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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: instead of the will to hate, will get rid of their anti-English complex,
supposing that they had one, and understand better in future what has not
been clear to them before. But I seem to feel that some readers there may
be who will wish me to be more explicit.
First, then. England has a thousand years of greatness to her credit. Who
would not be proud of that? Arrogance is the seamy side of pride. That is
what has rubbed us Americans the wrong way. We are recent. Our thousand
years of greatness are to come. Such is our passionate belief. Crudity is
the seamy side of youth. Our crudity rubs the English the wrong way.
Compare the American who said we were going to buy England for a summer
resort with the Englishman who said that when all other entertainment in
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