"There seems to exist a mysterious, unwritten law governing the social organism which causes a natural and wholesome reaction to take place whenever tendencies, perhaps inherent in certain classes, threaten to become general, and thereby dangerous to the community. A few years ago, for instance, with the increasing facilities for foreign travel, and the corresponding increase of international intercourse, Anglomania had become so much in vogue as to form an incipient danger to the true democratic American spirit that constitutes the real strength of our nation. It was fast becoming a national habit to extol everything European--from monarchy and its aristocratic institutions down to the humblest article of dress or of household use--to the detriment of everything American; and from the upper 'four hundred' this habit was fast extending to the upper forty thousand. But just as our wealthy classes were beginning to make themselves positively ridiculous abroad, and almost intolerable at home, a reaction set in, and upon all sides there sprang up patriotic associations of a social order--'Sons and Daughters of the Revolution,' 'Colonial Dames,' etc.--which revived proper American self-respect among our people by teaching us to rest our pride, if pride we _must_ have, where it legitimately should rest--upon good service rendered to our own country." This seems to be a shaft aimed at the practice of "going to Europe," for the decline of "the true American spirit" and the growth of Anglomania are ascribed to the "increasing facilities for foreign travel" and "the corresponding increase of international intercourse." If the charge be true, it is one of the most afflicting over made, because it shows that "the true democratic American spirit" suffers from what the world has hitherto considered one of the greatest triumphs of modern science, and one of the greatest blessings conferred on the race--the enormous improvement in oceanic steam navigation; that, in fact, American patriotism is very much like the Catholic faith in the Middle Ages--something naturally hostile to progress in the arts.