Life — April 14, 1921 — page 6: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

gk NAL MAA AH wy ) iN i Crossing the Atlantic By E. V. Lucas With Drawing by Bernard Partridge of “' Punch” HERE can never. of course, be an Atlantic Tunnel, as there will be a Channel Tunnel; but having made the oversea voyage between America and England, I can assure timid travelers that it is very casy and in a big ship there is a motion for much discomfort. The bigger the ship the less risk of sea- sickness ; and that is why I wish that the dockyards on both sides would forget all about Dreadnoughts for a few years, if not forever, and concentrate on vessels that would carry countless hosts of Eng- lish people comfortably to America and bring countless hosts of Americans com- fortably to England. Because the more we exchange visits the more we shall un- derstand cach other, and the more we shall like each other and recognize that we are predestined partners. Other na- tions may require “ Ententes,” but England and America really are one, and the more often the Atlantic is crossed (always in love) the sooner will this fact be accepted. As for that maritime adventure, it is a tremendous ordeal only to the few. Some people look upon it merely as seven days’ * reading, seven days’ cards, seven days’ rest cure, or evena seven days’ opportunity to meditate, or to clear up correspondence; while I met recently in London an American and an English- man lunching together who took it more lightly still and crossed the Atlantic merely to eat. “I go to America every year,” said the Englishman, “to eat soft-shell crabs.” And I come to England every year,” said the American, “to eat whitebait I don’t say that their ideals are of the walking, seven da noblest; but it struck me as a very inter- verils and costliness ocean should esting ‘thing that th and disquietudes of the mean so little to these citizens of the world that they each look upon those thousands of miles of salt water merely as a kind of ante-room ducing the vast to a restaurant—the one re- continent of North America to “ Uncle Sam's Chowder Par- lor.” so to speak, and the other think: Great Britain, with all its history an traditions, merely as “John Bull's Saloon.” Personally, although I should never cross the Atlantic.solely to eat them, it would be of the cherry-stone clams that were awaiting me on stabilized soil that 1 should be thinking longingly when the waves were at their angriest. The soft- shelled crab is a delicious creature, but | set the clam higher. whether he has a cherry stone or a little neck; possibly cause he is eaten with horse-radish sauce and in England no restaurant any more serves this pungent delicacy automatically, nor can any restaurant any more make it But in America it is always good Tt was not the least of my surprises in America to find that it was the true home of the traditional of the Re rightly and always within reach but vanished concomitant Beef of Old England. comicbooks.com