"There are two kinds of boastin', Squire, active and passive. The
former belongs exclusively to my countrymen, and the latter to the
British. A Yankee openly asserts and loudly proclaims his superiority.
John Bull feels and looks it. He don't give utterance to this
conviction. He takes it for granted all the world knows and admits it,
and he is so thoroughly persuaded of it himself, that, to use his own
favourite phrase, he don't care a fig if folks don't admit it. His
vanity, therefore, has a sublimity in it. He thinks, as the Italians
say, 'that when nature formed him, she broke the mould.' There never
was, never can, and never will be, another like him. His boastin',
therefore, is passive. He shows it and acts it; but he don't proclaim
it. He condescends and is gracious, patronizes and talks down to you.
Let my boastin' alone therefore, Squire, if you please. You know what
it means, what bottom it has, and whether the plaster sticks on the
right spot or not.
"So there is the first division of my subject. Now for the second. But
don't go off at half-cock, narvous like. I am not like the black
preacher that had forty-eleven divisions. I have only a few more
remarks to make. Well, I have observed that in editin' my last
Journal, you struck out some scores I made under certain passages and
maxims, because you thought they were not needed, or looked vain.
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