" And
yet perhaps it is his own, bought with his own money, the key of it
long polished in his pocket; but it has not yet, and never will be,
thoroughly adopted by his imagination; nor does he cease to
remember that, in the whole length and breadth of his native
country, there was no building even distantly resembling it.
But it is not alone in scenery and architecture that we count
England foreign. The constitution of society, the very pillars of
the empire, surprise and even pain us. The dull, neglected
peasant, sunk in matter, insolent, gross and servile, makes a
startling contrast with our own long-legged, long-headed,
thoughtful, Bible-quoting ploughman. A week or two in such a place
as Suffolk leaves the Scotchman gasping. It seems incredible that
within the boundaries of his own island a class should have been
thus forgotten. Even the educated and intelligent, who hold our
own opinions and speak in our own words, yet seem to hold them with
a difference or, from another reason, and to speak on all things
with less interest and conviction. The first shock of English
society is like a cold plunge. It is possible that the Scot comes
looking for too much, and to be sure his first experiment will be
in the wrong direction. Yet surely his complaint is grounded;
surely the speech of Englishmen is too often lacking in generous
ardour, the better part of the man too often withheld from the
social commerce, and the contact of mind with mind evaded as with
terror.
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