The International Magazine, Volume 4, No. 5, December 1851Various
History
The International Magazine, Volume 4, No. 5, December 1851
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
In conclusion, we may remark that if, as has generally been said, we
are a sensitive race, attaching undue importance to the good opinion of
our neighbors, and striving infinitely more than we need to keep up a
good national reputation, we ought to be much obliged to all who, like
Mr. Ross, preach to other countries in their own tongue and with such a
peculiarly distinct enunciation, their candid and unbiased opinion of
their native land. What must strike the reader is indeed the remarkably
unembarrassed and independent air with which he addresses his audience,
and the coolness with which, on their own ground, he points out their
own defects, and their general inferiority to the freemen of "this
great and glorious country." He tells them that America is a land of
hard work--a church-going, Sabbath-keeping, God-fearing, moral land,
for which they must prepare themselves; and no Methodist ever assured
his flock of his solemn conviction that they were all irreclaimable
sinners, with greater earnestness than Mr. Ross announces to his
public, in the plainest terms, that the great majority of the German
emigrants to America are a pack of graceless, narrow-minded, ignorant,
fatherland-denying knaves; ending with an earnest appeal to all whom
it may concern, or are therein informed, to know if they do not with
heart and soul (_aus vollum Flerzen_) coincide with him in these
views. But the American reader who for an instant imagines that Mr.
Ross will lose either popularity or reputation among his auditors,
is decidedly mistaken. Accustomed as we are to regard with nervous
anxiety the slightest opinion of the most insignificant foreigner
regarding our country, and to raise high very tornadoes of indignation
against such writers as have abused our own manners and customs, we
can hardly conceive that an author after "_giving it_" to his readers
in such a remarkably hot-and-heavy style, and, to make all perfectly
intelligible, concluding with the assurance that it is from his very
heart, can still proceed quietly, editing a paper, keeping up his list,
and remaining unmobbed.
But we trust that the day is not distant when foreigners will no
longer be able to taunt us with undue sensitiveness. So rapidly have
we of late years increased in power, in wealth, in influence, that
our conviction of our own might has not kept pace with its growth.
Like the young giant in Rabelais, we have lain in our cradle without
an attempt to break the chain. But with the consciousness of our vast
and immovable moral and political superiority (a consciousness which
despite the good self-opinion so generally attributed to Americans,
has hitherto scarce dawned on us), will come a quiet disregard of the
united abuse and laughter of all Europe. A Dickens may _then_ issue
his "Notes"--a Marryatt, publish his "Diary"--without attracting the
attention or anger of the American press from Maine to Mexico.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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