Americans who live on the Continent … have declared with assurance that the continental nations have ceased to care a straw for what England thinks, that her traditional prestige is completely extinct and that the affairs of Europe will be settled quite independently of her action and still more of her inaction. England will do nothing, will risk nothing; there is no cause bad enough for her not to find a selfish interest in it - there is no cause good enough for her to fight about it. Poor old England is defunct; it is about time she should seek the most decent burial possible
Henry James: London at Midsummer 1877
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