The academic and literary New Yorker, I am well aware, is not "the
American." But who is "the American?" I turn to Mr. G.W. Steevens, and
find that "the American is a highly electric Anglo-Saxon. His
temperament is of quicksilver. There is as much difference in vivacity
and emotion between him and an Englishman as there is between an
Englishman and an Italian." Well, Mr. Steevens is a keener observer than
I; when he wrote this, he had been two months in America to my one; and
he had travelled far and wide over the continent. I am not rash enough,
then, to contradict him; but I must own that I have not met this
"American," or anything like him, in the streets, clubs, theatres,
restaurants, or public conveyances of New York. On the contrary, as I
take my walks abroad between Union Square and Central Park, or hang on
to the straps of an Elevated train or cable car, I am all the time
occupied in trying--and failing--to find marked differences of
appearance and manners between the people I see here and the people I
should expect to see under similar circumstances in London. Differences
of dress and feature there are, of course--but how trifling! Difference
of manners there is none, unless it lie in the general good-nature and
unobtrusive politeness of the American crowd, upon which I have already
remarked.
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