isn't
done." It's a sort of indecent exposure. It's one of the invasions of
the right to privacy.

In America, not everywhere but in many places, a man upon entering a
club and seeing a friend across the room, will not hesitate to call out
to him, "Hullo, Jack!" or "Hullo, George!" or whatever. In England "it
isn't done." The greeting would be conveyed by a short nod or a glance.
To call out a man's name across a room full of people, some of whom may
be total strangers, invades his privacy and theirs. Have you noticed
how, in our Pullman parlor cars, a party sitting together, generally
young women, will shriek their conversation in a voice that bores like
a gimlet through the whole place? That is an invasion of privacy. In
England "it isn't done." We shouldn't stand it in a theatre, but in
parlor cars we do stand it. It is a good instance to show that the
Englishman's right to privacy is larger than ours, and thus that his
liberty is larger than ours.

Before leaving this point, which to my thinking is the cause of many
frictions and misunderstandings between ourselves and the English, I
mustn't omit to give instances of divergence, where an Englishman will
speak of matters upon which we are silent, and is silent upon subjects
of which we will speak.

You may present a letter of introduction to an Englishman, and he wishes
to be civil, to help you to have a good time. It is quite possible he
may say something like this:

"I think you had better know my sister Sophy. You mayn't like her. But
her dinners are rather amusing. Of course the food's ghastly because
she's the stingiest woman in London."

On the other hand, many Americans (though less willing than the French)
are willing to discuss creed, immortality, faith. There is nothing from
which the Englishman more peremptorily recoils, although he hates well
nigh as deeply all abstract discussion, or to be clever, or to have you
be clever. An American friend of mine had grown tired of an Englishman
who had been finding fault with one American thing after another. So he
suddenly said:

"Will you tell me why you English when you enter your pews on Sunday
always immediately smell your hats?"

The Englishman stiffened. "I refuse to discuss religious subjects with
you," he said.

To be ponderous over this anecdote grieves me--but you may not know that
orthodox Englishmen usually don't kneel, as we do, after reaching
their pews; they stand for a moment, covering the