r expressed a hundred
times, and that I would find the behind parts of a printed leaf
called "Punch" in the bookcase. Not being desirous of carrying on
a conversation of which I felt that I had misplaced the most highly
rectified ingredient, I bowed repeatedly, and replied affably that
wisdom ruled his left side and truth his right.

It was upon this same occasion that a young man of unprejudiced
wide-mindedness, taking me aside, asserted that the matter had not been
properly set forth when I was inquiring about kites. Both old and young
men, he continued, frequently endeavoured to fly kites, even in the
involved heart of the city. He had tried once or twice himself, but
never with encouraging success, chiefly, he was told, because his paper
was not good enough. Many people, he added, would not scruple to mislead
me with evasive ambiguity on this one subject owing to an ill-balanced
conception of what constituted true dignity, but he was unwilling
that his countrymen should be thought by mine to be sunk into a deeper
barbarism than actually existed.

His warning was not inopportune. Seated next to this person at a later
period was a maiden from whose agreeably-poised lips had hitherto
proceeded nothing but sincerity and fact. Watching her closely I asked
her, as one who only had a languid interest either one way or the
other, whether her revered father or her talented and richly-apparelled
brothers ever spent their time flying kites about the city. In spite of
a most efficient self-control her colour changed at my words, and her
features trembled for a moment, but quickly reverting to herself she
replied that she thought not; then--as though to subdue my suspicions
more completely--that she was sure they did not, as the kites would
certainly frighten the horses and the appointed watchmen of the street
would not allow it. She confessed, however, with unassumed candour, that
the immediate descendants of her sister were gracefully proficient in
the art.

From this, great and enlightened one, you will readily perceive
how misleading an impression might be carried away by a person
scrupulously-intentioned but not continually looking both ways, when
placed among a people endowed with the uneasy suspicion of the barbarian
and struggling to assert a doubtful refinement. Apart from this, there
has to be taken into consideration their involved process of reasoning,
and the unexpectedly different standards which they apply to e