What can't be appreciated can always be ridiculed—whether it's Old Masters, new waltzes, or a wife's Easter bonnet—and this is the reason we have always had such reams of journalistic "fun" at the expense of the broad English "a" and the narrow English view.
For my part, I consider that—next to the French in New Orleans—the English in England are the golden-ruliest people to be found in profane history.
You'll find that they're "insular" only when they're traveling off their dear island—and it's homesickness, after all, which makes them so disagreeably arrogant.
To be sure, the Frenchman in New Orleans will, if you ask him for a word of direction toward the Old Absinthe House, take you into his private office, draw for you a diagram of the whole city, advise you at length not to go unescorted into the Market, then follow you to the door with the final warning: "And it would be well for you to observe a certain degree of caution, my dear young lady, for our city is filled with wickedness, and your eyes are—pardon?—most charming!"
This is delightful, of course, and by far the most romantic thing in the way of adventure America has to offer, but rambling around London presents a dearer and more home-like charm.
The Englishman who directs you to a church, or a university square, stops to say nothing about your eyes—much less would he mention the existence of good and evil—but he points out to you the tomb, or chained Bible, or famous man's pew you are seeking, then glides modestly away before you've had time to say: "It's awfully good of you to take all this trouble for a stranger!"
But the truth of the matter is that you don't in the least feel yourself a stranger in London, and you like your kindly Englishman so cordially that you secretly resolve to put a muzzle on your own particular cannon cracker the next Fourth of July.
The shilling guide-books speak of London as the "gray old grandmother of cities," meaning thereby to call attention to her upstart progeny across the seas, but to my mind the title of grandmother is much more applicable on account of the joyous surprises she has shut away in dark closets.
One of the main pleasures of a visit to any grandmother is the gift of treasure which she is likely to call forth mysteriously from some tightly-closed cupboard and place in your hands for your own exclusive possession—and certainly this old dingy city outgrannies granny when it comes to that.
In the dingiest little book-stall imaginable, lighted by a candle and tended by a ragged-cuffed gentleman with a passion for Keats, you may find the very edition of something that college professors in your native town are offering half a year's salary for! You buy it for five dollars—which seems much more insignificant when spoken of by the pound—then run out and hail the nearest cab, offering the chauffeur an additional shilling to get you out of the neighborhood in ten seconds! Your heart is thumping in guilty fear that the ragged-cuffed gentleman with the passion for Keats may discover his mistake and run after you to demand his treasure back!