In my travels on the whole route from New York to Charleston, I
discovered a most unjustifiable and impertinent disposition to pry into
the business of others. If I was questioned once, I am sure I was at
least fifty times, by my fellow--travellers from time to time as to my
motive for visiting America, and my intended proceedings. I found,
however', that a certain reserve was an efficient remedy. Captain
Waterton, of South American celebrity, as an ornithologist, and who
visited North America in his travels, mentions that if you confide your
affairs and intentions when questioned, the Americans reciprocate that
confidence by relating their own. My own experience, however, did not
corroborate this view of the case, for, though loquacious in the
extreme, and gifted, so that to use a Yankee phrase, they would "talk a
dog's hind-leg off," they are in general cautious not to divulge their
secrets. To say the least of it, the habit of prying into the business
of others, is one totally unbecoming a well-ordered state of society,
which the American, speaking generally, is decidedly not.
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