entleman with a
sword at his side. The gentleman may have been proud of being strong or
sturdy; he may too often have been proud of being thick-headed; but he
was not proud of being thick-skinned. On the contrary, he was proud of
being thin-skinned. He also seriously thought that sensitiveness was a
part of masculinity. It may be very absurd to read of two Irish
gentlemen trying to kill each other for trifles, or of two
Irish-American millionaires trying to ruin each other for trash. But the
very pettiness of the pretext and even the purpose illustrates the same
conception; which may be called the virtue of excitability. And it is
really this, and not any rubbish about iron will-power and masterful
mentality, that redeems with romance their clockwork cosmos and its
industrial ideals. Being a live wire does not mean that the nerves
should be like wires; but rather that the very wires should be like
nerves.

Another approximation to the truth would be to say that an American is
really not ashamed of curiosity. It is not so simple as it looks. Men
will carry off curiosity with various kinds of laughter and bravado,
just as they will carry off drunkenness or bankruptcy. But very few
people are really proud of lying on a door-step, and very few people are
really proud of longing to look through a key-hole. I do not speak of
looking through it, which involves questions of honour and self-control;
but few people feel that even the desire is dignified. Now I fancy the
American, at least by comparison with the Englishman, does feel that his
curiosity is consistent with his dignity, because dignity is consistent
with vivacity. He feels it is not merely the curiosity of Paul Pry, but
the curiosity of Christopher Columbus. He is not a spy but an explorer;
and he feels his greatness rather grow with his refusal to turn back, as
a traveller might feel taller and taller as he neared the source of the
Nile or the North-West Passage. Many an Englishman has had that feeling
about discoveries in dark continents; but he does not often have it
about discoveries in daily life. The one type does believe in the
indignity and the other in the dignity of the detective. It has nothing
to do with ethics in the merely external sense. It involves no
particular comparison in practical morals and manners. It is something
in the whole poise and posture of the self; of the way a man carries
himself. For men are not only affected by what they are; but st