* * * * *
I must say I cannot see much in Captain B. Hall's account of the Americans,
but weaknesses--some of which make me like the Yankees all the better. How
much more amiable is the American fidgettiness and anxiety about the
opinion of other nations, and especially of the English, than the
sentiments of the rest of the world.[1]
As to what Captain Hall says about the English loyalty to the person of the
King--I can only say, I feel none of it. I respect the man while, and only
while, the king is translucent through him: I reverence the glass case for
the Saint's sake within; except for that it is to me mere glazier's work,--
putty, and glass, and wood.
[Footnote 1:
"There exists in England a _gentlemanly_ character, a _gentlemanly_
feeling, very different even from that which is most like it,--the
character of a well-born Spaniard, and unexampled in the rest of Europe.
This feeling _originated_ in the fortunate circumstance, that the titles of
our English nobility follow the law of their property, and are inherited by
the eldest sons only. From this source, under the influences of our
constitution and of our astonishing trade, it has diffused itself in
different modifications through the whole country.
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