the involved heart of the city. He had tried once or twice himself,
but never with encouraging success, chiefly, he was told, because his
paper was not good enough. Many people, he added, would not scruple to
mislead me with evasive ambiguity on this one subject owing to an
ill-balanced conception of what constituted true dignity, but he was
unwilling that his countrymen should be thought by mine to be sunk
into a deeper barbarism than actually existed.

His warning was not inopportune. Seated next to this person at a later
period was a maiden from whose agreeably-poised lips had hitherto
proceeded nothing but sincerity and fact. Watching her closely I asked
her, as one who only had a languid interest either one way or the
other, whether her revered father or her talented and
richly-apparelled brothers ever spent their time flying kites about
the city. In spite of a most efficient self-control her colour changed
at my words, and her features trembled for a moment, but quickly
reverting to herself she replied that she thought not; then--as though
to subdue my suspicions more completely--that she was sure they did
not, as the kites would certainly frighten the horses and the
appointed watchmen of the street would not allow it. She confessed,
however, with unassumed candour, that the immediate descendants of her
sister were gracefully proficient in the art.

From this, great and enlightened one, you will readily perceive how
misleading an impression might be carried away by a person
scrupulously-intentioned but not continually looking both ways, when
placed among a people endowed with the uneasy suspicion of the
barbarian and struggling to assert a doubtful refinement. Apart from
this, there has to be taken into consideration their involved process
of reasoning, and the unexpectedly different standards which they