The Southerners were courageous, but perhaps a man of courage does not make a good soldier. Courage alone could not make you a good soldier, I said, not any more than patience alone could make you a good fisherman. Courage might make a man blind to risk, and an excess of courage, without caution, could be fatal. That's why no one really thinks much of the Americans. If America were a military power instead of a commercial empire, people would look up to it.
People look at America and all they see are traveling salesmen.
So they laugh. He fluttered his hands, snatched with them, and changed the subject. After Texas, I took the train to Mexico. They are so nationalistic. And they hate the Spanish.