He found, however, that he could not begin at the point he had chosen
without striking upon roots and rudely severing them, which had struck
deeply into the soil of all the earlier periods of our existence. His
plan was therefore enlarged.
The breaking out of the rebellion was a sad blow to him--it could not
have been more so to an American. It was likely not only to spoil _our_
country, but _his_ history of it. It either cut off or dimmed or
confused that prospect of growth and expansion which had been stretched
out interminably before him. He read the daily London _Times_--he had
for years taken the New York _Herald_, and his reliance upon this sheet
had been rather too implicit. Years before the breaking out of the
rebellion, I had suggested this, and introduced to him the New York
_Times_ and _Evening Post_, one of which he has taken ever since, not,
however, without occasional intervals of sighing for his old companion
the _Herald_, much as his ancestors, after having left Egypt, sighed
for its leeks and onions. Although he coupled the _Herald_ and London
_Times_--_par nobile fratrum_--as joint sharers of a favorite epithet of
his--_great liars_--he still liked to read them.
Dr. Neumann had been a Democrat in his politics--for he was familiar
with our distinctions in this country--but since the outbreak of the
rebellion he has scarcely known where to place himself.
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