ON A CERTAIN CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGNERS. 55 



famous mother s literary outfit, except the pseudonyme. But 

 since the conductors of the Revue could not have published 

 his story because it was clever, they must have thought it 

 valuable for its truth. As true as the last century English 

 man s picture of Jean Crapaud! We do not ask to be 

 sprinkled with rosewater, but may perhaps fairly protest 

 against being drenched with the rinsings of an unclean ima 

 gination. The next time the Revue allows such ill-bred 

 persons to throw their slops out of its first-floor windows, 

 let it honestly preface the discharge with a gare de I eauf 

 that we may run from under in season. And Mr. Duvergier 

 d Hauranne, who knows how to be entertaining ! I know le 

 Fran$ais est plutot indiscret que confiant, and the pen slides 

 too easily when indiscretions will fetch so much a page ; but 

 should we not have been tant-soit-peu more cautious had we 

 been writing about people on the other side of the Channel ? 

 But then it is a fact in the natural history of the American 

 long familiar to Europeans, that he abhors privacy, knows 

 not the meaning of reserve, lives in hotels because of their 

 greater publicity, and is never so pleased as when his do 

 mestic affairs (if he may be said to have any) are paraded in 

 the newspapers. Barnum, it is well known, represents per 

 fectly the average national sentiment in this respect. How 

 ever it be, we are not treated like other people, or perhaps I 

 should say like people who are ever likely to be met with in 

 society. 



Is it in the climate? Either I have a false notion of 

 European manners, or else the atmosphere affects them 

 strangely when exported hither. Perhaps they suffer from 

 the sea- voyage like some of the more delicate wines. During 

 our Civil War an English gentleman of the highest descrip 

 tion was kind enough to call upon me, mainly, as it seemed, 

 to inform me how entirely he sympathised with the Con 

 federates, and how sure he felt that we could never subdue 

 them, * they were the gentlemen of the country, you know. 

 Another, the first greetings hardly over, asked me how I 

 accounted for the universal meagreness of my countrymen. 

 To a thinner man than I, or from a stouter man than he, the 

 question might have been offensive. The Marquis of Hart- 

 ington* wore a secession badge at a public ball in New York. 



* One of Mr. Lincoln s neatest strokes of humour was his treatment of this 

 gentleman when a laudable curiosity induced him to be presented to the President 



