Middletown transcript., 1884-02-22
The Right of Discovery.

| we Inlay Jake IL lOi SIduI6u CHdG
every nation dislikes to be "discov-
ered." To suffer this carries with it
the imputation of inferiority. There
is always certain conceit and assump-
tion in the act of discovery. 1t says
that we who make the discovery are
known, and we condescend to intro
duce you into the circle of the world
that is known. Often the discovery is
nothing more than an exhibition of the
| ignorance of those who make it but
this does not trouble the discoverers.
The sublime conceit of the Greeks that
all outside their own confederacy was
barbarian was not disturbed by finding
in Egypt civilization older and a re-
fnement superior to their own. The
early adventures and missionaries who
penetrated China really thought they
were introducing to the world and its
privileges land whose people had been
highly organized thousands of years be-
fore Europe began to emerge from bar
barism, who had discovered gunpowder,
and invented printing, and knew how
to make porcelain. 1t was China that
should have discovered Europe. The
Parisians in modern times are the sue
cessors of the Athenians in possessing
this patent right of discovery. There
is nothing amusing to Partisan in the
air with which Theopile Gautier crosses
the barriers of his city and sets out
into the provinces on voyage Of dis
covery, and with heroic self-sacriice
pushes on into the unknown land of
Spain. The Parisians are, perhaps, the
only Occidental people who are abso-
lutely Indifferent to the pretense of out
side people to discover Paris, and show
no sensitiYeness to foreign opinion of
their. city. We in America have been
good deal discovered and ought to be
used to the process by this time. The
Indians were unduly thin-skinned under
it, and perhaps their successors have
inherited some of their rsensitivenes-at
least that is the impression in Europe.
1t is exhibited in dislike to be gazed at
and described as something new and
wild. Europe was for a long time
content with its early impressions
vast forests, buffaloes, red men, a So
ciety of barbarism, tempered by the
and the rifle. Unfortu-
ateeiiyy ateeiiyy fer fer HHs H, It has begun 10 be sns-
pected in these later days that this opin-
ion needs revisal, and the duty is laid
upon inquisitive philosophical souls of
rediscovering America, of inspecting
its institutions, of reporting upon the
looks and manners of the women-al-
ways fruitful topic with your true
discoverer-and of accounting gener-
ally for this American phenomenon.
The English show the most commenda-
BILE zeal in this duty, and enter upon it
according to their lights, from the
Trollopes down to the Spencers. They
are amused, they are grieved, they are
they praise, they admonish,
they predict. But in all this there is a
genuine desire to make us known to
the world, and to make us part of it,
for which we always struggle to be
grateful. What deeply wounds US,
however, is that when we send over a
a Hawthorne or an Emer-
sen to report on England, we are met
with sort of well-bred stare, as if we
are not one of the favored peoples who
have any share in this patent right of
other people.-CHARLEs
DUDLEYWARNER, in Harper's Maga-
zine for Narch.