What Is An American? "I can’t make you out, "Herry James has Mrs. Tristram say to the Ameri- can," whether you are very simpl

What is an American?
   "I can’t make you out," Henry James has Mrs. Tris-tram say to the American," Whether you are very simple or very deep. "This is a dilemma which has often confronted Europeans. Usually they conclude that Americans are childish. But one cannot accurately call one society mature, another immature. Each has its own logic.
   What is it then that makes Americans recognized wherever they go? It is not, we hope, the noisy, boasting, critical, money - scattering impression made by one class of tourists. The only thing to be said in their defense is that, released from the social restrains which would make them act very differently at home, they are bent on making most of this freedom.
   Americans carry with them an appearance which is more a result of attitude than of clothing. This attitude combines a lack of class consciousness, a somewhat jaunty optimism and an inquistiveness which in combination look to the European like naive. Also a liking for facts and figures, an alertness, more muscular and ocular than intellectual, and above all a desire to be friendly.
   To boil it down to the briefest summary, American characteristics are the product of response to an unusually competitive situation combined with unusual opportunities.
   Americans are a peculiar people. They work like mad, then give away much of what they earn. They play until they are exhausted, and call this a vacation. They love to think of themselves as tough - minded business men, yet they are pushovers for any hard luck story. They have the biggest of nearly everything, but they like to think of themselves as little people, average men. and they would like to cut every- thing down to their own size.
   When they meet, they are always telling each other, “Take it easy” then they rush off like crazy in opposite directions. They play games as if they were fighting a war and fight wars as if playing a game. They love children, animals, gadgets, mother, work, excitement, noise, nature, television shows, comedy, installment buying, fast motion, spectator sports, the underdog, the flag, Christmas, jazz, shapely women and muscular men, classical recordings, crowds, comics, cigarettes ,warm houses in winter and cool ones in summer, thick beefsteaks, coffee, ice-cream, informal dress, plenty of running water, do -it- yourself, and a working week trimmed to forty hours or less.
   They crowd their highways with cars while complaining about the traffic ,flock to movies and television while gripping about the quality and the commercials, go to church but don’ t care much for sermons, and drink too much in the hope of relaxing- only to find themselves stimulated to even bigger dreams.
   There is, of course, no typical American. But if you add- ed them all together and then divided by 226,000,000 they would look something like what this chapter has tried to portray.