Our only retort to the good-humoured ridicule with which we
are occasionally treated is to adopt an affected strut, and to carry it
off as if we were the finest fellows in the world. We make a boast of
our shame, and say, if you laugh we must crow. But we don't really mean
anything: if we did, the only word which the English language would
afford wherewith to describe us would be the very unpleasant antithesis
to wise men, and certainly I hold that we have the average amount of
common sense. When, therefore, I see us taken to task for swaggering, I
think it a trifle hard that this merely playful affectation of
superiority should be made a serious fault. For the future I would
promise to be careful, if it were worth avoiding the misunderstanding of
men who won't take a joke. Meanwhile, I can only state that when Alpine
travellers indulge in a little swagger about their own performances and
other people's incapacity, they don't mean more than an infinitesimal
fraction of what they say, and that they know perfectly well that when
history comes to pronounce a final judgment upon the men of the time, it
won't put mountain-climbing on a level with patriotism, or even with
excellence in the fine arts.
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