The expression “Little Englander,” much used of late to designate an
inhabitant of the Mother Isle in contra-distinction to other subjects of
Her Majesty, expresses neatly the feeling of our insular cousins not only
as regards ourselves, but also the position affected toward their
colonial brothers and sisters.
Have you ever noticed that in every circle there is some individual
assuming to do things better than his comrades—to know more, dress
better, run faster, pronounce more correctly? Who, unless promptly
suppressed, will turn the conversation into a monologue relating to his
own exploits and opinions. To differ is to bring down his contempt upon
your devoted head! To argue is time wasted!
Human nature is, however, so constituted that a man of this type mostly
succeeds in hypnotizing his hearers into sharing his estimate of himself,
and impressing upon them the conviction that he is a rare being instead
of a commonplace mortal. He is not a bad sort of person at bottom, and
ready to do one a friendly turn—if it does not entail too great
inconvenience. In short, a good fellow, whose principal defect is the
profound conviction that he was born superior to the rest of mankind.
What this individual is to his environment, Englishmen are to the world
at large. It is the misfortune, not the fault, of the rest of the human
race, that they are not native to his island; a fact, by the way, which
outsiders are rarely allowed to lose sight of, as it entails a becoming
modesty on their part.
Few idiosyncrasies get more quickly on American nerves or are further
from our hearty attitude toward strangers. As we are far from looking
upon wandering Englishmen with suspicion, it takes us some time to
realize that Americans who cut away from their countrymen and settle far
from home are regarded with distrust and reluctantly received. When a
family of this kind prepares to live in their neighborhood, Britons have
a formula of three questions they ask themselves concerning the
new-comers: “Whom do they know? How much are they worth?” and “What
amusement (or profit) are we likely to get out of them?” If the answer
to all or any of the three queries is satisfactory, my lord makes the
necessary advances and becomes an agreeable, if not a witty or original,
companion.
Given this and a number of other peculiarities, it seems curious that a
certain class of Americans should be so anxious to live in England. What
is it tempts them? It cannot be the climate, for that is vile; nor the
city of London, for it is one of the ugliest in existence; nor their
“cuisine”—for although we are not good cooks ourselves, we know what good
food is and could give Britons points. Neither can it be art, nor the
opera,—one finds both better at home or on the Continent than in England.
So it must be society, and here one’s wonder deepens!
When I hear friends just back from a stay over there enlarging on the
charms of “country life,” or a London “season,” I look attentively to see
if they are in earnest, so incomparably dull have I always found English
house parties or town entertainments. At least that side of society
which the climbing stranger mostly affects. Other circles are charming,
if a bit slow, and the “Bohemia” and semi-Bohemia of London have a
delicate flavor of their own.
County society, that ideal life so attractive to American readers of
British novels, is, taken on the whole, the most insipid existence
conceivable. The women lack the sparkle and charm of ours; the men, who
are out all day shooting or hunting according to the season, get back so
fagged that if they do not actually drop asleep at the dinner-table, they
will nap immediately after, brightening only when the ladies have
retired, when, with evening dress changed for comfortable smoking suits,
the hunters congregate in the billiard-room for cigars and brandy and
seltzer.
A particularly agreeable American woman, whose husband insists on going
every winter to Melton-Mowbray for the hunting, was describing the other
day the life there among the women, and expressing her wonder that those
who did not hunt could refrain from blowing out their brains, so awful
was the dulness and monotony! She had ended by not dining out at all,
having discovered that the conversation never by any chance deviated far
from the knees of the horses and the height of the hedges!
Which reminds one of Thackeray relating how he had longed to know what
women talked about when they were alone after dinner, imagining it to be
on mysterious and thrilling subjects, until one evening he overheard such
a conversation and found it turned entirely on children and ailments! As
regards wit, the English are like the Oriental potentate who at a ball in
Europe expressed his astonishment that the guests took the trouble to
dance and get themselves hot and dishevelled, explaining that in the East
he paid people to do that for him. In England “amusers” are invited
expressly to be funny; anything uttered by one of these delightful
individuals is sure to be received with much laughter. It is so simple
that way! One is prepared and knows when to laugh. Whereas amateur wit
is confusing. When an American I knew, turning over the books on a
drawing-room table and finding Hare’s _Walks in London_, in two volumes,
said, “So you part your hair in the middle over here,” the remark was
received in silence, and with looks of polite surprise.
It is not necessary, however, to accumulate proofs that this much
described society is less intelligent than our own. Their authors have
acknowledged it, and well they may. For from Scott and Dickens down to
Hall Caine, American appreciation has gone far toward establishing the
reputation of English writers at home.
In spite of lack of humor and a thousand other defects which ought to
make English swelldom antagonistic to our countrymen, the fact remains
that “smart” London tempts a certain number of Americans and has become a
promised land, toward which they turn longing eyes. You will always find
a few of these votaries over there in the “season,” struggling bravely up
the social current, making acquaintances, spending money at charity
sales, giving dinners and fêtes, taking houses at Ascot and filling them
with their new friends’ friends. With more or less success as the
new-comers have been able to return satisfactory answers to the three
primary questions.
What Americans are these, who force us to blush for them infinitely more
than for the unlettered tourists trotting conscientiously around the
country, doing the sights and asking for soda-water and buckwheat cakes
at the hotels!
Any one who has been an observer of the genus “Climber” at home, and
wondered at their way and courage, will recognize these ambitious souls
abroad; five minutes’ conversation is enough. It is never about a place
that they talk, but of the people they know. London to them is not the
city of Dickens. It is a place where one may meet the Prince of Wales
and perhaps obtain an entrance into his set.
One description will cover most climbers. They are, as a rule, people
who start humbly in some small city, then when fortune comes, push on to
New York and Newport, where they carry all before them and make their
houses centres and themselves powers. Next comes the discovery that the
circle into which they have forced their way is not nearly as attractive
as it appeared from a distance. Consequently that vague disappointment
is felt which most of us experience on attaining a long desired goal—the
unsatisfactoriness of success! Much the same sensation as caused poor Du
Maurier to answer, when asked shortly before his death why he looked so
glum, “I’m soured by success!”
So true is this of all human nature that the following recipe might be
given for the attainment of perfect happiness: “Begin far down in any
walk of life. Rise by your efforts higher each year, and then be careful
to die before discovering that there is nothing at the top. The
excitement of the struggle—‘the rapture of the chase’—are greater joys
than achievement.”
Our ambitious friends naturally ignore this bit of philosophy. When it
is discovered that the “world” at home has given but an unsatisfactory
return for cash and conniving, it occurs to them that the fault lies in
the circle, and they assume that their particular talents require a
larger field. Having conquered all in sight, these social Alexanders
pine for a new world, which generally turns out to be the “Old,” so a
crossing is made, and the “Conquest of England” begun with all the
enthusiasm and push employed on starting out from the little native city
twenty years before.
It is in Victoria’s realm that foemen worthy of their steel await the
conquerors. Home society was a too easy prey, opening its doors and
laying down its arms at the first summons. In England the new-comers
find that their little game has been played before; and, well, what they
imagined was a discovery proves to be a long-studied science with
“_donnant_! _donnant_!” as its fundamental law. Wily opponents with
trump cards in their hands and a profound knowledge of “Hoyle” smilingly
offer them seats. Having acquired in a home game a knowledge of “bluff,”
our friends plunge with delight into the fray, only to find English
society so formed that, climb they never so wisely, the top can never be
reached. Work as hard as they may, succeed even beyond their fondest
hopes, there will always remain circles above, toward which to
yearn—people who will refuse to know them, houses they will never be
invited to enter. Think of the charm, the attraction such a civilization
must have for the real born climber, and you, my reader, will understand
why certain of our compatriots enjoy living in England, and why when once
the intoxicating draught (supplied to the ambitious on the other side)
has been tasted, all home concoctions prove insipid.