The Estranging Sea
It obviously had not occurred to Americans to see any connection between the trial of Captain Dreyfus and their enjoyment of the most beautiful and brilliant thing that Europe had to give. The pretty adage, "Tout homme a deux pays: le sien et puis la France," is truer of us than of any other people in the world. And we may as well pardon a nation her transgressions, if we cannot keep away from her shores.
England's public utterances anent the United States are of the friendliest character. Her newspapers and magazines say flattering things about us. Her poet-laureate—unlike his great predecessor who unaffectedly detested us—began his official career by praising us with such fervour that we felt we ought in common honesty to tell him that we were nothing like so good as he thought us. An English text-book, published a few years ago, explains generously to the school-boys of Great Britain that the
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