Some Americans, who, even with
our increasing prevalence of divorces, are not well seen at home,
are cheerfully welcomed in England.
Perhaps, there, all Americans, good and bad, high and low, coarse
and fine, are the same to senses not accustomed to our varying
textures and shades of color; that is a matter I should be glad
to remand to the psychologist, who will have work enough to do if
he comes to inquire into such mysteries. One can never be certain
just how the English take us, or how much, or whether they take
us at all. Oftenest I was inclined to think that we were
imperceptible to them, or that, when we were perceptible, they
were aware of us as Swedenborg says the most celestial angels are
aware of evil spirits, merely as something angular. Americans
were distressful to their consciousness, they did not know why;
and then they tried to ignore us. But perhaps this is putting it
a little fantastically. What I know is that one comes
increasingly to reserve the fact of one's nationality, when it is
not essential to the occasion, and to become as much as possible
an unknown quality, rather than a quality aggressive or positive.
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