58 ON A CERTAIN CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGNERS. 



ably before there can be a right understanding between the 

 two. We had been a desert, we became a museum. People 

 came hither for scientific and not social ends. The very 

 cockney could not complete his education without taking a 

 vacant stare at us in passing. But the sociologists (I think 

 they call themselves so) were the hardest to bear. There 

 was no escape. I have even known a professorof this fearful 

 science to come disguised in petticoats. We were cross- 

 examined as a chemist cross-examines a new substance. 

 Human ! yes, all the elements are present, though abnor 

 mally combined. Civilised ? Hm ! that needs a stricter 

 assay. No entomologist could take a more friendly interest 

 in a strange bug. After a few such experiences, I, for one, 

 have felt as if I were merely one of those horrid things pre 

 served in spirits (and very bad spirits, too) in a cabinet. I 

 was not the fellow-being of these explorers ; I was a curi 

 osity; I was a specimen. Hath not an American organs, 

 dimensions, senses, affections, passions even as a European 

 hath? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, 

 do we not laugh ? I will not keep on with Shylock to his 

 next question but one. 



Till after our Civil War it never seemed to enter the head 

 of any foreigner, especially of any Englishman, that an 

 American had what could be called a country, except as a 

 place to eat, sleep, and trade in. Then it seemed to strike 

 them suddenly. By Jove, you know, fellahs don t fight like 

 that for a shop-till ! No, I rather think not. To Ameri 

 cans America is something more than a promise and an 

 expectation. It has a past and traditions of its own. A 

 descent from men who sacrificed everything and came hither, 

 not to better their fortunes, but to plant their idea in virgin 

 soil, should be a good pedigree. There was never colony 

 save this that went forth, not to seek gold, but God. Is it 

 not as well to have sprung from such as these as from some 

 burly beggar who came over with Wilhelmus Conquestor, 

 unless, indeed, a line grow better as it runs farther away 

 from stalwart ancestors ? And for history, it is dry enough, 

 no doubt, in the books, but, for all that, is of a kind that 

 tells in the blood. I have admitted that Carlyle s sneer had 

 a show of truth in it. But what does he himself, like a true 

 Scot, admire in the Hohenzollerns ? First of all, that they 

 were canny, a thrifty, forehanded race. Next, that they 



