ffer in their social
condition. It may therefore be inferred that the reserve of the English
proceeds from the constitution of their country much more than from that
of its inhabitants.

Chapter III: Why The Americans Show So Little Sensitiveness In Their Own
Country, And Are So Sensitive In Europe

The temper of the Americans is vindictive, like that of all serious and
reflecting nations. They hardly ever forget an offence, but it is not
easy to offend them; and their resentment is as slow to kindle as it is
to abate. In aristocratic communities where a small number of persons
manage everything, the outward intercourse of men is subject to settled
conventional rules. Everyone then thinks he knows exactly what marks of
respect or of condescension he ought to display, and none are presumed
to be ignorant of the science of etiquette. These usages of the first
class in society afterwards serve as a model to all the others; besides
which each of the latter lays down a code of its own, to which all
its members are bound to conform. Thus the rules of politeness form a
complex system of legislation, which it is difficult to be perfectly
master of, but from which it is dangerous for anyone to deviate; so that
men are constantly exposed involuntarily to inflict or to receive
bitter affronts. But as the distinctions of rank are obliterated, as men
differing in education and in birth meet and mingle in the same places
of resort, it is almost impossible to agree upon the rules of good
breeding. As its laws are uncertain, to disobey them is not a crime,
even in the eyes of those who know what they are; men attach more
importance to intentions than to forms, and they grow less civil, but at
the same time less quarrelsome. There are many little attentions which
an American does not care about; he thinks they are not due to him, or
he presumes that they are not known to be due: he therefore either
does not perceive a rudeness or he forgives it; his manners become less
courteous, and his character more plain and masculine.

The mutual indulgence which the Americans display, and the manly
confidence with which they treat each other, also result from another
deeper and more general cause, which I have already adverted to in the
preceding chapter. In the United States the distinctions of rank
in civil society are slight, in political society they are null; an
American, therefore, does not think himself bound to pay particular
atte