lious
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 waste