CHAPTER 38 - A Conquest of Europe
THE most important event in modern history is the discovery of
Europe by the Americans. Before it, the peoples of the Old World
lived happy and contented in their own countries, practising the
patriarchal virtues handed down to them from generations of
forebears, ignoring alike the vices and benefits of modern
civilization, as understood on this side of the Atlantic. The
simple-minded Europeans remained at home, satisfied with the rank
in life where they had been born, and innocent of the ways of the
new world.
These peoples were, on the whole, not so much to be pitied, for
they had many pleasing crafts and arts unknown to the invaders,
which had enabled them to decorate their capitals with taste in a
rude way; nothing really great like the lofty buildings and
elevated railway structures, executed in American cities, but
interesting as showing what an ingenious race, deprived of the
secrets of modern science, could accomplish.
The more aesthetic of the newcomers even affected to admire the
antiquated places of worship and residences they visited abroad,
pointing out to their compatriots that in many cases marble, bronze
and other old-fashioned materials had been so cleverly treated as
to look almost like the superior cast-iron employed at home, and
that some of the old paintings, preserved with veneration in the
museums, had nearly the brilliancy of modern chromos.
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