Thomas Wentworth Higginson, The new world and the new book

[64] imitations in respect to visiting cards and servants' liveries, to be solicitous about a revival of Anglomania, forgetting that the very word Anglomania implies separation and weaning. I can recall when there was no more room for Anglomania in New York than in Piccadilly, for the simple reason that all was still English; when the one cultivated newspaper in the country was the New York Albion, conducted for British residents; when the scene of every child's story was laid abroad and not at home; when Irving was read in America because he wrote of England, and Cooper's novels were regarded as a sort of daring eccentricity of the frontier. Fifty years ago Anglomania could scarcely be said to exist in this country; for the nation was still, for all purposes of art and literature, a mere province of England. Now all is changed; the literary tone of the United States is more serious, more original, and, in its regard for external forms, more cultivated than that now prevailing on the other side. Untravelled Americans still feel a sense of awe before the English press, which vanishes when they visit London and talk with the young fellows who write for its journals;