a Chinaman for being Chinese. Where they are +wrong is that they take their own amusement seriously. They base on it +their serious ideas of international instruction. It was said that the +Englishman takes his pleasures sadly; and the pleasure of despising +foreigners is one which he takes most sadly of all. He comes to scoff +and does not remain to pray, but rather to excommunicate. Hence in +international relations there is far too little laughing, and far too +much sneering. But I believe that there is a better way which largely +consists of laughter; a form of friendship between nations which is +actually founded on differences. To hint at some such better way is the +only excuse of this book. + +Let me begin my American impressions with two impressions I had before I +went to America. One was an incident and the other an idea; and when +taken together they illustrate the attitude I mean. The first principle +is that nobody should be ashamed of thinking a thing funny because it is +foreign; the second is that he should be ashamed of thinking it wrong +because it is funny. The reaction of his senses and superficial habits +of mind against something new, and to him abnormal, is a perfectly +healthy reaction. But the mind which imagines that mere unfamiliarity +can possibly prove anything about inferiority is a very inadequate mind. +It is inadequate even in criticising things that may really be inferior +to the things involved here. It is far better to laugh at a negro for +having a black face than to sneer at him for having a sloping skull. It +is proportionally even more preferable to laugh rather than judge in +dealing with highly civilised peoples. Therefore I put at the beginning +two working examples of what I felt about America before I saw it; the +sort of thing that a man has a right to enjoy as a joke, and the sort of +thing he has a duty to understand and respect, because it is the +explanation of the joke. + +When I went to the American consulate to regularise my passports, I was +capable of expecting the American consulate to be American. Embassies +and consulates are by tradition like islands of the soil for which they +stand; and I have often found the tradition corresponding to a truth. I +have seen the unmistakable French official living on omelettes and a +little wine and serving his sacred abstractions under the last +palm-trees fringing a desert. In the heat and noise of quarrelling Turks +and Egyptians, I have come suddenly, as with the cool shock of his own +shower-bath, on the listless amiability of the English gentleman. The +officials I interviewed were very American, especially in being very +polite; for whatever may have been the mood or meaning of Martin +Chuzzlewit, I have always found Americans by far the politest people in +the world. They put in my hands a form to be filled up, to all +appearance like other forms I had filled up in other passport offices. +But in reality it was very different from any form I had ever filled up +in my life. At least it was a little like a freer form of the game +called 'Confessions' which my friends and I invented in our youth; an +examination paper containing questions like, 'If you saw a rhinoceros +in the front garden, what would you do?' One of my friends, I remember, +wrote, 'Take the pledge.' But that is another story, and might bring Mr. +Pussyfoot Johnson on the scene before his time. + +One of the questions on the paper was, 'Are you an anarchist?' To which +a detached philosopher would naturally feel inclined to answer, 'What +the devil has that to do with you? Are you an atheist?' along with some +playful efforts to cross-examine the official about what constitutes an +[Greek: arche]. Then there was the question, 'Are you in favour of +subverting the government of the United States by force?' Against this I +should write, 'I prefer to answer that question at the end of my tour +and not the beginning.' The inquisitor, in his more than morbid +curiosity, had then written down, 'Are you a polygamist?' The answer to +this is, 'No such luck' or 'Not such a fool,' according to our +experience of the other sex. But perhaps a better answer would be that +given to W. T. Stead when he circulated the rhetorical question, 'Shall +I slay my brother Boer?'--the answer that ran, 'Never interfere in +family matters.' But among many things that amused me almost to the +point of treating the form thus disrespectfully, the most amusing was +the thought of the ruthless outlaw who should feel compelled to treat it +respectfully. I like to think of the foreign desperado, seeking to slip +into America with official papers under official protection, and sitting +down to write with a beautiful gravity, 'I am an anarchist. I hate you +all and wish to destroy you.' Or, 'I intend to subvert by force the +government of the United States as soon as possible, sticking the long +sheath-knife in my left trouser-pocket into Mr. Harding at the earliest +opportunity.' Or again, 'Yes, I am a polygamist all right, and my +forty-seven wives are accompanying me on the voyage disguised as +secretaries.' There seems to be a certain simplicity of mind about these +answers; and it is reassuring to know that anarchists and polygamists +are so pure and good that the police have only to ask them questions and +they are certain to tell no lies. + +Now that is a model of the sort of foreign practice, founded on foreign +problems, at which a man's first impulse is naturally to laugh. Nor have +I any intention of apologising for my laughter. A man is perfectly +entitled to laugh at a thing because he happens to find it +incomprehensible. What he has no right to do is to laugh at it as +incomprehensible, and then criticise it as if he comprehended it. The +very fact of its unfamiliarity and mystery ought to set him thinking +about the deeper causes that make people so different from himself, and +that without merely assuming that they must be inferior to himself. + +Superficially this is rather a queer business. It would be easy enough +to suggest that in this America has introduced a quite abnormal spirit +of inquisition; an interference with liberty unknown among all the +ancient despotisms and aristocracies. About that there will be something +to be said later; but superficially it is true that this degree of +officialism is comparatively unique. In a journey which I took only the +year before I had occasion to have my papers passed by governments which +many worthy people in the West would vaguely identify with corsairs and +assassins; I have stood on the other side of Jordan, in the land ruled +by a rude Arab chief, where the police looked so like brigands that one +wondered what the brigands looked like. But they did not ask me whether +I had come to subvert the power of the Shereef; and they did not exhibit +the faintest curiosity about my personal views on the ethical basis of +civil authority. These ministers of ancient Moslem despotism did not +care about whether I was an anarchist; and naturally would not have +minded if I had been a polygamist. The Arab chief was probably a +polygamist himself. These slaves of Asiatic autocracy were content, in +the old liberal fashion, to judge me by my actions; they did not inquire +into my thoughts. They held their power as limited to the limitation of +practice; they did not forbid me to hold a theory. It would be easy to +argue here that Western democracy persecutes where even Eastern +despotism tolerates or emancipates. It would be easy to develop the +fancy that, as compared with the sultans of Turkey or Egypt, the +American Constitution is a thing like the Spanish Inquisition. + +Only the traveller who stops at that point is totally wrong; and the +traveller only too often does stop at that point. He has found something +to make him laugh, and he will not suffer it to make him think. And the +remedy is not to unsay what he has said, not even, so to speak, to +unlaugh what he has laughed, not to deny that there is something unique +and curious about this American inquisition into our abstract opinions, +but rather to continue the train of thought, and follow the admirable +advice of Mr. H. G. Wells, who said, 'It is not much good thinking of a +thing unless you think it out.' It is not to deny that American +officialism is rather peculiar on this point, but to inquire what it +really is which makes America peculiar, or which is peculiar to America. +In short, it is to get some ultimate idea of what America _is_; and the +answer to that question will reveal something much deeper and grander +and more worthy of our intelligent interest. + +It may have seemed something less than a compliment to compare the +American Constitution to the Spanish Inquisition. But oddly enough, it +does involve a truth; and still more oddly perhaps, it does involve a +compliment. The American Constitution does resemble the Spanish +Inquisition in this: that it is founded on a creed. America is the only +nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth +with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of +Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also +theoretical politics and also great literature. It enunciates that all +men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give +them that justice, and that their authority is for that reason just. It +certainly does condemn anarchism, and it does also by inference condemn +atheism, since it clearly names the Creator as the ultimate authority +from whom these equal rights are derived. Nobody expects a modern +political system to proceed logically in the application of such dogmas, +and in the matter of God and Government it is naturally God whose claim +is taken more lightly. The point is that there is a creed, if not about +divine, at least about human things. + +Now a creed is at once the broadest and the narrowest thing in the +world. In its nature it is as broad as its scheme for a brotherhood of +all men. In its nature it is limited by its definition of the nature of +all men. This was true of the Christian Church, which was truly said to +exclude neither Jew nor Greek, but which did definitely substitute +something else for Jewish religion or Greek philosophy. It was truly +said to be a net drawing in of all kinds; but a net of a certain +pattern, the pattern of Peter the Fisherman. And this is true even of +the most disastrous distortions or degradations of that creed; and true +among others of the Spanish Inquisition. It may have been narrow +touching theology, it could not confess to being narrow about +nationality or ethnology. The Spanish Inquisition might be admittedly +Inquisitorial; but the Spanish Inquisition could not be merely Spanish. +Such a Spaniard, even when he was narrower than his own creed, had to be +broader than his own empire. He might burn a philosopher because he was +heterodox; but he must accept a barbarian because he was orthodox. And +we see, even in modern times, that the same Church which is blamed for +making sages heretics is also blamed for making savages priests. Now in +a much vaguer and more evolutionary fashion, there is something of the +same idea at the back of the great American experiment; the experiment +of a democracy of diverse races which has been compared to a +melting-pot. But even that metaphor implies that the pot itself is of a +certain shape and a certain substance; a pretty solid substance. The +melting-pot must not melt. The original shape was traced on the lines of +Jeffersonian democracy; and it will remain in that shape until it +becomes shapeless. America invites all men to become citizens; but it +implies the dogma that there is such a thing as citizenship. Only, so +far as its primary ideal is concerned, its exclusiveness is religious +because it is not racial. The missionary can condemn a cannibal, +precisely because he cannot condemn a Sandwich Islander. And in +something of the same spirit the American may exclude a polygamist, +precisely because he cannot exclude a Turk. + +Now for America this is no idle theory. It may have been theoretical, +though it was thoroughly sincere, when that great Virginian gentleman +declared it in surroundings that still had something of the character of +an English countryside. It is not merely theoretical now. There is +nothing to prevent America being literally invaded by Turks, as she is +invaded by Jews or Bulgars. In the most exquisitely inconsequent of the +_Bab Ballads_, we are told concerning Pasha Bailey Ben:-- + + + One morning knocked at half-past eight + A tall Red Indian at his gate. + In Turkey, as you 'r' p'raps aware, + Red Indians are extremely rare. + + +But the converse need by no means be true. There is nothing in the +nature of things to prevent an emigration of Turks increasing and +multiplying on the plains where the Red Indians wandered; there is +nothing to necessitate the Turks being extremely rare. The Red Indians, +alas, are likely to be rarer. And as I much prefer Red Indians to Turks, +not to mention Jews, I speak without prejudice; but the point here is +that America, partly by original theory and partly by historical +accident, does lie open to racial admixtures which most countries would +think incongruous or comic. That is why it is only fair to read any +American definitions or rules in a certain light, and relatively to a +rather unique position. It is not fair to compare the position of those +who may meet Turks in the back street with that of those who have never +met Turks except in the _Bab Ballads_. It is not fair simply to compare +America with England in its regulations about the Turk. In short, it is +not fair to do what almost every Englishman probably does; to look at +the American international examination paper, and laugh and be satisfied +with saying, 'We don't have any of that nonsense in England.' + +We do not have any of that nonsense in England because we have never +attempted to have any of that philosophy in England. And, above all, +because we have the enormous advantage of feeling it natural to be +national, because there is nothing else to be. England in these days is +not well governed; England is not well educated; England suffers from +wealth and poverty that are not well distributed. But England is +English; _esto perpetua_. England is English as France is French or +Ireland Irish; the great mass of men taking certain national traditions +for granted. Now this gives us a totally different and a very much +easier task. We have not got an inquisition, because we have not got a +creed; but it is arguable that we do not need a creed, because we have +got a character. In any of the old nations the national unity is +preserved by the national type. Because we have a type we do not need to +have a test. + +Take that innocent question, 'Are you an anarchist?' which is +intrinsically quite as impudent as 'Are you an optimist?' or 'Are you a +philanthropist?' I am not discussing here whether these things are +right, but whether most of us are in a position to know them rightly. +Now it is quite true that most Englishmen do not find it necessary to go +about all day asking each other whether they are anarchists. It is quite +true that the phrase occurs on no British forms that I have seen. But +this is not only because most of the Englishmen are not anarchists. It +is even more because even the anarchists are Englishmen. For instance, +it would be easy to make fun of the American formula by noting that the +cap would fit all sorts of bald academic heads. It might well be +maintained that Herbert Spencer was an anarchist. It is practically +certain that Auberon Herbert was an anarchist. But Herbert Spencer was +an extraordinarily typical Englishman of the Nonconformist middle class. +And Auberon Herbert was an extraordinarily typical English aristocrat of +the old and genuine aristocracy. Every one knew in his heart that the +squire would not throw a bomb at the Queen, and the Nonconformist would +not throw a bomb at anybody. Every one knew that there was something +subconscious in a man like Auberon Herbert, which would have come out +only in throwing bombs at the enemies of England; as it did come out in +his son and namesake, the generous and unforgotten, who fell flinging +bombs from the sky far beyond the German line. Every one knows that +normally, in the last resort, the English gentleman is patriotic. Every +one knows that the English Nonconformist is national even when he denies +that he is patriotic. Nothing is more notable indeed than the fact that +nobody is more stamped with the mark of his own nation than the man who +says that there ought to be no nations. Somebody called Cobden the +International Man; but no man could be more English than Cobden. +Everybody recognises Tolstoy as the iconoclast of all patriotism; but +nobody could be more Russian than Tolstoy. In the old countries where +there are these national types, the types may be allowed to hold any +theories. Even if they hold certain theories, they are unlikely to do +certain things. So the conscientious objector, in the English sense, +may be and is one of the peculiar by-products of England. But the +conscientious objector will probably have a conscientious objection to +throwing bombs. + +Now I am very far from intending to imply that these American tests are +good tests, or that there is no danger of tyranny becoming the +temptation of America. I shall have something to say later on about that +temptation or tendency. Nor do I say that they apply consistently this +conception of a nation with the soul of a church, protected by religious +and not racial selection. If they did apply that principle consistently, +they would have to exclude pessimists and rich cynics who deny the +democratic ideal; an excellent thing but a rather improbable one. What I +say is that when we realise that this principle exists at all, we see +the whole position in a totally different perspective. We say that the +Americans are doing something heroic, or doing something insane, or +doing it in an unworkable or unworthy fashion, instead of simply +wondering what the devil they are doing. + +When we realise the democratic design of such a cosmopolitan +commonwealth, and compare it with our insular reliance or instincts, we +see at once why such a thing has to be not only democratic but dogmatic. +We see why in some points it tends to be inquisitive or intolerant. Any +one can see the practical point by merely transferring into private life +a problem like that of the two academic anarchists, who might by a +coincidence be called the two Herberts. Suppose a man said, 'Buffle, my +old Oxford tutor, wants to meet you; I wish you'd ask him down for a day +or two. He has the oddest opinions, but he's very stimulating.' It would +not occur to us that the oddity of the Oxford don's opinions would lead +him to blow up the house; because the Oxford don is an English type. +Suppose somebody said, 'Do let me bring old Colonel Robinson down for +the week-end; he's a bit of a crank but quite interesting.' We should +not anticipate the colonel running amuck with a carving-knife and +offering up human sacrifice in the garden; for these are not among the +daily habits of an old English colonel; and because we know his habits, +we do not care about his opinions. But suppose somebody offered to bring +a person from the interior of Kamskatka to stay with us for a week or +two, and added that his religion was a very extraordinary religion, we +should feel a little more inquisitive about what kind of religion it +was. If somebody wished to add a Hairy Ainu to the family party at +Christmas, explaining that his point of view was so individual and +interesting, we should want to know a little more about it and him. We +should be tempted to draw up as fantastic an examination paper as that +presented to the emigrant going to America. We should ask what a Hairy +Ainu was, and how hairy he was, and above all what sort of Ainu he was. +Would etiquette require us to ask him to bring his wife? And if we did +ask him to bring his wife, how many wives would he bring? In short, as +in the American formula, is he a polygamist? Merely as a point of +housekeeping and accommodation the question is not irrelevant. Is the +Hairy Ainu content with hair, or does he wear any clothes? If the police +insist on his wearing clothes, will he recognise the authority of the +police? In short, as in the American formula, is he an anarchist? + +Of course this generalisation about America, like other historical +things, is subject to all sorts of cross divisions and exceptions, to +be considered in their place. The negroes are a special problem, because +of what white men in the past did to them. The Japanese are a special +problem, because of what men fear that they in the future may do to +white men. The Jews are a special problem, because of what they and the +Gentiles, in the past, present, and future, seem to have the habit of +doing to each other. But the point is not that nothing exists in America +except this idea; it is that nothing like this idea exists anywhere +except in America. This idea is not internationalism; on the contrary it +is decidedly nationalism. The Americans are very patriotic, and wish to +make their new citizens patriotic Americans. But it is the idea of +making a new nation literally out of any old nation that comes along. In +a word, what is unique is not America but what is called +Americanisation. We understand nothing till we understand the amazing +ambition to Americanise the Kamskatkan and the Hairy Ainu. We are not +trying to Anglicise thousands of French cooks or Italian organ-grinders. +France is not trying to Gallicise thousands of English trippers or +German prisoners of war. America is the one place in the world where +this process, healthy or unhealthy, possible or impossible, is going on. +And the process, as I have pointed out, is _not_ internationalisation. +It would be truer to say it is the nationalisation of the +internationalised. It is making a home out of vagabonds and a nation out +of exiles. This is what at once illuminates and softens the moral +regulations which we may really think faddist or fanatical. They are +abnormal; but in one sense this experiment of a home for the homeless is +abnormal. In short, it has long been recognised that America was an +asylum. It is only since Prohibition that it has looked a little like a +lunatic asylum. + +It was before sailing for America, as I have said, that I stood with the +official paper in my hand and these thoughts in my head. It was while I +stood on English soil that I passed through the two stages of smiling +and then sympathising; of realising that my momentary amusement, at +being asked if I were not an Anarchist, was partly due to the fact that +I was not an American. And in truth I think there are some things a man +ought to know about America before he sees it. What we know of a country +beforehand may not affect what we see that it is; but it will vitally +affect what we appreciate it for being, because it will vitally affect +what we expect it to be. I can honestly say that I had never expected +America to be what nine-tenths of the newspaper critics invariably +assume it to be. I never thought it was a sort of Anglo-Saxon colony, +knowing that it was more and more thronged with crowds of very different +colonists. During the war I felt that the very worst propaganda for the +Allies was the propaganda for the Anglo-Saxons. I tried to point out +that in one way America is nearer to Europe than England is. If she is +not nearer to Bulgaria, she is nearer to Bulgars; if she is not nearer +to Bohemia, she is nearer to Bohemians. In my New York hotel the head +waiter in the dining-room was a Bohemian; the head waiter in the +grill-room was a Bulgar. Americans have nationalities at the end of the +street which for us are at the ends of the earth. I did my best to +persuade my countrymen not to appeal to the American as if he were a +rather dowdy Englishman, who had been rusticating in the provinces and +had not heard the latest news about the town. I shall record later some +of those arresting realities which the traveller does not expect; and +which, in some cases I fear, he actually does not see because he does +not expect. I shall try to do justice to the psychology of what Mr. +Belloc has called 'Eye-Openers in Travel.' But there are some things +about America that a man ought to see even with his eyes shut. One is +that a state that came into existence solely through its repudiation and +abhorrence of the British Crown is not likely to be a respectful copy of +the British Constitution. Another is that the chief mark of the +Declaration of Independence is something that is not only absent from +the British Constitution, but something which all our constitutionalists +have invariably thanked God, with the jolliest boasting and bragging, +that they had kept out of the British Constitution. It is the thing +called abstraction or academic logic. It is the thing which such jolly +people call theory; and which those who can practise it call thought. +And the theory or thought is the very last to which English people are +accustomed, either by their social structure or their traditional +teaching. It is the theory of equality. It is the pure classic +conception that no man must aspire to be anything more than a citizen, +and that no man should endure to be anything less. It is by no means +especially intelligible to an Englishman, who tends at his best to the +virtues of the gentleman and at his worst to the vices of the snob. The +idealism of England, or if you will the romance of England, has not been +primarily the romance of the citizen. But the idealism of America, we +may safely say, still revolves entirely round the citizen and his +romance. The realities are quite another matter, and we shall consider +in its place the question of whether the ideal will be able to shape +the realities or will merely be beaten shapeless by them. The ideal is +besieged by inequalities of the most towering and insane description in +the industrial and economic field. It may be devoured by modern +capitalism, perhaps the worst inequality that ever existed among men. Of +all that we shall speak later. But citizenship is still the American +ideal; there is an army of actualities opposed to that ideal; but there +is no ideal opposed to that ideal. American plutocracy has never got +itself respected like English aristocracy. Citizenship is the American +ideal; and it has never been the English ideal. But it is surely an +ideal that may stir some imaginative generosity and respect in an +Englishman, if he will condescend to be also a man. In this vision of +moulding many peoples into the visible image of the citizen, he may see +a spiritual adventure which he can admire from the outside, at least as +much as he admires the valour of the Moslems and much more than he +admires the virtues of the Middle Ages. He need not set himself to +develop equality, but he need not set himself to misunderstand it. He +may at least understand what Jefferson and Lincoln meant, and he may +possibly find some assistance in this task by reading what they said. He +may realise that equality is not some crude fairy tale about all men +being equally tall or equally tricky; which we not only cannot believe +but cannot believe in anybody believing. It is an absolute of morals by +which all men have a value invariable and indestructible and a dignity +as intangible as death. He may at least be a philosopher and see that +equality is an idea; and not merely one of these soft-headed sceptics +who, having risen by low tricks to high places, drink bad champagne in +tawdry hotel lounges, and tell each other twenty times over, with +unwearied iteration, that equality is an illusion. + +In truth it is inequality that is the illusion. The extreme +disproportion between men, that we seem to see in life, is a thing of +changing lights and lengthening shadows, a twilight full of fancies and +distortions. We find a man famous and cannot live long enough to find +him forgotten; we see a race dominant and cannot linger to see it decay. +It is the experience of men that always returns to the equality of men; +it is the average that ultimately justifies the average man. It is when +men have seen and suffered much and come at the end of more elaborate +experiments, that they see men as men under an equal light of death and +daily laughter; and none the less mysterious for being many. Nor is it +in vain that these Western democrats have sought the blazonry of their +flag in that great multitude of immortal lights that endure behind the +fires we see, and gathered them into the corner of Old Glory whose +ground is like the glittering night. For veritably, in the spirit as +well as in the symbol, suns and moons and meteors pass and fill our +skies with a fleeting and almost theatrical conflagration; and wherever +the old shadow stoops upon the earth, the stars return. + + + + +_A Meditation in a New York Hotel_ + + +All this must begin with an apology and not an apologia. When I went +wandering about the States disguised as a lecturer, I was well aware +that I was not sufficiently well disguised to be a spy. I was even in +the worst possible position to be a sight-seer. A lecturer to American +audiences can hardly be in the holiday mood of a sight-seer. It is +rather the audience that is sight-seeing; even if it is seeing a rather +melancholy sight. Some say that people come to see the lecturer and not +to hear him; in which case it seems rather a pity that he should disturb +and distress their minds with a lecture. He might merely display himself +on a stand or platform for a stipulated sum; or be exhibited like a +monster in a menagerie. The circus elephant is not expected to make a +speech. But it is equally true that the circus elephant is not allowed +to write a book. His impressions of travel would be somewhat sketchy and +perhaps a little over-specialised. In merely travelling from circus to +circus he would, so to speak, move in rather narrow circles. Jumbo the +great elephant (with whom I am hardly so ambitious as to compare +myself), before he eventually went to the Barnum show, passed a +considerable and I trust happy part of his life in Regent's Park. But if +he had written a book on England, founded on his impressions of the Zoo, +it might have been a little disproportionate and even misleading in its +version of the flora and fauna of that country. He might imagine that +lions and leopards were commoner than they are in our hedgerows and +country lanes, or that the head and neck of a giraffe was as native to +our landscapes as a village spire. And that is why I apologise in +anticipation for a probable lack of proportion in this work. Like the +elephant, I may have seen too much of a special enclosure where a +special sort of lions are gathered together. I may exaggerate the +territorial, as distinct from the vertical space occupied by the +spiritual giraffe; for the giraffe may surely be regarded as an example +of Uplift, and is even, in a manner of speaking, a high-brow. Above all, +I shall probably make generalisations that are much too general; and are +insufficient through being exaggerative. To this sort of doubt all my +impressions are subject; and among them the negative generalisation with +which I shall begin this rambling meditation on American hotels. + +In all my American wanderings I never saw such a thing as an inn. They +may exist; but they do not arrest the traveller upon every road as they +do in England and in Europe. The saloons no longer existed when I was +there, owing to the recent reform which restricted intoxicants to the +wealthier classes. But we feel that the saloons have been there; if one +may so express it, their absence is still present. They remain in the +structure of the street and the idiom of the language. But the saloons +were not inns. If they had been inns, it would have been far harder even +for the power of modern plutocracy to root them out. There will be a +very different chase when the White Hart is hunted to the forests or +when the Red Lion turns to bay. But people could not feel about the +American saloon as they will feel about the English inns. They could not +feel that the Prohibitionist, that vulgar chucker-out, was chucking +Chaucer out of the Tabard and Shakespeare out of the Mermaid. In justice +to the American Prohibitionists it must be realised that they were not +doing quite such desecration; and that many of them felt the saloon a +specially poisonous sort of place. They did feel that drinking-places +were used only as drug-shops. So they have effected the great +reconstruction, by which it will be necessary to use only drug-shops as +drinking-places. But I am not dealing here with the problem of +Prohibition except in so far as it is involved in the statement that the +saloons were in no sense inns. Secondly, of course, there are the +hotels. There are indeed. There are hotels toppling to the stars, hotels +covering the acreage of villages, hotels in multitudinous number like a +mob of Babylonian or Assyrian monuments; but the hotels also are not +inns. + +Broadly speaking, there is only one hotel in America. The pattern of it, +which is a very rational pattern, is repeated in cities as remote from +each other as the capitals of European empires. You may find that hotel +rising among the red blooms of the warm spring woods of Nebraska, or +whitened with Canadian snows near the eternal noise of Niagara. And +before touching on this solid and simple pattern itself, I may remark +that the same system of symmetry runs through all the details of the +interior. As one hotel is like another hotel, so one hotel floor is like +another hotel floor. If the passage outside your bedroom door, or +hallway as it is called, contains, let us say, a small table with a +green vase and a stuffed flamingo, or some trifle of the sort, you may +be perfectly certain that there is exactly the same table, vase, and +flamingo on every one of the thirty-two landings of that towering +habitation. This is where it differs most perhaps from the crooked +landings and unexpected levels of the old English inns, even when they +call themselves hotels. To me there was something weird, like a magic +multiplication, in the exquisite sameness of these suites. It seemed to +suggest the still atmosphere of some eerie psychological story. I once +myself entertained the notion of a story, in which a man was to be +prevented from entering his house (the scene of some crime or calamity) +by people who painted and furnished the next house to look exactly like +it; the assimilation going to the most fantastic lengths, such as +altering the numbering of houses in the street. I came to America and +found an hotel fitted and upholstered throughout for the enactment of my +phantasmal fraud. I offer the skeleton of my story with all humility to +some of the admirable lady writers of detective stories in America, to +Miss Carolyn Wells, or Miss Mary Roberts Rhinehart, or Mrs. A. K. Green +of the unforgotten Leavenworth Case. Surely it might be possible for the +unsophisticated Nimrod K. Moose, of Yellow Dog Flat, to come to New York +and be entangled somehow in this net of repetitions or recurrences. +Surely something tells me that his beautiful daughter, the Rose of Red +Murder Gulch, might seek for him in vain amid the apparently +unmistakable surroundings of the thirty-second floor, while he was being +quietly butchered by the floor-clerk on the thirty-third floor, an agent +of the Green Claw (that formidable organisation); and all because the +two floors looked exactly alike to the virginal Western eye. The +original point of my own story was that the man to be entrapped walked +into his own house after all, in spite of it being differently painted +and numbered, simply because he was absent-minded and used to taking a +certain number of mechanical steps. This would not work in the hotel; +because a lift has no habits. It is typical of the real tameness of +machinery, that even when we talk of a man turning mechanically we only +talk metaphorically; for it is something that a mechanism cannot do. But +I think there is only one real objection to my story of Mr. Moose in the +New York hotel. And that is unfortunately a rather fatal one. It is that +far away in the remote desolation of Yellow Dog, among those outlying +and outlandish rocks that almost seem to rise beyond the sunset, there +is undoubtedly an hotel of exactly the same sort, with all its floors +exactly the same. + +Anyhow the general plan of the American hotel is commonly the same, and, +as I have said, it is a very sound one so far as it goes. When I first +went into one of the big New York hotels, the first impression was +certainly its bigness. It was called the Biltmore; and I wondered how +many national humorists had made the obvious comment of wishing they had +built less. But it was not merely the Babylonian size and scale of such +things, it was the way in which they are used. They are used almost as +public streets, or rather as public squares. My first impression was +that I was in some sort of high street or market-place during a carnival +or a revolution. True, the people looked rather rich for a revolution +and rather grave for a carnival; but they were congested in great crowds +that moved slowly like people passing through an overcrowded railway +station. Even in the dizzy heights of such a sky-scraper there could not +possibly be room for all those people to sleep in the hotel, or even to +dine in it. And, as a matter of fact, they did nothing whatever except +drift into it and drift out again. Most of them had no more to do with +the hotel than I have with Buckingham Palace. I have never been in +Buckingham Palace, and I have very seldom, thank God, been in the big +hotels of this type that exist in London or Paris. But I cannot believe +that mobs are perpetually pouring through the Hotel Cecil or the Savoy +in this fashion, calmly coming in at one door and going out of the +other. But this fact is part of the fundamental structure of the +American hotel; it is built upon a compromise that makes it possible. +The whole of the lower floor is thrown open to the public streets and +treated as a public square. But above it and all round it runs another +floor in the form of a sort of deep gallery, furnished more luxuriously +and looking down on the moving mobs beneath. No one is allowed on this +floor except the guests or clients of the hotel. As I have been one of +them myself, I trust it is not unsympathetic to compare them to active +anthropoids who can climb trees, and so look down in safety on the herds +or packs of wilder animals wandering and prowling below. Of course there +are modifications of this architectural plan, but they are generally +approximations to it; it is the plan that seems to suit the social life +of the American cities. There is generally something like a ground floor +that is more public, a half-floor or gallery above that is more private, +and above that the bulk of the block of bedrooms, the huge hive with its +innumerable and identical cells. + +The ladder of ascent in this tower is of course the lift, or, as it is +called, the elevator. With all that we hear of American hustle and +hurry it is rather strange that Americans seem to like more than we do +to linger upon long words. And indeed there is an element of delay in +their diction and spirit, very little understood, which I may discuss +elsewhere. Anyhow they say elevator when we say lift, just as they say +automobile when we say motor and stenographer when we say typist, or +sometimes (by a slight confusion) typewriter. Which reminds me of +another story that never existed, about a man who was accused of having +murdered and dismembered his secretary when he had only taken his typing +machine to pieces; but we must not dwell on these digressions. The +Americans may have another reason for giving long and ceremonious titles +to the lift. When first I came among them I had a suspicion that they +possessed and practised a new and secret religion, which was the cult of +the elevator. I fancied they worshipped the lift, or at any rate +worshipped in the lift. The details or data of this suspicion it were +now vain to collect, as I have regretfully abandoned it, except in so +far as they illustrate the social principles underlying the structural +plan of the building. Now an American gentleman invariably takes off his +hat in the lift. He does not take off his hat in the hotel, even if it +is crowded with ladies. But he always so salutes a lady in the elevator; +and this marks the difference of atmosphere. The lift is a room, but the +hotel is a street. But during my first delusion, of course, I assumed +that he uncovered in this tiny temple merely because he was in church. +There is something about the very word elevator that expresses a great +deal of his vague but idealistic religion. Perhaps that flying chapel +will eventually be ritualistically decorated like a chapel; possibly +with a symbolic scheme of wings. Perhaps a brief religious service will +be held in the elevator as it ascends; in a few well-chosen words +touching the Utmost for the Highest. Possibly he would consent even to +call the elevator a lift, if he could call it an uplift. There would be +no difficulty, except what I cannot but regard as the chief moral +problem of all optimistic modernism. I mean the difficulty of imagining +a lift which is free to go up, if it is not also free to go down. + +I think I know my American friends and acquaintances too well to +apologise for any levity in these illustrations. Americans make fun of +their own institutions; and their own journalism is full of such +fanciful conjectures. The tall building is itself artistically akin to +the tall story. The very word sky-scraper is an admirable example of an +American lie. But I can testify quite as eagerly to the solid and +sensible advantages of the symmetrical hotel. It is not only a pattern +of vases and stuffed flamingoes; it is also an equally accurate pattern +of cupboards and baths. It is a dignified and humane custom to have a +bathroom attached to every bedroom; and my impulse to sing the praises +of it brought me once at least into a rather quaint complication. I +think it was in the city of Dayton; anyhow I remember there was a +Laundry Convention going on in the same hotel, in a room very +patriotically and properly festooned with the stars and stripes, and +doubtless full of promise for the future of laundering. I was +interviewed on the roof, within earshot of this debate, and may have +been the victim of some association or confusion; anyhow, after +answering the usual questions about Labour, the League of Nations, the +length of ladies' dresses, and other great matters, I took refuge in a +rhapsody of warm and well-deserved praise of American bathrooms. The +editor, I understand, running a gloomy eye down the column of his +contributor's 'story,' and seeing nothing but metaphysical terms such as +justice, freedom, the abstract disapproval of sweating, swindling, and +the like, paused at last upon the ablutionary allusion, and his eye +brightened. 'That's the only copy in the whole thing,' he said, 'A +Bath-Tub in Every Home.' So these words appeared in enormous letters +above my portrait in the paper. It will be noted that, like many things +that practical men make a great point of, they miss the point. What I +had commended as new and national was a bathroom in every bedroom. Even +feudal and moss-grown England is not entirely ignorant of an occasional +bath-tub in the home. But what gave me great joy was what followed. I +discovered with delight that many people, glancing rapidly at my +portrait with its prodigious legend, imagined that it was a commercial +advertisement, and that I was a very self-advertising commercial +traveller. When I walked about the streets, I was supposed to be +travelling in bath-tubs. Consider the caption of the portrait, and you +will see how similar it is to the true commercial slogan: 'We offer a +Bath-Tub in Every Home.' And this charming error was doubtless clinched +by the fact that I had been found haunting the outer courts of the +temple of the ancient Guild of Lavenders. I never knew how many shared +the impression; I regret to say that I only traced it with certainty in +two individuals. But I understand that it included the idea that I had +come to the town to attend the Laundry Convention, and had made an +eloquent speech to that senate, no doubt exhibiting my tubs. + +Such was the penalty of too passionate and unrestrained an admiration +for American bathrooms; yet the connection of ideas, however +inconsequent, does cover the part of social practice for which these +American institutions can really be praised. About everything like +laundry or hot and cold water there is not only organisation, but what +does not always or perhaps often go with it, efficiency. Americans are +particular about these things of dress and decorum; and it is a virtue +which I very seriously recognise, though I find it very hard to emulate. +But with them it is a virtue; it is not a mere convention, still less a +mere fashion. It is really related to human dignity rather than to +social superiority. The really glorious thing about the American is that +he does not dress like a gentleman; he dresses like a citizen or a +civilised man. His Puritanic particularity on certain points is really +detachable from any definite social ambitions; these things are not a +part of getting into society but merely of keeping out of savagery. +Those millions and millions of middling people, that huge middle class +especially of the Middle West, are not near enough to any aristocracy +even to be sham aristocrats, or to be real snobs. But their standards +are secure; and though I do not really travel in a bath-tub, or believe +in the bath-tub philosophy and religion, I will not on this matter +recoil misanthropically from them: I prefer the tub of Dayton to the tub +of Diogenes. On these points there is really something a million times +better than efficiency, and that is something like equality. + +In short, the American hotel is not America; but it is American. In some +respects it is as American as the English inn is English. And it is +symbolic of that society in this among other things: that it does tend +too much to uniformity; but that that very uniformity disguises not a +little natural dignity. The old Romans boasted that their republic was a +nation of kings. If we really walked abroad in such a kingdom, we might +very well grow tired of the sight of a crowd of kings, of every man with +a gold crown on his head or an ivory sceptre in his hand. But it is +arguable that we ought not to grow tired of the repetition of crowns and +sceptres, any more than of the repetition of flowers and stars. The +whole imaginative effort of Walt Whitman was really an effort to absorb +and animate these multitudinous modern repetitions; and Walt Whitman +would be quite capable of including in his lyric litany of optimism a +list of the nine hundred and ninety-nine identical bathrooms. I do not +sneer at the generous effort of the giant; though I think, when all is +said, that it is a criticism of modern machinery that the effort should +be gigantic as well as generous. + +While there is so much repetition there is little repose. It is the +pattern of a kaleidoscope rather than a wall-paper; a pattern of figures +running and even leaping like the figures in a zoetrope. But even in the +groups where there was no hustle there was often something of +homelessness. I do not mean merely that they were not dining at home; +but rather that they were not at home even when dining, and dining at +their favourite hotel. They would frequently start up and dart from the +room at a summons from the telephone. It may have been fanciful, but I +could not help feeling a breath of home, as from a flap or flutter of +St. George's Cross, when I first sat down in a Canadian hostelry, and +read the announcement that no such telephonic or other summonses were +allowed in the dining-room. It may have been a coincidence, and there +may be American hotels with this merciful proviso and Canadian hotels +without it; but the thing was symbolic even if it was not evidential. I +felt as if I stood indeed upon English soil, in a place where people +liked to have their meals in peace. + +The process of the summons is called 'paging,' and consists of sending a +little boy with a large voice through all the halls and corridors of the +building, making them resound with a name. The custom is common, of +course, in clubs and hotels even in England; but in England it is a mere +whisper compared with the wail with which the American page repeats the +formula of 'Calling Mr. So and So.' I remember a particularly crowded +_parterre_ in the somewhat smoky and oppressive atmosphere of Pittsburg, +through which wandered a youth with a voice the like of which I have +never heard in the land of the living, a voice like the cry of a lost +spirit, saying again and again for ever, 'Carling Mr. Anderson.' One +felt that he never would find Mr. Anderson. Perhaps there never had been +any Mr. Anderson to be found. Perhaps he and every one else wandered in +an abyss of bottomless scepticism; and he was but the victim of one out +of numberless nightmares of eternity, as he wandered a shadow with +shadows and wailed by impassable streams. This is not exactly my +philosophy, but I feel sure it was his. And it is a mood that may +frequently visit the mind in the centres of highly active and successful +industrial civilisation. + +Such are the first idle impressions of the great American hotel, gained +by sitting for the first time in its gallery and gazing on its drifting +crowds with thoughts equally drifting. The first impression is of +something enormous and rather unnatural, an impression that is gradually +tempered by experience of the kindliness and even the tameness of so +much of that social order. But I should not be recording the sensations +with sincerity, if I did not touch in passing the note of something +unearthly about that vast system to an insular traveller who sees it for +the first time. It is as if he were wandering in another world among the +fixed stars; or worse still, in an ideal Utopia of the future. + +Yet I am not certain; and perhaps the best of all news is that nothing +is really new. I sometimes have a fancy that many of these new things in +new countries are but the resurrections of old things which have been +wickedly killed or stupidly stunted in old countries. I have looked over +the sea of little tables in some light and airy open-air cafe; and my +thoughts have gone back to the plain wooden bench and wooden table that +stands solitary and weather-stained outside so many neglected English +inns. We talk of experimenting in the French cafe, as of some fresh and +almost impudent innovation. But our fathers had the French cafe, in the +sense of the free-and-easy table in the sun and air. The only difference +was that French democracy was allowed to develop its cafe, or multiply +its tables, while English plutocracy prevented any such popular growth. +Perhaps there are other examples of old types and patterns, lost in the +old oligarchy and saved in the new democracies. I am haunted with a hint +that the new structures are not so very new; and that they remind me of +something very old. As I look from the balcony floor the crowds seem to +float away and the colours to soften and grow pale, and I know I am in +one of the simplest and most ancestral of human habitations. I am +looking down from the old wooden gallery upon the courtyard of an inn. +This new architectural model, which I have described, is after all one +of the oldest European models, now neglected in Europe and especially in +England. It was the theatre in which were enacted innumerable picaresque +comedies and romantic plays, with figures ranging from Sancho Panza to +Sam Weller. It served as the apparatus, like some gigantic toy set up in +bricks and timber, for the ancient and perhaps eternal game of tennis. +The very terms of the original game were taken from the inn courtyard, +and the players scored accordingly as they hit the buttery-hatch or the +roof. Singular speculations hover in my mind as the scene darkens and +the quadrangle below begins to empty in the last hours of night. Some +day perhaps this huge structure will be found standing in a solitude +like a skeleton; and it will be the skeleton of the Spotted Dog or the +Blue Boar. It will wither and decay until it is worthy at last to be a +tavern. I do not know whether men will play tennis on its ground floor, +with various scores and prizes for hitting the electric fan, or the +lift, or the head waiter. Perhaps the very words will only remain as +part of some such rustic game. Perhaps the electric fan will no longer +be electric and the elevator will no longer elevate, and the waiter will +only wait to be hit. But at least it is only by the decay of modern +plutocracy, which seems already to have begun, that the secret of the +structure even of this plutocratic palace can stand revealed. And after +long years, when its lights are extinguished and only the long shadows +inhabit its halls and vestibules, there may come a new noise like +thunder; of D'Artagnan knocking at the door. + + + + +_A Meditation in Broadway_ + + +When I had looked at the lights of Broadway by night, I made to my +American friends an innocent remark that seemed for some reason to amuse +them. I had looked, not without joy, at that long kaleidoscope of +coloured lights arranged in large letters and sprawling trade-marks, +advertising everything, from pork to pianos, through the agency of the +two most vivid and most mystical of the gifts of God; colour and fire. I +said to them, in my simplicity, 'What a glorious garden of wonders this +would be, to any one who was lucky enough to be unable to read.' + +Here it is but a text for a further suggestion. But let us suppose that +there does walk down this flaming avenue a peasant, of the sort called +scornfully an illiterate peasant; by those who think that insisting on +people reading and writing is the best way to keep out the spies who +read in all languages and the forgers who write in all hands. On this +principle indeed, a peasant merely acquainted with things of little +practical use to mankind, such as ploughing, cutting wood, or growing +vegetables, would very probably be excluded; and it is not for us to +criticise from the outside the philosophy of those who would keep out +the farmer and let in the forger. But let us suppose, if only for the +sake of argument, that the peasant is walking under the artificial suns +and stars of this tremendous thoroughfare; that he has escaped to the +land of liberty upon some general rumour and romance of the story of +its liberation, but without being yet able to understand the arbitrary +signs of its alphabet. The soul of such a man would surely soar higher +than the sky-scrapers, and embrace a brotherhood broader than Broadway. +Realising that he had arrived on an evening of exceptional festivity, +worthy to be blazoned with all this burning heraldry, he would please +himself by guessing what great proclamation or principle of the Republic +hung in the sky like a constellation or rippled across the street like a +comet. He would be shrewd enough to guess that the three festoons +fringed with fiery words of somewhat similar pattern stood for +'Government of the People, For the People, By the People'; for it must +obviously be that, unless it were 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.' His +shrewdness would perhaps be a little shaken if he knew that the triad +stood for 'Tang Tonic To-day; Tang Tonic To-morrow; Tang Tonic All the +Time.' He will soon identify a restless ribbon of red lettering, red hot +and rebellious, as the saying, 'Give me liberty or give me death.' He +will fail to identify it as the equally famous saying, 'Skyoline Has +Gout Beaten to a Frazzle.' Therefore it was that I desired the peasant +to walk down that grove of fiery trees, under all that golden foliage, +and fruits like monstrous jewels, as innocent as Adam before the Fall. +He would see sights almost as fine as the flaming sword or the purple +and peacock plumage of the seraphim; so long as he did not go near the +Tree of Knowledge. + +In other words, if once he went to school it would be all up; and indeed +I fear in any case he would soon discover his error. If he stood wildly +waving his hat for liberty in the middle of the road as Chunk Chutney +picked itself out in ruby stars upon the sky, he would impede the +excellent but extremely rigid traffic system of New York. If he fell on +his knees before a sapphire splendour, and began saying an Ave Maria +under a mistaken association, he would be conducted kindly but firmly by +an Irish policeman to a more authentic shrine. But though the foreign +simplicity might not long survive in New York, it is quite a mistake to +suppose that such foreign simplicity cannot enter New York. He may be +excluded for being illiterate, but he cannot be excluded for being +ignorant, nor for being innocent. Least of all can he be excluded for +being wiser in his innocence than the world in its knowledge. There is +here indeed more than one distinction to be made. New York is a +cosmopolitan city; but it is not a city of cosmopolitans. Most of the +masses in New York have a nation, whether or no it be the nation to +which New York belongs. Those who are Americanised are American, and +very patriotically American. Those who are not thus nationalised are not +in the least internationalised. They simply continue to be themselves; +the Irish are Irish; the Jews are Jewish; and all sorts of other tribes +carry on the traditions of remote European valleys almost untouched. In +short, there is a sort of slender bridge between their old country and +their new, which they either cross or do not cross, but which they +seldom simply occupy. They are exiles or they are citizens; there is no +moment when they are cosmopolitans. But very often the exiles bring with +them not only rooted traditions, but rooted truths. + +Indeed it is to a great extent the thought of these strange souls in +crude American garb that gives a meaning to the masquerade of New York. +In the hotel where I stayed the head waiter in one room was a Bohemian; +and I am glad to say that he called himself a Bohemian. I have already +protested sufficiently, before American audiences, against the pedantry +of perpetually talking about Czecho-Slovakia. I suggested to my American +friends that the abandonment of the word Bohemian in its historical +sense might well extend to its literary and figurative sense. We might +be expected to say, 'I'm afraid Henry has got into very Czecho-Slovakian +habits lately,' or 'Don't bother to dress; it's quite a Czecho-Slovakian +affair.' Anyhow my Bohemian would have nothing to do with such nonsense; +he called himself a son of Bohemia, and spoke as such in his criticisms +of America, which were both favourable and unfavourable. He was a squat +man, with a sturdy figure and a steady smile; and his eyes were like +dark pools in the depth of a darker forest, but I do not think he had +ever been deceived by the lights of Broadway. + +But I found something like my real innocent abroad, my real peasant +among the sky-signs, in another part of the same establishment. He was a +much leaner man, equally dark, with a hook nose, hungry face, and fierce +black moustaches. He also was a waiter, and was in the costume of a +waiter, which is a smarter edition of the costume of a lecturer. As he +was serving me with clam chowder or some such thing, I fell into speech +with him and he told me he was a Bulgar. I said something like, 'I'm +afraid I don't know as much as I ought to about Bulgaria. I suppose most +of your people are agricultural, aren't they?' He did not stir an inch +from his regular attitude, but he slightly lowered his low voice and +said, 'Yes. From the earth we come and to the earth we return; when +people get away from that they are lost.' + +To hear such a thing said by the waiter was alone an epoch in the life +of an unfortunate writer of fantastic novels. To see him clear away the +clam chowder like an automaton, and bring me more iced water like an +automaton or like nothing on earth except an American waiter (for piling +up ice is the cold passion of their lives), and all this after having +uttered something so dark and deep, so starkly incongruous and so +startlingly true, was an indescribable thing, but very like the picture +of the peasant admiring Broadway. So he passed, with his artificial +clothes and manners, lit up with all the ghastly artificial light of the +hotel, and all the ghastly artificial life of the city; and his heart +was like his own remote and rocky valley, where those unchanging words +were carved as on a rock. + +I do not profess to discuss here at all adequately the question this +raises about the Americanisation of the Bulgar. It has many aspects, of +some of which most Englishmen and even some Americans are rather +unconscious. For one thing, a man with so rugged a loyalty to land could +not be Americanised in New York; but it is not so certain that he could +not be Americanised in America. We might almost say that a peasantry is +hidden in the heart of America. So far as our impressions go, it is a +secret. It is rather an open secret; covering only some thousand square +miles of open prairie. But for most of our countrymen it is something +invisible, unimagined, and unvisited; the simple truth that where all +those acres are there is agriculture, and where all that agriculture is +there is considerable tendency towards distributive or decently +equalised property, as in a peasantry. On the other hand, there are +those who say that the Bulgar will never be Americanised, that he only +comes to be a waiter in America that he may afford to return to be a +peasant in Bulgaria. I cannot decide this issue, and indeed I did not +introduce it to this end. I was led to it by a certain line of +reflection that runs along the Great White Way, and I will continue to +follow it. The criticism, if we could put it rightly, not only covers +more than New York but more than the whole New World. Any argument +against it is quite as valid against the largest and richest cities of +the Old World, against London or Liverpool or Frankfort or Belfast. But +it is in New York that we see the argument most clearly, because we see +the thing thus towering into its own turrets and breaking into its own +fireworks. + +I disagree with the aesthetic condemnation of the modern city with its +sky-scrapers and sky-signs. I mean that which laments the loss of beauty +and its sacrifice to utility. It seems to me the very reverse of the +truth. Years ago, when people used to say the Salvation Army doubtless +had good intentions, but we must all deplore its methods, I pointed out +that the very contrary is the case. Its method, the method of drums and +democratic appeal, is that of the Franciscans or any other march of the +Church Militant. It was precisely its aims that were dubious, with their +dissenting morality and despotic finance. It is somewhat the same with +things like the sky-signs in Broadway. The aesthete must not ask me to +mingle my tears with his, because these things are merely useful and +ugly. For I am not specially inclined to think them ugly; but I am +strongly inclined to think them useless. As a matter of art for art's +sake, they seem to me rather artistic. As a form of practical social +work they seem to me stark stupid waste. If Mr. Bilge is rich enough to +build a tower four hundred feet high and give it a crown of golden +crescents and crimson stars, in order to draw attention to his +manufacture of the Paradise Tooth Paste or The Seventh Heaven Cigar, I +do not feel the least disposition to thank him for any serious form of +social service. I have never tried the Seventh Heaven Cigar; indeed a +premonition moves me towards the belief that I shall go down to the dust +without trying it. I have every reason to doubt whether it does any +particular good to those who smoke it, or any good to anybody except +those who sell it. In short Mr. Bilge's usefulness consists in being +useful to Mr. Bilge, and all the rest is illusion and sentimentalism. +But because I know that Bilge is only Bilge, shall I stoop to the +profanity of saying that fire is only fire? Shall I blaspheme crimson +stars any more than crimson sunsets, or deny that those moons are golden +any more than that this grass is green? If a child saw these coloured +lights, he would dance with as much delight as at any other coloured +toys; and it is the duty of every poet, and even of every critic, to +dance in respectful imitation of the child. Indeed I am in a mood of so +much sympathy with the fairy lights of this pantomime city, that I +should be almost sorry to see social sanity and a sense of proportion +return to extinguish them. I fear the day is breaking, and the broad +daylight of tradition and ancient truth is coming to end all this +delightful nightmare of New York at night. Peasants and priests and all +sorts of practical and sensible people are coming back into power, and +their stern realism may wither all these beautiful, unsubstantial, +useless things. They will not believe in the Seventh Heaven Cigar, even +when they see it shining as with stars in the seventh heaven. They will +not be affected by advertisements, any more than the priests and +peasants of the Middle Ages would have been affected by advertisements. +Only a very soft-headed, sentimental, and rather servile generation of +men could possibly be affected by advertisements at all. People who are +a little more hard-headed, humorous, and intellectually independent, see +the rather simple joke; and are not impressed by this or any other form +of self-praise. Almost any other men in almost any other age would have +seen the joke. If you had said to a man in the Stone Age, 'Ugg says Ugg +makes the best stone hatchets,' he would have perceived a lack of +detachment and disinterestedness about the testimonial. If you had said +to a medieval peasant, 'Robert the Bowyer proclaims, with three blasts +of a horn, that he makes good bows,' the peasant would have said, 'Well, +of course he does,' and thought about something more important. It is +only among people whose minds have been weakened by a sort of mesmerism +that so transparent a trick as that of advertisement could ever have +been tried at all. And if ever we have again, as for other reasons I +cannot but hope we shall, a more democratic distribution of property and +a more agricultural basis of national life, it would seem at first sight +only too likely that all this beautiful superstition will perish, and +the fairyland of Broadway with all its varied rainbows fade away. For +such people the Seventh Heaven Cigar, like the nineteenth-century city, +will have ended in smoke. And even the smoke of it will have vanished. + +But the next stage of reflection brings us back to the peasant looking +at the lights of Broadway. It is not true to say in the strict sense +that the peasant has never seen such things before. The truth is that he +has seen them on a much smaller scale, but for a much larger purpose. +Peasants also have their ritual and ornament, but it is to adorn more +real things. Apart from our first fancy about the peasant who could not +read, there is no doubt about what would be apparent to a peasant who +could read, and who could understand. For him also fire is sacred, for +him also colour is symbolic. But where he sets up a candle to light the +little shrine of St. Joseph, he finds it takes twelve hundred candles to +light the Seventh Heaven Cigar. He is used to the colours in church +windows showing red for martyrs or blue for madonnas; but here he can +only conclude that all the colours of the rainbow belong to Mr. Bilge. +Now upon the aesthetic side he might well be impressed; but it is +exactly on the social and even scientific side that he has a right to +criticise. If he were a Chinese peasant, for instance, and came from a +land of fireworks, he would naturally suppose that he had happened to +arrive at a great firework display in celebration of something; perhaps +the Sacred Emperor's birthday, or rather birthnight. It would gradually +dawn on the Chinese philosopher that the Emperor could hardly be born +every night. And when he learnt the truth the philosopher, if he was a +philosopher, would be a little disappointed ... possibly a little +disdainful. + +Compare, for instance, these everlasting fireworks with the damp squibs +and dying bonfires of Guy Fawkes Day. That quaint and even queer +national festival has been fading for some time out of English life. +Still, it was a national festival, in the double sense that it +represented some sort of public spirit pursued by some sort of popular +impulse. People spent money on the display of fireworks; they did not +get money by it. And the people who spent money were often those who had +very little money to spend. It had something of the glorious and +fanatical character of making the poor poorer. It did not, like the +advertisements, have only the mean and materialistic character of making +the rich richer. In short, it came from the people and it appealed to +the nation. The historical and religious cause in which it originated is +not mine; and I think it has perished partly through being tied to a +historical theory for which there is no future. I think this is +illustrated in the very fact that the ceremonial is merely negative and +destructive. Negation and destruction are very noble things as far as +they go, and when they go in the right direction; and the popular +expression of them has always something hearty and human about it. I +shall not therefore bring any fine or fastidious criticism, whether +literary or musical, to bear upon the little boys who drag about a +bolster and a paper mask, calling out + + + Guy Fawkes Guy + Hit him in the eye. + + +But I admit it is a disadvantage that they have not a saint or hero to +crown in effigy as well as a traitor to burn in effigy. I admit that +popular Protestantism has become too purely negative for people to +wreathe in flowers the statue of Mr. Kensit or even of Dr. Clifford. I +do not disguise my preference for popular Catholicism; which still has +statues that can be wreathed in flowers. I wish our national feast of +fireworks revolved round something positive and popular. I wish the +beauty of a Catherine Wheel were displayed to the glory of St. +Catherine. I should not especially complain if Roman candles were really +Roman candles. But this negative character does not destroy the national +character; which began at least in disinterested faith and has ended at +least in disinterested fun. There is nothing disinterested at all about +the new commercial fireworks. There is nothing so dignified as a dingy +guy among the lights of Broadway. In that thoroughfare, indeed, the very +word guy has another and milder significance. An American friend +congratulated me on the impression I produced on a lady interviewer, +observing, 'She says you're a regular guy.' This puzzled me a little at +the time. 'Her description is no doubt correct,' I said, 'but I confess +that it would never have struck me as specially complimentary.' But it +appears that it is one of the most graceful of compliments, in the +original American. A guy in America is a colourless term for a human +being. All men are guys, being endowed by their Creator with certain ... +but I am misled by another association. And a regular guy means, I +presume, a reliable or respectable guy. The point here, however, is that +the guy in the grotesque English sense does represent the dilapidated +remnant of a real human tradition of symbolising real historic ideals by +the sacramental mystery of fire. It is a great fall from the lowest of +these lowly bonfires to the highest of the modern sky-signs. The new +illumination does not stand for any national ideal at all; and what is +yet more to the point, it does not come from any popular enthusiasm at +all. That is where it differs from the narrowest national Protestantism +of the English institution. Mobs have risen in support of No Popery; no +mobs are likely to rise in defence of the New Puffery. Many a poor crazy +Orangeman has died saying, 'To Hell with the Pope'; it is doubtful +whether any man will ever, with his last breath, frame the ecstatic +words, 'Try Hugby's Chewing Gum.' These modern and mercantile legends +are imposed upon us by a mercantile minority, and we are merely passive +to the suggestion. The hypnotist of high finance or big business merely +writes his commands in heaven with a finger of fire. All men really are +guys, in the sense of dummies. We are only the victims of his +pyrotechnic violence; and it is he who hits us in the eye. + +This is the real case against that modern society that is symbolised by +such art and architecture. It is not that it is toppling, but that it is +top-heavy. It is not that it is vulgar, but rather that it is not +popular. In other words, the democratic ideal of countries like America, +while it is still generally sincere and sometimes intense, is at issue +with another tendency, an industrial progress which is of all things on +earth the most undemocratic. America is not alone in possessing the +industrialism, but she is alone in emphasising the ideal that strives +with industrialism. Industrial capitalism and ideal democracy are +everywhere in controversy; but perhaps only here are they in conflict. +France has a democratic ideal; but France is not industrial. England and +Germany are industrial; but England and Germany are not really +democratic. Of course when I speak here of industrialism I speak of +great industrial areas; there is, as will be noted later, another side +to all these countries; there is in America itself not only a great deal +of agricultural society, but a great deal of agricultural equality; +just as there are still peasants in Germany and may some day again be +peasants in England. But the point is that the ideal and its enemy the +reality are here crushed very close to each other in the high, narrow +city; and that the sky-scraper is truly named because its top, towering +in such insolence, is scraping the stars off the American sky, the very +heaven of the American spirit. + +That seems to me the main outline of the whole problem. In the first +chapter of this book, I have emphasised the fact that equality is still +the ideal though no longer the reality of America. I should like to +conclude this one by emphasising the fact that the reality of modern +capitalism is menacing that ideal with terrors and even splendours that +might well stagger the wavering and impressionable modern spirit. Upon +the issue of that struggle depends the question of whether this new +great civilisation continues to exist, and even whether any one cares if +it exists or not. I have already used the parable of the American flag, +and the stars that stand for a multitudinous equality; I might here take +the opposite symbol of these artificial and terrestrial stars flaming on +the forehead of the commercial city; and note the peril of the last +illusion, which is that the artificial stars may seem to fill the +heavens, and the real stars to have faded from sight. But I am content +for the moment to reaffirm the merely imaginative pleasure of those +dizzy turrets and dancing fires. If those nightmare buildings were +really all built for nothing, how noble they would be! The fact that +they were really built for something need not unduly depress us for a +moment, or drag down our soaring fancies. There is something about these +vertical lines that suggests a sort of rush upwards, as of great +cataracts topsy-turvy. I have spoken of fireworks, but here I should +rather speak of rockets. There is only something underneath the mind +murmuring that nothing remains at last of a flaming rocket except a +falling stick. I have spoken of Babylonian perspectives, and of words +written with a fiery finger, like that huge unhuman finger that wrote on +Belshazzar's wall.... But what did it write on Belshazzar's wall?... I +am content once more to end on a note of doubt and a rather dark +sympathy with those many-coloured solar systems turning so dizzily, far +up in the divine vacuum of the night. + +'From the earth we come and to the earth we return; when people get away +from that they are lost.' + + + + +_Irish and other Interviewers_ + + +It is often asked what should be the first thing that a man sees when he +lands in a foreign country; but I think it should be the vision of his +own country. At least when I came into New York Harbour, a sort of grey +and green cloud came between me and the towers with multitudinous +windows, white in the winter sunlight; and I saw an old brown house +standing back among the beech-trees at home, the house of only one among +many friends and neighbours, but one somehow so sunken in the very heart +of England as to be unconscious of her imperial or international +position, and out of the sound of her perilous seas. But what made most +clear the vision that revisited me was something else. Before we touched +land the men of my own guild, the journalists and reporters, had already +boarded the ship like pirates. And one of them spoke to me in an accent +that I knew; and thanked me for all I had done for Ireland. And it was +at that moment that I knew most vividly that what I wanted was to do +something for England. + +Then, as it chanced, I looked across at the statue of Liberty, and saw +that the great bronze was gleaming green in the morning light. I had +made all the obvious jokes about the statue of Liberty. I found it had a +soothing effect on earnest Prohibitionists on the boat to urge, as a +point of dignity and delicacy, that it ought to be given back to the +French, a vicious race abandoned to the culture of the vine. I proposed +that the last liquors on board should be poured out in a pagan libation +before it. And then I suddenly remembered that this Liberty was still in +some sense enlightening the world, or one part of the world; was a lamp +for one sort of wanderer, a star of one sort of seafarer. To one +persecuted people at least this land had really been an asylum; even if +recent legislation (as I have said) had made them think it a lunatic +asylum. They had made it so much their home that the very colour of the +country seemed to change with the infusion; as the bronze of the great +statue took on a semblance of the wearing of the green. + +It is a commonplace that the Englishman has been stupid in his relations +with the Irish; but he has been far more stupid in his relations with +the Americans on the subject of the Irish. His propaganda has been worse +than his practice; and his defence more ill-considered than the most +indefensible things that it was intended to defend. There is in this +matter a curious tangle of cross-purposes, which only a parallel example +can make at all clear. And I will note the point here, because it is +some testimony to its vivid importance that it was really the first I +had to discuss on American soil with an American citizen. In a double +sense I touched Ireland before I came to America. I will take an +imaginary instance from another controversy; in order to show how the +apology can be worse than the action. The best we can say for ourselves +is worse than the worst that we can do. + +There was a time when English poets and other publicists could always be +inspired with instantaneous indignation about the persecuted Jews in +Russia. We have heard less about them since we heard more about the +persecuting Jews in Russia. I fear there are a great many middle-class +Englishmen already who wish that Trotsky had been persecuted a little +more. But even in those days Englishmen divided their minds in a curious +fashion; and unconsciously distinguished between the Jews whom they had +never seen, in Warsaw, and the Jews whom they had often seen in +Whitechapel. It seemed to be assumed that, by a curious coincidence, +Russia possessed not only the very worst Anti-Semites but the very best +Semites. A moneylender in London might be like Judas Iscariot; but a +moneylender in Moscow must be like Judas Maccabaeus. + +Nevertheless there remained in our common sense an unconscious but +fundamental comprehension of the unity of Israel; a sense that some +things could be said, and some could not be said, about the Jews as a +whole. Suppose that even in those days, to say nothing of these, an +English protest against Russian Anti-Semitism had been answered by the +Russian Anti-Semites, and suppose the answer had been somewhat as +follows:-- + +'It is all very well for foreigners to complain of our denying civic +rights to our Jewish subjects; but we know the Jews better than they do. +They are a barbarous people, entirely primitive, and very like the +simple savages who cannot count beyond five on their fingers. It is +quite impossible to make them understand ordinary numbers, to say +nothing of simple economics. They do not realise the meaning or the +value of money. No Jew anywhere in the world can get into his stupid +head the notion of a bargain, or of exchanging one thing for another. +Their hopeless incapacity for commerce or finance would retard the +progress of our people, would prevent the spread of any sort of economic +education, would keep the whole country on a level lower than that of +the most prehistoric methods of barter. What Russia needs most is a +mercantile middle class; and it is unjust to ask us to swamp its small +beginnings in thousands of these rude tribesmen, who cannot do a sum of +simple addition, or understand the symbolic character of a threepenny +bit. We might as well be asked to give civic rights to cows and pigs as +to this unhappy, half-witted race who can no more count than the beasts +of the field. In every intellectual exercise they are hopelessly +incompetent; no Jew can play chess; no Jew can learn languages; no Jew +has ever appeared in the smallest part in any theatrical performance; no +Jew can give or take any pleasure connected with any musical instrument. +These people are our subjects; and we understand them. We accept full +responsibility for treating such troglodytes on our own terms.' + +It would not be entirely convincing. It would sound a little far-fetched +and unreal. But it would sound exactly like our utterances about the +Irish, as they sound to all Americans, and rather especially to +Anti-Irish Americans. That is exactly the impression we produce on the +people of the United States when we say, as we do say in substance, +something like this: 'We mean no harm to the poor dear Irish, so dreamy, +so irresponsible, so incapable of order or organisation. If we were to +withdraw from their country they would only fight among themselves; they +have no notion of how to rule themselves. There is something charming +about their unpracticability, about their very incapacity for the coarse +business of politics. But for their own sakes it is impossible to leave +these emotional visionaries to ruin themselves in the attempt to rule +themselves. They are like children; but they are our own children, and +we understand them. We accept full responsibility for acting as their +parents and guardians.' + +Now the point is not only that this view of the Irish is false, but that +it is the particular view that the Americans know to be false. While we +are saying that the Irish could not organise, the Americans are +complaining, often very bitterly, of the power of Irish organisation. +While we say that the Irishman could not rule himself, the Americans are +saying, more or less humorously, that the Irishman rules them. A highly +intelligent professor said to me in Boston, 'We have solved the Irish +problem here; we have an entirely independent Irish Government.' While +we are complaining, in an almost passionate manner, of the impotence of +mere cliques of idealists and dreamers, they are complaining, often in a +very indignant manner, of the power of great gangs of bosses and +bullies. There are a great many Americans who pity the Irish, very +naturally and very rightly, for the historic martyrdom which their +patriotism has endured. But there are a great many Americans who do not +pity the Irish in the least. They would be much more likely to pity the +English; only this particular way of talking tends rather to make them +despise the English. Thus both the friends of Ireland and the foes of +Ireland tend to be the foes of England. We make one set of enemies by +our action, and another by our apology. + +It is a thing that can from time to time be found in history; a +misunderstanding that really has a moral. The English excuse would carry +much more weight if it had more sincerity and more humility. There are +a considerable number of people in the United States who could +sympathise with us, if we would say frankly that we fear the Irish. +Those who thus despise our pity might possibly even respect our fear. +The argument I have often used in other places comes back with +prodigious and redoubled force, after hearing anything of American +opinion; the argument that the only reasonable or reputable excuse for +the English is the excuse of a patriotic sense of peril; and that the +Unionist, if he must be a Unionist, should use that and no other. When +the Unionist has said that he dare not let loose against himself a +captive he has so cruelly wronged, he has said all that he has to say; +all that he has ever had to say; all that he will ever have to say. He +is like a man who has sent a virile and rather vindictive rival unjustly +to penal servitude; and who connives at the continuance of the sentence, +not because he himself is particularly vindictive, but because he is +afraid of what the convict will do when he comes out of prison. This is +not exactly a moral strength, but it is a very human weakness; and that +is the most that can be said for it. All other talk, about Celtic frenzy +or Catholic superstition, is cant invented to deceive himself or to +deceive the world. But the vital point to realise is that it is cant +that cannot possibly deceive the American world. In the matter of the +Irishman the American is not to be deceived. It is not merely true to +say that he knows better. It is equally true to say that he knows worse. +He knows vices and evils in the Irishman that are entirely hidden in the +hazy vision of the Englishman. He knows that our unreal slanders are +inconsistent even with the real sins. To us Ireland is a shadowy Isle of +Sunset, like Atlantis, about which we can make up legends. To him it is +a positive ward or parish in the heart of his huge cities, like +Whitechapel; about which even we cannot make legends but only lies. And, +as I have said, there are some lies we do not tell even about +Whitechapel. We do not say it is inhabited by Jews too stupid to count +or know the value of a coin. + +The first thing for any honest Englishman to send across the sea is +this; that the English have not the shadow of a notion of what they are +up against in America. They have never even heard of the batteries of +almost brutal energy, of which I had thus touched a live wire even +before I landed. People talk about the hypocrisy of England in dealing +with a small nationality. What strikes me is the stupidity of England in +supposing that she is dealing with a small nationality; when she is +really dealing with a very large nationality. She is dealing with a +nationality that often threatens, even numerically, to dominate all the +other nationalities of the United States. The Irish are not decaying; +they are not unpractical; they are scarcely even scattered; they are not +even poor. They are the most powerful and practical world-combination +with whom we can decide to be friends or foes; and that is why I thought +first of that still and solid brown house in Buckinghamshire, standing +back in the shadow of the trees. + +Among my impressions of America I have deliberately put first the figure +of the Irish-American interviewer, standing on the shore more symbolic +than the statue of Liberty. The Irish interviewer's importance for the +English lay in the fact of his being an Irishman, but there was also +considerable interest in the circumstance of his being an interviewer. +And as certain wild birds sometimes wing their way far out to sea and +are the first signal of the shore, so the first Americans the traveller +meets are often American interviewers; and they are generally birds of a +feather, and they certainly flock together. In this respect, there is a +slight difference in the etiquette of the craft in the two countries, +which I was delighted to discuss with my fellow craftsmen. If I could at +that moment have flown back to Fleet Street I am happy to reflect that +nobody in the world would in the least wish to interview me. I should +attract no more attention than the stone griffin opposite the Law +Courts; both monsters being grotesque but also familiar. But supposing +for the sake of argument that anybody did want to interview me, it is +fairly certain that the fact of one paper publishing such an interview +would rather prevent the other papers from doing so. The repetition of +the same views of the same individual in two places would be considered +rather bad journalism; it would have an air of stolen thunder, not to +say stage thunder. + +But in America the fact of my landing and lecturing was evidently +regarded in the same light as a murder or a great fire, or any other +terrible but incurable catastrophe, a matter of interest to all pressmen +concerned with practical events. One of the first questions I was asked +was how I should be disposed to explain the wave of crime in New York. +Naturally I replied that it might possibly be due to the number of +English lecturers who had recently landed. In the mood of the moment it +seemed possible that, if they had all been interviewed, regrettable +incidents might possibly have taken place. But this was only the mood of +the moment, and even as a mood did not last more than a moment. And +since it has reference to a rather common and a rather unjust conception +of American journalism, I think it well to take it first as a fallacy to +be refuted, though the refutation may require a rather longer approach. + +I have generally found that the traveller fails to understand a foreign +country, through treating it as a tendency and not as a balance. But if +a thing were always tending in one direction it would soon tend to +destruction. Everything that merely progresses finally perishes. Every +nation, like every family, exists upon a compromise, and commonly a +rather eccentric compromise; using the word 'eccentric' in the sense of +something that is somehow at once crazy and healthy. Now the foreigner +commonly sees some feature that he thinks fantastic without seeing the +feature that balances it. The ordinary examples are obvious enough. An +Englishman dining inside a hotel on the boulevards thinks the French +eccentric in refusing to open a window. But he does not think the +English eccentric in refusing to carry their chairs and tables out on to +the pavement in Ludgate Circus. An Englishman will go poking about in +little Swiss or Italian villages, in wild mountains or in remote +islands, demanding tea; and never reflects that he is like a Chinaman +who should enter all the wayside public-houses in Kent and Sussex and +demand opium. But the point is not merely that he demands what he cannot +expect to enjoy; it is that he ignores even what he does enjoy. He does +not realise the sublime and starry paradox of the phrase, _vin +ordinaire_, which to him should be a glorious jest like the phrase +'common gold' or 'daily diamonds.' These are the simple and self-evident +cases; but there are many more subtle cases of the same thing; of the +tendency to see that the nation fills up its own gap with its own +substitute; or corrects its own extravagance with its own precaution. +The national antidote generally grows wild in the woods side by side +with the national poison. If it did not, all the natives would be dead. +For it is so, as I have said, that nations necessarily die of the +undiluted poison called progress. + +It is so in this much-abused and over-abused example of the American +journalist. The American interviewers really have exceedingly good +manners for the purposes of their trade, granted that it is necessary to +pursue their trade. And even what is called their hustling method can +truly be said to cut both ways, or hustle both ways; for if they hustle +in, they also hustle out. It may not at first sight seem the very +warmest compliment to a gentleman to congratulate him on the fact that +he soon goes away. But it really is a tribute to his perfection in a +very delicate social art; and I am quite serious when I say that in this +respect the interviewers are artists. It might be more difficult for an +Englishman to come to the point, particularly the sort of point which +American journalists are supposed, with some exaggeration, to aim at. It +might be more difficult for an Englishman to ask a total stranger on the +spur of the moment for the exact inscription on his mother's grave; but +I really think that if an Englishman once got so far as that he would go +very much farther, and certainly go on very much longer. The Englishman +would approach the churchyard by a rather more wandering woodland path; +but if once he had got to the grave I think he would have much more +disposition, so to speak, to sit down on it. Our own national +temperament would find it decidedly more difficult to disconnect when +connections had really been established. Possibly that is the reason why +our national temperament does not establish them. I suspect that the +real reason that an Englishman does not talk is that he cannot leave off +talking. I suspect that my solitary countrymen, hiding in separate +railway compartments, are not so much retiring as a race of Trappists as +escaping from a race of talkers. + +However this may be, there is obviously something of practical advantage +in the ease with which the American butterfly flits from flower to +flower. He may in a sense force his acquaintance on us, but he does not +force himself on us. Even when, to our prejudices, he seems to insist on +knowing us, at least he does not insist on our knowing him. It may be, +to some sensibilities, a bad thing that a total stranger should talk as +if he were a friend, but it might possibly be worse if he insisted on +being a friend before he would talk like one. To a great deal of the +interviewing, indeed much the greater part of it, even this criticism +does not apply; there is nothing which even an Englishman of extreme +sensibility could regard as particularly private; the questions involved +are generally entirely public, and treated with not a little public +spirit. But my only reason for saying here what can be said even for the +worst exceptions is to point out this general and neglected principle; +that the very thing that we complain of in a foreigner generally carries +with it its own foreign cure. American interviewing is generally very +reasonable, and it is always very rapid. And even those to whom talking +to an intelligent fellow creature is as horrible as having a tooth out +may still admit that American interviewing has many of the qualities of +American dentistry. + +Another effect that has given rise to this fallacy, this exaggeration of +the vulgarity and curiosity of the press, is the distinction between the +articles and the headlines; or rather the tendency to ignore that +distinction. The few really untrue and unscrupulous things I have seen +in American 'stories' have always been in the headlines. And the +headlines are written by somebody else; some solitary and savage cynic +locked up in the office, hating all mankind, and raging and revenging +himself at random, while the neat, polite, and rational pressman can +safely be let loose to wander about the town. + +For instance, I talked to two decidedly thoughtful fellow journalists +immediately on my arrival at a town in which there had been some labour +troubles. I told them my general view of Labour in the very largest and +perhaps the vaguest historical outline; pointing out that the one great +truth to be taught to the middle classes was that Capitalism was itself +a crisis, and a passing crisis; that it was not so much that it was +breaking down as that it had never really stood up. Slaveries could +last, and peasantries could last; but wage-earning communities could +hardly even live, and were already dying. + +All this moral and even metaphysical generalisation was most fairly and +most faithfully reproduced by the interviewer, who had actually heard it +casually and idly spoken. But on the top of this column of political +philosophy was the extraordinary announcement in enormous letters, +'Chesterton Takes Sides in Trolley Strike.' This was inaccurate. When I +spoke I not only did not know that there was any trolley strike, but I +did not know what a trolley strike was. I should have had an indistinct +idea that a large number of citizens earned their living by carrying +things about in wheel-barrows, and that they had desisted from the +beneficent activities. Any one who did not happen to be a journalist, or +know a little about journalism, American and English, would have +supposed that the same man who wrote the article had suddenly gone mad +and written the title. But I know that we have here to deal with two +different types of journalists; and the man who writes the headlines I +will not dare to describe; for I have not seen him except in dreams. + +Another innocent complication is that the interviewer does sometimes +translate things into his native language. It would not seem odd that a +French interviewer should translate them into French; and it is certain +that the American interviewer sometimes translates them into American. +Those who imagine the two languages to be the same are more innocent +than any interviewer. To take one out of the twenty examples, some of +which I have mentioned elsewhere, suppose an interviewer had said that I +had the reputation of being a nut. I should be flattered but faintly +surprised at such a tribute to my dress and dashing exterior. I should +afterwards be sobered and enlightened by discovering that in America a +nut does not mean a dandy but a defective or imbecile person. And as I +have here to translate their American phrase into English, it may be +very defensible that they should translate my English phrases into +American. Anyhow they often do translate them into American. In answer +to the usual question about Prohibition I had made the usual answer, +obvious to the point of dullness to those who are in daily contact with +it, that it is a law that the rich make knowing they can always break +it. From the printed interview it appeared that I had said, +'Prohibition! All matter of dollar sign.' This is almost avowed +translation, like a French translation. Nobody can suppose that it would +come natural to an Englishman to talk about a dollar, still less about a +dollar sign--whatever that may be. It is exactly as if he had made me +talk about the Skelt and Stevenson Toy Theatre as 'a cent plain, and two +cents coloured' or condemned a parsimonious policy as dime-wise and +dollar-foolish. Another interviewer once asked me who was the greatest +American writer. I have forgotten exactly what I said, but after +mentioning several names, I said that the greatest natural genius and +artistic force was probably Walt Whitman. The printed interview is more +precise; and students of my literary and conversational style will be +interested to know that I said, 'See here, Walt Whitman was your one +real red-blooded man.' Here again I hardly think the translation can +have been quite unconscious; most of my intimates are indeed aware that +I do not talk like that, but I fancy that the same fact would have +dawned on the journalist to whom I had been talking. And even this +trivial point carries with it the two truths which must be, I fear, the +rather monotonous moral of these pages. The first is that America and +England can be far better friends when sharply divided than when +shapelessly amalgamated. These two journalists were false reporters, but +they were true translators. They were not so much interviewers as +interpreters. And the second is that in any such difference it is often +wholesome to look beneath the surface for a superiority. For ability to +translate does imply ability to understand; and many of these +journalists really did understand. I think there are many English +journalists who would be more puzzled by so simple an idea as the +plutocratic foundation of Prohibition. But the American knew at once +that I meant it was a matter of dollar sign; probably because he knew +very well that it is. + +Then again there is a curious convention by which American interviewing +makes itself out much worse than it is. The reports are far more rowdy +and insolent than the conversations. This is probably a part of the fact +that a certain vivacity, which to some seems vitality and to some +vulgarity, is not only an ambition but an ideal. It must always be +grasped that this vulgarity is an ideal even more than it is a reality. +It is an ideal when it is not a reality. A very quiet and intelligent +young man, in a soft black hat and tortoise-shell spectacles, will ask +for an interview with unimpeachable politeness, wait for his living +subject with unimpeachable patience, talk to him quite sensibly for +twenty minutes, and go noiselessly away. Then in the newspaper next +morning you will read how he beat the bedroom door in, and pursued his +victim on to the roof or dragged him from under the bed, and tore from +him replies to all sorts of bald and ruthless questions printed in large +black letters. I was often interviewed in the evening, and had no notion +of how atrociously I had been insulted till I saw it in the paper next +morning. I had no notion I had been on the rack of an inquisitor until I +saw it in plain print; and then of course I believed it, with a faith +and docility unknown in any previous epoch of history. An interesting +essay might be written upon points upon which nations affect more vices +than they possess; and it might deal more fully with the American +pressman, who is a harmless clubman in private, and becomes a sort of +highway-robber in print. + +I have turned this chapter into something like a defence of +interviewers, because I really think they are made to bear too much of +the burden of the bad developments of modern journalism. But I am very +far from meaning to suggest that those bad developments are not very +bad. So far from wishing to minimise the evil, I would in a real sense +rather magnify it. I would suggest that the evil itself is a much larger +and more fundamental thing; and that to deal with it by abusing poor +journalists, doing their particular and perhaps peculiar duty, is like +dealing with a pestilence by rubbing at one of the spots. What is wrong +with the modern world will not be righted by attributing the whole +disease to each of its symptoms in turn; first to the tavern and then to +the cinema and then to the reporter's room. The evil of journalism is +not in the journalists. It is not in the poor men on the lower level of +the profession, but in the rich men at the top of the profession; or +rather in the rich men who are too much on top of the profession even to +belong to it. The trouble with newspapers is the Newspaper Trust, as the +trouble might be with a Wheat Trust, without involving a vilification of +all the people who grow wheat. It is the American plutocracy and not the +American press. What is the matter with the modern world is not modern +headlines or modern films or modern machinery. What is the matter with +the modern world is the modern world; and the cure will come from +another. + + + + +_Some American Cities_ + + +There is one point, almost to be called a paradox, to be noted about New +York; and that is that in one sense it is really new. The term very +seldom has any relevance to the reality. The New Forest is nearly as old +as the Conquest, and the New Theology is nearly as old as the Creed. +Things have been offered to me as the new thought that might more +properly be called the old thoughtlessness; and the thing we call the +New Poor Law is already old enough to know better. But there is a sense +in which New York is always new; in the sense that it is always being +renewed. A stranger might well say that the chief industry of the +citizens consists of destroying their city; but he soon realises that +they always start it all over again with undiminished energy and hope. +At first I had a fancy that they never quite finished putting up a big +building without feeling that it was time to pull it down again; and +that somebody began to dig up the first foundations while somebody else +was putting on the last tiles. This fills the whole of this brilliant +and bewildering place with a quite unique and unparalleled air of rapid +ruin. Ruins spring up so suddenly like mushrooms, which with us are the +growth of age like mosses, that one half expects to see ivy climbing +quickly up the broken walls as in the nightmare of the Time Machine, or +in some incredibly accelerated cinema. + +There is no sight in any country that raises my own spirits so much as +a scaffolding. It is a tragedy that they always take the scaffolding +away, and leave us nothing but a mere building. If they would only take +the building away and leave us a beautiful scaffolding, it would in most +cases be a gain to the loveliness of earth. If I could analyse what it +is that lifts the heart about the lightness and clarity of such a white +and wooden skeleton, I could explain what it is that is really charming +about New York; in spite of its suffering from the curse of +cosmopolitanism and even the provincial superstition of progress. It is +partly that all this destruction and reconstruction is an unexhausted +artistic energy; but it is partly also that it is an artistic energy +that does not take itself too seriously. It is first because man is here +a carpenter; and secondly because he is a stage carpenter. Indeed there +is about the whole scene the spirit of scene-shifting. It therefore +touches whatever nerve in us has since childhood thrilled at all +theatrical things. But the picture will be imperfect unless we realise +something which gives it unity and marks its chief difference from the +climate and colours of Western Europe. We may say that the back-scene +remains the same. The sky remained, and in the depths of winter it +seemed to be blue with summer; and so clear that I almost flattered +myself that clouds were English products like primroses. An American +would probably retort on my charge of scene-shifting by saying that at +least he only shifted the towers and domes of the earth; and that in +England it is the heavens that are shifty. And indeed we have changes +from day to day that would seem to him as distinct as different +magic-lantern slides; one view showing the Bay of Naples and the next +the North Pole. I do not mean, of course, that there are no changes in +American weather; but as a matter of proportion it is true that the most +unstable part of our scenery is the most stable part of theirs. Indeed +we might almost be pardoned the boast that Britain alone really +possesses the noble thing called weather; most other countries having to +be content with climate. It must be confessed, however, that they often +are content with it. And the beauty of New York, which is considerable, +is very largely due to the clarity that brings out the colours of varied +buildings against the equal colour of the sky. Strangely enough I found +myself repeating about this vista of the West two vivid lines in which +Mr. W. B. Yeats has called up a vision of the East:-- + + + And coloured like the eastern birds + At evening in their rainless skies. + + +To invoke a somewhat less poetic parallel, even the untravelled +Englishman has probably seen American posters and trade advertisements +of a patchy and gaudy kind, in which a white house or a yellow motor-car +are cut out as in cardboard against a sky like blue marble. I used to +think it was only New Art, but I found that it is really New York. + +It is not for nothing that the very nature of local character has gained +the nickname of local colour. Colour runs through all our experience; +and we all know that our childhood found talismanic gems in the very +paints in the paint-box, or even in their very names. And just as the +very name of 'crimson lake' really suggested to me some sanguine and +mysterious mere, dark yet red as blood, so the very name of 'burnt +sienna' became afterwards tangled up in my mind with the notion of +something traditional and tragic; as if some such golden Italian city +had really been darkened by many conflagrations in the wars of mediaeval +democracy. Now if one had the caprice of conceiving some city exactly +contrary to one thus seared and seasoned by fire, its colour might be +called up to a childish fancy by the mere name of 'raw umber'; and such +a city is New York. I used to be puzzled by the name of 'raw umber,' +being unable to imagine the effect of fried umber or stewed umber. But +the colours of New York are exactly in that key; and might be adumbrated +by phrases like raw pink or raw yellow. It is really in a sense like +something uncooked; or something which the satiric would call +half-baked. And yet the effect is not only beautiful, it is even +delicate. I had no name for this nuance; until I saw that somebody had +written of 'the pastel-tinted towers of New York'; and I knew that the +name had been found. There are no paints dry enough to describe all that +dry light; and it is not a box of colours but of crayons. If the +Englishman returning to England is moved at the sight of a block of +white chalk, the American sees rather a bundle of chalks. Nor can I +imagine anything more moving. Fairy tales are told to children about a +country where the trees are like sugar-sticks and the lakes like +treacle, but most children would feel almost as greedy for a fairyland +where the trees were like brushes of green paint and the hills were of +coloured chalks. + +But here what accentuates this arid freshness is the fragmentary look of +the continual reconstruction and change. The strong daylight finds +everywhere the broken edges of things, and the sort of hues we see in +newly-turned earth or the white sections of trees. And it is in this +respect that the local colour can literally be taken as local character. +For New York considered in itself is primarily a place of unrest, and +those who sincerely love it, as many do, love it for the romance of its +restlessness. A man almost looks at a building as he passes to wonder +whether it will be there when he comes back from his walk; and the doubt +is part of an indescribable notion, as of a white nightmare of daylight, +which is increased by the very numbering of the streets, with its tangle +of numerals which at first makes an English head reel. The detail is +merely a symbol; and when he is used to it he can see that it is, like +the most humdrum human customs, both worse and better than his own. '271 +West 52nd Street' is the easiest of all addresses to find, but the +hardest of all addresses to remember. He who is, like myself, so +constituted as necessarily to lose any piece of paper he has particular +reason to preserve, will find himself wishing the place were called +'Pine Crest' or 'Heather Crag' like any unobtrusive villa in Streatham. +But his sense of some sort of incalculable calculations, as of the +vision of a mad mathematician, is rooted in a more real impression. His +first feeling that his head is turning round is due to something really +dizzy in the movement of a life that turns dizzily like a wheel. If +there be in the modern mind something paradoxical that can find peace in +change, it is here that it has indeed built its habitation or rather is +still building and unbuilding it. One might fancy that it changes in +everything and that nothing endures but its invisible name; and even its +name, as I have said, seems to make a boast of novelty. + +That is something like a sincere first impression of the atmosphere of +New York. Those who think that is the atmosphere of America have never +got any farther than New York. We might almost say that they have never +entered America, any more than if they had been detained like +undesirable aliens at Ellis Island. And indeed there are a good many +undesirable aliens detained in Manhattan Island too. But of that I will +not speak, being myself an alien with no particular pretensions to be +desirable. Anyhow, such is New York; but such is not the New World. The +great American Republic contains very considerable varieties, and of +these varieties I necessarily saw far too little to allow me to +generalise. But from the little I did see, I should venture on the +generalisation that the great part of America is singularly and even +strikingly unlike New York. It goes without saying that New York is very +unlike the vast agricultural plains and small agricultural towns of the +Middle West, which I did see. It may be conjectured with some confidence +that it is very unlike what is called the Wild and sometimes the Woolly +West, which I did not see. But I am here comparing New York, not with +the newer states of the prairie or the mountains, but with the other +older cities of the Atlantic coast. And New York, as it seems to me, is +quite vitally different from the other historic cities of America. It is +so different that it shows them all for the moment in a false light, as +a long white searchlight will throw a light that is fantastic and +theatrical upon ancient and quiet villages folded in the everlasting +hills. Philadelphia and Boston and Baltimore are more like those quiet +villages than they are like New York. + +If I were to call this book 'The Antiquities of America,' I should give +rise to misunderstanding and possibly to annoyance. And yet the double +sense in such words is an undeserved misfortune for them. We talk of +Plato or the Parthenon or the Greek passion for beauty as parts of the +antique, but hardly of the antiquated. When we call them ancient it is +not because they have perished, but rather because they have survived. +In the same way I heard some New Yorkers refer to Philadelphia or +Baltimore as 'dead towns.' They mean by a dead town a town that has had +the impudence not to die. Such people are astonished to find an ancient +thing alive, just as they are now astonished, and will be increasingly +astonished, to find Poland or the Papacy or the French nation still +alive. And what I mean by Philadelphia and Baltimore being alive is +precisely what these people mean by their being dead; it is continuity; +it is the presence of the life first breathed into them and of the +purpose of their being; it is the benediction of the founders of the +colonies and the fathers of the republic. This tradition is truly to be +called life; for life alone can link the past and the future. It merely +means that as what was done yesterday makes some difference to-day, so +what is done to-day will make some difference to-morrow. In New York it +is difficult to feel that any day will make any difference. These +moderns only die daily without power to rise from the dead. But I can +truly claim that in coming into some of these more stable cities of the +States I felt something quite sincerely of that historic emotion which +is satisfied in the eternal cities of the Mediterranean. I felt in +America what many Americans suppose can only be felt in Europe. I have +seldom had that sentiment stirred more simply and directly than when I +saw from afar off, above the vast grey labyrinth of Philadelphia, great +Penn upon his pinnacle like the graven figure of a god who had fashioned +a new world; and remembered that his body lay buried in a field at the +turning of a lane, a league from my own door. + +For this aspect of America is rather neglected in the talk about +electricity and headlines. Needless to say, the modern vulgarity of +avarice and advertisement sprawls all over Philadelphia or Boston; but +so it does over Winchester or Canterbury. But most people know that +there is something else to be found in Canterbury or Winchester; many +people know that it is rather more interesting; and some people know +that Alfred can still walk in Winchester and that St. Thomas at +Canterbury was killed but did not die. It is at least as possible for a +Philadelphian to feel the presence of Penn and Franklin as for an +Englishman to see the ghosts of Alfred and of Becket. Tradition does not +mean a dead town; it does not mean that the living are dead but that the +dead are alive. It means that it still matters what Penn did two hundred +years ago or what Franklin did a hundred years ago; I never could feel +in New York that it mattered what anybody did an hour ago. And these +things did and do matter. Quakerism is not my favourite creed; but on +that day when William Penn stood unarmed upon that spot and made his +treaty with the Red Indians, his creed of humanity did have a triumph +and a triumph that has not turned back. The praise given to him is not a +priggish fiction of our conventional history, though such fictions have +illogically curtailed it. The Nonconformists have been rather unfair to +Penn even in picking their praises; and they generally forget that +toleration cuts both ways and that an open mind is open on all sides. +Those who deify him for consenting to bargain with the savages cannot +forgive him for consenting to bargain with the Stuarts. And the same is +true of the other city, yet more closely connected with the tolerant +experiment of the Stuarts. The state of Maryland was the first +experiment in religious freedom in human history. Lord Baltimore and his +Catholics were a long march ahead of William Penn and his Quakers on +what is now called the path of progress. That the first religious +toleration ever granted in the world was granted by Roman Catholics is +one of those little informing details with which our Victorian histories +did not exactly teem. But when I went into my hotel at Baltimore and +found two priests waiting to see me, I was moved in a new fashion, for I +felt that I touched the end of a living chain. Nor was the impression +accidental; it will always remain with me with a mixture of gratitude +and grief, for they brought a message of welcome from a great American +whose name I had known from childhood and whose career was drawing to +its close; for it was but a few days after I left the city that I +learned that Cardinal Gibbons was dead. + +On the top of a hill on one side of the town stood the first monument +raised after the Revolution to Washington. Beyond it was a new monument +saluting in the name of Lafayette the American soldiers who fell +fighting in France in the Great War. Between them were steps and stone +seats, and I sat down on one of them and talked to two children who were +clambering about the bases of the monument. I felt a profound and +radiant peace in the thought that they at any rate were not going to my +lecture. It made me happy that in that talk neither they nor I had any +names. I was full of that indescribable waking vision of the strangeness +of life, and especially of the strangeness of locality; of how we find +places and lose them; and see faces for a moment in a far-off land, and +it is equally mysterious if we remember and mysterious if we forget. I +had even stirring in my head the suggestion of some verses that I shall +never finish-- + + + If I ever go back to Baltimore + The city of Maryland. + + +But the poem would have to contain far too much; for I was thinking of a +thousand things at once; and wondering what the children would be like +twenty years after and whether they would travel in white goods or be +interested in oil, and I was not untouched (it may be said) by the fact +that a neighbouring shop had provided the only sample of the substance +called 'tea' ever found on the American continent; and in front of me +soared up into the sky on wings of stone the column of all those high +hopes of humanity a hundred years ago; and beyond there were lighted +candles in the chapels and prayers in the ante-chambers, where perhaps +already a Prince of the Church was dying. Only on a later page can I +even attempt to comb out such a tangle of contrasts, which is indeed the +tangle of America and this mortal life; but sitting there on that stone +seat under that quiet sky, I had some experience of the thronging +thousands of living thoughts and things, noisy and numberless as birds, +that give its everlasting vivacity and vitality to a dead town. + +Two other cities I visited which have this particular type of +traditional character, the one being typical of the North and the other +of the South. At least I may take as convenient anti-types the towns of +Boston and St. Louis; and we might add Nashville as being a shade more +truly southern than St. Louis. To the extreme South, in the sense of +what is called the Black Belt, I never went at all. Now English +travellers expect the South to be somewhat traditional; but they are not +prepared for the aspects of Boston in the North which are even more so. +If we wished only for an antic of antithesis, we might say that on one +side the places are more prosaic than the names and on the other the +names are more prosaic than the places. St. Louis is a fine town, and we +recognise a fine instinct of the imagination that set on the hill +overlooking the river the statue of that holy horseman who has +christened the city. But the city is not as beautiful as its name; it +could not be. Indeed these titles set up a standard to which the most +splendid spires and turrets could not rise, and below which the +commercial chimneys and sky-signs conspicuously sink. We should think it +odd if Belfast had borne the name of Joan of Arc. We should be slightly +shocked if the town of Johannesburg happened to be called Jesus Christ. +But few have noted a blasphemy, or even a somewhat challenging +benediction, to be found in the very name of San Francisco. + +But on the other hand a place like Boston is much more beautiful than +its name. And, as I have suggested, an Englishman's general information, +or lack of information, leaves him in some ignorance of the type of +beauty that turns up in that type of place. He has heard so much about +the purely commercial North as against the agricultural and +aristocratic South, and the traditions of Boston and Philadelphia are +rather too tenuous and delicate to be seen from across the Atlantic. But +here also there are traditions and a great deal of traditionalism. The +circle of old families, which still meets with a certain exclusiveness +in Philadelphia, is the sort of thing that we in England should expect +to find rather in New Orleans. The academic aristocracy of Boston, which +Oliver Wendell Holmes called the Brahmins, is still a reality though it +was always a minority and is now a very small minority. An epigram, +invented by Yale at the expense of Harvard, describes it as very small +indeed:-- + + + Here is to jolly old Boston, the home of the bean and the cod, + Where Cabots speak only to Lowells, and Lowells speak only to God. + + +But an aristocracy must be a minority, and it is arguable that the +smaller it is the better. I am bound to say, however, that the +distinguished Dr. Cabot, the present representative of the family, broke +through any taboo that may tie his affections to his Creator and to Miss +Amy Lowell, and broadened his sympathies so indiscriminately as to show +kindness and hospitality to so lost a being as an English lecturer. But +if the thing is hardly a limit it is very living as a memory; and Boston +on this side is very much a place of memories. It would be paying it a +very poor compliment merely to say that parts of it reminded me of +England; for indeed they reminded me of English things that have largely +vanished from England. There are old brown houses in the corners of +squares and streets that are like glimpses of a man's forgotten +childhood; and when I saw the long path with posts where the Autocrat +may be supposed to have walked with the schoolmistress, I felt I had +come to the land where old tales come true. + +I pause in this place upon this particular aspect of America because it +is very much missed in a mere contrast with England. I need not say that +if I felt it even about slight figures of fiction, I felt it even more +about solid figures of history. Such ghosts seemed particularly solid in +the Southern States, precisely because of the comparative quietude and +leisure of the atmosphere of the South. It was never more vivid to me +than when coming in, at a quiet hour of the night, into the +comparatively quiet hotel at Nashville in Tennessee, and mounting to a +dim and deserted upper floor where I found myself before a faded +picture; and from the dark canvas looked forth the face of Andrew +Jackson, watchful like a white eagle. + +At that moment, perhaps, I was in more than one sense alone. Most +Englishmen know a good deal of American fiction, and nothing whatever of +American history. They know more about the autocrat of the +breakfast-table than about the autocrat of the army and the people, the +one great democratic despot of modern times; the Napoleon of the New +World. The only notion the English public ever got about American +politics they got from a novel, _Uncle Tom's Cabin_; and to say the +least of it, it was no exception to the prevalence of fiction over fact. +Hundreds of us have heard of Tom Sawyer for one who has heard of Charles +Sumner; and it is probable that most of us could pass a more detailed +examination about Toddy and Budge than about Lincoln and Lee. But in +the case of Andrew Jackson it may be that I felt a special sense of +individual isolation; for I believe that there are even fewer among +Englishmen than among Americans who realise that the energy of that +great man was largely directed towards saving us from the chief evil +which destroys the nations to-day. He sought to cut down, as with a +sword of simplicity, the new and nameless enormity of finance; and he +must have known, as by a lightning flash, that the people were behind +him, because all the politicians were against him. The end of that +struggle is not yet; but if the bank is stronger than the sword or the +sceptre of popular sovereignty, the end will be the end of democracy. It +will have to choose between accepting an acknowledged dictator and +accepting dictation which it dare not acknowledge. The process will have +begun by giving power to people and refusing to give them their titles; +and it will have ended by giving the power to people who refuse to give +us their names. + +But I have a special reason for ending this chapter on the name of the +great popular dictator who made war on the politicians and the +financiers. This chapter does not profess to touch on one in twenty of +the interesting cities of America, even in this particular aspect of +their relation to the history of America, which is so much neglected in +England. If that were so, there would be a great deal to say even about +the newest of them; Chicago, for instance, is certainly something more +than the mere pork-packing yard that English tradition suggests; and it +has been building a boulevard not unworthy of its splendid position on +its splendid lake. But all these cities are defiled and even diseased +with industrialism. It is due to the Americans to remember that they +have deliberately preserved one of their cities from such defilement and +such disease. And that is the presidential city, which stands in the +American mind for the same ideal as the President; the idea of the +Republic that rises above modern money-getting and endures. There has +really been an effort to keep the White House white. No factories are +allowed in that town; no more than the necessary shops are tolerated. It +is a beautiful city; and really retains something of that classical +serenity of the eighteenth century in which the Fathers of the Republic +moved. With all respect to the colonial place of that name, I do not +suppose that Wellington is particularly like Wellington. But Washington +really is like Washington. + +In this, as in so many things, there is no harm in our criticising +foreigners, if only we would also criticise ourselves. In other words, +the world might need even less of its new charity, if it had a little +more of the old humility. When we complain of American individualism, we +forget that we have fostered it by ourselves having far less of this +impersonal ideal of the Republic or commonwealth as a whole. When we +complain, very justly, for instance, of great pictures passing into the +possession of American magnates, we ought to remember that we paved the +way for it by allowing them all to accumulate in the possession of +English magnates. It is bad that a public treasure should be in the +possession of a private man in America, but we took the first step in +lightly letting it disappear into the private collection of a man in +England. I know all about the genuine national tradition which treated +the aristocracy as constituting the state; but these very foreign +purchases go to prove that we ought to have had a state independent of +the aristocracy. It is true that rich Americans do sometimes covet the +monuments of our culture in a fashion that rightly revolts us as vulgar +and irrational. They are said sometimes to want to take whole buildings +away with them; and too many of such buildings are private and for sale. +There were wilder stories of a millionaire wishing to transplant +Glastonbury Abbey and similar buildings as if they were portable shrubs +in pots. It is obvious that it is nonsense as well as vandalism to +separate Glastonbury Abbey from Glastonbury. I can understand a man +venerating it as a ruin; and I can understand a man despising it as a +rubbish-heap. But it is senseless to insult a thing in order to +idolatrise it; it is meaningless to desecrate the shrine in order to +worship the stones. That sort of thing is the bad side of American +appetite and ambition; and we are perfectly right to see it not only as +a deliberate blasphemy but as an unconscious buffoonery. But there is +another side to the American tradition, which is really too much lacking +in our own tradition. And it is illustrated in this idea of preserving +Washington as a sort of paradise of impersonal politics without personal +commerce. Nobody could buy the White House or the Washington Monument; +it may be hinted (as by an inhabitant of Glastonbury) that nobody wants +to; but nobody could if he did want to. There is really a certain air of +serenity and security about the place, lacking in every other American +town. It is increased, of course, by the clear blue skies of that +half-southern province, from which smoke has been banished. The effect +is not so much in the mere buildings, though they are classical and +often beautiful. But whatever else they have built, they have built a +great blue dome, the largest dome in the world. And the place does +express something in the inconsistent idealism of this strange people; +and here at least they have lifted it higher than all the sky-scrapers, +and set it in a stainless sky. + + + + +_In the American Country_ + + +The sharpest pleasure of a traveller is in finding the things which he +did not expect, but which he might have expected to expect. I mean the +things that are at once so strange and so obvious that they must have +been noticed, yet somehow they have not been noted. Thus I had heard a +thousand things about Jerusalem before I ever saw it; I had heard +rhapsodies and disparagements of every description. Modern rationalistic +critics, with characteristic consistency, had blamed it for its +accumulated rubbish and its modern restoration, for its antiquated +superstition and its up-to-date vulgarity. But somehow the one +impression that had never pierced through their description was the +simple and single impression of a city on a hill, with walls coming to +the very edge of slopes that were almost as steep as walls; the turreted +city which crowns a cone-shaped hill in so many mediaeval landscapes. +One would suppose that this was at once the plainest and most +picturesque of all the facts; yet somehow, in my reading, I had always +lost it amid a mass of minor facts that were merely details. We know +that a city that is set upon a hill cannot be hid; and yet it would seem +that it is exactly the hill that is hid; though perhaps it is only hid +from the wise and the understanding. I had a similar and simple +impression when I discovered America. I cannot avoid the phrase; for it +would really seem that each man discovers it for himself. + +Thus I had heard a great deal, before I saw them, about the tall and +dominant buildings of New York. I agree that they have an instant effect +on the imagination; which I think is increased by the situation in which +they stand, and out of which they arose. They are all the more +impressive because the building, while it is vertically so vast, is +horizontally almost narrow. New York is an island, and has all the +intensive romance of an island. It is a thing of almost infinite height +upon very finite foundations. It is almost like a lofty lighthouse upon +a lonely rock. But this story of the sky-scrapers, which I had often +heard, would by itself give a curiously false impression of the freshest +and most curious characteristic of American architecture. Told only in +terms of these great towers of stone and brick in the big industrial +cities, the story would tend too much to an impression of something cold +and colossal like the monuments of Asia. It would suggest a modern +Babylon altogether too Babylonian. It would imply that a man of the new +world was a sort of new Pharaoh, who built not so much a pyramid as a +pagoda of pyramids. It would suggest houses built by mammoths out of +mountains; the cities reared by elephants in their own elephantine +school of architecture. And New York does recall the most famous of all +sky-scrapers--the tower of Babel. She recalls it none the less because +there is no doubt about the confusion of tongues. But in truth the very +reverse is true of most of the buildings in America. I had no sooner +passed out into the suburbs of New York on the way to Boston than I +began to see something else quite contrary and far more curious. I saw +forests upon forests of small houses stretching away to the horizon as +literal forests do; villages and towns and cities. And they were, in +another sense, literally like forests. They were all made of wood. It +was almost as fantastic to an English eye as if they had been all made +of cardboard. I had long outlived the silly old joke that referred to +Americans as if they all lived in the backwoods. But, in a sense, if +they do not live in the woods, they are not yet out of the wood. + +I do not say this in any sense as a criticism. As it happens, I am +particularly fond of wood. Of all the superstitions which our fathers +took lightly enough to love, the most natural seems to me the notion it +is lucky to touch wood. Some of them affect me the less as +superstitions, because I feel them as symbols. If humanity had really +thought Friday unlucky it would have talked about bad Friday instead of +good Friday. And while I feel the thrill of thirteen at a table, I am +not so sure that it is the most miserable of all human fates to fill the +places of the Twelve Apostles. But the idea that there was something +cleansing or wholesome about the touching of wood seems to me one of +those ideas which are truly popular, because they are truly poetic. It +is probable enough that the conception came originally from the healing +of the wood of the Cross; but that only clinches the divine coincidence. +It is like that other divine coincidence that the Victim was a +carpenter, who might almost have made His own cross. Whether we take the +mystical or the mythical explanation, there is obviously a very deep +connection between the human working in wood and such plain and pathetic +mysticism. It gives something like a touch of the holy childishness to +the tale, as if that terrible engine could be a toy. In the same fashion +a child fancies that mysterious and sinister horse, which was the +downfall of Troy, as something plain and staring, and perhaps spotted, +like his own rocking-horse in the nursery. + +It might be said symbolically that Americans have a taste for +rocking-horses, as they certainly have a taste for rocking-chairs. A +flippant critic might suggest that they select rocking-chairs so that, +even when they are sitting down, they need not be sitting still. +Something of this restlessness in the race may really be involved in the +matter; but I think the deeper significance of the rocking-chair may +still be found in the deeper symbolism of the rocking-horse. I think +there is behind all this fresh and facile use of wood a certain spirit +that is childish in the good sense of the word; something that is +innocent, and easily pleased. It is not altogether untrue, still less is +it unfriendly, to say that the landscape seems to be dotted with dolls' +houses. It is the true tragedy of every fallen son of Adam that he has +grown too big to live in a doll's house. These things seem somehow to +escape the irony of time by not even challenging it; they are too +temporary even to be merely temporal. These people are not building +tombs; they are not, as in the fine image of Mrs. Meynell's poem, merely +building ruins. It is not easy to imagine the ruins of a doll's house; +and that is why a doll's house is an everlasting habitation. How far it +promises a political permanence is a matter for further discussion; I am +only describing the mood of discovery; in which all these cottages built +of lath, like the palaces of a pantomime, really seemed coloured like +the clouds of morning; which are both fugitive and eternal. + +There is also in all this an atmosphere that comes in another sense from +the nursery. We hear much of Americans being educated on English +literature; but I think few Americans realise how much English children +have been educated on American literature. It is true, and it is +inevitable, that they can only be educated on rather old-fashioned +American literature. Mr. Bernard Shaw, in one of his plays, noted truly +the limitations of the young American millionaire, and especially the +staleness of his English culture; but there is necessarily another side +to it. If the American talked more of Macaulay than of Nietzsche, we +should probably talk more of Emerson than of Ezra Pound. Whether this +staleness is necessarily a disadvantage is, of course, a different +question. But, in any case, it is true that the old American books were +often the books of our childhood, even in the literal sense of the books +of our nursery. I know few men in England who have not left their +boyhood to some extent lost and entangled in the forests of _Huckleberry +Finn_. I know few women in England, from the most revolutionary +Suffragette to the most carefully preserved Early Victorian, who will +not confess to having passed a happy childhood with the Little Women of +Miss Alcott. _Helen's Babies_ was the first and by far the best book in +the modern scriptures of baby-worship. And about all this old-fashioned +American literature there was an undefinable savour that satisfied, and +even fed, our growing minds. Perhaps it was the smell of growing things; +but I am far from certain that it was not simply the smell of wood. Now +that all the memory comes back to me, it seems to come back heavy in a +hundred forms with the fragrance and the touch of timber. There was the +perpetual reference to the wood-pile, the perpetual background of the +woods. There was something crude and clean about everything; something +fresh and strange about those far-off houses, to which I could not then +have put a name. Indeed, many things become clear in this wilderness of +wood, which could only be expressed in symbol and even in fantasy. I +will not go so far as to say that it shortened the transition from Log +Cabin to White House; as if the White House were itself made of white +wood (as Oliver Wendell Holmes said), 'that cuts like cheese, but lasts +like iron for things like these.' But I will say that the experience +illuminates some other lines by Holmes himself:-- + + + Little I ask, my wants are few, + I only ask a hut of stone. + + +I should not have known, in England, that he was already asking for a +good deal even in asking for that. In the presence of this wooden world +the very combination of words seems almost a contradiction, like a hut +of marble, or a hovel of gold. + +It was therefore with an almost infantile pleasure that I looked at all +this promising expansion of fresh-cut timber and thought of the housing +shortage at home. I know not by what incongruous movement of the mind +there swept across me, at the same moment, the thought of things +ancestral and hoary with the light of ancient dawns. The last war +brought back body-armour; the next war may bring back bows and arrows. +And I suddenly had a memory of old wooden houses in London; and a model +of Shakespeare's town. + +It is possible indeed that such Elizabethan memories may receive a check +or a chill when the traveller comes, as he sometimes does, to the +outskirts of one of these strange hamlets of new frame-houses, and is +confronted with a placard inscribed in enormous letters, 'Watch Us +Grow.' He can always imagine that he sees the timbers swelling before +his eyes like pumpkins in some super-tropical summer. But he may have +formed the conviction that no such proclamation could be found outside +Shakespeare's town. And indeed there is a serious criticism here, to any +one who knows history; since the things that grow are not always the +things that remain; and pumpkins of that expansiveness have a tendency +to burst. I was always told that Americans were harsh, hustling, rather +rude and perhaps vulgar; but they were very practical and the future +belonged to them. I confess I felt a fine shade of difference; I liked +the Americans; I thought they were sympathetic, imaginative, and full of +fine enthusiasms; the one thing I could not always feel clear about was +their future. I believe they were happier in their frame-houses than +most people in most houses; having democracy, good education, and a +hobby of work; the one doubt that did float across me was something +like, 'Will all this be here at all in two hundred years?' That was the +first impression produced by the wooden houses that seemed like the +waggons of gipsies; it is a serious impression, but there is an answer +to it. It is an answer that opens on the traveller more and more as he +goes westward, and finds the little towns dotted about the vast central +prairies. And the answer is agriculture. Wooden houses may or may not +last; but farms will last; and farming will always last. + +The houses may look like gipsy caravans on a heath or common; but they +are not on a heath or common. They are on the most productive and +prosperous land, perhaps, in the modern world. The houses might fall +down like shanties, but the fields would remain; and whoever tills +those fields will count for a great deal in the affairs of humanity. +They are already counting for a great deal, and possibly for too much, +in the affairs of America. The real criticism of the Middle West is +concerned with two facts, neither of which has been yet adequately +appreciated by the educated class in England. The first is that the turn +of the world has come, and the turn of the agricultural countries with +it. That is the meaning of the resurrection of Ireland; that is the +meaning of the practical surrender of the Bolshevist Jews to the Russian +peasants. The other is that in most places these peasant societies carry +on what may be called the Catholic tradition. The Middle West is perhaps +the one considerable place where they still carry on the Puritan +tradition. But the Puritan tradition was originally a tradition of the +town; and the second truth about the Middle West turns largely on its +moral relation to the town. As I shall suggest presently, there is much +in common between this agricultural society of America and the great +agricultural societies of Europe. It tends, as the agricultural society +nearly always does, to some decent degree of democracy. The agricultural +society tends to the agrarian law. But in Puritan America there is an +additional problem, which I can hardly explain without a periphrasis. + +There was a time when the progress of the cities seemed to mock the +decay of the country. It is more and more true, I think, to-day that it +is rather the decay of the cities that seems to poison the progress and +promise of the countryside. The cinema boasts of being a substitute for +the tavern, but I think it a very bad substitute. I think so quite apart +from the question about fermented liquor. Nobody enjoys cinemas more +than I, but to enjoy them a man has only to look and not even to listen, +and in a tavern he has to talk. Occasionally, I admit, he has to fight; +but he need never move at the movies. Thus in the real village inn are +the real village politics, while in the other are only the remote and +unreal metropolitan politics. And those central city politics are not +only cosmopolitan politics but corrupt politics. They corrupt everything +that they reach, and this is the real point about many perplexing +questions. + +For instance, so far as I am concerned, it is the whole point about +feminism and the factory. It is very largely the point about feminism +and many other callings, apparently more cultured than the factory, such +as the law court and the political platform. When I see women so wildly +anxious to tie themselves to all this machinery of the modern city my +first feeling is not indignation, but that dark and ominous sort of pity +with which we should see a crowd rushing to embark in a leaking ship +under a lowering storm. When I see wives and mothers going in for +business government I not only regard it as a bad business but as a +bankrupt business. It seems to me very much as if the peasant women, +just before the French Revolution, had insisted on being made duchesses +or (as is quite as logical and likely) on being made dukes. + +It is as if those ragged women, instead of crying out for bread, had +cried out for powder and patches. By the time they were wearing them +they would be the only people wearing them. For powder and patches soon +went out of fashion, but bread does not go out of fashion. In the same +way, if women desert the family for the factory, they may find they have +only done it for a deserted factory. It would have been very unwise of +the lower orders to claim all the privileges of the higher orders in the +last days of the French monarchy. It would have been very laborious to +learn the science of heraldry or the tables of precedence when all such +things were at once most complicated and most moribund. It would be +tiresome to be taught all those tricks just when the whole bag of tricks +was coming to an end. A French satirist might have written a fine +apologue about Jacques Bonhomme coming up to Paris in his wooden shoes +and demanding to be made Gold Stick in Waiting in the name of Liberty, +Equality, and Fraternity; but I fear the stick in waiting would be +waiting still. + +One of the first topics on which I heard conversation turning in America +was that of a very interesting book called _Main Street_, which involves +many of these questions of the modern industrial and the eternal +feminine. It is simply the story, or perhaps rather the study than the +story, of a young married woman in one of the multitudinous little towns +on the great central plains of America; and of a sort of struggle +between her own more restless culture and the provincial prosperity of +her neighbours. There are a number of true and telling suggestions in +the book, but the one touch which I found tingling in the memory of many +readers was the last sentence, in which the master of the house, with +unshaken simplicity, merely asks for the whereabouts of some domestic +implement; I think it was a screw-driver. It seems to me a harmless +request, but from the way people talked about it one might suppose he +had asked for a screw-driver to screw down the wife in her coffin. And a +great many advanced persons would tell us that wooden house in which +she lived really was like a wooden coffin. But this appears to me to be +taking a somewhat funereal view of the life of humanity. + +For, after all, on the face of it at any rate, this is merely the life +of humanity, and even the life which all humanitarians have striven to +give to humanity. Revolutionists have treated it not only as the normal +but even as the ideal. Revolutionary wars have been waged to establish +this; revolutionary heroes have fought, and revolutionary martyrs have +died, only to build such a wooden house for such a worthy family. Men +have taken the sword and perished by the sword in order that the poor +gentleman might have liberty to look for his screw-driver. For there is +here a fact about America that is almost entirely unknown in England. +The English have not in the least realised the real strength of America. +We in England hear a great deal, we hear far too much, about the +economic energy of industrial America, about the money of Mr. Morgan, or +the machinery of Mr. Edison. We never realise that while we in England +suffer from the same sort of successes in capitalism and clockwork, we +have not got what the Americans have got; something at least to balance +it in the way of a free agriculture, a vast field of free farms dotted +with small freeholders. For the reason I shall mention in a moment, they +are not perhaps in the fullest and finest sense a peasantry. But they +are in the practical and political sense a pure peasantry, in that their +comparative equality is a true counterweight to the toppling injustice +of the towns. + +And, even in places like that described as Main Street, that comparative +equality can immediately be felt. The men may be provincials, but they +are certainly citizens; they consult on a common basis. And I repeat +that in this, after all, they do achieve what many prophets and +righteous men have died to achieve. This plain village, fairly +prosperous, fairly equal, untaxed by tyrants and untroubled by wars, is +after all the place which reformers have regarded as their aim; whenever +reformers have used their wits sufficiently to have any aim. The march +to Utopia, the march to the Earthly Paradise, the march to the New +Jerusalem, has been very largely the march to Main Street. And the +latest modern sensation is a book written to show how wretched it is to +live there. + +All this is true, and I think the lady might be more contented in her +coffin, which is more comfortably furnished than most of the coffins +where her fellow creatures live. Nevertheless, there is an answer to +this, or at least a modification of it. There is a case for the lady and +a case against the gentleman and the screw-driver. And when we have +noted what it really is, we have noted the real disadvantage in a +situation like that of modern America, and especially the Middle West. +And with that we come back to the truth with which I started this +speculation; the truth that few have yet realised, but of which I, for +one, am more and more convinced--that industrialism is spreading because +it is decaying; that only the dust and ashes of its dissolution are +choking up the growth of natural things everywhere and turning the green +world grey. + +In this relative agricultural equality the Americans of the Middle West +are far in advance of the English of the twentieth century. It is not +their fault if they are still some centuries behind the English of the +twelfth century. But the defect by which they fall short of being a true +peasantry is that they do not produce their own spiritual food, in the +same sense as their own material food. They do not, like some +peasantries, create other kinds of culture besides the kind called +agriculture. Their culture comes from the great cities; and that is +where all the evil comes from. + +If a man had gone across England in the Middle Ages, or even across +Europe in more recent times, he would have found a culture which showed +its vitality by its variety. We know the adventures of the three +brothers in the old fairy tales who passed across the endless plain from +city to city, and found one kingdom ruled by a wizard and another wasted +by a dragon, one people living in castles of crystal and another sitting +by fountains of wine. These are but legendary enlargements of the real +adventures of a traveller passing from one patch of peasantry to +another, and finding women wearing strange head-dresses and men singing +new songs. + +A traveller in America would be somewhat surprised if he found the +people in the city of St. Louis all wearing crowns and crusading armour +in honour of their patron saint. He might even feel some faint surprise +if he found all the citizens of Philadelphia clad in a composite +costume, combining that of a Quaker with that of a Red Indian, in honour +of the noble treaty of William Penn. Yet these are the sort of local and +traditional things that would really be found giving variety to the +valleys of mediaeval Europe. I myself felt a perfectly genuine and +generous exhilaration of freedom and fresh enterprise in new places like +Oklahoma. But you would hardly find in Oklahoma what was found in +Oberammergau. What goes to Oklahoma is not the peasant play, but the +cinema. And the objection to the cinema is not so much that it goes to +Oklahoma as that it does not come from Oklahoma. In other words, these +people have on the economic side a much closer approach than we have to +economic freedom. It is not for us, who have allowed our land to be +stolen by squires and then vulgarised by sham squires, to sneer at such +colonists as merely crude and prosaic. They at least have really kept +something of the simplicity and, therefore, the dignity of democracy; +and that democracy may yet save their country even from the calamities +of wealth and science. + +But, while these farmers do not need to become industrial in order to +become industrious, they do tend to become industrial in so far as they +become intellectual. Their culture, and to some great extent their +creed, do come along the railroads from the great modern urban centres, +and bring with them a blast of death and a reek of rotting things. It is +that influence that alone prevents the Middle West from progressing +towards the Middle Ages. + +For, after all, linked up in a hundred legends of the Middle Ages, may +be found a symbolic pattern of hammers and nails and saws; and there is +no reason why they should not have also sanctified screw-drivers. There +is no reason why the screw-driver that seemed such a trifle to the +author should not have been borne in triumph down Main Street like a +sword of state, in some pageant of the Guild of St. Joseph of the +Carpenters or St. Dunstan of the Smiths. It was the Catholic poetry and +piety that filled common life with something that is lacking in the +worthy and virile democracy of the West. Nor are Americans of +intelligence so ignorant of this as some may suppose. There is an +admirable society called the Mediaevalists in Chicago; whose name and +address will strike many as suggesting a certain struggle of the soul +against the environment. With the national heartiness they blazon their +note-paper with heraldry and the hues of Gothic windows; with the +national high spirits they assume the fancy dress of friars; but any one +who should essay to laugh at them instead of with them would find out +his mistake. For many of them do really know a great deal about +mediaevalism; much more than I do, or most other men brought up on an +island that is crowded with its cathedrals. Something of the same spirit +may be seen in the beautiful new plans and buildings of Yale, +deliberately modelled not on classical harmony but on Gothic +irregularity and surprise. The grace and energy of the mediaeval +architecture resurrected by a man like Mr. R. A. Cram of Boston has +behind it not merely artistic but historical and ethical enthusiasm; an +enthusiasm for the Catholic creed which made mediaeval civilisation. +Even on the huge Puritan plains of the Middle West the influence strays +in the strangest fashion. And it is notable that among the pessimistic +epitaphs of the Spoon River Anthology, in that churchyard compared with +which most churchyards are cheery, among the suicides and secret +drinkers and monomaniacs and hideous hypocrites of that happy village, +almost the only record of respect and a recognition of wider hopes is +dedicated to the Catholic priest. + +But Main Street is Main Street in the main. Main Street is Modern Street +in its multiplicity of mildly half-educated people; and all these +historic things are a thousand miles from them. They have not heard the +ancient noise either of arts or arms; the building of the cathedral or +the marching of the crusade. But at least they have not deliberately +slandered the crusade and defaced the cathedral. And if they have not +produced the peasant arts, they can still produce the peasant crafts. +They can sow and plough and reap and live by these everlasting things; +nor shall the foundations of their state be moved. And the memory of +those colossal fields, of those fruitful deserts, came back the more +readily into my mind because I finished these reflections in the very +heart of a modern industrial city, if it can be said to have a heart. It +was in fact an English industrial city, but it struck me that it might +very well be an American one. And it also struck me that we yield rather +too easily to America the dusty palm of industrial enterprise, and feel +far too little apprehension about greener and fresher vegetables. There +is a story of an American who carefully studied all the sights of London +or Rome or Paris, and came to the conclusion that 'it had nothing on +Minneapolis.' It seems to me that Minneapolis has nothing on Manchester. +There were the same grey vistas of shops full of rubber tyres and +metallic appliances; a man felt that he might walk a day without seeing +a blade of grass; the whole horizon was so infinite with efficiency. The +factory chimneys might have been Pittsburg; the sky-signs might have +been New York. One looked up in a sort of despair at the sky, not for a +sky-sign but in a sense for a sign, for some sentence of significance +and judgment; by the instinct that makes any man in such a scene seek +for the only thing that has not been made by men. But even that was +illogical, for it was night, and I could only expect to see the stars, +which might have reminded me of Old Glory; but that was not the sign +that oppressed me. All the ground was a wilderness of stone and all the +buildings a forest of brick; I was far in the interior of a labyrinth of +lifeless things. Only, looking up, between two black chimneys and a +telegraph pole, I saw vast and far and faint, as the first men saw it, +the silver pattern of the Plough. + + + + +_The American Business Man_ + + +It is a commonplace that men are all agreed in using symbols, and all +differ about the meaning of the symbols. It is obvious that a Russian +republican might come to identify the eagle as a bird of empire and +therefore a bird of prey. But when he ultimately escaped to the land of +the free, he might find the same bird on the American coinage figuring +as a bird of freedom. Doubtless, he might find many other things to +surprise him in the land of the free, and many calculated to make him +think that the bird, if not imperial, was at least rather imperious. But +I am not discussing those exceptional details here. It is equally +obvious that a Russian reactionary might cross the world with a vow of +vengeance against the red flag. But that authoritarian might have some +difficulties with the authorities, if he shot a man for using the red +flag on the railway between Willesden and Clapham Junction. + +But, of course, the difficulty about symbols is generally much more +subtle than in these simple cases. I have remarked elsewhere that the +first thing which a traveller should write about is the thing which he +has not read about. It may be a small or secondary thing, but it is a +thing that he has seen and not merely expected to see. + +I gave the example of the great multitude of wooden houses in America; +we might say of wooden towns and wooden cities. But after he has seen +such things, his next duty is to see the meaning of them; and here a +great deal of complication and controversy is possible. The thing +probably does not mean what he first supposes it to mean on the face of +it; but even on the face of it, it might mean many different and even +opposite things. + +For instance, a wooden house might suggest an almost savage solitude; a +rude shanty put together by a pioneer in a forest; or it might mean a +very recent and rapid solution of the housing problem, conducted cheaply +and therefore on a very large scale. A wooden house might suggest the +very newest thing in America or one of the very oldest things in +England. It might mean a grey ruin at Stratford or a white exhibition at +Earl's Court. + +It is when we come to this interpretation of international symbols that +we make most of the international mistakes. Without the smallest error +of detail, I will promise to prove that Oriental women are independent +because they wear trousers, or Oriental men subject because they wear +skirts. Merely to apply it to this case, I will take the example of two +very commonplace and trivial objects of modern life--a walking stick and +a fur coat. + +As it happened, I travelled about America with two sticks, like a +Japanese nobleman with his two swords. I fear the simile is too stately. +I bore more resemblance to a cripple with two crutches or a highly +ineffectual version of the devil on two sticks. I carried them both +because I valued them both, and did not wish to risk losing either of +them in my erratic travels. One is a very plain grey stick from the +woods of Buckinghamshire, but as I took it with me to Palestine it +partakes of the character of a pilgrim's staff. When I can say that I +have taken the same stick to Jerusalem and to Chicago, I think the stick +and I may both have a rest. The other, which I value even more, was +given me by the Knights of Columbus at Yale, and I wish I could think +that their chivalric title allowed me to regard it as a sword. + +Now, I do not know whether the Americans I met, struck by the fastidious +foppery of my dress and appearance, concluded that it is the custom of +elegant English dandies to carry two walking sticks. But I do know that +it is much less common among Americans than among Englishmen to carry +even one. The point, however, is not merely that more sticks are carried +by Englishmen than by Americans; it is that the sticks which are carried +by Americans stand for something entirely different. + +In America a stick is commonly called a cane, and it has about it +something of the atmosphere which the poet described as the nice conduct +of the clouded cane. It would be an exaggeration to say that when the +citizens of the United States see a man carrying a light stick, they +deduce that if he does that he does nothing else. But there is about it +a faint flavour of luxury and lounging, and most of the energetic +citizens of this energetic society avoid it by instinct. + +Now, in an Englishman like myself, carrying a stick may imply lounging, +but it does not imply luxury, and I can say with some firmness that it +does not imply dandyism. In a great many Englishmen it means the very +opposite even of lounging. By one of those fantastic paradoxes which +are the mystery of nationality, a walking stick often actually means +walking. It frequently suggests the very reverse of the beau with his +clouded cane; it does not suggest a town type, but rather specially a +country type. It rather implies the kind of Englishman who tramps about +in lanes and meadows and knocks the tops off thistles. It suggests the +sort of man who has carried the stick through his native woods, and +perhaps even cut it in his native woods. + +There are plenty of these vigorous loungers, no doubt, in the rural +parts of America, but the idea of a walking stick would not especially +suggest them to Americans; it would not call up such figures like a +fairy wand. It would be easy to trace back the difference to many +English origins, possibly to aristocratic origins, to the idea of the +old squire, a man vigorous and even rustic, but trained to hold a +useless staff rather than a useful tool. It might be suggested that +American citizens do at least so far love freedom as to like to have +their hands free. It might be suggested, on the other hand, that they +keep their hands for the handles of many machines. And that the hand on +a handle is less free than the hand on a stick or even a tool. But these +again are controversial questions and I am only noting a fact. + +If an Englishman wished to imagine more or less exactly what the +impression is, and how misleading it is, he could find something like a +parallel in what he himself feels about a fur coat. When I first found +myself among the crowds on the main floor of a New York hotel, my rather +exaggerated impression of the luxury of the place was largely produced +by the number of men in fur coats, and what we should consider rather +ostentatious fur coats, with all the fur outside. + +Now an Englishman has a number of atmospheric but largely accidental +associations in connection with a fur coat. I will not say that he +thinks a man in a fur coat must be a wealthy and wicked man; but I do +say that in his own ideal and perfect vision a wealthy and wicked man +would wear a fur coat. Thus I had the sensation of standing in a surging +mob of American millionaires, or even African millionaires; for the +millionaires of Chicago must be like the Knights of the Round Table +compared with the millionaires of Johannesburg. + +But, as a matter of fact, the man in the fur coat was not even an +American millionaire, but simply an American. It did not signify luxury, +but rather necessity, and even a harsh and almost heroic necessity. +Orson probably wore a fur coat; and he was brought up by bears, but not +the bears of Wall Street. Eskimos are generally represented as a furry +folk; but they are not necessarily engaged in delicate financial +operations, even in the typical and appropriate occupation called +freezing out. And if the American is not exactly an arctic traveller +rushing from pole to pole, at least he is often literally fleeing from +ice to ice. He has to make a very extreme distinction between outdoor +and indoor clothing. He has to live in an icehouse outside and a +hothouse inside; so hot that he may be said to construct an icehouse +inside that. He turns himself into an icehouse and warms himself against +the cold until he is warm enough to eat ices. But the point is that the +same coat of fur which in England would indicate the sybarite life may +here very well indicate the strenuous life; just as the same walking +stick which would here suggest a lounger would in England suggest a +plodder and almost a pilgrim. + +And these two trifles are types which I should like to put, by way of +proviso and apology, at the very beginning of any attempt at a record of +any impressions of a foreign society. They serve merely to illustrate +the most important impression of all, the impression of how false all +impressions may be. I suspect that most of the very false impressions +have come from the careful record of very true facts. They have come +from the fatal power of observing the facts without being able to +observe the truth. They came from seeing the symbol with the most vivid +clarity and being blind to all that it symbolises. It is as if a man who +knew no Greek should imagine that he could read a Greek inscription +because he took the Greek R for an English P or the Greek long E for an +English H. I do not mention this merely as a criticism on other people's +impressions of America, but as a criticism on my own. I wish it to be +understood that I am well aware that all my views are subject to this +sort of potential criticism, and that even when I am certain of the +facts I do not profess to be certain of the deductions. + +In this chapter I hope to point out how a misunderstanding of this kind +affects the common impression, not altogether unfounded, that the +Americans talk about dollars. But for the moment I am merely anxious to +avoid a similar misunderstanding when I talk about Americans. About the +dogmas of democracy, about the right of a people to its own symbols, +whether they be coins or customs, I am convinced, and no longer to be +shaken. But about the meaning of those symbols, in silver or other +substances, I am always open to correction. That error is the price we +pay for the great glory of nationality. And in this sense I am quite +ready, at the start, to warn my own readers against my own opinions. + +The fact without the truth is futile; indeed the fact without the truth +is false. I have already noted that this is especially true touching our +observations of a strange country; and it is certainly true touching one +small fact which has swelled into a large fable. I mean the fable about +America commonly summed up in the phrase about the Almighty Dollar. I do +not think the dollar is almighty in America; I fancy many things are +mightier, including many ideals and some rather insane ideals. But I +think it might be maintained that the dollar has another of the +attributes of deity. If it is not omnipotent it is in a sense +omnipresent. Whatever Americans think about dollars, it is, I think, +relatively true that they talk about dollars. If a mere mechanical +record could be taken by the modern machinery of dictaphones and +stenography, I do not think it probable that the mere word 'dollars' +would occur more often in any given number of American conversations +than the mere word 'pounds' or 'shillings' in a similar number of +English conversations. And these statistics, like nearly all statistics, +would be utterly useless and even fundamentally false. It is as if we +should calculate that the word 'elephant' had been mentioned a certain +number of times in a particular London street, or so many times more +often than the word 'thunderbolt' had been used in Stoke Poges. +Doubtless there are statisticians capable of carefully collecting those +statistics also; and doubtless there are scientific social reformers +capable of legislating on the basis of them. They would probably argue +from the elephantine imagery of the London street that such and such a +percentage of the householders were megalomaniacs and required medical +care and police coercion. And doubtless their calculations, like nearly +all such calculations, would leave out the only important point; as that +the street was in the immediate neighbourhood of the Zoo, or was yet +more happily situated under the benignant shadow of the Elephant and +Castle. And in the same way the mechanical calculation about the mention +of dollars is entirely useless unless we have some moral understanding +of why they are mentioned. It certainly does not mean merely a love of +money; and if it did, a love of money may mean a great many very +different and even contrary things. The love of money is very different +in a peasant or in a pirate, in a miser or in a gambler, in a great +financier or in a man doing some practical and productive work. Now this +difference in the conversation of American and English business men +arises, I think, from certain much deeper things in the American which +are generally not understood by the Englishman. It also arises from much +deeper things in the Englishman, of which the Englishman is even more +ignorant. + +To begin with, I fancy that the American, quite apart from any love of +money, has a great love of measurement. He will mention the exact size +or weight of things, in a way which appears to us as irrelevant. It is +as if we were to say that a man came to see us carrying three feet of +walking stick and four inches of cigar. It is so in cases that have no +possible connection with any avarice or greed for gain. An American will +praise the prodigal generosity of some other man in giving up his own +estate for the good of the poor. But he will generally say that the +philanthropist gave them a 200-acre park, where an Englishman would +think it quite sufficient to say that he gave them a park. There is +something about this precision which seems suitable to the American +atmosphere; to the hard sunlight, and the cloudless skies, and the +glittering detail of the architecture and the landscape; just as the +vaguer English version is consonant to our mistier and more +impressionist scenery. It is also connected perhaps with something more +boyish about the younger civilisation; and corresponds to the passionate +particularity with which a boy will distinguish the uniforms of +regiments, the rigs of ships, or even the colours of tram tickets. It is +a certain godlike appetite for things, as distinct from thoughts. + +But there is also, of course, a much deeper cause of the difference; and +it can easily be deduced by noting the real nature of the difference +itself. When two business men in a train are talking about dollars I am +not so foolish as to expect them to be talking about the philosophy of +St. Thomas Aquinas. But if they were two English business men I should +not expect them to be talking about business. Probably it would be about +some sport; and most probably some sport in which they themselves never +dreamed of indulging. The approximate difference is that the American +talks about his work and the Englishman about his holidays. His ideal is +not labour but leisure. Like every other national characteristic, this +is not primarily a point for praise or blame; in essence it involves +neither and in effect it involves both. It is certainly connected with +that snobbishness which is the great sin of English society. The +Englishman does love to conceive himself as a sort of country gentleman; +and his castles in the air are all castles in Scotland rather than in +Spain. For, as an ideal, a Scotch castle is as English as a Welsh +rarebit or an Irish stew. And if he talks less about money I fear it is +sometimes because in one sense he thinks more of it. Money is a mystery +in the old and literal sense of something too sacred for speech. Gold is +a god; and like the god of some agnostics has no name and is worshipped +only in his works. It is true in a sense that the English gentleman +wishes to have enough money to be able to forget it. But it may be +questioned whether he does entirely forget it. As against this weakness +the American has succeeded, at the price of a great deal of crudity and +clatter, in making general a very real respect for work. He has partly +disenchanted the dangerous glamour of the gentleman, and in that sense +has achieved some degree of democracy; which is the most difficult +achievement in the world. + +On the other hand, there is a good side to the Englishman's day-dream of +leisure, and one which the American spirit tends to miss. It may be +expressed in the word 'holiday' or still better in the word 'hobby.' The +Englishman, in his character of Robin Hood, really has got two strings +to his bow. Indeed the Englishman really is well represented by Robin +Hood; for there is always something about him that may literally be +called outlawed, in the sense of being extra-legal or outside the rules. +A Frenchman said of Browning that his centre was not in the middle; and +it may be said of many an Englishman that his heart is not where his +treasure is. Browning expressed a very English sentiment when he said:-- + + + I like to know a butcher paints, + A baker rhymes for his pursuit, + Candlestick-maker much acquaints + His soul with song, or haply mute + Blows out his brains upon the flute. + + +Stevenson touched on the same insular sentiment when he said that many +men he knew, who were meat-salesmen to the outward eye, might in the +life of contemplation sit with the saints. Now the extraordinary +achievement of the American meat-salesman is that his poetic enthusiasm +can really be for meat sales; not for money but for meat. An American +commercial traveller asked me, with a religious fire in his eyes, +whether I did not think that salesmanship could be an art. In England +there are many salesmen who are sincerely fond of art; but seldom of the +art of salesmanship. Art is with them a hobby; a thing of leisure and +liberty. That is why the English traveller talks, if not of art, then of +sport. That is why the two city men in the London train, if they are not +talking about golf, may be talking about gardening. If they are not +talking about dollars, or the equivalent of dollars, the reason lies +much deeper than any superficial praise or blame touching the desire for +wealth. In the English case, at least, it lies very deep in the English +spirit. Many of the greatest English things have had this lighter and +looser character of a hobby or a holiday experiment. Even a masterpiece +has often been a by-product. The works of Shakespeare come out so +casually that they can be attributed to the most improbable people; even +to Bacon. The sonnets of Shakespeare are picked up afterwards as if out +of a wastepaper basket. The immortality of Dr. Johnson does not rest on +the written leaves he collected, but entirely on the words he wasted, +the words he scattered to the winds. So great a thing as Pickwick is +almost a kind of accident; it began as something secondary and grew into +something primary and pre-eminent. It began with mere words written to +illustrate somebody else's pictures; and swelled like an epic expanded +from an epigram. It might almost be said that in the case of Pickwick +the author began as the servant of the artist. But, as in the same story +of Pickwick, the servant became greater than the master. This +incalculable and accidental quality, like all national qualities, has +its strength and weakness; but it does represent a certain reserve fund +of interests in the Englishman's life; and distinguishes him from the +other extreme type, of the millionaire who works till he drops, or who +drops because he stops working. It is the great achievement of American +civilisation that in that country it really is not cant to talk about +the dignity of labour. There is something that might almost be called +the sanctity of labour; but it is subject to the profound law that when +anything less than the highest becomes a sanctity, it tends also to +become a superstition. When the candlestick-maker does not blow out his +brains upon the flute there is always a danger that he may blow them out +somewhere else, owing to depressed conditions in the candlestick market. + +Now certainly one of the first impressions of America, or at any rate +of New York, which is by no means the same thing as America, is that of +a sort of mob of business men, behaving in many ways in a fashion very +different from that of the swarms of London city men who go up every day +to the city. They sit about in groups with Red-Indian gravity, as if +passing the pipe of peace; though, in fact, most of them are smoking +cigars and some of them are eating cigars. The latter strikes me as one +of the most peculiar of transatlantic tastes, more peculiar than that of +chewing gum. A man will sit for hours consuming a cigar as if it were a +sugar-stick; but I should imagine it to be a very disagreeable +sugar-stick. Why he attempts to enjoy a cigar without lighting it I do +not know; whether it is a more economical way of carrying a mere symbol +of commercial conversation; or whether something of the same queer +outlandish morality that draws such a distinction between beer and +ginger beer draws an equally ethical distinction between touching +tobacco and lighting it. For the rest, it would be easy to make a merely +external sketch full of things equally strange; for this can always be +done in a strange country. I allow for the fact of all foreigners +looking alike; but I fancy that all those hard-featured faces, with +spectacles and shaven jaws, do look rather alike, because they all like +to make their faces hard. And with the mention of their mental attitude +we realise the futility of any such external sketch. Unless we can see +that these are something more than men smoking cigars and talking about +dollars we had much better not see them at all. + +It is customary to condemn the American as a materialist because of his +worship of success. But indeed this very worship, like any worship, +even devil-worship, proves him rather a mystic than a materialist. The +Frenchman who retires from business when he has money enough to drink +his wine and eat his omelette in peace might much more plausibly be +called a materialist by those who do not prefer to call him a man of +sense. But Americans do worship success in the abstract, as a sort of +ideal vision. They follow success rather than money; they follow money +rather than meat and drink. If their national life in one sense is a +perpetual game of poker, they are playing excitedly for chips or +counters as well as for coins. And by the ultimate test of material +enjoyment, like the enjoyment of an omelette, even a coin is itself a +counter. The Yankee cannot eat chips as the Frenchman can eat chipped +potatoes; but neither can he swallow red cents as the Frenchman swallows +red wine. Thus when people say of a Yankee that he worships the dollar, +they pay a compliment to his fine spirituality more true and delicate +than they imagine. The dollar is an idol because it is an image; but it +is an image of success and not of enjoyment. + +That this romance is also a religion is shown in the fact that there is +a queer sort of morality attached to it. The nearest parallel to it is +something like the sense of honour in the old duelling days. There is +not a material but a distinctly moral savour about the implied +obligation to collect dollars or to collect chips. We hear too much in +England of the phrase about 'making good'; for no sensible Englishman +favours the needless interlarding of English with scraps of foreign +languages. But though it means nothing in English, it means something +very particular in American. There is a fine shade of distinction +between succeeding and making good, precisely because there must always +be a sort of ethical echo in the word good. America does vaguely feel a +man making good as something analogous to a man being good or a man +doing good. It is connected with his serious self-respect and his sense +of being worthy of those he loves. Nor is this curious crude idealism +wholly insincere even when it drives him to what some of us would call +stealing; any more than the duellist's honour was insincere when it +drove him to what some would call murder. A very clever American play +which I once saw acted contained a complete working model of this +morality. A girl was loyal to, but distressed by, her engagement to a +young man on whom there was a sort of cloud of humiliation. The +atmosphere was exactly what it would have been in England if he had been +accused of cowardice or card-sharping. And there was nothing whatever +the matter with the poor young man except that some rotten mine or other +in Arizona had not 'made good.' Now in England we should either be below +or above that ideal of good. If we were snobs, we should be content to +know that he was a gentleman of good connections, perhaps too much +accustomed to private means to be expected to be businesslike. If we +were somewhat larger-minded people, we should know that he might be as +wise as Socrates and as splendid as Bayard and yet be unfitted, perhaps +one should say therefore be unfitted, for the dismal and dirty gambling +of modern commerce. But whether we were snobbish enough to admire him +for being an idler, or chivalrous enough to admire him for being an +outlaw, in neither case should we ever really and in our hearts despise +him for being a failure. For it is this inner verdict of instinctive +idealism that is the point at issue. Of course there is nothing new, or +peculiar to the new world, about a man's engagement practically failing +through his financial failure. An English girl might easily drop a man +because he was poor, or she might stick to him faithfully and defiantly +although he was poor. The point is that this girl was faithful but she +was not defiant; that is, she was not proud. The whole psychology of the +situation was that she shared the weird worldly idealism of her family, +and it was wounded as her patriotism would have been wounded if he had +betrayed his country. To do them justice, there was nothing to show that +they would have had any real respect for a royal duke who had inherited +millions; what the simple barbarians wanted was a man who could 'make +good.' That the process of making good would probably drag him through +the mire of everything bad, that he would make good by bluffing, lying, +swindling, and grinding the faces of the poor, did not seem to trouble +them in the least. Against this fanaticism there is this shadow of truth +even in the fiction of aristocracy; that a gentleman may at least be +allowed to be good without being bothered to make it. + +Another objection to the phrase about the almighty dollar is that it is +an almighty phrase, and therefore an almighty nuisance. I mean that it +is made to explain everything, and to explain everything much too well; +that is, much too easily. It does not really help people to understand a +foreign country; but it gives them the fatal illusion that they do +understand it. Dollars stood for America as frogs stood for France; +because it was necessary to connect particular foreigners with +something, or it would be so easy to confuse a Moor with a Montenegrin +or a Russian with a Red Indian. The only cure for this sort of satisfied +familiarity is the shock of something really unfamiliar. When people can +see nothing at all in American democracy except a Yankee running after a +dollar, then the only thing to do is to trip them up as they run after +the Yankee, or run away with their notion of the Yankee, by the obstacle +of certain odd and obstinate facts that have no relation to that notion. +And, as a matter of fact, there are a number of such obstacles to any +such generalisation; a number of notable facts that have to be +reconciled somehow to our previous notions. It does not matter for this +purpose whether the facts are favourable or unfavourable, or whether the +qualities are merits or defects; especially as we do not even understand +them sufficiently to say which they are. The point is that we are +brought to a pause, and compelled to attempt to understand them rather +better than we do. We have found the one thing that we did not expect; +and therefore the one thing that we cannot explain. And we are moved to +an effort, probably an unsuccessful effort, to explain it. + +For instance, Americans are very unpunctual. That is the last thing that +a critic expects who comes to condemn them for hustling and haggling and +vulgar ambition. But it is almost the first fact that strikes the +spectator on the spot. The chief difference between the humdrum English +business man and the hustling American business man is that the hustling +American business man is always late. Of course there is a great deal of +difference between coming late and coming too late. But I noticed the +fashion first in connection with my own lectures; touching which I +could heartily recommend the habit of coming too late. I could easily +understand a crowd of commercial Americans not coming to my lectures at +all; but there was something odd about their coming in a crowd, and the +crowd being expected to turn up some time after the appointed hour. The +managers of these lectures (I continue to call them lectures out of +courtesy to myself) often explained to me that it was quite useless to +begin properly until about half an hour after time. Often people were +still coming in three-quarters of an hour or even an hour after time. +Not that I objected to that, as some lecturers are said to do; it seemed +to me an agreeable break in the monotony; but as a characteristic of a +people mostly engaged in practical business, it struck me as curious and +interesting. I have grown accustomed to being the most unbusinesslike +person in any given company; and it gave me a sort of dizzy exaltation +to find I was not the most unpunctual person in that company. I was +afterwards told by many Americans that my impression was quite correct; +that American unpunctuality was really very prevalent, and extended to +much more important things. But at least I was not content to lump this +along with all sorts of contrary things that I did not happen to like, +and call it America. I am not sure of what it really means, but I rather +fancy that though it may seem the very reverse of the hustling, it has +the same origin as the hustling. The American is not punctual because he +is not punctilious. He is impulsive, and has an impulse to stay as well +as an impulse to go. For, after all, punctuality belongs to the same +order of ideas as punctuation; and there is no punctuation in +telegrams. The order of clocks and set hours which English business has +always observed is a good thing in its own way; indeed I think that in a +larger sense it is better than the other way. But it is better because +it is a protection against hustling, not a promotion of it. In other +words, it is better because it is more civilised; as a great Venetian +merchant prince clad in cloth of gold was more civilised; or an old +English merchant drinking port in an oak-panelled room was more +civilised; or a little French shopkeeper shutting up his shop to play +dominoes is more civilised. And the reason is that the American has the +romance of business and is monomaniac, while the Frenchman has the +romance of life and is sane. But the romance of business really is a +romance, and the Americans are really romantic about it. And that +romance, though it revolves round pork or petrol, is really like a +love-affair in this; that it involves not only rushing but also +lingering. + +The American is too busy to have business habits. He is also too much in +earnest to have business rules. If we wish to understand him, we must +compare him not with the French shopkeeper when he plays dominoes, but +with the same French shopkeeper when he works the guns or mans the +trenches as a conscript soldier. Everybody used to the punctilious +Prussian standard of uniform and parade has noticed the roughness and +apparent laxity of the French soldier, the looseness of his clothes, the +unsightliness of his heavy knapsack, in short his inferiority in every +detail of the business of war except fighting. There he is much too +swift to be smart. He is much too practical to be precise. By a strange +illusion which can lift pork-packing almost to the level of patriotism, +the American has the same free rhythm in his romance of business. He +varies his conduct not to suit the clock but to suit the case. He gives +more time to more important and less time to less important things; and +he makes up his time-table as he goes along. Suppose he has three +appointments; the first, let us say, is some mere trifle of erecting a +tower twenty storeys high and exhibiting a sky-sign on the top of it; +the second is a business discussion about the possibility of printing +advertisements of soft drinks on the table-napkins at a restaurant; the +third is attending a conference to decide how the populace can be +prevented from using chewing-gum and the manufacturers can still manage +to sell it. He will be content merely to glance at the sky-sign as he +goes by in a trolley-car or an automobile; he will then settle down to +the discussion with his partner about the table-napkins, each speaker +indulging in long monologues in turn; a peculiarity of much American +conversation. Now if in the middle of one of these monologues, he +suddenly thinks that the vacant space of the waiter's shirt-front might +also be utilised to advertise the Gee Whiz Ginger Champagne, he will +instantly follow up the new idea in all its aspects and possibilities, +in an even longer monologue; and will never think of looking at his +watch while he is rapturously looking at his waiter. The consequence is +that he will come late into the great social movement against +chewing-gum, where an Englishman would probably have arrived at the +proper hour. But though the Englishman's conduct is more proper, it need +not be in all respects more practical. The Englishman's rules are better +for the business of life, but not necessarily for the life of business. +And it is true that for many of these Americans business is the +business of life. It is really also, as I have said, the romance of +life. We shall admire or deplore this spirit, accordingly as we are glad +to see trade irradiated with so much poetry, or sorry to see so much +poetry wasted on trade. But it does make many people happy, like any +other hobby; and one is disposed to add that it does fill their +imaginations like any other delusion. For the true criticism of all this +commercial romance would involve a criticism of this historic phase of +commerce. These people are building on the sand, though it shines like +gold, and for them like fairy gold; but the world will remember the +legend about fairy gold. Half the financial operations they follow deal +with things that do not even exist; for in that sense all finance is a +fairy tale. Many of them are buying and selling things that do nothing +but harm; but it does them good to buy and sell them. The claim of the +romantic salesman is better justified than he realises. Business really +is romance; for it is not reality. + +There is one real advantage that America has over England, largely due +to its livelier and more impressionable ideal. America does not think +that stupidity is practical. It does not think that ideas are merely +destructive things. It does not think that a genius is only a person to +be told to go away and blow his brains out; rather it would open all its +machinery to the genius and beg him to blow his brains in. It might +attempt to use a natural force like Blake or Shelley for very ignoble +purposes; it would be quite capable of asking Blake to take his tiger +and his golden lions round as a sort of Barnum's Show, or Shelley to +hang his stars and haloed clouds among the lights of Broadway. But it +would not assume that a natural force is useless, any more than that +Niagara is useless. And there is a very definite distinction here +touching the intelligence of the trader, whatever we may think of either +course touching the intelligence of the artist. It is one thing that +Apollo should be employed by Admetus, although he is a god. It is quite +another thing that Apollo should always be sacked by Admetus, because he +is a god. Now in England, largely owing to the accident of a rivalry and +therefore a comparison with France, there arose about the end of the +eighteenth century an extraordinary notion that there was some sort of +connection between dullness and success. What the Americans call a +bonehead became what the English call a hard-headed man. The merchants +of London evinced their contempt for the fantastic logicians of Paris by +living in a permanent state of terror lest somebody should set the +Thames on fire. In this as in much else it is much easier to understand +the Americans if we connect them with the French who were their allies +than with the English who were their enemies. There are a great many +Franco-American resemblances which the practical Anglo-Saxons are of +course too hard-headed (or boneheaded) to see. American history is +haunted with the shadow of the Plebiscitary President; they have a +tradition of classical architecture for public buildings. Their cities +are planned upon the squares of Paris and not upon the labyrinth of +London. They call their cities Corinth and Syracuse, as the French +called their citizens Epaminondas and Timoleon. Their soldiers wore the +French kepi; and they make coffee admirably, and do not make tea at all. +But of all the French elements in America the most French is this real +practicality. They know that at certain times the most businesslike of +all qualities is 'l'audace, et encore de l'audace, et toujours de +l'audace.' The publisher may induce the poet to do a pot-boiler; but the +publisher would cheerfully allow the poet to set the Mississippi on +fire, if it would boil his particular pot. It is not so much that +Englishmen are stupid as that they are afraid of being clever; and it is +not so much that Americans are clever as that they do not try to be any +stupider than they are. The fire of French logic has burnt that out of +America as it has burnt it out of Europe, and of almost every place +except England. This is one of the few points on which English +insularity really is a disadvantage. It is the fatal notion that the +only sort of commonsense is to be found in compromise, and that the only +sort of compromise is to be found in confusion. This must be clearly +distinguished from the commonplace about the utilitarian world not +rising to the invisible values of genius. Under this philosophy the +utilitarian does not see the utility of genius, even when it is quite +visible. He does not see it, not because he is a utilitarian, but +because he is an idealist whose ideal is dullness. For some time the +English aspired to be stupid, prayed and hoped with soaring spiritual +ambition to be stupid. But with all their worship of success, they did +not succeed in being stupid. The natural talents of a great and +traditional nation were always breaking out in spite of them. In spite +of the merchants of London, Turner did set the Thames on fire. In spite +of our repeatedly explained preference for realism to romance, Europe +persisted in resounding with the name of Byron. And just when we had +made it perfectly clear to the French that we despised all their +flamboyant tricks, that we were a plain prosaic people and there was no +fantastic glory or chivalry about us, the very shaft we sent against +them shone with the name of Nelson, a shooting and a falling star. + + + + +_Presidents and Problems_ + + +All good Americans wish to fight the representatives they have chosen. +All good Englishmen wish to forget the representatives they have chosen. +This difference, deep and perhaps ineradicable in the temperaments of +the two peoples, explains a thousand things in their literature and +their laws. The American national poet praised his people for their +readiness 'to _rise_ against the never-ending audacity of elected +persons.' The English national anthem is content to say heartily, but +almost hastily, 'Confound their politics,' and then more cheerfully, as +if changing the subject, 'God Save the King.' For this is especially the +secret of the monarch or chief magistrate in the two countries. They arm +the President with the powers of a King, that he may be a nuisance in +politics. We deprive the King even of the powers of a President, lest he +should remind us of a politician. We desire to forget the never-ending +audacity of elected persons; and with us therefore it really never does +end. That is the practical objection to our own habit of changing the +subject, instead of changing the ministry. The King, as the Irish wit +observed, is not a subject; but in that sense the English crowned head +is not a King. He is a popular figure intended to remind us of the +England that politicians do not remember; the England of horses and +ships and gardens and good fellowship. The Americans have no such +purely social symbol; and it is rather the root than the result of this +that their social luxury, and especially their sport, are a little +lacking in humanity and humour. It is the American, much more than the +Englishman, who takes his pleasures sadly, not to say savagely. + +The genuine popularity of constitutional monarchs, in parliamentary +countries, can be explained by any practical example. Let us suppose +that great social reform, The Compulsory Haircutting Act, has just begun +to be enforced. The Compulsory Haircutting Act, as every good citizen +knows, is a statute which permits any person to grow his hair to any +length, in any wild or wonderful shape, so long as he is registered with +a hairdresser who charges a shilling. But it imposes a universal +close-shave (like that which is found so hygienic during a curative +detention at Dartmoor) on all who are registered only with a barber who +charges threepence. Thus, while the ornamental classes can continue to +ornament the street with Piccadilly weepers or chin-beards if they +choose, the working classes demonstrate the care with which the State +protects them by going about in a fresher, cooler, and cleaner +condition; a condition which has the further advantage of revealing at a +glance that outline of the criminal skull, which is so common among +them. The Compulsory Haircutting Act is thus in every way a compact and +convenient example of all our current laws about education, sport, +liquor and liberty in general. Well, the law has passed and the masses, +insensible to its scientific value, are still murmuring against it. The +ignorant peasant maiden is averse to so extreme a fashion of bobbing her +hair; and does not see how she can even be a flapper with nothing to +flap. Her father, his mind already poisoned by Bolshevists, begins to +wonder who the devil does these things, and why. In proportion as he +knows the world of to-day, he guesses that the real origin may be quite +obscure, or the real motive quite corrupt. The pressure may have come +from anybody who has gained power or money anyhow. It may come from the +foreign millionaire who owns all the expensive hairdressing saloons; it +may come from some swindler in the cutlery trade who has contracted to +sell a million bad razors. Hence the poor man looks about him with +suspicion in the street; knowing that the lowest sneak or the loudest +snob he sees may be directing the government of his country. Anybody may +have to do with politics; and this sort of thing is politics. Suddenly +he catches sight of a crowd, stops, and begins wildly to cheer a +carriage that is passing. The carriage contains the one person who has +certainly not originated any great scientific reform. He is the only +person in the commonwealth who is not allowed to cut off other people's +hair, or to take away other people's liberties. He at least is kept out +of politics; and men hold him up as they did an unspotted victim to +appease the wrath of the gods. He is their King, and the only man they +know is not their ruler. We need not be surprised that he is popular, +knowing how they are ruled. + +The popularity of a President in America is exactly the opposite. The +American Republic is the last mediaeval monarchy. It is intended that +the President shall rule, and take all the risks of ruling. If the hair +is cut he is the haircutter, the magistrate that bears not the razor in +vain. All the popular Presidents, Jackson and Lincoln and Roosevelt, +have acted as democratic despots, but emphatically not as +constitutional monarchs. In short, the names have become curiously +interchanged; and as a historical reality it is the President who ought +to be called a King. + +But it is not only true that the President could correctly be called a +King. It is also true that the King might correctly be called a +President. We could hardly find a more exact description of him than to +call him a President. What is expected in modern times of a modern +constitutional monarch is emphatically that he should preside. We expect +him to take the throne exactly as if he were taking the chair. The +chairman does not move the motion or resolution, far less vote it; he is +not supposed even to favour it. He is expected to please everybody by +favouring nobody. The primary essentials of a President or Chairman are +that he should be treated with ceremonial respect, that he should be +popular in his personality and yet impersonal in his opinions, and that +he should actually be a link between all the other persons by being +different from all of them. This is exactly what is demanded of the +constitutional monarch in modern times. It is exactly the opposite to +the American position; in which the President does not preside at all. +He moves; and the thing he moves may truly be called a motion; for the +national idea is perpetual motion. Technically it is called a message; +and might often actually be called a menace. Thus we may truly say that +the King presides and the President reigns. Some would prefer to say +that the President rules; and some Senators and members of Congress +would prefer to say that he rebels. But there is no doubt that he moves; +he does not take the chair or even the stool, but rather the stump. + +Some people seem to suppose that the fall of President Wilson was a +denial of this almost despotic ideal in America. As a matter of fact it +was the strongest possible assertion of it. The idea is that the +President shall take responsibility and risk; and responsibility means +being blamed, and risk means the risk of being blamed. The theory is +that things are done by the President; and if things go wrong, or are +alleged to go wrong, it is the fault of the President. This does not +invalidate, but rather ratifies the comparison with true monarchs such +as the mediaeval monarchs. Constitutional princes are seldom deposed; +but despots were often deposed. In the simpler races of sunnier lands, +such as Turkey, they were commonly assassinated. Even in our own history +a King often received the same respectful tribute to the responsibility +and reality of his office. But King John was attacked because he was +strong, not because he was weak. Richard the Second lost the crown +because the crown was a trophy, not because it was a trifle. And +President Wilson was deposed because he had used a power which is such, +in its nature, that a man must use it at the risk of deposition. As a +matter of fact, of course, it is easy to exaggerate Mr. Wilson's real +unpopularity, and still more easy to exaggerate Mr. Wilson's real +failure. There are a great many people in America who justify and +applaud him; and what is yet more interesting, who justify him not on +pacifist and idealistic, but on patriotic and even military grounds. It +is especially insisted by some that his demonstration, which seemed +futile as a threat against Mexico, was a very far-sighted preparation +for the threat against Prussia. But in so far as the democracy did +disagree with him, it was but the occasional and inevitable result of +the theory by which the despot has to anticipate the democracy. + +Thus the American King and the English President are the very opposite +of each other; yet they are both the varied and very national +indications of the same contemporary truth. It is the great weariness +and contempt that have fallen upon common politics in both countries. It +may be answered, with some show of truth, that the new American +President represents a return to common politics; and that in that sense +he marks a real rebuke to the last President and his more uncommon +politics. And it is true that many who put Mr. Harding in power regard +him as the symbol of something which they call normalcy; which may +roughly be translated into English by the word normality. And by this +they do mean, more or less, the return to the vague capitalist +conservatism of the nineteenth century. They might call Mr. Harding a +Victorian if they had ever lived under Victoria. Perhaps these people do +entertain the extraordinary notion that the nineteenth century was +normal. But there are very few who think so, and even they will not +think so long. The blunder is the beginning of nearly all our present +troubles. The nineteenth century was the very reverse of normal. It +suffered a most unnatural strain in the combination of political +equality in theory with extreme economic inequality in practice. +Capitalism was not a normalcy but an abnormalcy. Property is normal, and +is more normal in proportion as it is universal. Slavery may be normal +and even natural, in the sense that a bad habit may be second nature. +But Capitalism was never anything so human as a habit; we may say it was +never anything so good as a bad habit. It was never a custom; for men +never grew accustomed to it. It was never even conservative; for before +it was even created wise men had realised that it could not be +conserved. It was from the first a problem; and those who will not even +admit the Capitalist problem deserve to get the Bolshevist solution. All +things considered, I cannot say anything worse of them than that. + +The recent Presidential election preserved some trace of the old Party +System of America; but its tradition has very nearly faded like that of +the Party System of England. It is easy for an Englishman to confess +that he never quite understood the American Party System. It would +perhaps be more courageous in him, and more informing, to confess that +he never really understood the British Party System. The planks in the +two American platforms may easily be exhibited as very disconnected and +ramshackle; but our own party was as much of a patchwork, and indeed I +think even more so. Everybody knows that the two American factions were +called 'Democrat' and 'Republican.' It does not at all cover the case to +identify the former with Liberals and the latter with Conservatives. The +Democrats are the party of the South and have some true tradition from +the Southern aristocracy and the defence of Secession and State Rights. +The Republicans rose in the North as the party of Lincoln, largely +condemning slavery. But the Republicans are also the party of Tariffs, +and are at least accused of being the party of Trusts. The Democrats are +the party of Free Trade; and in the great movement of twenty years ago +the party of Free Silver. The Democrats are also the party of the Irish; +and the stones they throw at Trusts are retorted by stones thrown at +Tammany. It is easy to see all these things as curiously sporadic and +bewildering; but I am inclined to think that they are as a whole more +coherent and rational than our own old division of Liberals and +Conservatives. There is even more doubt nowadays about what is the +connecting link between the different items in the old British party +programmes. I have never been able to understand why being in favour of +Protection should have anything to do with being opposed to Home Rule; +especially as most of the people who were to receive Home Rule were +themselves in favour of Protection. I could never see what giving people +cheap bread had to do with forbidding them cheap beer; or why the party +which sympathises with Ireland cannot sympathise with Poland. I cannot +see why Liberals did not liberate public-houses or Conservatives +conserve crofters. I do not understand the principle upon which the +causes were selected on both sides; and I incline to think that it was +with the impartial object of distributing nonsense equally on both +sides. Heaven knows there is enough nonsense in American politics too; +towering and tropical nonsense like a cyclone or an earthquake. But when +all is said, I incline to think that there was more spiritual and +atmospheric cohesion in the different parts of the American party than +in those of the English party; and I think this unity was all the more +real because it was more difficult to define. The Republican party +originally stood for the triumph of the North, and the North stood for +the nineteenth century; that is for the characteristic commercial +expansion of the nineteenth century; for a firm faith in the profit and +progress of its great and growing cities, its division of labour, its +industrial science, and its evolutionary reform. The Democratic party +stood more loosely for all the elements that doubted whether this +development was democratic or was desirable; all that looked back to +Jeffersonian idealism and the serene abstractions of the eighteenth +century, or forward to Bryanite idealism and some simplified Utopia +founded on grain rather than gold. Along with this went, not at all +unnaturally, the last and lingering sentiment of the Southern squires, +who remembered a more rural civilisation that seemed by comparison +romantic. Along with this went, quite logically, the passions and the +pathos of the Irish, themselves a rural civilisation, whose basis is a +religion or what the nineteenth century tended to call a superstition. +Above all, it was perfectly natural that this tone of thought should +favour local liberties, and even a revolt on behalf of local liberties, +and should distrust the huge machine of centralised power called the +Union. In short, something very near the truth was said by a suicidally +silly Republican orator, who was running Blaine for the Presidency, when +he denounced the Democratic party as supported by 'Rome, rum, and +rebellion.' They seem to me to be three excellent things in their place; +and that is why I suspect that I should have belonged to the Democratic +party, if I had been born in America when there was a Democratic party. +But I fancy that by this time even this general distinction has become +very dim. If I had been an American twenty years ago, in the time of the +great Free Silver campaign, I should certainly never have hesitated for +an instant about my sympathies or my side. My feelings would have been +exactly those that are nobly expressed by Mr. Vachell Lindsay, in a poem +bearing the characteristic title of 'Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan.' And, +by the way, nobody can begin to sympathise with America whose soul does +not to some extent begin to swing and dance to the drums and gongs of +Mr. Vachell Lindsay's great orchestra; which has the note of his whole +nation in this: that a refined person can revile it a hundred times over +as violent and brazen and barbarous and absurd, but not as insincere; +there is something in it, and that something is the soul of many million +men. But the poet himself, in the political poem referred to, speaks of +Bryan's fall over Free Silver as 'defeat of my boyhood, defeat of my +dream'; and it is only too probable that the cause has fallen as well as +the candidate. The William Jennings Bryan of later years is not the man +whom I should have seen in my youth, with the visionary eyes of Mr. +Vachell Lindsay. He has become a commonplace Pacifist, which is in its +nature the very opposite of a revolutionist; for if men will fight +rather than sacrifice humanity on a golden cross, it cannot be wrong for +them to resist its being sacrificed to an iron cross. I came into very +indirect contact with Mr. Bryan when I was in America, in a fashion that +made me realise how hard it has become to recover the illusions of a +Bryanite. I believe that my lecture agent was anxious to arrange a +debate, and I threw out a sort of loose challenge to the effect that +woman's suffrage had weakened the position of woman; and while I was +away in the wilds of Oklahoma my lecture agent (a man of blood-curdling +courage and enterprise) asked Mr. Bryan to debate with me. Now Mr. Bryan +is one of the greatest orators of modern history, and there is no +conceivable reason why he should trouble to debate with a wandering +lecturer. But as a matter of fact he expressed himself in the most +magnanimous and courteous terms about my personal position, but said (as +I understood) that it would be improper to debate on female suffrage as +it was already a part of the political system. And when I heard that, I +could not help a sigh; for I recognised something that I knew only too +well on the front benches of my own beloved land. The great and glorious +demagogue had degenerated into a statesman. I had never expected for a +moment that the great orator could be bothered to debate with me at all; +but it had never occurred to me, as a general moral principle, that two +educated men were for ever forbidden to talk sense about a particular +topic, because a lot of other people had already voted on it. What is +the matter with that attitude is the loss of the freedom of the mind. +There can be no liberty of thought unless it is ready to unsettle what +has recently been settled, as well as what has long been settled. We are +perpetually being told in the papers that what is wanted is a strong man +who will do things. What is wanted is a strong man who will undo things; +and that will be a real test of strength. + +Anyhow, we could have believed, in the time of the Free Silver fight, +that the Democratic party was democratic with a small d. In Mr. Wilson +it was transfigured, his friends would say into a higher and his foes +into a hazier thing. And the Republican reaction against him, even where +it has been healthy, has also been hazy. In fact, it has been not so +much the victory of a political party as a relapse into repose after +certain political passions; and in that sense there is a truth in the +strange phrase about normalcy; in the sense that there is nothing more +normal than going to sleep. But an even larger truth is this; it is most +likely that America is no longer concentrated on these faction fights at +all, but is considering certain large problems upon which those factions +hardly troubled to take sides. They are too large even to be classified +as foreign policy distinct from domestic policy. They are so large as to +be inside as well as outside the state. From an English standpoint the +most obvious example is the Irish; for the Irish problem is not a +British problem, but also an American problem. And this is true even of +the great external enigma of Japan. The Japanese question may be a part +of foreign policy for America, but it is a part of domestic policy for +California. And the same is true of that other intense and intelligent +Eastern people, the genius and limitations of which have troubled the +world so much longer. What the Japs are in California, the Jews are in +America. That is, they are a piece of foreign policy that has become +imbedded in domestic policy; something which is found inside but still +has to be regarded from the outside. On these great international +matters I doubt if Americans got much guidance from their party system; +especially as most of these questions have grown very recently and +rapidly to enormous size. Men are left free to judge of them with fresh +minds. And that is the truth in the statement that the Washington +Conference has opened the gates of a new world. + +On the relations to England and Ireland I will not attempt to dwell +adequately here. I have already noted that my first interview was with +an Irishman, and my first impression from that interview a vivid sense +of the importance of Ireland in Anglo-American relations; and I have +said something of the Irish problem, prematurely and out of its proper +order, under the stress of that sense of urgency. Here I will only add +two remarks about the two countries respectively. A great many British +journalists have recently imagined that they were pouring oil upon the +troubled waters, when they were rather pouring out oil to smooth the +downward path; and to turn the broad road to destruction into a +butter-slide. They seem to have no notion of what to do, except to say +what they imagine the very stupidest of their readers would be pleased +to hear, and conceal whatever the most intelligent of their readers +would probably like to know. They therefore informed the public that +'the majority of Americans' had abandoned all sympathy with Ireland, +because of its alleged sympathy with Germany; and that this majority of +Americans was now ardently in sympathy with its English brothers across +the sea. Now to begin with, such critics have no notion of what they are +saying when they talk about the majority of Americans. To anybody who +has happened to look in, let us say, on the city of Omaha, Nebraska, the +remark will have something enormous and overwhelming about it. It is +like saying that the majority of the inhabitants of China would agree +with the Chinese Ambassador in a preference for dining at the Savoy +rather than the Ritz. There are millions and millions of people living +in those great central plains of the North American Continent of whom +it would be nearer the truth to say that they have never heard of +England, or of Ireland either, than to say that their first emotional +movement is a desire to come to the rescue of either of them. It is +perfectly true that the more monomaniac sort of Sinn Feiner might +sometimes irritate this innocent and isolated American spirit by being +pro-Irish. It is equally true that a traditional Bostonian or Virginian +might irritate it by being pro-English. The only difference is that +large numbers of pure Irishmen are scattered in those far places, and +large numbers of pure Englishmen are not. But it is truest of all to say +that neither England nor Ireland so much as crosses the mind of most of +them once in six months. Painting up large notices of 'Watch Us Grow,' +making money by farming with machinery, together with an occasional +hold-up with six-shooters and photographs of a beautiful murderess or +divorcee, fill up the round of their good and happy lives, and fleet the +time carelessly as in the golden age. + +But putting aside all this vast and distant democracy, which is the real +'majority of Americans,' and confining ourselves to that older culture +on the eastern coast which the critics probably had in mind, we shall +find the case more comforting but not to be covered with cheap and false +comfort. Now it is perfectly true that any Englishman coming to this +eastern coast, as I did, finds himself not only most warmly welcomed as +a guest, but most cordially complimented as an Englishman. Men recall +with pride the branches of their family that belong to England or the +English counties where they were rooted; and there are enthusiasms for +English literature and history which are as spontaneous as patriotism +itself. Something of this may be put down to a certain promptitude and +flexibility in all American kindness, which is never sufficiently stodgy +to be called good nature. The Englishman does sometimes wonder whether +if he had been a Russian, his hosts would not have remembered remote +Russian aunts and uncles and disinterred a Muscovite great-grandmother; +or whether if he had come from Iceland, they would not have known as +much about Icelandic sagas and been as sympathetic about the absence of +Icelandic snakes. But with a fair review of the proportions of the case +he will dismiss this conjecture, and come to the conclusion that a +number of educated Americans are very warmly and sincerely sympathetic +with England. + +What I began to feel, with a certain creeping chill, was that they were +only too sympathetic with England. The word sympathetic has sometimes +rather a double sense. The impression I received was that all these +chivalrous Southerners and men mellow with Bostonian memories were +_rallying_ to England. They were on the defensive; and it was poor old +England that they were defending. Their attitude implied that somebody +or something was leaving her undefended, or finding her indefensible. +The burden of that hearty chorus was that England was not so black as +she was painted; it seemed clear that somewhere or other she was being +painted pretty black. But there was something else that made me +uncomfortable; it was not only the sense of being somewhat boisterously +forgiven; it was also something involving questions of power as well as +morality. Then it seemed to me that a new sensation turned me hot and +cold; and I felt something I have never before felt in a foreign land. +Never had my father or my grandfather known that sensation; never during +the great and complex and perhaps perilous expansion of our power and +commerce in the last hundred years had an Englishman heard exactly that +note in a human voice. England was being _pitied_. I, as an Englishman, +was not only being pardoned but pitied. My country was beginning to be +an object of compassion, like Poland or Spain. My first emotion, full of +the mood and movement of a hundred years, was one of furious anger. But +the anger has given place to anxiety; and the anxiety is not yet at an +end. + +It is not my business here to expound my view of English politics, still +less of European politics or the politics of the world; but to put down +a few impressions of American travel. On many points of European +politics the impression will be purely negative; I am sure that most +Americans have no notion of the position of France or the position of +Poland. But if English readers want the truth, I am sure this is the +truth about their notion of the position of England. They are wondering, +or those who are watching are wondering, whether the term of her success +is come and she is going down the dark road after Prussia. Many are +sorry if this is so; some are glad if it is so; but all are seriously +considering the probability of its being so. And herein lay especially +the horrible folly of our Black-and-Tan terrorism over the Irish people. +I have noted that the newspapers told us that America had been chilled +in its Irish sympathies by Irish detachment during the war. It is the +painful truth that any advantage we might have had from this we +ourselves immediately proceeded to destroy. Ireland _might_ have put +herself wrong with America by her attitude about Belgium, if England had +not instantly proceeded to put herself more wrong by her attitude +towards Ireland. It is quite true that two blacks do not make a white; +but you cannot send a black to reproach people with tolerating +blackness; and this is quite as true when one is a Black Brunswicker and +the other a Black-and-Tan. It is true that since then England has made +surprisingly sweeping concessions; concessions so large as to increase +the amazement that the refusal should have been so long. But +unfortunately the combination of the two rather clinches the conception +of our decline. If the concession had come before the terror, it would +have looked like an attempt to emancipate, and would probably have +succeeded. Coming so abruptly after the terror, it looked only like an +attempt to tyrannise, and an attempt that failed. It was partly an +inheritance from a stupid tradition, which tried to combine what it +called firmness with what it called conciliation; as if when we made up +our minds to soothe a man with a five-pound note, we always took care to +undo our own action by giving him a kick as well. The English politician +has often done that; though there is nothing to be said of such a fool, +except that he has wasted a fiver. But in this case he gave the kick +first, received a kicking in return, and _then_ gave up the money; and +it was hard for the bystanders to say anything except that he had been +badly beaten. The combination and sequence of events seems almost as if +it were arranged to suggest the dark and ominous parallel. The first +action looked only too like the invasion of Belgium, and the second like +the evacuation of Belgium. So that vast and silent crowd in the West +looked at the British Empire, as men look at a great tower that has +begun to lean. Thus it was that while I found real pleasure, I could not +find unrelieved consolation in the sincere compliments paid to my +country by so many cultivated Americans; their memories of homely +corners of historic counties from which their fathers came, of the +cathedral that dwarfs the town, or the inn at the turning of the road. +There was something in their voices and the look in their eyes which +from the first disturbed me. So I have heard good Englishmen, who died +afterwards the death of soldiers, cry aloud in 1914, 'It seems +impossible, of those jolly Bavarians!' or, 'I will never believe it, +when I think of the time I had at Heidelberg!' + +But there are other things besides the parallel of Prussia or the +problem of Ireland. The American press is much freer than our own; the +American public is much more familiar with the discussion of corruption +than our own; and it is much more conscious of the corruption of our +politics than we are. Almost any man in America may speak of the Marconi +Case; many a man in England does not even know what it means. Many +imagine that it had something to do with the propriety of politicians +speculating on the Stock Exchange. So that it means a great deal to +Americans to say that one figure in that drama is ruling India and +another is ruling Palestine. And this brings me to another problem, +which is also dealt with much more openly in America than in England. I +mention it here only because it is a perfect model of the +misunderstandings in the modern world. If any one asks for an example +of exactly how the important part of every story is left out, and even +the part that is reported is not understood, he could hardly have a +stronger case than the story of Henry Ford of Detroit. + +When I was in Detroit I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Ford, and it +really was a pleasure. He is a man quite capable of views which I think +silly to the point of insanity; but he is not the vulgar benevolent +boss. It must be admitted that he is a millionaire; but he cannot really +be convicted of being a philanthropist. He is not a man who merely wants +to run people; it is rather his views that run him, and perhaps run away +with him. He has a distinguished and sensitive face; he really invented +things himself, unlike most men who profit by inventions; he is +something of an artist and not a little of a fighter. A man of that type +is always capable of being wildly wrong, especially in the sectarian +atmosphere of America; and Mr. Ford has been wrong before and may be +wrong now. He is chiefly known in England for a project which I think +very preposterous; that of the Peace Ship, which came to Europe during +the war. But he is not known in England at all in connection with a much +more important campaign, which he has conducted much more recently and +with much more success; a campaign against the Jews like one of the +Anti-Semitic campaigns of the Continent. Now any one who knows anything +of America knows exactly what the Peace Ship would be like. It was a +national combination of imagination and ignorance, which has at least +some of the beauty of innocence. Men living in those huge, hedgeless +inland plains know nothing about frontiers or the tragedy of a fight for +freedom; they know nothing of alarum and armaments or the peril of a +high civilisation poised like a precious statue within reach of a mailed +fist. They are accustomed to a cosmopolitan citizenship, in which men of +all bloods mingle and in which men of all creeds are counted equal. +Their highest moral boast is humanitarianism; their highest mental boast +is enlightenment. In a word, they are the very last men in the world who +would seem likely to pride themselves on a prejudice against the Jews. +They have no religion in particular, except a sincere sentiment which +they would call 'true Christianity,' and which specially forbids an +attack on the Jews. They have a patriotism which prides itself on +assimilating all types, including the Jews. Mr. Ford is a pure product +of this pacific world, as was sufficiently proved by his pacifism. If a +man of that sort has discovered that there is a Jewish problem, it is +because there is a Jewish problem. It is certainly not because there is +an Anti-Jewish prejudice. For if there had been any amount of such +racial and religious prejudice, he would have been about the very last +sort of man to have it. His particular part of the world would have been +the very last place to produce it. We may well laugh at the Peace Ship, +and its wild course and inevitable shipwreck; but remember that its very +wildness was an attempt to sail as far as possible from the castle of +Front-de-Boeuf. Everything that made him Anti-War should have +prevented him from being Anti-Semite. We may mock him for being mad on +peace; but we cannot say that he was so mad on peace that he made war on +Israel. + +It happened that, when I was in America, I had just published some +studies on Palestine; and I was besieged by Rabbis lamenting my +'prejudice.' I pointed out that they would have got hold of the wrong +word, even if they had not got hold of the wrong man. As a point of +personal autobiography, I do not happen to be a man who dislikes Jews; +though I believe that some men do. I have had Jews among my most +intimate and faithful friends since my boyhood, and I hope to have them +till I die. But even if I did have a dislike of Jews, it would be +illogical to call that dislike a prejudice. Prejudice is a very lucid +Latin word meaning the bias which a man has before he considers a case. +I might be said to be prejudiced against a Hairy Ainu because of his +name, for I have never been on terms of such intimacy with him as to +correct my preconceptions. But if after moving about in the modern world +and meeting Jews, knowing Jews, doing business with Jews, and reading +and hearing about Jews, I came to the conclusion that I did not like +Jews, my conclusion certainly would not be a prejudice. It would simply +be an opinion; and one I should be perfectly entitled to hold; though as +a matter of fact I do not hold it. No extravagance of hatred merely +following on _experience_ of Jews can properly be called a prejudice. + +Now the point is that this new American Anti-Semitism springs from +experience and nothing but experience. There is no prejudice for it to +spring from. Or rather the prejudice is all the other way. All the +traditions of that democracy, and very creditable traditions too, are in +favour of toleration and a sort of idealistic indifference. The +sympathies in which these nineteenth-century people were reared were all +against Front-de-Boeuf and in favour of Rebecca. They inherited a +prejudice against Anti-Semitism; a prejudice of Anti-Anti-Semitism. +These people of the plains have found the Jewish problem exactly as they +might have struck oil; because it is _there_, and not even because they +were looking for it. Their view of the problem, like their use of the +oil, is not always satisfactory; and with parts of it I entirely +disagree. But the point is that the thing which I call a problem, and +others call a prejudice, has now appeared in broad daylight in a new +country where there is no priestcraft, no feudalism, no ancient +superstition to explain it. It has appeared because it _is_ a problem; +and those are the best friends of the Jews, including many of the Jews +themselves, who are trying to find a solution. That is the meaning of +the incident of Mr. Henry Ford of Detroit; and you will hardly hear an +intelligible word about it in England. + +The talk of prejudice against the Japs is not unlike the talk of +prejudice against the Jews. Only in this case our indifference has +really the excuse of ignorance. We used to lecture the Russians for +oppressing the Jews, before we heard the word Bolshevist and began to +lecture them for being oppressed by the Jews. In the same way we have +long lectured the Californians for oppressing the Japs, without allowing +for the possibility of their foreseeing that the oppression may soon be +the other way. As in the other case, it may be a persecution but it is +not a prejudice. The Californians know more about the Japanese than we +do; and our own colonists when they are placed in the same position +generally say the same thing. I will not attempt to deal adequately here +with the vast international and diplomatic problems which arise with the +name of the new power in the Far East. It is possible that Japan, having +imitated European militarism, may imitate European pacifism. I cannot +honestly pretend to know what the Japanese mean by the one any more than +by the other. But when Englishmen, especially English Liberals like +myself, take a superior and censorious attitude towards Americans and +especially Californians, I am moved to make a final remark. When a +considerable number of Englishmen talk of the grave contending claims of +our friendship with Japan and our friendship with America, when they +finally tend in a sort of summing up to dwell on the superior virtues of +Japan, I may be permitted to make a single comment. + +We are perpetually boring the world and each other with talk about the +bonds that bind us to America. We are perpetually crying aloud that +England and America are very much alike, especially England. We are +always insisting that the two are identical in all the things in which +they most obviously differ. We are always saying that both stand for +democracy, when we should not consent to stand their democracy for half +a day. We are always saying that at least we are all Anglo-Saxons, when +we are descended from Romans and Normans and Britons and Danes, and they +are descended from Irishmen and Italians and Slavs and Germans. We tell +a people whose very existence is a revolt against the British Crown that +they are passionately devoted to the British Constitution. We tell a +nation whose whole policy has been isolation and independence that with +us she can bear safely the White Man's Burden of universal empire. We +tell a continent crowded with Irishmen to thank God that the Saxon can +always rule the Celt. We tell a populace whose very virtues are lawless +that together we uphold the Reign of Law. We recognise our own +law-abiding character in people who make laws that neither they nor +anybody else can abide. We congratulate them on clinging to all they +have cast away, and on imitating everything which they came into +existence to insult. And when we have established all these nonsensical +analogies with a nonexistent nation, we wait until there is a crisis in +which we really are at one with America, and then we falter and threaten +to fail her. In a battle where we really are of one blood, the blood of +the great white race throughout the world, when we really have one +language, the fundamental alphabet of Cadmus and the script of Rome, +when we really do represent the same reign of law, the common conscience +of Christendom and the morals of men baptized, when we really have an +implicit faith and honour and type of freedom to summon up our souls as +with trumpets--_then_ many of us begin to weaken and waver and wonder +whether there is not something very nice about little yellow men, whose +heroic stories revolve round polygamy and suicide, and whose heroes wore +two swords and worshipped the ancestors of the Mikado. + + + + +_Prohibition in Fact and Fancy_ + + +I went to America with some notion of not discussing Prohibition. But I +soon found that well-to-do Americans were only too delighted to discuss +it over the nuts and wine. They were even willing, if necessary, to +dispense with the nuts. I am far from sneering at this; having a general +philosophy which need not here be expounded, but which may be symbolised +by saying that monkeys can enjoy nuts but only men can enjoy wine. But +if I am to deal with Prohibition, there is no doubt of the first thing +to be said about it. The first thing to be said about it is that it does +not exist. It is to some extent enforced among the poor; at any rate it +was intended to be enforced among the poor; though even among them I +fancy it is much evaded. It is certainly not enforced among the rich; +and I doubt whether it was intended to be. I suspect that this has +always happened whenever this negative notion has taken hold of some +particular province or tribe. Prohibition never prohibits. It never has +in history; not even in Moslem history; and it never will. Mahomet at +least had the argument of a climate and not the interest of a class. But +if a test is needed, consider what part of Moslem culture has passed +permanently into our own modern culture. You will find the one Moslem +poem that has really pierced is a Moslem poem in praise of wine. The +crown of all the victories of the Crescent is that nobody reads the +Koran and everybody reads the Rubaiyat. + +Most of us remember with satisfaction an old picture in _Punch_, +representing a festive old gentleman in a state of collapse on the +pavement, and a philanthropic old lady anxiously calling the attention +of a cabman to the calamity. The old lady says, 'I'm sure this poor +gentleman is ill,' and the cabman replies with fervour, 'Ill! I wish I +'ad 'alf 'is complaint.' + +We talk about unconscious humour; but there is such a thing as +unconscious seriousness. Flippancy is a flower whose roots are often +underground in the subconsciousness. Many a man talks sense when he +thinks he is talking nonsense; touches on a conflict of ideas as if it +were only a contradiction of language, or really makes a parallel when +he means only to make a pun. Some of the _Punch_ jokes of the best +period are examples of this; and that quoted above is a very strong +example of it. The cabman meant what he said; but he said a great deal +more than he meant. His utterance contained fine philosophical doctrines +and distinctions of which he was not perhaps entirely conscious. The +spirit of the English language, the tragedy and comedy of the condition +of the English people, spoke through him as the god spoke through a +teraph-head or brazen mask of oracle. And the oracle is an omen; and in +some sense an omen of doom. + +Observe, to begin with, the sobriety of the cabman. Note his measure, +his moderation; or to use the yet truer term, his temperance. He only +wishes to have half the old gentleman's complaint. The old gentleman is +welcome to the other half, along with all the other pomps and luxuries +of his superior social station. There is nothing Bolshevist or even +Communist about the temperance cabman. He might almost be called +Distributist, in the sense that he wishes to distribute the old +gentleman's complaint more equally between the old gentleman and +himself. And, of course, the social relations there represented are very +much truer to life than it is fashionable to suggest. By the realism of +this picture Mr. Punch made amends for some more snobbish pictures, with +the opposite social moral. It will remain eternally among his real +glories that he exhibited a picture in which the cabman was sober and +the gentleman was drunk. Despite many ideas to the contrary, it was +emphatically a picture of real life. The truth is subject to the +simplest of all possible tests. If the cabman were really and truly +drunk he would not be a cabman, for he could not drive a cab. If he had +the whole of the old gentleman's complaint, he would be sitting happily +on the pavement beside the old gentleman; a symbol of social equality +found at last, and the levelling of all classes of mankind. I do not say +that there has never been such a monster known as a drunken cabman; I do +not say that the driver may not sometimes have approximated imprudently +to three-quarters of the complaint, instead of adhering to his severe +but wise conception of half of it. But I do say that most men of the +world, if they spoke sincerely, could testify to more examples of +helplessly drunken gentlemen put inside cabs than of helplessly drunken +drivers on top of them. Philanthropists and officials, who never look at +people but only at papers, probably have a mass of social statistics to +the contrary; founded on the simple fact that cabmen can be +cross-examined about their habits and gentlemen cannot. Social workers +probably have the whole thing worked out in sections and compartments, +showing how the extreme intoxication of cabmen compares with the +parallel intoxication of costermongers; or measuring the drunkenness of +a dustman against the drunkenness of a crossing-sweeper. But there is +more practical experience embodied in the practical speech of the +English; and in the proverb that says 'as drunk as a lord.' + +Now Prohibition, whether as a proposal in England or a pretence in +America, simply means that the man who has drunk less shall have no +drink, and the man who has drunk more shall have all the drink. It means +that the old gentleman shall be carried home in the cab drunker than +ever; but that, in order to make it quite safe for him to drink to +excess, the man who drives him shall be forbidden to drink even in +moderation. That is what it means; that is all it means; that is all it +ever will mean. It tends to that in Moslem countries; where the +luxurious and advanced drink champagne, while the poor and fanatical +drink water. It means that in modern America; where the wealthy are all +at this moment sipping their cocktails, and discussing how much harder +labourers can be made to work if only they can be kept from festivity. +This is what it means and all it means; and men are divided about it +according to whether they believe in a certain transcendental concept +called 'justice,' expressed in a more mystical paradox as the equality +of men. So long as you do not believe in justice, and so long as you are +rich and really confident of remaining so, you can have Prohibition and +be as drunk as you choose. + +I see that some remarks by the Rev. R. J. Campbell, dealing with social +conditions in America, are reported in the press. They include some +observations about Sinn Fein in which, as in most of Mr. Campbell's +allusions to Ireland, it is not difficult to detect his dismal origin, +or the acrid smell of the smoke of Belfast. But the remarks about +America are valuable in the objective sense, over and above their +philosophy. He believes that Prohibition will survive and be a success, +nor does he seem himself to regard the prospect with any special +disfavour. But he frankly and freely testifies to the truth I have +asserted; that Prohibition does not prohibit, so far as the wealthy are +concerned. He testifies to constantly seeing wine on the table, as will +any other grateful guest of the generous hospitality of America; and he +implies humorously that he asked no questions about the story told him +of the old stocks in the cellars. So there is no dispute about the +facts; and we come back as before to the principles. Is Mr. Campbell +content with a Prohibition which is another name for Privilege? If so, +he has simply absorbed along with his new theology a new morality which +is different from mine. But he does state both sides of the inequality +with equal logic and clearness; and in these days of intellectual fog +that alone is like a ray of sunshine. + +Now my primary objection to Prohibition is not based on any arguments +against it, but on the one argument for it. I need nothing more for its +condemnation than the only thing that is said in its defence. It is said +by capitalists all over America; and it is very clearly and correctly +reported by Mr. Campbell himself. The argument is that employees work +harder, and therefore employers get richer. That this idea should be +taken calmly, by itself, as the test of a problem of liberty, is in +itself a final testimony to the presence of slavery. It shows that +people have completely forgotten that there is any other test except the +servile test. Employers are willing that workmen should have exercise, +as it may help them to do more work. They are even willing that workmen +should have leisure; for the more intelligent capitalists can see that +this also really means that they can do more work. But they are not in +any way willing that workmen should have fun; for fun only increases the +happiness and not the utility of the worker. Fun is freedom; and in that +sense is an end in itself. It concerns the man not as a worker but as a +citizen, or even as a soul; and the soul in that sense is an end in +itself. That a man shall have a reasonable amount of comedy and poetry +and even fantasy in his life is part of his spiritual health, which is +for the service of God; and not merely for his mechanical health, which +is now bound to the service of man. The very test adopted has all the +servile implication; the test of what we can get out of him, instead of +the test of what he can get out of life. + +Mr. Campbell is reported to have suggested, doubtless rather as a +conjecture than a prophecy, that England may find it necessary to become +teetotal in order to compete commercially with the efficiency and +economy of teetotal America. Well, in the eighteenth and early +nineteenth centuries there was in America one of the most economical and +efficient of all forms of labour. It did not happen to be feasible for +the English to compete with it by copying it. There were so many +humanitarian prejudices about in those days. But economically there +seems to be no reason why a man should not have prophesied that England +would be forced to adopt American Slavery then, as she is urged to adopt +American Prohibition now. Perhaps such a prophet would have prophesied +rightly. Certainly it is not impossible that universal Slavery might +have been the vision of Calhoun as universal Prohibition seems to be the +vision of Campbell. The old England of 1830 would have said that such a +plea for slavery was monstrous; but what would it have said of a plea +for enforced water-drinking? Nevertheless, the nobler Servile State of +Calhoun collapsed before it could spread to Europe. And there is always +the hope that the same may happen to the far more materialistic Utopia +of Mr. Campbell and Soft Drinks. + +Abstract morality is very important; and it may well clear the mind to +consider what would be the effect of Prohibition in America, if it were +introduced there. It would, of course, be a decisive departure from the +tradition of the Declaration of Independence. Those who deny that are +hardly serious enough to demand attention. It is enough to say that they +are reduced to minimising that document in defence of Prohibition, +exactly as the slave-owners were reduced to minimising it in defence of +Slavery. They are reduced to saying that the Fathers of the Republic +meant no more than that they would not be ruled by a king. And they are +obviously open to the reply which Lincoln gave to Douglas on the slavery +question; that if that great charter was limited to certain events in +the eighteenth century, it was hardly worth making such a fuss about in +the nineteenth--or in the twentieth. But they are also open to another +reply which is even more to the point, when they pretend that +Jefferson's famous preamble only means to say that monarchy is wrong. +They are maintaining that Jefferson only meant to say something that he +does not say at all. The great preamble does not say that all +monarchical government must be wrong; on the contrary, it rather implies +that most government is right. It speaks of human governments in general +as justified by the necessity of defending certain personal rights. I +see no reason whatever to suppose that it would not include any royal +government that does defend those rights. Still less do I doubt what it +would say of a republican government that does destroy those rights. + +But what are those rights? Sophists can always debate about their +degree; but even sophists cannot debate about their direction. Nobody in +his five wits will deny that Jeffersonian democracy wished to give the +law a general control in more public things, but the citizens a more +general liberty in private things. Wherever we draw the line, liberty +can only be personal liberty; and the most personal liberties must at +least be the last liberties we lose. But to-day they are the first +liberties we lose. It is not a question of drawing the line in the right +place, but of beginning at the wrong end. What are the rights of man, if +they do not include the normal right to regulate his own health, in +relation to the normal risks of diet and daily life? Nobody can pretend +that beer is a poison as prussic acid is a poison; that all the millions +of civilised men who drank it all fell down dead when they had touched +it. Its use and abuse is obviously a matter of judgment; and there can +be no personal liberty, if it is not a matter of private judgment. It +is not in the least a question of drawing the line between liberty and +licence. If this is licence, there is no such thing as liberty. It is +plainly impossible to find any right more individual or intimate. To say +that a man has a right to a vote, but not a right to a voice about the +choice of his dinner, is like saying that he has a right to his hat but +not a right to his head. + +Prohibition, therefore, plainly violates the rights of man, if there are +any rights of man. What its supporters really mean is that there are +none. And in suggesting this, they have all the advantages that every +sceptic has when he supports a negation. That sort of ultimate +scepticism can only be retorted upon itself, and we can point out to +them that they can no more prove the right of the city to be oppressive +than we can prove the right of the citizen to be free. In the primary +metaphysics of such a claim, it would surely be easier to make it out +for a single conscious soul than for an artificial social combination. +If there are no rights of men, what are the rights of nations? Perhaps a +nation has no claim to self-government. Perhaps it has no claim to good +government. Perhaps it has no claim to any sort of government or any +sort of independence. Perhaps they will say _that_ is not implied in the +Declaration of Independence. But without going deep into my reasons for +believing in natural rights, or rather in supernatural rights (and +Jefferson certainly states them as supernatural), I am content here to +note that a man's treatment of his own body, in relation to traditional +and ordinary opportunities for bodily excess, is as near to his +self-respect as social coercion can possibly go; and that when that is +gone there is nothing left. If coercion applies to that, it applies to +everything; and in the future of this controversy it obviously will +apply to everything. When I was in America, people were already applying +it to tobacco. I never can see why they should not apply it to talking. +Talking often goes with tobacco as it goes with beer; and what is more +relevant, talking may often lead both to beer and tobacco. Talking often +drives a man to drink, both negatively in the form of nagging and +positively in the form of bad company. If the American Puritan is so +anxious to be a _censor morum_, he should obviously put a stop to the +evil communications that really corrupt good manners. He should +reintroduce the Scold's Bridle among the other Blue Laws for a land of +blue devils. He should gag all gay deceivers and plausible cynics; he +should cut off all flattering lips and the tongue that speaketh proud +things. Nobody can doubt that nine-tenths of the harm in the world is +done simply by talking. Jefferson and the old democrats allowed people +to talk, not because they were unaware of this fact, but because they +were fettered by this old fancy of theirs about freedom and the rights +of man. But since we have already abandoned that doctrine in a final +fashion, I cannot see why the new principle should not be applied +intelligently; and in that case it would be applied to the control of +conversation. The State would provide us with forms already filled up +with the subjects suitable for us to discuss at breakfast; perhaps +allowing us a limited number of epigrams each. Perhaps we should have to +make a formal application in writing, to be allowed to make a joke that +had just occurred to us in conversation. And the committee would +consider it in due course. Perhaps it would be effected in a more +practical fashion, and the private citizens would be shut up as the +public-houses were shut up. Perhaps they would all wear gags, which the +policeman would remove at stated hours; and their mouths would be opened +from one to three, as now in England even the public-houses are from +time to time accessible to the public. To some this will sound +fantastic; but not so fantastic as Jefferson would have thought +Prohibition. But there is one sense in which it is indeed fantastic, for +by hypothesis it leaves out the favouritism that is the fundamental of +the whole matter. The only sense in which we can say that logic will +never go so far as this is that logic will never go the length of +equality. It is perfectly possible that the same forces that have +forbidden beer may go on to forbid tobacco. But they will in a special +and limited sense forbid tobacco--but not cigars. Or at any rate not +expensive cigars. In America, where large numbers of ordinary men smoke +rather ordinary cigars, there would be doubtless a good opportunity of +penalising a very ordinary pleasure. But the Havanas of the millionaire +will be all right. So it will be if ever the Puritans bring back the +Scold's Bridle and the statutory silence of the populace. It will only +be the populace that is silent. The politicians will go on talking. + +These I believe to be the broad facts of the problem of Prohibition; but +it would not be fair to leave it without mentioning two other causes +which, if not defences, are at least excuses. The first is that +Prohibition was largely passed in a sort of fervour or fever of +self-sacrifice, which was a part of the passionate patriotism of America +in the war. As I have remarked elsewhere, those who have any notion of +what that national unanimity was like will smile when they see America +made a model of mere international idealism. Prohibition was partly a +sort of patriotic renunciation; for the popular instinct, like every +poetic instinct, always tends at great crises to great gestures of +renunciation. But this very fact, while it makes the inhumanity far more +human, makes it far less final and convincing. Men cannot remain +standing stiffly in such symbolical attitudes; nor can a permanent +policy be founded on something analogous to flinging a gauntlet or +uttering a battle-cry. We might as well expect all the Yale students to +remain through life with their mouths open, exactly as they were when +they uttered the college yell. It would be as reasonable as to expect +them to remain through life with their mouths shut, while the wine-cup +which has been the sacrament of all poets and lovers passed round among +all the youth of the world. This point appeared very plainly in a +discussion I had with a very thoughtful and sympathetic American critic, +a clergyman writing in an Anglo-Catholic magazine. He put the sentiment +of these healthier Prohibitionists, which had so much to do with the +passing of Prohibition, by asking, 'May not a man who is asked to give +up his blood for his country be asked to give up his beer for his +country?' And this phrase clearly illuminates all the limitations of the +case. I have never denied, in principle, that it might in some abnormal +crisis be lawful for a government to lock up the beer, or to lock up the +bread. In that sense I am quite prepared to treat the sacrifice of beer +in the same way as the sacrifice of blood. But is my American critic +really ready to treat the sacrifice of blood in the same way as the +sacrifice of beer? Is bloodshed to be as prolonged and protracted as +Prohibition? Is the normal noncombatant to shed his gore as often as he +misses his drink? I can imagine people submitting to a special +regulation, as I can imagine them serving in a particular war. I do +indeed despise the political knavery that deliberately passes drink +regulations as war measures and then preserves them as peace measures. +But that is not a question of whether drink and drunkenness are wrong, +but of whether lying and swindling are wrong. But I never denied that +there might need to be exceptional sacrifices for exceptional occasions; +and war is in its nature an exception. Only, if war is the exception, +why should Prohibition be the rule? If the surrender of beer is worthy +to be compared to the shedding of blood, why then blood ought to be +flowing for ever like a fountain in the public squares of Philadelphia +and New York. If my critic wants to complete his parallel, he must draw +up rather a remarkable programme for the daily life of the ordinary +citizens. He must suppose that, through all their lives, they are +paraded every day at lunch time and prodded with bayonets to show that +they will shed their blood for their country. He must suppose that every +evening, after a light repast of poison gas and shrapnel, they are made +to go to sleep in a trench under a permanent drizzle of shell-fire. It +is surely obvious that if this were the normal life of the citizen, the +citizen would have no normal life. The common sense of the thing is that +sacrifices of this sort are admirable but abnormal. It is not normal for +the State to be perpetually regulating our days with the discipline of a +fighting regiment; and it is not normal for the State to be perpetually +regulating our diet with the discipline of a famine. To say that every +citizen must be subject to control in such bodily things is like saying +that every Christian ought to tear himself with red-hot pincers because +the Christian martyrs did their duty in time of persecution. A man has a +right to control his body, though in a time of martyrdom he may give his +body to be burned; and a man has a right to control his bodily health, +though in a state of siege he may give his body to be starved. Thus, +though the patriotic defence was a sincere defence, it is a defence that +comes back on the defenders like a boomerang. For it proves only that +Prohibition ought to be ephemeral, unless war ought to be eternal. + +The other excuse is much less romantic and much more realistic. I have +already said enough of the cause which is really realistic. The real +power behind Prohibition is simply the plutocratic power of the pushing +employers who wish to get the last inch of work out of their workmen. +But before the progress of modern plutocracy had reached this stage, +there was a predetermining cause for which there was a much better case. +The whole business began with the problem of black labour. I have not +attempted in this book to deal adequately with the question of the +negro. I have refrained for a reason that may seem somewhat sensational; +that I do not think I have anything particularly valuable to say or +suggest. I do not profess to understand this singularly dark and +intricate matter; and I see no use in men who have no solution filling +up the gap with sentimentalism. The chief thing that struck me about the +coloured people I saw was their charming and astonishing cheerfulness. +My sense of pathos was appealed to much more by the Red Indians; and +indeed I wish I had more space here to do justice to the Red Indians. +They did heroic service in the war; and more than justified their +glorious place in the day-dreams and nightmares of our boyhood. But the +negro problem certainly demands more study than a sight-seer could give +it; and this book is controversial enough about things that I have +really considered, without permitting it to exhibit me as a sight-seer +who shoots at sight. But I believe that it was always common ground to +people of common sense that the enslavement and importation of negroes +had been the crime and catastrophe of American history. The only +difference was originally that one side thought that, the crime once +committed, the only reparation was their freedom; while the other +thought that, the crime once committed, the only safety was their +slavery. It was only comparatively lately, by a process I shall have to +indicate elsewhere, that anything like a positive case for slavery +became possible. Now among the many problems of the presence of an alien +and at least recently barbaric figure among the citizens, there was a +very real problem of drink. Drink certainly has a very exceptionally +destructive effect upon negroes in their native countries; and it was +alleged to have a peculiarly demoralising effect upon negroes in the +United States; to call up the passions that are the particular +temptation of the race and to lead to appalling outrages that are +followed by appalling popular vengeance. However this may be, many of +the states of the American Union, which first forbade liquor to +citizens, meant simply to forbid it to negroes. But they had not the +moral courage to deny that negroes are citizens. About all their +political expedients necessarily hung the load that hangs so heavy on +modern politics; hypocrisy. The superior race had to rule by a sort of +secret society organised against the inferior. The American politicians +dared not disfranchise the negroes; so they coerced everybody in theory +and only the negroes in practice. The drinking of the white men became +as much a conspiracy as the shooting by the white horsemen of the +Ku-Klux Klan. And in that connection, it may be remarked in passing that +the comparison illustrates the idiocy of supposing that the moral sense +of mankind will ever support the prohibition of drinking as if it were +something like the prohibition of shooting. Shooting in America is +liable to take a free form, and sometimes a very horrible form; as when +private bravos were hired to kill workmen in the capitalistic interests +of that pure patron of disarmament, Carnegie. But when some of the rich +Americans gravely tell us that their drinking cannot be interfered with, +because they are only using up their existing stocks of wine, we may +well be disposed to smile. When I was there, at any rate, they were +using them up very fast; and with no apparent fears about the supply. +But if the Ku-Klux Klan had started suddenly shooting everybody they +didn't like in broad daylight, and had blandly explained that they were +only using up the stocks of their ammunition, left over from the Civil +War, it seems probable that there would at least have been a little +curiosity about how much they had left. There might at least have been +occasional inquiries about how long it was likely to go on. It is even +conceivable that some steps might have been taken to stop it. + +No steps are taken to stop the drinking of the rich, chiefly because +the rich now make all the rules and therefore all the exceptions, but +partly because nobody ever could feel the full moral seriousness of this +particular rule. And the truth is, as I have indicated, that it was +originally established as an exception and not as a rule. The +emancipated negro was an exception in the community, and a certain plan +was, rightly or wrongly, adopted to meet his case. A law was made +professedly for everybody and practically only for him. Prohibition is +only important as marking the transition by which the trick, tried +successfully on black labour, could be extended to all labour. We in +England have no right to be Pharisaic at the expense of the Americans in +this matter; for we have tried the same trick in a hundred forms. The +true philosophical defence of the modern oppression of the poor would be +to say frankly that we have ruled them so badly that they are unfit to +rule themselves. But no modern oligarch is enough of a man to say this. +For like all virile cynicism it would have an element of humility; which +would not mix with the necessary element of hypocrisy. So we proceed, +just as the Americans do, to make a law for everybody and then evade it +for ourselves. We have not the honesty to say that the rich may bet +because they can afford it; so we forbid any man to bet in any place; +and then say that a place is not a place. It is exactly as if there were +an American law allowing a negro to be murdered because he is not a man +within the meaning of the Act. We have not the honesty to drive the poor +to school because they are ignorant; so we pretend to drive everybody; +and then send inspectors to the slums but not to the smart streets. We +apply the same ingenuous principle; and are quite as undemocratic as +Western democracy. Nevertheless there is an element in the American case +which cannot be present in ours; and this chapter may well conclude upon +so important a change. + +America can now say with pride that she has abolished the colour bar. In +this matter the white labourer and the black labourer have at last been +put upon an equal social footing. White labour is every bit as much +enslaved as black labour; and is actually enslaved by a method and a +model only intended for black labour. We might think it rather odd if +the exact regulations about flogging negroes were reproduced as a plan +for punishing strikers; or if industrial arbitration issued its reports +in the precise terminology of the Fugitive Slave Law. But this is in +essentials what has happened; and one could almost fancy some negro orgy +of triumph, with the beating of gongs and all the secret violence of +Voodoo, crying aloud to some ancestral Mumbo Jumbo that the Poor White +Trash was being treated according to its name. + + + + +_Fads and Public Opinion_ + + +A foreigner is a man who laughs at everything except jokes. He is +perfectly entitled to laugh at anything, so long as he realises, in a +reverent and religious spirit, that he himself is laughable. I was a +foreigner in America; and I can truly claim that the sense of my own +laughable position never left me. But when the native and the foreigner +have finished with seeing the fun of each other in things that are meant +to be serious, they both approach the far more delicate and dangerous +ground of things that are meant to be funny. The sense of humour is +generally very national; perhaps that is why the internationalists are +so careful to purge themselves of it. I had occasion during the war to +consider the rights and wrongs of certain differences alleged to have +arisen between the English and American soldiers at the front. And, +rightly or wrongly, I came to the conclusion that they arose from the +failure to understand when a foreigner is serious and when he is +humorous. And it is in the very nature of the best sort of joke to be +the worst sort of insult if it is not taken as a joke. + +The English and the American types of humour are in one way directly +contrary. The most American sort of fun involves a soaring imagination, +piling one house on another in a tower like that of a sky-scraper. The +most English humour consists of a sort of bathos, of a man returning to +the earth his mother in a homely fashion; as when he sits down suddenly +on a butter-slide. English farce describes a man as being in a hole. +American fantasy, in its more aspiring spirit, describes a man as being +up a tree. The former is to be found in the cockney comic songs that +concern themselves with hanging out the washing or coming home with the +milk. The latter is to be found in those fantastic yarns about machines +that turn live pigs into pig-skin purses or burning cities that serve to +hatch an egg. But it will be inevitable, when the two come first into +contact, that the bathos will sound like vulgarity and the extravagance +will sound like boasting. + +Suppose an American soldier said to an English soldier in the trenches, +'The Kaiser may want a place in the sun; I reckon he won't have a place +in the solar system when we begin to hustle.' The English soldier will +very probably form the impression that this is arrogance; an impression +based on the extraordinary assumption that the American means what he +says. The American has merely indulged in a little art for art's sake, +and abstract adventure of the imagination; he has told an American short +story. But the Englishman, not understanding this, will think the other +man is boasting, and reflecting on the insufficiency of the English +effort. The English soldier is very likely to say something like, 'Oh, +you'll be wanting to get home to your old woman before that, and asking +for a kipper with your tea.' And it is quite likely that the American +will be offended in his turn at having his arabesque of abstract beauty +answered in so personal a fashion. Being an American, he will probably +have a fine and chivalrous respect for his wife; and may object to her +being called an old woman. Possibly he in turn may be under the +extraordinary delusion that talking of the old woman really means that +the woman is old. Possibly he thinks the mysterious demand for a kipper +carries with it some charge of ill-treating his wife; which his national +sense of honour swiftly resents. But the real cross-purposes come from +the contrary direction of the two exaggerations, the American making +life more wild and impossible than it is, and the Englishman making it +more flat and farcical than it is; the one escaping from the house of +life by a skylight and the other by a trap-door. + +This difficulty of different humours is a very practical one for +practical people. Most of those who profess to remove all international +differences are not practical people. Most of the phrases offered for +the reconciliation of severally patriotic peoples are entirely serious +and even solemn phrases. But human conversation is not conducted in +those phrases. The normal man on nine occasions out of ten is rather a +flippant man. And the normal man is almost always the national man. +Patriotism is the most popular of all the virtues. The drier sort of +democrats who despise it have the democracy against them in every +country in the world. Hence their international efforts seldom go any +farther than to effect an international reconciliation of all +internationalists. But we have not solved the normal and popular problem +until we have an international reconciliation of all nationalists. + +It is very difficult to see how humour can be translated at all. When +Sam Weller is in the Fleet Prison and Mrs. Weller and Mr. Stiggins sit +on each side of the fireplace and weep and groan with sympathy, old Mr. +Weller observes, 'Vell, Sammy, I hope you find your spirits rose by this +'ere lively visit.' I have never looked up this passage in the popular +and successful French version of _Pickwick_; but I confess I am curious +as to what French past-participle conveys the precise effect of the word +'rose.' A translator has not only to give the right translation of the +right word but the right translation of the wrong word. And in the same +way I am quite prepared to suspect that there are English jokes which an +Englishman must enjoy in his own rich and romantic solitude, without +asking for the sympathy of an American. But Englishmen are generally +only too prone to claim this fine perception, without seeing that the +fine edge of it cuts both ways. I have begun this chapter on the note of +national humour because I wish to make it quite clear that I realise how +easily a foreigner may take something seriously that is not serious. +When I think something in America is really foolish, it may be I that am +made a fool of. It is the first duty of a traveller to allow for this; +but it seems to be the very last thing that occurs to some travellers. +But when I seek to say something of what may be called the fantastic +side of America, I allow beforehand that some of it may be meant to be +fantastic. And indeed it is very difficult to believe that some of it is +meant to be serious. But whether or no there is a joke, there is +certainly an inconsistency; and it is an inconsistency in the moral +make-up of America which both puzzles and amuses me. + +The danger of democracy is not anarchy but convention. There is even a +sort of double meaning in the word 'convention'; for it is also used for +the most informal and popular sort of parliament; a parliament not +summoned by any king. The Americans come together very easily without +any king; but their coming together is in every sense a convention, and +even a very conventional convention. In a democracy riot is rather the +exception and respectability certainly the rule. And though a +superficial sight-seer should hesitate about all such generalisations, +and certainly should allow for enormous exceptions to them, he does +receive a general impression of unity verging on uniformity. Thus +Americans all dress well; one might almost say that American women all +look well; but they do not, as compared with Europeans, look very +different. They are in the fashion; too much in the fashion even to be +conspicuously fashionable. Of course there are patches, both Bohemian +and Babylonian, of which this is not true, but I am talking of the +general tone of a whole democracy. I have said there is more +respectability than riot; but indeed in a deeper sense the same spirit +is behind both riot and respectability. It is the same social force that +makes it possible for the respectable to boycott a man and for the +riotous to lynch him. I do not object to it being called 'the herd +instinct,' so long as we realise that it is a metaphor and not an +explanation. + +Public opinion can be a prairie fire. It eats up everything that opposes +it; and there is the grandeur as well as the grave disadvantages of a +natural catastrophe in that national unity. Pacifists who complained in +England of the intolerance of patriotism have no notion of what +patriotism can be like. If they had been in America, after America had +entered the war, they would have seen something which they have always +perhaps subconsciously dreaded, and would then have beyond all their +worst dreams detested; and the name of it is democracy. They would have +found that there are disadvantages in birds of a feather flocking +together; and that one of them follows on a too complacent display of +the white feather. The truth is that a certain flexible sympathy with +eccentrics of this kind is rather one of the advantages of an +aristocratic tradition. The imprisonment of Mr. Debs, the American +Pacifist, which really was prolonged and oppressive, would probably have +been shortened in England where his opinions were shared by aristocrats +like Mr. Bertrand Russell and Mr. Ponsonby. A man like Lord Hugh Cecil +could be moved to the defence of conscientious objectors, partly by a +true instinct of chivalry; but partly also by the general feeling that a +gentleman may very probably have aunts and uncles who are quite as mad. +He takes the matter personally, in the sense of being able to imagine +the psychology of the persons. But democracy is no respecter of persons. +It is no respecter of them, either in the bad and servile or in the good +and sympathetic sense. And Debs was nothing to democracy. He was but one +of the millions. This is a real problem, or question in the balance, +touching different forms of government; which is, of course, quite +neglected by the idealists who merely repeat long words. There was +during the war a society called the Union of Democratic Control, which +would have been instantly destroyed anywhere where democracy had any +control, or where there was any union. And in this sense the United +States have most emphatically got a union. Nevertheless I think there is +something rather more subtle than this simple popular solidity behind +the assimilation of American citizens to each other. There is something +even in the individual ideals that drives towards this social sympathy. +And it is here that we have to remember that biological fancies like the +herd instinct are only figures of speech, and cannot really cover +anything human. For the Americans are in some ways a very self-conscious +people. To compare their social enthusiasm to a stampede of cattle is to +ask us to believe in a bull writing a diary or a cow looking in a +looking-glass. Intensely sensitive by their very vitality, they are +certainly conscious of criticism and not merely of a blind and brutal +appetite. But the peculiar point about them is that it is this very +vividness in the self that often produces the similarity. It may be that +when they are unconscious they are like bulls and cows. But it is when +they are self-conscious that they are like each other. + +Individualism is the death of individuality. It is so, if only because +it is an 'ism.' Many Americans become almost impersonal in their worship +of personality. Where their natural selves might differ, their ideal +selves tend to be the same. Anybody can see what I mean in those strong +self-conscious photographs of American business men that can be seen in +any American magazine. Each may conceive himself to be a solitary +Napoleon brooding at St. Helena; but the result is a multitude of +Napoleons brooding all over the place. Each of them must have the eyes +of a mesmerist; but the most weak-minded person cannot be mesmerised by +more than one millionaire at a time. Each of the millionaires must +thrust forward his jaw, offering (if I may say so) to fight the world +with the same weapon as Samson. Each of them must accentuate the length +of his chin, especially, of course, by always being completely +clean-shaven. It would be obviously inconsistent with Personality to +prefer to wear a beard. These are of course fantastic examples on the +fringe of American life; but they do stand for a certain assimilation, +not through brute gregariousness, but rather through isolated dreaming. +And though it is not always carried so far as this, I do think it is +carried too far. There is not quite enough unconsciousness to produce +real individuality. There is a sort of worship of will-power in the +abstract, so that people are actually thinking about how they can will, +more than about what they want. To this I do think a certain corrective +could be found in the nature of English eccentricity. Every man in his +humour is most interesting when he is unconscious of his humour; or at +least when he is in an intermediate stage between humour in the old +sense of oddity and in the new sense of irony. Much is said in these +days against negative morality; and certainly most Americans would show +a positive preference for positive morality. The virtues they venerate +collectively are very active virtues; cheerfulness and courage and vim, +otherwise zip, also pep and similar things. But it is sometimes +forgotten that negative morality is freer than positive morality. +Negative morality is a net of a larger and more open pattern, of which +the lines or cords constrict at longer intervals. A man like Dr. Johnson +could grow in his own way to his own stature in the net of the Ten +Commandments; precisely because he was convinced there were only ten of +them. He was not compressed into the mould of positive beauty, like +that of the Apollo Belvedere or the American citizen. + +This criticism is sometimes true even of the American woman, who is +certainly a much more delightful person than the mesmeric millionaire +with his shaven jaw. Interviewers in the United States perpetually asked +me what I thought of American women, and I confessed a distaste for such +generalisations which I have not managed to lose. The Americans, who are +the most chivalrous people in the world, may perhaps understand me; but +I can never help feeling that there is something polygamous about +talking of women in the plural at all; something unworthy of any +American except a Mormon. Nevertheless, I think the exaggeration I +suggest does extend in a less degree to American women, fascinating as +they are. I think they too tend too much to this cult of impersonal +personality. It is a description easy to exaggerate even by the faintest +emphasis; for all these things are subtle and subject to striking +individual exceptions. To complain of people for being brave and bright +and kind and intelligent may not unreasonably appear unreasonable. And +yet there is something in the background that can only be expressed by a +symbol, something that is not shallowness but a neglect of the +subconsciousness and the vaguer and slower impulses; something that can +be missed amid all that laughter and light, under those starry +candelabra of the ideals of the happy virtues. Sometimes it came over +me, in a wordless wave, that I should like to see a sulky woman. How she +would walk in beauty like the night, and reveal more silent spaces full +of older stars! These things cannot be conveyed in their delicate +proportion even in the most detached description. But the same thing +was in the mind of a white-bearded old man I met in New York, an Irish +exile and a wonderful talker, who stared up at the tower of gilded +galleries of the great hotel, and said with that spontaneous movement of +style which is hardly heard except from Irish talkers: 'And I have been +in a village in the mountains where the people could hardly read or +write; but all the men were like soldiers, and all the women had pride.' + +It sounds like a poem about an Earthly Paradise to say that in this land +the old women can be more beautiful than the young. Indeed, I think Walt +Whitman, the national poet, has a line somewhere almost precisely to +that effect. It sounds like a parody upon Utopia, and the image of the +lion lying down with the lamb, to say it is a place where a man might +almost fall in love with his mother-in-law. But there is nothing in +which the finer side of American gravity and good feeling does more +honourably exhibit itself than in a certain atmosphere around the older +women. It is not a cant phrase to say that they grow old gracefully; for +they do really grow old. In this the national optimism really has in it +the national courage. The old women do not dress like young women; they +only dress better. There is another side to this feminine dignity in the +old, sometimes a little lost in the young, with which I shall deal +presently. The point for the moment is that even Whitman's truly poetic +vision of the beautiful old women suffers a little from that bewildering +multiplicity and recurrence that is indeed the whole theme of Whitman. +It is like the green eternity of Leaves of Grass. When I think of the +eccentric spinsters and incorrigible grandmothers of my own country, I +cannot imagine that any one of them could possibly be mistaken for +another, even at a glance. And in comparison I feel as if I had been +travelling in an Earthly Paradise of more decorative harmonies; and I +remember only a vast cloud of grey and pink as of the plumage of +cherubim in an old picture. But on second thoughts, I think this may be +only the inevitable effect of visiting any country in a swift and +superficial fashion; and that the grey and pink cloud is probably an +illusion, like the spinning prairies scattered by the wheel of the +train. + +Anyhow there is enough of this equality, and of a certain social unity +favourable to sanity, to make the next point about America very much of +a puzzle. It seems to me a very real problem, to which I have never seen +an answer even such as I shall attempt here, why a democracy should +produce fads; and why, where there is so genuine a sense of human +dignity, there should be so much of an impossible petty tyranny. I am +not referring solely or even specially to Prohibition, which I discuss +elsewhere. Prohibition is at least a superstition, and therefore next +door to a religion; it has some imaginable connection with moral +questions, as have slavery or human sacrifice. But those who ask us to +model ourselves on the States which punish the sin of drink forget that +there are States which punish the equally shameless sin of smoking a +cigarette in the open air. The same American atmosphere that permits +Prohibition permits of people being punished for kissing each other. In +other words, there are States psychologically capable of making a man a +convict for wearing a blue neck-tie or having a green front-door, or +anything else that anybody chooses to fancy. There is an American +atmosphere in which people may some day be shot for shaking hands, or +hanged for writing a post-card. + +As for the sort of thing to which I refer, the American newspapers are +full of it and there is no name for it but mere madness. Indeed it is +not only mad, but it calls itself mad. To mention but one example out of +many, it was actually boasted that some lunatics were teaching children +to take care of their health. And it was proudly added that the children +were 'health-mad.' That it is not exactly the object of all mental +hygiene to make people mad did not occur to them; and they may still be +engaged in their earnest labours to teach babies to be valetudinarians +and hypochondriacs in order to make them healthy. In such cases, we may +say that the modern world is too ridiculous to be ridiculed. You cannot +caricature a caricature. Imagine what a satirist of saner days would +have made of the daily life of a child of six, who was actually admitted +to be mad on the subject of his own health. These are not days in which +that great extravaganza could be written; but I dimly see some of its +episodes like uncompleted dreams. I see the child pausing in the middle +of a cart-wheel, or when he has performed three-quarters of a +cart-wheel, and consulting a little note-book about the amount of +exercise per diem. I see him pausing half-way up a tree, or when he has +climbed exactly one-third of a tree; and then producing a clinical +thermometer to take his own temperature. But what would be the good of +imaginative logic to prove the madness of such people, when they +themselves praise it for being mad? + +There is also the cult of the Infant Phenomenon, of which Dickens made +fun and of which educationalists make fusses. When I was in America +another newspaper produced a marvellous child of six who had the +intellect of a child of twelve. The only test given, and apparently one +on which the experiment turned, was that she could be made to understand +and even to employ the word 'annihilate.' When asked to say something +proving this, the happy infant offered the polished aphorism, 'When +common sense comes in, superstition is annihilated.' In reply to which, +by way of showing that I also am as intelligent as a child of twelve, +and there is no arrested development about me, I will say in the same +elegant diction, 'When psychological education comes in, common sense is +annihilated.' Everybody seems to be sitting round this child in an +adoring fashion. It did not seem to occur to anybody that we do not +particularly want even a child of twelve to talk about annihilating +superstition; that we do not want a child of six to talk like a child of +twelve, or a child of twelve to talk like a man of fifty, or even a man +of fifty to talk like a fool. And on the principle of hoping that a +little girl of six will have a massive and mature brain, there is every +reason for hoping that a little boy of six will grow a magnificent and +bushy beard. + +Now there is any amount of this nonsense cropping up among American +cranks. Anybody may propose to establish coercive Eugenics; or enforce +psychoanalysis--that is, enforce confession without absolution. And I +confess I cannot connect this feature with the genuine democratic spirit +of the mass. I can only suggest, in concluding this chapter, two +possible causes rather peculiar to America, which may have made this +great democracy so unlike all other democracies, and in this so +manifestly hostile to the whole democratic idea. + +The first historical cause is Puritanism; but not Puritanism merely in +the sense of Prohibitionism. The truth is that prohibitions might have +done far less harm as prohibitions, if a vague association had not +arisen, on some dark day of human unreason, between prohibition and +progress. And it was the progress that did the harm, not the +prohibition. Men can enjoy life under considerable limitations, if they +can be sure of their limited enjoyments; but under Progressive +Puritanism we can never be sure of anything. The curse of it is not +limitation; it is unlimited limitation. The evil is not in the +restriction; but in the fact that nothing can ever restrict the +restriction. The prohibitions are bound to progress point by point; more +and more human rights and pleasures must of necessity be taken away; for +it is of the nature of this futurism that the latest fad is the faith of +the future, and the most fantastic fad inevitably makes the pace. Thus +the worst thing in the seventeenth-century aberration was not so much +Puritanism as sectarianism. It searched for truth not by synthesis but +by subdivision. It not only broke religion into small pieces, but it was +bound to choose the smallest piece. There is in America, I believe, a +large religious body that has felt it right to separate itself from +Christendom because it cannot believe in the morality of wearing +buttons. I do not know how the schism arose; but it is easy to suppose, +for the sake of argument, that there had originally existed some Puritan +body which condemned the frivolity of ribbons though not of buttons. I +was going to say of badges but not buttons; but on reflection I cannot +bring myself to believe that any American, however insane, would object +to wearing badges. But the point is that as the holy spirit of +progressive prophesy rested on the first sect because it had invented a +new objection to ribbons, so that holy spirit would then pass from it to +the new sect who invented a further objection to buttons. And from them +it must inevitably pass to any rebel among them who shall choose to rise +and say that he disapproves of trousers because of the existence of +trouser-buttons. Each secession in turn must be right because it is +recent, and progress must progress by growing smaller and smaller. That +is the progressive theory, the legacy of seventeenth-century +sectarianism, the dogma implied in much modern politics, and the evident +enemy of democracy. Democracy is reproached with saying that the +majority is always right. But progress says that the minority is always +right. Progressives are prophets; and fortunately not all the people are +prophets. Thus in the atmosphere of this slowly dying sectarianism +anybody who chooses to prophesy and prohibit can tyrannise over the +people. If he chooses to say that drinking is always wrong, or that +kissing is always wrong, or that wearing buttons is always wrong, people +are afraid to contradict him for fear they should be contradicting their +own great-grandchild. For their superstition is an inversion of the +ancestor-worship of China; and instead of vainly appealing to something +that is dead, they appeal to something that may never be born. + +There is another cause of this strange servile disease in American +democracy. It is to be found in American feminism, and feminist America +is an entirely different thing from feminine America. I should say that +the overwhelming majority of American girls laugh at their female +politicians at least as much as the majority of American men despise +their male politicians. But though the aggressive feminists are a +minority, they are in this atmosphere which I have tried to analyse; the +atmosphere in which there is a sort of sanctity about the minority. And +it is this superstition of seriousness that constitutes the most solid +obstacle and exception to the general and almost conventional pressure +of public opinion. When a fad is frankly felt to be anti-national, as +was Abolitionism before the Civil War, or Pro-Germanism in the Great +War, or the suggestion of racial admixture in the South at all times, +then the fad meets far less mercy than anywhere else in the world; it is +snowed under and swept away. But when it does not thus directly +challenge patriotism or popular ideas, a curious halo of hopeful +solemnity surrounds it, merely because it is a fad, but above all if it +is a feminine fad. The earnest lady-reformer who really utters a warning +against the social evil of beer or buttons is seen to be walking clothed +in light, like a prophetess. Perhaps it is something of the holy aureole +which the East sees shining around an idiot. + +But I think there is another explanation, feminine rather than feminist, +and proceeding from normal women and not from abnormal idiots. It is +something that involves an old controversy, but one upon which I have +not, like so many politicians, changed my opinion. It concerns the +particular fashion in which women tend to regard, or rather to +disregard, the formal and legal rights of the citizen. In so far as this +is a bias, it is a bias in the directly opposite direction from that now +lightly alleged. There is a sort of underbred history going about, +according to which women in the past have always been in the position of +slaves. It is much more to the point to note that women have always been +in the position of despots. They have been despotic because they ruled +in an area where they had too much common sense to attempt to be +constitutional. You cannot grant a constitution to a nursery; nor can +babies assemble like barons and extort a Great Charter. Tommy cannot +plead a Habeas Corpus against going to bed; and an infant cannot be +tried by twelve other infants before he is put in the corner. And as +there can be no laws or liberties in a nursery, the extension of +feminism means that there shall be no more laws or liberties in a state +than there are in a nursery. The woman does not really regard men as +citizens but as children. She may, if she is a humanitarian, love all +mankind; but she does not respect it. Still less does she respect its +votes. Now a man must be very blind nowadays not to see that there is a +danger of a sort of amateur science or pseudo-science being made the +excuse for every trick of tyranny and interference. Anybody who is not +an anarchist agrees with having a policeman at the corner of the street; +but the danger at present is that of finding the policeman half-way down +the chimney or even under the bed. In other words, it is a danger of +turning the policeman into a sort of benevolent burglar. Against this +protests are already being made, and will increasingly be made, if men +retain any instinct of independence or dignity at all. But to complain +of the woman interfering in the home will always sound like complaining +of the oyster intruding into the oyster-shell. To object that she has +too much power over education will seem like objecting to a hen having +too much to do with eggs. She has already been given an almost +irresponsible power over a limited region in these things; and if that +power is made infinite it will be even more irresponsible. If she adds +to her own power in the family all these alien fads external to the +family, her power will not only be irresponsible but insane. She will be +something which may well be called a nightmare of the nursery; a mad +mother. But the point is that she will be mad about other nurseries as +well as her own, or possibly instead of her own. The results will be +interesting; but at least it is certain that under this softening +influence government of the people, by the people, for the people, will +most assuredly perish from the earth. + +But there is always another possibility. Hints of it may be noted here +and there like muffled gongs of doom. The other day some people +preaching some low trick or other, for running away from the glory of +motherhood, were suddenly silenced in New York; by a voice of deep and +democratic volume. The prigs who potter about the great plains are +pygmies dancing round a sleeping giant. That which sleeps, so far as +they are concerned, is the huge power of human unanimity and intolerance +in the soul of America. At present the masses in the Middle West are +indifferent to such fancies or faintly attracted by them, as fashions of +culture from the great cities. But any day it may not be so; some +lunatic may cut across their economic rights or their strange and buried +religion; and then he will see something. He will find himself running +like a nigger who has wronged a white woman or a man who has set the +prairie on fire. He will see something which the politicians fan in its +sleep and flatter with the name of the people, which many reactionaries +have cursed with the name of the mob, but which in any case has had +under its feet the crowns of many kings. It was said that the voice of +the people is the voice of God; and this at least is certain, that it +can be the voice of God to the wicked. And the last antics of their +arrogance shall stiffen before something enormous, such as towers in the +last words that Job heard out of the whirlwind; and a voice they never +knew shall tell them that his name is Leviathan, and he is lord over all +the children of pride. + + + + +_The Extraordinary American_ + + +When I was in America I had the feeling that it was far more foreign +than France or even than Ireland. And by foreign I mean fascinating +rather than repulsive. I mean that element of strangeness which marks +the frontier of any fairyland, or gives to the traveller himself the +almost eerie title of the stranger. And I saw there more clearly than in +countries counted as more remote from us, in race or religion, a paradox +that is one of the great truths of travel. + +We have never even begun to understand a people until we have found +something that we do not understand. So long as we find the character +easy to read, we are reading into it our own character. If when we see +an event we can promptly provide an explanation, we may be pretty +certain that we had ourselves prepared the explanation before we saw the +event. It follows from this that the best picture of a foreign people +can probably be found in a puzzle picture. If we can find an event of +which the meaning is really dark to us, it will probably throw some +light on the truth. I will therefore take from my American experiences +one isolated incident, which certainly could not have happened in any +other country I have ever clapped eyes on. I have really no notion of +what it meant. I have heard even from Americans about five different +conjectures about its meaning. But though I do not understand it, I do +sincerely believe that if I did understand it, I should understand +America. + +It happened in the city of Oklahoma, which would require a book to +itself, even considered as a background. The State of Oklahoma is a +district in the south-west recently reclaimed from the Red Indian +territory. What many, quite incorrectly, imagine about all America is +really true of Oklahoma. It is proud of having no history. It is glowing +with the sense of having a great future--and nothing else. People are +just as likely to boast of an old building in Nashville as in Norwich; +people are just as proud of old families in Boston as in Bath. But in +Oklahoma the citizens do point out a colossal structure, arrogantly +affirming that it wasn't there last week. It was against the colours of +this crude stage scenery, as of a pantomime city of pasteboard, that the +fantastic figure appeared which still haunts me like a walking note of +interrogation. I was strolling down the main street of the city, and +looking in at a paper-stall vivid with the news of crime, when a +stranger addressed me; and asked me, quite politely but with a curious +air of having authority to put the question, what I was doing in that +city. + +He was a lean brown man, having rather the look of a shabby tropical +traveller, with a grey moustache and a lively and alert eye. But the +most singular thing about him was that the front of his coat was covered +with a multitude of shining metallic emblems made in the shape of stars +and crescents. I was well accustomed by this time to Americans adorning +the lapels of their coats with little symbols of various societies; it +is a part of the American passion for the ritual of comradeship. There +is nothing that an American likes so much as to have a secret society +and to make no secret of it. But in this case, if I may put it so, the +rash of symbolism seemed to have broken out all over the man, in a +fashion that indicated that the fever was far advanced. Of this minor +mystery, however, his first few sentences offered a provisional +explanation. In answer to his question, touching my business in +Oklahoma, I replied with restraint that I was lecturing. To which he +replied without restraint, but rather with an expansive and radiant +pride, 'I also am lecturing. I am lecturing on astronomy.' + +So far a certain wild rationality seemed to light up the affair. I knew +it was unusual, in my own country, for the Astronomer Royal to walk down +the Strand with his coat plastered all over with the Solar System. +Indeed, it was unusual for any English astronomical lecturer to +advertise the subject of his lectures in this fashion. But though it +would be unusual, it would not necessarily be unreasonable. In fact, I +think it might add to the colour and variety of life, if specialists did +adopt this sort of scientific heraldry. I should like to be able to +recognise an entomologist at sight by the decorative spiders and +cockroaches crawling all over his coat and waistcoat. I should like to +see a conchologist in a simple costume of shells. An osteopath, I +suppose, would be agreeably painted so as to resemble a skeleton, while +a botanist would enliven the street with the appearance of a +Jack-in-the-Green. So while I regarded the astronomical lecturer in the +astronomical coat as a figure distinguishable, by a high degree of +differentiation, from the artless astronomers of my island home (enough +their simple loveliness for me) I saw in him nothing illogical, but +rather an imaginative extreme of logic. And then came another turn of +the wheel of topsy-turvydom, and all the logic was scattered to the +wind. + +Expanding his starry bosom and standing astraddle, with the air of one +who owned the street, the strange being continued, 'Yes, I am lecturing +on astronomy, anthropology, archaeology, palaeontology, embryology, +eschatology,' and so on in a thunderous roll of theoretical sciences +apparently beyond the scope of any single university, let alone any +single professor. Having thus introduced himself, however, he got to +business. He apologised with true American courtesy for having +questioned me at all, and excused it on the ground of his own exacting +responsibilities. I imagined him to mean the responsibility of +simultaneously occupying the chairs of all the faculties already +mentioned. But these apparently were trifles to him, and something far +more serious was clouding his brow. + +'I feel it to be my duty,' he said, 'to acquaint myself with any +stranger visiting this city; and it is an additional pleasure to welcome +here a member of the Upper Ten.' I assured him earnestly that I knew +nothing about the Upper Ten, except that I did not belong to them; I +felt, not without alarm, that the Upper Ten might be another secret +society. He waved my abnegation aside and continued, 'I have a great +responsibility in watching over this city. My friend the mayor and I +have a great responsibility.' And then an extraordinary thing happened. +Suddenly diving his hand into his breast-pocket, he flashed something +before my eyes like a hand-mirror; something which disappeared again +almost as soon as it appeared. In that flash I could only see that it +was some sort of polished metal plate, with some letters engraved on it +like a monogram. But the reward of a studious and virtuous life, which +has been spent chiefly in the reading of American detective stories, +shone forth for me in that hour of trial; I received at last the prize +of a profound scholarship in the matter of imaginary murders in +tenth-rate magazines. I remembered who it was who in the Yankee +detective yarn flashes before the eyes of Slim Jim or the Lone Hand +Crook a badge of metal sometimes called a shield. Assuming all the +desperate composure of Slim Jim himself, I replied, 'You mean you are +connected with the police authorities here, don't you? Well, if I commit +a murder here, I'll let you know.' Whereupon that astonishing man waved +a hand in deprecation, bowed in farewell with the grace of a dancing +master; and said, 'Oh, those are not things we expect from members of +the Upper Ten.' + +Then that moving constellation moved away, disappearing in the dark +tides of humanity, as the vision passed away down the dark tides from +Sir Galahad and, starlike, mingled with the stars. + +That is the problem I would put to all Americans, and to all who claim +to understand America. Who and what was that man? Was he an astronomer? +Was he a detective? Was he a wandering lunatic? If he was a lunatic who +thought he was an astronomer, why did he have a badge to prove he was a +detective? If he was a detective pretending to be an astronomer, why did +he tell a total stranger that he was a detective two minutes after +saying he was an astronomer? If he wished to watch over the city in a +quiet and unobtrusive fashion, why did he blazon himself all over with +all the stars of the sky, and profess to give public lectures on all the +subjects of the world? Every wise and well-conducted student of murder +stories is acquainted with the notion of a policeman in plain clothes. +But nobody could possibly say that this gentleman was in plain clothes. +Why not wear his uniform, if he was resolved to show every stranger in +the street his badge? Perhaps after all he had no uniform; for these +lands were but recently a wild frontier rudely ruled by vigilance +committees. Some Americans suggested to me that he was the Sheriff; the +regular hard-riding, free-shooting Sheriff of Bret Harte and my +boyhood's dreams. Others suggested that he was an agent of the Ku-Klux +Klan, that great nameless revolution of the revival of which there were +rumours at the time; and that the symbol he exhibited was theirs. But +whether he was a sheriff acting for the law, or a conspirator against +the law, or a lunatic entirely outside the law, I agree with the former +conjectures upon one point. I am perfectly certain he had something else +in his pocket besides a badge. And I am perfectly certain that under +certain circumstances he would have handled it instantly, and shot me +dead between the gay bookstall and the crowded trams. And that is the +last touch to the complexity; for though in that country it often seems +that the law is made by a lunatic, you never know when the lunatic may +not shoot you for keeping it. Only in the presence of that citizen of +Oklahoma I feel I am confronted with the fullness and depth of the +mystery of America. Because I understand nothing, I recognise the thing +that we call a nation; and I salute the flag. + +But even in connection with this mysterious figure there is a moral +which affords another reason for mentioning him. Whether he was a +sheriff or an outlaw, there was certainly something about him that +suggested the adventurous violence of the old border life of America; +and whether he was connected with the police or no, there was certainly +violence enough in his environment to satisfy the most ardent policeman. +The posters in the paper-shop were placarded with the verdict in the +Hamon trial; a _cause celebre_ which reached its crisis in Oklahoma +while I was there. Senator Hamon had been shot by a girl whom he had +wronged, and his widow demanded justice, or what might fairly be called +vengeance. There was very great excitement culminating in the girl's +acquittal. Nor did the Hamon case appear to be entirely exceptional in +that breezy borderland. The moment the town had received the news that +Clara Smith was free, newsboys rushed down the street shouting, 'Double +stabbing outrage near Oklahoma,' or 'Banker's throat cut on Main +Street,' or otherwise resuming their regular mode of life. It seemed as +much as to say, 'Do not imagine that our local energies are exhausted in +shooting a Senator,' or 'Come, now, the world is young, even if Clara +Smith is acquitted, and the enthusiasm of Oklahoma is not yet cold.' + +But my particular reason for mentioning the matter is this. Despite my +friend's mystical remarks about the Upper Ten, he lived in an atmosphere +of something that was at least the very reverse of a respect for +persons. Indeed, there was something in the very crudity of his social +compliment that smacked, strangely enough, of that egalitarian soil. In +a vaguely aristocratic country like England, people would never dream +of telling a total stranger that he was a member of the Upper Ten. For +one thing, they would be afraid that he might be. Real snobbishness is +never vulgar; for it is intended to please the refined. Nobody licks the +boots of a duke, if only because the duke does not like his boots +cleaned in that way. Nobody embraces the knees of a marquis, because it +would embarrass that nobleman. And nobody tells him he is a member of +the Upper Ten, because everybody is expected to know it. But there is a +much more subtle kind of snobbishness pervading the atmosphere of any +society trial in England. And the first thing that struck me was the +total absence of that atmosphere in the trial at Oklahoma. Mr. Hamon was +presumably a member of the Upper Ten, if there is such a thing. He was a +member of the Senate or Upper House in the American Parliament; he was a +millionaire and a pillar of the Republican party, which might be called +the respectable party; he is said to have been mentioned as a possible +President. And the speeches of Clara Smith's counsel, who was known by +the delightfully Oklahomite title of Wild Bill McLean, were wild enough +in all conscience; but they left very little of my friend's illusion +that members of the Upper Ten could not be accused of crimes. Nero and +Borgia were quite presentable people compared with Senator Hamon when +Wild Bill McLean had done with him. But the difference was deeper, and +even in a sense more delicate than this. There is a certain tone about +English trials, which does at least begin with a certain scepticism +about people prominent in public life being abominable in private life. +People do vaguely doubt the criminality of 'a man in that position'; +that is, the position of the Marquise de Brinvilliers or the Marquis de +Sade. _Prima facie_, it would be an advantage to the Marquis de Sade +that he was a marquis. But it was certainly against Hamon that he was a +millionaire. Wild Bill did not minimise him as a bankrupt or an +adventurer; he insisted on the solidity and size of his fortune, he made +mountains out of the 'Hamon millions,' as if they made the matter much +worse; as indeed I think they do. But that is because I happen to share +a certain political philosophy with Wild Bill and other wild buffaloes +of the prairies. In other words, there is really present here a +democratic instinct against the domination of wealth. It does not +prevent wealth from dominating; but it does prevent the domination from +being regarded with any affection or loyalty. Despite the man in the +starry coat, the Americans have not really any illusions about the Upper +Ten. McLean was appealing to an implicit public opinion when he pelted +the Senator with his gold. + +But something more is involved. I became conscious, as I have been +conscious in reading the crime novels of America, that the millionaire +was taken as a type and not an individual. This is the great difference; +that America recognises rich crooks as a _class_. Any Englishman might +recognise them as individuals. Any English romance may turn on a crime +in high life; in which the baronet is found to have poisoned his wife, +or the elusive burglar turns out to be the bishop. But the English are +not always saying, either in romance or reality, 'What's to be done, if +our food is being poisoned by all these baronets?' They do not murmur in +indignation, 'If bishops will go on burgling like this, something must +be done.' The whole point of the English romance is the exceptional +character of a crime in high life. That is not the tone of American +novels or American newspapers or American trials like the trial in +Oklahoma. Americans may be excited when a millionaire crook is caught, +as when any other crook is caught; but it is at his being caught, not at +his being discovered. To put the matter shortly, England recognises a +criminal class at the bottom of the social scale. America also +recognises a criminal class at the top of the social scale. In both, for +various reasons, it may be difficult for the criminals to be convicted; +but in America the upper class of criminals is recognised. In both +America and England, of course, it exists. + +This is an assumption at the back of the American mind which makes a +great difference in many ways; and in my opinion a difference for the +better. I wrote merely fancifully just now about bishops being burglars; +but there is a story in New York, illustrating this, which really does +in a sense attribute a burglary to a bishop. The story was that an +Anglican Lord Spiritual, of the pompous and now rather antiquated +school, was pushing open the door of a poor American tenement with all +the placid patronage of the squire and rector visiting the cottagers, +when a gigantic Irish policeman came round the corner and hit him a +crack over the head with a truncheon on the assumption that he was a +house-breaker. I hope that those who laugh at the story see that the +laugh is not altogether against the policeman; and that it is not only +the policeman, but rather the bishop, who had failed to recognise some +fine logical distinctions. The bishop, being a learned man, might well +be called upon (when he had sufficiently recovered from the knock on +the head) to define what is the exact difference between a house-breaker +and a home-visitor; and why the home-visitor should not be regarded as a +house-breaker when he will not behave as a guest. An impartial +intelligence will be much less shocked at the policeman's disrespect for +the home-visitor than by the home-visitor's disrespect for the home. + +But that story smacks of the western soil, precisely because of the +element of brutality there is in it. In England snobbishness and social +oppression are much subtler and softer; the manifestations of them at +least are more mellow and humane. In comparison there is indeed +something which people call ruthless about the air of America, +especially the American cities. The bishop may push open the door +without an apology, but he would not break open the door with a +truncheon; but the Irish policeman's truncheon hits both ways. It may be +brutal to the tenement dweller as well as to the bishop; but the +difference and distinction is that it might really be brutal to the +bishop. It is because there is after all, at the back of all that +barbarism, a sort of a negative belief in the brotherhood of men, a dark +democratic sense that men are really men and nothing more, that the +coarse and even corrupt bureaucracy is not resented exactly as +oligarchic bureaucracies are resented. There is a sense in which +corruption is not so narrow as nepotism. It is upon this queer cynical +charity, and even humility, that it has been possible to rear so high +and uphold so long that tower of brass, Tammany Hall. The modern police +system is in spirit the most inhuman in history, and its evil belongs +to an age and not to a nation. But some American police methods are evil +past all parallel; and the detective can be more crooked than a hundred +crooks. But in the States it is not only possible that the policeman is +worse than the convict, it is by no means certain that he thinks that he +is any better. In the popular stories of O. Henry there are light +allusions to tramps being kicked out of hotels which will make any +Christian seek relief in strong language and a trust in heaven--not to +say in hell. And yet books even more popular than O. Henry's are those +of the 'sob-sisterhood' who swim in lachrymose lakes after love-lorn +spinsters, who pass their lives in reclaiming and consoling such tramps. +There are in this people two strains of brutality and sentimentalism +which I do not understand, especially where they mingle; but I am fairly +sure they both work back to the dim democratic origin. The Irish +policeman does not confine himself fastidiously to bludgeoning bishops; +his truncheon finds plenty of poor people's heads to hit; and yet I +believe on my soul he has a sort of sympathy with poor people not to be +found in the police of more aristocratic states. I believe he also reads +and weeps over the stories of the spinsters and the reclaimed tramps; in +fact, there is much of such pathos in an American magazine (my sole +companion on many happy railway journeys) which is not only devoted to +detective stories, but apparently edited by detectives. In these stories +also there is the honest, popular astonishment at the Upper Ten +expressed by the astronomical detective, if indeed he was a detective +and not a demon from the dark Red-Indian forests that faded to the +horizon behind him. But I have set him as the head and text of this +chapter because with these elements of the Third Degree of devilry and +the Seventh Heaven of sentimentalism I touch on elements that I do not +understand; and when I do not understand, I say so. + + + + +_The Republican in the Ruins_ + + +The heathen in his blindness bows down to wood and stone; especially to +a wood-cut or a lithographic stone. Modern people put their trust in +pictures, especially scientific pictures, as much as the most +superstitious ever put it in religious pictures. They publish a portrait +of the Missing Link as if he were the Missing Man, for whom the police +are always advertising; for all the world as if the anthropoid had been +photographed before he absconded. The scientific diagram may be a +hypothesis; it may be a fancy; it may be a forgery. But it is always an +idol in the true sense of an image; and an image in the true sense of a +thing mastering the imagination and not the reason. The power of these +talismanic pictures is almost hypnotic to modern humanity. We can never +forget that we have seen a portrait of the Missing Link; though we +should instantly detect the lapse of logic into superstition, if we were +told that the old Greek agnostics had made a statue of the Unknown God. +But there is a still stranger fashion in which we fall victims to the +same trick of fancy. We accept in a blind and literal spirit, not only +images of speculation, but even figures of speech. The nineteenth +century prided itself on having lost its faith in myths, and proceeded +to put all its faith in metaphors. It dismissed the old doctrines about +the way of life and the light of the world; and then it proceeded to +talk as if the light of truth were really and literally a light, that +could be absorbed by merely opening our eyes; or as if the path of +progress were really and truly a path, to be found by merely following +our noses. Thus the purpose of God is an idea, true or false; but the +purpose of Nature is merely a metaphor; for obviously if there is no God +there is no purpose. Yet while men, by an imaginative instinct, spoke of +the purpose of God with a grand agnosticism, as something too large to +be seen, something reaching out to worlds and to eternities, they speak +of the purpose of Nature in particular and practical problems of curing +babies or cutting up rabbits. This power of the modern metaphor must be +understood, by way of an introduction, if we are to understand one of +the chief errors, at once evasive and pervasive, which perplex the +problem of America. + +America is always spoken of as a young nation; and whether or no this be +a valuable and suggestive metaphor, very few people notice that it is a +metaphor at all. If somebody said that a certain deserving charity had +just gone into trousers, we should recognise that it was a figure of +speech, and perhaps a rather surprising figure of speech. If somebody +said that a daily paper had recently put its hair up, we should know it +could only be a metaphor, and possibly a rather strained metaphor. Yet +these phrases would mean the only thing that can possibly be meant by +calling a corporate association of all sorts of people 'young'; that is, +that a certain institution has only existed for a certain time. I am not +now denying that such a corporate nationality may happen to have a +psychology comparatively analogous to the psychology of youth. I am not +even denying that America has it. I am only pointing out, to begin with, +that we must free ourselves from the talismanic tyranny of a metaphor +which we do not recognise as a metaphor. Men realised that the old +mystical doctrines were mystical; they do not realise that the new +metaphors are metaphorical. They have some sort of hazy notion that +American society must be growing, must be promising, must have the +virtues of hope or the faults of ignorance, merely _because_ it has only +had a separate existence since the eighteenth century. And that is +exactly like saying that a new chapel must be growing taller, or that a +limited liability company will soon have its second teeth. + +Now in truth this particular conception of American hopefulness would be +anything but hopeful for America. If the argument really were, as it is +still vaguely supposed to be, that America must have a long life before +it, because it only started in the eighteenth century, we should find a +very fatal answer by looking at the other political systems that did +start in the eighteenth century. The eighteenth century was called the +Age of Reason; and there is a very real sense in which the other systems +were indeed started in a spirit of reason. But starting from reason has +not saved them from ruin. If we survey the Europe of to-day with real +clarity and historic comprehension, we shall see that it is precisely +the most recent and the most rationalistic creations that have been +ruined. The two great States which did most definitely and emphatically +deserve to be called modern states were Prussia and Russia. There was no +real Prussia before Frederick the Great; no real Russian Empire before +Peter the Great. Both those innovators recognised themselves as +rationalists bringing a new reason and order into an indeterminate +barbarism; and doing for the barbarians what the barbarians could not do +for themselves. They did not, like the kings of England or France or +Spain or Scotland, inherit a sceptre that was the symbol of a historic +and patriotic people. In this sense there was no Russia but only an +Emperor of Russia. In this sense Prussia was a kingdom before it was a +nation; if it ever was a nation. But anyhow both men were particularly +modern in their whole mood and mind. They were modern to the extent of +being not only anti-traditional, but almost anti-patriotic. Peter forced +the science of the West on Russia to the regret of many Russians. +Frederick talked the French of Voltaire and not the German of Luther. +The two experiments were entirely in the spirit of Voltairean +rationalism; they were built in broad daylight by men who believed in +nothing but the light of common day; and already their day is done. + +If then the promise of America were in the fact that she is one of the +latest births of progress, we should point out that it is exactly the +latest born that were the first to die. If in this sense she is praised +as young, it may be answered that the young have died young, and have +not lived to be old. And if this be confused with the argument that she +came in an age of clarity and scepticism, uncontaminated by old +superstitions, it could still be retorted that the works of superstition +have survived the works of scepticism. But the truth is, of course, that +the real quality of America is much more subtle and complex than this; +and is mixed not only of good and bad, and rational and mystical, but +also of old and new. That is what makes the task of tracing the true +proportions of American life so interesting and so impossible. + +To begin with, such a metaphor is always as distracting as a mixed +metaphor. It is a double-edged tool that cuts both ways; and +consequently opposite ways. We use the same word 'young' to mean two +opposite extremes. We mean something at an early stage of growth, and +also something having the latest fruits of growth. We might call a +commonwealth young if it conducted all its daily conversation by +wireless telegraphy; meaning that it was progressive. But we might also +call it young if it conducted all its industry with chipped flints; +meaning that it was primitive. These two meanings of youth are +hopelessly mixed up when the word is applied to America. But what is +more curious, the two elements really are wildly entangled in America. +America is in some ways what is called in advance of the times, and in +some ways what is called behind the times; but it seems a little +confusing to convey both notions by the same word. + +On the one hand, Americans often are successful in the last inventions. +And for that very reason they are often neglectful of the last but one. +It is true of men in general, dealing with things in general, that while +they are progressing in one thing, such as science, they are going back +in another thing, such as art. What is less fully realised is that this +is true even as between different methods of science. The perfection of +wireless telegraphy might well be followed by the gross imperfection of +wires. The very enthusiasm of American science brings this out very +vividly. The telephone in New York works miracles all day long. Replies +from remote places come as promptly as in a private talk; nobody cuts +anybody off; nobody says, 'Sorry you've been troubled.' But then the +postal service of New York does not work at all. At least I could never +discover it working. Letters lingered in it for days and days, as in +some wild village of the Pyrenees. When I asked a taxi-driver to drive +me to a post-office, a look of far-off vision and adventure came into +his eyes, and he said he had once heard of a post-office somewhere near +West Ninety-Seventh Street. Men are not efficient in everything, but +only in the fashionable thing. This may be a mark of the march of +science; it does certainly in one sense deserve the description of +youth. We can imagine a very young person forgetting the old toy in the +excitement of a new one. + +But on the other hand, American manners contain much that is called +young in the contrary sense; in the sense of an earlier stage of +history. There are whole patches and particular aspects that seem to me +quite Early Victorian. I cannot help having this sensation, for +instance, about the arrangement for smoking in the railway carriages. +There are no smoking carriages, as a rule; but a corner of each of the +great cars is curtained off mysteriously, that a man may go behind the +curtain and smoke. Nobody thinks of a woman doing so. It is regarded as +a dark, bohemian, and almost brutally masculine indulgence; exactly as +it was regarded by the dowagers in Thackeray's novels. Indeed, this is +one of the many such cases in which extremes meet; the extremes of +stuffy antiquity and cranky modernity. The American dowager is sorry +that tobacco was ever introduced; and the American suffragette and +social reformer is considering whether tobacco ought not to be +abolished. The tone of American society suggests some sort of +compromise, by which women will be allowed to smoke, but men forbidden +to do so. + +In one respect, however, America is very old indeed. In one respect +America is more historic than England; I might almost say more +archaeological than England. The record of one period of the past, +morally remote and probably irrevocable, is there preserved in a more +perfect form as a pagan city is preserved at Pompeii. In a more general +sense, of course, it is easy to exaggerate the contrast as a mere +contrast between the old world and the new. There is a superficial +satire about the millionaire's daughter who has recently become the wife +of an aristocrat; but there is a rather more subtle satire in the +question of how long the aristocrat has been aristocratic. There is +often much misplaced mockery of a marriage between an upstart's daughter +and a decayed relic of feudalism; when it is really a marriage between +an upstart's daughter and an upstart's grandson. The sentimental +socialist often seems to admit the blue blood of the nobleman, even when +he wants to shed it; just as he seems to admit the marvellous brains of +the millionaire, even when he wants to blow them out. Unfortunately (in +the interests of social science, of course) the sentimental socialist +never does go so far as bloodshed or blowing out brains; otherwise the +colour and quality of both blood and brains would probably be a +disappointment to him. There are certainly more American families that +really came over in the _Mayflower_ than English families that really +came over with the Conqueror; and an English county family clearly +dating from the time of the _Mayflower_ would be considered a very +traditional and historic house. Nevertheless, there are ancient things +in England, though the aristocracy is hardly one of them. There are +buildings, there are institutions, there are even ideas in England which +do preserve, as in a perfect pattern, some particular epoch of the past, +and even of the remote past. A man could study the Middle Ages in +Lincoln as well as in Rouen; in Canterbury as well as in Cologne. Even +of the Renaissance the same is true, at least on the literary side; if +Shakespeare was later he was also greater than Ronsard. But the point is +that the spirit and philosophy of the periods were present in fullness +and in freedom. The guildsmen were as Christian in England as they were +anywhere; the poets were as pagan in England as they were anywhere. +Personally I do not admit that the men who served patrons were freer +than those who served patron saints. But each fashion had its own kind +of freedom; and the point is that the English, in each case, had the +fullness of that kind of freedom. But there was another ideal of freedom +which the English never had at all; or, anyhow, never expressed at all. +There was another ideal, the soul of another epoch, round which we built +no monuments and wrote no masterpieces. You will find no traces of it in +England; but you will find them in America. + +The thing I mean was the real religion of the eighteenth century. Its +religion, in the more defined sense, was generally Deism, as in +Robespierre or Jefferson. In the more general way of morals and +atmosphere it was rather Stoicism, as in the suicide of Wolfe Tone. It +had certain very noble and, as some would say, impossible ideals; as +that a politician should be poor, and should be proud of being poor. It +knew Latin; and therefore insisted on the strange fancy that the +Republic should be a public thing. Its Republican simplicity was +anything but a silly pose; unless all martyrdom is a silly pose. Even of +the prigs and fanatics of the American and French Revolutions we can +often say, as Stevenson said of an American, that 'thrift and courage +glowed in him.' And its virtue and value for us is that it did remember +the things we now most tend to forget; from the dignity of liberty to +the danger of luxury. It did really believe in self-determination, in +the self-determination of the self, as well as of the state. And its +determination was really determined. In short, it believed in +self-respect; and it is strictly true even of its rebels and regicides +that they desired chiefly to be respectable. But there were in it the +marks of religion as well as respectability; it had a creed; it had a +crusade. Men died singing its songs; men starved rather than write +against its principles. And its principles were liberty, equality, and +fraternity, or the dogmas of the Declaration of Independence. This was +the idea that redeemed the dreary negations of the eighteenth century; +and there are still corners of Philadelphia or Boston or Baltimore where +we can feel so suddenly in the silence its plain garb and formal +manners, that the walking ghost of Jefferson would hardly surprise us. + +There is not the ghost of such a thing in England. In England the real +religion of the eighteenth century never found freedom or scope. It +never cleared a space in which to build that cold and classic building +called the Capitol. It never made elbow-room for that free if sometimes +frigid figure called the Citizen. + +In eighteenth-century England he was crowded out, partly perhaps by the +relics of better things of the past, but largely at least by the +presence of much worse things in the present. The worst things kept out +the best things of the eighteenth century. The ground was occupied by +legal fictions; by a godless Erastian church and a powerless Hanoverian +king. Its realities were an aristocracy of Regency dandies, in costumes +made to match Brighton Pavilion; a paganism not frigid but florid. It +was a touch of this aristocratic waste in Fox that prevented that great +man from being a glorious exception. It is therefore well for us to +realise that there is something in history which we did not experience; +and therefore probably something in Americans that we do not understand. +There was this idealism at the very beginning of their individualism. +There was a note of heroic publicity and honourable poverty which +lingers in the very name of Cincinnati. + +But I have another and special reason for noting this historical fact; +the fact that we English never made anything upon the model of a +capitol, while we can match anybody with the model of a cathedral. It is +far from improbable that the latter model may again be a working model. +For I have myself felt, naturally and for a long time, a warm sympathy +with both those past ideals, which seem to some so incompatible. I have +felt the attraction of the red cap as well as the red cross, of the +Marseillaise as well as the Magnificat. And even when they were in +furious conflict I have never altogether lost my sympathy for either. +But in the conflict between the Republic[1] and the Church, the point +often made against the Church seems to me much more of a point against +the Republic. It is emphatically the Republic and not the Church that I +venerate as something beautiful but belonging to the past. In fact I +feel exactly the same sort of sad respect for the republican ideal that +many mid-Victorian free-thinkers felt for the religious ideal. The most +sincere poets of that period were largely divided between those who +insisted, like Arnold and Clough, that Christianity might be a ruin, but +after all it must be treated as a picturesque ruin; and those, like +Swinburne, who insisted that it might be a picturesque ruin, but after +all it must be treated as a ruin. But surely their own pagan temple of +political liberty is now much more of a ruin than the other; and I fancy +I am one of the few who still take off their hats in that ruined temple. +That is why I went about looking for the fading traces of that lost +cause, in the old-world atmosphere of the new world. + +But I do not, as a fact, feel that the cathedral is a ruin; I doubt if I +should feel it even if I wished to lay it in ruins. I doubt if Mr. +M'Cabe really thinks that Catholicism is dying, though he might deceive +himself into saying so. Nobody could be naturally moved to say that the +crowded cathedral of St. Patrick in New York was a ruin, or even that +the unfinished Anglo-Catholic cathedral at Washington was a ruin, though +it is not yet a church; or that there is anything lost or lingering +about the splendid and spirited Gothic churches springing up under the +inspiration of Mr. Cram of Boston. As a matter of feeling, as a matter +of fact, as a matter quite apart from theory or opinion, it is not in +the religious centres that we now have the feeling of something +beautiful but receding, of something loved but lost. It is exactly in +the spaces cleared and levelled by America for the large and sober +religion of the eighteenth century; it is where an old house in +Philadelphia contains an old picture of Franklin, or where the men of +Maryland raised above their city the first monument of Washington. It is +there that I feel like one who treads alone some banquet hall deserted, +whose lights are fled, whose garlands dead, and all save he departed. It +is then that I feel as if I were the last Republican. + +But when I say that the Republic of the Age of Reason is now a ruin, I +should rather say that at its best it is a ruin. At its worst it has +collapsed into a death-trap or is rotting like a dunghill. What is the +real Republic of our day as distinct from the ideal Republic of our +fathers, but a heap of corrupt capitalism crawling with worms; with +those parasites, the professional politicians? I was re-reading +Swinburne's bitter but not ignoble poem, 'Before a Crucifix,' in which +he bids Christ, or the ecclesiastical image of Christ, stand out of the +way of the onward march of a political idealism represented by United +Italy or the French Republic. I was struck by the strange and ironic +exactitude with which every taunt he flings at the degradation of the +old divine ideal would now fit the degradation of his own human ideal. +The time has already come when we can ask his Goddess of Liberty, as +represented by the actual Liberals, 'Have _you_ filled full men's +starved-out souls; have _you_ brought freedom on the earth?' For every +engine in which these old free-thinkers firmly and confidently trusted +has itself become an engine of oppression and even of class oppression. +Its free parliament has become an oligarchy. Its free press has become a +monopoly. If the pure Church has been corrupted in the course of two +thousand years, what about the pure Republic that has rotted into a +filthy plutocracy in less than a hundred? + + + O, hidden face of man, whereover + The years have woven a viewless veil, + If thou wert verily man's lover + What did thy love or blood avail? + Thy blood the priests make poison of; + And in gold shekels coin thy love. + + +Which has most to do with shekels to-day, the priests or the +politicians? Can we say in any special sense nowadays that clergymen, as +such, make a poison out of the blood of the martyrs? Can we say it in +anything like the real sense, in which we do say that yellow journalists +make a poison out of the blood of the soldiers? + +But I understand how Swinburne felt when confronted by the image of the +carven Christ, and, perplexed by the contrast between its claims and its +consequences, he said his strange farewell to it, hastily indeed, but +not without regret, not even really without respect. I felt the same +myself when I looked for the last time on the Statue of Liberty. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[1] In the conclusion of this chapter I mean by the Republic +not merely the American Republic, but the whole modern representative +system, as in France or even in England. + + + + +_Is the Atlantic Narrowing?_ + + +A certain kind of question is asked very earnestly in our time. Because +of a certain logical quality in it, connected with premises and data, it +is very difficult to answer. Thus people will ask what is the hidden +weakness in the Celtic race that makes them everywhere fail or fade +away; or how the Germans contrived to bring all their organisation into +a state of such perfect efficiency; and what was the significance of the +recent victory of Prussia. Or they will ask by what stages the modern +world has abandoned all belief in miracles; and the modern newspapers +ceased to print any news of murders. They will ask why English politics +are free from corruption; or by what mental and moral training certain +millionaires were enabled to succeed by sheer force of character; in +short, they will ask why plutocrats govern well and how it is that pigs +fly, spreading their pink pinions to the breeze or delighting us as they +twitter and flutter from tree to tree. The logical difficulty of +answering these questions is connected with an old story about Charles +the Second and a bowl of goldfish, and with another anecdote about a +gentleman who was asked, 'When did you leave off beating your wife?' But +there is something analogous to it in the present discussions about the +forces drawing England and America together. It seems as if the +reasoners hardly went far enough back in their argument, or took +trouble enough to disentangle their assumptions. They are still moving +with the momentum of the peculiar nineteenth-century notion of progress; +of certain very simple tendencies perpetually increasing and needing no +special analysis. It is so with the international _rapprochement_ I have +to consider here. + +In other places I have ventured to express a doubt about whether nations +can be drawn together by an ancient rumour about races; by a sort of +prehistoric chit-chat or the gossip of the Stone Age. I have ventured +farther; and even expressed a doubt about whether they ought to be drawn +together, or rather dragged together, by the brute violence of the +engines of science and speed. But there is yet another horrible doubt +haunting my morbid mind, which it will be better for my constitution to +confess frankly. And that is the doubt about whether they are being +drawn together at all. + +It has long been a conversational commonplace among the enlightened that +all countries are coming closer and closer to each other. It was a +conversational commonplace among the enlightened, somewhere about the +year 1913, that all wars were receding farther and farther into a +barbaric past. There is something about these sayings that seems simple +and familiar and entirely satisfactory when we say them; they are of +that consoling sort which we can say without any of the mental pain of +thinking what we are saying. But if we turn our attention from the +phrases we use to the facts that we talk about, we shall realise at +least that there are a good many facts on the other side and examples +pointing the other way. For instance, it does happen occasionally, from +time to time, that people talk about Ireland. He would be a very +hilarious humanitarian who should maintain that Ireland and England have +been more and more assimilated during the last hundred years. The very +name of Sinn Fein is an answer to it, and the very language in which +that phrase is spoken. Curran and Sheil would no more have dreamed of +uttering the watchword of 'Repeal' in Gaelic than of uttering it in +Zulu. Grattan could hardly have brought himself to believe that the real +repeal of the Union would actually be signed in London in the strange +script as remote as the snaky ornament of the Celtic crosses. It would +have seemed like Washington signing the Declaration of Independence in +the picture-writing of the Red Indians. Ireland has clearly grown away +from England; and her language, literature, and type of patriotism are +far less English than they were. On the other hand, no one will pretend +that the mass of modern Englishmen are much nearer to talking Gaelic or +decorating Celtic crosses. A hundred years ago it was perfectly natural +that Byron and Moore should walk down the street arm in arm. Even the +sight of Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Mr. W. B. Yeats walking down the street +arm in arm would now arouse some remark. + +I could give any number of other examples of the same new estrangement +of nations. I could cite the obvious facts that Norway and Sweden parted +company not very long ago, that Austria and Hungary have again become +separate states. I could point to the mob of new nations that have +started up after the war; to the fact that the great empires are now +nearly all broken up; that the Russian Empire no longer directs Poland, +that the Austrian Empire no longer directs Bohemia, that the Turkish +Empire no longer directs Palestine. Sinn Fein is the separatism of the +Irish. Zionism is the separatism of the Jews. But there is one simple +and sufficing example, which is here more to my purpose, and is at least +equally sufficient for it. And that is the deepening national difference +between the Americans and the English. + +Let me test it first by my individual experience in the matter of +literature. When I was a boy I read a book like _The Autocrat of the +Breakfast-Table_ exactly as I read another book like _The Book of +Snobs_. I did not think of it as an American book, but simply as a book. +Its wit and idiom were like those of the English literary tradition; and +its few touches of local colour seemed merely accidental, like those of +an Englishman who happened to be living in Switzerland or Sweden. My +father and my father's friends were rightly enthusiastic for the book; +so that it seemed to come to me by inheritance like _Gulliver's Travels_ +or _Tristram Shandy_. Its language was as English as Ruskin, and a great +deal more English than Carlyle. Well, I have seen in later years an +almost equally wide and well-merited popularity of the stories of O. +Henry. But never for one moment could I or any one else reading them +forget that they were stories by an American about America. The very +first fact about them is that they are told with an American accent, +that is, in the unmistakable tones of a brilliant and fascinating +foreigner. And the same is true of every other recent work of which the +fame has managed to cross the Atlantic. We did not say that _The Spoon +River Anthology_ was a new book, but that it was a new book from +America. It was exactly as if a remarkable realistic novel was reported +from Russia or Italy. We were in no danger of confusing it with the +'Elegy in a Country Churchyard.' People in England who heard of Main +Street were not likely to identify it with a High Street; with the +principal thoroughfare in any little town in Berkshire or +Buckinghamshire. But when I was a boy I practically identified the +boarding-house of the Autocrat with any boarding-house I happened to +know in Brompton or Brighton. No doubt there were differences; but the +point is that the differences did not pierce the consciousness or prick +the illusion. I said to myself, 'People are like this in +boarding-houses,' not 'People are like this in Boston.' + +This can be seen even in the simple matter of language, especially in +the sense of slang. Take, for instance, the delightful sketch in the +causerie of Oliver Wendell Holmes; the character of the young man called +John. He is the very modern type in every modern country who does +specialise in slang. He is the young fellow who is something in the +City; the everyday young man of the Gilbertian song, with a stick and a +pipe and a half-bred black-and-tan. In every country he is at once witty +and commonplace. In every country, therefore, he tends both to the +vivacity and the vulgarity of slang. But when he appeared in Holmes's +book, his language was not very different from what it would have been +in a Brighton instead of a Boston boarding-house; or, in short, if the +young man called John had more commonly been called 'Arry. If he had +appeared in a modern American book, his language would have been almost +literally unintelligible. At the least an Englishman would have had to +read some of the best sentences twice, as he sometimes has to read the +dizzy and involved metaphors of O. Henry. Nor is it an answer that this +depended on the personalities of the particular writers. A comparison +between the real journalism of the time of Holmes and the real +journalism of the time of Henry reveals the same thing. It is the +expansion of a slight difference of style into a luxuriant difference of +idiom; and the process continued indefinitely would certainly produce a +totally different language. After a few centuries the signatures of +American ambassadors would look as fantastic as Gaelic, and the very +name of the Republic be as strange as Sinn Fein. + +It is true that there has been on the surface a certain amount of give +and take; or at least, as far as the English are concerned, of take +rather than give. But it is true that it was once all the other way; and +indeed the one thing is something like a just nemesis of the other. +Indeed, the story of the reversal is somewhat singular, when we come to +think of it. It began in a certain atmosphere and spirit of certain +well-meaning people who talked about the English-speaking race; and were +apparently indifferent to how the English was spoken, whether in the +accent of a Jamaican negro or a convict from Botany Bay. It was their +logical tendency to say that Dante was a Dago. It was their logical +punishment to say that Disraeli was an Englishman. Now there may have +been a period when this Anglo-American amalgamation included more or +less equal elements from England and America. It never included the +larger elements, or the more valuable elements of either. But, on the +whole, I think it true to say that it was not an allotment but an +interchange of parts; and that things first went all one way and then +all the other. People began by telling the Americans that they owed all +their past triumphs to England; which was false. They ended up by +telling the English that they would owe all their future triumphs to +America; which is if possible still more false. Because we chose to +forget that New York had been New Amsterdam, we are now in danger of +forgetting that London is not New York. Because we insisted that Chicago +was only a pious imitation of Chiswick, we may yet see Chiswick an +inferior imitation of Chicago. Our Anglo-Saxon historians attempted that +conquest in which Howe and Burgoyne had failed, and with infinitely less +justification on their side. They attempted the great crime of the +Anglicisation of America. They have called down the punishment of the +Americanisation of England. We must not murmur; but it is a heavy +punishment. + +It may lift a little of its load, however, if we look at it more +closely; we shall then find that though it is very much on top of us, it +is only on top. In that sense such Americanisation as there is is very +superficial. For instance, there is a certain amount of American slang +picked up at random; it appears in certain pushing types of journalism +and drama. But we may easily dwell too much on this tragedy; of people +who have never spoken English beginning to speak American. I am far from +suggesting that American, like any other foreign language, may not +frequently contribute to the common culture of the world phrases for +which there is no substitute; there are French phrases so used in +England and English phrases in France. The word 'high-brow,' for +instance, is a real discovery and revelation, a new and necessary name +for something that walked nameless but enormous in the modern world, a +shaft of light and a stroke of lightning. That comes from America and +belongs to the world, as much as 'The Raven' or _The Scarlet Letter_ or +the novels of Henry James belong to the world. In fact, I can imagine +Henry James originating it in the throes of self-expression, and +bringing out a word like 'high-browed,' with a sort of gentle jerk, at +the end of searching sentences which groped sensitively until they found +the phrase. But most of the American slang that is borrowed seems to be +borrowed for no particular reason. It either has no point or the point +is lost by translation into another context and culture. It is either +something which does not need any grotesque and exaggerative +description, or of which there already exists a grotesque and +exaggerative description more native to our tongue and soil. For +instance, I cannot see that the strong and simple expression 'Now it is +for you to pull the police magistrate's nose' is in any way strengthened +by saying, 'Now it is up to you to pull the police magistrate's nose.' +When Tennyson says of the men of the Light Brigade 'Theirs but to do and +die,' the expression seems to me perfectly lucid. 'Up to them to do and +die' would alter the metre without especially clarifying the meaning. +This is an example of ordinary language being quite adequate; but there +is a further difficulty that even wild slang comes to sound like +ordinary language. Very often the English have already as humorous and +fanciful idiom of their own, only that through habit it has lost its +humour. When Keats wrote the line, 'What pipes and timbrels, what wild +ecstasy!' I am willing to believe that the American humorist would have +expressed the same sentiment by beginning the sentence with 'Some +pipe!' When that was first said, somewhere in the wilds of Colorado, it +was really funny; involving a powerful understatement and the suggestion +of a mere sample. If a spinster has informed us that she keeps a bird, +and we find it is an ostrich, there will be considerable point in the +Colorado satirist saying inquiringly, 'Some bird?' as if he were +offering us a small slice of a small plover. But if we go back to this +root and rationale of a joke, the English language already contains +quite as good a joke. It is not necessary to say, 'Some bird'; there is +a far finer irony in the old expression, 'Something like a bird.' It +suggests that the speaker sees something faintly and strangely birdlike +about a bird; that it remotely and almost irrationally reminds him of a +bird; and that there is about ostrich plumes a yard long something like +the faint and delicate traces of a feather. It has every quality of +imaginative irony, except that nobody even imagines it to be ironical. +All that happens is that people get tired of that turn of phrase, take +up a foreign phrase and get tired of that, without realising the point +of either. All that happens is that a number of weary people who used to +say, 'Something like a bird,' now say, 'Some bird,' with undiminished +weariness. But they might just as well use dull and decent English; for +in both cases they are only using jocular language without seeing the +joke. + +There is indeed a considerable trade in the transplantation of these +American jokes to England just now. They generally pine and die in our +climate, or they are dead before their arrival; but we cannot be certain +that they were never alive. There is a sort of unending frieze or +scroll of decorative designs unrolled ceaselessly before the British +public, about a hen-pecked husband, which is indistinguishable to the +eye from an actual self-repeating pattern like that of the Greek Key, +but which is imported as if it were as precious and irreplaceable as the +Elgin Marbles. Advertisement and syndication make mountains out of the +most funny little mole-hills; but no doubt the mole-hills are +picturesque enough in their own landscape. In any case there is nothing +so national as humour; and many things, like many people, can be +humorous enough when they are at home. But these American jokes are +boomed as solemnly as American religions; and their supporters gravely +testify that they are funny, without seeing the fun of it for a moment. +This is partly perhaps the spirit of spontaneous institutionalism in +American democracy, breaking out in the wrong place. They make humour an +institution; and a man will be set to tell an anecdote as if to play the +violin. But when the story is told in America it really is amusing; and +when these jokes are reprinted in England they are often not even +intelligible. With all the stupidity of the millionaire and the +monopolist, the enterprising proprietor prints jokes in England which +are necessarily unintelligible to nearly every English person; jokes +referring to domestic and local conditions quite peculiar to America. I +saw one of these narrative caricatures the other day in which the whole +of the joke (what there was of it) turned on the astonishment of a +housewife at the absurd notion of not having an ice-box. It is perfectly +true that nearly every ordinary American housewife possesses an ice-box. +An ordinary English housewife would no more expect to possess an +ice-box than to possess an iceberg. And it would be about as sensible to +tow an iceberg to an English port all the way from the North Pole, as to +trail that one pale and frigid joke to Fleet Street all the way from the +New York papers. It is the same with a hundred other advertisements and +adaptations. I have already confessed that I took a considerable delight +in the dancing illuminations of Broadway--in Broadway. Everything there +is suitable to them, the vast interminable thoroughfare, the toppling +houses, the dizzy and restless spirit of the whole city. It is a city of +dissolving views, and one may almost say a city in everlasting +dissolution. But I do not especially admire a burning fragment of +Broadway stuck up opposite the old Georgian curve of Regent Street. I +would as soon express sympathy with the Republic of Switzerland by +erecting a small Alp, with imitation snow, in the middle of St. James's +Park. + +But all this commercial copying is very superficial; and above all, it +never copies anything that is really worth copying. Nations never +_learn_ anything from each other in this way. We have many things to +learn from America; but we only listen to those Americans who have still +to learn them. Thus, for instance, we do not import the small farm but +only the big shop. In other words, we hear nothing of the democracy of +the Middle West, but everything of the plutocracy of the middleman, who +is probably as unpopular in the Middle West as the miller in the Middle +Ages. If Mr. Elihu K. Pike could be transplanted bodily from the +neighbourhood of his home town of Marathon, Neb., with his farm and his +frame-house and all its fittings, and they could be set down exactly in +the spot now occupied by Selfridge's (which could be easily cleared away +for the purpose), I think we could really get a great deal of good by +watching him, even if the watching were inevitably a little too like +watching a wild beast in a cage or an insect under a glass case. Urban +crowds could collect every day behind a barrier or railing, and gaze at +Mr. Pike pottering about all day in his ancient and autochthonous +occupations. We could see him growing Indian corn with all the gravity +of an Indian; though it is impossible to imagine Mrs. Pike blessing the +cornfield in the manner of Minnehaha. As I have said, there is a certain +lack of humane myth and mysticism about this Puritan peasantry. But we +could see him transforming the maize into pop-corn, which is a very +pleasant domestic ritual and pastime, and is the American equivalent of +the glory of roasting chestnuts. Above all, many of us would learn for +the first time that a man can really live and walk about upon something +more productive than a pavement; and that when he does so he can really +be a free man, and have no lord but the law. Instead of that, America +can give nothing to London but those multiple modern shops, of which it +has too many already. I know that many people entertain the innocent +illusion that big shops are more efficient than small ones; but that is +only because the big combinations have the monopoly of advertisement as +well as trade. The big shop is not in the least remarkable for +efficiency; it is only too big to be blamed for its inefficiency. It is +secure in its reputation for always sacking the wrong man. A big shop, +considered as a place to shop in, is simply a village of small shops +roofed in to keep out the light and air; and one in which none of the +shopkeepers is really responsible for his shop. If any one has any +doubts on this matter, since I have mentioned it, let him consider this +fact: that in practice we never do apply this method of commercial +combination to anything that matters very much. We do not go to the +surgical department of the Stores to have a portion of our brain removed +by a delicate operation; and then pass on to the advocacy department to +employ one or any of its barristers, when we are in temporary danger of +being hanged. We go to men who own their own tools and are responsible +for the use of their own talents. And the same truth applies to that +other modern method of advertisement, which has also so largely fallen +across us like the gigantic shadow of America. Nations do not arm +themselves for a mortal struggle by remembering which sort of submarine +they have seen most often on the hoardings. They can do it about +something like soap, precisely because a nation will not perish by +having a second-rate sort of soap, as it might by having a second-rate +sort of submarine. A nation may indeed perish slowly by having a +second-rate sort of food or drink or medicine; but that is another and +much longer story, and the story is not ended yet. But nobody wins a +great battle at a great crisis because somebody has told him that +Cadgerboy's Cavalry Is the Best. It may be that commercial enterprise +will eventually cover these fields also, and advertisement-agents will +provide the instruments of the surgeon and the weapons of the soldier. +When that happens, the armies will be defeated and the patients will +die. But though we modern people are indeed patients, in the sense of +being merely receptive and accepting things with astonishing patience, +we are not dead yet; and we have lingering gleams of sanity. + +For the best things do not travel. As I appear here as a traveller, I +may say with all modesty that the best people do not travel either. Both +in England and America the normal people are the national people; and I +repeat that I think they are growing more and more national. I do not +think the abyss is being bridged by cosmopolitan theories; and I am sure +I do not want it bridged by all this slang journalism and blatant +advertisement. I have called all that commercial publicity the gigantic +shadow of America. It may be the shadow of America, but it is not the +light of America. The light lies far beyond, a level light upon the +lands of sunset, where it shines upon wide places full of a very simple +and a very happy people; and those who would see it must seek for it. + + + + +_Lincoln and Lost Causes_ + + +It has already been remarked here that the English know a great deal +about past American literature, but nothing about past American history. +They do not know either, of course, as well as they know the present +American advertising, which is the least important of the three. But it +is worth noting once more how little they know of the history, and how +illogically that little is chosen. They have heard, no doubt, of the +fame and the greatness of Henry Clay. He is a cigar. But it would be +unwise to cross-examine any Englishman, who may be consuming that luxury +at the moment, about the Missouri Compromise or the controversies with +Andrew Jackson. And just as the statesman of Kentucky is a cigar, so the +state of Virginia is a cigarette. But there is perhaps one exception, or +half-exception, to this simple plan. It would perhaps be an exaggeration +to say that Plymouth Rock is a chicken. Any English person keeping +chickens, and chiefly interested in Plymouth Rocks considered as +chickens, would nevertheless have a hazy sensation of having seen the +word somewhere before. He would feel subconsciously that the Plymouth +Rock had not always been a chicken. Indeed, the name connotes something +not only solid but antiquated; and is not therefore a very tactful name +for a chicken. There would rise up before him something memorable in +the haze that he calls his history; and he would see the history books +of his boyhood and old engravings of men in steeple-crowned hats +struggling with sea-waves or Red Indians. The whole thing would suddenly +become clear to him if (by a simple reform) the chickens were called +Pilgrim Fathers. + +Then he would remember all about it. The Pilgrim Fathers were champions +of religious liberty; and they discovered America. It is true that he +has also heard of a man called Christopher Columbus; but that was in +connection with an egg. He has also heard of somebody known as Sir +Walter Raleigh; and though his principal possession was a cloak, it is +also true that he had a potato, not to mention a pipe of tobacco. Can it +be possible that he brought it from Virginia, where the cigarettes come +from? Gradually the memories will come back and fit themselves together +for the average hen-wife who learnt history at the English elementary +schools, and who has now something better to do. Even when the narrative +becomes consecutive, it will not necessarily become correct. It is not +strictly true to say that the Pilgrim Fathers discovered America. But it +is quite as true as saying that they were champions of religious +liberty. If we said that they were martyrs who would have died +heroically in torments rather than tolerate any religious liberty, we +should be talking something like sense about them, and telling the real +truth that is their due. The whole Puritan movement, from the Solemn +League and Covenant to the last stand of the last Stuarts, was a +struggle _against_ religious toleration, or what they would have called +religious indifference. The first religious equality on earth was +established by a Catholic cavalier in Maryland. Now there is nothing in +this to diminish any dignity that belongs to any real virtues and +virilities in the Pilgrim Fathers; on the contrary, it is rather to the +credit of their consistency and conviction. But there is no doubt that +the note of their whole experiment in New England was intolerance, and +even inquisition. And there is no doubt that New England was then only +the newest and not the oldest of these colonial experiments. At least +two Cavaliers had been in the field before any Puritans. And they had +carried with them much more of the atmosphere and nature of the normal +Englishman than any Puritan could possibly carry. They had established +it especially in Virginia, which had been founded by a great Elizabethan +and named after the great Elizabeth. Before there was any New England in +the North, there was something very like Old England in the South. +Relatively speaking, there is still. + +Whenever the anniversary of the _Mayflower_ comes round, there is a +chorus of Anglo-American congratulation and comradeship, as if this at +least were a matter on which all can agree. But I knew enough about +America, even before I went there, to know that there are a good many +people there at any rate who do not agree with it. Long ago I wrote a +protest in which I asked why Englishmen had forgotten the great state of +Virginia, the first in foundation and long the first in leadership; and +why a few crabbed Nonconformists should have the right to erase a record +that begins with Raleigh and ends with Lee, and incidentally includes +Washington. The great state of Virginia was the backbone of America +until it was broken in the Civil War. From Virginia came the first great +Presidents and most of the Fathers of the Republic. Its adherence to +the Southern side in the war made it a great war, and for a long time a +doubtful war. And in the leader of the Southern armies it produced what +is perhaps the one modern figure that may come to shine like St. Louis +in the lost battle, or Hector dying before holy Troy. + +Again, it is characteristic that while the modern English know nothing +about Lee they do know something about Lincoln; and nearly all that they +know is wrong. They know nothing of his Southern connections, nothing of +his considerable Southern sympathy, nothing of the meaning of his +moderation in face of the problem of slavery, now lightly treated as +self-evident. Above all, they know nothing about the respect in which +Lincoln was quite un-English, was indeed the very reverse of English; +and can be understood better if we think of him as a Frenchman, since it +seems so hard for some of us to believe that he was an American. I mean +his lust for logic for its own sake, and the way he kept mathematical +truths in his mind like the fixed stars. He was so far from being a +merely practical man, impatient of academic abstractions, that he +reviewed and revelled in academic abstractions, even while he could not +apply them to practical life. He loved to repeat that slavery was +intolerable while he tolerated it, and to prove that something ought to +be done while it was impossible to do it. This was probably very +bewildering to his brother-politicians; for politicians always whitewash +what they do not destroy. But for all that this inconsistent consistency +beat the politicians at their own game, and this abstracted logic proved +the most practical of all. For when the chance did come to do something, +there was no doubt about the thing to be done. The thunderbolt fell +from the clear heights of heaven; it had not been tossed about and lost +like a common missile in the market-place. The matter is worth +mentioning, because it has a moral for a much larger modern question. A +wise man's attitude towards industrial capitalism will be very like +Lincoln's attitude towards slavery. That is, he will manage to endure +capitalism; but he will not endure a defence of capitalism. He will +recognise the value, not only of knowing what he is doing, but of +knowing what he would like to do. He will recognise the importance of +having a thing clearly labelled in his own mind as bad, long before the +opportunity comes to abolish it. He may recognise the risk of even worse +things in immediate abolition, as Lincoln did in abolitionism. He will +not call all business men brutes, any more than Lincoln would call all +planters demons; because he knows they are not. He will regard many +alternatives to capitalism as crude and inhuman, as Lincoln regarded +John Brown's raid; because they are. But he will clear his _mind_ from +cant about capitalism; he will have no doubt of what is the truth about +Trusts and Trade Combines and the concentration of capital; and it is +the truth that they endure under one of the ironic silences of heaven, +over the pageants and the passing triumphs of hell. + +But the name of Lincoln has a more immediate reference to the +international matters I am considering here. His name has been much +invoked by English politicians and journalists in connection with the +quarrel with Ireland. And if we study the matter, we shall hardly admire +the tact and sagacity of those journalists and politicians. + +History is an eternal tangle of cross-purposes; and we could not take a +clearer case, or rather a more complicated case, of such a tangle, than +the facts lying behind a political parallel recently mentioned by many +politicians. I mean the parallel between the movement for Irish +independence and the attempted secession of the Southern Confederacy in +America. Superficially any one might say that the comparison is natural +enough; and that there is much in common between the quarrel of the +North and South in Ireland and the quarrel of the North and South in +America. In both cases the South was on the whole agricultural, the +North on the whole industrial. True, the parallel exaggerates the +position of Belfast; to complete it we must suppose the whole Federal +system to have consisted of Pittsburg. In both the side that was more +successful was felt by many to be less attractive. In both the same +political terms were used, such as the term 'Union' and 'Unionism.' An +ordinary Englishman comes to America, knowing these main lines of +American history, and knowing that the American knows the similar main +lines of Irish history. He knows that there are strong champions of +Ireland in America; possibly he also knows that there are very genuine +champions of England in America. By every possible historical analogy, +he would naturally expect to find the pro-Irish in the South and the +pro-English in the North. As a matter of fact, he finds almost exactly +the opposite. He finds Boston governed by Irishmen, and Nashville +containing people more pro-English than Englishmen. He finds Virginians +not only of British blood, like George Washington, but of British +opinions almost worthy of George the Third. + +But I do not say this, as will be seen in a moment, as a criticism of +the comparative Toryism of the South. I say it as a criticism of the +superlative stupidity of English propaganda. On another page I remark on +the need for a new sort of English propaganda; a propaganda that should +be really English and have some remote reference to England. Now if it +were a matter of making foreigners feel the real humours and humanities +of England, there are no Americans so able or willing to do it as the +Americans of the Southern States. As I have already hinted, some of them +are so loyal to the English humanities, that they think it their duty to +defend even the English inhumanities. New England is turning into New +Ireland. But Old England can still be faintly traced in Old Dixie. It +contains some of the best things that England herself has had, and +therefore (of course) the things that England herself has lost, or is +trying to lose. But above all, as I have said, there are people in these +places whose historic memories and family traditions really hold them to +us, not by alliance but by affection. Indeed, they have the affection in +spite of the alliance. They love us in spite of our compliments and +courtesies and hands across the sea; all our ambassadorial salutations +and speeches cannot kill their love. They manage even to respect us in +spite of the shady Jew stockbrokers we send them as English envoys, or +the 'efficient' men, who are sent out to be tactful with foreigners +because they have been too tactless with trades unionists. This type of +traditional American, North or South, really has some traditions +connecting him with England; and though he is now in a very small +minority, I cannot imagine why England should wish to make it smaller. +England once sympathised with the South. The South still sympathises +with England. It would seem that the South, or some elements in the +South, had rather the advantage of us in political firmness and +fidelity; but it does not follow that that fidelity will stand every +shock. And at this moment, and in this matter, of all things in the +world, our political propagandists must try to bolster British +Imperialism up, by kicking Southern Secession when it is down. The +English politicians eagerly point out that we shall be justified in +crushing Ireland exactly as Sumner and Stevens crushed the most English +part of America. It does not seem to occur to them that this comparison +between the Unionist triumph in America and a Unionist triumph in +Britain is rather hard upon our particular sympathisers, who did not +triumph. When England exults in Lincoln's victory over his foes, she is +exulting in his victory over her own friends. If her diplomacy continues +as delicate and chivalrous as it is at present, they may soon be her +only friends. England will be defending herself at the expense of her +only defenders. But however this may be, it is as well to bear witness +to some of the elements of my own experience; and I can answer for it, +at least, that there are some people in the South who will not be +pleased at being swept into the rubbish heap of history as rebels and +ruffians; and who will not, I regret to say, by any means enjoy even +being classed with Fenians and Sinn Feiners. + +Now touching the actual comparison between the conquest of the +Confederacy and the conquest of Ireland, there are, of course, a good +many things to be said which politicians cannot be expected to +understand. Strange to say, it is not certain that a lost cause was +never worth winning; and it would be easy to argue that the world lost +very much indeed when that particular cause was lost. These are not days +in which it is exactly obvious that an agricultural society was more +dangerous than an industrial one. And even Southern slavery had this one +moral merit, that it was decadent; it has this one historic advantage, +that it is dead. The Northern slavery, industrial slavery, or what is +called wage slavery, is not decaying but increasing; and the end of it +is not yet. But in any case, it would be well for us to realise that the +reproach of resembling the Confederacy does not ring in all ears as an +unanswerable condemnation. It is scarcely a self-evident or sufficient +argument, to some hearers, even to prove that the English are as +delicate and philanthropic as Sherman, still less that the Irish are as +criminal and lawless as Lee. Nor will it soothe every single soul on the +American continent to say that the English victory in Ireland will be +followed by a reconstruction, like the reconstruction exhibited in the +film called 'The Birth of a Nation.' And, indeed, there is a further +inference from that fine panorama of the exploits of the Ku-Klux Klan. +It would be easy, as I say, to turn the argument entirely in favour of +the Confederacy. It would be easy to draw the moral, not that the +Southern Irish are as wrong as the Southern States, but that the +Southern States were as right as the Southern Irish. But upon the whole, +I do not incline to accept the parallel in that sense any more than in +the opposite sense. For reasons I have already given elsewhere, I do +believe that in the main Abraham Lincoln was right. But right in what? + +If Lincoln was right, he was right in guessing that there was not +really a Northern nation and a Southern nation, but only one American +nation. And if he has been proved right, he has been proved right by the +fact that men in the South, as well as the North, do now feel a +patriotism for that American nation. His wisdom, if it really was +wisdom, was justified not by his opponents being conquered, but by their +being converted. Now, if the English politicians must insist on this +parallel, they ought to see that the parallel is fatal to themselves. +The very test which proved Lincoln right has proved them wrong. The very +judgment which may have justified him quite unquestionably condemns +them. We have again and again conquered Ireland, and have never come an +inch nearer to converting Ireland. We have had not one Gettysburg, but +twenty Gettysburgs; but we have had no Union. And that is where, as I +have remarked, it is relevant to remember that flying fantastic vision +on the films that told so many people what no histories have told them. +I heard when I was in America rumours of the local reappearance of the +Ku-Klux Klan; but the smallness and mildness of the manifestation, as +compared with the old Southern or the new Irish case, is alone a +sufficient example of the exception that proves the rule. To approximate +to any resemblance to recent Irish events, we must imagine the Ku-Klux +Klan riding again in more than the terrors of that vision, wild as the +wind, white as the moon, terrible as an army with banners. If there were +really such a revival of the Southern action, there would equally be a +revival of the Southern argument. It would be clear that Lee was right +and Lincoln was wrong; that the Southern States were national and were +as indestructible as nations. If the South were as rebellious as +Ireland, the North would be as wrong as England. + +But I desire a new English diplomacy that will exhibit, not the things +in which England is wrong but the things in which England is right. And +England is right in England, just as she is wrong in Ireland; and it is +exactly that rightness of a real nation in itself that it is at once +most difficult and most desirable to explain to foreigners. Now the +Irishman, and to some extent the American, has remained alien to +England, largely because he does not truly realise that the Englishman +loves England, still less can he really imagine why the Englishman loves +England. That is why I insist on the stupidity of ignoring and insulting +the opinions of those few Virginians and other Southerners who really +have some inherited notion of why Englishmen love England; and even love +it in something of the same fashion themselves. Politicians who do not +know the English spirit when they see it at home, cannot of course be +expected to recognise it abroad. Publicists are eloquently praising +Abraham Lincoln, for all the wrong reasons; but fundamentally for that +worst and vilest of all reasons--that he succeeded. None of them seems +to have the least notion of how to look for England in England; and they +would see something fantastic in the figure of a traveller who found it +elsewhere, or anywhere but in New England. And it is well, perhaps, that +they have not yet found England where it is hidden in England; for if +they found it, they would kill it. + +All I am concerned to consider here is the inevitable failure of this +sort of Anglo-American propaganda to create a friendship. To praise +Lincoln as an Englishman is about as appropriate as if we were praising +Lincoln as an English town. We are talking about something totally +different. And indeed the whole conversation is rather like some such +cross-purposes about some such word as 'Lincoln'; in which one party +should be talking about the President and the other about the cathedral. +It is like some wild bewilderment in a farce, with one man wondering how +a President could have a church-spire, and the other wondering how a +church could have a chin-beard. And the moral is the moral on which I +would insist everywhere in this book; that the remedy is to be found in +disentangling the two and not in entangling them further. You could not +produce a democrat of the logical type of Lincoln merely out of the +moral materials that now make up an English cathedral town, like that on +which Old Tom of Lincoln looks down. But on the other hand, it is quite +certain that a hundred Abraham Lincolns, working for a hundred years, +could not build Lincoln Cathedral. And the farcical allegory of an +attempt to make Old Tom and Old Abe embrace to the glory of the +illogical Anglo-Saxon language is but a symbol of something that is +always being attempted, and always attempted in vain. It is not by +mutual imitation that the understanding can come. It is not by erecting +New York sky-scrapers in London that New York can learn the sacred +significance of the towers of Lincoln. It is not by English dukes +importing the daughters of American millionaires that England can get +any glimpse of the democratic dignity of American men. I have the best +of all reasons for knowing that a stranger can be welcomed in America; +and just as he is courteously treated in the country as a stranger, so +he should always be careful to treat it as a strange land. That sort of +imaginative respect, as for something different and even distant, is the +only beginning of any attachment between patriotic peoples. The English +traveller may carry with him at least one word of his own great language +and literature; and whenever he is inclined to say of anything 'This is +passing strange,' he may remember that it was no inconsiderable +Englishman who appended to it the answer, 'And therefore as a stranger +give it welcome.' + + + + +_Wells and the World State_ + + +There was recently a highly distinguished gathering to celebrate the +past, present, and especially future triumphs of aviation. Some of the +most brilliant men of the age, such as Mr. H. G. Wells and Mr. J. L. +Garvin, made interesting and important speeches, and many scientific +aviators luminously discussed the new science. Among their graceful +felicitations and grave and quiet analyses a word was said, or a note +was struck, which I myself can never hear, even in the most harmless +after-dinner speech, without an impulse to leap up and yell, and smash +the decanters and wreck the dinner-table. + +Long ago, when I was a boy, I heard it with fury; and never since have I +been able to understand any free man hearing it without fury. I heard it +when Bloch, and the old prophets of pacifism by panic, preached that war +would become too horrible for patriots to endure. It sounded to me like +saying that an instrument of torture was being prepared by my dentist, +that would finally cure me of loving my dog. And I felt it again when +all these wise and well-meaning persons began to talk about the +inevitable effect of aviation in bridging the Atlantic, and establishing +alliance and affection between England and America. + +I resent the suggestion that a machine can make me bad. But I resent +quite equally the suggestion that a machine can make me good. It might +be the unfortunate fact that a coolness had arisen between myself and +Mr. Fitzarlington Blenkinsop, inhabiting the suburban villa and garden +next to mine; and I might even be largely to blame for it. But if +somebody told me that a new kind of lawn-mower had just been invented, +of so cunning a structure that I should be forced to become a +bosom-friend of Mr. Blenkinsop whether I liked it or not, I should be +very much annoyed. I should be moved to say that if that was the only +way of cutting my grass I would not cut my grass, but continue to cut my +neighbour. Or suppose the difference were even less defensible; suppose +a man had suffered from a trifling shindy with his wife. And suppose +somebody told him that the introduction of an entirely new +vacuum-cleaner would compel him to a reluctant reconciliation with his +wife. It would be found, I fancy, that human nature abhors that vacuum. +Reasonably spirited human beings will not be ordered about by bicycles +and sewing-machines; and a sane man will not be made good, let alone +bad, by the things he has himself made. I have occasionally dictated to +a typewriter, but I will not be dictated to by a typewriter, even of the +newest and most complicated mechanism; nor have I ever met a typewriter, +however complex, that attempted such a tyranny. + +Yet this and nothing else is what is implied in all such talk of the +aeroplane annihilating distinctions as well as distances; and an +international aviation abolishing nationalities. This and nothing else +was really implied in one speaker's prediction that such aviation will +almost necessitate an Anglo-American friendship. Incidentally, I may +remark, it is not a true suggestion even in the practical and +materialistic sense; and the speaker's phrase refuted the speaker's +argument. He said that international relations must be more friendly +when men can get from England to America in a day. Well, men can already +get from England to Germany in a day; and the result was a mutual +invitation of which the formalities lasted for five years. Men could get +from the coast of England to the coast of France very quickly, through +nearly all the ages during which those two coasts were bristling with +arms against each other. They could get there very quickly when Nelson +went down by that Burford Inn to embark for Trafalgar; they could get +there very quickly when Napoleon sat in his tent in that camp at +Boulogne that filled England with alarums of invasion. Are these the +amiable and pacific relations which will unite England and America, when +Englishmen can get to America in a day? The shortening of the distance +seems quite as likely, so far as that argument goes, to facilitate that +endless guerilla warfare which raged across the narrow seas in the +Middle Ages; when French invaders carried away the bells of Rye, and the +men of those flats of East Sussex gloriously pursued and recovered them. +I do not know whether American privateers, landing at Liverpool, would +carry away a few of the more elegant factory chimneys as a substitute +for the superstitious symbols of the past. I know not if the English, on +ripe reflection, would essay with any enthusiasm to get them back. But +anyhow it is anything but self-evident that people cannot fight each +other because they are near to each other; and if it were true, there +would never have been any such thing as border warfare in the world. As +a fact, border warfare has often been the one sort of warfare which it +was most difficult to bring under control. And our own traditional +position in face of this new logic is somewhat disconcerting. We have +always supposed ourselves safer because we were insular and therefore +isolated. We have been congratulating ourselves for centuries on having +enjoyed peace because we were cut off from our neighbours. And now they +are telling us that we shall only enjoy peace when we are joined up with +our neighbours. We have pitied the poor nations with frontiers, because +a frontier only produces fighting; and now we are trusting to a frontier +as the only thing that will produce friendship. But, as a matter of +fact, and for a far deeper and more spiritual reason, a frontier will +not produce friendship. Only friendliness produces friendship. And we +must look far deeper into the soul of man for the thing that produces +friendliness. + +But apart from this fallacy about the facts, I feel, as I say, a strong +abstract anger against the idea, or what some would call the ideal. If +it were true that men could be taught and tamed by machines, even if +they were taught wisdom or tamed to amiability, I should think it the +most tragic truth in the world. A man so improved would be, in an +exceedingly ugly sense, losing his soul to save it. But in truth he +cannot be so completely coerced into good; and in so far as he is +incompletely coerced, he is quite as likely to be coerced into evil. Of +the financial characters who figure as philanthropists and philosophers +in such cases, it is strictly true to say that their good is evil. The +light in their bodies is darkness, and the highest objects of such men +are the lowest objects of ordinary men. Their peace is mere safety, +their friendship is mere trade; their international friendship is mere +international trade. The best we can say of that school of capitalism is +that it will be unsuccessful. It has every other vice, but it is not +practical. It has at least the impossibility of idealism; and so far as +remoteness can carry it, that Inferno is indeed a Utopia. All the +visible manifestations of these men are materialistic; but at least +their visions will not materialise. The worst we suffer; but the best we +shall at any rate escape. We may continue to endure the realities of +cosmopolitan capitalism; but we shall be spared its ideals. + +But I am not primarily interested in the plutocrats whose vision takes +so vulgar a form. I am interested in the same thing when it takes a far +more subtle form, in men of genius and genuine social enthusiasm like +Mr. H. G. Wells. It would be very unfair to a man like Mr. Wells to +suggest that in his vision the Englishman and the American are to +embrace only in the sense of clinging to each other in terror. He is a +man who understands what friendship is, and who knows how to enjoy the +motley humours of humanity. But the political reconstruction which he +proposes is too much determined by this old nightmare of +necessitarianism. He tells us that our national dignities and +differences must be melted into the huge mould of a World State, or else +(and I think these are almost his own words) we shall be destroyed by +the instruments and machinery we have ourselves made. In effect, men +must abandon patriotism or they will be murdered by science. After this, +surely no one can accuse Mr. Wells of an undue tenderness for scientific +over other types of training. Greek may be a good thing or no; but +nobody says that if Greek scholarship is carried past a certain point, +everybody will be torn in pieces like Orpheus, or burned up like Semele, +or poisoned like Socrates. Philosophy, theology and logic may or may not +be idle academic studies; but nobody supposes that the study of +philosophy, or even of theology, ultimately forces its students to +manufacture racks and thumb-screws against their will; or that even +logicians need be so alarmingly logical as all that. Science seems to be +the only branch of study in which people have to be waved back from +perfection as from a pestilence. But my business is not with the +scientific dangers which alarm Mr. Wells, but with the remedy he +proposes for them; or rather with the relation of that remedy to the +foundation and the future of America. Now it is not too much to say that +Mr. Wells finds his model in America. The World State is to be the +United States of the World. He answers almost all objections to the +practicability of such a peace among states, by pointing out that the +American States have such a peace, and by adding, truly enough, that +another turn of history might easily have seen them broken up by war. +The pattern of the World State is to be found in the New World. + +Oddly enough, as it seems to me, he proposes almost cosmic conquests for +the American Constitution, while leaving out the most successful thing +in that Constitution. The point appeared in answer to a question which +many, like myself, must have put in this matter; the question of +despotism and democracy. I cannot understand any democrat not seeing the +danger of so distant and indirect a system of government. It is hard +enough anywhere to get representatives to represent. It is hard enough +to get a little town council to fulfil the wishes of a little town, +even when the townsmen meet the town councillors every day in the +street, and could kick them down the street if they liked. What the same +town councillors would be like if they were ruling all their +fellow-creatures from the North Pole or the New Jerusalem, is a vision +of Oriental despotism beyond the towering fancies of Tamberlane. This +difficulty in all representative government is felt everywhere, and not +least in America. But I think that if there is one truth apparent in +such a choice of evils, it is that monarchy is at least better than +oligarchy; and that where we have to act on a large scale, the most +genuine popularity can gather round a particular person like a Pope or a +President of the United States, or even a dictator like Caesar or +Napoleon, rather than round a more or less corrupt committee which can +only be defined as an obscure oligarchy. And in that sense any oligarchy +is obscure. For people to continue to trust twenty-seven men it is +necessary, as a preliminary formality, that people should have heard of +them. And there are no twenty-seven men of whom everybody has heard as +everybody in France had heard of Napoleon, as all Catholics have heard +of the Pope or all Americans have heard of the President. I think the +mass of ordinary Americans do really elect their President; and even +where they cannot control him at least they watch him, and in the long +run they judge him. I think, therefore, that the American Constitution +has a real popular institution in the Presidency. But Mr. Wells would +appear to want the American Constitution without the Presidency. If I +understand his words rightly, he seems to want the great democracy +without its popular institution. Alluding to this danger, that the +World State might be a world tyranny, he seems to take tyranny entirely +in the sense of autocracy. He asks whether the President of the World +State would not be rather too tremendous a person, and seems to suggest +in answer that there need not even be any such person. He seems to imply +that the committee controlling the planet could meet almost without any +one in the chair, certainly without any one on the throne. I cannot +imagine anything more manifestly made to be a tyranny than such an +acephalous aristocracy. But while Mr. Wells's decision seems to me +strange, his reason for it seems to me still more extraordinary. + +He suggests that no such dictator will be needed in his World State +because 'there will be no wars and no diplomacy.' A World State ought +doubtless to go round the world; and going round the world seems to be a +good training for arguing in a circle. Obviously there will be no wars +and no war-diplomacy if something has the power to prevent them; and we +cannot deduce that the something will not want any power. It is rather +as if somebody, urging that the Germans could only be defeated by +uniting the Allied commands under Marshal Foch, had said that after all +it need not offend the British Generals because the French supremacy +need only be a fiction, the Germans being defeated. We should naturally +say that the German defeat would only be a reality because the Allied +command was not a fiction. So the universal peace would only be a +reality if the World State were not a fiction. And it could not be even +a state if it were not a government. This argument amounts to saying, +first that the World State will be needed because it is strong, and +then that it may safely be weak because it will not be needed. + +Internationalism is in any case hostile to democracy. I do not say it is +incompatible with it; but any combination of the two will be a +compromise between the two. The only purely popular government is local, +and founded on local knowledge. The citizens can rule the city because +they know the city; but it will always be an exceptional sort of citizen +who has or claims the right to rule over ten cities, and these remote +and altogether alien cities. All Irishmen may know roughly the same sort +of things about Ireland; but it is absurd to say they all know the same +things about Iceland, when they may include a scholar steeped in +Icelandic sagas or a sailor who has been to Iceland. To make all +politics cosmopolitan is to create an aristocracy of globe-trotters. If +your political outlook really takes in the Cannibal Islands, you depend +of necessity upon a superior and picked minority of the people who have +been to the Cannibal Islands; or rather of the still smaller and more +select minority who have come back. + +Given this difficulty about quite direct democracy over large areas, I +think the nearest thing to democracy is despotism. At any rate I think +it is some sort of more or less independent monarchy, such as Andrew +Jackson created in America. And I believe it is true to say that the two +men whom the modern world really and almost reluctantly regards with +impersonal respect, as clothed by their office with something historic +and honourable, are the Pope and the President of the United States. + +But to admire the United States as the United States is one thing. To +admire them as the World State is quite another. The attempt of Mr. +Wells to make America a sort of model for the federation of all the free +nations of the earth, though it is international in intention, is really +as narrowly national, in the bad sense, as the desire of Mr. Kipling to +cover the world with British Imperialism, or of Professor Treitschke to +cover it with Prussian Pan-Germanism. Not being schoolboys, we no longer +believe that everything can be settled by painting the map red. Nor do I +believe it can be done by painting it blue with white spots, even if +they are called stars. The insufficiency of British Imperialism does not +lie in the fact that it has always been applied by force of arms. As a +matter of fact, it has not. It has been effected largely by commerce, by +colonisation of comparatively empty places, by geographical discovery +and diplomatic bargain. Whether it be regarded as praise or blame, it is +certainly the truth that among all the things that have called +themselves empires, the British has been perhaps the least purely +military, and has least both of the special guilt and the special glory +that goes with militarism. The insufficiency of British Imperialism is +not that it is imperial, let alone military. The insufficiency of +British Imperialism is that it is British; when it is not merely Jewish. +It is that just as a man is no more than a man, so a nation is no more +than a nation; and any nation is inadequate as an international model. +Any state looks small when it occupies the whole earth. Any polity is +narrow as soon as it is as wide as the world. It would be just the same +if Ireland began to paint the map green or Montenegro were to paint it +black. The objection to spreading anything all over the world is that, +among other things, you have to spread it very thin. + +But America, which Mr. Wells takes as a model, is in another sense +rather a warning. Mr. Wells says very truly that there was a moment in +history when America might well have broken up into independent states +like those of Europe. He seems to take it for granted that it was in all +respects an advantage that this was avoided. Yet there is surely a case, +however mildly we put it, for a certain importance in the world still +attaching to Europe. There are some who find France as interesting as +Florida; and who think they can learn as much about history and humanity +in the marble cities of the Mediterranean as in the wooden towns of the +Middle West. Europe may have been divided, but it was certainly not +destroyed; nor has its peculiar position in the culture of the world +been destroyed. Nothing has yet appeared capable of completely eclipsing +it, either in its extension in America or its imitation in Japan. But +the immediate point here is perhaps a more important one. There is now +no creed accepted as embodying the common sense of all Europe, as the +Catholic creed was accepted as embodying it in mediaeval times. There is +no culture broadly superior to all others, as the Mediterranean culture +was superior to that of the barbarians in Roman times. If Europe were +united in modern times, it would probably be by the victory of one of +its types over others, possibly over all the others. And when America +was united finally in the nineteenth century, it _was_ by the victory of +one of its types over others. It is not yet certain that this victory +was a good thing. It is not yet certain that the world will be better +for the triumph of the North over the Southern traditions of America. +It may yet turn out to be as unfortunate as a triumph of the North +Germans over the Southern traditions of Germany and of Europe. + +The men who will not face this fact are men whose minds are not free. +They are more crushed by Progress than any pietists by Providence. They +are not allowed to question that whatever has recently happened was all +for the best. Now Progress is Providence without God. That is, it is a +theory that everything has always perpetually gone right by accident. It +is a sort of atheistic optimism, based on an everlasting coincidence far +more miraculous than a miracle. If there be no purpose, or if the +purpose permits of human free will, then in either case it is almost +insanely unlikely that there should be in history a period of steady and +uninterrupted progress; or in other words a period in which poor +bewildered humanity moves amid a chaos of complications, without making +a single mistake. What has to be hammered into the heads of most normal +newspaper-readers to-day is that Man has made a great many mistakes. +Modern Man has made a great many mistakes. Indeed, in the case of that +progressive and pioneering character, one is sometimes tempted to say +that he has made nothing but mistakes. Calvinism was a mistake, and +Capitalism was a mistake, and Teutonism and the flattery of the Northern +tribes were mistakes. In the French the persecution of Catholicism by +the politicians was a mistake, as they found out in the Great War; when +the memory gave Irish or Italian Catholics an excuse for hanging back. +In England the loss of agriculture and therefore of food-supply in war, +and the power to stand a siege, was a mistake. And in America the +introduction of the negroes was a mistake; but it may yet be found that +the sacrifice of the Southern white man to them was even more of a +mistake. + +The reason of this doubt is in one word. We have not yet seen the end of +the whole industrial experiment; and there are already signs of it +coming to a bad end. It may end in Bolshevism. It is more likely to end +in the Servile State. Indeed, the two things are not so different as +some suppose, and they grow less different every day. The Bolshevists +have already called in Capitalists to help them to crush the free +peasants. The Capitalists are quite likely to call in Labour Leaders to +whitewash their compromise as social reform or even Socialism. The +cosmopolitan Jews who are the Communists in the East will not find it so +very hard to make a bargain with the cosmopolitan Jews who are +Capitalists in the West. The Western Jews would be willing to admit a +nominal Socialism. The Eastern Jews have already admitted that their +Socialism is nominal. It was the Bolshevist leader himself who said, +'Russia is again a Capitalist country.' But whoever makes the bargain, +and whatever is its precise character, the substance of it will be +servile. It will be servile in the only rational and reliable sense; +that is, an arrangement by which a mass of men are ensured shelter and +livelihood, in return for being subjected to a law which obliges them to +continue to labour. Of course it will not be called the Servile State; +it is very probable that it will be called the Socialist State. But +nobody seems to realise how very near all the industrial countries are +to it. At any moment it may appear in the simple form of compulsory +arbitration; for compulsory arbitration dealing with private employers +is by definition slavery. When workmen receive unemployment pay, and at +the same time arouse more and more irritation by going on strike, it may +seem very natural to give them the unemployment pay for good and forbid +them the strike for good; and the combination of those two things is by +definition slavery. And Trotsky can beat any Trust magnate as a +strike-breaker; for he does not even pretend that his compulsory labour +is a free bargain. If Trotsky and the Trust magnate come to a working +compromise, that compromise will be a Servile State. But it will also be +the supreme and by far the most constructive and conclusive result of +the industrial movement in history; of the power of machinery or money; +of the huge populations of the modern cities; of scientific inventions +and resources; of all the things before which the agricultural society +of the Southern Confederacy went down. But even those who cannot see +that commercialism may end in the triumph of slavery can see that the +Northern victory has to a great extent ended in the triumph of +commercialism. And the point at the moment is that this did definitely +mean, even at the time, the triumph of one American type over another +American type; just as much as any European war might mean the triumph +of one European type over another. A victory of England over France +would be a victory of merchants over peasants; and the victory of +Northerners over Southerners was a victory of merchants over squires. So +that that very unity, which Mr. Wells contrasts so favourably with war, +was not only itself due to a war, but to a war which had one of the most +questionable and even perilous of the results of war. That result was a +change in the balance of power, the predominance of a particular +partner, the exaltation of a particular example, the eclipse of +excellent traditions when the defeated lost their international +influence. In short, it made exactly the same sort of difference of +which we speak when we say that 1870 was a disaster to Europe, or that +it was necessary to fight Prussia lest she should Prussianise the whole +world. America would have been very different if the leadership had +remained with Virginia. The world would have been very different if +America had been very different. It is quite reasonable to rejoice that +the issue went as it did; indeed, as I have explained elsewhere, for +other reasons I do on the whole rejoice in it. But it is certainly not +self-evident that it is a matter for rejoicing. One type of American +state conquered and subjugated another type of American state; and the +virtues and value of the latter were very largely lost to the world. So +if Mr. Wells insists on the parallel of a United States of Europe, he +must accept the parallel of a Civil War of Europe. He must suppose that +the peasant countries crush the industrial countries or vice versa; and +that one or other of them becomes the European tradition to the neglect +of the other. The situation which seems to satisfy him so completely in +America is, after all, the situation which would result in Europe if the +Germanic Empires, let us say, had entirely arrested the special +development of the Slavs; or if the influence of France had really +broken off short under a blow from Britain. The Old South had qualities +of humane civilisation which have not sufficiently survived; or at any +rate have not sufficiently spread. It is true that the decline of the +agricultural South has been considerably balanced by the growth of the +agricultural West. It is true, as I have occasion to emphasise in +another place, that the West does give the New America something that is +nearly a normal peasantry, as a pendant to the industrial towns. But +this is not an answer; it is rather an augmentation of the argument. In +so far as America is saved it is saved by being patchy; and would be +ruined if the Western patch had the same fate as the Southern patch. +When all is said, therefore, the advantages of American unification are +not so certain that we can apply them to a world unification. The doubt +could be expressed in a great many ways and by a great many examples. +For that matter, it is already being felt that the supremacy of the +Middle West in politics is inflicting upon other localities exactly the +sort of local injustice that turns provinces into nations struggling to +be free. It has already inflicted what amounts to religious persecution, +or the imposition of an alien morality, on the wine-growing civilisation +of California. In a word, the American system is a good one as +governments go; but it is too large, and the world will not be improved +by making it larger. And for this reason alone I should reject this +second method of uniting England and America; which is not only +Americanising England, but Americanising everything else. + +But the essential reason is that a type of culture came out on top in +America and England in the nineteenth century, which cannot and would +not be tolerated on top of the world. To unite all the systems at the +top, without improving and simplifying their social organisation below, +would be to tie all the tops of the trees together where they rise +above a dense and poisonous jungle, and make the jungle darker than +before. To create such a cosmopolitan political platform would be to +build a roof above our own heads to shut out the sunlight, on which only +usurers and conspirators clad in gold could walk about in the sun. This +is no moment when industrial intellectualism can inflict such an +artificial oppression upon the world. Industrialism itself is coming to +see dark days, and its future is very doubtful. It is split from end to +end with strikes and struggles for economic life, in which the poor not +only plead that they are starving, but even the rich can only plead that +they are bankrupt. The peasantries are growing not only more prosperous +but more politically effective; the Russian moujik has held up the +Bolshevist Government of Moscow and Petersburg; a huge concession has +been made by England to Ireland; the League of Nations has decided for +Poland against Prussia. It is not certain that industrialism will not +wither even in its own field; it is certain that its intellectual ideas +will not be allowed to cover every field; and this sort of cosmopolitan +culture is one of its ideas. Industrialism itself may perish; or on the +other hand industrialism itself may survive, by some searching and +scientific reform that will really guarantee economic security to all. +It may really purge itself of the accidental maladies of anarchy and +famine; and continue as a machine, but at least as a comparatively clean +and humanely shielded machine; at any rate no longer as a man-eating +machine. Capitalism may clear itself of its worst corruptions by such +reform as is open to it; by creating humane and healthy conditions for +labour, and setting the labouring classes to work under a lucid and +recognised law. It may make Pittsburg one vast model factory for all who +will model themselves upon factories; and may give to all men and women +in its employment a clear social status in which they can be contented +and secure. And on the day when that social security is established for +the masses, when industrial capitalism has achieved this larger and more +logical organisation and found peace at last, a strange and shadowy and +ironic triumph, like an abstract apology, will surely hover over all +those graves in the Wilderness where lay the bones of so many gallant +gentlemen; men who had also from their youth known and upheld such a +social stratification, who had the courage to call a spade a spade and a +slave a slave. + + + + +_A New Martin Chuzzlewit_ + + +The aim of this book, if it has one, is to suggest this thesis; that the +very worst way of helping Anglo-American friendship is to be an +Anglo-American. There is only one thing lower, of course, which is being +an Anglo-Saxon. It is lower, because at least Englishmen do exist and +Americans do exist; and it may be possible, though repulsive, to imagine +an American and an Englishman in some way blended together. But if +Angles and Saxons ever did exist, they are all fortunately dead now; and +the wildest imagination cannot form the weakest idea of what sort of +monster would be made by mixing one with the other. But my thesis is +that the whole hope, and the only hope, lies not in mixing two things +together, but rather in cutting them very sharply asunder. That is the +only way in which two things can succeed sufficiently in getting outside +each other to appreciate and admire each other. So long as they are +different and yet supposed to be the same, there can be nothing but a +divided mind and a staggering balance. It may be that in the first +twilight of time man and woman walked about as one quadruped. But if +they did, I am sure it was a quadruped that reared and bucked and kicked +up its heels. Then the flaming sword of some angel divided them, and +they fell in love with each other. + +Should the reader require an example a little more within historical +range, or a little more subject to critical tests, than the above +prehistoric anecdote (which I need not say was revealed to me in a +vision) it would be easy enough to supply them both in a hypothetical +and a historical form. It is obvious enough in a general way that if we +begin to subject diverse countries to an identical test, there will not +only be rivalry, but what is far more deadly and disastrous, +superiority. If we institute a competition between Holland and +Switzerland as to the relative grace and agility of their mountain +guides, it will be clear that the decision is disproportionately easy; +it will also be clear that certain facts about the configuration of +Holland have escaped our international eye. If we establish a comparison +between them in skill and industry in the art of building dykes against +the sea, it will be equally clear that the injustice falls the other +way; it will also be clear that the situation of Switzerland on the map +has received insufficient study. In both cases there will not only be +rivalry but very unbalanced and unjust rivalry; in both cases, +therefore, there will not only be enmity but very bitter or insolent +enmity. But so long as the two are sharply divided there can be no +enmity because there can be no rivalry. Nobody can argue about whether +the Swiss climb mountains better than the Dutch build dykes; just as +nobody can argue about whether a triangle is more triangular than a +circle is round. + +This fancy example is alphabetically and indeed artificially simple; +but, having used it for convenience, I could easily give similar +examples not of fancy but of fact. I had occasion recently to attend the +Christmas festivity of a club in London for the exiles of one of the +Scandinavian nations. When I entered the room the first thing that +struck my eye, and greatly raised my spirits, was that the room was +dotted with the colours of peasant costumes and the specimens of peasant +craftsmanship. There were, of course, other costumes and other crafts in +evidence; there were men dressed like myself (only better) in the garb +of the modern middle classes; there was furniture like the furniture of +any other room in London. Now, according to the ideal formula of the +ordinary internationalist, these things that we had in common ought to +have moved me to a sense of the kinship of all civilisation. I ought to +have felt that as the Scandinavian gentleman wore a collar and tie, and +I also wore a collar and tie, we were brothers and nothing could come +between us. I ought to have felt that we were standing for the same +principles of truth because we were wearing the same pair of trousers; +or rather, to speak with more precision, similar pairs of trousers. +Anyhow, the pair of trousers, that cloven pennon, ought to have floated +in fancy over my head as the banner of Europe or the League of Nations. +I am constrained to confess that no such rush of emotions overcame me; +and the topic of trousers did not float across my mind at all. So far as +those things were concerned, I might have remained in a mood of mortal +enmity, and cheerfully shot or stabbed the best dressed gentleman in the +room. Precisely what did warm my heart with an abrupt affection for that +northern nation was the very thing that is utterly and indeed lamentably +lacking in my own nation. It was something corresponding to the one +great gap in English history, corresponding to the one great blot on +English civilisation. It was the spiritual presence of a peasantry, +dressed according to its own dignity, and expressing itself by its own +creations. + +The sketch of America left by Charles Dickens is generally regarded as +something which is either to be used as a taunt or covered with an +apology. Doubtless it was unduly critical, even of the America of that +day; yet curiously enough it may well be the text for a true +reconciliation at the present day. It is true that in this, as in other +things, the Dickensian exaggeration is itself exaggerated. It is also +true that, while it is over-emphasised, it is not allowed for. Dickens +tended too much to describe the United States as a vast lunatic asylum; +but partly because he had a natural inspiration and imagination suited +to the description of lunatic asylums. As it was his finest poetic fancy +that created a lunatic over the garden wall, so it was his fancy that +created a lunatic over the western sea. To read some of the complaints, +one would fancy that Dickens had deliberately invented a low and +farcical America to be a contrast to his high and exalted England. It is +suggested that he showed America as full of rowdy bullies like Hannibal +Chollop, or ridiculous wind-bags like Elijah Pogram, while England was +full of refined and sincere spirits like Jonas Chuzzlewit, Chevy Slime, +Montague Tigg, and Mr. Pecksniff. If _Martin Chuzzlewit_ makes America a +lunatic asylum, what in the world does it make England? We can only say +a criminal lunatic asylum. The truth is, of course, that Dickens so +described them because he had a genius for that sort of description; for +the making of almost maniacal grotesques of the same type as Quilp or +Fagin. He made these Americans absurd because he was an artist in +absurdity; and no artist can help finding hints everywhere for his own +peculiar art. In a word, he created a laughable Pogram for the same +reason that he created a laughable Pecksniff; and that was only because +no other creature could have created them. + +It is often said that we learn to love the characters in romances as if +they were characters in real life. I wish we could sometimes love the +characters in real life as we love the characters in romances. There are +a great many human souls whom we should accept more kindly, and even +appreciate more clearly, if we simply thought of them as people in a +story. _Martin Chuzzlewit_ is itself indeed an unsatisfactory and even +unfortunate example; for it is, among its author's other works, a rather +unusually harsh and hostile story. I do not suggest that we should feel +towards an American friend that exact shade or tint of tenderness that +we feel towards Mr. Hannibal Chollop. Our enjoyment of the foreigner +should rather resemble our enjoyment of Pickwick than our enjoyment of +Pecksniff. But there is this amount of appropriateness even in the +particular example; that Dickens did show in both countries how men can +be made amusing to each other. So far the point is not that he made fun +of America, but that he got fun out of America. And, as I have already +pointed out, he applied exactly the same method of selection and +exaggeration to England. In the other English stories, written in a more +amiable mood, he applied it in a more amiable manner; but he could apply +it to an American too, when he was writing in that mood and manner. We +can see it in the witty and withering criticism delivered by the Yankee +traveller in the musty refreshment room of Mugby Junction; a genuine +example of a genuinely American fun and freedom satirising a genuinely +British stuffiness and snobbery. Nobody expects the American traveller +to admire the refreshments at Mugby Junction; but he might admire the +refreshment at one of the Pickwickian inns, especially if it contained +Pickwick. Nobody expects Pickwick to like Pogram; but he might like the +American who made fun of Mugby Junction. But the point is that, while he +supported him in making fun, he would also think him funny. The two +comic characters could admire each other, but they would also be amused +at each other. And the American would think the Englishman funny because +he was English; and a very good reason too. The Englishman would think +the American amusing because he was American; nor can I imagine a better +ground for his amusement. + +Now many will debate on the psychological possibility of such a +friendship founded on reciprocal ridicule, or rather on a comedy of +comparisons. But I will say of this harmony of humours what Mr. H. G. +Wells says of his harmony of states in the unity of his World State. If +it be truly impossible to have such a peace, then there is nothing +possible except war. If we cannot have friends in this fashion, then we +shall sooner or later have enemies in some other fashion. There is no +hope in the pompous impersonalities of internationalism. + +And this brings us to the real and relevant mistake of Dickens. It was +not in thinking his Americans funny, but in thinking them foolish +because they were funny. In this sense it will be noticed that Dickens's +American sketches are almost avowedly superficial; they are descriptions +of public life and not private life. Mr. Jefferson Brick had no private +life. But Mr. Jonas Chuzzlewit undoubtedly had a private life; and even +kept some parts of it exceeding private. Mr. Pecksniff was also a +domestic character; so was Mr. Quilp. Mr. Pecksniff and Mr. Quilp had +slightly different ways of surprising their families; Mr. Pecksniff by +playfully observing 'Boh!' when he came home; Mr. Quilp by coming home +at all. But we can form no picture of how Mr. Hannibal Chollop playfully +surprised his family; possibly by shooting at them; possibly by not +shooting at them. We can only say that he would rather surprise us by +having a family at all. We do not know how the Mother of the Modern +Gracchi managed the Modern Gracchi; for her maternity was rather a +public than a private office. We have no romantic moonlit scenes of the +love-making of Elijah Pogram, to balance against the love story of Seth +Pecksniff. These figures are all in a special sense theatrical; all +facing one way and lit up by a public limelight. Their ridiculous +characters are detachable from their real characters, if they have any +real characters. And the author might perfectly well be right about what +is ridiculous, and wrong about what is real. He might be as right in +smiling at the Pograms and the Bricks as in smiling at the Pickwicks and +the Boffins. And he might still be as wrong in seeing Mr. Pogram as a +hypocrite as the great Buzfuz was wrong in seeing Mr. Pickwick as a +monster of revolting heartlessness and systematic villainy. He might +still be as wrong in thinking Jefferson Brick a charlatan and a cheat as +was that great disciple of Lavater, Mrs. Wilfer, in tracing every +wrinkle of evil cunning in the face of Mrs. Boffin. For Mr. Pickwick's +spectacles and gaiters and Mrs. Boffin's bonnets and boudoir are after +all superficial jokes; and might be equally well seen whatever we saw +beneath them. A man may smile and smile and be a villain; but a man may +also make us smile and not be a villain. He may make us smile and not +even be a fool. He may make us roar with laughter and be an exceedingly +wise man. + +Now that is the paradox of America which Dickens never discovered. +Elijah Pogram was far more fantastic than his satirist thought; and the +most grotesque feature of Brick and Chollop was hidden from him. The +really strange thing was that Pogram probably did say, 'Rough he may be. +So air our bars. Wild he may be. So air our buffalers,' and yet was a +perfectly intelligent and public-spirited citizen while he said it. The +extraordinary thing is that Jefferson Brick may really have said, 'The +libation of freedom must sometimes be quaffed in blood,' and yet +Jefferson Brick may have served freedom, resisting unto blood. There +really has been a florid school of rhetoric in the United States which +has made it quite possible for serious and sensible men to say such +things. It is amusing simply as a difference of idiom or costume is +always amusing; just as English idiom and English costume are amusing to +Americans. But about this kind of difference there can be no kind of +doubt. So sturdy not to say stuffy a materialist as Ingersoll could say +of so shoddy not to say shady a financial politician as Blaine, 'Like an +armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine strode down the +hall of Congress, and flung his spear full and true at the shield of +every enemy of his country and every traducer of his fair name.' +Compared with that, the passage about bears and buffaloes, which Mr. +Pogram delivered in defence of the defaulting post-master, is really a +very reasonable and appropriate statement. For bears and buffaloes are +wild and rough and in that sense free; while plumed knights do not throw +their lances about like the assegais of Zulus. And the defaulting +post-master was at least as good a person to praise in such a fashion as +James G. Blaine of the Little Rock Railway. But anybody who had treated +Ingersoll or Blaine merely as a fool and a figure of fun would have very +rapidly found out his mistake. But Dickens did not know Brick or Chollop +long enough to find out his mistake. It need not be denied that, even +after a full understanding, he might still have found things to smile at +or to criticise. I do not insist on his admitting that Hannibal Chollop +was as great a hero as Hannibal, or that Elijah Pogram was as true a +prophet as Elijah. But I do say very seriously that they had something +about their atmosphere and situation that made possible a sort of +heroism and even a sort of prophecy that were really less natural at +that period in that Merry England whose comedy and common sense we sum +up under the name of Dickens. When we joke about the name of Hannibal +Chollop, we might remember of what nation was the general who dismissed +his defeated soldiers at Appomatox with words which the historian has +justly declared to be worthy of Hannibal: 'We have fought through this +war together. I have done my best for you.' It is not fair to forget +Jefferson, or even Jefferson Davis, entirely in favour of Jefferson +Brick. + +For all these three things, good, bad, and indifferent, go together to +form something that Dickens missed, merely because the England of his +time most disastrously missed it. In this case, as in every case, the +only way to measure justly the excess of a foreign country is to measure +the defect of our own country. For in this matter the human mind is the +victim of a curious little unconscious trick, the cause of nearly all +international dislikes. A man treats his own faults as original sin and +supposes them scattered everywhere with the seed of Adam. He supposes +that men have then added their own foreign vices to the solid and simple +foundation of his own private vices. It would astound him to realise +that they have actually, by their strange erratic path, avoided his +vices as well as his virtues. His own faults are things with which he is +so much at home that he at once forgets and assumes them abroad. He is +so faintly conscious of them in himself that he is not even conscious of +the absence of them in other people. He assumes that they are there so +that he does not see that they are not there. The Englishman takes it +for granted that a Frenchman will have all the English faults. Then he +goes on to be seriously angry with the Frenchman for having dared to +complicate them by the French faults. The notion that the Frenchman has +the French faults and _not_ the English faults is a paradox too wild to +cross his mind. + +He is like an old Chinaman who should laugh at Europeans for wearing +ludicrous top-hats and curling up their pig-tails inside them; because +obviously all men have pig-tails, as all monkeys have tails. Or he is +like an old Chinese lady who should justly deride the high-heeled shoes +of the West, considering them a needless addition to the sufficiently +tight and secure bandaging of the foot; for, of course, all women bind +up their feet, as all women bind up their hair. What these Celestial +thinkers would not think of, or allow for, is the wild possibility that +we do not have pig-tails although we do have top-hats, or that our +ladies are not silly enough to have Chinese feet, though they are silly +enough to have high-heeled shoes. Nor should we necessarily have come an +inch nearer to the Chinese extravagances even if the chimney-pot hat +rose higher than a factory chimney or the high heels had evolved into a +sort of stilts. By the same fallacy the Englishman will not only curse +the French peasant as a miser, but will also try to tip him as a beggar. +That is, he will first complain of the man having the surliness of an +independent man, and then accuse him of having the servility of a +dependent one. Just as the hypothetical Chinaman cannot believe that we +have top-hats but not pig-tails, so the Englishman cannot believe that +peasants are not snobs even when they are savages. Or he sees that a +Paris paper is violent and sensational; and then supposes that some +millionaire owns twenty such papers and runs them as a newspaper trust. +Surely the Yellow Press is present everywhere to paint the map yellow, +as the British Empire to paint it red. It never occurs to such a critic +that the French paper is violent because it is personal, and personal +because it belongs to a real and responsible person, and not to a ring +of nameless millionaires. It is a pamphlet, and not an anonymous +pamphlet. In a hundred other cases the same truth could be illustrated; +the situation in which the black man first assumes that all mankind is +black, and then accuses the rest of the artificial vice of painting +their faces red and yellow, or the hypocrisy of white-washing +themselves after the fashion of whited sepulchres. The particular case +of it now before us is that of the English misunderstanding of America; +and it is based, as in all these cases, on the English misunderstanding +of England. + +For the truth is that England has suffered of late from not having +enough of the free shooting of Hannibal Chollop; from not understanding +enough that the libation of freedom must sometimes be quaffed in blood. +The prosperous Englishman will not admit this; but then the prosperous +Englishman will not admit that he has suffered from anything. That is +what he is suffering from. Until lately at least he refused to realise +that many of his modern habits had been bad habits, the worst of them +being contentment. For all the real virtue in contentment evaporates, +when the contentment is only satisfaction and the satisfaction is only +self-satisfaction. Now it is perfectly true that America and not England +has seen the most obvious and outrageous official denials of liberty. +But it is equally true that it has seen the most obvious flouting of +such official nonsense, far more obvious than any similar evasions in +England. And nobody who knows the subconscious violence of the American +character would ever be surprised if the weapons of Chollop began to be +used in that most lawful lawlessness. It is perfectly true that the +libation of freedom must sometimes be drunk in blood, and never more +(one would think) than when mad millionaires forbid it to be drunk in +beer. But America, as compared with England, is the country where one +can still fancy men obtaining the libation of beer by the libation of +blood. Vulgar plutocracy is almost omnipotent in both countries; but I +think there is now more kick of reaction against it in America than in +England. The Americans may go mad when they make laws; but they recover +their reason when they disobey them. I wish I could believe that there +was as much of that destructive repentance in England; as indeed there +certainly was when Cobbett wrote. It faded gradually like a dying fire +through the Victorian era; and it was one of the very few realities that +Dickens did not understand. But any one who does understand it will know +that the days of Cobbett saw the last lost fight for English democracy; +and that if he had stood at that turning of the historic road, he would +have wished a better fate to the frame-breakers and the fury against the +first machinery, and luck to the Luddite fires. + +Anyhow, what is wanted is a new Martin Chuzzlewit, told by a wiser Mark +Tapley. It is typical of something sombre and occasionally stale in the +mood of Dickens when he wrote that book, that the comic servant is not +really very comic. Mark Tapley is a very thin shadow of Sam Weller. But +if Dickens had written it in a happier mood, there might have been a +truer meaning in Mark Tapley's happiness. For it is true that this +illogical good humour amid unreason and disorder is one of the real +virtues of the English people. It is the real advantage they have in +that adventure all over the world, which they were recently and +reluctantly induced to call an Empire. That receptive ridicule remains +with them as a secret pleasure when they are colonists--or convicts. +Dickens might have written another version of the great romance, and one +in which America was really seen gaily by Mark instead of gloomily by +Martin. Mark Tapley might really have made the best of America. Then +America would have lived and danced before us like Pickwick's England, a +fairyland of happy lunatics and lovable monsters, and we might still +have sympathised as much with the rhetoric of Lafayette Kettle as with +the rhetoric of Wilkins Micawber, or with the violence of Chollop as +with the violence of Boythorn. That new Martin Chuzzlewit will never be +written; and the loss of it is more tragic than the loss of _Edwin +Drood_. But every man who has travelled in America has seen glimpses and +episodes in that untold tale; and far away on the Red-Indian frontiers +or in the hamlets in the hills of Pennsylvania, there are people whom I +met for a few hours or for a few moments, whom I none the less sincerely +like and respect because I cannot but smile as I think of them. But the +converse is also true; they have probably forgotten me; but if they +remember they laugh. + + + + +_The Spirit of America_ + + +I suggest that diplomatists of the internationalist school should spend +some of their money on staging farces and comedies of cross-purposes, +founded on the curious and prevalent idea that England and America have +the same language. I know, of course, that we both inherit the glorious +tongue of Shakespeare, not to mention the tune of the musical glasses; +but there have been moments when I thought that if we spoke Greek and +they spoke Latin we might understand each other better. For Greek and +Latin are at least fixed, while American at least is still very fluid. I +do not know the American language, and therefore I do not claim to +distinguish between the American language and the American slang. But I +know that highly theatrical developments might follow on taking the +words as part of the English slang or the English language. I have +already given the example of calling a person 'a regular guy,' which in +the States is a graceful expression of respect and esteem, but which on +the stage, properly handled, might surely lead the way towards a divorce +or duel or something lively. Sometimes coincidence merely clinches a +mistake, as it so often clinches a misprint. Every proof-reader knows +that the worst misprint is not that which makes nonsense but that which +makes sense; not that which is obviously wrong but that which is +hideously right. He who has essayed to write 'he got the book,' and has +found it rendered mysteriously as 'he got the boob' is pensively +resigned. It is when it is rendered quite lucidly as 'he got the boot' +that he is moved to a more passionate mood of regret. I have had +conversations in which this sort of accident would have wholly misled +me, if another accident had not come to the rescue. An American friend +of mine was telling me of his adventures as a cinema-producer down in +the south-west where real Red Indians were procurable. He said that +certain Indians were 'very bad actors.' It passed for me as a very +ordinary remark on a very ordinary or natural deficiency. It would +hardly seem a crushing criticism to say that some wild Arab chieftain +was not very good at imitating a farmyard; or that the Grand Llama of +Thibet was rather clumsy at making paper boats. But the remark might be +natural in a man travelling in paper boats, or touring with an invisible +farmyard for his menagerie. As my friend was a cinema-producer, I +supposed he meant that the Indians were bad cinema actors. But the +phrase has really a high and austere moral meaning, which my levity had +wholly missed. A bad actor means a man whose actions are bad or morally +reprehensible. So that I might have embraced a Red Indian who was +dripping with gore, or covered with atrocious crimes, imagining there +was nothing the matter with him beyond a mistaken choice of the +theatrical profession. Surely there are here the elements of a play, not +to mention a cinema play. Surely a New England village maiden might find +herself among the wigwams in the power of the formidable and fiendish +'Little Blue Bison,' merely through her mistaken sympathy with his +financial failure as a Film Star. The notion gives me glimpses of all +sorts of dissolving views of primeval forests and flamboyant theatres; +but this impulse of irrelevant theatrical production must be curbed. +There is one example, however, of this complication of language actually +used in contrary senses, about which the same figure can be used to +illustrate a more serious fact. + +Suppose that, in such an international interlude, an English girl and an +American girl are talking about the fiance of the former, who is coming +to call. The English girl will be haughty and aristocratic (on the +stage), the American girl will of course have short hair and skirts and +will be cynical; Americans being more completely free from cynicism than +any people in the world. It is the great glory of Americans that they +are not cynical; for that matter, English aristocrats are hardly ever +haughty; they understand the game much better than that. But on the +stage, anyhow, the American girl may say, referring to her friend's +fiance, with a cynical wave of the cigarette, 'I suppose he's bound to +come and see you.' And at this the blue blood of the Vere de Veres will +boil over; the English lady will be deeply wounded and insulted at the +suggestion that her lover only comes to see her because he is forced to +do so. A staggering stage quarrel will then ensue, and things will go +from bad to worse; until the arrival of an Interpreter who can talk both +English and American. He stands between the two ladies waving two pocket +dictionaries, and explains the error on which the quarrel turns. It is +very simple; like the seed of all tragedies. In English 'he is bound to +come and see you' means that he is obliged or constrained to come and +see you. In American it does not. In American it means that he is bent +on coming to see you, that he is irrevocably resolved to do so, and will +surmount any obstacle to do it. The two young ladies will then embrace +as the curtain falls. + +Now when I was lecturing in America I was often told, in a radiant and +congratulatory manner, that such and such a person was bound to come and +hear me lecture. It seemed a very cruel form of conscription, and I +could not understand what authority could have made it compulsory. In +the course of discovering my error, however, I thought I began to +understand certain American ideas and instincts that lie behind this +American idiom. For as I have urged before, and shall often urge again, +the road to international friendship is through really understanding +jokes. It is in a sense through taking jokes seriously. It is quite +legitimate to laugh at a man who walks down the street in three white +hats and a green dressing gown, because it is unfamiliar; but after all +the man has _some_ reason for what he does; and until we know the reason +we do not understand the story, or even understand the joke. So the +outlander will always seem outlandish in custom or costume; but serious +relations depend on our getting beyond the fact of difference to the +things wherein it differs. A good symbolical figure for all this may be +found among the people who say, perhaps with a self-revealing +simplicity, that they are bound to go to a lecture. + +If I were asked for a single symbolic figure summing up the whole of +what seems eccentric and interesting about America to an Englishman, I +should be satisfied to select that one lady who complained of Mrs. +Asquith's lecture and wanted her money back. I do not mean that she was +typically American in complaining; far from it. I, for one, have a great +and guilty knowledge of all that amiable American audiences will endure +without complaint. I do not mean that she was typically American in +wanting her money; quite the contrary. That sort of American spends +money rather than hoards it; and when we convict them of vulgarity we +acquit them of avarice. Where she was typically American, summing up a +truth individual and indescribable in any other way, is that she used +these words: 'I've risen from a sick-bed to come and hear her, and I +want my money back.' + +The element in that which really amuses an Englishman is precisely the +element which, properly analysed, ought to make him admire an American. +But my point is that only by going through the amusement can he reach +the admiration. The amusement is in the vision of a tragic sacrifice for +what is avowedly a rather trivial object. Mrs. Asquith is a candid lady +of considerable humour; and I feel sure she does not regard the +experience of hearing her read her diary as an ecstasy for which the +sick should thus suffer martyrdom. She also is English; and had no other +claim but to amuse Americans and possibly to be amused by them. This +being so, it is rather as if somebody said, 'I have risked my life in +fire and pestilence to find my way to the music hall,' or, 'I have +fasted forty days in the wilderness sustained by the hope of seeing +Totty Toddles do her new dance.' And there is something rather more +subtle involved here. There is something in an Englishman which would +make him feel faintly ashamed of saying that he had fasted to hear +Totty Toddles, or risen from a sick-bed to hear Mrs. Asquith. He would +feel that it was undignified to confess that he had wanted mere +amusement so much; and perhaps that he had wanted anything so much. He +would not like, so to speak, to be seen rushing down the street after +Totty Toddles, or after Mrs. Asquith, or perhaps after anybody. But +there is something in it distinct from a mere embarrassment at admitting +enthusiasm. He might admit the enthusiasm if the object seemed to +justify it; he might perfectly well be serious about a serious thing. +But he cannot understand a person being proud of serious sacrifices for +what is not a serious thing. He does not like to admit that a little +thing can excite him; that he can lose his breath in running, or lose +his balance in reaching, after something that might be called silly. + +Now that is where the American is fundamentally different. To him the +enthusiasm itself is meritorious. To him the excitement itself is +dignified. He counts it a part of his manhood to fast or fight or rise +from a bed of sickness for something, or possibly for anything. His +ideal is not to be a lock that only a worthy key can open, but a 'live +wire' that anything can touch or anybody can use. In a word, there is a +difference in the very definition of virility and therefore of virtue. A +live wire is not only active, it is also sensitive. Thus sensibility +becomes actually a part of virility. Something more is involved than the +vulgar simplification of the American as the irresistible force and the +Englishman as the immovable post. As a fact, those who speak of such +things nowadays generally mean by something irresistible something +simply immovable, or at least something unalterable, motionless even in +motion, like a cannon ball; for a cannon ball is as dead as a cannon. +Prussian militarism was praised in that way--until it met a French force +of about half its size on the banks of the Marne. But that is not what +an American means by energy; that sort of Prussian energy is only +monotony without repose. American energy is not a soulless machine; for +it is the whole point that he puts his soul into it. It is a very small +box for so big a thing; but it is not an empty box. But the point is +that he is not only proud of his energy, he is proud of his excitement. +He is not ashamed of his emotion, of the fire or even the tear in his +manly eye, when he tells you that the great wheel of his machine breaks +four billion butterflies an hour. + +That is the point about American sport; that it is not in the least +sportive. It is because it is not very sportive that we sometimes say it +is not very sporting. It has the vices of a religion. It has all the +paradox of original sin in the service of aboriginal faith. It is +sometimes untruthful because it is sincere. It is sometimes treacherous +because it is loyal. Men lie and cheat for it as they lied for their +lords in a feudal conspiracy, or cheated for their chieftains in a +Highland feud. We may say that the vassal readily committed treason; but +it is equally true that he readily endured torture. So does the American +athlete endure torture. Not only the self-sacrifice but the solemnity of +the American athlete is like that of the American Indian. The athletes +in the States have the attitude of the athletes among the Spartans, the +great historical nation without a sense of humour. They suffer an +ascetic regime not to be matched in any monasticism and hardly in any +militarism. If any tradition of these things remains in a saner age, +they will probably be remembered as a mysterious religious order of +fakirs or dancing dervishes, who shaved their heads and fasted in honour +of Hercules or Castor and Pollux. And that is really the spiritual +atmosphere though the gods have vanished; and the religion is +subconscious and therefore irrational. For the problem of the modern +world is that it has continued to be religious when it has ceased to be +rational. Americans really would starve to win a cocoa-nut shy. They +would fast or bleed to win a race of paper boats on a pond. They would +rise from a sick-bed to listen to Mrs. Asquith. + +But it is the real reason that interests me here. It is certainly not +that Americans are so stupid as not to know that cocoa-nuts are only +cocoa-nuts and paper boats only made of paper. Americans are, on an +average, rather more intelligent than Englishmen; and they are well +aware that Hercules is a myth and that Mrs. Asquith is something of a +mythologist. It is not that they do not know that the object is small in +itself; it is that they do really believe that the enthusiasm is great +in itself. They admire people for being impressionable. They admire +people for being excited. An American so struggling for some +disproportionate trifle (like one of my lectures) really feels in a +mystical way that he is right, because it is his whole morality to be +keen. So long as he wants something very much, whatever it is, he feels +he has his conscience behind him, and the common sentiment of society +behind him, and God and the whole universe behind him. Wedged on one leg +in a hot crowd at a trivial lecture, he has self-respect; his dignity +is at rest. That is what he means when he says he is bound to come to +the lecture. + +Now the Englishman is fond of occasional larks. But these things are not +larks; nor are they occasional. It is the essential of the Englishman's +lark that he should think it a lark; that he should laugh at it even +when he does it. Being English myself, I like it; but being English +myself, I know it is connected with weaknesses as well as merits. In its +irony there is condescension and therefore embarrassment. This patronage +is allied to the patron, and the patron is allied to the aristocratic +tradition of society. The larks are a variant of laziness because of +leisure; and the leisure is a variant of the security and even supremacy +of the gentleman. When an undergraduate at Oxford smashes half a hundred +windows he is well aware that the incident is merely a trifle. He can be +trusted to explain to his parents and guardians that it was merely a +trifle. He does not say, even in the American sense, that he was bound +to smash the windows. He does not say that he had risen from a sick-bed +to smash the windows. He does not especially think he has risen at all; +he knows he has descended (though with delight, like one diving or +sliding down the banisters) to something flat and farcical and full of +the English taste for the bathos. He has collapsed into something +entirely commonplace; though the owners of the windows may possibly not +think so. This rather indescribable element runs through a hundred +English things, as in the love of bathos shown even in the sound of +proper names; so that even the yearning lover in a lyric yearns for +somebody named Sally rather than Salome, and for a place called Wapping +rather than a place called Westermain. Even in the relapse into +rowdiness there is a sort of relapse into comfort. There is also what is +so large a part of comfort; carelessness. The undergraduate breaks +windows because he does not care about windows, not because he does care +about more fresh air like a hygienist, or about more light like a German +poet. Still less does he heroically smash a hundred windows because they +come between him and the voice of Mrs. Asquith. But least of all does he +do it because he seriously prides himself on the energy apart from its +aim, and on the will-power that carries it through. He is not 'bound' to +smash the windows, even in the sense of being bent upon it. He is not +bound at all but rather relaxed; and his violence is not only a +relaxation but a laxity. Finally, this is shown in the fact that he only +smashes windows when he is in the mood to smash windows; when some +fortunate conjunction of stars and all the tints and nuances of nature +whisper to him that it would be well to smash windows. But the American +is always ready, at any moment, to waste his energies on the wilder and +more suicidal course of going to lectures. And this is because to him +such excitement is not a mood but a moral ideal. As I note in another +connection, much of the English mystery would be clear to Americans if +they understood the word 'mood.' Englishmen are very moody, especially +when they smash windows. But I doubt if many Americans understand +exactly what we mean by the mood; especially the passive mood. + +It is only by trying to get some notion of all this that an Englishman +can enjoy the final crown and fruit of all international friendship; +which is really liking an American to be American. If we only think that +parts of him are excellent because parts of him are English, it would be +far more sensible to stop at home and possibly enjoy the society of a +whole complete Englishman. But anybody who does understand this can take +the same pleasure in an American being American that he does in a +thunderbolt being swift and a barometer being sensitive. He can see that +a vivid sensibility and vigilance really radiate outwards through all +the ramifications of machinery and even of materialism. He can see that +the American uses his great practical powers upon very small +provocation; but he can also see that there is a kind of sense of +honour, like that of a duellist, in his readiness to be provoked. +Indeed, there is some parallel between the American man of action, +however vulgar his aims, and the old feudal idea of the gentleman with a +sword at his side. The gentleman may have been proud of being strong or +sturdy; he may too often have been proud of being thick-headed; but he +was not proud of being thick-skinned. On the contrary, he was proud of +being thin-skinned. He also seriously thought that sensitiveness was a +part of masculinity. It may be very absurd to read of two Irish +gentlemen trying to kill each other for trifles, or of two +Irish-American millionaires trying to ruin each other for trash. But the +very pettiness of the pretext and even the purpose illustrates the same +conception; which may be called the virtue of excitability. And it is +really this, and not any rubbish about iron will-power and masterful +mentality, that redeems with romance their clockwork cosmos and its +industrial ideals. Being a live wire does not mean that the nerves +should be like wires; but rather that the very wires should be like +nerves. + +Another approximation to the truth would be to say that an American is +really not ashamed of curiosity. It is not so simple as it looks. Men +will carry off curiosity with various kinds of laughter and bravado, +just as they will carry off drunkenness or bankruptcy. But very few +people are really proud of lying on a door-step, and very few people are +really proud of longing to look through a key-hole. I do not speak of +looking through it, which involves questions of honour and self-control; +but few people feel that even the desire is dignified. Now I fancy the +American, at least by comparison with the Englishman, does feel that his +curiosity is consistent with his dignity, because dignity is consistent +with vivacity. He feels it is not merely the curiosity of Paul Pry, but +the curiosity of Christopher Columbus. He is not a spy but an explorer; +and he feels his greatness rather grow with his refusal to turn back, as +a traveller might feel taller and taller as he neared the source of the +Nile or the North-West Passage. Many an Englishman has had that feeling +about discoveries in dark continents; but he does not often have it +about discoveries in daily life. The one type does believe in the +indignity and the other in the dignity of the detective. It has nothing +to do with ethics in the merely external sense. It involves no +particular comparison in practical morals and manners. It is something +in the whole poise and posture of the self; of the way a man carries +himself. For men are not only affected by what they are; but still more, +when they are fools, by what they think they are; and when they are +wise, by what they wish to be. + +There are truths that have almost become untrue by becoming untruthful. +There are statements so often stale and insincere that one hesitates to +use them, even when they stand for something more subtle. This point +about curiosity is not the conventional complaint against the American +interviewer. It is not the ordinary joke against the American child. And +in the same way I feel the danger of it being identified with the cant +about 'a young nation' if I say that it has some of the attractions, not +of American childhood, but of real childhood. There is some truth in the +tradition that the children of wealthy Americans tend to be too +precocious and luxurious. But there is a sense in which we can really +say that if the children are like adults, the adults are like children. +And that sense is in the very best sense of childhood. It is something +which the modern world does not understand. It is something that modern +Americans do not understand, even when they possess it; but I think they +do possess it. + +The devil can quote Scripture for his purpose; and the text of Scripture +which he now most commonly quotes is, 'The kingdom of heaven is within +you.' That text has been the stay and support of more Pharisees and +prigs and self-righteous spiritual bullies than all the dogmas in +creation; it has served to identify self-satisfaction with the peace +that passes all understanding. And the text to be quoted in answer to it +is that which declares that no man can receive the kingdom except as a +little child. What we are to have inside is the childlike spirit; but +the childlike spirit is not entirely concerned about what is inside. It +is the first mark of possessing it that one is interested in what is +outside. The most childlike thing about a child is his curiosity and his +appetite and his power of wonder at the world. We might almost say that +the whole advantage of having the kingdom within is that we look for it +somewhere else. + + + + +_The Spirit of England_ + + +Nine times out of ten a man's broad-mindedness is necessarily the +narrowest thing about him. This is not particularly paradoxical; it is, +when we come to think of it, quite inevitable. His vision of his own +village may really be full of varieties; and even his vision of his own +nation may have a rough resemblance to the reality. But his vision of +the world is probably smaller than the world. His vision of the universe +is certainly much smaller than the universe. Hence he is never so +inadequate as when he is universal; he is never so limited as when he +generalises. This is the fallacy in the many modern attempts at a +creedless creed, at something variously described as essential +Christianity or undenominational religion or a world faith to embrace +all the faiths in the world. It is that every sectarian is more +sectarian in his unsectarianism than he is in his sect. The emancipation +of a Baptist is a very Baptist emancipation. The charity of a Buddhist +is a very Buddhist charity, and very different from Christian charity. +When a philosophy embraces everything it generally squeezes everything, +and squeezes it out of shape; when it digests it necessarily +assimilates. When a theosophist absorbs Christianity it is rather as a +cannibal absorbs Christian missionaries. In this sense it is even +possible for the larger thing to be swallowed by the smaller; and for +men to move about not only in a Clapham sect but in a Clapham cosmos +under Clapham moon and stars. + +But if this danger exists for all men, it exists especially for the +Englishman. The Englishman is never so insular as when he is imperial; +except indeed when he is international. In private life he is a good +friend and in practical politics generally a good ally. But theoretical +politics are more practical than practical politics. And in theoretical +politics the Englishman is the worst ally the world ever saw. This is +all the more curious because he has passed so much of his historical +life in the character of an ally. He has been in twenty great alliances +and never understood one of them. He has never been farther away from +European politics than when he was fighting heroically in the thick of +them. I myself think that this splendid isolation is sometimes really +splendid; so long as it is isolation and does not imagine itself to be +imperialism or internationalism. With the idea of being international, +with the idea of being imperial, comes the frantic and farcical idea of +being impartial. Generally speaking, men are never so mean and false and +hypocritical as when they are occupied in being impartial. They are +performing the first and most typical of all the actions of the devil; +they are claiming the throne of God. Even when it is not hypocrisy but +only mental confusion, it is always a confusion worse and worse +confounded. We see it in the impartial historians of the Victorian Age, +who now seem far more Victorian than the partial historians. Hallam +wrote about the Middle Ages; but Hallam was far less mediaeval than +Macaulay; for Macaulay was at least a fighter. Huxley had more mediaeval +sympathies than Herbert Spencer for the same reason; that Huxley was a +fighter. They both fought in many ways for the limitations of their own +rationalistic epoch; but they were nearer the truth than the men who +simply assumed those limitations as rational. The war of the +controversionalists was a wider thing than the peace of the arbiters. +And in the same way the Englishman never cuts a less convincing figure +before other nations than when he tries to arbitrate between them. + +I have by this time heard a great deal about the necessity of saving +Anglo-American friendship, a necessity which I myself feel rather too +strongly to be satisfied with the ambassadorial and editorial style of +achieving it. I have already said that the worst style of all is to be +Anglo-American; or, as the more illiterate would express, to be +Anglo-Saxon. I am more and more convinced that the way for the +Englishman to do it is to be English; but to know that he is English and +not everything else as well. Thus the only sincere answer to Irish +nationalism is English nationalism, which is a reality; and not English +imperialism, which is a reactionary fiction, or English +internationalism, which is a revolutionary one. + +For the English are reviled for their imperialism because they are not +imperialistic. They dislike it, which is the real reason why they do it +badly; and they do it badly, which is the real reason why they are +disliked when they do it. Nobody calls France imperialistic because she +has absorbed Brittany. But everybody calls England imperialistic because +she has not absorbed Ireland. The Englishman is fixed and frozen for +ever in the attitude of a ruthless conqueror; not because he has +conquered such people, but because he has not conquered them; but he is +always trying to conquer them with a heroism worthy of a better cause. +For the really native and vigorous part of what is unfortunately called +the British Empire is not an empire at all, and does not consist of +these conquered provinces at all. It is not an empire but an adventure; +which is probably a much finer thing. It was not the power of making +strange countries similar to our own, but simply the pleasure of seeing +strange countries because they were different from our own. The +adventurer did indeed, like the third son, set out to seek his fortune, +but not primarily to alter other people's fortunes; he wished to trade +with people rather than to rule them. But as the other people remained +different from him, so did he remain different from them. The adventurer +saw a thousand strange things and remained a stranger. He was the +Robinson Crusoe on a hundred desert islands; and on each he remained as +insular as on his own island. + +What is wanted for the cause of England to-day is an Englishman with +enough imagination to love his country from the outside as well as the +inside. That is, we need somebody who will do for the English what has +never been done for them, but what is done for any outlandish peasantry +or even any savage tribe. We want people who can make England +attractive; quite apart from disputes about whether England is strong or +weak. We want somebody to explain, not that England is everywhere, but +what England is anywhere; not that England is or is not really dying, +but why we do not want her to die. For this purpose the official and +conventional compliments or claims can never get any farther than +pompous abstractions about Law and Justice and Truth; the ideals which +England accepts as every civilised state accepts them, and violates as +every civilised state violates them. That is not the way in which the +picture of any people has ever been painted on the sympathetic +imagination of the world. Enthusiasts for old Japan did not tell us that +the Japs recognised the existence of abstract morality; but that they +lived in paper houses or wrote letters with paint-brushes. Men who +wished to interest us in Arabs did not confine themselves to saying that +they are monotheists or moralists; they filled our romances with the +rush of Arab steeds or the colours of strange tents or carpets. What we +want is somebody who will do for the Englishman with his front garden +what was done for the Jap and his paper house; who shall understand the +Englishman with his dog as well as the Arab with his horse. In a word, +what nobody has really tried to do is the one thing that really wants +doing. It is to make England attractive as a nationality, and even as a +small nationality. + +For it is a wild folly to suppose that nations will love each other +because they are alike. They will never really do that unless they are +really alike; and then they will not be nations. Nations can love each +other as men and women love each other, not because they are alike but +because they are different. It can easily be shown, I fancy, that in +every case where a real public sympathy was aroused for some unfortunate +foreign people, it has always been accompanied with a particular and +positive interest in their most foreign customs and their most foreign +externals. The man who made a romance of the Scotch High-lander made a +romance of his kilt and even of his dirk; the friend of the Red Indians +was interested in picture writing and had some tendency to be +interested in scalping. To take a more serious example, such nations as +Serbia had been largely commended to international consideration by the +study of Serbian epics, or Serbian songs. The epoch of negro +emancipation was also the epoch of negro melodies. Those who wept over +Uncle Tom also laughed over Uncle Remus. And just as the admiration for +the Redskin almost became an apology for scalping, the mysterious +fascination of the African has sometimes almost led us into the fringes +of the black forest of Voodoo. But the sort of interest that is felt +even in the scalp-hunter and the cannibal, the torturer and the +devil-worshipper, that sort of interest has never been felt in the +Englishman. + +And this is the more extraordinary because the Englishman is really very +interesting. He is interesting in a special degree in this special +manner; he is interesting because he is individual. No man in the world +is more misrepresented by everything official or even in the ordinary +sense national. A description of English life must be a description of +private life. In that sense there is no public life. In that sense there +is no public opinion. There have never been those prairie fires of +public opinion in England which often sweep over America. At any rate, +there have never been any such popular revolutions since the popular +revolutions of the Middle Ages. The English are a nation of amateurs; +they are even a nation of eccentrics. An Englishman is never more +English than when he is considered a lunatic by the other Englishmen. +This can be clearly seen in a figure like Dr. Johnson, who has become +national not by being normal but by being extraordinary. To express this +mysterious people, to explain or suggest why they like tall hedges and +heavy breakfasts and crooked roads and small gardens with large fences, +and why they alone among Christians have kept quite consistently the +great Christian glory of the open fireplace, here would be a strange and +stimulating opportunity for any of the artists in words, who study the +souls of strange peoples. That would be the true way to create a +friendship between England and America, or between England and anything +else; yes, even between England and Ireland. For this justice at least +has already been done to Ireland; and as an indignant patriot I demand a +more equal treatment for the two nations. + +I have already noted the commonplace that in order to teach +internationalism we must talk nationalism. We must make the nations as +nations less odious or mysterious to each other. We do not make men love +each other by describing a monster with a million arms and legs, but by +describing the men as men, with their separate and even solitary +emotions. As this has a particular application to the emotions of the +Englishman, I will return to the topic once more. Now Americans have a +power that is the soul and success of democracy, the power of +spontaneous social organisation. Their high spirits, their humane ideals +are really creative, they abound in unofficial institutions; we might +almost say in unofficial officialism. Nobody who has felt the presence +of all the leagues and guilds and college clubs will deny that Whitman +was national when he said he would build states and cities out of the +love of comrades. When all this communal enthusiasm collides with the +Englishman, it too often seems literally to leave him cold. They say he +is reserved; they possibly think he is rude. And the Englishman, having +been taught his own history all wrong, is only too likely to take the +criticism as a compliment. He admits that he is reserved because he is +stern and strong; or even that he is rude because he is shrewd and +candid. But as a fact he is not rude and not especially reserved; at +least reserve is not the meaning of his reluctance. The real difference +lies, I think, in the fact that American high spirits are not only high +but level; that the hilarious American spirit is like a plateau, and the +humorous English spirit like a ragged mountain range. + +The Englishman is moody; which does not in the least mean that the +Englishman is morose. Dickens, as we all feel in reading his books, was +boisterously English. Dickens was moody when he wrote _Oliver Twist_; +but he was also moody when he wrote _Pickwick_. That is, he was in +another and much healthier mood. The mood was normal to him in the sense +that nine times out of ten he felt and wrote in that humorous and +hilarious mood. But he was, if ever there was one, a man of moods; and +all the more of a typical Englishman for being a man of moods. But it +was because of this, almost entirely, that he had a misunderstanding +with America. + +In America there are no moods, or there is only one mood. It is the same +whether it is called hustle or uplift; whether we regard it as the +heroic love of comrades or the last hysteria of the herd instinct. It +has been said of the typical English aristocrats of the Government +offices that they resemble certain ornamental fountains and play from +ten till four; and it is true that an Englishman, even an English +aristocrat, is not always inclined to play any more than to work. But +American sociability is not like the Trafalgar fountains. It is like +Niagara. It never stops, under the silent stars or the rolling storms. +There seems always to be the same human heat and pressure behind it; it +is like the central heating of hotels as explained in the advertisements +and announcements. The temperature can be regulated; but it is not. And +it is always rather overpowering for an Englishman, whose mood changes +like his own mutable and shifting sky. The English mood is very like the +English weather; it is a nuisance and a national necessity. + +If any one wishes to understand the quarrel between Dickens and the +Americans, let him turn to that chapter in _Martin Chuzzlewit_, in which +young Martin has to receive endless defiles and deputations of total +strangers each announced by name and demanding formal salutation. There +are several things to be noticed about this incident. To begin with, it +did not happen to Martin Chuzzlewit; but it did happen to Charles +Dickens. Dickens is incorporating almost without alteration a passage +from a diary in the middle of a story; as he did when he included the +admirable account of the prison petition of John Dickens as the prison +petition of Wilkins Micawber. There is no particular reason why even the +gregarious Americans should so throng the portals of a perfectly obscure +steerage passenger like young Chuzzlewit. There was every reason why +they should throng the portals of the author of _Pickwick_ and _Oliver +Twist_. And no doubt they did. If I may be permitted the aleatory image, +you bet they did. Similar troops of sociable human beings have visited +much more insignificant English travellers in America, with some of whom +I am myself acquainted. I myself have the luck to be a little more +stodgy and less sensitive than many of my countrymen; and certainly less +sensitive than Dickens. But I know what it was that annoyed him about +that unending and unchanging stream of American visitors; it was the +unending and unchanging stream of American sociability and high spirits. +A people living on such a lofty but level tableland do not understand +the ups and downs of the English temperament; the temper of a nation of +eccentrics or (as they used to be called) of humorists. There is +something very national in the very name of the old play of _Every Man +in His Humour_. But the play more often acted in real life is 'Every Man +Out of His Humour.' It is true, as Matthew Arnold said, that an +Englishman wants to do as he likes; but it is not always true even that +he likes what he likes. An Englishman can be friendly and yet not feel +friendly. Or he can be friendly and yet not feel hospitable. Or he can +feel hospitable and yet not welcome those whom he really loves. He can +think, almost with tears of tenderness, about people at a distance who +would be bores if they came in at the door. + +American sociability sweeps away any such subtlety. It cannot be +expected to understand the paradox or perversity of the Englishman, who +thus can feel friendly and avoid friends. That is the truth in the +suggestion that Dickens was sentimental. It means that he probably felt +most sociable when he was solitary. In all these attempts to describe +the indescribable, to indicate the real but unconscious differences +between the two peoples, I have tried to balance my words without the +irrelevant bias of praise and blame. Both characteristics always cut +both ways. On one side this comradeship makes possible a certain +communal courage, a democratic derision of rich men in high places, +that is not easy in our smaller and more stratified society. On the +other hand the Englishman has certainly more liberty, if less equality +and fraternity. But the richest compensation of the Englishman is not +even in the word 'liberty,' but rather in the word 'poetry.' That humour +of escape or seclusion, that genial isolation, that healing of wounded +friendship by what Christian Science would call absent treatment, that +is the best atmosphere of all for the creation of great poetry; and out +of that came 'bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang' and +'Thou wast not made for death, immortal bird.' In this sense it is +indeed true that poetry is emotion remembered in tranquillity; which may +be extended to mean affection remembered in loneliness. There is in it a +spirit not only of detachment but even of distance; a spirit which does +desire, as in the old English rhyme, to be not only over the hills but +also far away. In other words, in so far as it is true that the +Englishman is an exception to the great truth of Aristotle, it is +because he is not so near to Aristotle as he is to Homer. In so far as +he is not by nature a political animal, it is because he is a poetical +animal. We see it in his relations to the other animals; his quaint and +almost illogical love of dogs and horses and dependants whose political +rights cannot possibly be defined in logic. Many forms of hunting or +fishing are but an excuse for the same thing which the shameless +literary man does without any excuse. Sport is speechless poetry. It +would be easy for a foreigner, by taking a few liberties with the facts, +to make a satire about the sort of silent Shelley who decides ultimately +to shoot the skylark. It would be easy to answer these poetic +suggestions by saying that he himself might be responsible for ruining +the choirs where late the sweet birds sang, or that the immortal bird +was likely to be mortal when he was out with his gun. But these +international satires are never just; and the real relations of an +Englishman and an English bird are far more delicate. It would be +equally easy and equally unjust to suggest a similar satire against +American democracy; and represent Americans merely as birds of a feather +who can do nothing but flock together. But this would leave out the fact +that at least it is not the white feather; that democracy is capable of +defiance and of death for an idea. Touching the souls of great nations, +these criticisms are generally false because they are critical. + +But when we are quite sure that we rejoice in a nation's strength, then +and not before we are justified in judging its weakness. I am quite sure +that I rejoice in any democratic success without _arriere pensee_; and +nobody who knows me will credit me with a covert sneer at civic +equality. And this being granted, I do think there is a danger in the +gregariousness of American society. The danger of democracy is not +anarchy; on the contrary, it is monotony. And it is touching this that +all my experience has increased my conviction that a great deal that is +called female emancipation has merely been the increase of female +convention. Now the males of every community are far too conventional; +it was the females who were individual and criticised the conventions of +the tribe. If the females become conventional also, there is a danger of +individuality being lost. This indeed is not peculiar to America; it is +common to the whole modern industrial world, and to everything which +substitutes the impersonal atmosphere of the State for the personal +atmosphere of the home. But it is emphasised in America by the curious +contradiction that Americans do in theory value and even venerate the +individual. But individualism is still the foe of individuality. Where +men are trying to compete with each other they are trying to copy each +other. They become featureless by 'featuring' the same part. +Personality, in becoming a conscious ideal, becomes a common ideal. In +this respect perhaps there is really something to be learnt from the +Englishman with his turn or twist in the direction of private life. +Those who have travelled in such a fashion as to see all the American +hotels and none of the American houses are sometimes driven to the +excess of saying that the Americans have no private life. But even if +the exaggeration has a hint of truth, we must balance it with the +corresponding truth; that the English have no public life. They on their +side have still to learn the meaning of the public thing, the republic; +and how great are the dangers of cowardice and corruption when the very +State itself has become a State secret. + +The English are patriotic; but patriotism is the unconscious form of +nationalism. It is being national without understanding the meaning of a +nation. The Americans are on the whole too self-conscious, kept moving +too much in the pace of public life, with all its temptations to +superficiality and fashion; too much aware of outside opinion and with +too much appetite for outside criticism. But the English are much too +unconscious; and would be the better for an increase in many forms of +consciousness, including consciousness of sin. But even their sin is +ignorance of their real virtue. The most admirable English things are +not the things that are most admired by the English, or for which the +English admire themselves. They are things now blindly neglected and in +daily danger of being destroyed. It is all the worse that they should be +destroyed, because there is really nothing like them in the world. That +is why I have suggested a note of nationalism rather than patriotism for +the English; the power of seeing their nation as a nation and not as the +nature of things. We say of some ballad from the Balkans or some peasant +costume in the Netherlands that it is unique; but the good things of +England really are unique. Our very isolation from continental wars and +revolutionary reconstructions have kept them unique. The particular kind +of beauty there is in an English village, the particular kind of humour +there is in an English public-house, are things that cannot be found in +lands where the village is far more simply and equally governed, or +where the vine is far more honourably served and praised. Yet we shall +not save them by merely sinking into them with the conservative sort of +contentment, even if the commercial rapacity of our plutocratic reforms +would allow us to do so. We must in a sense get far away from England in +order to behold her; we must rise above patriotism in order to be +practically patriotic; we must have some sense of more varied and remote +things before these vanishing virtues can be seen suddenly for what they +are; almost as one might fancy that a man would have to rise to the +dizziest heights of the divine understanding before he saw, as from a +peak far above a whirlpool, how precious is his perishing soul. + + + + +_The Future of Democracy_ + + +The title of this final chapter requires an apology. I do not need to be +reminded, alas, that the whole book requires an apology. It is written +in accordance with a ritual or custom in which I could see no particular +harm, and which gives me a very interesting subject, but a custom which +it would be not altogether easy to justify in logic. Everybody who goes +to America for a short time is expected to write a book; and nearly +everybody does. A man who takes a holiday at Trouville or Dieppe is not +confronted on his return with the question, 'When is your book on France +going to appear?' A man who betakes himself to Switzerland for the +winter sports is not instantly pinned by the statement, 'I suppose your +History of the Helvetian Republic is coming out this spring?' Lecturing, +at least my kind of lecturing, is not much more serious or meritorious +than ski-ing or sea-bathing; and it happens to afford the holiday-maker +far less opportunity of seeing the daily life of the people. Of all this +I am only too well aware; and my only defence is that I am at least +sincere in my enjoyment and appreciation of America, and equally sincere +in my interest in its most serious problem, which I think a very serious +problem indeed; the problem of democracy in the modern world. Democracy +may be a very obvious and facile affair for plutocrats and politicians +who only have to use it as a rhetorical term. But democracy is a very +serious problem for democrats. I certainly do not apologise for the word +democracy; but I do apologise for the word future. I am no Futurist; and +any conjectures I make must be taken with the grain of salt which is +indeed the salt of the earth; the decent and moderate humility which +comes from a belief in free will. That faith is in itself a divine +doubt. I do not believe in any of the scientific predictions about +mankind; I notice that they always fail to predict any of the purely +human developments of men; I also notice that even their successes prove +the same truth as their failures; for their successful predictions are +not about men but about machines. But there are two things which a man +may reasonably do, in stating the probabilities of a problem, which do +not involve any claim to be a prophet. The first is to tell the truth, +and especially the neglected truth, about the tendencies that have +already accumulated in human history; any miscalculation about which +must at least mislead us in any case. We cannot be certain of being +right about the future; but we can be almost certain of being wrong +about the future, if we are wrong about the past. The other thing that +he can do is to note what ideas necessarily go together by their own +nature; what ideas will triumph together or fall together. Hence it +follows that this final chapter must consist of two things. The first is +a summary of what has really happened to the idea of democracy in recent +times; the second a suggestion of the fundamental doctrine which is +necessary for its triumph at any time. + +The last hundred years has seen a general decline in the democratic +idea. If there be anybody left to whom this historical truth appears a +paradox, it is only because during that period nobody has been taught +history, least of all the history of ideas. If a sort of intellectual +inquisition had been established, for the definition and differentiation +of heresies, it would have been found that the original republican +orthodoxy had suffered more and more from secessions, schisms, and +backslidings. The highest point of democratic idealism and conviction +was towards the end of the eighteenth century, when the American +Republic was 'dedicated to the proposition that all men are equal.' It +was then that the largest number of men had the most serious sort of +conviction that the political problem could be solved by the vote of +peoples instead of the arbitrary power of princes and privileged orders. +These men encountered various difficulties and made various compromises +in relation to the practical politics of their time; in England they +preserved aristocracy; in America they preserved slavery. But though +they had more difficulties, they had less doubts. Since their time +democracy has been steadily disintegrated by doubts; and these political +doubts have been contemporary with and often identical with religious +doubts. This fact could be followed over almost the whole field of the +modern world; in this place it will be more appropriate to take the +great American example of slavery. I have found traces in all sorts of +intelligent quarters of an extraordinary idea that all the Fathers of +the Republic owned black men like beasts of burden because they knew no +better, until the light of liberty was revealed to them by John Brown +and Mrs. Beecher Stowe. One of the best weekly papers in England said +recently that even those who drew up the Declaration of Independence did +not include negroes in its generalisation about humanity. This is quite +consistent with the current convention, in which we were all brought up; +the theory that the heart of humanity broadens in ever larger circles of +brotherhood, till we pass from embracing a black man to adoring a black +beetle. Unfortunately it is quite inconsistent with the facts of +American history. The facts show that, in this problem of the Old South, +the eighteenth century was _more_ liberal than the nineteenth century. +There was _more_ sympathy for the negro in the school of Jefferson than +in the school of Jefferson Davis. Jefferson, in the dark estate of his +simple Deism, said the sight of slavery in his country made him tremble, +remembering that God is just. His fellow Southerners, after a century of +the world's advance, said that slavery in itself was good, when they did +not go farther and say that negroes in themselves were bad. And they +were supported in this by the great and growing modern suspicion that +nature is unjust. Difficulties seemed inevitably to delay justice, to +the mind of Jefferson; but so they did to the mind of Lincoln. But that +the slave was human and the servitude inhuman--that was, if anything, +clearer to Jefferson than to Lincoln. The fact is that the utter +separation and subordination of the black like a beast was a _progress_; +it was a growth of nineteenth-century enlightenment and experiment; a +triumph of science over superstition. It was 'the way the world was +going,' as Matthew Arnold reverentially remarked in some connection; +perhaps as part of a definition of God. Anyhow, it was not Jefferson's +definition of God. He fancied, in his far-off patriarchal way, a Father +who had made all men brothers; and brutally unbrotherly as was the +practice, such democratical Deists never dreamed of denying the theory. +It was not until the scientific sophistries began that brotherhood was +really disputed. Gobineau, who began most of the modern talk about the +superiority and inferiority of racial stocks, was seized upon eagerly by +the less generous of the slave-owners and trumpeted as a new truth of +science and a new defence of slavery. It was not really until the dawn +of Darwinism, when all our social relations began to smell of the +monkey-house, that men thought of the barbarian as only a first and the +baboon as a second cousin. The full servile philosophy has been a modern +and even a recent thing; made in an age whose invisible deity was the +Missing Link. The Missing Link was a true metaphor in more ways than +one; and most of all in its suggestion of a chain. + +By a symbolic coincidence, indeed, slavery grew more brazen and brutal +under the encouragement of more than one movement of the progressive +sort. Its youth was renewed for it by the industrial prosperity of +Lancashire; and under that influence it became a commercial and +competitive instead of a patriarchal and customary thing. We may say +with no exaggerative irony that the unconscious patrons of slavery were +Huxley and Cobden. The machines of Manchester were manufacturing a great +many more things than the manufacturers knew or wanted to know; but they +were certainly manufacturing the fetters of the slave, doubtless out of +the best quality of steel and iron. But this is a minor illustration of +the modern tendency, as compared with the main stream of scepticism +which was destroying democracy. Evolution became more and more a vision +of the break-up of our brotherhood, till by the end of the nineteenth +century the genius of its greatest scientific romancer saw it end in the +anthropophagous antics of the Time Machine. So far from evolution +lifting us above the idea of enslaving men, it was providing us at least +with a logical and potential argument for eating them. In the case of +the American negroes, it may be remarked, it does at any rate permit the +preliminary course of roasting them. All this materialistic hardening, +which replaced the remorse of Jefferson, was part of the growing +evolutionary suspicion that savages were not a part of the human race, +or rather that there was really no such thing as the human race. The +South had begun by agreeing reluctantly to the enslavement of men. The +South ended by agreeing equally reluctantly to the emancipation of +monkeys. + +That is what had happened to the democratic ideal in a hundred years. +Anybody can test it by comparing the final phase, I will not say with +the ideal of Jefferson, but with the ideal of Johnson. There was far +more horror of slavery in an eighteenth-century Tory like Dr. Johnson +than in a nineteenth-century Democrat like Stephen Douglas. Stephen +Douglas may be mentioned because he is a very representative type of the +age of evolution and expansion; a man thinking in continents, like Cecil +Rhodes, human and hopeful in a truly American fashion, and as a +consequence cold and careless rather than hostile in the matter of the +old mystical doctrines of equality. He 'did not care whether slavery was +voted up or voted down.' His great opponent Lincoln did indeed care +very much. But it was an intense individual conviction with Lincoln +exactly as it was with Johnson. I doubt if the spirit of the age was not +much more behind Douglas and his westward expansion of the white race. I +am sure that more and more men were coming to be in the particular +mental condition of Douglas; men in whom the old moral and mystical +ideals had been undermined by doubt but only with a negative effect of +indifference. Their positive convictions were all concerned with what +some called progress and some imperialism. It is true that there was a +sincere sectional enthusiasm against slavery in the North; and that the +slaves were actually emancipated in the nineteenth century. But I doubt +whether the Abolitionists would ever have secured Abolition. Abolition +was a by-product of the Civil War; which was fought for quite other +reasons. Anyhow, if slavery had somehow survived to the age of Rhodes +and Roosevelt and evolutionary imperialism, I doubt if the slaves would +ever have been emancipated at all. Certainly if it had survived till the +modern movement for the Servile State, they would never have been +emancipated at all. Why should the world take the chains off the black +man when it was just putting them on the white? And in so far as we owe +the change to Lincoln, we owe it to Jefferson. Exactly what gives its +real dignity to the figure of Lincoln is that he stands invoking a +primitive first principle of the age of innocence, and holding up the +tables of an ancient law, _against_ the trend of the nineteenth century; +repeating, 'We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are +created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator, etc.,' to a +generation that was more and more disposed to say something like this: +'We hold these truths to be probable enough for pragmatists; that all +things looking like men were evolved somehow, being endowed by heredity +and environment with no equal rights, but very unequal wrongs,' and so +on. I do not believe that creed, left to itself, would ever have founded +a state; and I am pretty certain that, left to itself, it would never +have overthrown a slave state. What it did do, as I have said, was to +produce some very wonderful literary and artistic flights of sceptical +imagination. The world did have new visions, if they were visions of +monsters in the moon and Martians striding about like spiders as tall as +the sky, and the workmen and capitalists becoming two separate species, +so that one could devour the other as gaily and greedily as a cat +devours a bird. No one has done justice to the meaning of Mr. Wells and +his original departure in fantastic fiction; to these nightmares that +were the last apocalypse of the nineteenth century. They meant that the +bottom had fallen out of the mind at last, that the bridge of +brotherhood had broken down in the modern brain, letting up from the +chasms this infernal light like a dawn. All had grown dizzy with degree +and relativity; so that there would not be so very much difference +between eating dog and eating darkie, or between eating darkie and +eating dago. There were different sorts of apes; but there was no doubt +that we were the superior sort. + +Against all this irresistible force stood one immovable post. Against +all this dance of doubt and degree stood something that can best be +symbolised by a simple example. An ape cannot be a priest, but a negro +can be a priest. The dogmatic type of Christianity, especially the +Catholic type of Christianity, had riveted itself irrevocably to the +manhood of all men. Where its faith was fixed by creeds and councils it +could not save itself even by surrender. It could not gradually dilute +democracy, as could a merely sceptical or secular democrat. There stood, +in fact or in possibility, the solid and smiling figure of a black +bishop. And he was either a man claiming the most towering spiritual +privileges of a man, or he was the mere buffoonery and blasphemy of a +monkey in a mitre. That is the point about Christian and Catholic +democracy; it is not that it is necessarily at any moment more +democratic, it is that its indestructible minimum of democracy really is +indestructible. And by the nature of things that mystical democracy was +destined to survive, when every other sort of democracy was free to +destroy itself. And whenever democracy destroying itself is suddenly +moved to save itself, it always grasps at rag or tag of that old +tradition that alone is sure of itself. Hundreds have heard the story +about the mediaeval demagogue who went about repeating the rhyme + + + When Adam delved and Eve span, + Who was then the gentleman? + + +Many have doubtless offered the obvious answer to the question, 'The +Serpent.' But few seem to have noticed what would be the more modern +answer to the question, if that innocent agitator went about propounding +it. 'Adam never delved and Eve never span, for the simple reason that +they never existed. They are fragments of a Chaldeo-Babylonian mythos, +and Adam is only a slight variation of Tag-Tug, pronounced Uttu. For the +real beginning of humanity we refer you to Darwin's _Origin of +Species_.' And then the modern man would go on to justify plutocracy to +the mediaeval man by talking about the Struggle for Life and the +Survival of the Fittest; and how the strongest man seized authority by +means of anarchy, and proved himself a gentleman by behaving like a cad. +Now I do not base my beliefs on the theology of John Ball, or on the +literal and materialistic reading of the text of Genesis; though I think +the story of Adam and Eve infinitely less absurd and unlikely than that +of the prehistoric 'strongest man' who could fight a hundred men. But I +do note the fact that the idealism of the leveller could be put in the +form of an appeal to Scripture, and could not be put in the form of an +appeal to Science. And I do note also that democrats were still driven +to make the same appeal even in the very century of Science. Tennyson +was, if ever there was one, an evolutionist in his vision and an +aristocrat in his sympathies. He was always boasting that John Bull was +evolutionary and not revolutionary, even as these Frenchmen. He did not +pretend to have any creed beyond faintly trusting the larger hope. But +when human dignity is really in danger, John Bull has to use the same +old argument as John Ball. He tells Lady Clara Vere de Vere that 'the +gardener Adam and his wife smile at the claim of long descent'; their +own descent being by no means long. Lady Clara might surely have scored +off him pretty smartly by quoting from 'Maud' and 'In Memoriam' about +evolution and the eft that was lord of valley and hill. But Tennyson has +evidently forgotten all about Darwin and the long descent of man. If +this was true of an evolutionist like Tennyson, it was naturally ten +times truer of a revolutionist like Jefferson. The Declaration of +Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created +all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they +were certainly evolved unequal. + +There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine +origin of man. That is a perfectly simple fact which the modern world +will find out more and more to be a fact. Every other basis is a sort of +sentimental confusion, full of merely verbal echoes of the older creeds. +Those verbal associations are always vain for the vital purpose of +constraining the tyrant. An idealist may say to a capitalist, 'Don't you +sometimes feel in the rich twilight, when the lights twinkle from the +distant hamlet in the hills, that all humanity is a holy family?' But it +is equally possible for the capitalist to reply with brevity and +decision, 'No, I don't,' and there is no more disputing about it further +than about the beauty of a fading cloud. And the modern world of moods +is a world of clouds, even if some of them are thunderclouds. + +For I have only taken here, as a convenient working model, the case of +negro slavery; because it was long peculiar to America and is popularly +associated with it. It is more and more obvious that the line is no +longer running between black and white but between rich and poor. As I +have already noted in the case of Prohibition, the very same arguments +of the inevitable suicide of the ignorant, of the impossibility of +freedom for the unfit, which were once applied to barbarians brought +from Africa are now applied to citizens born in America. It is argued +even by industrialists that industrialism has produced a class submerged +below the status of emancipated mankind. They imply that the Missing +Link is no longer missing, even from England or the Northern States, and +that the factories have manufactured their own monkeys. Scientific +hypotheses about the feeble-minded and the criminal type will supply the +masters of the modern world with more and more excuses for denying the +dogma of equality in the case of white labour as well as black. And any +man who knows the world knows perfectly well that to tell the +millionaires, or their servants, that they are disappointing the +sentiments of Thomas Jefferson, or disregarding a creed composed in the +eighteenth century, will be about as effective as telling them that they +are not observing the creed of St. Athanasius or keeping the rule of St. +Benedict. + +The world cannot keep its own ideals. The secular order cannot make +secure any one of its own noble and natural conceptions of secular +perfection. That will be found, as time goes on, the ultimate argument +for a Church independent of the world and the secular order. What has +become of all those ideal figures from the Wise Man of the Stoics to the +democratic Deist of the eighteenth century? What has become of all that +purely human hierarchy of chivalry, with its punctilious pattern of the +good knight, its ardent ambition in the young squire? The very name of +knight has come to represent the petty triumph of a profiteer, and the +very word squire the petty tyranny of a landlord. What has become of all +that golden liberality of the Humanists, who found on the high +tablelands of the culture of Hellas the very balance of repose in beauty +that is most lacking in the modern world? The very Greek language that +they loved has become a mere label for snuffy and snobbish dons, and a +mere cock-shy for cheap and half-educated utilitarians, who make it a +symbol of superstition and reaction. We have lived to see a time when +the heroic legend of the Republic and the Citizen, which seemed to +Jefferson the eternal youth of the world, has begun to grow old in its +turn. We cannot recover the earthly estate of knighthood, to which all +the colours and complications of heraldry seemed as fresh and natural as +flowers. We cannot re-enact the intellectual experiences of the +Humanists, for whom the Greek grammar was like the song of a bird in +spring. The more the matter is considered the clearer it will seem that +these old experiences are now only alive, where they have found a +lodgment in the Catholic tradition of Christendom, and made themselves +friends for ever. St. Francis is the only surviving troubadour. St. +Thomas More is the only surviving Humanist. St. Louis is the only +surviving knight. + +It would be the worst sort of insincerity, therefore, to conclude even +so hazy an outline of so great and majestic a matter as the American +democratic experiment, without testifying my belief that to this also +the same ultimate test will come. So far as that democracy becomes or +remains Catholic and Christian, that democracy will remain democratic. +In so far as it does not, it will become wildly and wickedly +undemocratic. Its rich will riot with a brutal indifference far beyond +the feeble feudalism which retains some shadow of responsibility or at +least of patronage. Its wage-slaves will either sink into heathen +slavery, or seek relief in theories that are destructive not merely in +method but in aim; since they are but the negations of the human +appetites of property and personality. Eighteenth-century ideals, +formulated in eighteenth-century language, have no longer in themselves +the power to hold all those pagan passions back. Even those documents +depended upon Deism; their real strength will survive in men who are +still Deists; and the men who are still Deists are more than Deists. Men +will more and more realise that there is no meaning in democracy if +there is no meaning in anything; and that there is no meaning in +anything if the universe has not a centre of significance and an +authority that is the author of our rights. There is truth in every +ancient fable, and there is here even something of it in the fancy that +finds the symbol of the Republic in the bird that bore the bolts of +Jove. Owls and bats may wander where they will in darkness, and for them +as for the sceptics the universe may have no centre; kites and vultures +may linger as they like over carrion, and for them as for the plutocrats +existence may have no origin and no end; but it was far back in the land +of legends, where instincts find their true images, that the cry went +forth that freedom is an eagle, whose glory is gazing at the sun. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's What I Saw in America, by G. K. 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