hey 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 wider, if it is less intense. We have caste among us, to some
extent; it is true; but there is never a collar on the American wolf-dog
such as you often see on the English mastiff, notwithstanding his
robust, hearty individuality.

This confronting of two civilizations is always a grand sensation to me;
it is like cutting through the isthmus and letting the two oceans swim
into each other's laps. The trouble is, it is so difficult to let out
the whole American nature without its self-assertion seeming to take a
personal character. But I never enjoy the Englishman so much as when he
talks of church and king like Manco Capac among the Peruvians. Then you
get the real British flavor, which the cosmopolite Englishman loses.

How m