I might tell Mark Twain that in France a man who was seen tipsy in his club would immediately see his name canceled from membership.  A man who had settled his fortune on his wife to avoid meeting his creditors would be refused admission into any decent society.  Many a Frenchman has blown his brains out rather than declare himself a bankrupt.  Now would Mark Twain remark to this:  ’An American is not such a fool:  when a creditor stands in his way he closes his doors, and reopens them the following day.  When he has been a bankrupt three times he can retire from business?’]—­It is a good answer.

It relates to manners, customs, and morals—­three things concerning which we can never have exhaustive and determinate statistics, and so the verdicts delivered upon them must always lack conclusiveness and be subject to revision; but you have stated the truth, possibly, as nearly as any one could do it, in the circumstances.  But why did you choose a detail of my question which could be answered only with vague hearsay evidence, and go right by one which could have been answered with deadly facts?—­facts in everybody’s reach, facts which none can dispute.  I asked what France could teach us about government.  I laid myself pretty wide open, there; and I thought I was handsomely generous, too, when I did it.  France can teach us how to levy village and city taxes which distribute the burden with a nearer approach to perfect fairness than is the case in any other land; and she can teach us the wisest and surest system of collecting them that exists.  She can teach us how to elect a President in a sane way; and also how to do it without throwing the country into earthquakes and convulsions that cripple and embarrass business, stir up party hatred in the hearts of men, and make peaceful people wish the term extended to thirty years.  France can teach us—­but enough of that part of the question.  And what else can France teach us?  She can teach us all the fine arts—­and does.  She throws open her hospitable art academies, and says to us, “Come”—­and we come, troops and troops of our young and gifted; and she sets over us the ablest masters in the world and bearing the greatest names; and she, teaches us all that we are capable of learning, and persuades us and encourages us with prizes and honors, much as if we were somehow children of her own; and when this noble education is finished and we are ready to carry it home and spread its gracious ministries abroad over our nation, and we come with homage and gratitude and ask France for the bill—­there is nothing to pay.  And in return for this imperial generosity, what does America do?  She charges a duty on French works of art!

I wish I had your end of this dispute; I should have something worth talking about.  If you would only furnish me something to argue, something to refute—­but you persistently won’t.  You leave good chances unutilized and spend your strength in proving and establishing unimportant things.  For instance, you have proven and established these eight facts here following—­a good score as to number, but not worth while: