"
We have all heard it many and many a time. It was a proud
distinction to be able to say those words. It brought envy to
the speaker, a kind of glory; and he basked in it and was happy
through all his veins. And who was it he stood so close to?
The answer would cover all the grades. Sometimes it was a king;
sometimes it was a renowned highwayman; sometimes it was an unknown
man killed in an extraordinary way and made suddenly famous by it;
always it was a person who was for the moment the subject of public
interest of a village.
"I was there, and I saw it myself." That is a common and
envy-compelling remark. It can refer to a battle; to a handing;
to a coronation; to the killing of Jumbo by the railway-train;
to the arrival of Jenny Lind at the Battery; to the meeting of the
President and Prince Henry; to the chase of a murderous maniac;
to the disaster in the tunnel; to the explosion in the subway;
to a remarkable dog-fight; to a village church struck by lightning.
It will be said, more or less causally, by everybody in America who has
seen Prince Henry do anything, or try to. The man who was absent
and didn't see him to anything, will scoff. It is his privilege;
and he can make capital out of it, too; he will seem, even to himself,
to be different from other Americans, and better. As his opinion
of his superior Americanism grows, and swells, and concentrates
and coagulates, he will go further and try to belittle the distinction
of those that saw the Prince do things, and will spoil their pleasure
in it if he can.
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