arger
cities at least) was paid to English ideas, English manners, English
styles in dress--the enthusiasm with which any literary man was received
who had some pretension to an English reputation--the disrepute in which
all "domestic" manufactured articles were held throughout the country
in comparison with the "imported," which generally meant English. In all
manufactured products this was so nearly universal that "domestic" was
almost synonymous with inferior and "imported" with superior grades of
goods. That an immense proportion of American manufactured articles were
sold in the United States masquerading as "imported"--and therefore
commanding a better price--goes without saying, and in some lines, in
which the British reputation was too well established and well deserved
to be easily shaken, the practice still survives; but in the great
majority of things, the American now prefers his home-made article, not
merely from motives of patriotism but because he believes that it is the
better article. It is not within our present province to discuss how far
this opinion is correct, or how far the policy of protection, by
assisting manufacturers to obtain control of their own markets and so
distract attention from imported goods, has helped to bring about the
change. The point is that the change has taken place. And, so far as the
ordinary commodities of commerce are concerned, the Englishman is in a
measure aware of what has occurred. He could not be otherwise with the
figures of his trade with the United States before him. Nor can he
conceal from himself the fact that the change of opinion in America may
have some justification when he sees how many things of American
manufacture he himself uses daily and prefers--patriotism
notwithstanding--to the British-made article.

But Englishmen have little conception as yet that the same revolution
has taken place in regard to the less material--less easily
exploited--commodities of art and literature. American novels and the
drawings of Mr. Gibson have made their way in England in the wake of
American boots and American sweetmeats; but Americans would be unwilling
to believe that their creative ability ends with the production of
Western romances and drawings of the American girl.

Until recent years, the volume as well as the quality of the literary
and artistic output of Great Britain was vastly superior to that of the
United States. The two were not comparable; but they ar