ON A CERTAIN CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGNERS. 75 



of a phenomenon, and yet I do not know that the rela- 

 tion of the individual American to the individual Euro- 

 pean was bettered by it ; and that, after all, must adjust 

 itself comfortably before there can be a right under- 

 standing 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 com- 

 plete his education without taking a vacant stare at us 

 in passing. But the sociologists (I think they call them- 

 selves so) were the hardest to bear. There was no es- 

 cape. I have even known a professor of 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 ab- 

 normally combined. Civilized 1 Hm ! that needs a 

 stricter assay. No entomologist could take a more 

 friendly interest in a strange bug. After a few such ex- 

 periences, I, for one, have felt as if I were merely one of 

 those horrid things preserved in spirits (and very bad 

 spirits, too) in a cabinet. I was not the fellow-being of 

 these explorers : I w^as a curiosity ; I was a specimen. 

 Hath not an American organs, dimensions, senses, affec- 

 tions, passions even as a European hath 1 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 Americans America is something more than a 

 promise and an expectation. It has a past and tradi- 

 tions of its own. A descent from men who sacrificed 



