Society swarmed with exaggerated characters; it contained
little else.
Often this eccentricity bore all the marks of strength; perhaps
it was actual exuberance of force, a birthmark of genius. Boston
thought so. The Bostonian called it national character -- native
vigor -- robustness -- honesty -- courage. He respected and
feared it. British self-assertion, bluff, brutal, blunt as it
was, seemed to him a better and nobler thing than the acuteness
of the Yankee or the polish of the Parisian. Perhaps he was
right.
These questions of taste, of feeling, of inheritance, need no
settlement. Every one carries his own inch-rule of taste, and
amuses himself by applying it, triumphantly, wherever he travels.
Whatever others thought, the cleverest Englishmen held that the
national eccentricity needed correction, and were beginning to
correct it. The savage satires of Dickens and the gentler
ridicule of Matthew Arnold against the British middle class were
but a part of the rebellion, for the middle class were no worse
than their neighbors in the eyes of an American in 1863; they
were even a very little better in the sense that one could appeal
to their interests, while a university man, like Gladstone, stood
outside of argument. From none of them could a young American
afford to borrow ideas.
The private secretary, like every other Bostonian, began by
regarding British eccentricity as a force.
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