The merchants are dissatisfied. If money, if success, apart from the

object, could give happiness, who would be so happy as the merchants of

America? In comparison with merchants generally, they are happy: but in

comparison with what men are made to be, they are shackled, careworn,

and weary as the slave. I obtained many a glimpse into the condition of

mind of this class; and, far superior as it is to what the state of

large classes is in the Old World, it is yet full of toil and trouble.

In New York, some friends, wishing to impress me with a conviction of

the enviable lives of American ladies, told me how the rich merchants

take handsome houses in the upper part of the city, and furnish them

splendidly for their wives: how these gentlemen rise early, snatch their

breakfasts, hurry off two or three miles to their counting-houses,

bustle about in the heat and dust, noise and traffic of Pearl Street all

the long summer's day, and come home in the evening, almost too wearied

to eat or speak; while their wives, for whose sake they have thus been

toiling after riches, have had the whole day to water their flowers,

read the last English novel, visit their acquaintance, and amuse

themselves at the milliner's; paying, perhaps, 100 dollars for the

newest Paris bonnet. The representation had a different effect from what

was expected. It appeared to me that if the ladies prefer their

husbands' society to that of morning visitors and milliners, they are

quite as much to be pitied as their husbands, that such a way of

consuming life is considered necessary or honourable. If they would

prefer to wear bonnets costing a dollar a-piece, and having some

enjoyment of domestic life, their fate is mournful; if they prefer

hundred dollar bonnets to the enjoyment of domestic life, their lot is

the most mournful of all. In either case, they and their husbands cannot

but be restless and dissatisfied.

I was at a ball in New York, the splendour of which equalled that of

any entertainment I ever witnessed. A few days after, the lady who gave

the ball asked me whether I did not disapprove of the show and luxury of

their society. I replied, that of whatever was done for mere show, I did

disapprove; but that I liked luxury, and approved of it, as long as the

pleasures of some did not encroach on the rights of others.

"But," said she, "our husbands have to pay for it all. They work very

hard."

"I suppose it is their own choice to do so. I should make a different

choice, perhaps; but if they prefer hard work and plenty of money to

indulge their families with, to moderate work and less money, I do not

see how you can expect me to blame them."

"O, but we all live beyond our incomes."

"In that case, your pleasures encroach on the rights of others, and I

have no more to say."

If this be true, how should this class be otherwise than restless and

dissatisfied?

Are the mechanic and farming classes satisfied? No: not even they:

outwardly blessed as they are beyond any class that society has ever

contained. They, too, are aware that life must be meant to be passed far

otherwise than in providing the outward means of living. They must be

aware that though, by great industry, they can obtain some portion of

time for occupations which are not money-getting, there must be

something wrong in the system which compels men to devote almost the

whole of their waking hours to procure that which, under a different

combination of labour, might be obtained at a saving of three-fourths of

the time. Whether their thoughts have been expressly turned to this

subject or not, almost all the members of society are conscious that

care for their external wants is so engrossing as to absorb almost all

other cares; and that they would most thankfully agree to work in their

vocation for the community for a short portion of every day, on

condition of being spared all future anxiety about their physical

necessities. They who best know the blessings inseparable from toil; who

are aware that the inner life is nourished by the activity of the outer,

yet perceive of what infinite consequence it is to their progress that

this activity should be varied in its objects, and separated as far as

possible from association with physical necessities, and selfish

possession. The poor man is rightly instructed, in the present state of

things, when he is told that it is his first duty to provide for his own

wants. The lesson is at present true, because the only alternative is

encroachment on the rights of others: but it is a very low lesson in

comparison with that which will be taught in the days when mutual and

self-perfection will be the prevalent idea which the civilisation of the

time will express. No thinking man or woman, who reflects on the amount

of time, thought, and energy, which would be set free by the pressure of

competition and money-getting being removed,--time, thought, and energy

now spent in wearing out the body, and in partially stimulating and

partially wasting the mind, can be satisfied under the present system.

In England, the prevalent dissatisfaction must subsist a long time

before anything effectual can be done to relieve it. The English are

hampered with institutions in which the rights of individual property

are involved in almost hopeless intricacy. Though clear-sighted persons

perceive that property is the great harbourage of crime and misery, the

adversary of knowledge, the corrupter of peace, the extinguisher of

faith and charity; though they perceive that institutions for the

regulation of outward affairs all follow the same course, being first

necessary, then useful, then useless, pernicious, and finally

intolerable,--that property is thus following the same course as

slavery, which was once necessary, and is now intolerable,--as monarchy,

which was once necessary, and is now useless, if not pernicious: though

all this is clearly perceived by many far-seeing persons in England,

they can do nothing but wait till the rest of society sees it too. They

must be and are well content to wait; since no changes are desirable but

those which proceed from the ripened mind and enlightened will of

society. Thus it is in England. In America the process will be more

rapid. The democratic principles of their social arrangements, operating

already to such an equalisation of property as has never before been

witnessed, are favourable to changes which are indeed necessary to the

full carrying out of the principles adopted. When the people become

tired of their universal servitude to worldly anxiety,--when they have

fully meditated and discussed the fact that ninety-nine hundredths of

social offences arise directly out of property; that the largest

proportion of human faults bear a relation to selfish possession; that

the most formidable classes of diseases are caused by over or under

toil, and by anxiety of mind; they will be ready for the inquiry whether

this tremendous incubus be indeed irremovable; and whether any

difficulties attending its removal can be comparable to the evils it

inflicts. In England, the people have not only to rectify the false

principles of barbarous policy, but to surmount the accumulation of

abuses which they have given out: a work, perhaps, of ages. In America,

the people have not much more to do (the will being once ripe) than to

retrace the false steps which their imitation of the old world has led

them to take. Their accumulation of abuses is too small to be a serious

obstacle in the way of the united will of a nation.

It is objected that the majority of society in America would have a

horror of any great change like that contemplated: and that, though in

bondage to worldly anxiety, they are unconscious of their servitude, or

reconciled to it. Well: as long as this is the case, they have no change

to dread; for all such alteration must proceed from their own will.

There is no power upon earth from which they have any compulsion to

fear. Yet it may be allowed to their friends to speculate upon the

better condition which is believed to await them. When we look at a

caterpillar, we like to anticipate the bright day when it will be a

butterfly. If we could talk about it with the caterpillar, it would

probably be terrified at the idea, and plead the exceeding danger of

being high up in the air. We do not desire or endeavour to force or

hasten the process: yet the caterpillar becomes a butterfly, without any

final objection on its own part.

The principal fear, expressed or concealed, of those who dislike the

mere mention of the outgrowth of individual property is lest they should

be deprived of their occupations, objects, and interests. But no such

deprivation can take place till they will have arrived at preferring

other interests than money, and at pursuing their favourite occupation

with other views than of obtaining wealth. "O, what shall I ever do

without my currant leaves?" might the caterpillar exclaim. "How shall I

ever get rid of the day, if I must not crawl along the twigs any more?"

By the time it has done with crawling, it finds a pair of wings

unfolding, which make crawling appear despicable in comparison. It is

conscious, also, of a taste for nectar, which is better than

currant-leaves, be they of the juiciest. Men may safely dismiss all

care about the future gratification of their tastes under new

circumstances, as long as it happens to be the change of tastes which

brings about the change of circumstances, the incompatibility between

the two being lessened at every transition.

As for the details of the future economy indicated, it will be time

enough for them when the idea which now burns like a taper in scattered

minds shall have caught, and spread, and lighted up all into an

illumination sufficient to do the work by. Whenever a healthy hunger

enables the popular mind to assimilate a great principle, there are

always strong and skilful hands enough to do the requisite work.

SECTION III.

INTERCOURSE.

The manners of the Americans (in America) are the best I ever saw: and

these are seen to the greatest advantage in their homes, and as to the

gentlemen, in travelling. But for the drawback of inferior health, I

know of no such earthly paradise as some of the homes in which I have

had the honour and blessing of spending portions of the two years of my

absence. The hospitality of the country is celebrated; but I speak now

of more than usually meets the eye of a stranger; of the family manners,

which travellers have rarely leisure or opportunity to observe. If I am

asked what is the peculiar charm, I reply with some hesitation: there

are so many. But I believe it is not so much the outward plenty, or the

mutual freedom, or the simplicity of manners, or the incessant play of

humour, which characterise the whole people, as the sweet temper which

is diffused like sunshine over the land. They have been called the most

good-tempered people in the world: and I think they must be so. The

effect of general example is here most remarkable. I met, of course,

with persons of irritable temperament; with hot-tempered, and with

fidgetty people; with some who were disposed to despotism, and others to

contradiction: but it was delightful to see how persons thus afflicted

were enabled to keep themselves in order; were so wrought upon by the

general example of cheerful helpfulness as to be restrained from

clouding their homes by their moods. I have often wondered what the

Americans make of European works of fiction in which ailing tempers are

exhibited. European fiction does not represent such in half the extent

and variety in which they might be truly and profitably exhibited: but I

have often wondered what the Americans make of them, such as they are.

They possess the initiatory truth, in the variety of temperaments which

exists among themselves, as everywhere else; and in the moods of

children: but the expansion of deformed tempers in grown people must

strike them as monstrous caricatures.

Of course, there must be some general influence which sweetens or

restrains the temper of a whole nation, of the same Saxon race which is

not everywhere so amiable. I imagine that the practice of forbearance

requisite in a republic is answerable for this pleasant peculiarity. In

a republic, no man can in theory overbear his neighbour; nor, as he

values his own rights, can he do it much or long in practice. If the

moral independence of some, of many, sinks under this equal pressure

from all sides, it is no little set-off against such an evil that the

outbreaks of domestic tyranny are thereby restrained; and that the

respect for mutual rights which citizens have perpetually enforced upon

them abroad, comes thence to be observed towards the weak and

unresisting in the privacy of home.

Some may find it difficult to reconcile this prevalence of good temper

with the amount of duelling in the United States; with the recklessness

of life which is not confined to the semi-barbarous parts of the

country. When it is understood that in New Orleans there were fought, in

1834, more duels than there are days in the year, fifteen on one Sunday

morning; that in 1835, there were 102 duels fought in that city between

the 1st of January and the end of April; and that no notice is taken of

shooting in a quarrel; when the world remembers the duel between Clay

and Randolph; that Hamilton fell in a duel; and several more such

instances, there may be some wonder that a nation where such things

happen, should be remarkably good-tempered. But New Orleans is no rule

for any place but itself. The spirit of caste, and the fear of

imputation, rage in that abode of heathen licentiousness. The duels

there are, almost without exception, between boys for frivolous causes.

All but one of the 102 were so. And even on the spot, there is some

feeling of disgust and shame at the extent of the practice. A Court of

Honour was instituted for the restraint of the practice; of course,

without effectual result. Its function degenerated into choosing weapons

for the combatants, so that it ended by sanctioning, instead of

repressing, duelling. Those who fight the most frequently and fatally

are the French creoles, who use small swords.

The extreme cases which afford the clearest reading of the folly and

wickedness of the practice,--of the meanness of the fear which lies at

the bottom of it,--are producing their effect. The young men who go

into the west to be the founders of new societies are in some instances

taking their responsibility to heart, and resolving to use well their

great opportunity for substituting a true for a false, a moral for a

physical courage. The dreadful affair at Philadelphia, never to be

forgotten there, when a quiet, inoffensive young man, the only child of

a widowed mother, was forced out into the field, against his strongest

remonstrances, made to stand up, and shot through the heart, could not

but produce its effect. One of the principal agents was degraded in the

American navy, (but has been since reinstated,) and none of the parties

concerned has ever stood as well with society as other men since.

Hamilton's fall, again, has opened men's eyes to the philosophy of

duelling, and is working to that purpose, more and more. At the time, it

was pretty generally agreed that he could not help fighting; now, there

are few who think so. His correspondence with his murderer, previous to

the duel, is remarkable. Having been told, on my entrance into the

country, that Hamilton had been its "greatest man," I was interested in

seeing what a greater than Washington could say in excuse for risking

his life in so paltry a way. I read his correspondence with Colonel Burr

with pain. There is fear in every line of it; a complicated, disgraceful

fear. He was obviously perishing between two fears--of losing his life,

and of not being able to guard his own honour against the attacks of a

ruffian. Between these two fears he fell. I was talking over the

correspondence with a duelling gentleman, "O," said he, "Hamilton went

out like a capuchin." So the "greatest man" did not obtain even that for

which he threw away what he knew was considered the most valuable life

in the country. This is as it should be. When contempt becomes the

wages of slavery to a false idea of honour, it will cease to stand in

the way of the true; and "greatest men" will not end their lives in

littleness.

Certain extreme cases which occur on the semi-barbarous confines of the

country come occasionally in aid of such lessons as those I have cited.

A passenger on board the "Henry Clay," in which I ascended the

Mississippi, showed in perfection the results of a false idea of honour.

He belonged to one of the first families in Kentucky, had married well,

and settled at Natchez, Mississippi. His wife was slandered by a

resident of Natchez, who, refusing to retreat, was shot dead by the

husband, who fled to Texas. The wife gathered their property together,

followed her husband, was shipwrecked below New Orleans, and lost all.

Her wants were supplied by kind persons at New Orleans, and she was

forwarded by them to her destination, but soon died of cholera. Her

husband went up into Missouri, and settled in a remote part of it to

practise law; but with a suspicion that he was dogged by the relations

of the man he had shot. One day he met a man muffled in a cloak, who

engaged with him, shot him in both sides, and stabbed him with an

Arkansas knife. The victim held off the knife from wounding him mortally

till help came, and his foe fled. The wounded man slowly recovered; but

his right arm was so disabled as to compel him to postpone his schemes

of revenge. He ascertained that his enemy had fled to Texas; followed

him there; at length met him, one fine evening, riding, with his

double-barrelled gun before him. They knew each other instantly: the

double-barrelled gun was raised and pointed; but before it could be

fired, its owner fell from the saddle, shot dead like the brother he had

sought to avenge. The murderer was flying up the river once more when I

saw him, not doubting that he should again be dogged by some relation of

the brothers he had shot. Some of the gentlemen on board believed that

if he surrendered himself at Natchez, he would be let off with little or

no punishment, and allowed to settle again in civilised society; but he

was afraid of the gallows, and intended to join some fur company in the

north-west, if he could; and if he failed in this, to make himself a

chief of a tribe of wandering Indians.

This story may be useful to those (if such there be) for whom the

catastrophe of Hamilton is not strong enough. The two cases differ in

degree, not in kind.

That such hubbub as this is occasioned by a false idea of honour, and

not by fault of temper, is made clear by the amiability shown by

Americans, in all cases where their idea of honour is not concerned. In

circumstances of failure and disappointment, delay, difficulty, and

other provocation, they show great self-command. In all cases that I

witnessed, from the New York fire, and baffled legislation, down to the

being "mired" in bad roads, they appeared to be proof against

irritation. Sometimes this went further than I could quite understand.

While travelling in Virginia, we were anxious one day to push on, and

waste no time. Our "exclusive extra" drew up before a single house,

where we were to breakfast. We told the landlady that we were

excessively hungry, and in some hurry, and that we should be obliged by

her giving us anything she happened to have cooked, without waiting for

the best she could do for us. The woman was the picture of laziness, of

the most formal kind. She kept us waiting till we thought of going on

without eating. When summoned to table, at length, we asked the driver

to sit down with us, to save time. Never did I see a more ludicrous

scene than that breakfast. The lady at the tea-tray, tossing the great

bunch of peacocks' feathers, to keep off the flies, and as solemn as

Rhadamanthus. So was our whole party, for fear of laughter from which we

should not be able to recover. Everything on the table was sour; it

seemed as if studiously so. The conflict between our appetites and the

disgust of the food was ridiculous. We all presently gave up but the

ravenous driver. He tried the bread, the coffee, the butter, and all

were too sour for a second mouthful; so were the eggs, and the ham, and

the steak. No one ate anything, and the charge was as preposterous as

the delay; yet our paymaster made no objection to the way we were

treated. When we were off again, I asked him why he had been so gracious

as to appear satisfied.

"This is a newly-opened road," he replied; "the people do not know yet

how the world lives. They have probably no idea that there is better

food than they set before us."

"But do not you think it would be a kindness to inform them?"

"They did their best for us, and I should be sorry to hurt their

feelings."

"Then you would have them go through life on bad food, and inflicting it

on other people, lest their feelings should be hurt at their being told

how to provide better. Do you suppose that all the travellers who come

this way will be as tender of the lady's feelings?"

"Yes, I do. You see the driver took it very quietly."

When we were yet worse treated, however, just after, when spending a

night at Woodstock, our paymaster did remonstrate, (though very

tenderly,) and his remonstrance was received with great candour by the

master of the house; his wife being the one most to blame.

With this forbearance is united the most cheerful and generous

helpfulness. If a farmer is burned out, his neighbours collect, and

never leave him till he is placed in a better house than the one he has

lost. His barns, in like case, are filled with contributions from their

crops. Though there is nothing that men prize there so much as time,

there is nothing that they are more ready to give to the service of

others. Their prevalent generosity in the giving of money is known, and

sufficiently estimated, considering how plentiful wealth is in the

country. The expenditure of time, thought, and ingenuity, is a far

better test of the temper from which the helpfulness proceeds. I am

sorry that it is impossible to describe what this temper is in America;

its manifestations being too incessant and minute for description. If

this great virtue could be exhibited as clearly as it is possible to

exhibit their faults, the heart of society would warm towards the

Americans more readily than it has ever been alienated from them by

their own faults, or the ill-offices of strangers.

It seems to me that the Americans are generally unaware how one bad

habit of their own, springing out of this very temper, goes to aggravate

the evil offices of strangers. It is to me the most prominent of their

bad habits; but one so likely to be cured by their being made aware of

it, that I cannot but wish that some of the English vituperation which

has been expended upon tobacco and its effects had been directed upon

the far more serious fault of flattery. It will be seen at once how the

practice of flattery is almost a necessary result of the combination of

a false idea of honour with kindliness of temper. Its prevalence is so

great as to tempt one to call it a necessary result. There is no

getting out of the way of it. A gentleman, who was a depraved

school-boy, a fiendish husband, father, and slave-owner, whose

reputation for brutality was as extensive as the country, was eulogised

in the newspapers at his death. Every book that comes out is exalted to

the skies. The public orators flatter the people; the people flatter the

orators. Clergymen praise their flocks; and the flocks stand amazed at

the excellence of their clergymen. Sunday-school teachers admire their

pupils; and the scholars magnify their teachers. As to guests,

especially from abroad, hospitality requires that some dark corner

should be provided in every room where they may look when their own

praises are being told to their own faces. Even in families, where, if

anywhere, it must be understood that love cannot be sweetened by praise,

there is a deficiency of that modesty, "simplicity and godly sincerity,"

in regard to mutual estimate, which the highest fidelity of affection

inspires.

Passing over the puerility and vulgarity of the practice,--I think, if

the Americans were convinced of its selfishness,--of its being actually

a breach of benevolence, they would exercise the same command over their

tongues that they do over their tempers, and suppress painful praises,

as they rise to the lips. It was pleaded to me that the admiration is

real, the praise sincere. Be it so: but why are they to be expressed,

more than any other real thoughts whose expression would give pain? Let

the admiration by all means be enjoyed: but what a pity to destroy

sympathy with the person admired, by talking on the very subject at

which sympathy must cease! Is it not clear that if praise be not painful

to the person praised, it must be injurious? If he be modest, it is

torture: if not, it is poison. Or, if there be a third case, and it is

indifferent, such indifference to the praise is very nearly allied to

contempt for the praiser. When once the decencies of friendship are

violated, and the modesty of mutual estimate is gone, the holiness of

friendship is gone too; and there is every danger that selfish,

conscious passion will overbear unconscious, disinterested affection.

Enough. I would only put it to any person whether the friendship he

values most is not that which is least coarsened by praise; and in which

he and his friend are led the least frequently to think of their opinion

of each other. I would put it to the intimates of such a man as Dr.

Channing, for instance, whether their warmest affections do not spring

towards and repose upon him in the delicious certainty, that while he is

sympathising with every pure and true emotion, he will refrain from

disturbing its flow by introducing a consciousness, a self and mutual

reference, from which it is the highest privilege in life to escape.

Praise may help some common-minded persons over the difficulties of a

new and superficial intercourse: at least, so I am told: but intimate

communion and permanent friendship require a purity and repose with

which the interchange of expressed admiration is absolutely

incompatible.

With regard to the spirit of intercourse, nothing more remains to be

said here, but that the frankness practised in private life, within the

doors of home, is as remarkable as the caution and reserve which prevail

elsewhere. Nothing can be more delightful than the familiarity and

confidence with which I was invariably treated; and to which I saw few

exceptions in the cases of other persons. Everything was discussed in

every house I staid in: religion, philosophy, literature; and, with

quite as much freedom, character, public and private, national and

individual. The language being the same as my own, I was apt to forget

that I was on my travels, till some visitor dropped in whose inquiries

how I liked the country reminded me that I was a foreigner. Even now,

having performed the voyage home, and having all manner of evidence that

I have left the country three thousand miles behind me, I find it

difficult to bring in my personal friends as elements of the society

whose condition I am pondering. They are too like brothers and sisters

to be subjects for analysis: and I perpetually feel the want of them at

hand, to assist me by their controverting or corroborating judgments.

They and I know what their homes are, and how happy we have been in

them: and this is all that in my affection for them I can say of their

domestic life, without putting a force upon their feelings and my own.

If I am not much mistaken, society in the new world is wakening up,

under the stimulus of the slave-question, to a sense of its want of

practical freedom, owing to its too great regard to opinion. The

examples of those who can and do assert and maintain their liberty in

these times of fiery trial, are venerable and beautiful in the eyes of

the young. Those in the cities who have grown old in the practice of

mistrust are unconscious of the extent of their privations: but the free

yeomanry, and the youth of the towns, have an eye for the right, and a

heart for the true, amid the mists and subtleties in which truth and

liberty have been of late involved. The young men of Boston, especially,

seem to be roused: and it is all-important that they should be. Boston

is looked to throughout the Union, as the superior city she believes

herself to be: and nowhere is the entrance upon life more perilous to

the honesty and consistency of young aspirants after the public service.

Massachusetts is the head-quarters of federalism. Federalism is

receding before democracy, even there; but that State has still a

federal majority. A Massachusetts man has little chance of success in

public life, unless he starts a federalist: and he has no chance of

rising above a certain low point, unless, when he reaches that point, he

makes a transition into democracy. The trial is too great for the moral

independence of most ambitious men: and it fixes the eyes of the world

on the youth of Boston. They are watched, that it may be seen whether

they who now burn with ardour for complete freedom will hereafter

"reverence the dreams of their youth," or sink down into cowardice,

apathy, and intolerance, as they reach the middle of life.

If they will only try, they will find how great are the ease and peace

attendant on the full exercise of rights, even though it should shut the

career of politics, and possibly of wealth, against them for a time. If

they will look in the faces of the few who dare to live in the midst of

Boston as freely as if they were in the centre of the prairies, they

will see in those countenances a brightness and serenity which a sense

of mere safety could never impart. The pursuit of safety,--safety from

outward detriment,--is of all in this world the most hopeless. The only

attainable safety is that which usually bears another name,--repose in

absolute truth. Where there is a transparency of character which defies

misrepresentation, a faith in men which disarms suspicion, an

intrepidity which overawes malice, and a spirit of love which wins

confidence, there is safety; and in nothing short of all these. If any

of them are deficient, in the same proportion does safety give place to

danger; and no substitution of prudence will be of more than temporary

avail. Prudence is now reigning supreme over the elderly classes of

Boston generally, and too many of the young. Independence is animating

the rest. It remains to be seen which will have succumbed when the

present youth of the city shall have become her legislators,

magistrates, and social representatives.

As a specimen of the thoughts and feelings of some on the spot, I give

the following.

"Liberty of thought and opinion is strenuously maintained: in this proud

land it has become almost a wearisome cant: our speeches and journals,

religious and political, are made nauseous by the vapid and

vain-glorious reiteration. But does it, after all, _characterise any

community among us_? Is there any one to which a qualified observer

shall point, and say, _There_ opinion is free? On the contrary, is it

not a fact, a sad and deplorable fact, that in no land on this earth is

the mind more fettered than it is here? that here what we call public

opinion has set up a despotism, such as exists nowhere else? Public

opinion,--a tyrant, sitting in the dark, wrapt up in mystification and

vague terrors of obscurity; deriving power no one knows from whom; like

an Asian monarch, unapproachable, unimpeachable, undethronable, perhaps

illegitimate,--but irresistible in its power to quell thought, to

repress action, to silence conviction,--and bringing the timid

perpetually under an unworthy bondage of mean fear to some impostor

opinion, some noisy judgment, which gets astride on the popular breath

for a day, and controls, through the lips of impudent folly, the speech

and actions of the wise. From this influence and rule, from this bondage

to opinion, no community, as such, is free; though doubtless individuals

are. But your community, brethren, based on the principles which you

profess, is bound to be so."[22]

So much for the spirit of intercourse. As for the modes in which the

spirit is manifested, their agreeableness, or the contrary, is a matter

of taste. No nation can pretend to judge another's manners; for the

plain reason that there is no standard to judge by: and if an individual

attempts to pronounce upon them, his sentence amounts to nothing more

than a declaration of his own particular taste. If such a declaration

from an individual is of any consequence, I am ready to acknowledge that

the American manners please me, on the whole, better than any that I

have seen.

The circumstances which strike a stranger unpleasantly are the apparent

coldness and indifference of persons in hotels and shops; the use of

tobacco, and consequent spitting; the tone of voice, especially among

the New England ladies; and at first, but not afterwards, the style of

conversation. The great charm is the exquisite mutual respect and

kindliness.

Of the tobacco and its consequences, I will say nothing but that the

practice is at too bad a pass to leave hope that anything that could be

said in books would work a cure. If the floors of boarding-houses, and

the decks of steam-boats, and the carpets of the Capitol, do not sicken

the Americans into a reform; if the warnings of physicians are of no

avail, what remains to be said? I dismiss the nauseous subject.

A great unknown pleasure remains to be experienced by the Americans in

the well-modulated, gentle, healthy, cheerful voices of women. It is

incredible that there should not, in all time to come, be any other

alternative than that which now exists, between a whine and a twang.

When the health of the American women improves, their voices will

improve. In the meantime, they are unconscious how the effect of their

remarkable and almost universal beauty is injured by their mode of

speech.

The peculiarity is less remarkable in manly conversation. The

conversation of the gentlemen strikes one at first as being dull and

prosy. They converse with much evenness of tone, slowly and at great

length: so as to leave the observer without any surprise that the

Americans think English conversation hasty, sharp, and rough. I found

also a prevalent idea that conversation is studied as an art in England:

and many of my friends were so positive on this point as to make me

doubt the correctness of my own conviction that it is not so. If there

be any such study, I can only say that I have detected no instances of

it; nor did the idea ever enter my mind except in reading of Lady

Angelica Headingham, in 'Patronage.' In the whole course of my life,

perhaps, I never met with so many particular instances of an artificial

mode of conversing as during the two years that I was in America: but I

could see the reason in every case; and that all were exceptions to the

rule of natural though peculiar communication. The conversation of the

great public men was generally more instructive than pleasing, till they

forgot that they were public men, and talked on other things than public

affairs. One could never conceal that he designed to effect a particular

persuasion in your mind: a design against which all the listener's

faculties are sure to rise up in instant rebellion. Another did not

intend you should see that he was speaking from a map of the subject in

his brain; bringing contrasts and comparisons to bear, as it might seem

accidentally, upon your imagination. Two or three or more, willing to

conceal from themselves, I really believe, as well as from the stranger,

that logic is not their forte, dart off after every will-o'-the-wisp of

an analogy; and talk almost wholly in figures. This is bad policy; for

some of the figures were so beautiful and apparently illustrative, as to

fix the attention, instead of passing over the ear, and give one time

to discover that they were not satisfactory. The most remarkable

instances of this were in the south, where I had the pleasure of hearing

more of every thing than of logic. Perhaps the most singular style of

all was one which struck me so much that I wrote down pages of it for

subsequent study:--a slow, impressive style, a succession of clever

figures, a somewhat pompous humour, and a wrapping round of inconvenient

considerations with an impenetrable cloud of the plainest-seeming words.

The gushing talk of Judge Story, the brimmings of a full head and heart,

natural, lively, fresh, issuing from the supposition that you can

understand, and wish to understand everything that is interesting to

him, and from a simple psychological curiosity, is perfectly delightful

after the measured communications of some other public men.

I may here mention Dr. Channing's conversation. I do so because it has

been the occasion of his being much misunderstood and consequently

misrepresented. I never knew a case where the conversation of an

individual did him so much injustice at first, and such eminent service

in the affections of his hearers at last. Unfortunately, those who

report him generally see him only once or twice; and then they are

pretty sure to leave him with less real knowledge of him than they

probably had three thousand miles off. This circumstance may justify my

speaking here of one whom I revere and regard too much to feel it easy

to say anything of him publicly beyond the mere testimony which it is an

honour to bear to such men. Dr. Channing has an unfortunate habit of

suiting his conversation to the supposed state of mind of the person he

is conversing with, or to that person's supposed knowledge on a subject

on which he wants information. The adaptation, not being natural, cannot

be true, and something is thus given out which is the reflection of

nobody's mind; and the conversation is fruitless or worse. This is

merely a habit of _drawing out_. If the visitor goes away upon this, he

reports the things which are reported of Dr. Channing's opinions; which

are no more like his than they are like Aristotle's. If the visitor

stays long enough, or comes again often enough to catch some of his

thoughts as they issue from his heart, he finds a strange power in them

to move and kindle. His words become deeds when they proceed from

impulse. Not a tone nor a syllable can be ever forgotten. The reason is

that unseen things are to him realities; and material things are but

shadows. After continued and open communication with him, it becomes an

inexplicable wonder that anything but truth, justice, and charity should

be made objects of serious pursuit in the world.

Mr. Madison's conversation has been already mentioned as being full of

graces. The sprightliness, rapidity, and variety were remarkable in a

man of eighty-four, confined to two rooms, and subject to various

infirmities. He was a highly favourable specimen of the accomplished

gentleman of the revolutionary times.

There are persons whom it seems to myself strange to name in this

connexion, when there are things in them which I value much more highly

than their eloquence. But as eloquent beyond all others, they must be

mentioned here. I refer to Dr. and Mrs. Follen, late of Boston.--Dr.

Follen is a German: well known in Germany for his patriotism; as

troublesome to its princes as animating to their subjects. He has been

thirteen years in America, and seven years a citizen of Massachusetts.

His mastery of the language has been perfect for some years: but, as he

brought a rich and matured mind to the first employment of it, he uses

it differently from any to whom it is the mother tongue. It is an

instrument of extraordinary power in his hands, as a mere instrument.

But he is a man of learning which I do not pretend to estimate in any

department. The great mass of his knowledge is vivified by a spirit

which seems to have passed through all human experiences, appropriating

whatever is true and pure, and leaving behind all else. With not only a

religious love of liberty, but an unerring perception of the true

principle of liberty in every case as it arises, with an intrepidity

which excites rage where his gentleness is not known, and a gentleness

which disarms those who fear his intrepidity, he is the most valuable

acquisition that the United States, in their present condition, can well

be conceived to have appropriated from the Old World, in the person of

an individual citizen. I certainly think him the most remarkable, and

the greatest man I saw in the country. Dr. Follen has pledged himself to

the anti-slavery cause; and declared himself in other ways in favour of

freedom of thought, action, and speech, so as to make himself

feared,--(or rather his opinions, for no one can fear himself,)--by some

of the society of his State in whom the idea of honour most wants

rectifying: but, as he becomes more known to the true-hearted among his

fellow-citizens, he will be regarded by them all with the pride and

admiration, mixed with tender affection, which he inspires in those who

have the honour and blessing of being his friends. He has married a

Boston lady; a woman of genius, and of those large and kindly affections

which are its natural element. What the intercourses of their home are,

their guests can never forget; nor ever describe.

The most common mode of conversation in America I should distinguish as

prosy, but withal rich and droll. For some weeks, I found it difficult

to keep awake during the entire reply to any question I happened to ask.

The person questioned seemed to feel himself put upon his conscience to

give a full, true, and particular reply; and so he went back as near to

the Deluge as the subject would admit, and forward to the millennium,

taking care to omit nothing of consequence in the interval. There was,

of course, one here and there, as there is everywhere, to tell me

precisely what I knew before, and omit what I most wanted: but this did

not happen often: and I presently found the information I obtained in

conversation so full, impartial, and accurate, and the shrewdness and

drollery with which it was conveyed so amusing, that I became a great

admirer of the American way of talking before six months were over.

Previous to that time, a gentleman in the same house with me expressed

pleasantly his surprise at my asking so few questions: saying that if he

came to England, he should be asking questions all day long. I told him

that there was no need of my seeking information as long as more was

given me in the course of the day than my head would carry. I did not

tell him that I had not power of attention sufficient for such

information as came in answer to my own desire. I can scarcely believe

now that I ever felt such a difficulty.

They themselves are, however, aware of their tendency to length, and

also to something of the literal dulness which Charles Lamb complains of

in relation to the Scotch. They have stories of American travellers

which exceed all I ever heard of them anywhere else: such as that an

American gentleman, returned from Europe, was asked how he liked Rome:

to which he replied that Rome was a fine city; but that he must

acknowledge he thought the public buildings were very much out of

repair. Again, it is told against a lady that she made some undeniably

true remarks on a sermon she heard. A preacher, discoursing on the

blindness of men to the future, remarked "how few men, in building a

house, consider that a coffin is to go down the stairs!" The lady

observed with much emphasis, on coming out, that ministers had got into

the strangest way of choosing subjects for the pulpit! It was true that

wide staircases _are_ a great convenience: but she did think Christian

ministers might find better subjects to preach upon than narrow

staircases. And so forth. An eminent Senator told me that he was too

often on the one horn or the other of a dilemma: sometimes a gentleman

getting up in the Senate, and talking as if he would never sit down: and

sometimes a gentleman sitting down in his study, and talking as if he

would never get up.

Yet there is an epigrammatic turn in the talk of those who have never

heard of "the art of conversation" which is supposed to be studied by

the English. A reverend divine,--no other than Dr. Channing,--was one

day paying toll, when he perceived a notice of gin, rum, tobacco, &c.,

on a board which bore a strong resemblance to a grave-stone. "I am glad

to see," said the Dr. to the girl who received the toll, "that you have

been burying those things."--"And if we had," said the girl, "I don't

doubt you would have gone chief mourner."

Some young men, travelling on horseback among the White Mountains,

became inordinately thirsty, and stopped for milk at a house by the

road-side. They emptied every basin that was offered, and still wanted

more. The woman of the house at length brought an enormous bowl of milk,

and set it down on the table, saying, "One would think, gentlemen, you

had never been weaned."

Of the same kind was the reply made by a gentleman of Virginia to a

silly question by a lady. "Who made the Natural Bridge?"--"God knows,

madam."

I was struck with repeated instances of new versions, generally much

improved, of old fables. I think the following an improvement upon Sour

Grapes. Noah warned his neighbours of what was coming, and why he was

building his ark; but nobody minded him. When people on the high grounds

were up to their chins, an old acquaintance of Noah's was very eager to

be taken into the ark: but Noah refused again and again. "Well," said

the man, when he found it was in vain, "go, get along, you and your old

ark! I don't believe we are going to have much of a shower." I tried to

ascertain whether this story was American. I could trace it no further

off than Plymouth, Massachusetts.

There cannot be a stronger contrast than between the fun and simplicity

of the usual domestic talk of the United States, and the solemn pedantry

of which the extremest examples are to be found there; exciting as much

ridicule at home as they possibly can elsewhere. I was solemnly assured

by a gentleman that I was quite wrong on some point, because I differed

from him. Everybody laughed: when he went on, with the utmost gravity,

to inform us that there had been a time when he believed, like other

people, that he might be mistaken; but that experience had convinced him

that he never was; and he had in consequence cast behind him the fear of

error. I told him I was afraid the place he lived in must be terribly

dull,--having an oracle in it to settle everything. He replied that the

worst of it was, other people were not so convinced of his being always

in the right as he was himself. There was no joke here. He is a literal

and serious-minded man. Another gentleman solemnly remarked upon the

weather of late having been "uncommonly mucilaginous." Another pointed

out to me a gentleman on board a steam-boat as "a blue stocking of the

first class." A lady asked me many questions about my emotions at

Niagara, to which I gave only one answer of which she could make

anything. "Did you not," was her last inquiry, "long to throw yourself

down, and mingle with your mother earth?"--"No."--Another asked me

whether I did not think the sea might inspire vast and singular

ideas.--Another, an instructress of youth, in examining my ear-trumpet,

wanted to know whether its length made any difference in its efficiency.

On my answering, "None at all"--"O certainly not," said she, very

deliberately; "for, sound being a material substance, can only be

overcome by a superior force." The mistakes of unconscious ignorance

should be passed over with a silent smile: but affectation should be

exposed, as a service to a young society.

I rarely, if ever, met with instances of this pedantry among the

yeomanry or mechanic classes; or among the young. The most numerous and

the worst pedants were middle-aged ladies. One instance struck me as

being unlike anything that could happen in England. A literary and very

meritorious village mantua-maker declared that it was very hard if her

gowns did not fit the ladies of the neighbourhood. She had got the exact

proportions of the Venus de Medici, to make them by: and what more could

she do? Again. A sempstress was anxious that her employer should request

me to write something about Mount Auburn: (the beautiful cemetery near

Boston.) Upon her being questioned as to what kind of composition she

had in her fancy, she said she would have Mount Auburn considered under

three points of view:--as it was on the day of creation,--as it is

now,--as it will be on the day of resurrection. I liked the idea so well

that I got her to write it for me, instead of my doing it for her.

As for the peculiarities of language of which so much has been made,--I

am a bad judge: but the fact is, I should have passed through the

country almost without observing any, if my attention had not been

previously directed to them. Next to the well-known use of the word

"sick," instead of "ill," (in which they are undoubtedly right,) none

struck me so much as the few following. They use the word "handsome"

much more extensively than we do: saying that Webster made a handsome

speech in the Senate: that a lady talks handsomely, (eloquently:) that a

book sells handsomely. A gentleman asked me on the Catskill Mountain,

whether I thought the sun handsomer there than at New York. When they

speak of a fine woman, they refer to mental or moral, not at all to

physical superiority. The effect was strange, after being told, here and

there, that I was about to see a very fine woman, to meet in such cases

almost the only plain women I saw in the country. Another curious

circumstance is, that this is almost the only connexion in which the

word woman is used. This noble word, spirit-stirring as it passes over

English ears, is in America banished, and "ladies" and "females"

substituted: the one to English taste mawkish and vulgar; the other

indistinctive and gross. So much for difference of taste. The effect is

odd. After leaving the men's wards of the prison at Nashville,

Tennessee, I asked the warden whether he would not let me see the women.

"We have no ladies here, at present, madam. We have never had but two

ladies, who were convicted for stealing a steak; but, as it appeared

that they were deserted by their husbands, and in want, they were

pardoned." A lecturer, discoursing on the characteristics of women, is

said to have expressed himself thus. "Who were last at the cross?

Ladies. Who were first at the sepulchre? Ladies."

A few other ludicrous expressions took me by surprise occasionally. A

gentleman in the west, who had been discussing monarchy and

republicanism in a somewhat original way, asked me if I would "swap" my

king for his. We were often told that it was "a dreadful fine day;" and

a girl at a hotel pronounced my trumpet to be "terrible handy."[23] In

the back of Virginia these superlative expressions are the most rife. A

man who was extremely ill, in agonizing pain, sent for a friend to come

to him. Before the friend arrived, the pain was relieved, but the

patient felt much reduced by it. "How do you find yourself?" inquired

the friend. "I'm powerful weak; but cruel easy."

The Kentucky bragging is well known. It is so ingenious as to be very

amusing sometimes: but too absurd in the mouth of a dull person. One

such was not satisfied with pointing out to me how fine the woods were,

but informed me that the intimate texture of the individual leaves was

finer and richer in Kentucky than anywhere else. I much prefer the

off-hand air with which a dashing Kentuckian intimates to you the

richness of the soil; saying "if you plant a nail at night, 'twill come

up a spike next morning."

However much may be the fault of strangers, in regard to the coldness of

manners which is complained of in those who serve travellers in

America, and however soon it may be dissipated by a genial address on

the part of the stranger, it certainly is very disagreeable at the first

moment. We invariably found ourselves well-treated; and in no instance

that I remember failed to dissipate the chill by showing that we were

ready to help ourselves, and to be sociable. The instant we attacked the

reserve, it gave way. But I do not wonder that strangers who are not

prepared to make the concession, and especially gentlemen travelling

from hotel to hotel, find the constraint extremely irksome. It should

never be forgotten that it is usually a matter of necessity or of

favour, seldom of choice, (except in the towns,) that the wife and

daughters of American citizens render service to travellers. Such a

breaking in upon their domestic quiet, such an exposure to the society

of casual travellers, must be so distasteful to them generally as to

excuse any apparent want of cordiality. Some American travellers, won by

the _empressement_ of European waiters, declare themselves as willing to

pay for civility as for their dinner. I acknowledge a different taste. I

had rather have indifference than civility which bears a reference to

the bill: but I prefer to either the cordiality which brightens up at

your offer to make your own bed, mend your own fire, &c.--the cordiality

which brings your hostess into your parlour, to draw her chair, and be

sociable, not only by asking where you are going, but by telling you all

that interests her in her neighbourhood. A girl at a Meadville hotel, in

Pennsylvania, urged us to change our route, that we might visit some

friends of hers,--"a beautiful bachelor that had lately lost his wife,

and his fine son"--to whom she would give us a letter of introduction.

At Maysville, Kentucky, the landlady sent repeated apologies for not

being able to wait on us herself, her attendance being necessary at the

bedside of her sick child. On our expressing our concern that, in such

circumstances, she should trouble herself about us, her substitute said

we were very unlike the generality of travellers who came. The ladies

were usually offended if the landlady did not wait upon them herself,

and would not open or shut the window with their own hands; but rang to

have the landlady to do it for them. Such persons have probably been

accustomed to be waited on by slaves; or, perhaps, not at all; so that

they like to make the most of the opportunity. Our landlady at

Nashville, Tennessee, treated us extremely well; and on parting kissed

the ladies of the party all round.

I had an early lesson in the art of distinguishing coldness from

inhospitality. Our party of six was traversing the State of New York. We

left Syracuse at dawn one morning, intending to breakfast at Skaneatles.

By the time we reached Elbridge, however, having been delayed on the

road, we were too hungry to think of going further without food. An

impetuous young Carolinian, who was of the party, got out first, and

returned to say we had better proceed; for the house and the people

looked so cold, we should never be able to achieve a comfortable meal.

Caring less, however, for comfort than for any sort of meal, we

persisted in stopping.--The first room we were shown into was wet, and

had no fire; and we were already shivering with cold. I could discern

that the family were clearing out of the next room. It was offered to

us, and logs were piled upon the fire. Two of the young women, in cotton

gowns and braided and bowed hair, followed their mother into the cooking

apartment, sailing about with quiet movements and solemn faces. Two more

staid in the room; and, after putting up their hair before the glass in

our presence, began to arrange the table, knitting between times. One or

another was almost all the while sitting with us, knitting, and replying

with grave simplicity to our conversation. Presently, one of the best

breakfasts we had in America was ready: a pie-dish full of buttered

toast; hot biscuits and coffee; beef-steak, applesauce, hot potatoes,

cheese, butter, and two large dishes of eggs. We were attentively waited

upon by the four knitting young ladies and their knitting mother, and

kindly dismissed with a charge of only two dollars and a quarter for the

whole party. "Did you ever see such girls?" cried the young Carolinian,

just landed from Europe: "stepping about like four captive princesses!"

We all called out that we would not hear a word against the young

ladies. They had treated us with all kindness; and no one could tell

whether their reserve was any greater than their situation and

circumstances require.

So much more has naturally been observed by travellers of American

manners in stages and steam-boats than in private-houses, that all has

been said, over and over again, that the subject deserves. I need only

testify that I do not think the Americans eat faster than other people,

on the whole. The celerity at hotel-tables is remarkable; but so it is

in stage-coach travellers in England, who are allowed ten minutes or a

quarter of an hour for dining. In private houses, I was never aware of

being hurried. The cheerful, unintermitting civility of all gentlemen

travellers, throughout the country, is very striking to a stranger. The

degree of consideration shown to women is, in my opinion, greater than

is rational, or good for either party; but the manners of an American

stage-coach might afford a valuable lesson and example to many classes

of Europeans who have a high opinion of their own civilisation. I do

not think it rational or fair that every gentleman, whether old or

young, sick or well, weary or untired, should, as a matter of course,

yield up the best places in the stage to any lady passenger. I do not

think it rational or fair that five gentlemen should ride on the top of

the coach, (where there is no accommodation for holding on, and no

resting-place for the feet,) for some hours of a July day in Virginia,

that a young lady, who was slightly delicate, might have room to lay up

her feet, and change her posture as she pleased. It is obvious that, if

she was not strong enough to travel on common terms in the stage, her

family should have travelled in an extra; or staid behind; or done

anything rather than allow five persons to risk their health, and

sacrifice their comfort, for the sake of one. Whatever may be the good

moral effects of such self-renunciation on the tempers of the gentlemen,

the custom is very injurious to ladies. Their travelling manners are

anything but amiable. While on a journey, women who appear well enough

in their homes, present all the characteristics of spoiled children.

Screaming and trembling at the apprehension of danger are not uncommon:

but there is something far worse in the cool selfishness with which they

accept the best of everything, at any sacrifice to others, and usually,

in the south and west, without a word or look of acknowledgment. They

are as like spoiled children when the gentlemen are not present to be

sacrificed to them;--in the inn parlour, while waiting for meals or the

stage; and in the cabin of a steam-boat. I never saw any manner so

repulsive as that of many American ladies on board steam-boats. They

look as if they supposed you mean to injure them, till you show to the

contrary. The suspicious side-glance, or the full stare; the cold,

immovable observation; the bristling self-defence the moment you come

near; the cool pushing to get the best places,--everything said and done

without the least trace of trust or cheerfulness,--these are the

disagreeable consequences of the ladies being petted and humoured as

they are. The New England ladies, who are compelled by their superior

numbers to depend less upon the care of others, are far happier and

pleasanter companions in a journey than those of the rest of the

country. This shows the evil to be altogether superinduced: and I always

found that if I could keep down my spirit, and show that I meant no

harm, the apathy began to melt, the pretty ladies forgot their

self-defence, and appeared somewhat like what I conclude they are at

home, when managing their affairs, in the midst of familiar

circumstances. If these ladies would but inquire of themselves what it

is that they are afraid of, and whether there is any reason why people

should be less cheerful, less obliging, and less agreeable, when

casually brought into the society of fifty people, whose comfort depends

mainly on their mutual good offices, than among half-a-dozen neighbours

at home, they might remove an unpleasant feature of the national

manners, and add another to the many charms of their country.

Much might be said of village manners in America: but Miss Sedgwick's

pictures of them in her two best works, "Home," and "The Rich Poor Man,

and the Poor Rich Man," are so true and so beautiful, and so sure of

being well-known where they have not already reached, that no more is

necessary than to mention them as some of the best and sweetest pictures

of manners in existence. To the English reader they are full as

interesting as to Americans, from the purity and fidelity of the

democratic spirit which they breathe throughout. The woman who so

appreciates the blessing of living in such a society as she describes,

deserves the honour of being the first to commend it to the affections

of humanity.

The manners of the wealthy classes depend, of course, upon the character

of their objects and interests: but they are not, on the whole, so

agreeable as those of their less opulent neighbours. The restless

ostentation of such as live for grandeur and show is vulgar;--as I have

said, the only vulgarity to be seen in the country. Nothing can exceed

the display of it at watering-places. At Rockaway, on Long Island, I saw

in one large room, while the company was waiting for dinner, a number of

groups which would have made a good year's income for a clever

caricaturist. If any lady, with an eye and a pencil adequate to the

occasion, would sketch the phenomena of affectation that might be seen

in one day in the piazza and drawing-room at Rockaway, she might be a

useful censor of manners. But the task would be too full of sorrow and

shame for any one with the true republican spirit. For my own part, I

felt bewildered in such company. It was as if I had been set down on a

kind of debatable land between the wholly imaginary society of the

so-called fashionable novels of late years, and the broad sketches of

citizen-life given by Madame D'Arblay. It was like nothing real. When I

saw the young ladies tricked out in the most expensive finery, flirting

over the backgammon-board, tripping affectedly across the room,

languishing with a seventy-dollar cambric handkerchief, starting up in

ecstasy at the entrance of a baby; the mothers as busy with affectations

of another kind; and the brothers sidling hither and thither, now with

assiduity, and now with nonchalance; and no one imparting the

refreshment of a natural countenance, movement, or tone, I almost

doubted whether I was awake. The village scenes that I had witnessed

rose up in strong contrast;--the mirthful wedding, the wagon-drives, the

offerings of wild-flowers to the stranger; the unintermitting, simple

courtesy of each to all;--and it was scarcely credible that these

contrasting scenes could both be existing in the same republic.

Such watering-place manners as I saw at Rockaway are considered and

called vulgar on the spot:--of course, for the majority are far superior

to them. They deserve notice no further than as they are absolutely

anti-republican in their whole principle and spirit: and no deviation

from the republican principle in any class should be passed over by the

moralist without notice. The brand of contempt should be fixed upon any

unprincipled or false-principled style of manners, in a community based

upon avowed principles. The contempt thus inflicted upon the mode may

possibly save the persons who would otherwise render themselves liable

to it. The practice of ostentation may be lessened in America, as that

of suicide was in France, by ridicule and contempt. It is desirable for

all parties that this should be the method. The weak and vain had better

be deterred from entering upon the race of vanity, than exposed when it

is too late: and, for those of clearer and stronger minds, it is safer

to despise things than persons: for, however necessary and virtuous the

contempt of abstract vice and folly may be, there is no mind clear and

strong enough to entertain with safety contempt of persons.

The best sort of rich persons, those whose principles and spirit are

democratic, their desires moderate, their pursuits rational, drop out of

sight of the mind's eye in considering the manners of the rich. Their

wealth becomes only a comparatively unimportant circumstance connected

with them. They support more beneficent objects than others, and perhaps

have houses and libraries that it is a luxury to go to: but these things

are not associated with themselves in the minds of their friends, as

long as they are not so in their own. They fall into the ranks of the

honourable, independent, thorough-bred classes of the country, (its true

glory,) just as if they were not rich. The next best order of rich

people,--those who put their time and money to good uses, but who are

not blessed with the true democratic spirit of faith, have

manners,--infinitely better than the Rockaway style,--but not so good as

those of more faithful republicans. They are above the vanity of show

and the struggle for fashion: but they dread the ascendency of

ignorance, and distrust the classes whom they do not know. They are

readers: their imaginations live in the Old World; and they have

insensibly adopted the old-world prejudice, that "the people" must be

ignorant, passionate, and rapacious. The conversation of such gives

utterance to an assumption, and their bearing betrays an uneasiness,

which are highly unfavourable to good manners. This small class are so

respectable in the main, and for some great objects so useful, that it

is much to be desired that they could be referred back perpetually to

the democratic principles which would relieve their anxiety, and give to

their manners that cheerfulness which should belong to honest

republicans who have everything to hope, and little to fear.

One of the most remarkable sights in the country is the President's

levee. Nothing is easier than to laugh at it. There is probably no mode

in which a number of human beings can assemble which may not be

laughable from one point of view or another. The President's levee

presents many facilities for ridicule. Men go there in plain cloaks and

leather belts, with all manner of wigs, and offer a large variety of

obeisance to the chief magistrate. Women go in bonnets and shawls, talk

about the company, stand upon chairs to look over people's heads, and

stare at the large rooms. There was a story of two girls, thus dressed,

being lifted up by their escorting gentlemen, and seated on the two ends

of the mantel-piece, like lustres, where they could obtain a view of the

company as they entered. To see such people mixed in with foreign

ambassadors and their suites, to observe the small mutual knowledge of

classes and persons who thus meet on terms of equality, is amusing

enough. But, amidst much that was laughable, I certainly felt that I was

seeing a fine spectacle. If the gentry of Washington desire to do away

with the custom, they must be unaware of the dignity which resides in

it, and which is apparent to the eye of a stranger, through any

inconveniences which it may have. I am sorry that its recurrence is no

longer annual. I am sorry that the practice of distributing refreshments

is relinquished: though this is a matter of less importance and of more

inconvenience. If the custom itself should ever be given up, the bad

taste of such a surrender will be unquestionable. There should be some

time and place where the chief magistrate and the people may meet to

exchange their respects, all other business being out of the question:

and I should like to see the occasion made annual again.

I saw no bad manners at the President's levee, except on the part of a

silly, swaggering Englishman. All was quiet and orderly; and there was

an air of gaiety which rather surprised me. The great people were amused

at the aspect of the assembly: and the humbler at the novelties that

were going on before their eyes. Our party went at eight o'clock. As we

alighted from the carriage, I saw a number of women, well attended,

going up the steps in the commonest morning walking-dress. In the hall,

were parties of young men, exhibiting their graces in a walk from end to

end: and ladies throwing off their shawls, and displaying the most

splendid dresses. The President, with some members of his cabinet on

either hand, stood in the middle of the first room, ready to bow to all

the ladies, and shake hands with all the gentlemen who presented

themselves. The company then passed on to the fire-place, where stood

the ladies of the President's family, attended by the Vice-president,

and the Secretary of the Treasury. From this point, the visitors

dispersed themselves through the rooms, chatting in groups in the

Blue-room, or joining the immense promenade in the great East room.

After two circuits there, I went back to the reception-room; by far the

most interesting to an observer. I saw one ambassador after another

enter with his suite; the Judges of the Supreme Court; the majority of

the members of both Houses of Congress; and intermingled with these, the

plainest farmers, storekeepers, and mechanics, with their primitive

wives and simple daughters. Some looked merry; some looked busy; but

none bashful. I believe there were three thousand persons present. There

was one deficiency,--one drawback, as I felt at the time. There were no

persons of colour. Whatever individuals or classes may choose to do

about selecting their society according to rules of their own making,

here there should be no distinction. I know the pleas that would be

urged,--the levee being held in a slave district; the presence of

slave-holders from the south; and many others; but such pleas will not

stand before the plain fact that this levee is the appointed means by

which citizens of the United States of all degrees may, once in a time,

meet together, to pay their equal respects to their chief magistrate.

Every man of colour who is a citizen of the United States has a right to

as free an admission as any other man; and it would be a dignity added

to the White House if such were seen there. It is not to its credit that

there is any place in the country where its people are more free to meet

on equal terms. There is such a place. In the Catholic cathedral in New

Orleans, I saw persons of every shade of colour kneeling on the

pavement, without separation or distinction. I would fain have seen also

some one secular house where, by general consent, all kinds of men might

meet as brethren. But not even in republican America is there yet such

an one.

The Americans possess an advantage in regard to the teaching of manners

which they do not yet appreciate. They have before their eyes, in the

manners of the coloured race, a perpetual caricature of their own

follies; a mirror of conventionalism from which they can never escape.

The negroes are the most imitative set of people living. While they are

in a degraded condition, with little principle, little knowledge, little

independence, they copy the most successfully those things in their

superiors which involve the least principle, knowledge, and

independence; viz. their conventionalisms. They carry their mimicry far

beyond any which is seen among the menials of the rich in Europe. The

black footmen of the United States have tiptoe graces, stiff cravats,

and eye-catching flourishes, like the footmen in London: but the

imitation extends into more important matters. As the slaves of the

south assume their masters' names and military titles, they assume their

methods of conducting the courtesies and gaieties of life. I have in my

possession a note of invitation to a ball, written on pink paper with

gilt edges.[24] When the lady invited came to her mistress for the

ticket which was necessary to authorise her being out after nine at

night, she was dressed in satin with muslin over it, satin shoes, and

white kid gloves:--but, the satin was faded, the muslin torn: the shoes

were tied upon the extremities of her splay feet, and the white gloves

dropping in tatters from her dark fingers. She was a caricature, instead

of a fine lady. A friend of mine walked a mile or two in the dusk behind

two black men and a woman whom they were courting. He told me that

nothing could be more admirable than the coyness of the lady, and the

compliments of the gallant and his friend. It could not be very amusing

to those who reflect that holy and constant love, free preference, and

all that makes marriage a blessing instead of a curse, were here out of

the question: but the resemblance in the mode of courtship to that

adopted by whites, when meditating marriage of a not dissimilar

virtue,--a marriage of barter,--could not be overlooked.

Even in their ultimate, funereal courtesies, the coloured race imitate

the whites. An epitaph on a negro baby at Savannah begins, "Sweet

blighted lily!"--They have few customs which are absolutely peculiar.

One of these is refusing to eat before whites. When we went long

expeditions, carrying luncheon, or procuring it by the road-side, the

slaves always retired with their share behind trees or large stones, or

other hiding-places.

The Americans may be considered secure of good manners generally while

intellect is so reverenced among them as it is, above all other claims

to honour. Whatever follies and frivolities the would-be fashionable

classes may perpetrate, they will never be able to degrade the national

manners, or to make themselves the first people in the republic.

Intellect carries all before it in social intercourse, and will continue

to do so. I was struck by the fact that, in country villages, the most

enlightened members of a family may be cultivated as acquaintance,

without the rest. They may be invited to a superior party, and the

others left for an inferior one. As for the cities, Washington, with its

motley population in time of Session, is an exception to all rules; and

I certainly saw some uncommonly foolish people treated with more

attention, of a temporary kind, than some very wise ones. But in other

cities I am not aware of having seen any great influence possessed by

persons who had not sufficient intellectual desert. A Washington belle

related to me the sad story of the death of a young man who fell from a

small boat into the Potomac in the night,--it is supposed in his sleep.

She told where and how his body was found; and what relations he had

left; and finished with "he will be much missed at parties." Washington

is a place where a young man may be thus mourned: but elsewhere there

would have been a better reason given, or none at all. In the capitals

of States, men rank according to their supposed intellect. Many mistakes

are made in the estimate; and (far worse) many pernicious allowances are

made for bad morals, for the sake of the superior intellect: but still

the taste is a higher one, the gradation a more rational one, than is to

be found elsewhere: and, where such a taste and a gradation subsist, the

essentials of good manners can never be wanting. It is refreshing to

witness the village homage paid to the author and the statesman, as to

the highest of human beings. Whatever the author and the statesman may

be, the homage is honourable to those who offer it. It is no less

refreshing in the cities to see how the vainest fops and the most solid

capitalists readily succumb before men and women who are distinguished

for nothing but their minds. The worst of manners,--those which fly off

the furthest from nature, and do the most violence to the

affections--are such as arise from a surpassing regard to things outward

and shadowy: the best are those which manifest a pursuit of things

invisible and real. The Americans are better mannered than others, in as

far as they reverence intellect more than wealth and fashion. It remains

for them to enlarge their notions, and exalt their tests of intellect,

till it shall identify itself with morals. National manners, national

observances of rank graduated on such a principle would be no subject of

controversy, but would command the admiration, and gradually form the

taste, of the world. I cannot but think that a beginning of this change

is visible in the intercourses of those Americans who have rejected the

prevalent false idea of honour, and in the spirit of love borne witness

to unpopular truths. The freedom, gentleness, and earnestness of the

manners of such offer a realisation of grace which no conventional

training can secure. A southern gentleman was on board a steam-boat,

proceeding from New York to Philadelphia. He engaged in conversation

with two unknown gentlemen; and soon plunged into the subject of

slavery. He was a slave-holder, and they were abolitionists. With one of

them, he was peculiarly pleased; and they discussed their subject for a

great length of time. He at last addressed the other abolitionist thus:

"How easy and pleasant it is to argue this matter with such a man as

your friend! If all you abolitionists were like him, how soon we and you

might come to an understanding! But you are generally so coarse and

violent! You are all so like Garrison! Pray give me your friend's name."

"You have just spoken it. It is Mr. Garrison."

"Impossible! This gentleman is so mild, so gentlemanly."

"Ask the captain if it be not Mr. Garrison."

It was an important point. The captain was asked. This mild, courteous,

simple, sprightly, gentlemanly person was Garrison.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] Channing's Letter to Birney. 1837.

[21] Godwin's Inquirer.

[22] Sober Thoughts on the State of the Times. Boston, 1835, p. 27.

[23] This reminds me of a singular instance of confusion of ideas. The

landlady of a hotel declared my trumpet to be the best invention she had

ever seen: better than spectacles. Query, better for what?

[24] "Mr. Richard Masey requests the pleasure of Mrs. Miken's, and Miss

Arthur's company, on Saturday evening at seven o'clock, in Dr. Smith's

long brick-store."

CHAPTER II.

WOMAN.

"The vale best discovereth the hill. There is little friendship in

the world, and least of all between equals, which was wont to be

magnified. That that is, is between superior and inferior, whose

fortunes may comprehend the one the other."

_Bacon._

If a test of civilisation be sought, none can be so sure as the

condition of that half of society over which the other half has

power,--from the exercise of the right of the strongest. Tried by this

test, the American civilisation appears to be of a lower order than

might have been expected from some other symptoms of its social state.

The Americans have, in the treatment of women, fallen below, not only

their own democratic principles, but the practice of some parts of the

Old World.

The unconsciousness of both parties as to the injuries suffered by women

at the hands of those who hold the power is a sufficient proof of the

low degree of civilisation in this important particular at which they

rest. While woman's intellect is confined, her morals crushed, her

health ruined, her weaknesses encouraged, and her strength punished, she

is told that her lot is cast in the paradise of women: and there is no

country in the world where there is so much boasting of the

"chivalrous" treatment she enjoys. That is to say,--she has the best

place in stage-coaches: when there are not chairs enough for everybody,

the gentlemen stand: she hears oratorical flourishes on public occasions

about wives and home, and apostrophes to woman: her husband's hair

stands on end at the idea of her working, and he toils to indulge her

with money: she has liberty to get her brain turned by religious

excitements, that her attention may be diverted from morals, politics,

and philosophy; and, especially, her morals are guarded by the strictest

observance of propriety in her presence. In short, indulgence is given

her as a substitute for justice. Her case differs from that of the

slave, as to the principle, just so far as this; that the indulgence is

large and universal, instead of petty and capricious. In both cases,

justice is denied on no better plea than the right of the strongest. In

both cases, the acquiescence of the many, and the burning discontent of

the few, of the oppressed, testify, the one to the actual degradation of

the class, and the other to its fitness for the enjoyment of human

rights.

The intellect of woman is confined. I met with immediate proof of this.

Within ten days of my landing, I encountered three outrageous pedants,

among the ladies; and in my progress through the country I met with a

greater variety and extent of female pedantry than the experience of a

lifetime in Europe would afford. I could fill the remainder of my volume

with sketches: but I forbear, through respect even for this very

pedantry. Where intellect has a fair chance, there is no pedantry, among

men or women. It is the result of an intellect which cannot be wholly

passive, but must demonstrate some force, and does so through the medium

of narrow morals. Pedantry indicates the first struggle of intellect

with its restraints; and is therefore a hopeful symptom.

The intellect of woman is confined by an unjustifiable restriction of

both methods of education,--by express teaching, and by the discipline

of circumstance. The former, though prior in the chronology of each

individual, is a direct consequence of the latter, as regards the whole

of the sex. As women have none of the objects in life for which an

enlarged education is considered requisite, the education is not given.

Female education in America is much what it is in England. There is a

profession of some things being taught which are supposed necessary

because everybody learns them. They serve to fill up time, to occupy

attention harmlessly, to improve conversation, and to make women

something like companions to their husbands, and able to teach their

children somewhat. But what is given is, for the most part, passively

received; and what is obtained is, chiefly, by means of the memory.

There is rarely or never a careful ordering of influences for the

promotion of clear intellectual activity. Such activity, when it exceeds

that which is necessary to make the work of the teacher easy, is feared

and repressed. This is natural enough, as long as women are excluded

from the objects for which men are trained. While there are natural

rights which women may not use, just claims which are not to be listened

to, large objects which may not be approached, even in imagination,

intellectual activity is dangerous: or, as the phrase is, unfit.

Accordingly, marriage is the only object left open to woman. Philosophy

she may pursue only fancifully, and under pain of ridicule: science only

as a pastime, and under a similar penalty. Art is declared to be left

open: but the necessary learning, and, yet more, the indispensable

experience of reality, are denied to her. Literature is also said to be

permitted: but under what penalties and restrictions? I need only refer

to the last three pages of the review of Miss Sedgwick's last novel in

the North American Review, to support all that can be said of the

insolence to which the intellect of women is exposed in America. I am

aware that many blush for that article, and disclaim all sympathy with

it: but the bare fact that any man in the country could write it, that

any editor could sanction it, that such an intolerable scoff should be

allowed to find its way to the light, is a sufficient proof of the

degradation of the sex. Nothing is thus left for women but

marriage.--Yes; Religion, is the reply.--Religion is a temper, not a

pursuit. It is the moral atmosphere in which human beings are to live

and move. Men do not live to breathe: they breathe to live. A German

lady of extraordinary powers and endowments, remarked to me with

amazement on all the knowledge of the American women being based on

theology. She observed that in her own country theology had its turn

with other sciences, as a pursuit: but nowhere, but with the American

women, had she known it make the foundation of all other knowledge. Even

while thus complaining, this lady stated the case too favourably.

American women have not the requisites for the study of theology. The

difference between theology and religion, the science and the temper, is

yet scarcely known among them. It is religion which they pursue as an

occupation; and hence its small results upon the conduct, as well as

upon the intellect. We are driven back upon marriage as the only

appointed object in life: and upon the conviction that the sum and

substance of female education in America, as in England, is training

women to consider marriage as the sole object in life, and to pretend

that they do not think so.

The morals of women are crushed. If there be any human power and

business and privilege which is absolutely universal, it is the

discovery and adoption of the principle and laws of duty. As every

individual, whether man or woman, has a reason and a conscience, this is

a work which each is thereby authorised to do for him or herself. But it

is not only virtually prohibited to beings who, like the American women,

have scarcely any objects in life proposed to them; but the whole

apparatus of opinion is brought to bear offensively upon individuals

among women who exercise freedom of mind in deciding upon what duty is,

and the methods by which it is to be pursued. There is nothing

extraordinary to the disinterested observer in women being so grieved at

the case of slaves,--slave wives and mothers, as well as spirit-broken

men,--as to wish to do what they could for their relief: there is

nothing but what is natural in their being ashamed of the cowardice of

such white slaves of the north as are deterred by intimidation from

using their rights of speech and of the press, in behalf of the

suffering race, and in their resolving not to do likewise: there is

nothing but what is justifiable in their using their moral freedom, each

for herself, in neglect of the threats of punishment: yet there were no

bounds to the efforts made to crush the actions of women who thus used

their human powers in the abolition question, and the convictions of

those who looked on, and who might possibly be warmed into free action

by the beauty of what they saw. It will be remembered that they were

women who asserted the right of meeting and of discussion, on the day

when Garrison was mobbed in Boston. Bills were posted about the city on

this occasion, denouncing these women as casting off the refinement and

delicacy of their sex: the newspapers, which laud the exertions of

ladies in all other charities for the prosecution of which they are

wont to meet and speak, teemed with the most disgusting reproaches and

insinuations: and the pamphlets which related to the question all

presumed to censure the act of duty which the women had performed in

deciding upon their duty for themselves.--One lady, of high talents and

character, whose books were very popular before she did a deed greater

than that of writing any book, in acting upon an unusual conviction of

duty, and becoming an abolitionist, has been almost excommunicated

since. A family of ladies, whose talents and conscientiousness had

placed them high in the estimation of society as teachers, have lost all

their pupils since they declared their anti-slavery opinions. The

reproach in all the many similar cases that I know is, not that the

ladies hold anti-slavery opinions, but that they act upon them. The

incessant outcry about the retiring modesty of the sex proves the

opinion of the censors to be, that fidelity to conscience is

inconsistent with retiring modesty. If it be so, let the modesty

succumb. It can be only a false modesty which can be thus endangered. No

doubt, there were people in Rome who were scandalised at the unseemly

boldness of christian women who stood in the amphitheatre to be torn in

pieces for their religion. No doubt there were many gentlemen in the

British army who thought it unsuitable to the retiring delicacy of the

sex that the wives and daughters of the revolutionary heroes should be

revolutionary heroines. But the event has a marvellous efficacy in

modifying the ultimate sentence. The bold christian women, the brave

American wives and daughters of half a century ago are honoured, while

the intrepid moralists of the present day, worthy of their grandmothers,

are made the confessors and martyrs of their age.

I could cite many conversations and incidents to show how the morals of

women are crushed: but I can make room for only one. Let it be the

following. A lady, who is considered unusually clear-headed and

sound-hearted where trying questions are not concerned, one day praised

very highly Dr. Channing's work on Slavery. "But," said she, "do not you

think it a pity that so much is said on slavery just now?"

"No. I think it necessary and natural."

"But people who hold Dr. Channing's belief about a future life, cannot

well make out the case of the slaves to be so very bad an one. If the

present life is but a moment in comparison with the eternity to come,

can it matter so very much how it is spent?"

"How does it strike you about your own children? Would it reconcile you

to their being made slaves, that they could be so only for three-score

years and ten?"

"O no. But yet it seems as if life would so soon be over."

"And what do you think of their condition at the end of it? How much

will the purposes of human life have been fulfilled?"

"The slaves will not be punished, you know, for the state they may be

in; for it will be no fault of their own. Their masters will have the

responsibility; not they."

"Place the responsibility where you will. Speaking according to your own

belief, do you think it of no consequence whether a human being enters

upon a future life utterly ignorant and sensualised, or in the likeness

of Dr. Channing, as you described him just now?"

"Of great consequence, certainly. But then it is no business of ours; of

us women, at all events."

"I thought you considered yourself a Christian."

"So I do. You will say that Christians should help sufferers, whoever

and wherever they may be. But not women, in all cases, surely."

"Where, in your Christianity, do you find the distinction made?"

She could only reply that she thought women should confine themselves to

doing what could be done at home. I asked her what her christian charity

would bid her do, if she saw a great boy beating a little one in the

street.

"O, I parted two such the other day in the street. It would have been

very wrong to have passed them by."

"Well: if there are a thousand strong men in the south beating ten

thousand weak slaves, and you can possibly help to stop the beating by a

declaration of your opinion upon it, does not your christian duty oblige

you to make such a declaration, whether you are man or woman? What in

the world has your womanhood to do with it?"

How fearfully the morals of woman are crushed, appears from the

prevalent persuasion that there are virtues which are peculiarly

masculine, and others which are peculiarly feminine. It is amazing that

a society which makes a most emphatic profession of its Christianity,

should almost universally entertain such a fallacy: and not see that, in

the case they suppose, instead of the character of Christ being the

meeting point of all virtues, there would have been a separate gospel

for women, and a second company of agents for its diffusion. It is not

only that masculine and feminine employments are supposed to be properly

different. No one in the world, I believe, questions this. But it is

actually supposed that what are called the hardy virtues are more

appropriate to men, and the gentler to women. As all virtues nourish

each other, and can no otherwise be nourished, the consequence of the

admitted fallacy is that men are, after all, not nearly so brave as they

ought to be; nor women so gentle. But what is the manly character till

it be gentle? The very word magnanimity cannot be thought of in relation

to it till it becomes mild--Christ-like. Again, what can a woman be, or

do, without bravery? Has she not to struggle with the toils and

difficulties which follow upon the mere possession of a mind? Must she

not face physical and moral pain--physical and moral danger? Is there a

day of her life in which there are not conflicts wherein no one can help

her--perilous work to be done, in which she can have neither sympathy

nor aid? Let her lean upon man as much as he will, how much is it that

he can do for her?--from how much can he protect her? From a few

physical perils, and from a very few social evils. This is all. Over the

moral world he has no control, except on his own account; and it is the

moral life of human beings which is all in all. He can neither secure

any woman from pain and grief, nor rescue her from the strife of

emotions, nor prevent the film of life from cracking under her feet with

every step she treads, nor hide from her the abyss which is beneath, nor

save her from sinking into it at last alone. While it is so, while woman

is human, men should beware how they deprive her of any of the strength

which is all needed for the strife and burden of humanity. Let them

beware how they put her off her watch and defence, by promises which

they cannot fulfil;--promises of a guardianship which can arise only

from within; of support which can be derived only from the freest moral

action,--from the self-reliance which can be generated by no other

means.

But, it may be asked, how does society get on,--what does it do? for it

acts on the supposition of there being masculine and feminine

virtues,--upon the fallacy just exposed.

It does so; and the consequences are what might be looked for. Men are

ungentle, tyrannical. They abuse the right of the strongest, however

they may veil the abuse with indulgence. They want the magnanimity to

discern woman's human rights; and they crush her morals rather than

allow them. Women are, as might be anticipated, weak, ignorant and

subservient, in as far as they exchange self-reliance for reliance on

anything out of themselves. Those who will not submit to such a

suspension of their moral functions, (for the work of self-perfection

remains to be done, sooner or later,) have to suffer for their

allegiance to duty. They have all the need of bravery that the few

heroic men who assert the highest rights of women have of gentleness, to

guard them from the encroachment to which power, custom, and education,

incessantly conduce.

Such brave women and such just men there are in the United States,

scattered among the multitude, whose false apprehension of rights leads

to an enormous failure of duties. There are enough of such to commend

the true understanding and practice to the simplest minds and most

faithful hearts of the community, under whose testimony the right

principle will spread and flourish. If it were not for the external

prosperity of the country, the injured half of its society would

probably obtain justice sooner than in any country of Europe. But the

prosperity of America is a circumstance unfavourable to its women. It

will be long before they are put to the proof as to what they are

capable of thinking and doing: a proof to which hundreds, perhaps

thousands of Englishwomen have been put by adversity, and the result of

which is a remarkable improvement in their social condition, even within

the space of ten years. Persecution for opinion, punishment for all

manifestations of intellectual and moral strength, are still as common

as women who have opinions and who manifest strength: but some things

are easy, and many are possible of achievement, to women of ordinary

powers, which it would have required genius to accomplish but a few

years ago.

SECTION I.

MARRIAGE.

If there is any country on earth where the course of true love may be

expected to run smooth, it is America. It is a country where all can

marry early, where there need be no anxiety about a worldly provision,

and where the troubles arising from conventional considerations of rank

and connexion ought to be entirely absent. It is difficult for a

stranger to imagine beforehand why all should not love and marry

naturally and freely, to the prevention of vice out of the marriage

state, and of the common causes of unhappiness within it. The

anticipations of the stranger are not, however, fulfilled: and they

never can be while the one sex overbears the other. Marriage is in

America more nearly universal, more safe, more tranquil, more fortunate

than in England: but it is still subject to the troubles which arise

from the inequality of the parties in mind and in occupation. It is more

nearly universal, from the entire prosperity of the country: it is

safer, from the greater freedom of divorce, and consequent

discouragement of swindling, and other vicious marriages: it is more

tranquil and fortunate from the marriage vows being made absolutely

reciprocal; from the arrangements about property being generally far

more favorable to the wife than in England; and from her not being made,

as in England, to all intents and purposes the property of her husband.

The outward requisites to happiness are nearly complete, and the

institution is purified from the grossest of the scandals which degrade

it in the Old World: but it is still the imperfect institution which it

must remain while women continue to be ill-educated, passive, and

subservient: or well-educated, vigorous, and free only upon sufferance.

The institution presents a different aspect in the various parts of the

country. I have spoken of the early marriages of silly children in the

south and west, where, owing to the disproportion of numbers, every

woman is married before she well knows how serious a matter human life

is. She has an advantage which very few women elsewhere are allowed: she

has her own property to manage. It would be a rare sight elsewhere to

see a woman of twenty-one in her second widowhood, managing her own farm

or plantation; and managing it well, because it had been in her own

hands during her marriage. In Louisiana, and also in Missouri, (and

probably in other States,) a woman not only has half her husband's

property by right at his death, but may always be considered as

possessed of half his gains during his life; having at all times power

to bequeath that amount. The husband interferes much less with his

wife's property in the south, even through her voluntary relinquishment

of it, than is at all usual where the cases of women, having property

during their marriage are rare. In the southern newspapers,

advertisements may at any time be seen, running thus:--"Mrs. A, wife of

Mr. A, will dispose of &c. &c." When Madame Lalaurie was mobbed in New

Orleans, no one meddled with her husband or his possessions; as he was

no more responsible for her management of her human property than

anybody else. On the whole, the practice seems to be that the weakest

and most ignorant women give up their property to their husbands; the

husbands of such women being precisely the men most disposed to accept

it: and that the strongest-minded and most conscientious women keep

their property, and use their rights; the husbands of such women being

precisely those who would refuse to deprive their wives of their social

duties and privileges.

If this condition of the marriage law should strike any English persons

as a peculiarity, it is well that they should know that it is the

English law which is peculiar, and not that of Louisiana. The English

alone vary from the old Saxon law, that a wife shall possess half, or a

large part, of her husband's earnings or makings. It is so in Spanish,

French, and Italian law; and probably in German, as the others are

derived thence. Massachusetts has copied the faults of the English law,

in this particular; and I never met with any lawyer, or other citizen

with whom I conversed on the subject, who was not ashamed of the

barbarism of the law under which a woman's property goes into her

husband's hands with herself. A liberal-minded lawyer of Boston told me

that his advice to testators always is to leave the largest possible

amount to the widow, subject to the condition of her leaving it to the

children: but that it is with shame that he reflects that any woman

should owe that to his professional advice which the law should have

secured to her as a right. I heard a frequent expression of indignation

that the wife, the friend and helper of many years, should be portioned

off with a legacy, like a salaried domestic, instead of having her

husband's affairs come legally, as they would naturally, into her hands.

In Rhode Island, a widow is entitled to one-third of her husband's

property: and, on the sale of any estate of his during his life, she is

examined, in the absence of the husband, as to her will with regard to

her own proportion of it. There is some of the apparatus of female

independence in the country. It will be most interesting to observe to

what uses it is put, whenever the restraints of education and opinion to

which women are subject, shall be so far relaxed as to leave them

morally free.

I have mentioned that divorce is more easily obtained in the United

States than in England. In no country, I believe, are the marriage laws

so iniquitous as in England, and the conjugal relation, in consequence,

so impaired. Whatever may be thought of the principles which are to

enter into laws of divorce, whether it be held that pleas for divorce

should be one, (as narrow interpreters of the New Testament would have

it;) or two, (as the law of England has it;) or several, (as the

Continental and United States' laws in many instances allow,) nobody, I

believe, defends the arrangement by which, in England, divorce is

obtainable only by the very rich. The barbarism of granting that as a

privilege to the extremely wealthy, to which money bears no relation

whatever, and in which all married persons whatever have an equal

interest, needs no exposure beyond the mere statement of the fact. It

will be seen at a glance how such an arrangement tends to vitiate

marriage: how it offers impunity to adventurers, and encouragement to

every kind of mercenary marriages: how absolute is its oppression of the

injured party: and how, by vitiating marriage, it originates and

aggravates licentiousness to an incalculable extent. To England alone

belongs the disgrace of such a method of legislation. I believe that,

while there is little to be said for the legislation of any part of the

world on this head, it is nowhere so vicious as in England.

Of the American States, I believe New York approaches nearest to England

in its laws of divorce. It is less rigid, in as far as that more is

comprehended under the term "cruelty." The husband is supposed to be

liable to cruelty from the wife, as well as the wife from the husband.

There is no practical distinction made between rich and poor by the

process being rendered expensive: and the cause is more easily resumable

after a reconciliation of the parties. In Massachusetts, the term

"cruelty" is made so comprehensive, and the mode of sustaining the plea

is so considerately devised, that divorces are obtainable with peculiar

ease. The natural consequence follows: such a thing is never heard of. A

long-established and very eminent lawyer of Boston told me that he had

known of only one in all his experience. Thus it is wherever the law is

relaxed, and, _cæteris paribus_, in proportion to its relaxation: for

the obvious reason, that the protection offered by law to the injured

party causes marriages to be entered into with fewer risks, and the

conjugal relation carried on with more equality. Retribution is known to

impend over violations of conjugal duty. When I was in North Carolina,

the wife of a gamester there obtained a divorce without the slightest

difficulty. When she had brought evidence of the danger to herself and

her children,--danger pecuniary and moral,--from her husband's gambling

habits, the bill passed both Houses without a dissenting voice.

It is clear that the sole business which legislation has with marriage

is with the arrangement of property; to guard the reciprocal rights of

the children of the marriage and the community. There is no further

pretence for the interference of the law, in any way. An advance towards

the recognition of the true principle of legislative interference in

marriage has been made in England, in the new law in which the agreement

of marriage is made a civil contract, leaving the religious obligation

to the conscience and taste of the parties. It will be probably next

perceived that if the civil obligation is fulfilled, if the children of

the marriage are legally and satisfactorily provided for by the parties,

without the assistance of the legislature, the legislature has, in

principle, nothing more to do with the matter. This principle has been

acted upon in the marriage arrangements of Zurich, with the best effects

upon the morals of the conjugal relation. The parties there are married

by a form; and have liberty to divorce themselves without any appeal to

law, on showing that they have legally provided for the children of the

marriage. There was some previous alarm about the effect upon morals of

the removal of such important legal restrictions: but the event

justified the confidence of those who proceeded on the conviction that

the laws of human affection, when not tampered with, are more sacred and

binding than those of any legislature that ever sat in council. There

was some levity at first, chiefly on the part of those who were

suffering under the old system: but the morals of the society soon

became, and have since remained, peculiarly pure.

It is assumed in America, particularly in New England, that the morals

of society there are peculiarly pure. I am grieved to doubt the fact:

but I do doubt it. Nothing like a comparison between one country and

another in different circumstances can be instituted: nor would any one

desire to enter upon such a comparison. The bottomless vice, the

all-pervading corruption of European society cannot, by possibility, be

yet paralleled in America: but neither is it true that any outward

prosperity, any arrangement of circumstances, can keep a society pure

while there is corruption in its social methods, and among its

principles of individual action. Even in America, where every young man

may, if he chooses, marry at twenty-one, and appropriate all the best

comforts of domestic life,--even here there is vice. Men do not choose

to marry early, because they have learned to think other things of more

importance than the best comforts of domestic life. A gentleman of

Massachusetts, who knows life and the value of most things in it, spoke

to me with deep concern of the alteration in manners which is going on:

of the increase of bachelors, and of mercenary marriages; and of the

fearful consequences. It is too soon for America to be following the old

world in its ways. In the old world, the necessity of thinking of a

maintenance before thinking of a wife has led to requiring a certain

style of living before taking a wife; and then, alas! to taking a wife

for the sake of securing a certain style of living. That this species of

corruption is already spreading in the new world is beyond a doubt;--in

the cities, where the people who live for wealth and for opinion

congregate.

I was struck with the great number of New England women whom I saw

married to men old enough to be their fathers. One instance which

perplexed me exceedingly, on my entrance into the country, was explained

very little to my satisfaction. The girl had been engaged to a young man

whom she was attached to: her mother broke off the engagement, and

married her to a rich old man. This story was a real shock to me; so

persuaded had I been that in America, at least, one might escape from

the disgusting spectacle of mercenary marriages. But I saw only too

many instances afterwards. The practice was ascribed to the

often-mentioned fact of the young men migrating westwards in large

numbers, leaving those who should be their wives to marry widowers of

double their age. The Auld Robin Gray story is a frequently enacted

tragedy here: and one of the worst symptoms that struck me was, that

there was usually a demand upon my sympathy in such cases. I have no

sympathy for those who, under any pressure of circumstances, sacrifice

their heart's-love for legal prostitution; and no environment of beauty

or sentiment can deprive the fact of its coarseness: and least of all

could I sympathise with women who set the example of marrying for an

establishment in a new country, where, if anywhere, the conjugal

relation should be found in its purity.

The unavoidable consequence of such a mode of marrying is, that the

sanctity of marriage is impaired, and that vice succeeds. Any one must

see at a glance that if men and women marry those whom they do not love,

they must love those whom they do not marry. There are sad tales in

country villages, here and there, which attest this; and yet more in

towns, in a rank of society where such things are seldom or never heard

of in England. I rather think that married life is immeasurably purer in

America than in England: but that there is not otherwise much

superiority to boast of. I can only say, that I unavoidably knew of more

cases of lapse in highly respectable families in one State than ever

came to my knowledge at home; and that they were got over with a

disgrace far more temporary and superficial than they could have been

visited with in England. I am aware that in Europe the victims are

chosen, with deliberate selfishness, from classes which cannot make

known their perils and their injuries; while in America, happily, no

such class exists. I am aware that this destroys all possibility of a

comparison: but the fact remains, that the morals of American society

are less pure than they assume to be. If the common boast be meant to

apply to the rural population, at least let it not be made, either in

pious gratitude, or patriotic conceit, by the aristocratic city classes,

who, by introducing the practice of mercenary marriages, have rendered

themselves responsible for whatever dreadful consequences may ensue.