“See the vessels in the rocks, Pa!” cried the boy. “Or—is it ice?”
“I don’t rightly know, Charley. Don’t touch!”
“I wont, Pa! I just want to read what this is on the ship. E, R, E, B, U, S!—E. R. Bruce! Is he buried here, do you ’spose?”
“In course he is, me lard! They wouldn’t never put h’another man’s name h’upon ’is tombstone—would they?”
It is obviously unfair, say some of those for whom I am writing, to gauge the intelligence and breeding of a great nation by the manners of the lower classes. Should I retort that upon such data, as collected by British tourists in a flying trip through our country, is founded the popular English belief that we are vulgar in manner and speech, superficial in education and crude in thought, I should be told that these are the impressions and opinions of a bygone period,—belong to a generation that read Mrs. Trollope’s and Marryatt’s “Travels,” and Boz’s “American Notes;” that the Briton of to-day harbors neither prejudice nor contempt for us; appreciates all that is praiseworthy in us as individuals and a people; is charitable to our faults. There are Americans resident abroad who will assert this. Some, because having made friends of enlightened English men and women, true and noble, they see the masses through the veil of affectionate regard they have for the few. Others, flattered in every fibre of their petty natures by the notice of those who arrogate superiority of race and training, affect to despise their own land and kind; would rather be Anglicized curs beneath the tables of the nobility than independent citizens of a free and growing country. We know both classes. We met them every day and everywhere for two years. America can justify herself against such children as those I have last described.
But I have somewhat to say about the popular estimate in England of America and Americans, and I foresee that I shall write of other matters with more comfort when I have eased my spirit by a little plain speech upon this subject:
“You agree with me, I am sure, in saying, ‘My country, right or wrong!’” said a dear old English lady, turning to me during a discussion upon the policy of Great Britain with regard to the Russian-Turkish war.
“We say—‘My country, always right!’” replied I, smiling. “We are, as you often tell us, ‘very young’—too young to have committed many national sins. Perhaps when we are a thousand or fifteen hundred years nearer the age of European governments, we, too, may have made dangerous blunders.”
An English gentleman, hearing a portion of this badinage, came up to me.
“You were not in earnest in what you said just now?” he began, interrogatively. “I honor America. I have studied her history, and I hail every step of her march to the place I believe God has assigned her—the leadership of the Christian world. She is fresh and enthusiastic. She is sound to the core. But she does make mistakes. Let us reason together for a little while. There is the Silver Bill, for example.”