Note 65 — JOURNAL. (continued 4)

The militia has fallen into disrepute of late in New York and Philadelphia. Trainings and parades take too much of the precious time, whose minutes are cents, and hours dollars. The only instance of humour, national or individual, which I have witnessed since my abode in this country, was a sham parade got up in mimicry of the real one here described. In this grotesque procession, every man was dressed in the most absurd costume he could devise: banners with the most ludicrous inscriptions, wooden swords of gigantic dimensions, and children's twopenny guns, were some of their paraphernalia; and, in the absurd and monstrous objects the men had made of themselves, with false whiskers, beards, and noses, I recognised some of the broad, coarse, powerful humour of the lower orders in the old country. But it is the only symptom of such a spirit which I have met with. The absolute absence of imagination, of course, is also the absolute absence of humour. An American can no more understand a fanciful jest than a poetical idea; and in society and conversation the strictest matter of fact prevails: for any thing departing from it, though but an inch, either towards the sublime or the ridiculous, becomes immediately incomprehensible to your auditors, who will stare at your enthusiasm, and sincerely ask you the meaning of your jest.