prone to claim this fine perception, without seeing that the
fine edge of it cuts both ways. I have begun this chapter on the note of
national humour because I wish to make it quite clear that I realise how
easily a foreigner may take something seriously that is not serious.
When I think something in America is really foolish, it may be I that am
made a fool of. It is the first duty of a traveller to allow for this;
but it seems to be the very last thing that occurs to some travellers.
But when I seek to say something of what may be called the fantastic
side of America, I allow beforehand that some of it may be meant to be
fantastic. And indeed it is very difficult to believe that some of it is
meant to be serious. But whether or no there is a joke, there is
certainly an inconsistency; and it is an inconsistency in the moral
make-up of America which both puzzles and amuses me.

The danger of democracy is not anarchy but convention. There is even a
sort of double meaning in the word 'convention'; for it is also used for
the most informal and popular sort of parliament; a parliament not
summoned by any king. The Americans come together very easily without
any king; but their coming together is in every sense a convention, and
even a very conventional convention. In a democracy riot is rather the
exception and respectability certainly the rule. And though a
superficial sight-seer should hesitate about all such generalisations,
and certainly should allow for enormous exceptions to them, he does
receive a general impression of unity verging on uniformity. Thus
Americans all dress well; one might almost say that American women all
look well; but they do not, as compared with Europeans, look very
different. They are in the fashion; too much in the fashion even to be
conspicuously fashionable. Of course there are patches, both Bohemian
and Babylonian, of which this is not true, but I am talking of the
general tone of a whole democracy. I have said there is more
respectability than riot; but indeed in a deeper sense the same spirit
is behind both riot and respectability. It is the same social force that
makes it possible for the respectable to boycott a man and for the
riotous to lynch him. I do not object to it being called 'the herd
instinct,' so long as we realise that it is a metaphor and not an
explanation.

Public opinion can be a prairie fire. It eats up everything that opposes
it; and there is the grandeur as well as th