Pot-Pourri 209 



bayonet. An Englishman would make no insidious 

 distinctions between Spanish and American valour ; 

 a Westerner wallows in odorous comparison, and 

 the stronger the odour the more he likes it. The 

 word " hireling " has been applied again and again 

 to our soldiers most offensively. In a sense they 

 are hirelings ; so were Koosevelt's rough-riders, so 

 are the Boers, and the soldiers of every nation on 

 earth. The use of such adjectives plainly proves 

 that the Western man in his heart wishes to insult 

 and offend Englishmen. 



It is time therefore that England understood 

 that the vapourings of after-dinner orators upon 

 the unity of the Anglo-Saxon race, upon blood 

 being thicker than water, upon our kin beyond sea, 

 and so forth, are so much smoke. The Americans 

 are not Anglo-Saxon, but an amalgam of Teuton, 

 Kelt, Latin, Slav, and Anglo-Saxon. We happen 

 to speak a language somewhat similar to what 

 passes current in the United States ; we are also 

 Uncle Sam's best customer and his biggest credi- 

 tor ; we have ideals in common ; laws in common, 

 Shakespeare and Milton in common ; England and 

 America have, in short, what has been called a 

 " manifest destiny " to work (not together but 

 apart) for that which makes for the enlightenment 

 of the world and the progress of civilisation; but 

 we are not brothers, nor cousins, nor good friends 

 — and that is the naked truth. I am speaking of 

 the Pacific Slope, although I am of opinion that in 

 the East also the masses are hostile to England ; 

 and I have yet to meet an intelligent Englishman 

 who has lived his life in the West who does not 



14 



