ON A CERTAIN CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGNERS. 63 



must be either a fool or a great man, and I humbly dis- 

 claim being either. But if I was not smarting in per- 

 son 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. " Art thou there, old 

 Truepenny 1 !" How did your blade know its way so 

 well to that one loose rivet in our armor 1 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 Bceotia, 

 and devoted an essay to showing up the delightful old 

 traveller's malice and ill-breeding. French editors leave 

 out of Montaigne's " Travels " some remarks of his about 

 France, for reasons best known to themselves. Pachy- 

 dermatous Deutschland, covered with trophies from 

 every field of letters, still winces under that question 

 which Pere Bouhours put two centuries ago, Si un Alle- 

 mand pent 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, 

 or the world would be at a sad pass shortly. The sur- 

 prising thing is that men have such a taste for this 



