ART

American Insularity--A Conkling Story--English Humour and
American Critics--American Literature and English Critics--The
American Novel in England--And American Art--Wanted, an
American Exhibition--The Revolution in the American Point of
View--"Raining in London"--Domestic and Imported Goods.

It is no uncommon thing to hear an American speak of British
insularity--the Englishman's "insular prejudices" or his "insular
conceit." On one occasion I took the opportunity of interrupting a man
who, I was sure, did not know what "insular" might mean, to ask for an
explanation.

"Insular?" he said. "It's the same as insolent--only more so."

* * * * *

Flings at Britain's "insularity" were (like the climatic myth)
originally of Continental European origin; and from the Continental
European point of view, the phrase, both in fact and metaphor, was
justified. England _is_ an island. So far as the Continent of Europe is
concerned, it is _the_ island. And undoubtedly the fact of their insular
position, with the isolation which it entailed, has had a marked
influence on the national temperament of Englishmen. Ringed about with
the silver sea, they had an opportunity to meditate at leisure on their
superiority to other peoples, an opportunity which, if not denied, was
at least restricted in the case of peoples only separated from
neighbours of a different race by an invisible frontier line, a well
bridged stream, or a mountain range pierced by abundant passes. Their
insularity bred in the English a disposition different from the
dispositions of the Continental peoples just as undeniably as it kept
them aloof from those peoples geographically.

Vastly more than Great Britain, has the United States been isolated
since her birth. England has been cut off from other civilisations by
twenty miles of sea; America by three thousand. As a physical fact, the
"insularity" of America is immensely more obvious and more nearly
complete than that of Britain; and it is no less so as a moral fact. It
is true that America's island is a continent; but this superiority in
size has only resulted in producing more kinds of insularity than in
England. The American character is, in all the moral connotation of the
word, pronouncedly more insular than the British.

Like the English, except that they were much more effectively staked off
from the rest of the world, the Americans have foun