As far as I can analyze it, it is the independent,
self-possessed bearing of a man unused to look up to any one as his
superior in rank, united to the inquisitive, sensitive, communicative
expression which is the index to our national character. The first is
seldom possessed in England but by a man of decided rank, and the latter
is never possessed by an Englishman at all. The two are united in no
other nation. Nothing is easier than to tell the rank of an Englishman,
and nothing puzzles an European more than to know how to rate the
pretensions of an American....
* * * * *
From "Ephemera."
=_205._= CHARACTER AND WRITINGS OF JAMES HILLHOUSE.
Like the public feeling, the condition and powers of criticism toward
an author's fame, are essentially changed by his death. His personal
character, and the events of his life--the foreground, so to speak, in
the picture of his mind, are, till this event, wanting to the critical
perspective; and when the hand to correct is cold, and the ear to be
caressed and wounded is sealed, some of the uses of censure, and all
reserve in comparison and final estimate, are done away.
* * * * *
Such men as Hillhouse are not common, even in these days of universal
authorship.
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