My Discovery of England

FOR some years past a rising tide of lecturers and literary men from

England has washed upon the shores of our North American continent. The

purpose of each one of them is to make a new discovery of America. They

come over to us travelling in great simplicity, and they return in the ducal

suite of the Aquitania. They carry away with them their impressions of

America, and when they reach England they sell them. This export of

impressions has now been going on so long that the balance of trade in

impressions is all disturbed. There is no doubt that the Americans and

Canadians have been too generous in this matter of giving away

impressions. We emit them with the careless ease of a glow worm, and like

the glow-worm ask for nothing in return.