Americans and Others

Americans and Others

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Title: Americans and Others
Author: Agnes Repplier
Release Date: September 19, 2005 [EBook #16722]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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AMERICANS AND OTHERS ***

Produced by Ron Swanson

By Agnes Repplier
COUNTER-CURRENTS. AMERICANS AND OTHERS. A HAPPY
HALF-CENTURY AND OTHER ESSAYS. IN OUR CONVENT
DAYS. COMPROMISES. THE FIRESIDE SPHINX. With 4 full-page
and 17 text illustrations by Miss E. BONSALL. BOOKS AND MEN.
POINTS OF VIEW. ESSAYS IN IDLENESS. IN THE DOZY

HOURS, AND OTHER PAPERS. ESSAYS IN MINIATURE. A
BOOK OF FAMOUS VERSE. Selected by Agnes Repplier. In
Riverside Library for Young People. THE SAME. Holiday Edition.
VARIA.

AMERICANS AND OTHERS
BY AGNES REPPLIER, LITT.D.

BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge

COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY AGNES REPPLIER ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED _Published October 1912_
The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS PRINTED
IN THE U.S.A.

Note
Five of the essays in this volume appear in print for the first time.
Others have been published in the Atlantic Monthly, the Century
Magazine, _Harper's Bazar_, and the Catholic World.

Contents
A Question of Politeness
The Mission of Humour
Goodness and Gayety

The Nervous Strain
The Girl Graduate
The Estranging Sea
Travellers' Tales
The Chill of Enthusiasm
The Temptation of Eve
"The Greatest of These is Charity"
The Customary Correspondent
The Benefactor
The Condescension of Borrowers
The Grocer's Cat

AMERICANS AND OTHERS

A Question of Politeness
"La politesse de l'esprit consiste a penser des choses honnetes et
delicates."
A great deal has been said and written during the past few years on the
subject of American manners, and the consensus of opinion is, on the
whole, unfavourable. We have been told, more in sorrow than in anger,
that we are not a polite people; and our critics have cast about them for
causes which may be held responsible for such a universal and
lamentable result. Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, for example, is by way of
thinking that the fault lies in the sudden expansion of wealth, in the

intrusion into the social world of people who fail to understand its
requirements, and in the universal "spoiling" of American children. He
contrasts the South of his childhood, that wonderful "South before the
war," which looms vaguely, but very grandly, through a half-century's
haze, with the New York of to-day, which, alas! has nothing to soften
its outlines. A more censorious critic in the "Atlantic Monthly" has also
stated explicitly that for true consideration and courtliness we must
hark back to certain old gentlewomen of ante-bellum days. "None of us
born since the Civil War approach them in respect to some fine,
nameless quality that gives them charm and atmosphere." It would
seem, then, that the war, with its great emotions and its sustained
heroism, imbued us with national life at the expense of our national
manners.
I wonder if this kind of criticism does not err by comparing the many
with the few, the general with the exceptional. I wonder if the
deficiencies of an imperfect civilization can be accounted for along
such obvious lines. The self-absorption of youth which Mrs. Comer
deprecates, the self-absorption of a crowd which offends Mr. Page, are
human, not American. The nature of youth and the nature of crowds
have not changed essentially since the Civil War, nor since the Punic
Wars. Granted that the tired and hungry citizens of New York, jostling
one another in their efforts to board a homeward train, present an
unlovely spectacle; but do they, as Mr. Page affirms, reveal "such sheer
and primal brutality as can be found nowhere else in the world where
men and women are together?" Crowds will jostle, and have always
jostled, since men first clustered in communities. Read Theocritus. The
hurrying Syracusans--third century B.C.--"rushed like a herd of swine,"
and rent in twain Praxinoe's muslin veil. Look at Hogarth. The whole
fun of an eighteenth-century English crowd consisted in snatching off
some unfortunate's wig, or toppling him over into the gutter. The truth
is we sin against civilization when we consent to flatten ourselves
against our neighbours. The experience of the world has shown
conclusively that a few inches more or less of breathing space make all
the difference between a self-respecting citizen and a savage.
As for youth,--ah, who shall be brave enough, who has ever been brave

enough, to defend the rising generation? Who has ever looked with
content upon the young,