As the Englishman had nothing to do for some days but to ramble about Ravenswood, and talk to the owner of it, he had full opportunity of ascertaining how far his brother's estimate of him was correct, and also how far the difference between the two, particularly in their practical aptitude for business, was attributable to the fact, that one of them had finished his education in England, and the other in America, which, for a New-Yorker, means in Paris, in Germany, half over the continent of Europe, in short. His conclusion was, that some of the qualities which made his host so "out of place" were natural, and that others had been superinduced upon these by his English education. Harry Benson had truly stated, that his brother's prominent trait of character was sincerity. He used to say of himself, that the fairy had bestowed on him true Thomas's gift, "the tongue that ne'er could lie," and that the consequent incapacities predicted by the Scottish minstrel had fallen upon him; he could neither buy nor sell, nor pay court to prince or peer, (that is, in America, to the sovereign people,) nor win favor of fair lady. Certainly this is a dangerous quality in any country, unless tempered with an exquisite tact, which was not among Carl's possessions; but it is peculiarly dangerous in America, for there is no public (not excepting the French or Irish) that feeds so greedily on pure humbug as the American. _Populus vult decipi_ there with a vengeance; and when the general current of feeling has set towards any show or phantasm, moral, political, literary, or social, woe to the individual who plants himself in its way! Equally correct was the assertion that equity was a leading idea of his mind. "Give the devil his due," was one of his favorite proverbs; and when he said that a thing "was not fair," it seemed to him a conclusive argument against it. His conception of the virtues was the genuine Aristotelian one--a medium between two extremes. Not that he was a lukewarm partisan on all subjects; but of the people he most disliked--and he was a really "good hater" of some classes, Romanists, for instance, and Frenchmen, and Southern slaveholders--he could not bring himself to take any unfair advantage. Now it is no news to any one who knows anything of the Americans, that they are a nation of violent extremes; the different political parties, theological sects, geographical divisions--the literati of different cities, even--vituperate and assail one another fearfully, hardly respecting the laws of the land, much less the principles of natural justice. Add to all this, that Carl had a naturally elegant and fastidious taste, certain to make him aristocratic in sentiment, however democratic he might be in principle, and it will be seen that he had a tolerable stock of incompatibilities to start with before having anything to do with England.