he brutalities of candour, the pestilent wit which blights whatever
it touches, are not distinctively American. It is because we are a
humorous rather than a witty people that we laugh for the most part
with, and not at, our fellow creatures. Indeed, judged by the
unpleasant things we might say and do not say, we should be esteemed
polite. English memoirs teem with anecdotes which appear to us
unpardonable. Why should Lady Holland have been permitted to wound
the susceptibilities of all with whom she came in contact? When Moore
tells us that she said to him, "This book of yours" (the "Life of
Sheridan") "will be dull, I fear;" and to Lord Porchester, "I am sorry
to hear you are going to publish a poem. Can't you suppress it?" we
do not find these remarks to be any more clever than considerate.
They belong to the category of the monumentally uncouth.

Why should Mr. Abraham Hayward have felt it his duty (he put it that
way) to tell Mr. Frederick Locker that the "London Lyrics" were
"overrated"? "I have suspected this," comments the poet, whose least
noticeable characteristic was vanity; "but I was none the less sorry
to hear him say so." Landor's reply to a lady who accused him of
speaking of her with unkindness, "Madame, I have wasted my life in
defending you!" was pardonable as a repartee. It was the exasperated
utterance of self-defence; and there is a distinction to be drawn
between the word which is flung without provocation, and the word
which is the speaker's last resource. When "Bobus" Smith told
Talleyrand that his mother had been a beautiful woman, and Talleyrand
replied, "_C'etait donc Monsieur votre pere qui n'etait pas bien_,"
we hold the witticism to have been cruel because unjustifiable. A
man should be privileged to say his mother was beautiful, without
inviting such a very obvious sarcasm. But when Madame de Stael
pestered Talleyrand to say what he would do if he saw her and Madame
Recamier drowning, the immortal answer, "_Madame de Stael sait tant
de choses, que sans doute elle peut nager_," seems as kind as the
circumstances warranted. "Corinne's" vanity was of the hungry type,
which, crying perpetually for bread, was often fed with stones.

It has been well said that the difference between a man's habitual
rudeness and habitual politeness is probably as great a difference
as he will ever be able to make in the sum of human happiness; and
the arithmetic of life consists in adding to, or subtracting fr