$6 CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGNERS. 



as to other people s opinions of myself, having, as I conceive, 

 later and fuller intelligence on that point than anybody 

 else can give me. Life is continually weighing us in very 

 sensitive scales, and telling every one of us precisely what 

 his real weight is to the last grain of dust. Whoever at 

 fifty does not rate himself quite as low as most of his 

 acquaintance would be likely to put hira, must be either a 

 fool or a great man, and I humbly disclaim being either. 

 But if I was not smarting in person from any scattering 

 shot of my late companion s commination, why should I 

 grow hot at any implication of my country therein 1 

 {Surely her shoulders are broad enough, if yours or mine 

 are not, to bear up under a considerable avalanche of this 

 kind. It is the bit of truth in every slander, the hint of 

 likeness in every caricature, that makes us smart. &quot; Art 

 thou there, old Truepenny 1 &quot; How did your blade know 

 its way so well to that one loose rivet in our armour ? I 

 wondered whether Americans were over sensitive in this 

 respect, whether they were more touchy than other folks. 

 On the whole, I thought we were not. Plutarch, who at 

 least had studied philosophy, if he had not mastered it, 

 could not stomach something Herodotus had said of 

 Boeotia, and devoted an essay to showing up the delightful 

 old traveller s malice and ill-breeding. French editors 

 leave out of Montaigne s &quot;Travels&quot; some remarks of his 

 about France, for reasons best known to themselves. 

 Pachydermatous Deutschland, covered with trophies from 

 every field of letters, still winces under that question 

 which Pere Bouhours put two centuries ago, Si un Allemand 

 peut etre bel-esprit ? John Bull grew apoplectic with angry 

 amazement at the audacious persiflage of Piickler-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 us ? 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, 



