"sky-scrapers" built
of steel and glass. Richardson is not even a name to him. He knows
nothing of all the beauty and virility of the work that has been done
in the last thirty years. In the minor arts, he may have heard of
Rookwood pottery and have a vague notion that the Americans turn out
some quite original things in silver work; but of American stained
glass--of Tiffany and La Farge--he has never heard. It would do England
a world of good--it would do international relations a world of good--if
a thoroughly representative exhibition of American painting and
sculpture could be made in London. I commend the idea to some one
competent to handle it; for it would, I think, be profitable to its
promoters. It would certainly be a revelation to Englishmen.

The English indifference to--nay, disbelief in the existence
of--American art is precisely on a par with the American incredulity in
the matter of British humour; and the removal of each of the
misconceptions would tend to the increase of international good-will.
Americans believe the British Empire to be a sanguinary and ferocious
thing. They believe themselves to be possessed of a sense of humour, a
sense of chivalry, and an energy quite lacking in the Englishman; and
each one of the illusions counts for a good deal in the American
national lack of liking for Great Britain. Similarly, Englishmen believe
Americans to be a money-loving people without respectable achievement in
art or literature. I am not sure that it would make the Englishman like
the American any the more if the point of view were corrected, but at
least he would like him more intelligently, and it would prevent him
from saying things--in themselves entirely good-humoured and quite
unintentionally offensive--which hurt American feelings. We cannot
correct an error without recognising frankly that it exists, and the
first step towards making the American and the Englishman understand
what the other really is must be to help each to see how mistaken he is
in supposing the other to be what he is not.

That the American should hold the opinions that he does of England is no
matter of reproach. Not only is it natural, but inevitable. Absorbed as
he has been with his own affairs and his own history, and viewing Great
Britain only in her occasional relations thereto, seeing nothing of her
in her private life or of her position and policies in the world at
large, how could the American have other than a disto