tween the yeomen and
the very bottom of the social scale; whereas, here, I think the higher
one ascends, the stronger the feeling becomes. The Swiss moreover is
pressed upon by his wants, and is often obliged to tear himself from his
native soil, in order to find the means of subsistence; and yet very few
of them absolutely expatriate themselves.

The emigrants that are called Swiss in America, either come from
Germany, or are French Germans, from Alsace and Lorrain. I have never
met with a migration of a body of true Swiss, though some few cases
probably have existed. It would be curious to inquire how far the noble
nature of the country has an influence in producing their strong
national attachments. The Neapolitans love their climate, and would
rather be Lazzaroni beneath their sun, than gentlemen in Holland, or
England. This is simple enough, as it depends on physical indulgence.
The charm that binds the Swiss to his native mountains, must be of a
higher character, and is moral in its essence.

The American character suffers from the converse of the very feeling
which has an effect so beneficial on that of the Swiss. The migratory
habits of the country prevent the formation of the intensity of
interest, to which the long residence of a family in a particular spot
gives birth, and which comes, at last, to love a tree, or a hill, or a
rock, because they are the same tree, and hill, and rock, that have been
loved by our fathers before us. These are attachments that depend on
sentiment rather than on interest, and which are as much purer and
holier, as virtuous sentiment is purer and holier than worldly
interestedness. In this moral feature, therefore, we are inferior to all
old nations, and to the Swiss in particular, I think, as their local
attachments are both quickened and heightened by the exciting and grand
objects that surround them. The Italians have the same local affections,
in a still stronger degree; for with a nature equally, or even more
winning, they have still prouder and more-remote recollections.

I do not believe the Swiss, at heart, are a bit more attached to their
institutions than we are ourselves; for, while I complain of the _tone_
of so many of our people, I consider it, after all, as the tone of
people who, the means of comparison having been denied them, neither
know that which they denounce, nor that which they extol. Apart from the
weakness of wishing for personal distinctions, however, I