USE OF THE WORD '' CLEVER." 193 



a gentlemanly-looking physician, who followed up his 

 question of how I liked the country, with tlie question, 

 " Don't you find us a very clever people?" This was a 

 thrust so decidedly home that I could not believe he 

 meant what he asked. He looked also perfectly inno- 

 cent, but evidently expecting an answer. As I could 

 not conscientiously say yes, I hesitatingly said wdiat had 

 more than once occurred to me in passing through the 

 States — " At least you think yourselves so." But the 

 instant the words had escaped me, 1 apologised for my 

 rude speech, recollecting that, only two or three days 

 before, an American lady had remarked to me that this 

 word, in the States, is often used in the sense of " good- 

 natured, or ready to oblige." That the people of the 

 United States, wherever I have been, are clever in this 

 sense, I can honestly say. I added, therefore, avec 

 empressement^ " I understood your question wrongly ; 

 in your sense of the word, you are a clever people." 

 My new acquaintance felt the situation as much as I 

 did, and explained his question as a bit of local slang. 

 A stranger ought not willingly to give offence to a 

 people among whom he is travelling, nor to say what is 

 likely to hurt their feelings ; but this was a case where 

 the fault was on the side of those who are not careful to 

 maintain the fountains of speech in their primitive 

 purity. 



Were we, however, to criticise the home speech of 

 the midddle classes among ourselves, as we feel inclined 

 to notice peculiarities abroad, we should find many 

 more instances of incorrectness than we are generally 

 avv^are of. Just before I left home, a lady of my 

 acquaintance, the daughter and sister of a clergymnn, 

 being asked of her sister's health, answered that " she 

 was very shabby;" and here, in this western Isew 

 York, I have been talking to an Englishman, on his 



VOL. I. N 



