SEARCH
0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Prev | Current Page 396 | Next

Martin, Benj. N.

"Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader Being Selections from the Chief American Writers"

But the sentence of the law was carried
into effect.
* * * * *

=_Nathaniel Parker Willis, 1807-1867._= (Manual, pp. 504, 519.)
From "Pencillings by the Way."
=_204._= THE AMERICAN ABROAD.
It is a queer feeling to find oneself a _foreigner_. One can not realize
long at a time how his face or his manners should have become peculiar;
and after looking at a print for five minutes in a shop-window, or
dipping into an English book, or in any manner throwing off the mental
habit of the instant, the curious gaze of the passer-by, or the accent
of a strange language, strikes one very singularly. Paris is full of
foreigners of all nations, and of course physiognomies of all characters
may be met everywhere; but, differing as the European nations do
decidedly from each other, they differ still more from the American. Our
countrymen, as a class, are distinguishable wherever they are met; not
as Americans however, for of the habits and manners of Our country,
people know nothing this side the water. But there is something in an
American face, of which I never was aware till I met them in Europe,
that is altogether peculiar. The French take the Americans to be
English; but an Englishman, while he presumes him his countryman, shows
a curiosity to know who he is, which is very foreign to his usual
indifference.


Pages:
384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408