subsequent to
the first, the date of the first being 1871.]

At any rate, we would advise our visitors that we are not merely
curious creatures, but belong to the family of man, and that, as
individuals, we are not to be always subjected to the competitive
examination above mentioned, even if we acknowledged their competence
as an examining board. Above all, we beg them to remember that America
is not to us, as to them, a mere object of external interest to be
discust and analyzed, but in us, part of our very marrow. Let them not
suppose that we conceive of ourselves as exiles from the graces and
amenities of an older date than we, tho very much at home in a state
of things not yet all it might be or should be, but which we mean to
make so, and which we find both wholesome and pleasant for men (tho
perhaps not for _dilettanti_) to live in. "The full tide of human
existence"[40] may be felt here as keenly as Johnson felt it at
Charing Cross, and in a larger sense. I know one person who is
singular enough to think Cambridge the very best spot on the habitable
globe. "Doubtless God could have made a better, but doubtless He never
did."

[Footnote 40: A remark of Dr. Johnson's as reported by Boswell.]

It will take England a great while to get over her airs of patronage
toward us, or even passably to conceal them. She can not help
confounding the people with the country, and regarding us as lusty
juveniles. She has a conviction that whatever good there is in us is
wholly English, when the truth is that we are worth nothing except so
far as we have disinfected ourselves of Anglicism. She is especially
condescending just now, and lavishes sugar-plums on us as if we had
not outgrown them. I am no believer in sudden conversions, especially
in sudden conversions to a favorable opinion of people who have just
proved you to be mistaken in judgment and therefore unwise in policy.
I never blamed her for not wishing well to democracy--how should
she?--but _Alabamas_ are not wishes. Let her not be too hasty in
believing Mr. Reverdy Johnson's[41] pleasant words. Tho there is no
thoughtful man in America who would not consider a war with England
the greatest of calamities, yet the feeling toward her here is very
far from cordial, whatever our minister may say in the effusion that
comes after ample dining. Mr. Adams,[42] with his famous "My Lord,
this means war," perfectly represented his country. Justly or not, we
have a feeling th