How’s this for a piece of writing?
Rupert Brooke’s thoughts on the New World, from his Letters from America:
A godless place. And the dead do not return. That is why there is nothing lurking in the heart of the shadows, and no human mystery in the colours, and neither the same joy nor the kind of peace in dawn and sunset that older lands know. It is, indeed, a new world. How far away seem those grassy, moonlit places in England that have been Roman camps or roads, where there is always serenity, and the spirit of a purpose at rest, and the sunlight flashes upon more than flint! Here one is perpetually a first- comer. The land is virginal, the wind cleaner than elsewhere, and every lake new-born, and each day is the first day. The flowers are less conscious than English flowers, the breezes have nothing to remember, and everything to promise.
There walk, as yet, no ghosts of lovers in Canadian lanes. This is the essence of the grey freshness and brisk melancholy of this land. And for all the charm of those qualities, it is also the secret of a European's discontent. For it is possible, at a pinch, to do without gods. But one misses the dead.
Are New Worldians more moved and informed than Europeans? Maybe they are, or, they take it much less for granted, anyway.
ReplyDeleteHistory is extremely popular in Britain though (and historical biography is uniquely popular in Britain, I’ve heard). Every few months there’s a new blockbusting TV series of the history of the Romans in Britain, or the Tudors and Stewarts etc.
I suppose that the trouble with an education in European history is that there’s so much of it, and you can approach it from so many angles. Britons view all history through the eyes of British military engagements and monarchs.
I studied US history at school – you can go into so much more detail, and it’s so tightly action-packed – from Declaration of Independence to Civil War to Carpetbaggers to Progressivism to Enola Gay to Cuban Missile Crisis seems but a hop, a skip and a jump. American history is divided up by Presidencies (a decade at most), whereas European history is divided up by monarchs in some cases, and whole dynasties of monarchs in others.
I don’t know how they teach history on the continent, but in Britain, my theory is that there is the Old Way and the New Way. The Old Way was hilariously skewered by the book 1066 and All That. There are two memorable dates: 55 BC (the Romans), and 1066 (the Normans). Otherwise it’s just a great big list of Kings and Queens, Pretenders, Battles and Bloody Marys.
The New Way is exactly the same, except there is masses and masses of detailed stuff about WWII and the Nazi Holocaust tagged on at the end.
But yes, maybe North Americans do cherish their history more than Europeans, for the same reason that Americans are so overtly and aggressively flag-waving when it comes to patriotism – the relative brittleness of their national identity. Whether they are more informed by their history seems highly debatable.
Ah but I think it's the other way about. Paxman et al enjoy pointing out how silly and droll it all is, while slyly concluding how great we are.
ReplyDeleteEverybody knows that only the fundamentally self-assured can convincingly engage in self-mockery.
Maybe 'brittle' is too snobbish or harsh a word.
Perhaps it's like an American block of steel versus a European oak. Very strong, and maybe will even last a lot longer, without danger of dying, but no roots.
I would say "artificial" rather than "brittle."
ReplyDeleteMaybe a moose. Or a mountie.
ReplyDeleteOr a mountie on a moose. That's pretty much Canada, isn't it? A mountie on a moose? Yes?
You'd have to prove that by sending me a couple of crates.
ReplyDeleteNo, I just thought it was a nice piece of writing.
ReplyDeleteThere walk, as yet, no ghosts of lovers in Canadian lanes.