brings up to find out whether we are like to keep
in shallow water, or shall have to drop the deep-sea line;--in short,
seeing what we have to deal with. If the Englishman gets his H's pretty
well placed, he comes from one of the higher grades of the British social
order, and we shall find him a good companion.

But, after all, here is a great fact between us. We belong to two
different civilizations, and, until we recognize what separates us, we
are talking like Pyramus and Thisbe, without any hole in the wall to talk
through. Therefore, on the whole, if he were a superior fellow,
incapable of mistaking it for personal conceit, I think I would let out
the fact of the real American feeling about Old-World folks. They are
children to us in certain points of view. They are playing with toys we
have done with for whole-generations.

--------FOOTNOTE:
The more I have observed and reflected, the more limited seems to me the
field of action of the human will. Every act of choice involves a special
relation between the ego and the conditions before it. But no man knows
what forces are at work in the determination of his ego. The bias which
decides his choice between two or more motives may come from some
unsuspected ancestral source, of which he knows nothing at all. He is
automatic in virtue of that hidden spring of reflex action, all the time
having the feeling that he is self-determining. The Story of Elsie
Yenner, written-soon after this book was published, illustrates the
direction in which my thought was moving. 'The imaginary subject of the
story obeyed her will, but her will Obeyed the mysterious antenatal
poisoning influence.
--------

That silly little drum they are always beating on, and the trumpet and
the feather they make so much noise and cut such a figure with, we have
not quite outgrown, but play with much less seriously and constantly than
they do. Then there is a whole museum of wigs, and masks, and
lace-coats, and gold-sticks, and grimaces, and phrases, which we laugh at
honestly, without affectation, that are still used in the Old-World
puppet-shows. I don't think we on our part ever understand the
Englishman's concentrated loyalty and specialized reverence. But then we
do think more of a man, as such, (barring some little difficulties about
race and complexion which the Englishman will touch us on presently,)
than any people that ever lived did think of him. Our reverence is a
great deal w