face, a slighter build than his ancestors brought from the Old World.
Mr. Emerson is reported as saying (though the precise words escape us)
that the Englishman speaks from his chest, the American more from the
mouth or throat,--that is, the one associates his voice more with the
stomach and viscera, the other with the head; and, indeed, the pectoral
quality of the prevailing tones catches the ear immediately upon
setting foot on British soil. Every man instinctively apprehends where
he is strongest, and will tend to associate voice and movement with the
centre of his strengths. The American, since in him the nervous force
predominates, instinctively lifts his voice into connection with the
great household of that force, which is the brain; for an equally good
reason the Englishman speaks from the visceral and sanguineous centres.
The American (we are still dwelling chiefly on the New England type) is
also apt to throw the head forward in walking,--thereby indicating,
first, his chief reliance upon the forces which that part harbors, and,
secondly, his impulse to progress; so that our national motto, "Go
ahead," may have a twofold significance, as if it were in some sort the
antipodes of going a-foot, and suggested not only the direction of
movement, but also the active agent therein!

Mr. Robert Knox, of England, somewhat known as an ethnological lecturer
and author,--a thinker in a sort, though of the "slam-bang" school, of
far more force than faculty, and of a singular avidity for ugly
news,--dogmatically proclaims that all Americans are undergoing a
physical degeneration, involving, as he thinks, an equal lapse of
mental power, proceeding with swift fated steps, and sure ere long to
land them in sheer impotence and imbecility; and he appeals to the
common loss of adipose tissue and avoirdupois as proof. This author
belongs to a class of well-meaning gentlemen, so unfortunately
constituted that the distractions of their time induce in them an