America's estimate of England than the _Alabama_
incident. Ex-President Cleveland, as we have seen, speaks of the
"sublime patriotism and devotion to their nation's honour" of the "plain
people of the land" who backed him up when war with Great Britain seemed
to be so near. But I wonder in how many breasts the desire for war was
inspired not by patriotism but by memory of the Hon. S----y B----l. And
when the Englishman thinks of the possibility of war with the United
States, with whom is it that he pictures himself as fighting? Some one
individual American, whom he has seen in London, drunk perhaps,
certainly noisy and offensive. Such a one stands in the mind of many an
Englishman who has not travelled as the type of the whole people of the
United States.

If it were possible for the two peoples to come to know each other as
they really are--if one half of the population of each country could for
a season change places with one half of the other, so that all the
individuals of both nations would be acquainted with the ways and
thoughts of the other, not as the comic artists draw them, nor as they
are when they are abroad, but as they live their daily lives at
home--then indeed would all thought of difference between the two
disappear, and war between them be as impossible as war between Surrey
and Kent.

CHAPTER V

THE AMERICAN ATTITUDE TOWARDS WOMEN

The Isolation of the United States--American Ignorance of the
World--Sensitiveness to Criticism--Exaggeration of their Own
Virtues--The Myth of American Chivalrousness--Whence it
Originated--The Climatic Myth--International Marriages--
English Manners and American--The View of Womanhood in
Youth--Co-education of the Sexes--Conjugal Morality--The
Artistic Sense in American Women--Two Stenographers--An
Incident of Camp-Life--"Molly-be-damned"--A Nice Way of
Travelling--How do they do it?--Women in Public Life--The
Conditions which Co-operate--The Anglo-Saxon Spirit again.

It will be roughly true to say that the Englishman's misunderstanding of
America is generally the result of misinformation--of "parsnips"--of
having had reported to him things which are superficial and untrue;
whereas the American's misunderstanding of England is chiefly the result
of his absorption in his own affairs and lack of a standard of
comparison. The Americans as a people have been until recently, and
still are in only a moderately