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ish, but it also reflects a kindliness and generosity of spirit which are among the country's
most striking characteristics. Dickens remarks that Americans “are, by nature, frank, brave,
cordial, hospitable, and affectionate.” He also speaks fondly of their warmth of heart and
ardent enthusiasm.
All of these qualities are still present in abundance today. The language of the United
States may grate with its gushing superlatives, but it can also simply reflect a wish to be
pleasant to others. Many a visitor to America has remarked on the astonishing gap between
its politics and its people. The latter are for the most part far more congenial than the
former. Republics are supposed to be places in which the people and the government are at
one, which is thankfully not the case with the republic of America. That the citizens of the
country have managed by and large to preserve their neighbourliness, kindliness and large-
ness of spirit in one of the most acquisitive, ferociously competitive civilisations on God's
earth is a remarkable tribute to their innate decency. This may be something of a backhan-
ded compliment, like congratulating someone on winning the title of World's Greatest Bore
five times in a row, but it is a compliment nonetheless.
Americans continue to be on the whole an easy, outgoing people. If two of them find
themselves together in an elevator, they will usually acknowledge each other's presence
with a friendly word. People who speak to you in British elevators are generally regarded as
dangerous lunatics who should not be favoured with a reply, since this will only spur them
to further outbursts of insanity. If they persist in their offensive attempts to be friendly, one
can always press the emergency bell and have them carted away by security. The British
are much taken by what one might call the argument from the floodgates. Once you allow
one stranger to murmur a cordial remark to you about how the cricket is going, you are in
imminent danger of being besieged by great herds of wild-eyed, shaggy-haired men and
women who will try to talk to you about everything from the structure of the atom to the
collapse of the Holy Roman Empire. Strangers who smile at you in public will always end
up demanding to live in your spare room. They will try to kidnap your children, or offload
a demented elderly relative on you. It is best to keep yourself to yourself.
Keeping yourself to yourself, however, is not the guarantee of a quiet life that it once
was. Whenever those suspected of terrorism are arrested these days, their neighbours al-
most always remark that they struck them as quiet, polite, respectable-looking people who
never failed to give them the time of day, but who kept to themselves. People like this
should be instantly reported to the police. Men who are completely covered in hair, bran-
dish Kalashnikovs and speak some strange gibberish are entirely harmless.
Is American friendliness genuine or superficial? There is a case for claiming that it is
both. There is certainly a good deal of automated pleasantness, compulsive cheeriness and
manufactured bonhomie. There are times when you are not really allowed to feel down in
the mouth or enjoy being on your own. Solitariness is seen as anti-social. Americans can
often strike one as over-socialised, too frenetically eager to please, too anxious to make an
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