Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 April 1895 — JOHN BULL’S HUMOR. [ARTICLE]

JOHN BULL’S HUMOR.

It Is of the Fat-witted Kind, that Is What Americans Think. Hawthorne, observing Englishmen in England, speaks of tuem as “heavywittel;” Emerson alludes to their “saving stupidity;” Howells has introd. ced to us so re tvpical specimens of English respectability and rank baffled in their chase after American h. m r, but on the scent and arriving at a point of appreciation after considerable silent thought sometimes lasting into the next day: and here is the testimony of J owell, from his recently published “Letters.” In a letter written in from England to Professor Norton he thus explains the. warm reception given to Buffalo ( by London society. • I “But I think the true ,kev to this eagerness tor lions—even of the poodle sort—is the dullne-s of the average English mind. I never come back here without being struck w.th it. Henry .lames said it always stupefied him at first when he came back from the continent What it craves beyond everything is a sensation, anything that will serve as a Worcestershire sauce to its sluggish palate. We. of fine -and more touchy fiber, get o:r sen-ations cheaper, and do i ot find Wordsworth s emotion o er a common flower so very wbnderful. “People are dull enough on our side of the ocean stream, al o, God wot; but here, unless 1 know my peo >le, I never dare to let my mind gambol. Most of them, if I ever do, look on like the famous deaf man at the dancers, wondering to what music I am caoering. They call it superficial. Let us thank God, dear Charles, that our nerves are nearer the su: face, not so deeply imbedded in fat or muscle that wit must take a pitchfork to us.’’—Outlook.