My Discovery of England | Page 4

for the
chairman to begin something like this: "The lecturer, I am sure, needs
no introduction from me." And indeed, when I have been the lecturer
and somebody else has been the chairman, I have more than once
suspected myself of being the better man of the two. Of course I hope I
should always have the good manners--I am sure Mr. Leacock has--to

disguise that suspicion. However, one has to go through these
formalities, and I will therefore introduce the lecturer to you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mr. Stephen Leacock. Mr. Leacock, this
is the flower of London intelligence--or perhaps I should say one of the
flowers; the rest are coming to your other lectures.
In ordinary social life one stops at an introduction and does not proceed
to personal details. But behaviour on the platform, as on the stage, is
seldom ordinary. I will therefore tell you a thing or two about Mr.
Leacock. In the first place, by vocation he is a Professor of Political
Economy, and he practises humour--frenzied fiction instead of frenzied
finance--by way of recreation. There he differs a good deal from me,
who have to study the products of humour for my living, and by way of
recreation read Mr. Leacock on political economy.
Further, Mr. Leacock is all-British, being English by birth and
Canadian by residence, I mention this for two reasons: firstly, because
England and the Empire are very proud to claim him for their own, and,
secondly, because I do not wish his nationality to be confused with that
of his neighbours on the other side. For English and American
humourists have not always seen eye to eye. When we fail to appreciate
their humour they say we are too dull and effete to understand it: and
when they do not appreciate ours they say we haven't got any.
Now Mr. Leacock's humour is British by heredity; but he has caught
something of the spirit of American humour by force of association.
This puts him in a similar position to that in which I found myself once
when I took the liberty of swimming across a rather large loch in
Scotland. After climbing into the boat I was in the act of drying myself
when I was accosted by the proprietor of the hotel adjacent to the shore.
"You have no business to be bathing here," he shouted. "I'm not," I said;
"I'm bathing on the other side." In the same way, if anyone on either
side of the water is unintelligent enough to criticise Mr. Leacock's
humour, he can always say it comes from the other side. But the truth is
that his humour contains all that is best in the humour of both
hemispheres.
Having fulfilled my duty as chairman, in that I have told you nothing
that you did not know before--except, perhaps, my swimming feat,
which never got into the Press because I have a very bad publicity
agent--I will not detain you longer from what you are really wanting to

get at; but ask Mr. Leacock to proceed at once with his lecture on
"Frenzied Fiction."

CONTENTS
I. THE BALANCE OF TRADE IN IMPRESSIONS II. I AM
INTERVIEWED BY THE PRESS III. IMPRESSIONS OF LONDON
IV. A CLEAR VIEW OF THE GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS OF
ENGLAND V. OXFORD AS I SEE IT VI. THE BRITISH AND THE
AMERICAN PRESS VII. BUSINESS IN ENGLAND VIII. IS
PROHIBITION COMING TO ENGLAND? IX. "WE HAVE WITH
US TO-NIGHT" X. HAVE THE ENGLISH ANY SENSE OF
HUMOUR?

My Discovery of England
I. The Balance of Trade in Impressions
FOR some years past a rising tide of lecturers and literary men from
England has washed upon the shores of our North American continent.
The purpose of each one of them is to make a new discovery of
America. They come over to us travelling in great simplicity, and they
return in the ducal suite of the Aquitania. They carry away with them
their impressions of America, and when they reach England they sell
them. This export of impressions has now been going on so long that
the balance of trade in impressions is all disturbed. There is no doubt
that the Americans and Canadians have been too generous in this
matter of giving away impressions. We emit them with the careless
ease of a glow worm, and like the glow-worm ask for nothing in return.
But this irregular and one-sided traffic has now assumed such great
proportions that we are compelled to ask whether it is right to allow
these people to carry away from us impressions of the very highest
commercial value without giving us any pecuniary compensation
whatever. British lecturers have been known to land in New York, pass
the customs, drive uptown in a closed taxi,