ON A CERTAIN CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGNERS. 49 



themselves. Pachydermatous Deutschland, covered with 

 trophies from every field of letters, still winces under that 

 question which Pere Bouhours put two centuries ago, St un 

 Allemand peut etre bel-esprit ? John Bull grew apoplectic 

 with angry amazement at the audacious persiflage of Ptickler- 

 Muskau. To be sure, he was a prince but that was not all 

 of it, for a chance phrase of gentle Hawthorne sent a 

 spasm through all the journals of England. Then this 

 tenderness is not peculiar to ust Console yourself, dear 

 man and brother ; whatever you may be sure of, be sure at 

 least of this, that you are dreadfully like other people. 

 Human nature has a much greater genius for sameness than 

 for originality, or the world would be at a sad pass shortly. 

 The surprising thing is that men have such a taste for this 

 somewhat musty flavour, that an Englishman, for example, 

 should feel himself defrauded, nay, even outraged, when he 

 comes over here and finds a people speaking what he admits 

 to be something like English, and yet so very different from 

 (or, as he would say, to) those he left at home. Nothing, I 

 am sure, equals my thankfulness when I meet an English 

 man who is ?wt like every other, or, I may add, an American 

 of the same odd turn. 



Certainly it is no shame to a man that he should be as nice 

 about his country as about his sweetheart, and who ever 

 heard even the friendliest appreciation of that unexpressive 

 she that did not seem to fall infinitely short ? Yet it would 

 hardly be wise to hold every one an enemy who could not 

 see her with our own enchanted eyes. It seems to be 

 the common opinion of foreigners that Americans are too 

 tender upon this point. Perhaps we are ; and if so, there 

 must be a reason for it. Have we had fair play ? Could 

 the eyes of what is called Good Society (though it is so seldom 

 true either to the adjective or noun) look upon a nation 

 of democrats with any chance of receiving an undistorted 

 image ? Were not those, moreover, who found in the old 

 order of things an earthly paradise, paying them quarterly 

 dividends for the wisdom of their ancestors, with the punc 

 tuality of the seasons, unconsciously bribed to misunderstand 

 if not to misrepresent us? Whether at war or at peace, 

 there we were, a standing menace to all earthly paradises of 

 that kind, fatal underminers of the very credit on which 

 the dividends were based, all the more hateful and terrible 



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