The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-03-05
The Hsrald's Inauguration Stories.


to personal happiness, and nation composed
of highly sensitive human particles is likely
to be one liable to attacks of furious choler
| and corresponding reactions to sullenness and
dependency This description does not by
any means fit the American people 1t may
be applied with more or less precision
to Spain but, as general thing,
the nations are emancipating them
selves from this thin-skinnedness, and
resting their Interpretation on the solid
ground of enlightened introspection. This
may be looked at cynically as simply the COM
placency of egotism as opposed to the egotism
Of loneliness, pugnacity and Righteousness
generally NJ Taine, speaking of certain
well-known type of English character, hits it
off happily as ''the hypertrophy of the ego"
Now, this happens to be the foundation
on which some European writer's
have constructed the typical American.
He is made SO excessively proud
of his immense country its bird of freedom
and its Stars and Stripes as to be totally imper-
vious to ridicule or satire. Neither the SUPER
sensitive nor the pachydermatous cast of mind
| to our thinking, hits off the representative
citizen of the Republic, although at times he
gravitates to one extreme or the other. We
feel ourselves strong and we do not like to see
it unnecessarily doubted; but at the same time
we have happy knack of satirizing and laugh
ing at ourselves that bewilders the foreigner
when he contemplates the two feelings in Wig
orous action at the same time.
VIZ. u, =
to the two accounts of the Inauguration cere-
monies at Washington yesterday, which we
publish in to-day's HERALD. Written as they
are by men, each representative of a peculiar
bent Of mind that views matters from vastly
differing standpoints, they will furnish to our
readers an instructive moral of how differingly
two intelligences of a high ORDER with similar
| object can see the same event. In the
account supplied by Mr.. Yates we may
descry in conscientious guise something that
| gives us the giftie TO see ourselves as ithers
see us. 1t remains to be seen, when his crisp
story has been crunched between the national
teeth and digested, whether it will free us from
any foolish notions. Yankee or otherwise,
Mr. Piatt, on the other hand-and gloveless
one---plunges without any misgivings IN medias
| res at once. ellis not to reason why"
Drawing his steel pen, he spurs his Pc
gasus up to the saluting battery, where
salvos of popular poppycock are being
fired in honor of the outgoing and incoming
President. There will be found grim salts
faction in turning from the Englishma MS
deliberate and successful sharpshooting from
behind the British constitution to the chival-
rous Don as, with big guns to the right Of
him, big guns to the left of him and big guns
in front Of him, buncombing and laundering,
flashes his steel pen bare; flashes as t turns
in air, sabring big gunners there like whole
six hundred.
1t will be seen that Mr.. Yates is con-
siderate enough to let fall some pearly
tears upon the page which chronicles our
shortcomings in the show line. This is as
it should be. There is something in American
shows which requires the steady influence of
time before they can be appreciated. Who
| has not heard of the tourist who is disap-
pointed on his first view of Niagara? We
have heard of tourists in California, who,
after having had every joint dislocated in the
journey to the Big Trees at Calaveras, declared
the giant Sequoya swindle on first sight. But
they grew upon the tourists-both Niagara
and Big Trees-until the wonder-seekers
found themselves surfeted with wood or
water, as the case might be. May not we hope
that, if Mr. Yates stops long enough in our
midst to sec o dozen or two Presiden-
tial inaugurations, he will find the cele-
bration Of this year grow upon him
like our great waterfall or our man.
moth trees upon more susceptible mortals.
If he penned his account to-day perhaps he
might modify his verdict. Perhaps, again,
he would not, and we, therefore, shall look
at his finding of "failure in the first degree"
with all the consolatory balm We can muster
under such O shock to our feelings. In
Mr.. Piatts account let us look for
some of that soothing anodyne which
Mr.. Yates Historical mindedness'' has rem
dered so necessary. Mr.. Piatt can afford to
make things look little more out of joint
than they really may have been. MIR.
Yates declares that things at their very best
were but microscopic esculents compared with
things he had seen in more gorgeous quarters
of the globe. Better he Thinks have
the President ride up, as President
once did, tie his horse to a fence,
go through the talk and the swear and go
home than have such penny-trumpet affair
as we had yesterday We feel almost ashamed
OF ourselves when we ruminate on this. We
should have had 'triumphal arches here and
there; Venetian masts, with brilliant pendant
streamers windows and balconies gayly
decorated wreaths of evergreens suspended
here and there across the Streets" Why did we
not have them? Mr.. Piatt, why did you not,
Ouf Of vour wall Of inflammation ipst;pofivalv