THE ENGLISH TOURIST. 
169 
shuts himself up in his shell of ice wherever he goes, and 
only suffers himself to be thawed out when he thinks, upon 
mature consideration, that there is no danger of coming in 
contact with somebody that may take advantage of the ac¬ 
quaintance. To his fello,w-countrymen he is stiff and haughty; 
they may claim to know him on his return to England ; to 
Americans he is generally polite and affable, and returns any 
advance with great courtesy, but seldom makes an advance 
himself. Bromley is a perfect gentleman in the negative 
sense. He does nothing that is ungentlemanly. He is too 
non-committal for that. Possibly he has a heart, and a soul, 
and just as much of the little weaknesses that spring from the 
heart and soul as any man—-if you can only find it out. Touch 
his national pride, and you touch his weakest point. He is 
British from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet— 
looks British, feels British, talks British, carries with him the 
very atmosphere of Great Britain. In the course of five min¬ 
utes’ conversation he refers to our free institutions, and asks 
how can they be free when we tolerate slavery. One would 
think the question had never been discussed before. He starts 
it as a telling point, and refers to the glorious freedom of 
glorious old England ! Can we, Brother Jonathan, stand 
that ? Of course not; we are excited ; we refer him for an 
answer to the coal-mines of Cornwall—to the report on that 
subject made by a Committee of Parliament. Ha ! that 
makes him wince !—that hits him where he has no friends ! 
He staggers—pauses—fires up again, and gives us a severe 
thrust back on repudiation ! repudiation in Pennsylvania and 
Mississippi! disgraceful act! a stain upon the nation ! That 
touches us ; we writhe ; we wince ; we groan inwardly; we 
would give a quarter of a dollar at that very moment out of 
our own pocket toward paying the debts of the delinquent 
States; but we rally again ; we put it to Bromley on the 
unholy wars with India ; the tithe system in Ireland ; the 
public debt of England, a most unrighteous institution for the 
purpose of sustaining a titled aristocracy—volley after volley 
we pour into him ; till quite breathless we pause for a reply. 
Bromley is puzzled; the argument has assumed a variety 
H 
