can, 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