No Further Opportunity Remained To Me Of
Seeing, Hearing, Or Of Speaking.
I had come out thither, having
resolved to learn a little that I might if possible teach that
little to others; and now the lesson was learned, or must remain
unlearned.
But in carrying out my resolution I had gradually risen
in my ambition, and had mounted from one stage of inquiry to
another, till at last I had found myself burdened with the task of
ascertaining whether or no the Americans were doing their work as a
nation well or ill; and now, if ever, I must be prepared to put
forth the result of my inquiry. As I walked up and down the deck of
the steamboat I confess I felt that I had been somewhat arrogant.
I had been a few days over six months in the States, and I was
engaged in writing a book of such a nature that a man might well
engage himself for six years, or perhaps for sixty, in obtaining the
materials for it. There was nothing in the form of government, or
legislature, or manners of the people as to which I had not taken
upon myself to say something. I was professing to understand their
strength and their weakness; and was daring to censure their faults
and to eulogize their virtues. "Who is he," an American would say,
"that he comes and judges us? His judgment is nothing." "Who is
he," an Englishman would say, "that he comes and teaches us?
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