ON A CERTAIN CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGNERS. 71 



i 



provincialism were cheaply repurchased could we have 

 it back again in exchange for the tawdry upholstery 

 that has taken its place. 



For some reason or other, the European has rarely 

 been able to see America except in caricature. Would 

 the first Review of the world have printed the niaiseries 

 of Mr. Maurice Sand as a picture of society in any civil 

 ized country ? Mr. Sand, to be sure, has inherited 

 nothing of his 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 Englishman'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 imagination. 

 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 Feau ! that 

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

 d'Hauranne, who knows how to be entertaining ! I 

 know le Franqais est plutot indiscret que conftant, 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 1 But then it is a fact in the 

 natural history of the American long familiar to Euro 

 peans, that he abhors privacy, knows not the meaning 

 of reserve, lives in hotels because of their greater pub 

 licity, and is never so pleased as when his domestic 

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

 the newspapers. Barnum, it is well known, represents 

 perfectly the average national sentiment in this respect. 

 However 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. 



