gyveless

Updated: May 21, 2025

The American's concept of himself, as we have seen, is sometimes anything but accurate; in this case he errs almost as greatly as when he venerates himself as the prince of freemen, with gyveless wrists and flashing eyes. As for the foreigner, what he falls into is the typically Freudian blunder of projecting his own worst weakness into another.

H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken - The American Credo: A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind