To the American of to-day, it is not a little exasperating to be
placidly assured by our British critics that America is sublimely
unconscious that her childhood is gone. And this gay paradox is less
arresting than the asseveration that America is lacking in humour
because she is lacking in self-knowledge. There is a certain grimly
comic irony in this commiseration with us, on the part of our British
critics, for our failure joyously to realize our old age, which they
would have us believe is a sort of premature senescence and decay. The
New World is pitied for her failure to know without illusion the
futility of the hurried pursuit of wealth, of the passion for
extravagant opulence and inordinate display, of all the hostages youth
in America eternally gives to old age. "America has produced great
artists," admits Mr. Gilbert Chesterton. Yet he maintains that "that
fact most certainly proves that she is full of a fine futility and the
end of all things. Whatever the American men of genius are, they are
not young gods making a young world.
Pages:
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96