The description sketches a national temperament as it appeared to a European newcomer. Friendliness, confidence and optimism are treated as habits of manner rather than individual traits, and the dash before the final term marks it as the point of the sentence.

The absence of envy is the observation that carries weight. In societies with settled hierarchies, another person’s advancement can be read as a loss of one’s own position. Where status is understood as open and mobile, success elsewhere may instead be taken as evidence of what is possible, prompting emulation rather than resentment.