A propos of nothing much at all

[fpb]

I will justify these aphorisms if challenged, but -

America is a principle.
France is a conflict.
Germany is tragedy.
Italy is a struggle against overwhelming odds, occasionally punctuated by bursts of Homeric laughter.
Russia is a siege - as seen from inside the besieged camp.
But Britain is a person, and could never be anything except an

Comments

[filialucis]

*throws down gauntlet because it would be a shame not to make you expand on that little lot*

[fpb]

America does not exist because of a native unity - although of course it is united by the English language and overall Western identity. It exists because of a certain set of values, set out by Jefferson and by Paine, in whose name the War of Independence was fought

[notebuyer]

BRAVO!

Best thumbnail description I've seen in a while.

Further in Germany: only there is high culture so without place: even the novels of personal experience tend not to identify the place (the sorrows of werther take place at WHICH school?) but the feelings, in the hopes of making contact in the abstract, with the thought that "if I show you an orderly thing, you'll approve because it's orderly, regardless of content." (And, perhaps, part of the reason my great-grandfather ran away from Bremen in the first place.)

Out of curiousity.

[peterchayward]

What's Australia?

Re: Out of curiousity.

[fpb]

I am not quite sure. But I think it is a country full of people who are not wholly sure whether they are the offspring of the black sheep of English aristocracy or of transported Irish bandits. All the Australians I ever met had instinctive good manners, but a very macho self-image.