The
stock-talk of European literature is at their tongue's tip. They
speak of Ibsen in the tone of one mourning the passing of a near,
dear, personal friend, and as for Zola--ah, how they miss the
influence of his compelling personality! But for the moment they
cannot recall whether Richard K. Fox ran the Police Gazette or
wrote the "Trail of the Lonesome Pine."
They are up on the history of the Old World. From memory they
trace the Bourbon dynasty from the first copper-distilled Charles
to the last sourmashed Louis. But as regards our own Revolution,
they aren't quite sure whether it was started by the Boston Tea
Party or Mrs. O'Leary's Cow. Languidly they inquire whether that
quaint Iowa character, Uncle Champ Root, is still Speaker of the
House? And so the present Vice-President is named Elihu Underwood?
Or isn't he? Anyway, American politics is such a bore. But they
stand ready, at a minute's notice, to furnish you with the names,
dates and details of all the marriages that have taken place during
the last twenty years in the royal house of Denmark.
Some day we shall learn a lesson from Europe. Some fair day we
shall begin to exploit our own historical associations. We shall
make shrines of the spots where Washington crossed the ice to help
end one war and where Eliza did the same thing to help start
another.
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