SOME MISGIVINGS AS TO THE AMERICAN INVASION


It is perhaps more than possible that among the interesting people one
meets at luncheons and teas and dinners, there will be, or have been,
other Americans; and this suggests the perilous question whether the
English like the Americans better than formerly. An Englishman might
counter by asking whether the Americans like the English better than
formerly; but that would not be answering the question, which I hope to
leave very much where I found it. Yet Americans have heard and read so
much of their increasing national favor with their contemporary
ancestors that they may be excused if not satisfied in a curiosity as to
the fact. Is the universal favor which an emotional and imaginative
press like ours has portrayed them as presently enjoying in England a
reality, or is it one of the dreams which our press now and then
indulges, and of which the best that can be said is that they do no
harm?

One not only hears of this favor at home, but when one goes to England
one still hears of it. To be sure one hears of it mainly from Americans,
but they have the best means of knowing the fact; they are chiefly
concerned, and they are supported in their belief by the almost unvaried
amenity of the English journals, which now very rarely take the tone
towards Americans formerly habitual with them. Their change of tone is
the most obvious change which I think Americans can count upon noting
when they come to England, and I am far from reckoning it insignificant.
It did not happen of the newspapers themselves; it must be the
expression of a prevalent mood, if not a very deeply rooted feeling in
their readers. One hears of their interest, their kindness, not from the
Americans alone; the English themselves sometimes profess it, and if