“They no longer look up to us?” “They look down upon you. They see that you, too, have your dominating class just as they have. And they prefer their own kind of upper class as less sordid, less vulgar, the embodiment of a more inspiring ideal. So long as they knew you only by report they believed in you; and that belief still makes them restless under us. But now that they have seen you, now that you are constantly in evidence, they see that their hopes--at least so far as they were based upon you--were a foolish dream. They prefer their own princes to ‘bosses’ and upstart newly-rich.” “But suppose these Americans whom you see over here and whom you read most about are not representative?” The diplomat smiled. “I have heard that before,” said he. “But, my dear friend, they are representative. Your country has changed and you do not realize it. You are deceived, not we. You are like the Romans who thought they had a republic when, in fact, the republic had been dead five hundred years. Think a moment. What sort of men did you formerly send to us as diplomats? And what sort of men do you send now? What has become of the old horror of court dress and rank and precedence which they used to exhibit? You cannot deny that your diplomats are representative. And are they not of the same class as these ladies and gentlemen about us here, so obviously delighted with themselves and their aristocratic company, with themselves because of their company?” There is much truth in the diplomat’s comments on the state of European public sentiment toward America. And the change is, as he said, due to better acquaintance. Europe thinks it has discovered that as soon as an American rises in prosperity above the mass of his fellow-citizens, he enters an actual ruling class that dictates and disdains the laws, uses them for enriching himself and for exploiting the mass of his fellow-countrymen. Europe thinks that as soon as he reaches this stage he turns his eyes longingly toward the Old World monarchies and begins to plan to become as nearly like the aristocrats as possible. He may not flaunt his power--he must respect republican forms. But he may, and does, flaunt his wealth. And in Europe he can get open recognition of his superior rank when such recognition as it gets at home is indirect and more or less secret. Thousands of Americans live in Europe. Every considerable city on the Continent has its American colony, and year by year these colonies grow apace. Americans--chiefly the women--have intermarried everywhere into the European nobility. Nearly all these expatriated Americans are people of means; many of them are rich. They lead lives of industrious idleness. Many of them frankly express their contempt for the country from which they draw their incomes, the country but for which they would be miserable peasants, sweating for the amusement of some European land-holder.