The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862: Devoted to Literature and National PolicyVarious
History
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862: Devoted to Literature and National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
Democracy among the 'Yankees' as well as all North-Americans who are
free from a servile respect for simple rank and money, is something very
different from that mere form which Brougham, and with him nearly all
Europe, believe it to be. We are not Frenchmen, or Englishmen, or
Orientals, to quietly sit down under any kind of government which chance
may impose, and exclaim: 'It is fate.' Democracy with us is not the mere
form which they imagine. It is, like the English government, like the
German, like the Pachalik of the Oriental, something as much a part of
us as our national physiognomy. A very great proportion of the
Englishmen who come here, remain flunkeys to the end--an American, other
than a soul-diseased disciple of Richmond sociology, or some weak
brother or sister dazed by court ball-tickets--quite as generally remain
a despiser of men who acknowledge other men as their betters by mere
birth. A love of freedom is in our blood, in our life, in our habits. We
are fond, it is true, of temporarily lionizing great people, but we soon
reduce them to our own level. America has shaken down more eminencies
into notorieties than any other country in the world--it is a severe and
terrible ordeal for great foreigners. Our eagerness to behold them is
simply a keen curiosity and a natural love of amusement which is soon
appeased. An American would crowd foremost to see Queen Victoria for the
first time in his life--the second opportunity would be neglected. But
the London shop-keeper who has seen that lady perhaps hundreds of times,
still rushes out in wild haste, with eyes wide open, to behold her when
she drives past. 'They can never get enough of it.' As one of their own
writers has observed, a London tradesman may have been swindled a
hundred times by real or sham noblemen, and yet no sooner does some
flaunting cheat with the _air noble_ enter his shop, than the cockney
bows low and implores patronage with a cringing zeal only equaled by his
'uppishness' to humbler customers.
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