CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGNERS. 55 



with a patience which afterwards surprises me, being not 

 without my share of warmth in the blood. Perhaps it is 

 because I so often meet with young persons who know vastly 

 more than I do, and especially with so many foreigners whose 

 knowledge of this country is superior to my own. How 

 ever it may be, I listened for some time with tolerable 

 composure as my self-appointed lecturer gave me in detail 

 his opinions of my country and its people. America, he 

 informed me, was without arts, science, literature, culture, 

 or any native hope of supplying them. We were a people 

 wholly given to money-getting, and who, having got it, 

 knew no other use for it than to hold it fast. I am fain to 

 confess that I felt a sensible itching of the biceps, and that 

 my fingers closed with such a grip as he had just informed 

 me was one of the effects of our unhappy climate. But 

 happening just then to be where I could avoid temptation 

 by dodging down a bye-street, I hastily left him to finish 

 his diatribe to the lamp-post, which could stand it better 

 than I. That young man will never know how near he 

 came to being assaulted by a respectable gentleman of 

 middle age, at the corner of Church Street. I have never 

 felt quite satisfied that I did all my duty by him in not 

 knocking him down. But perhaps he might have knocked 

 me down, and then *? 



The capacity of indignation makes an essential part of 

 the outfit of every honest man, but I am inclined to doubt 

 whether he is a wise one who allows himself to act upon 

 its first hints. It should be rather, I suspect, a latent 

 heat in the blood, which makes itself felt in character, a 

 steady reserve for the brain, warming the ovum of thought 

 to life, rather than cooking it by a too hasty enthusiasm in 

 reaching the boiling-point. As my pulse gradually fell 

 back to its normal beat, I reflected that I had been uncom 

 fortably near making a fool of myself a handy salve of 

 euphuism for our vanity, though it does not always make a 

 just allowance to Nature for her share in the business. 

 What possible claim had my Teutonic friend to rob me of 

 my composure ? I am not, I think, specially thin-skinned 



