They must have aged
suddenly over there, for they were not that way when I was a boy.
The real fact was that somehow they could not get it into their
heads that a European bully could be whipped in one round by "the
States." They insisted on printing ridiculous despatches about
Spanish victories. I think there was something about codfish, too,
something commercial about corks and codfish--Iceland keeping Spain
on a fish diet in Lent, in return for which she corked the Danish
beer--I have forgotten the particulars. The bottom fact was
a distrust of the United States that was based upon a curiously
stubborn ignorance, entirely without excuse in a people of high
intelligence like the Danes. I tried hard as a correspondent to
draw a reasonable, human picture of American affairs, but it seemed
to make no impression. They would jump at the Munchausen stories
that are always afloat, as if America were some sort of menagerie
and not a Christian country. I think nothing ever aggravated me
as did an instance of that kind the year Ben Butler ran for the
Presidency.
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