A Modern Symposium, By G. Lowes Dickinson. (Brimley Johnson and
Ince. 2s. 63.. net.)—The Seekers," who were assembled in a certain house on the North Downs, had a very pretty allowance of the gift of eloquent speech among them. A " True-Blue " Tory, who professed himself satisfied with pre- judices in the place of principles, a Radical, a Socialist, an Anarchist, and other less easily definable personifications of opinion, expound their convictions. Mr. Lowes Dickinson does not follow the easy path of parody. No one will be able to connect this or that utterance with one politician or another. He does his best for all, and he shows a remarkable versatility in doing it. The banter of Ellis, for instance, is in quite admirable contrast with the perfervid oratory of MacCarthy, the Anarchist. What could be better put than this ?— " Even in its physical features America is the land of quantity, while Europe is that of quality. And as with the land, so with its products. How large are the American fruits ! How tall the trees How immense the oysters ! What has Europe by com- parison ? Mere flavour and form, mere beauty, delicacy, and grace ! America, one would say, is the latest work of the great artist—we are told, indeed, by geologists that it is the youngest of the continents—conceived at an age when he had begun to repeat himself, broad, summary, impressionist, audacious in empty space ; whereas Europe would seem to represent his pre- Raphaelite period, in its wealth of detail, its variety of figure, costume, architecture, landscape, its crudely contrasted colours and minute precision of individual form. And as with the countries, so with their civilizations. Europe is the home of class, America of democracy. By democracy I do not mean a mere form of government—in that respect, of course, America is less democratic than England; I mean the mental attitude that implies and engenders Indistinction. Indistinction, I say, rather than equality, for the word equality is misleading, and might seem to imply, for example, a social and economic parity of con- ditions, which no more exists in America than it does in Europe. Politically, as well as socially, America is a plutocracy ; her democracy is spiritual and intellectual ; and its essence is the denial of all sup2riorities save that of wealth. Such superiorities, in fact, hardly exist across the Atlantic. All men there are in- telligent, all efficient, all energetic; and as these are the only qualities they possess, so they are the only ones they feel called upon to admire."
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