brutal--quite as much so to each other as to us, or any one. One should
bear that in mind. I know of nothing more English in its way than what
Eton answered to Beaumont (I think) when Beaumont sent a challenge to
play cricket: "Harrow we know, and Rugby we have heard of. But who are
you?"

That sort of thing belongs rather to the Palmerston days than to these;
belongs to days that were nearer in spirit to the Waterloo of 1815, which
a haughty England won, than to the Waterloo of 1914-18, which a humbler
England so nearly lost.

Turn we next the other way for a look at ourselves. An American lady who
had brought a letter of introduction to an Englishman in London was in
consequence asked to lunch. He naturally and hospitably gathered to meet
her various distinguished guests. Afterwards she wrote him that she
wished him to invite her to lunch again, as she had matters of importance
to tell him. Why, then, didn't she ask him to lunch with her? Can you
see? I think I do.

An American lady was at a house party in Scotland at which she met a
gentleman of old and famous Scotch blood. He was wearing the kilt of his
clan. While she talked with him she stared, and finally burst out
laughing. "I declare," she said, "that's positively the most ridiculous
thing I ever saw a man dressed in."

At the Savoy hotel in August, 1914, when England declared war upon
Germany, many American women made scenes of confusion and vociferation.
About England and the blast of Fate which had struck her they had nothing
to say, but crowded and wailed of their own discomforts, meals, rooms,
every paltry personal inconvenience to which they were subjected, or