“
[98]
our Sydney girls, it's a pretty certain sign there's a scarcity of balm in Gilead.”
This is not Mark Twain, not an American humorist at all; it is the Bathurst Sentinel.
So I have gone to the Rocky Mountains for the New World Murdstone, and to Australia for the New World Quinion.
I have not assailed in the least the civilization of America in those northern, middle, and southwestern states, to which Americans have a right to refer us when we seek to know their civilization, and to which they, in fact, do refer us. What I wish to say is, and I by no means even put it in the form of an assertion — I put it in the form of a question only, a question to my friends in America who are believers in equality and lovers of the humane life as I also am, and who ask me why I do not illustrate my praise of equality by reference to the humane life of America-what I wish to say is: How much does the influence of these two elements, natural products of our race, Murdstone and Quinion, the bitter, serious Philistine and the rowdy Philistine, enter into American life and lower it?
I will not pronounce on the matter myself; I have not the requisite knowledge.
But all that we hear from America — hear from Americans themselves — points, so far as I can see, to a great presence
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