Men and Manners in America, Band 1

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William Blackwood, 1833 - 410 Seiten
The Scottish writer offers his perspective on America and its inhabitants. Apparently unapproving of a country lacking a royal family, he finds the Americans somewhat distressing but interesting.

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Seite 117 - ... parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation with one interest, that of the whole ; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed ; but when you have chosen him he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of Parliament.
Seite 116 - Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
Seite 117 - Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests ; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates ; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole ; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed ; but when you have chosen him he is not a member of Bristol,...
Seite 116 - My worthy colleague says, his will ought to be subservient to yours. If that be all, the thing is innocent. If government were a matter of will upon any side, yours, without question, ought to be superior. But government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination ; and what sort of reason is that, in which the determination precedes the discussion; in which one set of men deliberate, and another decide; and where those who form the conclusion are perhaps three hundred...
Seite 116 - But, his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you ; to any man, or to any set of men living.
Seite iv - Parliament, as affording safe precedent for British legislation, and learned that the drivellers who uttered such nonsense, instead of encountering merited derision, were listened to with patience and approbation, by men as ignorant as themselves, I certainly did feel that another work on America was yet wanted, and at once determined to undertake a task which inferior considerations would probably have induced me to decline.
Seite 193 - These are trees firmly fixed in the bottom of the river, by which vessels are in danger of being impaled. The distinction is, that the former stand upright in the water, the latter lie with their points directed down the stream.
Seite 185 - I should think it quite impossible to penetrate ; yet, I have been assured, the Indians do so for leagues together, though by what means they contrive to guide their course, where vision is manifestly impossible, it is not easy to understand. It has been the fashion with travellers, to talk of the scenery of the Mississippi as wanting grandeur and beauty.
Seite 194 - Even the annual changes which take place in the bed of the Mississippi are very remarkable. Islands spring up and disappear; shoals suddenly present themselves where pilots have been accustomed to deep water; in many places whole acres are swept away from one bank and added to the other; and the pilot assured me, that in every voyage he could perceive fresh changes.
Seite 167 - Cincinnati, however, is a largeGraeco-Moresco-Gothic-Chinese looking building, — an architectural compilation of prettinesses of all sorts, the effect of which is eminently grotesque. Our attention was immediately arrested by this extraordinary apparition, which could scarcely have been more out of place had it been tossed on the earth by some volcano in the moon. While we stood opposite to the edifice, contemplating the gorgeousness of its effect, and speculating

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