Others adopted the view to which Mr. Kipling had given
such far-echoing expression, and frankly rejoiced in the sympathy with
which England regarded America's determination to "take up the white
man's burden." In the Kipling craze as a whole, after making all
deductions, I could not but see a symptom of real significance. It was
partly a mere literary fashion, partly a result of personal and
accidental circumstances; but it also arose in no small degree from a
novel sense of kinship with the men, and participation in the ideals,
celebrated by the poet of British Imperialism.
The change, moreover, extended beyond the book-reading class, wide as
that is in America. It was to be noted even in the untravelled and
unlettered American, the man whose spiritual horizon is bounded by his
Sunday newspaper, the man in the street and on the farm. The events of
the past year had taught him--and he rubbed his eyes at the
realisation--that England was not an "effete monarchy," evilly-disposed
towards a Republic as such,[K] and dully resentful of bygone
humiliations by land and sea, but a brotherly-minded people, remembering
little (perhaps _too_ little) of those "old, unhappy, far-off things,"
willing to be as helpful as the rules of neutrality permitted, and eager
to applaud the achievements of American arms.
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