Americans -- Europe -- History -- 20th century; Dreiser, Theodore, 1871-1945 -- Travel -- Europe; Europe -- Description and travel
It is going to be very hard for me to define just how this could be,
but I might say that I had at the moment considerable intellectual
contempt for the point of view which the conversation represented.
Consider first the American attitude. With us (not the established
rich, but the hopeful, ambitious American who has nothing, comes
from nothing and hopes to be President of the United States or John
D. Rockefeller) the business of life is not living, but achieving.
Roughly speaking, we are willing to go hungry, dirty, to wait in the
cold and fight gamely, if in the end we can achieve one or more of
the seven stars in the human crown of life--social, intellectual,
moral, financial, physical, spiritual or material supremacy. Several
of the forms of supremacy may seem the same, but they are not. Examine
them closely. The average American is not born to place. He does not
know what the English sense of order is. We have not that national
_esprit de corps_ which characterizes the English and the French
perhaps; certainly the Germans. We are loose, uncouth, but, in our way,
wonderful. The spirit of God has once more breathed upon the waters.
Well, the gentleman who was doing the talking in this instance and the
lady who was coinciding, inciting, aiding, abetting, approving and at
times leading and demonstrating, represented two different and yet
allied points of view. Barfleur is distinctly a product of the English
conservative school of thought, a gentleman who wishes sincerely he was
not so conservative. His house is in order. You can feel it. I have
always felt it in relation to him. His standards and ideals are fixed.
He knows what life ought to be--how it ought to be lived. You would
never catch him associating with the rag-tag and bobtail of humanity
with any keen sense of human brotherhood or emotional tenderness of
feeling. They are human beings, of course. They are in the scheme of
things, to be sure. But, let it go at that. One cannot be considering
the state of the underdog at any particular time. Government is
established to do this sort of thing. Statesmen are large, constructive
servants who are supposed to look after all of us. The masses! Let them
behave. Let them accept their state. Let them raise no undue row. And
let us, above all things, have order and peace.
[Illustration: One of those really interesting conversations between
Barfleur and Miss X.]
This is a section of Barfleur--not all, mind you, but a section.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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