72 ON A CERTAIN CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGNERS. 



Is it in the climate ? Either I have a false notion of 

 European manners, or else the atmosphere affects them 

 strangely when exported hither. Perhaps they suffer 

 from the sea-voyage like some of the more delicate 

 wines. During our Civil War an English gentleman of 

 the highest description was kind enough to call upon 

 me, mainly, as it seemed, to inform me how entirely 

 he sympathized with the Confederates, and how sure he 

 felt that we could never subdue them, — "they were 

 the gentlemen of. the country, you know." Another, the 

 first greetings hardly over, asked me hew I accounted 

 for the universal meagreness of my countrymen. To a 

 thinner man than I, or from a stouter man than he, the 

 question might have been offensive. The Marquis of 

 Hartington * wore a secession badge at a public ball in 

 New York. In a civilized country he might have been 

 roughly handled ; but here, where the bienseances are 

 not so well understood, of course nobody minded it. A 

 French traveller told me he had been a good deal in the 

 British colonies, and had been astonished to see how 

 soon the people became Americanized. He added, with 

 delightful bonhomie, and as if he were sure it would 

 charm me, that " they even began to talk through their 

 noses, just like you ! " I was naturally ravished with 

 this testimony to the assimilating power of democracy, 

 and could only reply that I hoped they would never 

 adopt our democratic patent-method of seeming to settle 

 one's honest debts, for they would find it paying through 

 the nose in the long-run. I am a man of the New 



* One of Mr. Lincoln's neatest strokes of humor was his treatment 

 of this gentleman when a laudable curiosity induced him to be pre- 

 sented to the President of the Broken Bubble. Mr. Lincoln persisted 

 in calling him Mr. Partington. Surely the refinement of good-breed- 

 ing could go no further. Giving the young man his real name (already 

 notorious in the newspapers) would have made his visit an insult 

 Had Henri IV. done this, it would have been famous. 



