milar
observation when they return to their native shores. They find a
wild-eyed look upon their compatriots' faces, either of too desperate
eagerness and anxiety or of too intense responsiveness and good-will. It
is hard to say whether the men or the women show it most. It is true
that we do not all feel about it as Dr. Clouston felt. Many of us, far
from deploring it, admire it. We say: "What intelligence it shows! How
different from the stolid cheeks, the codfish eyes, the slow, inanimate
demeanor we have been seeing in the British Isles!" Intensity, rapidity,
vivacity of appearance, are indeed with us something of a nationally
accepted ideal; and the medical notion of 'irritable weakness' is not
the first thing suggested by them to our mind, as it was to Dr.
Clouston's. In a weekly paper not very long ago I remember reading a
story in which, after describing the beauty and interest of the
heroine's personality, the author summed up her charms by saying that to
all who looked upon her an impression as of 'bottled lightning' was
irresistibly conveyed.

Bottled lightning, in truth, is one of our American ideals, even of a
young girl's character! Now it is most ungracious, and it may seem to
some persons unpatriotic, to criticise in public the physical
peculiarities of one's own people, of one's own family, so to speak.
Besides, it may be said, and said with justice, that there are plenty of
bottled-lightning temperaments in other countries, and plenty of
phlegmatic temperaments here; and that, when all is said and done, the
more or less of tension about which I am making such a fuss is a very
small item in the sum total of a nation's life, and not worth solemn
treatment at a time when agreeable rather than disagreeable things
should be talked about. Well, in one sense the more or less of tension
in our faces and in our unused muscles is a small thing: not much
mechanical work is done by these contractions. But it is not always the
material size of a thing that measures its importance: often it is its
place and function. One of the most philosophical remarks I ever heard
made was by an unlettered workman who was doing some repairs at my house
many years ago. "There is very little difference between one man and
another," he said, "when you go to the bottom of it. But what little
there is, is very important." And the remark certainly applies to this
case. The general over-contraction may be small when estimated in
foot-p