When his meek entertainer
ventured to offer him some American dish which he did not like, he
would frankly warn his companions against it; and if he asked for
sugar in his coffee he would, in the same outspoken way, explain
that he always sweetened it "when it was bad." One of his favorite
topics of conversation was the awful corruption and rottenness of
American society and politics, and he dwelt so much upon this that
it often seemed as if what he was really interested in was to find
out whether the people he was staying with, and being entertained
by, were not themselves, if the truth were known, rotten to the
core.
He was a very rude man, and he did exist. But is he gone, or going?
Is the time coming when we shall have to regard him too as a
survival, and admit that the rude Englishman is a creature of the
past? Time and continued international experience can alone settle
this question. There are, however, bitter memories of past
sufferings at his hands in hundreds of American homes, that make it
better for both countries not to probe the subject too deeply.
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