made in our own time. In America and in Australia a new modification
of what we call Anglo-Saxonism is growing. A sort of type of
character arose from the difficulties of colonial life--the
difficulty of struggling with the wilderness; and this type has
given its shape to the mass of characters because the mass of
characters have unconsciously imitated it. Many of the American
characteristics are plainly useful in such a life, and consequent on
such a life. The eager restlessness, the highly-strung nervous
organisation are useful in continual struggle, and also are promoted
by it. These traits seem to be arising in Australia, too, and
wherever else the English race is placed in like circumstances. But
even in these useful particulars the innate tendency of the human
mind to become like what is around it, has effected much: a sluggish
Englishman will often catch the eager American look in a few years;
an Irishman or even a German will catch it, too, even in all English
particulars. And as to a hundred minor points--in so many that go to
mark the typical Yankee--usefulness has had no share either in their
origin or their propagation. The accident of some predominant person
possessing them set the fashion, and it has been imitated to this
day. Anybody who inquires will find even in England, and even in
these days of assimilation, parish peculiarities which arose, no
doubt, from some old accident, and have been heedfully preserved by
customary copying. A national character is but the successful parish
character; just as the national speech is but the successful parish
dialect, the dialect, that is, of the district which came to be
more--in many cases but a little more--influential than other
districts, and so set its yoke on books and on society. I could
enlarge much on this, for I believe this unconscious imitation to be
the principal force in the making of national characters; but I have
already said more about it than I need. Everybody who weighs even