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.As their authors had, however, neglected to use a process lending itself to rapid reproduction, they were of no practical value.In other ways, the continental races, when discovered, were sadly behind the times.In business, they ignored the use of "corners," that backbone of American trade, and their ideas of advertising were but little in advance of those known among the ancient Greeks.