ccused of observing too few formalities,
and we of being too formal.

The Americans are direct and straight-forward. They will tell you to
your face that they like you, and occasionally they also have very
little hesitation in telling you that they do not like you. They say
frankly just what they think. It is immaterial to them that their
remarks are personal, complimentary or otherwise. I have had members
of my own family complimented on their good looks as if they were
children. In this respect Americans differ greatly from the English.
The English adhere with meticulous care to the rule of avoiding
everything personal. They are very much afraid of rudeness on the one
hand, and of insincerity or flattery on the other. Even in the matter
of such a harmless affair as a compliment to a foreigner on his
knowledge of English, they will precede it with a request for pardon,
and speak in a half-apologetic manner, as if complimenting were
something personal. The English and the Americans are closely related,
they have much in common, but they also differ widely, and in nothing
is the difference more conspicuous than in their conduct. I have
noticed curiously enough that English Colonials, especially in such
particulars as speech and manners, follow their quondam sister colony,
rather than the mother country. And this, not only in Canada, where
the phenomenon might be explained by climatic, geographic, and historic
reasons, but also in such antipodean places as Australia and South
Africa, which are so far away as to apparently have very little in
common either with America or with each other. Nevertheless, whatever
the reason, the transplanted Englishman, whether in the arctics or the
tropics, whether in the Northern or the Southern Hemisphere, seems to
develop a type quite different from the original stock, yet always
resembling his fellow emigrants.

The directness of Americans is seen not only in what they say but in
the way they say it. They come directly to the point, without much
preface or introduction, much less is there any circumlocution or
"beating about the bush". When they come to see you they say their say
and then take their departure, moreover they say it in the most terse,
concise and unambiguous manner. In this respect what a contrast they
are to us! We always approach each other with preliminary greetings.
Then we talk of the weather, of politics or friends, of anything, in
fact, which is as