In a review of 'The Innocents Abroad' in 'The
Saturday Review' (1870), the comparison is made between the Americans
who "do Europe in six weeks" and the most nearly analogous class of
British travellers, with the following interesting conclusions: "The
American is generally the noisier and more actively disagreeable, but,
on the other hand, he often partially redeems his absurdity by a certain
naivete and half-conscious humour. He is often laughing in his sleeve
at his own preposterous brags, and does not take himself quite so
seriously as his British rival. He is vulgar, and even ostentatiously
and atrociously vulgar; but the vulgarity is mixed with a real
shrewdness which rescues it from simple insipidity. We laugh at him,
and we would rather not have too much of his company; but we do not feel
altogether safe in despising him." The lordly condescension and gross
self-satisfaction here betrayed are but preliminaries to the ludicrous
density of the subsequent reflections upon Mark Twain himself: "He
parades his utter ignorance of Continental languages and manners, and
expresses his very original judgments on various wonders of art and
nature with a praiseworthy frankness.
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