Being pretty much of a rambler, I occasionally fall into a variety of
company; and as I am something of a moralist, I frequently make
reflections on what I see.
In one of my late excursions, I happened in company with a young lady,
lately from Wales; whom I found to be a very social person. She
entertained me with an account of many circumstances relating to her own
country; and withal expressed her disappointment with regard to the
ideas she had entertained of the Americans. “I have,” said she, “always
heard them represented as the most humane, free, and agreeable people in
the world; but on the contrary, find them quite the reverse: for since I
came to this continent, I have not received a single visit from a young
lady of my neighbourhood, or had the least attention paid me.”
I expressed no small disapprobation and surprise at this account: but at
the same time was in no wise at a loss to discover the cause. I found
her so very tenacious of the manners and customs of Wales, that she
could not by any means persuade herself to recede from them; though very
different from those of New-York. This is an error that most Europeans
fall into. They are so possessed of the notion, that the inhabitants of
America are an ignorant simple race of mortals, that they come over with
a view of being received as instructors, and implicitly adhered to in
all their peculiarities. But this hypothesis being far from true, they
frequently give disgust by their magisterial deportment; and while they
persist in these ideas render themselves ridiculous.
The foregoing observations led me to a more general reflection on the
amazing force of tradition, and the narrow contracted principle of
_bigotry_: by which nothing, methought so justly represented, as a
hungry man, sitting down to a sumptuous table, richly replenished with a
variety of excellent dishes; who having tasted of one, and finding it
agreeable, could not be persuaded there was another good one before him.