America Today, Observations and Reflections

America To-day, Observations and Reflections

The letters and essays which make up this volume appeared in the London Pall Mall Gazette and Pall Mall Magazine respectively, and are reprinted by kind permission of the editors of these periodicals. The ten letters which were sent to the Pall Mall Gazette appeared also in the New York Times. The Atlantic Ocean is geographically a misnomer, socially and politically a dwindling superstition. That is the chief lesson one learnsand one has barely time to take it inbetween Queenstown and Sandy Hook. Ocean forsooth! this little belt of blue water that we cross before we know where we are, at a single hop-skip-and-jump! From north to south, perhaps, it may still count as an ocean; from east to west we have narrowed it into a strait. Why, even for the seasick (and on this point I speak with melancholy authority) the Atlantic has not half the terrors of the Straits of Dover; comfort at sea being a question, not of the size of the waves, but of the proportion between the size of the waves and the size of the ship. Our imagination is still beguiled by the fuss the world made over Columbus, whose exploit was intellectually and morally rather than physically great. The map-makers, too, throw dust in our eyes by their absurd figment of two "hemispheres," as though Nature had sliced her orange in two, and held one half in either hand. We are slow to realise, in fact, that time is the only true measure of space, and that London to-day is nearer to New York than it was to Edinburgh a hundred and fifty years ago. The essential facts of the case, as they at present stand, would come home much more closely to the popular mind of both continents if we called this strip of sea the Straits of New York, and classed our liners, not as the successors of Columbus's caravels, but simply as what they are: giant ferry-boats plying with clockwork punctuality between the twin landing-stages of the English-speaking world. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 7997
Author: Archer, William
Release Date: Jul 22, 2004
Format: eBook
Language: English