ys, "The inhabitants of the United States talk a great
deal of their attachment to their country; but I confess that I do not
rely upon that calculating patriotism which is founded upon interest,
and which a change in the interests at stake may obliterate."

The fact is, that the American is aware that what affects the general
prosperity must affect the individual, and he therefore is anxious for
the general prosperity; he also considers that he assists to legislate
for the country, and is therefore equally interested in such legislature
being prosperous; if, therefore, you attack his country, you attack him
personally--you wound his vanity and self-love.

In America it is not our rulers who have done wrong or right; it is we
(or rather I) who have done wrong or right, and the consequence is, that
the American is _rather_ irritable on the subject, as every attack is
taken as personal. It is quite ridiculous to observe how some of the
very best of the Americans are tickled when you praise their country and
institutions; how they will wince at any qualification in your praise,
and actually writhe under any positive disparagement. They _will_ put
questions, even if they anticipate an unfavourable answer; they cannot
help it. What is the reason of this? Simply their better sense
wrestling with the errors of education and long-cherished fallacies.
They feel that their institutions do not work as they would wish; that
the theory is not borne out by the practice, and they want support
against their own convictions. They cannot bear to eradicate
deep-rooted prejudices, which have been from their earliest days a
source of pride and vain-glory; and to acknowledge that what they have
considered as most perfect, what they have boasted of as a _lesson_ to
other nations, what they have suffered so much to uphold, in
surrendering their liberty of speech, of action, and of opinion, has
after all proved to be a miserable failure, and instead of a lesson to
other nations--a warning.

Yet such are the doubts, the misgivings which fluctuate in, and irritate
the minds of a very large proportion of the Americans; and such is the
decided conviction of a portion who retire into obscurity and are
silent; and every year adds to the number of both these parties. They
remind one of a husband who, having married for love, and supposed his
wife to be perfection, gradually finds out that she is full of faults,
and renders him anything but hap