I shall never love England till she sues to us for help; and, in the meantime, the fewer triumphs she obtains, the better for all the parties. An Englishman in adversity is a very respectable character; he does not lose his dignity, but merely comes to a proper conceit of himself.... I seem to myself like a spy or a traitor, when I meet their eyes, and am conscious that I neither hope nor fear in sympathy with them, although (unless they detect me for an American by my aspect) they look at me in full confidence of sympathy.
ATTRIBUTION:
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864), U.S. author. English Notebooks, entry for October 6, 1854 (1870, revised 1941).
