er originally appeared, it formed the text for
an editorial article in the _Daily News_, in which Mr. Andrew Lang's
sign manual was not to be mistaken. Mr. Lang brought my somewhat
desultory discussion very neatly to a point. He admitted that we
habitually use "Americanism" as a term of reproach; "but," he asked,
"who is reproached? Not the American (who may do as he pleases) but the
English writer, who, in serious work, introduces, needlessly, an
American phrase into our literature. We say 'needlessly' when our
language already possesses a consecrated equivalent for the word or
idiom."

In the first place, one has to remark that many English critics are far
from accepting Mr. Lang's principle that "the American may do as he
pleases, of course." Mr. Lang himself scarcely acts up to it in this
very article. And, for my part, I think the principle a false one. I
think the English language has been entrusted to the care of all of us,
English no less than Americans, Americans no less than English; and if I
find an American writer debasing it in an essential point, as opposed to
a point of mere local predilection, I assert my right to remonstrate
with him, just as I admit his right, under similar circumstances, to
remonstrate with me.

It is not here, however, that I join issue with Mr. Lang: it is on his
theory that an English writer necessarily does wrong who unnecessarily
employs an Americanism. This is a question of great practical moment,
and I am glad that Mr. Lang has stated it in this definite form. My view
is perhaps sufficiently indicated above, but I take the opportunity of
reasserting it with all deliberation. I believe that, as a matter both
of literary and of social policy, we ought to encourage the free
infiltration of graphic and racy Americanisms into our vernacular, and
of vigorous and useful Americanisms (even if not absolutely necessary)
into our literary language. Where is the harm in duplicating terms, if
only the duplicates be in themselves good terms? For instance, take the
word "fall." Mr. Brander Matthews writes: "An American with a sense of
the poetic cannot but prefer to the imported word 'autumn' the native
and more logical word 'fall,' which the British have strangely suffered
to drop into disuse." Well, "autumn" was a sufficiently early
importation. "Our ancestors," wrote Lowell (quoted by Mr. Matthews in
the same article), "unhappily could bring over no English better than
Shakespeare's;" an