it has no strict ethnological sense--it may rather be called an
ethnological countersense, no less in England than in America. It
represents an historical and political, not an ethnological, concept.
The Anglo-Saxon was already an infinitely composite personage--Saxon,
Scandinavian, Gaul, and Kelt--before he set foot in America; and America
merely proves her deep-rooted Anglo-Saxonism in accepting and absorbing
all sorts of alien and semi-alien race-elements. But when we have to go
so far behind the face-value of a word to bring it into consonance with
obvious facts, it is safest to use that word sparingly.

In brief, I did not wear my Anglo-Saxon heart on my sleeve, or go about
inviting expressions of gratitude to England for having, like Mr.
Gilbert's House of Lords,

Done nothing in particular,
And done it very well.

Yet evidences of a new tone of feeling towards England met me on every
hand, both in the newspapers and in conversation. The subject which I
shrank from introducing was frequently introduced by my American
acquaintances. It was evident that the change of feeling, though far
from universal, was real and wide-spread. Americans who had recently
returned to their native land, after passing some years abroad, assured
me that they were keenly conscious of it. Many of my acquaintances were
opposed to the policy which brought about the Spanish War, and declared
the better mutual understanding between England and America to be its
one good result. Others adopted the view to which Mr. Kipling had given
such far-echoing expression, and frankly rejoiced in the sympathy with
which England regarded America's determination to "take up the white
man's burden." In the Kipling craze as a whole, after making all