For we are of the same flesh and blood as
our neighbors; it is only our opportunities and our responsibilities that
are fairer and weightier than theirs. Circumstances afford every excuse to
them, but none to us. "_E Pluribus Unum_" is a frivolous motto; our true
one should be, "_Noblesse oblige_." But, with a strange perversity, in all
matters of comparison between ourselves and others, we display what we are
pleased to call our patriotism by an absurd touchiness as to points
wherein Europe, with its settled and polished civilization, must needs be
our superior; and are quite indifferent about those things by which our
real strength is constituted. Can we not be content to learn from Europe
the graces, the refinements, the amenities of life, so long as we are able
to teach her life itself? For my part, I never saw in England any
appurtenance of civilization, calculated to add to the convenience and
commodiousness of existence, that did not seem to me to surpass anything
of the kind that we have in this country. Notwithstanding which--and I am
far, indeed, from having any pretensions to asceticism--I would have been
fairly stifled at the idea of having to spend my life there.
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