e centuries ago.
They are here to-day. They have continuously opposed each other, and
yet no species has been exterminated. Their combined activities make
the city.

When one comes to feel the stirring of primal sympathies for the
manifold life of the city, as he does for the manifold life of the
woods, Rome ceases to be distracting. The old city is like the
mountain which has withstood the hurts of time, and remains for us,
"the grand affirmer of the present tense."

THE AMERICAN TEMPERAMENT

I

Stopping at some selected spot on the mountain road, the stage-driver
will direct the stranger's attention to a projecting mass of rock
which bears some resemblance to a human countenance. There is the "Old
Man of the Mountains," or the "Old Woman," as the case may be.

If the stranger be of a docile disposition he will see what he is told
to see. But he will be content with the vague suggestion and will not
push the analogy too far. The similitude is strictly confined to the
locality. It is enough if from a single point the mountain seems
almost human. From any other point it will seem to be merely
mountainous.

A similar caution is necessary in regard to the resemblances between a
nation and an individual. When we talk of a national character or
temperament, we are using an interesting and bold figure of speech.
We speak of millions of people as if they were one. Of course, a
nation is not one kind of person; it is composed of many kinds of
persons. These persons are diverse in character. All Scotchmen are not
canny, nor all Irishmen happy-go-lucky. Those who know a great many
Chinamen are acquainted with those who are idealists with little taste
for plodding industry. It is only the outsider who is greatly
impressed by the family resemblance. To the more analytic mind of the
parent each child is, in a most remarkable degree, different from the
others.

When we take such typical characters as John Bull and Brother Jonathan
as representing actual Englishmen or Americans, we put ourselves in
the way of contradiction. They are not good likenesses. An English
writer says: "As the English, a particularly quick-witted race, tinged
with the colors of romance, have long cherished a false pride in their
reputed stolidity, and have accepted with pleasant equanimity the
figure of John Bull as their national signboard, though he does not
resemble them, so Americans plume themselves on the thought that they
are dying of