It is not to be
wondered at that foreigners fail to find our country interesting, and
that the only good book of American travels is that of De Tocqueville,
who deals chiefly with abstract ideas. It is possible to conceive minds
so constituted that they may reach before long the end of their
interest in the number of shoes, yards of cotton, and the like, which
we produce in a year. The only immortal Greek shoemaker is he who had
the good luck to be snubbed by Apelles, and Penelope is the only
manufacturer in antiquity whose name has come down to us.
One thing in the narrative part of this volume is striking,--the
continual recurrence of massacre by the French and Indians. This is
something to be borne in mind always by those who would understand the
politics of our New England ancestors. We confess that we were
surprised, the other day, to see a journal so able and generally so
philosophical as the London "Saturday Review" joining in the outcry
about the treatment of the Acadians. If our forefathers were ever wise
and foreseeing, if they ever showed a capacity for large political
views, it is proved by their early perception that the first question
to be settled on this continent was, whether its destiny should be
shaped by English or Keltic, by Romish or Protestant ideas.
Pages:
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357