* * * * *
Since that merry meeting I have had many opportunities of getting next to the American Army and Navy, and hearing their views of us and British views of them, and the experience has done me a lot of good. Until then, the only Americans I had met were the leisured, over-moneyed tourists, mostly disagreeable, and, as I have found since, by no means representative of their country. You know them. They came to England in the autumn, and stayed at opulent hotels, and made a lot of noise around ancient shrines, and sent local prices sky-rocketing wherever they stayed, and threw their weight and fifty-dollar tips about, and "Say'd" and "My'd" and "Gee'd" up and down the Strand; that kind of American. These people did their country a lot of harm, because I and thousands of other people received them as Americans and disliked them; just as wealthy trippers to and from other countries leave bad impressions of their people. I made up my mind on America from my meetings with these parvenus. I had forgotten that the best and typical people of a country are the hard-working, stay-at-home people, whose labours just enable them to feed and clothe their children and provide nothing for gadding about to other countries. To-day, the solid middle-class people of England and America are meeting and mixing, and all political history is washed out by the waters of social intercourse between them. High officials and diplomats are for ever telling one another over official luncheon tables that the friendship of this and that nation is sealed, but such remarks are valueless until the common people of either country have met and made their own decision; and the cost of living does not permit such meetings. Thus we have wars and unholy alliances. If only the common people of all countries could meet and exchange views in a common language, without the prejudice inspired by Press and politician, international amity would be for ever established, as Anglo-American amity is now established by the free-and-easy meeting of hard-working, middle-class Americans and the same social type of Englishman.
After meeting hundreds of Americans of a class and position similar to my own, I have changed all my views of America. We have everything in common and nothing to differ about. I don't care a damn on whose side was right or wrong in 1773. I have taken the boys round London. I have played their games. I have eaten their food. I have talked their slang and taught them mine. They have eaten my food, and we have sported joyfully together, and discussed music and books and theatres, and amiably amused ourselves at the expense of each other's social institutions and ceremonies. As they are guests in England, I have played host, and, among other entertainment that I have offered, I have been able to give them what they most needed; namely, evenings and odd hours in real middle-class English homes, where they could see an Englishwoman pour out tea and see an English baby put to bed. I found that they were sick of the solemn "functions" arranged for their entertainment. They didn't want high-brow receptions or musical entertainments in Mayfair. They preferred the spontaneous entertainment arising from a casual encounter in the street, as by asking the way to this or that place, leading to an invitation to a suburban home and a suburban meal. From such a visit they get an insight into our ways, our ideals, our outlook on life, better than they ever could from a Pall Mall club or a Government official's drawing-room. They get the real thing, which is something to write home about. In the "arranged" affairs they are "guests"; in the others, they are treated with the rude, haphazard fellowship which we extend to friends.
In these troubled days there is little room for the exercise of the graces of life. Our ears are deaf to the gentle voice of urbanity. The delicacies of intercourse have been trodden underfoot, and lie withered and broken. Even the quality of mercy has been standardized and put into uniform. Throughout the world to-day, everything is organized, and to organize a beautiful movement or emotion is to brutalize it: while lubricating its mechanism you ossify its soul. Thank God, there is still left a little spontaneity. Human impulse may be bruised and broken, but it is a fiery thing, and hard to train to harness or to destroy; and I can assure you that the Americans are grateful for it wherever it finds expression.
One evening, just before curfew—it was night according to the Government, but the sky said quite clearly that it was evening—I was standing at my favourite coffee-stall near King's Cross, eating hard-boiled eggs and drinking introspective coffee, and chatting with the boss on the joy of life.
"Met any of the Americans?" I asked, anxious to get his opinion of them.
"Met any? Crowds of 'em."
"What do you think of 'em?"