CHAPTER VI
MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM IN
AMERICAN LIFE
MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM IN
AMERICAN LIFE
THE language and traditions common to England and America are like other family bonds : they draw kindred together at the greater crises in life, but they also occasion at times a little friction and fault-finding. The groundwork of the two societies is so similar, that each nation, feeling almost at home with the other, and almost able to understand its speech, may instinctively resent what hinders it from feeling at home altogether. Differences will tend to seem anomalies that have slipped in by mistake and through somebody's fault. Each will judge the other by his own standards, not feeling, as in the presence of complete foreigners, that he must make an effort of imagination and put himself in another man's shoes.
-165-
