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Show English and American Manners. No time can ever reconcilo a cis-Atlautlc ear to the heartiness with which an otherwjso well bred English lady will talk lrankly of "nibbing" and of "cleaning herself." Itsut-gests Itsut-gests tho complaint made by Lord Melbourne Mel-bourne of certain London beauties that they gave him too much of thtir natural history. I do not know any well educated Americans, except ono or two southern lady novelists, who habitually uso the word "nigger," but hi English literature and speech it seams universal. uni-versal. Froudo employs it through all his books of travol, and even so graceful writer as the late Mrs. Ewing uses it in her pretty stories. She also has the very offensive offen-sive word "stinking," and one finds and hears it everywhere. "As a rule," writes James Payn from London, in Tho New York Independent, Inde-pendent, "I hate people thut stink of monoy." So, in society, Americana ore constantly placed in the absurd position of being lectured for want of refined perception by writers whose language and manners offend us at every step. Tho highest, the most gifted, are not free from this offensi veoess of language. When 1 heard tho most eminent of EDglish poets say of somo bad verso that it was "rot," at a time when that odious Anglicism had not yet crossed tho Atlantic, it seemed to my eta r tied imagination as if the Venus of MUo had opened her marble hps and hod begun to curse and swear. The trouble is that suoh phrases reach us also very rapidly, and take root among us like other weeds. No doubt America furnishes Borao slang to England also, and we often go to London to hear it for the first time from cultivated lips. But it must be remembered that pugilists aud circus riders are not here to bo found so frequently fre-quently in fastidious circles, and thus our opportunitios of picking up their flowers of speech are more limited than iu London. I Tho Forum. |
