Comparatively to his other books, it is as flesh and blood to spirit;
Emersonian flesh and blood, it is true, and semi-translucent; but still it
completes the man for us: he would have remained too problematical without
it. Those who have never personally known him may finish and solidify
their impressions of him here. He likes England and the English, too; and
that sympathy is beyond our expectation of the mind that evolved "Nature"
and "The Over-Soul." The grasp of his hand, I remember, was firm and
stout, and we perceive those qualities in the descriptions and cordiality
of "English Traits." Then, it is an objective book; the eye looks outward,
not inward; these pages afford a basis not elsewhere obtainable of
comparing his general human faculty with that of other men. Here he
descends from the airy heights he treads so easily and, standing foot to
foot with his peers, measures himself against them. He intends only to
report their stature, and to leave himself out of the story; but their
answers to his questions show what the questions were, and what the
questioner. And we cannot help suspecting, though he did not, that the
Englishmen were not a little put to it to keep pace with their clear-
faced, penetrating, attentive visitor.
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