The Englishman and the American1

A

(By A. Trollope)

The American though he dresses like an Englishman, and eats roast beef with a silver fork – or sometimes with a steel knife – as does an Englishman , is not like an Englishman in his mind, in his aspirations, in his tastes, or in his politics. In his mind he is quicker, more universally intelligent, more ambitious of general knowledge, less indulgent of stupidity and ignorance in others, harder, sharper, brighter with the surface brightness of steel, than is an Englishman; but he is more brittle, less enduring, less malleable, and I think less capable of impressions. The mind of an Englishman has more imaginations, but that of an American more incision. The American is a great observer, but he observes things material rather than things social or picturesque. He is a constant ready speculator, but all speculations, even which come of philosophy, are with more or less material…

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B

What’s the difference between an American and an Englishman really? This is the rhythm of life, of course, this is the urge for action, as opposed to reflection. Once quite a civilized American woman said, “I always feel guilty if I read a book during the day, when I ought to be doing something. At night, in bed, it’s different.”

In Europe the people who have lived in the same house and have been in the same job for 20, 30, 40 years and who would hate to change to something new. That’s not the American way of life. They love change, they call it “the spirit of adventure”, a spirit that they think is more characteristic of America than of Europe. They like to change homes and jobs. They have none of the Englishman’s sentimental love for things because they are old.

The Englishman thinks it is ill-mannered to ask personal questions. The American doesn’t feel it at all. The Englishman prizes privacy, the American prefers sociability. With this sociability goes overwhel-ming hospitality. You get taken to parties at the houses of your friends; you are invited to theatres, dinners, sports meetings, motor trips; they all show the keenest interest in your affairs, but by the following week they have forgotten all about you.

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Text 3

English Compromise

By Yatel G¹

Courtesy, kindness, obligingness, tolerance, moderation, self-control, fair play, a cheerful temper, pleasant manners, calmness, stoicism, an extremely high degree of social civilization - these were the adorable things I discovered in the English when I first arrived in English. Gradually, however, I became aware of subtler characteristics and currents, not so adorable.

Compromise. It is in their blood. It is the law of their organism. I won't go into origins, which are probably geographical, and physical; what concerns me here is that it is so. The English compromise in every domain, as naturally, inevitably, and unconsciously as the human lungs breathe air. Their constitution, their legal, social, industrial, economic systems are compromises. As a foreigner, these compromises do not effect me practically. It is the English who have to suffer from them not I. But when it comes to psychological and linguistic manifestations, I have a say in the matter, for I run up against them constantly in daily life, and they do not breed admiration or amity.

Because compromise is his fundamental cerebral process, the Englishman will not make up his mind at once on any question. He funks it. He'll patch it up, he'll snip bits out of it and stick bits on to it; he'll darn it and repair it and freshman it up; but he won't thrash it out, uproot it, and start again without it. There comes a time, eventually, when his maniacal ingenuity is defeated. Then he is cornered. At that point, he'll roll up his sleeves and do something new. But he will not meet his issue until he is cornered - until his back is painfully pressed against a wall, and a fist - but what losses, that trouble, what expenditure are incurred before things are set right - simply because he won't face facts in time.

I haven't an atom of sympathy for this disposition of his. It has led, leads, and will lead, to inuumerable vexations, lettingdowns, misconceptions, blunders, and tragedies in international affairs.

For not only does his inveterate habit of compromise produce actions that look like an ugly chain of shameless volte-face, long enough to encircle the world, but his very speech is infected by it, so that he can't talk accurately. He has turned his splendid language into a series of stereotyped formulae. Translate, if you please, into any straightforward European tongue expressions like: "I am afraid not", "I would rather not", "I shouldn't say that", or the unsupportable "I don't mind". All translations would register pure dubiousness. Read abroad, they result, especially in diplomatic relations, in a new crop of argumentations, wranglings, disappointed hopes, heart-burnings. But the Englishman himself is immensely surprised that the foreigner should not have immediately grasped that he just meant yes and no. And when he isn't understanding, he's overstanding. My gorge still rises when I hear someone tell me over the telephone that he is dying to see me.

On the Continent, political leaders in opposite camps fight with open weapons; they are stung, assaulted and battered by their adversaries wherever they meet, in the street, in social assemblies just as much as in the press and the Parliament. Their political enemies are also their social enemies. This attitude may seem brutal on the surface, but it is indispensable if we aim at consistency. In sheer and stark antagonism there is no undermining factor - no invisible foe to weaken the blood of resistance; no germ warfare to complicate issues. In England, hostile political leaders meet in each other's homes; they are welcomed and fed one by the other, and the socially more experienced of the two drugs the less-experienced one's wine. No amount of initial sincerity, wisdom or determination can protect the mind successfully against the continual flattery, the warm, kindly, polite, drop-drop-drop-drop of pleasant and hospitable social relations. They wear away the keenness of opposition, and are the most dangerous arms in English political life - handled, by the way, with unexampled mastery by the Conservative party. No, no; the human brain is not divided into water-tight compartments; you cannot be honest in one cell, and a prevaricator in others. This incessant shifting, equivocating, and guggling with values, destroy them at last. The inborn spirit of compromise has tainted the whole substance of the English character, and made it a detestable puzzle in the eyes of the races that think along straight lines. What wonder that it has engendered suspicion throughout the world, and given to England a reputation for hypocrisy, unreliability, and double-dealing that baffles the English themselves as much as it saps their prestige and thwarts their well-meant efforts?.. Dear, likeable, self-fooling, preposterous John Bull! Whoever advised him to choose the lion as his national emblem? He should have been offered an ostrich with its head in the sand.

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Text 4