Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1882 — An Unquestionable American Citizen Abroad. [ARTICLE]

An Unquestionable American Citizen Abroad.

I ought to except from the category of the common place a long, lank citizen of the United States whom I meet at Casino and almost everywhere else, surveying things in general with an inimitable air of philosophic interest and serene complacency, undisturbed by the entertainment he affords to those about him. He wears a suit of coarse and heavy black, evidently ready made, and much too large for him. The coat is a shapeless sack, very long in the skirts and the sleeves. A fumbled black silk neckerchief is wound about a high limp collar, of which it is impossible to say whether it is meant to stand up of turn over; and the figure is crowned by a black felt hat, at whose stupendous breadth the effete population of Europe are never tired of wondering. Our friend has a tangled bear'd of iron gray, and a stiff pollard mustache which does not conceal the subsatisfied expression always playing about his mouth. He carries his hands behind him, he treads with emphasis, he throws his head back that his shrewd twinkling eyes may better view the world from under the broad felt. He loves to talk when he can find anybody who speaks our language. The first time I saw him at Monte Carlo he had fastened upon a young Englishman, reserved, irresponsive, fresh-faced, carefully clad, buttoned up extremely tight, his very antithesis in everything, and to this silent and somewhat astonished auditor he was imparting his impressions of the Casino, the Mediterranean, the concert we had just listened to, and in particular the manners and customs of the British visitors, occasionally throwing his jaws wide open for a short and vigorous laugh, and bending his stiff form in the middle like the shutting up of a jack-knife. “Now, I,” he exclaimed in a confidential parenthesis, “I ain't an Englishman !”

“Ah, just so,replied the young man, “ I did not suppose you were.” It was the only remark of our countryman which called forth a cordial response. I saw him treading the Corso on the morning of the carnival, wearing the same black clothes, and quite as much at his ease in the midst of dominoes, devils, and pages as in the gay throng at the gambling rooms ; and I thought, What a target for confetti! Later in the day I saw him again. He had been through the battle. The great hat in particular had suffered. But the calm spirit was unruffled. Erect, deliberate, observant, amused, self-pos-sessed, taking in everything, and assimilating nothing, he was an odd figure indeed, but not a ridiculous one. He had begun so late in life to see the world, and had brought to the enterprise so little preparation, that you could not help wondering how he found his way to this place from his farm on the prairies, and what sort of adventures must have befalleif him on the journey ; yet neither could you help respecting the independence, self-reliance, and good nature with which he illustrated so much that is estimable in the American character. —Mentone Correspondence New York Tribune.