--PARADISE LOST.
The last time I went abroad, a Briton on the boat told me a story about
an American tourist who asked an old English gardener how they made such
splendid lawns over there.
"First we cut the grass," said the gardener, "and then we roll it. Then
we cut it, and then we roll it."
"That's just what we do," said the American.
"Ah," returned the gardener, "but over here we've been doing it five
hundred years!"
In Liverpool another Englishman told me the same story. Three or four
others told it to me in London. In Kent I heard it twice, and in Sussex
five or six times. After going to Oxford and the Thames I lost count.
In the South my companion and I had a similar experience with the story
about that daughter of the Confederacy who declared she had always
thought "damn Yankee" one word. In Maryland that story amused us, in
Virginia it seemed to lose a little of its edge, and we are proud to
this day because, in the far southern States, we managed to grin and
bear it.
Doubtless the young lady likewise thought that "you-all" was one word.
However I refrained from suggesting that, lest it be taken for an
attempt at retaliation. And really there was no occasion to retaliate,
for the story was always told with good-humored appreciation not only of
the dig at "Yankees"--collectively all Northerners are "Yankees" in the
South--but also of the sweet absurdity of the "unreconstructed" point of
view.
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