reserves that epithet for non-English-speaking races. In this respect
it would seem as if the Briton, for once, took the wider, the more
genial and human, point of view; as if he had the keener appreciation
of the ties of race and language. It is as if he cherished continually
a sub-dominant consciousness of the fact that the occupation of the
North American continent by the Anglo-Saxons is one of the greatest
events in English history--that America is peopled by Englishmen. When
he thinks of the events of 1776 he feels, to use Mr. Hall Caine's
illustration, like Dr. Johnson, who dreamed that he had been worsted
in conversation, but reflected when he awoke that the conversation of
his adversary must also have been his own. As opposed to this there
may be a grain of self-assertion in the American use of the term as
applied to the British; it is as if they would emphasise the fact that
they are no mere offshoot of England, that the Colonial days have long
since gone by, and that the United States is an independent nation
with a right to have its own "foreigners." An American friend suggests
that the different usage of the two lands may be partly owing to the
fact that the cordial, frank demeanour of the American, coupled with
his use of the same tongue, makes an Englishman absolutely forget that
he is not a fellow-countryman, while the subtler American is keenly
conscious of differences which escape the obtuser Englishman. Another
partial explanation is that the first step across our frontier brings
us to a land where an unknown tongue is spoken, and that we have
consequently welded into one the two ideas of foreignhood and
unintelligibility; while the American, on the other hand, identifies
himself with his continent and regards all as foreigners who are not
natives of it.

The point would hardly be worth dwelling upon, were it not that the
different attitude it denotes really leads in some instances to actual