Explore "Addresses in America" by John Galsworthy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I wonder whether you in America can realise what an entrancing voyage of discovery you represent to us primeval Anglo-Britons. I prefer that term to Anglo-Saxon, for even if we English glory in the thought that our seaborne ancestors were extremely bloodthirsty, we have no evidence that they brought their own women to Britain in any quantities, or had the power of reproducing themselves without aid from the other sex!
Can you, I say, realise how much more enticing to my English mind America is, than the Arabian Nights were to your fascinating fabulist, O. Henry? One longs to unriddle to oneself the significance and sense of America. In the English-speaking world to-day we need understanding of each others' natures, aims, sympathies, and dislikes. For without understanding we become doctrinaire and partizan, building our ship in compartments very watertight, and getting into them and shutting the doors when the ship threatens to go down.