That a commandment should be committed to memory seemed just.  I was prepared to submit to the severest tests of verbal accuracy.  But that there should be “reasons annexed,” and that these also should be remembered, seemed to my youthful understanding a grievance.  It made the path of the obedient hard.  To this day there is a haziness about the “reasons” that contrasts with the sharp outlines of the commandments.

I fancy that news-gatherers have the same experience.  They are diligent in collecting items of news and reporting them to the world, but it is a real hardship to them to have to give any rational account of these bits of fact.  They tell what is done in different parts of the world, but they forget to mention “the moving why they did it.”  The consequence is that, in this age of instantaneous communication, we know what is going on in other countries, but it seems very irrational.  The rational elements have been lost in the process of transmission.

There has, for example, been no lack of news cabled across the Atlantic in regard to the nominations for President of the United States.  The European reader is made aware that a great deal of strong feeling has been evoked, and strong language used.  When a picturesque term of reproach has been hurled by one candidate at another it is promptly reported to a waiting world.  But the “reasons annexed” are calmly ignored.  The consequence is that the reader is confirmed in his exaggerated idea of the nervous irritability of the American people.  There seems to be a periodicity in their seizures.  At intervals of four years they indulge in an orgy of mutual recrimination, and then suddenly return to their normal state of money-getting.  It is all very unaccountable.  Doubtless the most charitable explanation is the climate.

It was after giving prominence to an unusually vivid bit of political vituperation that a conservative London newspaper remarked, “All this is characteristically American, but it shocks the unaccustomed ears of Europe.”

As I read the rebuke I felt positively ashamed of my country and its untutored ways.  I pictured Europe as a dignified lady of mature years listening to the screams issuing from her neighbor’s nursery.  She had not been used to hearing naughty words called out in such a loud tone of voice.  Instead of discussing their grievances calmly, they were actually calling one another names.

It was therefore with a feeling of chastened humility that I turned to the columns devoted to the more decorous doings of Europe.  Here I should find examples worthy of consideration.  They are drawn from the homes of ancient civility.  Would that our rude politicians might be brought under these refining influences and learn how to behave!

But alas!  When we drop in upon our neighbors, unannounced, things are sometimes not so tidy as they are on the days “at home.”  The hostess is flustered and evidently has troubles of her own.  So, as ill-luck would have it, it is with Dame Europe’s household.  The visitor from across the Atlantic is surprised at the obstreperousness of the more vigorous members of the family.  Evidently a great many interesting things are going on, but the standard of deportment is not high.