And now finally I must uncover the secret pain, the wee sore from which
the Reply grew--the anecdote which closed my recent article--and consider
how it is that this pimple has spread to these cancerous dimensions.
If any but you had dictated the Reply, M. Bourget, I would know that that
anecdote was twisted around and its intention magnified some hundreds of
times, in order that it might be used as a pretext to creep in the back
way. But I accuse you of nothing--nothing but error. When you say that
I "retort by calling France a nation of bastards," it is an error. And
not a small one, but a large one. I made no such remark, nor anything
resembling it. Moreover, the magazine would not have allowed me to use
so gross a word as that.
You told an anecdote. A funny one--I admit that. It hit a foible of our
American aristocracy, and it stung me--I admit that; it stung me sharply.
It was like this: You found some ancient portraits of French kings in the
gallery of one of our aristocracy, and you said:
"He has the Grand Monarch, but where is the portrait of his grandfather?"
That is, the American aristocrat's grandfather.
Now that hits only a few of us, I grant--just the upper crust only--but
it hits exceedingly hard.
I wondered if there was any way of getting back at you. In one of your
chapters I found this chance:
"In our high Parisian existence, for instance, we find applied to arts
and luxury, and to debauchery, all the powers and all the weaknesses of
the French soul.
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