Foreign body

“ Many of us have experienced somewhat of the same feeling at home, in the case of persons having foreign blood in their veins. They may speak English like natives, and be imbued with English notions. Yet suddenly they will go off, as it were, at a tangent, showing that, though with us, they are not of us. ”

“ If we turn to the eminent persons of partly foreign blood (those of wholly foreign blood, like Disraeli, the elder Herschel and Romilly, being necessarily excluded from our study) we find that they constitute a very inconsiderable proportion of the whole. ”

“ We wanted something thoroughly and uncompromisingly foreign—foreign from top to bottom—foreign from centre to circumference—foreign inside and outside and all around—nothing anywhere about it to dilute its foreignness—nothing to remind us of any other people or any other land under the sun. ”

“ Secondly, we impress a great variety of sensations ourselves by our hands, according as they are hot or cold, by friction, scratching, &c. and most impressions from foreign bodies will bear some resemblance to some of these. Thirdly, we often see upon what part impressions from foreign bodies are made. Fourthly, when they leave permanent effects, as in wounds, burns, &c. we always examine by feeling, where the impression was made. ”

“ Never, on the one hand, has a nation been so free from foreign military occupancy throughout a history covering more than fifteen centuries, and at the same time, been so influenced by and even subject to foreign psychical environment. ”

“ With us Europeans, as already pointed out, between the claims of religion and of the body, nationality has staked out its domain. But it may be said respecting by far the major portion of humanity, and certainly of the Asiatics, that for them this conception of nationality, as the sphere where the impulses of the body, the reasoning of the mind, and the aspirations of the soul can be co-ordinated for the good of humanity, is new. ”

“ Surgeons employ the term foreign bodies in too general a manner; that which is so for one system, is not for another. Foreign is, in this respect, a term of comparison which we should employ only after a knowledge of the peculiar sensibility of each system, and not after that of this property described in a vague manner. ”

“ I could stalk abroad into foreign lands with a reckless disregard for everybody's toes, and the full assurance that the more toes I stepped on the more honour I would confer upon benighted foreigners, and the more credit I would reflect upon my own benevolent disposition! ”

“ A foreigner does not need more than half as much brain or heart to do twice as well as an American, either at preaching or lecturing. There is for many Americans a bewitchment in a foreign brogue. I do not know but that he may have dined with the queen, or have a few drops of lordly blood distributed through his arteries. ”

“ But if an impracticable European will dangle them about where they ought not to be, he must take the consequences. I find that the only way is to look out for the main chance—to see that the body is safe, and let the legs take care of themselves. ”

“ If a knowledge of other countries and a study of the manners and customs of foreign nations teach us to appreciate what we have at home, they likewise form the best cure of that national conceit and want of sympathy with which we are too apt to look on all that is strange and foreign. ”

“ Nothing that America can do suffices to make an Englishman or a Frenchman or a German out of an American,—the man himself may take on a foreign veneer, but beneath the surface he belongs where blood and birth have placed him. ”

“ Foreign bodies which are propelled into the eye with great force, as iron specks which railroad men frequently get sometimes imbed themselves into the eye-ball and have to be cut out or dug out. The entrance of the foreign particle is always accompanied by a flow of tears which is nature's way of removing them. ”

“ In traveling through foreign lands, one sees so much that is indecent, obscene, and shockingly profane, according to his our way of thinking, that he scarcely knows what to include and what to suppress in his accounts of foreign manners, customs and institutions. ”

“ Under our system of government the foreigner who comes to stay is soon assimilated, and while there may be here and there instances and examples, the outgrowth of foreign habits and customs, not welcome to American notions, yet these can be only passing and temporary accidents. ”

“ I commence the ascent with my body-guard, who appear now to look upon me as a piece of brittle china, and are most anxious to prevent me using my limbs in my own way—they will not let me take a step without their assistance. ”

“ Our travellers and our exquisites imitate the outside of foreign customs without discrimination, just as in the absurd fashion of not eating fish with a knife,borrowed from the French, who do it because they have no knives fit for use. ”

“ Of course, they cannot but view the peculiar habits and customs of all foreign nations with a jaundiced eye, never reflecting that in most countries are to be found, either in a moral or a physical sense, advantages and disadvantages in which others are deficient. ”

“ Moreover, in Europe, where both extremities are used indiscriminately, one forgets the exclusive use of the right hand, the manipulation of the rosary, the abuse of the chair,-your genuine Oriental gathers up his legs, looking almost as comfortable in it as a sailor upon the back of a high-trotting -the rolling gait with the toes straight to the front, the grave look and the habit of pious ejaculations. ”

“ In foreign, as in home relations, we developed a frontier mind, and even to-day, long after our last frontier has been reached, we are still thinking of Europe, as of so many of our internal problems, in terms of this great colonising adventure. ”

“ All these facts, I repeat, only make us feel more keenly how desirable it would be to determine scientifically the conditions which make the existence of our vulnerable race on a foreign land possible. We might then direct our emigrants with the same certainty as that with which a modern captain, who knows their wants, provides for his troops. ”

“ For those who have not been in the East, it may be necessary to mention that the folding the arms on the breast, which in Europe is considered as a posture of meditation and sometimes of defiance, is among Orientals the usual attitude of humility and respect. ”

“ Certainly the true End of visiting Foreign Parts, is to look into their Customs and Policies, and observe in what Particulars they excel or come short of our own; to unlearn some odd Peculiarities in our Manners, and wear off such awkward Stiffnesses and Affectations in our Behaviour, as may possibly have been contracted from constantly associating with one Nation of Men, by a more free, general, and mixed Conversation. ”

“ On all war parties, and often on hunts and other excursions, he carries the head, claws, stuffed skin, or other representative of his medicine with him, and seems to regard it in much the same light that Europeans in former days regarded—and in some cases still regard—protective charms. ”

“ When we see identical and most strange customs, such as particular modes of mutilation of the body, showing themselves among races the most diverse in character and remote geographically, we can not help coming to the conclusion that these customs have either been communicated in some hitherto unexplained manner, or are the outcome of some common element of humanity, in either of which cases they tell nothing of the special relations or affinities of the races which practice them. ”

“ Not only we Americans, who are of British descent, and who never forget that blood is thicker than water, but as well our Continental associates on this platform, of the various strains of blood which, interfused, have produced this English race and fitted it for its noble issues,—we, each and all, I repeat, accept this name of ‘foreigners’ only in the conventional sense which the imperfection of the language imposes. ”

“ Now when a body, like England, can thus think for itself, form its own decisions, take action, establish friendships, fight enemies, and feel deeply, surely that body must possess personality. In ordinary language England is always spoken of as a person. ”

“ The fitting of Western thought to an Oriental race, while it must be chiefly left to the race itself, needs clearly the help of those who are conversant with the best aspects {327} of that Western thought and of its history. ”

“ When travelling, people are naturally of a more eager [26] and excitable temperament than in everyday life, and therefore it costs the European an unspeakable effort to conceal his curiosity, admiration, or any kind of emotion, when brought into intercourse with the indolent orientals, who are for ever indifferent to all and everything around them. ”

“ People will tell you, "Foreigners do this"; "Foreigners do that"; "Foreigners smoke so much"; "Foreigners always take coffee for breakfast." "Indeed," I love to answer; "I've never observed it myself in Central Asia." 'Tis Parson Adams and the Christian religion. Nine English people out of ten, when they talk of Abroad, mean what they call the Continent; and when they talk of the Continent, they mean France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy; in short, the places most visited by Englishmen when they consent now and again to go Abroad for a holiday. ”

“ It is as clear why the Chinese doctor should administer the heads, middles, and roots of plants, as medicine for the heads, bodies, and legs of his patients respectively, and why passages in books looked at while some thought is in the reader's mind, should be taken as omens, from Western Europe to Eastern Asia, in old times and new. ”

“ Foreigners, in like manner, means Frenchmen, Germans, Swiss, Italians. In the country called Abroad, the most important parts are the parts nearest England; of the people called Foreigners, the most important are those who dress like Englishmen. The dim black lands that lie below the horizon are hardly worth noticing.
Would it surprise you to learn that most people live in Asia? ”

“ All the nations of this race, whether European or African, have been distinguished by the same physical marks in the conformation of the head and the color of the skin, and still more by those traits of character—the intellect, the energy, the spirit of determination and pride—which, far from owing their existence to outward circumstances, have always, in all ages, made all outward circumstances bend to them. ”

“ It is the expression of a force which, during thirty years, has been purified, tempered, and trained afresh, and which now appears to prove itself at once passionate and calm.
What are the signs by which any true nationality is to be recognised? Must a nationality have genius, intelligence, and true imagination? ”

“ Thus have we finished our inquiry into the diseases and remedies of the Indians in North-America. We come now to inquire into the diseases and remedies of civilized nations.
Nations differ in their degrees of civilization. We shall select one for the subject of our inquiries [31] which is most familiar to us; I mean the British nation. Here we behold subordination and classes of mankind established by government, commerce, manufactures, and certain customs common to most of the civilized nations of Europe. ”

“ Oh me! where is the purity of heart and perfect charity which should make the incontinent continent by contact with them? It is quite the contrary: many a time the continent and the pure are led by their impurities to try incontinence. ”

“ Round her she groups the less cultivated peoples—the nomads of Asia, the wanderers of the steppe—and arms them with the might of a European organisation which the intellect of Europe, impressed into her service, perfects as a weapon for her use. ”

“ Perhaps the natural antipathy which has so long existed between the Eastern and Western races may somewhat account for this want of intimacy; and also, I fear, we Europeans have often wounded the delicate susceptibilities of our Eastern cousins by our want of tact, and our tendency to treat their manners and customs with ridicule, if not contempt. ”

“ I tell you, madame, a Chinese hath eyes, hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections—yes, affections, passions—fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as you English Christians are! If you prick us, we bleed. If you tickle us, we laugh. If you poison us, we die. ”

“ Without adopting blindly foreign modes in anything merely because they are foreign, surely we should be wise to learn from other nations, who excel us in aught good or useful, all that we can which may tend to remedy viiiour own defects ”

“ While we were staying in their country, did we not think of the French as foreigners? In these chapters, not originally intended for us, we have the piquant and salutary experience of seeing what we look like on at least one occasion when we are the foreigners; we catch at least a glimpse of what to the Orient seems exotic in us, and it does us no harm to observe that the peculiarly Western aspects of our culture are not self-justifying nor always justifiable when looked at through eyes not already disposed in their favour. ”

“ I tell you, sir, the people of Europe cannot comprehend the ties between those two races, because the world has seen nothing like it. The Northern people have no understanding 131 of it, because, sir, their natures are not such as to call forth such loyalty. ”