AN OCTOBER ABROAD 175 



a forward people, and the god we worship is Smart- 

 ness. In one of the worst tendencies of the age, 

 namely, an impudent, superficial, journalistic intel- 

 lectuality and glibness, America, in her polite and 

 literary circles, no doubt leads all other nations. 

 English books and newspapers show more homely 

 veracity, more singleness of purpose, in short more 

 character, than ours. The great charm of such a 

 man as Darwin,' for instance, is his simple manli- 

 ness and transparent good faith, and the absence in 

 him of that finical, self-complacent smartness which 

 is the bane of our literature. 



The poet Clough thought the New England man 

 more simple than the man of Old England, Haw- 

 thorne, on the other hand, seemed reluctant to ad- 

 mit that the English were a "franker and simpler 

 people, from peer to peasant, " than we are ; and that 

 they had not yet wandered so far from that " healthful 

 and primitive simplicity in which man was created " 

 as have their descendants in America. My own 

 impression accords with Hawthorne's. We are a 

 more alert and curious people, but not so simple, — 

 not so easily angered, nor so easily amused. We 

 have partaken more largely of the fruit of the for- 

 bidden tree. The English have more of the stay- 

 at-home virtues, which, on the other hand, they 

 no doubt pay pretty well for by their more insular 

 tendencies. 



The youths and maidens seemed more simple, with 

 their softer and less intellectual faces. When I re- 

 turned from Paris, the only person in the second-class 



