It may be so, but they
have outdone us in the cheapness of the material and the showy covers. I
never saw yellow and red together on any American book.
"The English are far beyond us in their highest scholarship, but why
should they be ignorant of our scholars? The Englishman is proud, and
not without reason; but he may well be proud of the American offshoot.
It is not strange that England produces fine scholars, when we consider
that her colleges confer fellowships on the best undergraduates.
"England differs from America in the fact that it has a past. Well may
the great men of the present be proud of those who have gone before
them; it is scarcely to be hoped that the like can come after them; and
yet I suppose we must admit that even now the strong minds are born
across the water.
"At the same time England has a class to which we have happily no
parallel in our country--a class to which even English gentlemen liken
the Sepoys, and who would, they admit, under like circumstances be
guilty of like enormities. But the true Englishman shuts his eyes for a
great part of the time to the steps in the social scale down which his
race descends, and looks only at the upper walks. He has therefore a
glance of patronizing kindness for the people of the United States, and
regards us of New England as we regard our rich brethren of the West.
"I wondered what was to become of the English people! Their island is
already crowded with people, the large towns are numerous and are very
large.
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