Being pretty much of a rambler, I occasionally fall into a variety of company; and as I am something of a moralist, I frequently make reflections on what I see.
In one of my late excursions, I happened in company with a young lady, lately from Wales; whom I found to be a very social person. She entertained me with an account of many circumstances relating to her own country; and withal expressed her disappointment with regard to the ideas she had entertained of the Americans. “I have,” said she, “always heard them represented as the most humane, free, and agreeable people in the world; but on the contrary, find them quite the reverse: for since I came to this continent, I have not received a single visit from a young lady of my neighbourhood, or had the least attention paid me.” I expressed no small disapprobation and surprise at this account: but at the same time was in no wise at a loss to discover the cause. I found her so very tenacious of the manners and customs of Wales, that she could not by any means persuade herself to recede from them; though very different from those of New-York. This is an error that most Europeans fall into. They are so possessed of the notion, that the inhabitants of America are an ignorant simple race of mortals, that they come over with a view of being received as instructors, and implicitly adhered to in all their peculiarities. But this hypothesis being far from true, they frequently give disgust by their magisterial deportment; and while they persist in these ideas render themselves ridiculous.
The foregoing observations led me to a more general reflection on the amazing force of tradition, and the narrow contracted principle of bigotry: by which nothing, methought so justly represented, as a hungry man, sitting down to a sumptuous table, richly replenished with a variety of excellent dishes; who having tasted of one, and finding it agreeable, could not be persuaded there was another good one before him.
ETHICUS.
New-York, July 16, 1796.
WONDERFUL ACCOUNT OF A MAN-FISH.
Alexander, of Alexandria, and above fifty other historians, have written an account of a man named Collas, whom they call the Fish Collas; this man had accustomed himself from his infancy to the frequenting of the sea, till at last he became an inhabitant thereof; and dwelt there with such obstinate delight, that he would not be persuaded from it; so that at length he became viscous and waterish, and continued in the sea the greatest part of his life; being sometimes hidden betwixt two waves like a fish, so that he could not be seen for five or six hours together, and would seldom come out in less than eight or ten days; but when he saw a ship he would sometimes go aboard, and live with the mariners for some time; and when tired he would throw himself overboard into the sea and be gone. He said that when he was on shore, he used to be troubled with a pain in his stomach, which he had not when in the water.
For the New-York Weekly Magazine.