“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.  My life has been embittered by that kind of person.  If you are able to tell of a special distinction that has fallen to your lot, it gravels them; they cannot bear it; and they try to make believe that the thing you took for a special distinction was nothing of the kind and was meant in quite another way.  Once I was received in private audience by an emperor.  Last week I was telling a jealous person about it, and I could see him wince under it, see him bite, see him suffer.  I revealed the whole episode to him with considerable elaboration and nice attention to detail.  When I was through, he asked me what had impressed me most.  I said: 

“His Majesty’s delicacy.  They told me to be sure and back out from the presence, and find the door-knob as best I could; it was not allowable to face around.  Now the Emperor knew it would be a difficult ordeal for me, because of lack of practice; and so, when it was time to part, he turned, with exceeding delicacy, and pretended to fumble with things on his desk, so I could get out in my own way, without his seeing me.”

It went home!  It was vitriol!  I saw the envy and disgruntlement rise in the man’s face; he couldn’t keep it down.  I saw him try to fix up something in his mind to take the bloom off that distinction.  I enjoyed that, for I judged that he had his work cut out for him.  He struggled along inwardly for quite a while; then he said, with a manner of a person who has to say something and hasn’t anything relevant to say: 

“You said he had a handful of special-brand cigars on the table?”

“Yes; I never saw anything to match them.”

I had him again.  He had to fumble around in his mind as much as another minute before he could play; then he said in as mean a way as I ever heard a person say anything: 

“He could have been counting the cigars, you know.”

I cannot endure a man like that.  It is nothing to him how unkind he is, so long as he takes the bloom off.  It is all he cares for.