r been brave
enough, to defend the rising generation? Who has ever looked with
content upon the young, save only Plato, and he lived in an age of
symmetry and order which we can hardly hope to reproduce. The
shortcomings of youth are so pitilessly, so glaringly apparent. Not
a rag to cover them from the discerning eye. And what a veil has fallen
between us and the years of _our_ offending. There is no illusion
so permanent as that which enables us to look backward with
complacency; there is no mental process so deceptive as the comparing
of recollections with realities. How loud and shrill the voice of
the girl at our elbow. How soft the voice which from the far past
breathes its gentle echo in our ears. How bouncing the vigorous young
creatures who surround us, treading us under foot in the certainty
of their self-assurance. How sweet and reasonable the pale shadows
who smile--we think appealingly--from some dim corner of our
memories. There is a passage in the diary of Louisa Gurney, a
carefully reared little Quaker girl of good family and estate, which
is dated 1796, and which runs thus:--

"I was in a very playing mood to-day, and thoroughly enjoyed being
foolish, and tried to be as rude to everybody as I could. We went
on the highroad for the purpose of being rude to the folks that passed.
I do think being rude is most pleasant sometimes."

Let us hope that the grown-up Louisa Gurney, whenever she felt
disposed to cavil at the imperfections of the rising generation of
1840 or 1850, re-read these illuminating words, and softened her
judgment accordingly.

New York has been called the most insolent city in the world. To make
or to refute such a statement implies so wide a knowledge of
contrasted civilizations that to most of us the words have no
significance. It is true that certain communities have earned for
themselves in the course of centuries an unenviable reputation for
discourtesy. The Italians say "as rude as a Florentine"; and even
the casual tourist (presuming his standard of manners to have been
set by Italy) is disposed to echo the reproach. The Roman, with the
civilization of the world at his back, is naturally, one might say
inevitably, polite. His is that serious and simple dignity which
befits his high inheritance. But the Venetian and the Sienese have
also a grave courtesy of bearing, compared with which the manners
of the Florentine seem needlessly abrupt. We can no more account for
this than w