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There are some natures which never grow large enough to speak out and
say a bad act is a bad act, until they have inquired into the politics
of the nationality of the man who did it. And they are not really scarce,
either. Cain is branded a murderer so heartily and unanimously in America,
only because he was neither a Democrat nor a Republican. The Feejee Islander's
abuse of Cain ceased very suddenly when the white man mentioned casually
that Cain was a Feejee Islander. The next remark of the savage, after
an awkward pause, was: "Well, what did Abel come fooling around there
for?"
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The English, the arrogant nation. The Americans the material nation, the Germans
the patient nation, the Russians the unclassifiable nation, the French the volatile
nation, the Scotch the thrifty nation, the Italians the hot-blooded kind-hearted
nation, the Irish the nation of chaste women.
- Mark Twain's Notebook
There is but one first thing to do when a man is wounded and suffering: relieve
him. If we have a curiosity to know his nationality, that is a matter of no
consequence, and can wait.
- Mark Twain's Notebook
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