d faulty as
the old land is, and miserable as millions of her people are, rises in
the comparison.

_You_ live here, Macready, as I have sometimes heard you imagining!
_You!_ Loving you with all my heart and soul, and knowing what your
disposition really is, I would not condemn you to a year's residence on
this side of the Atlantic for any money. Freedom of opinion! Where is
it? I see a press more mean, and paltry, and silly, and disgraceful than
any country I ever knew. If that is its standard, here it is. But I
speak of Bancroft, and am advised to be silent on that subject, for he
is "a black sheep--a Democrat." I speak of Bryant, and am entreated to
be more careful, for the same reason. I speak of international
copyright, and am implored not to ruin myself outright. I speak of Miss
Martineau, and all parties--Slave Upholders and Abolitionists, Whigs,
Tyler Whigs, and Democrats, shower down upon me a perfect cataract of
abuse. "But what has she done? Surely she praised America enough!" "Yes,
but she told us of some of our faults, and Americans can't bear to be
told of their faults. Don't split on that rock, Mr. Dickens, don't write
about America; we are so very suspicious."

Freedom of opinion! Macready, if I had been born here and had written my
books in this country, producing them with no stamp of approval from any
other land, it is my solemn belief that I should have lived and died
poor, unnoticed, and a "black sheep" to boot. I never was more convinced
of anything than I am of that.

The people are affectionate, generous, open-hearted, hospitable,
enthusiastic, good-humoured, polite to women, frank and candid to all
strangers, anxious to oblige, far less prejudiced than they have been
described to be, frequently polished and refined, very seldom rude or
disagreeable. I have made a great many friends here, even in public
conveyances, whom I have been truly sorry to part from. In the towns I
have formed perfect attachments. I have seen none of that greediness and
indecorousness on which travellers have laid so much emphasis. I have
returned frankness with frankness; met questions not intended to be
rude, with answers meant to be satisfactory; and have not spoken to one
man, woman, or child of any degree who has not grown positively
affectionate before we parted. In the respects of not being left alone,
and of being horribly disgusted by tobacco chewing and tobacco spittle,
I have suffered considerably. The sight