of all
anecdotes in that class. The ordinary course of such falsehoods is, that
first of all some stranger and alien to those feelings which have
prompted a particular usage--incapable, therefore, of entering fully
into its spirit or meaning--tries to exhibit its absurdity more forcibly
by pushing it into an extreme or trying case. Coming himself from some
gross form of _Kleinstaedtigkeit_, where no restraints of decorum exist,
and where everybody speaks to everybody, he has been utterly confounded
by the English ceremony of 'introduction,' when enforced as the _sine
qua non_ condition of personal intercourse. If England is right, then
how clownishly wrong must have been his own previous circles! If England
is not ridiculously fastidious, then how bestially grovelling must be
the spirit of social intercourse in his own land! But no man reconciles
himself to this view of things in a moment. He kicks even against his
own secret convictions. He blushes with shame and anger at the thought
of his own family perhaps brought suddenly into collision with polished
Englishmen; he thrills with wrath at the recollection of having himself
trespassed upon this code of restriction at a time when he was yet
unwarned of its existence. In this temper he is little qualified to
review such a regulation with reason and good sense. He seeks to make it
appear ridiculous. He presses it into violent cases for which it was
never intended. He supposes a case where some fellow-creature is
drowning. How would an Englishman act, how _could_ he act, even under
such circumstances as these? _We_ know, we who are blinded by no spite,
that as a bar to personal communication or to any interchange of good
offices under appeals so forcible as these, this law of formal
presentation between the parties never did and never will operate. The
whole motive to such a law gives way at once.

_XIX. INCREASED POSSIBILITIES OF SYMPATHY IN THE PRESENT AGE._

Some years ago I had occasion to remark that a new era was coming on by
hasty strides for national politics, a new organ was maturing itself for
public effects. Sympathy--how great a power is that! Conscious
sympathy--how immeasurable! Now, for the total development of this
power, _time_ is the most critical of elements. Thirty years ago, when
the Edinburgh mail took ninety-six hours in its transit from London, how
slow was the reaction of the Scottish capital upon the English! Eight
days for the _diaulos