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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ON IMAGINATION AS A NATIONAL CHARACTERISTIC. The popular mind in every civilised country has figured forth for itself certain stereotyped pictures of the people of each of the other members of the family of nations. We all of us know the conventional Frenchman, American, Italian, Dutchman of our stage, and of the popular conception. We know also the Englishman, as he appears on the stage and in the popular literature of the continental nations. And an examination of the accumulated ideas, which have gone to the building up of such a typical figure in each case, weald lead to some curious speculations on the similarities and divergencies of national character. Of course the portraits thus elaborated from, and provided for, the popular mind are in every case ludicrously unlike what they are intended to represent. And it may probably be admitted that they are about as unlike in one case as in another. The Yankee of our stago is not a more impossible monster than the Englishman of the French or Italian stage. But such an examination as that above alluded to would, in the first place, lead to the observation, that the untruthful- ness of all these pictures and representations and conceptions may bo ascribed to three different sources. In the first place, the picture may be unlike the original it is intended to represent, by reason of the exaggeration of its features. It may be, ?always is to a certain degree, ?a caricature. And this must needs be so. The attempt to embody the national characteristics of a people in an individual, necessarily involves this result. And if this were the only fault to be found with such a representation, it might be admitted that the artist had not very grossly failed. Or again, the want of resemblance may arise from the obsoleteness of the picture.
| ISBN-13 | 9780217985390 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 0217985394 |
| Weight | 1.79 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 9.00 x 6.00 x 1.24 In |
| List Price | $43.24 |
| Format | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Pages | 558 pages |
| Publisher | |
| Published On | 2009-08-01 |
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