Among other books, I have laid my hands, by accident, on the work of a recent French traveller in the United States. We read little other than English books at home, and are much given to declaiming against English travellers for their unfairness; but, judging from this specimen of Gallic opinion, our ancient allies rate us quite as low as our quondam fellow subjects. A perusal of the work in question has led me to inquire further into the matter, and I am now studying one or two German writers on the same interesting subject. I must say that thus far, I find little to feed national vanity, and I begin to fear (what I have suspected ever since the first six months in Europe) that we are under an awkward delusion respecting the manner in which the rest of Christendom regards that civilization touching which we are so sensitive. It is some time since I have made the discovery, that 'the name of an American is not a passport all over Europe,' but on the other hand, that where it conveys any very distinct notions at all, it usually conveys such as are any thing but flattering or agreeable.... I shall pursue the _trail_ on which I have fallen, and you will probably hear more of this, before these letters are brought to a close. {402} At page 113 of the same volume we have something of the same nature, and which we confess astonished us in no little degree. We have just had a visit from two old acquaintances--Manhattanese. They tell me a good many of our people are wandering among the mountains, though they are the first we have seen. There is a list of arrivals published daily in Berne; and in one of them I found the name of Captain C----, of the Navy; and that of Mr. O., an old and intimate friend, whom it was vexatious to miss in a strange land. Mr. and Mrs. G----, of New York, are also somewhere in the cantons. Our numbers increase, and with them our abuse; for it is not an uncommon thing to see, written in English in the travellers' books kept by law at all the inns, pasquinades on America, opposite the American names. What a state of feeling it betrays, when a traveller cannot write his name, in compliance with a law of the country in which he happens to be, without calling down upon himself anathemas of this kind! I have a register of twenty-three of these gratuitous injuries. What renders them less excusable, is the fact, that they who are guilty of the impropriety would probably think twice before they performed the act in the presence of the party wronged. These intended insults are, consequently, so many registers of their own meanness. Let the truth be said; I have never seen one, unless in the case of an American, or one that was not written in English! Straws show which way the wind blows. This disposition, in our kinsmen, to deride and abuse America, is observed and freely commented on by the people of the continent, who are far from holding us themselves in the highest respect.