ENGLISH AND AMERICAN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 162, 11 July 1934, Page 6

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN.

Olio of 'tile plea sun test things in the book and in Lowell's character to a British reader is his obvious liking .for England, and liis amused 'tolerance for those English lie met who were still barbarians enough to think Americans were barbarous (say* the "Observer'' in a, review of a volume of letters by the famous James Russell Lowell). I suppose two of the greatest and most useful representatives ever sent to this country by the United States, were Adams and Lowell—and of these, great as Adams was, Lowell did more in explaining and revealing the simplicity and nobility of the best. Americans to people who were often stupid and uncouth. How uncouth is shown in an anecdote which i.s here found in its original form. It is in a letter of 1877: Lowell writes to his daughter of a conversation ho has been having with an English lawyer: Among other things, I told him that Americans and English would get along better together if the latter cou'd only forget their unquestionable superiority. (I often indulge in the rhetorical figure called irony in conversing with natives of the British Isles because they are so delightfully obtuse to it.) My friend resolved to make at least a personal atonement for his national fault, so he goes up to young Tilden (Ned's friend, and a very nice fellow) and says hesitatingly. ''You're from Boston '!" "Yes." "And —and—from Harvard?" "Yes." "An —well, d'ye know, it's a very singular thing, but neither you nor Mr. Lowell speak through your noses."