It was a dull person that invented the idea
that the American's devotion to the dollar is more strenuous than
another's.
Rich American girls do buy titles, but they did not invent that idea;
it had been worn threadbare several hundred centuries before America
was discovered. European girls still exploit it as briskly as ever;
and, when a title is not to be had for the money in hand, they buy
the husband without it. They must put up the "dot," or there is
no trade. The commercialization of brides is substantially universal,
except in America. It exists with us, to some little extent,
but in no degree approaching a custom.
"The Englishman dearly loves a lord."
What is the soul and source of this love? I think the thing could
be more correctly worded:
"The human race dearly envies a lord."
That is to say, it envies the lord's place. Why? On two accounts,
I think: its Power and its Conspicuousness.
Where Conspicuousness carries with it a Power which, by the light
of our own observation and experience, we are able to measure
and comprehend, I think our envy of the possessor is as deep and as
passionate as is that of any other nation. No one can care less
for a lord than the backwoodsman, who has had no personal contact
with lords and has seldom heard them spoken of; but I will not
allow that any Englishman has a profounder envy of a lord than has
the average American who has lived long years in a European capital
and fully learned how immense is the position the lord occupies.
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