Was any people ever truly served by eulogy; or
an honest cause furthered by undue praise?
O my friends with thin skins - and here I protest that a thick skin
is a fault not to be forgiven in a man or a nation, whereas a thin
skin is in itself a merit, if only the wearer of it will be the
master and not the slave of his skin - O my friends with thin skins,
ye whom I call my cousins and love as brethren, will ye not forgive
me these harsh words that I have spoken? They have been spoken in
love - with a true love, a brotherly love, a love that has never been
absent from the heart while the brain was coining them. I had my
task to do, and I could not take the pleasant and ignore the
painful. It may perhaps be that as a friend I had better not have
written either good or bad. But no! To say that would indeed be to
speak calumny of your country. A man may write of you truly, and
yet write that which you would read with pleasure; only that your
skins are so thin. The streets of Washington are muddy and her ways
are desolate. The nakedness of Cairo is very naked. And those
ladies of New York - is it not to be confessed that they are somewhat
imperious in their demands? As for the Van Wyck Committee, have I
not repeated the tale which you have told yourselves? And is it not
well that such tales should be told?
And yet ye will not forgive me; because your skins are thin, and
because the praise of others is the breath of your nostrils.
I do not know that an American as an individual is more thin skinned
than an Englishman; but as the representative of a nation it may
almost be said of him that he has no skin at all. Any touch comes
at once upon the net-work of his nerves and puts in operation all
his organs of feeling with the violence of a blow. And for this
peculiarity he has been made the mark of much ridicule. It shows
itself in two ways: either by extreme displeasure when anything is
said disrespectful of his country, or by the strong eulogy with
which he is accustomed to speak of his own institutions and of those
of his countrymen whom at the moment he may chance to hold in high
esteem. The manner in which this is done is often ridiculous.
"Sir, what do you think of Mr. Jefferson Brick? Mr. Jefferson
Brick, sir, is one of our most remarkable men." And again: "Do you
like our institutions, sir? Do you find that philanthropy,
religion, philosophy and the social virtues are cultivated on a
scale commensurate with the unequaled liberty and political
advancement of the nation?" There is something absurd in such a
mode of address when it is repeated often. But hero worship and
love of country are not absurd; and do not these addresses show
capacity for hero worship and an aptitude for the love of country?
Jefferson Brick may not be a hero; but a capacity for such worship
is something. Indeed the capacity is everything, for the need of a
hero will produce a hero. And it is the same with that love of
country. A people that are proud of their country will see that
there is something in their country to justify their pride. Do we
not all of us feel assured by the intense nationality of an American
that he will not desert his nation in the hour of her need? I feel
that assurance respecting them; and at those moments in which I am
moved to laughter by the absurdities of their addresses to me I feel
it the strongest.
I left Boston with the snow, and returning to New York found that
the streets there were dry and that the winter was nearly over. As
I had passed through New York to Boston the streets had been by no
means dry. The snow had lain in small mountains over which the
omnibuses made their way down Broadway, till at the bottom of that
thoroughfare, between Trinity Church and Bowling Green, alp became
piled upon alp, and all traffic was full of danger. The cursed love
of gain still took men to Wall Street, but they had to fight their
way thither through physical difficulties which must have made even
the state of the money market a matter of indifference to them.
They do not seem to me to manage the winter in New York so well as
they do in Boston. But now, on my last return thither, the alps
were gone, the roads were clear, and one could travel through the
city with no other impediment than those of treading on women's
dresses if one walked, or having to look after women's band-boxes
and pay their fares and take their change if one used the omnibuses.
And now had come the end of my adventure, and as I set my foot once
more upon the deck of the Cunard steamer, I felt that my work was
done; whether it were done ill or well, or whether indeed any
approach to the doing of it had been attained, all had been done
that I could accomplish. No further opportunity remained to me of
seeing, hearing, or of speaking. I had come out thither, having
resolved to learn a little that I might if possible teach that
little to others; and now the lesson was learned, or must remain
unlearned. But in carrying out my resolution I had gradually risen
in my ambition, and had mounted from one stage of inquiry to
another, till at last I had found myself burdened with the task of
ascertaining whether or no the Americans were doing their work as a
nation well or ill; and now, if ever, I must be prepared to put
forth the result of my inquiry.
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