ssed with the perfection of everything American as the most
ardent patriotism could desire. These people go to Europe cased in a
triple armor of self-assertion, prepared to poohpooh everything and
everybody that may come under their notice, and above all to vindicate
under all circumstances their independence as free-born American
citizens by giving the world around them the benefit of their opinions
upon all topics both in and out of season. They stand before a
_chef-d'oeuvre_ of some old master and declare in a loud, aggressive
voice that they see nothing whatever to admire in it, that the
bystanders may know that the judgment of centuries will not weigh with
_them_. They inquire with grim facetiousness, and terrific emphasis on
the pronominal adjectives, "Is _this_ what the people in this part of
the world call a steamboat?" "Do they call that duckpond a lake?" "Is
that stream what they call a river?" And so on, in a perpetual attitude
of protest against everything not so large as their steamboats, their
lakes, their rivers. When this genus of Americans abroad comes together
with the other genus--with the people who think the most wretched daub
that hangs in the most obscure corner of a European gallery, labelled
with prudent indefiniteness "of the school of ----," better far than the
most conscientious work by the most gifted of American artists--and a
discussion arises, as it is sure to do, on the relative merits of Europe
and America, then indeed does Greek meet Greek, and, both starting from
equally false premises and with equally false views, the cross-purposes,
the rabid comparing of things between which no comparison is possible,
the amount of absurd nonsense spoken on either side, and the profound
disdain of one for the other, furnish a great deal of amusement to
Europeans, but make an American who has any self-respect suffer no small
amount of mortification.

There is but one ground upon which these two classes of Americans meet
in common, and that is in their respect for titles, coronets and
coats-of-arms. It is useless to deny the immense impressiveness which
this sort of thing has for the average American. Of course, if he be of
the aggressive sort he will scout the very idea of any such imputation,
one of the favorite jokes of his tasteful stock in trade being precisely
to express sovereign contempt for anything and everything smacking of
nobility, and to weigh its advantages against the chink of his own