'En Amérique, tout est simple'

Famed French author Jules Verne was born this day in 1828. His best known works are Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), A Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873).

In a memorable quote from another of his notable novels, From the Earth to the Moon (1865), Verne editorializes on nous Américains:

"Nothing can astound an American. It has often been asserted that the word "impossible" is not a French one. People have evidently been deceived by the dictionary. In America, all is easy, all is simple; and as for mechanical difficulties, they are overcome before they arise. Between Barbicane's proposition and its realization no true Yankee would have allowed even the semblance of a difficulty to be possible. A thing with them is no sooner said than done."

If we are to "do big things" as President Obama says, I hope the cocksure America portrayed by Verne still exists in modern form. But I wonder sometimes.