T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him by T. De Witt (Thomas De Witt) Talmage;Mrs. T. de Witt Talmage
page 60 of 447 (13%)
page 60 of 447 (13%)
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"What are you writing now, Dr. Brown?" I said to him in his study in
Edinburgh. "Oh, nothing," he replied, "I never could write. I shall never try again." I saw on his face and heard in his voice that melancholy that so often unhorsed him. I went to Paris for the first time in this summer of 1870. It was during the Franco-German war. I stood studying the exquisite sculpturing of the gate of the Tuileries. Lost in admiration of the wonderful art of that gate I knew not that I was exciting suspicion. Lowering my eyes to the crowds of people I found myself being closely inspected by government officials, who from my complexion judged me to be a German, and that for some belligerent purpose I might be examining the gates of the palace. My explanations in very poor French did not satisfy them, and they followed me long distances until I reached my hotel, and were not satisfied until from my landlord they found that I was only an inoffensive American. Inoffensive Americans were quite as welcome in Europe in 1870 as they are now. I was not curious of the signs I found anywhere about me of aristocratic grandeur, of the deference paid to lineage and ancient family name. I know in America some people look back on the family line, and they are proud to see that they are descended from the Puritans or the Huguenots, and they rejoice in that as though their ancestors had accomplished a great thing to repudiate a Catholic aristocracy. I look back on my family line, and I see there such a mingling and mixture of the blood of all nationalities that I feel akin to all the |
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