Sometimes, when I could feel certain of my ground, I ventured my
conviction that Englishmen were not so much interested in
Americans as those Americans who stayed at home were apt to
think; but when I once expressed this belief to a Unitarian
minister, whom I met in the West of England, he received it with
surprise and refusal. He said that in his own immediate circle,
at least, his friends were interested and increasingly interested
in America, what she was and what she meant to be, and still
looked toward her for the lead in certain high things which
Englishmen have ceased to expect of themselves. My impression is
that most of the most forward of the English Sociologists regard
America as a back number in those political economics which imply
equality as well as liberty in the future. They do not see any
difference between our conditions and theirs, as regards the man
who works for his living with his hands, except that wages are
higher with us, and that physically there is more elbow-room,
though mentally and morally there is not.
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