foreigners; and until they become better acquainted with the causes
which produce so unrestrained a deportment, they are liable to take
disadvantageous and mistaken impressions with regard to them. The term
which I should say applied best to the tone and carriage of American
girls from ten to eighteen, is hoydenish; laughing, giggling, romping,
flirting, screaming at the top of their voices, running in and out of
shops, and spending a very considerable portion of their time in
lounging about in the streets. In Philadelphia and Boston, almost all
the young ladies attend classes or day schools; and in the latter place
I never went out, morning, noon, or evening, that I did not meet, in
some of the streets round the Tremont House, a whole bevy of young
school girls, who were my very particular friends, but who, under
pretext of going to, or returning from, school, appeared to me to be
always laughing, and talking, and running about in the public
thoroughfares; a system of education which we should think by no means
desirable. The entire liberty which the majority of young ladies are
allowed to assume, at an age when in England they would be under strict
nursery discipline, appears very extraordinary; they not only walk alone
in the streets, but go out into society, where they take a determined
and leading part, without either mother, aunt, or chaperon of any sort;
custom, which renders such an appendage necessary with us, entirely
dispenses with it here; and though the reason of this is obvious enough
in the narrow circles of these small towns, where every body knows every
body, the manners of the young ladies do not derive any additional charm
from the perfect self-possession which they thus acquire. Shyness
appears to me to be a quality utterly unknown to either man, woman, or
child in America. The girls, from the reasons above stated, and the
boys, from being absolutely thrown into the world, and made men of
business before they are sixteen, are alike deficient in any thing like
diffidence; and I really have been all but disconcerted at the perfect
assurance with which I have been addressed, upon any and every subject,
by little men and women just half way through their teens. That very
common character amongst us, a shy man, is not to be met with in these
latitudes. An American conversing on board one of their steam-boats is
immediately surrounded, particularly if his conversation, though
strictly directed to one individual, is of a political nature; in an
instant a ring of spectators is formed round him, and whereas an
Englishman would become silent at the very first appearance of a
listener, an American, far from seeming abashed at this "audience,"
continues his discourse, which thus assumes the nature of an harangue,
with perfect equanimity, and feels no annoyance whatever at having
unfolded his private opinions of men and matters to a circle of forty or
fifty people whom they could in no possible way concern. Speechifying is
a very favourite species of exhibition with the men here, by the by;
and, besides being self possessed, they are all remarkably fluent.
Really eloquent men are just as rare in this country as in any other,
but the "gift of the gab" appears to me more widely disseminated amongst
Americans than any other people in the world. Many things go to make
good speakers of them: great acuteness, and sound common sense,
sufficient general knowledge, and great knowledge of the world, an
intense interest in every political measure, no matter how trivial in
itself, no sense of bashfulness, and a great readiness of expression.
But to return to the manners of the young American girls:--It is
Rousseau, I think, who says, "Dans un pays où les moeurs sont pures, les
filles seront faciles, et les femmes sévères." This applies particularly
well to the carriage of the American women. When remarking to a
gentleman once the difference between the manners of my own young
countrywomen and his, I expressed my disapprobation of the education
which led to such a result, he replied, "You forget the comparatively
pure state of morals in our country, which admits of this degree of
freedom in our young women, without its rendering them liable to insult
or misconstruction." This is true, and it is also most true, for I have
seen repeated instances of it, that those very girls, whose manners have
been most displeasing to my European ways of feeling, whom I should have
pointed out as romps and flirts pre-eminent, not only make excellent
wives, but from the very moment of their marriage seem to forsake
society, and devote themselves exclusively to household duties and
retirement. But that I have seen and known of repeated instances of
this, I could scarcely have believed it, but it is the case; and a young
American lady, speaking upon this subject, said to me, "We enjoy
ourselves before marriage; but in your country, girls marry to obtain a
greater degree of freedom, and indulge in the pleasures and dissipations
of society." She was not, I think, greatly mistaken.
[57] For the origin of this curious name, see that interesting and
veracious work, the history of Knickerbocker.
[58] Famous as the scene of Ichabod Crane's exploits.
[59] If the results answer to the means employed, the pupils of West
Point ought to turn out accomplished scholars in every branch of human
learning, as well as ripe soldiers and skilful engineers. Their course
of education consists of almost every study within the range of man's
capacity; and as the school discipline is unusually strict, their hours
of labour many, and of recreation very few, they should he able to boast
of many "wise men" among their number. However it is here, I imagine, as
elsewhere; where studies are pursued laboriously for a length of time,
variety becomes a necessary relief to the mental powers, and so far the
multiplicity of objects of acquirement may be excused; but surely, to
combine in the education of one youth the elements of half a dozen
sciences, each one of which would wear out a man's life in the full
understanding of it, is not the best system of instruction. However, it
is the one now universally adopted, and tends to give more smatterers in
science than scientific men to the world. The military part of their
education is, however, what the pupils of West Point are most exercised
in, and, so far as one so ignorant of such matters as myself can judge,
I should imagine the system adopted calculated to make expert
artillerymen and engineers of them. Their deportment, and the way they
went through their evolutions on the parade, did not appear to me very
steady--there was a want of correctness of carriage, generally, and of
absolute precision of movement, which one accustomed to the manoeuvring
of regular troops detects immediately. There are several large pieces of
ordnance kept in the gun-room, some of which were taken from the
English; and I remarked a pretty little brass cannon, which almost
looked plaything, which bore the broad arrow and the name of Saratoga.
[60] It might be a curious and interesting matter of research to
determine under what combination of external circumstances the spirit of
poetry flourishes most vigorously, and good poets have most abounded.
The extremes of poverty and luxury seem alike inimical to its
well-being; yet the latter far more so than the former, for most poets
have been poor; some so poor, as to enrich the world, while they
themselves received so little return from its favour as miserably to
perish of want. Again, the level tenor of a life alike removed from want
and superfluity should seem too devoid of interest or excitement to make
a good poet. Long-lived competency is more favourable to the even temper
of philosophy than the fiery nature of one who must know the storms of
passion, and all the fiercer elements of which the acting and suffering
soul of man is made. Again, it would be curious to know, if it might be
ascertained, whether those men whose inspirations have been aided alone
by the contemplation of the inanimate beauties of nature, and the
phenomena of their own minds and the minds and lives of their fellows,
have been as great poets as those who, besides these sources of
inspiration, fed the power within them with the knowledge of great
writers and poets of other countries and times. Another question, which
it would be interesting to determine, would be, under what species of
government poets have been most numerous, and most honoured. As our
modern exploders of old fallacies have not yet made up their minds
whether such a person as Homer ever lived, it is rather a vain labour of
imagination to determine whether this great king of all poets flourished
under a monarchy or in a republic; certain it is, he sang of kings and
princes in right lordly style: be that as it may, we have rather better
authority for believing that the Greek dramatists, those masters, and
sometime models, of their peculiar branch of the art, flourished under
republican governments; but with them, I think, ends the list of
republican poets of great and universal fame. Rome had no poets till she
had emperors. Italy was, it is true, divided into so called republics
dining the golden age of her literature; but they were so in name alone;
the spirit of equality had long departed from the soil, and they were
merely prouder and more arbitrary aristocracies than have ever existed
under any monarchy in the world. If ever France can be said to have had
a poetical age, it was during the magnificent reign of Louis the
Fourteenth, that pageant that prepared the bloodiest tragedy in the
pages of history. England offers the only exception that I have
advanced, namely, that the republican form of government is inimical to
poetry. For it was during the short and shameful period of fanatical
republicanism, which blots her annals, that the glory and the might of
Milton rose upon the world; he is the only great poet who ever
flourished under a republic; and he was rather the poet of heaven and
hell, than of earth: his subjects are either biblical or mythological;
and however his stern and just spirit might advocate the cause of
equality and universal freedom in the more arid regions of political and
theological controversies, in his noblest and greatest capacity he has
sung of angels and archangels, the starry hierarchy of heaven, where
some of the blessed wore a brighter glory than their fellows, where some
were inferior to other celestial powers, and where God was King supreme
over all. In heaven, Milton dreamt of no republics, nor in hell either.
[61] It is quite curious to observe how utterly unknown a thing a
_really_ well-broken horse is in this country. I have just bought one
who was highly approved and recommended by several gentlemen considered
here as learned in all these matters; and of my own knowledge, I might
hunt the Union over and not find a better. As far as the make, and
beauty, and disposition of the animal goes, there is no fault to find;
but this _lady's horse_ never had a woman on its back, had never been
ridden but with a snaffle bit, and, until she came into my possession,
did not know how to canter with her right foot. When the Americans say a
horse is well broken, they mean it is not wild.
[62] The various censures which English travellers have bestowed upon
various things in this country are constantly, both in private
conversation and the public prints, attributed to _English jealousy_. I
confess I have been amused at the charge, and can only sincerely hope I
may not draw down so awful an accusation on myself, when I declare,
that, during a three years' residence in America, almost every article,
of every description, which I have had made, has been ill made, and
obliged to undergo manifold alterations. I don't pretend to account for
the fact, for fear the obvious reasons might appear to find their source
in that very small jealousy of which England is guilty towards this
country, in the person of her journal-scribbling travellers; but to the
fact there is and can be no denial.
[63] When you carry your complaint of careless work, or want of
punctuality, to the tradespeople whom you employ here, the unfortunate
principals really excite your sympathy by their helpless situation with
regard to the free republicans whom they employ, and who, with the utter
contempt of subordination which the cheapness of living, and the spirit
of license (not liberty) produce among the lower classes here, come when
they please, depart when they like, work when they choose, and, if you
remonstrate, take themselves off to new masters, secure of employment in
your neighbour's house, if your mode of employing them displeases them.
Manifold are the lamentations I have heard, of "Oh, ma'am, this is not
like the old country; we can't get journeymen to work here, ma'am; we're
obliged to do just as our workmen please, ma'am." One poor French
dress-maker appeared to me on the verge of distraction, from the utter
impossibility of keeping in any order a tribe of sewing girls, whom she
seemed to pay on purpose that they might drive her crazy; and my
shoemaker assured me the other day, with a most woful face, that it was
election week, and that if I was as suffering for shoes as a lady could
be, I could not have mine till the political cobblers in his employ had
settled the "business of the nation" to their satisfaction. Patience is
the only remedy. Whoever lives here, that has ever lived elsewhere,
should come provided with it.
[64] This description may amaze sundry narrow-minded and prejudiced
dwellers in those unhappy countries where standing armies are among the
standing abuses, and the miserable stipendiaries of hoary tyrannies go
about wearing the livery of their trade with a slavish unanimity
becoming alone to hirelings and salaried butchers base. But whoever
should imagine that the members of an enlightened and free republic
must, because they condescend to become soldiers, for the pure love of
their country, behave as soldiers also, would draw foolish conclusions.
Discipline, order, a peculiar carriage, a particular dress, obedience to
superiors, and observance of rules, these, indeed, may all be the
attributes of such miserable creatures as are content to receive wages
for their blood. But for free Americans! why should they not walk
crooked, in the defence of their country, if they don't like to walk
straight? why should they not carry their guns on their shoulders
instead of upright, if they please? and why, since they chose to defend
their lives and liberties by becoming volunteers, should they not stick
any feathers, of any colours that they like in their caps--black, white,
or green? Is the noble occupation of war incompatible with the still
nobler possession of freedom? Heaven forbid! and long live the American
militia, to prove their entire compatibility.
[65] The militia has fallen into disrepute of late in New York and
Philadelphia. Trainings and parades take too much of the precious time,
whose minutes are cents, and hours dollars. The only instance of humour,
national or individual, which I have witnessed since my abode in this
country, was a sham parade got up in mimicry of the real one here
described. In this grotesque procession, every man was dressed in the
most absurd costume he could devise: banners with the most ludicrous
inscriptions, wooden swords of gigantic dimensions, and children's
twopenny guns, were some of their paraphernalia; and, in the absurd and
monstrous objects the men had made of themselves, with false whiskers,
beards, and noses, I recognised some of the broad, coarse, powerful
humour of the lower orders in the old country. But it is the _only_
symptom of such a spirit which I have met with. The absolute absence of
imagination, of course, is also the absolute absence of humour. An
American can no more understand a fanciful jest than a poetical idea;
and in society and conversation the strictest matter of fact prevails:
for any thing departing from it, though but an inch, either towards the
sublime or the ridiculous, becomes immediately incomprehensible to your
auditors, who will stare at your enthusiasm, and sincerely ask you the
meaning of your jest.
[66] A place devoted to political meetings, chiefly, however, I believe,
those termed here "democratic."
[67] It is the property of perfection alone to rivet the admiration of
absolute ignorance; whence I conclude that the river craft, hovering
from morning till night along the waters that surround New York, must be
the most beautiful in the world. Their lightness, grace, swiftness, and
strength, appear to me unequalled. Such beautiful vessels I never saw;
more beautiful ones I cannot imagine.
[68] In Canova's group of Cupid and Psyche, the young god is smiling
like a god; but the eager parted lips with which Psyche is seeking his,
wear no such expression--you might fancy they trembled, but they
certainly do not smile.
[69] The ladies of New York, and all lady-like people there, have agreed
to call this eddy _Hurl_-gate. The superior propriety of this name is
not to be questioned; for hell is a shocking bad word, no doubt: but,
being infinitely more appropriate to the place and its qualities, I have
ventured to mention it.
[70] The ladies here have an extreme aversion to being called _women_, I
don't exactly understand why. Their idea is, that that term designates
only the lower or less-refined classes of female human-kind. This is a
mistake which I wonder they should fall into; for in all countries in
the world, queens, duchesses, and countesses, are called women; but in
this one alone, washerwomen, sempstresses, and housemaids are entitled
_ladies_; so that, in fact, here woman is by far the more desirable
appellation of the two.
[71] The established succession of figures which form the _one_ French
quadrille, in executing which the ball-rooms of Paris and London have
spent so many satisfactory hours ever since it was invented, by no means
satisfies the Americans. At the close of almost every quadrille, a
_fancy_ figure is danced, which, depending entirely upon the directions
of the leader of the band, is a very curious medley of all the rest. The
company not being gifted with second sight, and of course not knowing at
every step what next they may be called upon to do, go fearfully sliding
along, looking at each other, asking, "how does it go on?" some _en
avant deux-ing_, while others are starting off _en promenade_, the whole
being a complete confusion of purpose and execution. The common French
figure, the Trénis, is very seldom danced at all,--they do not appear to
know it.
[72] This terrible nuisance has often made me wish for that "still small
voice," which has become the universal tone of good society in England,
and which, however inconvenient sometimes from its utter inaudibility,
at least did not send one to bed with one's ears ringing and one's head
splitting. I was in a society of about twelve ladies, the other evening,
and the _uproar_ was so excessive that I felt my eyebrows contracting
from a sense of perfect bewilderment, occasioned by the noise all round
me, and more than once was obliged to request the person with whom I was
conversing to stop till the _noise_ had subsided a little, that I might
be able to distinguish what he was saying to me. Were the women here
large and masculine in their appearance, this defect would appear less
strange, though not less disagreeable; but they are singularly delicate
and feminine in their style of beauty; and the noise they make strikes
one with surprise as something monstrous and unnatural--like mice
roaring. They frequently talk four or five at a time, and directly
across each other; neither of which proceedings is exactly according to
my ideas of good breeding.
[73] Unromantic as these birds are in their external appearance, there
is something poetical in their love of sunny skies. Many attempts have
been made to rear them in England; but I am told that they will not sing
there, or indeed any where but where the sun shines as it does here.
[74] In speaking of the bad and disagreeable results of the political
institutions of this country, as exhibited in the feelings and manners
of the lower orders, I have every where dwelt upon those which, from my
own disposition, and the opinions and sentiments in which I have been
educated, have struck me most, and most unfavourably. But I should be
sorry to be so blind, or so prejudiced, as not to perceive the great
moral goods which arise from the very same source, and display
themselves strongly in the same class of people: _honesty_ and _truth_,
excellences so great, that the most bigoted worshipper of the forms and
divisions of societies in the old world would surely be ashamed to weigh
them in the balance against the deference there paid to rank or riches,
or even the real and very agreeable qualities of civility and courtesy.
Americans (I speak now of the _people_, not the gentlemen and ladies,
_they_ are neither so honest and true, nor quite so rude,) are indeed
independent. Every man that will work a little can live extremely well.
No portion of the country is yet overstocked with followers of trades,
not even the Atlantic cities. Living is cheap--labour is dear. To
conclude, as the Irish woman said, "It is a darling country for poor
folks; for if I work three days in the week, can't I lie in my bed the
other three if I plase?" This being so, all dealings between
handicraftsmen and those who employ them; tradesmen and those who buy of
them; servants and those who are served by them; are conducted upon the
most entire system of reciprocity of advantage; indeed, if any thing,
the obligation appears always to lie on that party which, with us, is
generally supposed to confer it. Thus,--my shoemaker, a person with whom
I have now dealt largely for two years, said to me the other day, upon
my remonstrating about being obliged regularly to come to his shop and
unboot, whenever I order a new pair of walking-boots--"Well, ma'am, we
can keep your measure certainly, _to oblige you_, but, as a rule, we
don't do it for any of our customers, it's so very troublesome." These
people are, then, as I said before, most truly independent; they are
therefore never servile, and but seldom civil, but for the very same
reason they do not rob you; they do not need to do so; neither do they
lie to you, for your favour or displeasure in no way affects their
interest. If you entrust to their care materials of any sort to make up,
you are sure, no matter how long you may leave them in their hands, or
how entirely you may have forgotten the quantity originally given, to
have every inch of them returned to you: and you are also generally sure
that any question you ask, with regard to the quality of what you
purchase, will be answered without any endeavour to impose upon you, or
palm upon your ignorance that which is worse for that which is better.
Two circumstances, which have come under my own knowledge, will serve to
illustrate the spirit of the people; and they are good illustrations to
quote, for similar circumstances are of daily and hourly occurrence.
A farmer who is in the habit of calling at our house on his way to
market, with eggs, poultry, etc., being questioned as to whether the
eggs were new-laid, replied, without an instant's hesitation, "No, not
the _very_ fresh ones, _we eat all those ourselves_."
On returning home late from the play one night, I could not find my
slippers any where, and, after some useless searching, performed my
toilet for bed without them. The next morning, on enquiring of my maid
if she knew any thing of them, she replied with perfect equanimity, that
having walked home through the snow, and got her feet extremely wet, she
had put them on, and forgotten to restore them to their place before my
return. Nobody, I think, will doubt that an English farmer, and an
English servant, might sell stale eggs, and use their mistress's
slippers; but I think it highly doubtful, that either fact would have
been acknowledged with such perfect honesty any where but here. As to
the servants here, except the blacks, and the poor Irish bread-hunters
who come over, there are scarcely any to be found: the very name seems
repugnant to an American; and however high their wages, and easy their
situation, they seem hardly to be able to endure the bitterness of
subserviency and subordination.
[75] The bridges here are all made of wood, and for the most part
covered. Those which are so are by no means unpicturesque objects. The
one-arched bridge at Fair Mount is particularly light and graceful in
its appearance: at a little distance, it looks like a scarf, rounded by
the wind, flung over the river.
[76] The time of locking of doors at gentlemen's dinner parties, and
drinking till the company dropped one by one under the table, has, with
the equally disgusting habit of spitting about the floors, long vanished
in England before a more rational hospitality, and a better
understanding of the very first rule of good breeding, not to do that
which is to offend others. Spirituous liquors are the fashion alone
among the numerous frequenters of the gin-palaces of Holborn, and St.
Giles's; even the old-fashioned favourites of our country gentlemen,
port, madeira, and sherry, are found too heavy and strongly-flavoured
for the palate of our modern exquisites,--and the fragrant and delicate
wines of Burgundy, Bordeaux, the Rhine, and its tributary streams, are
the wines now preferred before all others, by persons of refined taste
and moderate indulgence. This in itself is a great improvement. The
gross desire of excitement by a quantity of powerful stimulants has
given place to a temperate enjoyment of things, in themselves certainly
the most excellent in the world. Wine-drinking in England is become
altogether a species of _dilettante_ taste, instead of the disgusting
excess it used to be; it is indulged in with extreme moderation,--and so
much have all coarse and thick-blooded drinks gone out of fashion, that
even liqueurs are very seldom taken after coffee but by foreigners. Our
gentlemen have learnt to consider hard and gross drinking ungentlemanly.
I wish I could say the same of American gentlemen. The quantity and the
quality of their potations are as destructive of every thing like
refinement of palate, as detrimental to their health. Americans are,
generally speaking, the very worst judges of wine in the world, always
excepting madeira, which they have in great perfection, and is the only
wine of which they are tolerable judges. One reason of their ignorance
upon this subject is the extremely indifferent quality of the foreign
wines imported here, and a still more powerful reason, is the total loss
of all niceness of taste consequent upon their continual swallowing of
mint julaps, gin slings, brandy cocktails, and a thousand strong messes
which they take _even before breakfast_, and indifferently at all hours
of the day,--a practice as gross in taste as injurious to health.
Burgundy I have never seen at an American table: I believe it will not
stand the sea voyage. Claret they have now in very great perfection,
thanks to Mr. ----, who has introduced it among them, and deserves to be
considered a public benefactor therefor. Hock is, generally speaking,
utterly undrinkable, and champagne (the only foreign wine of which they
seem generally fond), though some of a good quality is occasionally
presented to you, is for the most part a very nauseous compound, in
which sugar is the only perceptible flavour. Although the American
gentlemen do not indeed lock the doors upon their guests, they have two
habits equally fatal to their sobriety, of which I have heard several
Englishmen complain bitterly. The one is mixing their wines in a most
unorthodox manner, equally distressing to the palate and the stomach;
_i. e._ giving you to drink by turns, after dinner, claret, madeira,
sherry, hock, champagne, all and each of which you are pressed to take
as specimens of excellence in their various ways, forming altogether a
vinous hotch-potch, which confounds alike the taste and the brain. The
second ordeal, to which the sobriety of Englishmen dining out here is
exposed, is at the close of all these various libations,--which of
course last some time,--an instantaneous removal from the dinner to the
supper table, where strong _whisky punch_ effectually _finishes_ the
wits of their guests, and sends them home to repent for two days the
excess of a few hours. Perhaps, when the real meaning of the word
_society_ becomes better understood in this country, absurd display and
disgusting intemperance will no more be resorted to as its necessary
accompaniments; but of course the _real_ material of which society
should be formed must increase a little first. I have been told that the
women in this country drink. I never saw but one circumstance which
would lead me to believe the assertion. At the baths in New York, one
day, I saw the girl who was waiting upon the rooms carry mint julaps (a
preparation of mint, sugar, and brandy,) into three of them. I was much
surprised, and asked her if this was a piece of service she often
performed for the ladies who visited the baths? She said, "Yes, pretty
often." Bar-rooms are annexed to every species of public building,--in
the theatres, in the hotels, in the bath-houses, on board the
steam-boats,--and there are even temporary buildings which serve this
purpose erected at certain distances along the rail-roads. Though the
gentlemen drink more than any other _gentlemen_, the lower orders here
are more temperate than with us. The appearance of a drunken man in the
streets is comparatively rare here; and certainly Sunday is not, as with
us, the appointed day for this disgusting vice among the lower classes
here. Fortunately, most fortunately, it is not with them as with us, the
only day on which the poor have rest, or drunkenness the only substitute
they can find for every other necessary or comfort of life. Our poor are
indeed intemperate. Alas! that vice of theirs will surely be visited on
others; for it is the offspring of their misery. The effects of habitual
intemperance in this country are lamentably visible in many young men of
respectable stations and easy circumstances; and it is by no means
uncommon to hear of young gentlemen--persons who rank as such
here--destroying their health, their faculties, and eventually their
lives, at a most untimely age, by this debasing habit.
[77] There is a species of home religion, so to speak, which is kept
alive by the gathering together of families at stated periods of joy and
festivity, which has a far deeper moral than most people imagine. The
merry-making at Christmas, the watching out the old year, and in the
new, the royalty of Twelfth-night, the keeping of birth-days, and
anniversaries of weddings, are things which, to the worldly-wise in
these wise times, may savour of childishness or superstition; but they
tend to promote and keep alive some of the sweetest charities and
kindliest sympathies of our poor nature. While we are yet children,
these days are set in golden letters in the calendar,--long looked
forward to,--enjoyed with unmixed delight,--the peculiar seasons of new
frocks, new books, new toys, drinking of healths, bestowing of blessings
and wishes by kindred and parents, and being brought into the notice of
our elders, and, as children used to think in the dark ages, therefore
their betters. To the older portion of the community, such times were
times of many mingled emotions, all, all of a softening if not of so
exhilarating a nature. The cares, the toils, of the world had become
their portion,--some little of its coldness, its selfishness, and sad
guardedness had crept upon them,--distance and various interests, and
the weary works of life had engrossed their thoughts, and turned their
hearts and their feet from the dear household paths, and the early
fellowship of home; but at these seasons the world was in its turn
pushed aside for a moment,--the old thresholds were crossed by those who
had ceased to dwell in the house of their birth,--kindred and friends
met again, as in the early days of childhood and youth, under the same
roof-tree,--the nursery revel, and the school-day jubilee, was recalled
to their thoughts by the joyful voices and faces of a new
generation,--the blessed and holy influences of home flowed back into
their souls, at such a time, by a thousand channels,--the heart was
warmed with the kind old love and fellowship,--face brightened to
kindred face, and hand grasped the hand where the same blood was
flowing, and all the evil deeds of time seemed for a while retrieved.
These were holy and happy seasons. Oh, England! dear, dear England! this
sweet sacred worship, next to that of God the highest and purest, was
long cherished in your soil, where the word home was surely more
hallowed than any other save heaven. Far, far off be the day when a cold
and narrow spirit shall quench in you these dear and good human
yearnings, and make the consecrated earth around our door-stones as
barren as the wide wilderness of life in strange lands. In this country
I have been mournfully struck with the absence of every thing like this
home-clinging. Here are comparatively no observances of tides and times.
Christmas-day is no religious day, and hardly a holiday with them.
New-year's day is perhaps a little, but only a little, more so. For
Twelfth-day, it is unknown; and the household private festivals of
birth-days are almost universally passed by unsevered from the rest of
the toilsome days devoted to the curse of labour. Indeed, the young
American leaves so soon the shelter of his home, the world so early
becomes to him a home, that the happy and powerful influences and
associations of that word to him are hardly known. Sent forth to earn
his existence at the very opening time of mind and heart, like a young
green-house plant just budding that should be thrust out into the colder
air, the blight of worldliness, of coldness, and of care, drive in the
coming blossoms; and if the tree lives, half its loveliness and half its
_usefulness_ are shorn from it. These are some of the consequences of
the universal doom of Americans, to labour for their bread: there are
others and better ones.
[78] This happened on board a _western_ steam-boat, I beg to observe, if
it happened at all.
[79] The evanescent nature of his triumph, however an actor may deplore
it, is in fact but an instance of the broad moral justice by which all
things are so evenly balanced. If he can hope for no fame beyond mere
mention, when once his own generation passes away, at least his power,
and his glory, and his reign is in his own person, and during his own
life. There is scarcely to be conceived a popularity for the moment more
intoxicating than that of a great actor in his day, so much of it
becomes mixed up with the individual himself. The poet, the painter, and
the sculptor, enchant us through their works; and, with very very few
exceptions, their works, and not their very persons, are the objects of
admiration and applause: it is to their minds we are beholden; and
though a certain degree of curiosity and popularity necessarily wait
even upon their bodily presence, it is faint compared with that which is
bestowed upon the actor; and for good reasons--he is himself his work.
His voice, his eyes, his gesture, are his art, and admiration of it
cannot be separated from admiration for him. This renders the ephemeral
glory which he earns so vivid, and in some measure may be supposed to
compensate for its short duration. The great of the earth, whose fame
has arisen like the shining of the sun, have often toiled through their
whole lives in comparative obscurity, through the narrow and dark paths
of existence. Their reward was never given to their hands here,--it is
but just glory should be lasting.
[80] Another house has been opened at Baltimore within the last year,
which, though unfinished at the time of our lodging there, promised to
be extremely comfortable. The building adjoined, and indeed formed, part
of the Exchange; the vestibule of which is the only very beautiful piece
of architecture I have seen here. It is very beautiful.
[81] This very romantic piece of gallantry (serenading) is very common
in this country. How it comes to be so I can't quite make out; for it is
not at all of a piece with the national manners or tone of feeling. It's
very agreeable, though, and is an anomaly worth cultivating.
[82] I have heard it several times asserted, that Catholicism was
gaining ground extremely in this country. Surely the Preacher sayeth
well, "The thing which has been, it is that which shall be, and there is
nothing new beneath the sun." Is it not a marvellous thing to think of,
that that mighty tree which has overshadowed the whole of the Christian
world, under whose branches all the European empires were cradled, and
which we have with our own eyes beheld droop, and fade, and totter, as
it does at this moment in the old soils,--is it not strange to think of
the seed being carried, and the roots taking hold in this new earth,
perhaps to send up another such giant shadow over this hemisphere? Its
growth here appears to me almost impossible; for if ever there were two
things more opposite in their nature than all other things, they are the
spirit of the Roman Catholic religion and the spirit of the American
people. It's true, that of the thousands who take refuge from poverty
upon this plenteous land, the greater number bring with them that creed,
but the very air they inhale here presently gives them a political
faith, so utterly incompatible with the spirit of subjection, that I
shall think the Catholic priesthood here workers of miracles, to retain
any thing like the influence over their minds which they possessed in
those countries, where all creeds, political and polemical, have but one
watch-word--faith and submission.
[83] In most European countries, the seat of government and residence of
the ruling powers and foreign ambassadors is the capital, and generally
the largest, most populous, most wealthy, and most influential city of
the kingdom--the place of all others to which travellers would resort to
become acquainted with its political, literary, and social spirit. In
this, however, as in most other respects, this country differs from all
others; and the spirit of independence, which renders every state a
republic within itself, gives to each its own capital, the superior
merits of which are advocated with no little pride and jealousy by the
natives of the state to which it belongs. Thus, New York, Boston,
Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, and New Orleans, are all capitals;
each of them fulfilling in a much higher degree than Washington the
foreigner's idea of that word. Indeed I cannot conceive any thing that
would more amaze an European than to be transported into Washington, and
told he was in the metropolis of the United States; nor, indeed, could
any thing give him a less just idea of the curious political
construction, and widely-scattered resources, of the country.
Washington, in fact, is to America what Downing and Parliament Streets
are to London--a congregation of government offices; where political
characters, secretaries, clerks, place-holders, and place-seekers, most
do congregate.
[84] As the winter resort of all the leading political men of the Union,
Washington presents many attractions in point of society. Their wives
and daughters, frequently the reigning beauties of their respective
states and towns, generally accompany them thither during the session;
and this congregating of people from all parts of the country, together
with the foreign ministers residing there, and the travellers drawn
thither from mere curiosity, combine to give more variety to the
gaieties of Washington than those of any of the other cities in the
Union can boast. The Capitol is a favourite lounge in the morning; and
the American lady-politicians are just as zealous in their respective
parties as our own. I don't know, however, that they would much relish
listening to a long debate from that dismal hole, the lantern of the
House of Commons, where one may listen, indeed and even just manage to
see, but where to _be seen_ is an utter impossibility; neither do I
think that many of them would stand for four long hours, as Miss ----
and poor Lady ---- did, during Brougham's famous reform bill speech.
[85] The love of the sublime and beautiful, those aspirations after
something more refined, more exalted and perfect, than this world
affords, in short, that spiritual propensity classed in its many and
various manifestations by the phrenologists under the title of
_ideality_, will have some vent, and, under circumstances most adverse
to its existence, will creep out at some channel or another, and
vindicate human nature by flourishing in some shape over the narrowest,
homeliest, lowliest, and least favourable guise it may put on. Certainly
America is nothe country of large idealities,--it is the very reverse;
if I may create a bump, it is the country of large realities, _i. e._
large acquisitiveness, large causality, large caution, and small
veneration and wonder. Nathless some ideality must needs be, and is, and
it creeps out in Christian names. I have heard sempstresses called
Amanda and Emmeline, and we had a housemaid in New England called
Cynthia. Our village carpenter is named Rudolph; and if the spirit of
the people appears to me unimaginative and unpoetical, I take great
comfort in their fine names.
[86] I am neither sufficiently interested nor sufficiently well informed
in the politics of this country to have conceived any opinion of General
Jackson, beyond that which the floating discussions of the day might
suggest. Of his merits as a statesman I am totally incapable of judging,
or of the effect which his peculiar policy is calculated to have upon
the country. When first I came here I heard and saw that he was the man
of the people. In the dispute with South Carolina, his firmness and
decision of character struck me a good deal; and when, in consequence of
the temporary distress occasioned by his alteration of the currency, a
universal howl was for a short time raised against him, which he
withstood without a moment's flinching, I honoured him greatly. Of his
measures I know nothing; but firmness, determination, decision, I
respect above all things: and if the old General is, as they say, very
obstinate, why obstinacy is so far more estimable than weakness,
_especially_ in a ruler, that I think he sins on the right side of the
question.
[87] The national vanity of the French, and pride and prejudice of the
English are proverbial: it is, however, fortunate for both that they
carry these qualities to such an excess, that it is a matter of extreme
difficulty to shake the good opinion which they entertain of themselves.
Thus, foreigners may visit England, as Frenchmen have done, and swear
that the sun never shines there, and that the only ripe fruit the
country affords is roasted apples. John Bull, nothing wroth, wraps
himself still closer in his own dear self-approval, and, in the
plenitude of self-content, drinks his brown stout, and basks by
gas-light. On his part, he goes over to Paris, votes the whole _beau
pays de France_ horrible, because he can't get port wine to drink, or
boiled potatoes to eat; in spite of which, Monsieur does not attempt to
turn him out of his country, but eats his ragouts, and drinks his
chablis, and shrugs his shoulders at the savage islander, from the
seventh heaven of self-satisfaction. It were much to be desired that
Americans had a little _more_ national vanity, or national pride. Such
an unhappily sensitive community surely never existed in this world; and
the vengeance with which they visit people for saying they don't admire
or like them, would be really terrible if the said people were but as
mortally afraid of abuse as they seem to be. I would not advise either
Mrs. Trollope, Basil Hall, or Captain Hamilton, ever to set their feet
upon this ground again, unless they are ambitious of being stoned to
death. I live myself in daily expectation of martyrdom; and as for any
body attempting to earn a livelihood here who has but as much as said he
prefers the country where he was born to this, he would stand a much
better chance of thriving if he were to begin business after confinement
in the penitentiary. This unhappy species of irritability is carried to
such a degree here, that if you express an unfavourable opinion of any
thing, the people are absolutely astonished at your temerity. I
remember, to my no little amusement, a lady saying to me once, "I hear
you are going to abuse us dreadfully; of course, you'll wait till you go
back to England, and then shower it down upon us finely." I assured her
I was not in the least afraid of staying where I was, and saying what I
thought at the same time.
[88] I have been assured, I know not how truly, that the whole of this
affair originated with an _Englishman_. This piece of information was
given me by a person who said he knew such to be the fact, and also knew
the man.
[89] It may not be amiss here to say one word with regard to the
_gratitude_ which audiences in some parts of the world claim from
actors, and about which I have lately heard a most alarming outcry. Do
actors generally exercise their profession to please themselves and
gratify their own especial delight in self-exhibition? Is that
profession in its highest walks one of small physical exertion and
fatigue (I say nothing of mental exertion), and in its lower paths is it
one of much gain, glory, or ease? Do audiences, on the other hand, use
to come in crowds to play-houses to see indifferent performers? and when
there, do they, out of pure charity and good-will, bestow their applause
as well as their money upon tiresome performances? I will answer these
points as far as regards myself, and therein express the gratitude which
I feel towards the frequenters of theatres. I individually disliked my
profession, and had neither pride nor pleasure in the exercise of it. I
exercised it as a matter of necessity, to earn my bread,--and verily it
was in the sweat of my brow. The parts which fell to my lot were of a
most laborious nature, and occasioned sometimes violent mental
excitement, always immense physical exertion, and sometimes both. In
those humbler walks of my profession, from whose wearisomeness I was
exempted by my sudden favour with the public, I have seen, though not
known, the most painful drudgery,--the most constant fatigue,--the most
sad contrast between real cares and feigned merriments,--the most
anxious, penurious, and laborious existence imaginable. For the part of
my questions which regarded the audiences, I have only to say, that I
never knew, saw, heard, or read of any set of people who went to a
play-house to see what they did not like; this being the case, it never
occurred to me that our houses were full but as a necessary consequence
of our own attraction, or that we were applauded but as the result of
our own exertions. I was glad the houses were full, because I was
earning my livelihood, and wanted the money; and I was glad the people
applauded us, because it is pleasant to please, and human vanity will
find some sweetness in praise, even when reason weighs its worth most
justly. Thus I cannot say that in general I had any great _gratitude_
towards my audiences. Once or twice, however, that feeling was excited
between me and my witnesses, and the circumstance of which I have spoken
in my journal was one of the instances. But this was a different matter
altogether. I was no longer before an audience labouring for their
approbation as an actress. I was dragged before so many judges in my own
person, to answer for words spoken in private conversation. The same
clapping of hands, with which they rewarded my exertions in my
profession, was the only method by which they could intimate the "not
guilty," which was their judgment upon the appeal that had been made to
them against me; but with this difference, that I never felt _obliged_
to them, or _grateful_ for their applause before, and did feel obliged
and grateful for their verdict then. Now, as regards the benefit-nights
of actors, I do not observe that even on these occasions much
_gratitude_ is owing to the people who attend them; for I know, and so
does every member of the profession, that the oldest and best actor on
any stage,--the one who for a series of years has appeared before
audiences to whom his private respectability and worth were well
known,--the longest-established _favourite_ of the public (as they are
termed), will assuredly have empty houses on his benefit-nights, if,
trusting to the feeling of that public, to whom he owes so much
gratitude, he failed to secure the assistance of whatever star
(tragedian, pantomimist, or dancing dog, it matters not which), happens
to be the newest object of attraction. I speak all this more
particularly as regards this country, for it is here that I have heard
most of this species of cant. Gratitude is a good word and an excellent
thing, and neither in speaking or acting should it be misapplied. In the
aristocratical lands over the water, this nonsense about patronage might
surprise one less; but in America it seems strange there should be any
mistake about a simple matter of traffic--'tis nothing in life else. We
give our health, our strength, our leisure, and our pleasure, for your
money and your applause, neither of which do we beg or borrow from you.
This being the case, where lies the obligation, and where the gratitude?
As to the pretty speeches which actors make when called from behind the
curtain, they always appeared to me very much of the same order as
advertisements in newspapers--A. D. returns his grateful acknowledgments
to the public for their liberal support, etc., etc. That calling
performers on after a play is a foreign, not an English, custom, and, to
my mind, one more honoured in the breach than in the observance.
Extraordinary occasions might warrant extraordinary demonstrations; but
it is a pity to make that a common ceremony, which, rarely granted,
would be a gratifying testimony of feeling, and excite rational
_gratitude_ in those on whom it was conferred.
[90] I would recommend Retsch's etchings of Macbeth to the study of all
representatives of the witches: there is great sublimity and fearfulness
in their figures and attitudes. By the by, in looking over those unique
etchings (I mean _all_ those he has executed), the colossal genius of
Shakspeare is brought more fully in its vastness to our conviction; for
the genius of the artist,--which has fallen no whit behind the first
work of one of the first men of this age,--sinks in utter impotence
under the task of illustrating Shakspeare. The wonder, and the beauty,
and the pity of Faust, are as strong and true in the outlines of Retsch,
as in the words of Goethe--the drawings equal the poem; 'tis the highest
praise they can receive: and it is only when we turn from these perfect
works, to contemplate his outlines of Shakspeare, that we feel, by the
force of comparison, how unutterably beyond all other conceptions are
those of Shakspeare. Retsch's etchings, both of Hamlet and Macbeth, are,
compared with his German illustrations, failures. Hamlet is the better
of the two; but he seems to have quailed under the other in utter
inability--Macbeth himself falls far short of all that he should be made
to express; and as to Lady Macbeth, Retsch seems to have thought he had
better not meddle with her.
[91] I wonder how long it will be before men begin to consider the
rational education of the mothers of their children a matter of some
little moment. How much longer are we to lead existences burdensome to
ourselves and useless to others, under the influence of every species of
ill training that can be imagined? How much longer are the physical
evils under which our nature labours to be increased by effeminate,
slothful, careless, unwholesome habits? How much longer are our minds,
naturally weakened by the action of a highly sensitive nervous
construction, to be abandoned, or rather devoted, to studies the least
likely to strengthen and ennoble them, and render them independent, in
some measure, of the infirmities of our bodies? How much longer are our
imaginations and feelings to be the only portions of our spiritual
nature on which culture is bestowed? Surely it were generous in those
who are our earthly disposers to do something to raise us from the state
of half-improvement in which we are suffered to linger. If our
capacities are inferior to those of men,--which I believe, as much as I
believe our bodies to be inferior to theirs in strength, swiftness, and
endurance,--let us not be overwhelmed with all the additional shackles
that foolish and vain bringing up can add; let us at least be made as
strong in body and as wise in mind as we can, instead of being devoted
to spiritual, mental, and physical weakness, far beyond that which we
inherit from nature.
[92] Was it not Mme. de Sévigné who said, with such truth and bitter
satire, "Mme de ---- s'est jetée dans la dévotion, c'est-à-dire, elle a
changé d'amant"?
[93] The cleanliness of the table furniture, and the neatness of the
attendants, is one of the most essential comforts of these boats. The
linen, and knives and forks, etc. at our meals, were remarkably clean
and bright. On more than one occasion, too, being rather late for the
public breakfast, we have been indulged with a small separate table in
the quiet recess at the end of the great eating and sleeping cabin,--a
favour only to be appreciated by people unaccustomed to any ordinaries,
much less steam-boat dinner-tables with sometimes near two hundred
guests. On board all the other boats, the only alternative is to have
what you eat brought to you into the ladies' cabin. To those who have
once breathed the atmosphere of a "ladies' cabin," it will be difficult
to imagine how such an alternative should not be productive of an
amazing saving of the boat's provisions.
[94] My astonishment was unfeigned, when, upon an after inspection, I
found this very lofty gateway was constructed of _painted wood_. What! a
cheat, a sham thing at the threshold of the grave!--surely, thereabouts
pretences should have an end. Sham magnificence, too, is sad; an iron
railing, or a wooden paling, would, to my mind, have been a thousand
times better than this _mock granite_. Let us hope that this is merely a
temporary entrance,--there is _real_ granite enough to be had at Quincy;
and if the living can't afford it, why the dead will never miss it,--and
any thing would be better than an imitation gateway.
[95] The spirit of man of its own dignity ennobles whatever it devotes
itself to. The most trivial actions may become almost heroical from the
motive which prompts them, and the most absurd ceremonies of
superstition, sincerely practised, may excite pity, but neither contempt
nor ridicule. If such a thing as an enthusiastic shoemaker were to be
met with, there is no doubt but his feeling of his craft would elevate
it into something approximating an art, and his work would bear witness
to his veneration for it. At the time when the stage was in its highest
perfection, its members had _all_ a great love and admiration for their
profession; many of them were men of education and mental
accomplishment, and brought to bear upon their labour all the
intellectual stores which they possessed. They respected their own work,
and it was respectable; they thought acting capable of elevation, of
refinement, of utility, and their faith in it invested it with dignity.
Of this class were all my father's family. _One_ reason why the stage
and every thing belonging to it has fallen to so low an ebb now, is
because actors have ceased to care for their profession
themselves,--they are no longer artists,--acting is no longer an art.
[96] Besides the advantage of possessing the very prettiest collection
of actresses I ever saw, the theatre at Boston has decidedly the best
company I have played with _any where_ out of London. Some of the old
leaven alluded to in the last note exists amongst the ladies and
gentlemen of the Tremont theatre: they do not seem to despise their
work, and it is, generally speaking, well done therefore. Our pieces
were all remarkably well got up there; and the green-room is both
respectable and agreeable.
[97] To the English traveller, around whose heart the love of
country and the influences of early association may yet cling, New
England appears to me, of all the portions of the United States
which I have visited, most likely to afford gratification; and the
_Yankees_,--properly so called,--the Americans with whom he will find,
and towards whom he will feel, most sympathy. They do us the honour to
call themselves _purely English_ in their origin; they alone, of the
whole population of the United States, undoubtedly were so; and in the
abundant witness which their whole character, country, and institutions
bear to that fact, I feel an additional reason to be proud of
England,--of Old England, for these are her children,--this race of men,
as a race incomparably superior to the other inhabitants of this
country. In conversing with New Englandmen, in spite of any passing
temporary bitterness, any political difference, or painful reference to
past times of enmity, I have always been struck with the admiring and,
in some measure, tender feeling with which England, as the
mother-country, was named. Nor is it possible to travel through the New
England states, and not perceive, indeed, a spirit (however modified by
different circumstances and institutions) yet most truly English in its
origin. The exterior of the houses,--their extreme neatness and
cleanliness,--the careful cultivation of the land,--the tasteful and
ornamental arrangement of the ground immediately surrounding the
dwellings, that most English of all manifestations,--above all, the
church spires pointing towards heaven, from the bosom of every
village,--recalled most forcibly to my mind my own England, and
presented images of order, of industry, of taste, and religious feeling,
nowhere so exhibited in any other part of the Union. I visited Boston
several times, and mixed in society there, the tone of which appeared to
me far higher than that of any I found elsewhere. A general degree of
cultivation exists among its members, which renders their intercourse
desirable and delightful. Nor is this superior degree of education
confined to Boston: the zeal and the judgment with which it is being
propagated throughout that part of the country is a noble national
characteristic. A small circumstance is a good illustration of the
advance which knowledge has made in these states. Travelling by land
from New Haven to Boston, at one of the very smallest places where we
stopped to change horses, I got out of the carriage to reconnoitre our
surroundings. The town (if town it could be called) did not appear to
contain much more than fifty houses: amongst the most prominent of
these, however, was a bookseller's shop. The first volumes I took up on
the counter were Spurzheim's volume on education, and Dr. Abercrombie's
works on the intellectual and moral faculties, I saw more pictures, more
sculptures, and more books in private houses in Boston than I have seen
any where else. I could name more men of marked talent that I met with
there than any where else. Its charitable and literary institutions are
upon a liberal scale, and enlightened principles. Among the New
Englanders I have seen more honour and reverence of parents, and more
witnesses of a high religions faith, than among any other Americans with
whom I have lived and conversed.
[98] There are, I believe, no primroses, no wild thyme, and no heather,
that grow naturally in this country. I do not remember to have seen
either wild honeysuckle or clematis, both of which are so abundant with
us. The laurestinus, rosemary, southernwood, and monthly roses, all of
which are so common in England, growing out of doors all the year round,
are kept in hot-houses during the winter, even as far south as
Philadelphia. The common garden flowers--roses, pinks--are far less
abundant and less fragrant than with us. Sweet peas, and mignonette, are
comparatively scarce; serynga, and laburnum, I have never seen at all:
but so little care is bestowed upon ornamental gardening, that I do not
know whether this dearth of flowers is the fault of the climate, or the
consequence of the utter neglect in which flower-gardens are held here.
[99] Lacking the nightingale and the lark, I think they want the two
perfect specimens of natural music.
[100] Among the many signs of the total decay of dramatic mind and
spirit in this age, a frequent piece of criticism passed upon modern
plays appears to me a very conclusive one--"Such a play is exceedingly
full of dramatic effect, but there's no poetry in it." "Such a
playwright understands situation and character, but really, reading his
plays, you find no poetry in them." I have heard this bright comment
passed repeatedly upon the best dramatic composition of modern
times,--the Hunchback; a play whose immense popularity every where is
the surest and truest warrant of its excellence,--a play containing the
most dramatic situations, the most pathetic and comic effects, and by
far the finest conception of a female character of any play since the
old golden dramatic age. I do not hesitate to say that this is a most
false piece of criticism, induced alone by a want of perception of what
are the requisites in a dramatic poem, and a total absence of true
dramatic feeling. First, in the ingredients of a fine play, comes the
fiction,--the invention; to this belong those same much-sneered-at stage
effects, and theatrical situations; next comes the skilful and powerful
delineation of individual character; _lastly_ comes the item of a
poetical diction. _One_ alone has united these in their utmost
perfection; for such another the world may look in vain. But I think the
play-goers of Shakspeare's time would have been tolerably satisfied with
a most interesting fiction, and a true and vigorous delineation of
character; and let me ask, is there no poetry besides that of words?--is
there no poetry in the fable of a play--none in the faithful portraying
of a human being's mind and passions? As for all pretty speeches,
lengthy descriptions, abstract disquisitions,--unless things placed in
the mouth of characters to whose identity such mental manifestations
belong,--they are inadmissible in a right good play, and should by all
means be confined to the pages of those anomalous modern growths, plays
for the closet. In all our elder dramatists, Shakspeare alone excepted,
the main quality of a play, the story, is often defective to an excess,
not only in morality, but in probability and consistency; and the same
defects exist in the delineation of character in many of their noblest
plays.
[101] Of the mental process which the pupils at this highland school
undergo, I can say nothing, being totally unacquainted with the system
of education adopted there; but a more advantageous residence for the
cultivation of health, strength (for physical education), or the
development of all those pious and poetical tendings of the human soul
and mind which are fostered and ripened by the sublime influence of
natural beauty and grandeur, cannot be imagined. The gentlemen at the
head of this establishment are New Englanders. The observations I made
upon the superior intelligence and cultivation of the natives of that
part of the United States have been borne out constantly by the fact,
that there is hardly any establishment in the States I have visited, in
any way connected with education, or the dissemination of information,
which is not conducted partially or entirely by New Englanders.
[102] Troy! and that Troy has a Mount Ida! The names of places in this
country are truly astonishing. Troy, Syracuse, and Rome are pretty well
in this way; but the state of New York alone, I believe, boasts of a
Manlius, a Homer, a Virgil, an Ovid, a Cicero, and a Socrates, whose
second appearance in this world is in all the glories of flaming red
bricks, new boards, and white paint. Did Pythagoras admit of men
becoming towns as well as beasts? I forget.
[103] These beautiful little delicate wild flowers seem to love the dewy
neighbourhood of waterfalls: it is only at Trenton, and the Chaudière in
Canada, that I remember to have seen them at all in this country. Some
poor Scotch peasants, about to emigrate to Canada, took away with them
some roots of the "bonny blooming heather," in hopes of making this
beloved adorner of their native mountains the cheerer of their exile in
the wild lands to which they were going. The heather, however, refused
to grow in the Canadian soil, and the poor emigrants had not the
melancholy pleasure of seeing its sweet familiar bloom round their new
dwellings. The person who told me this said that the circumstance had
been related to him by Walter Scott, whose sympathy with the
disappointment of these poor children of the romantic heatherland
betrayed itself even in tears. When I visited the beautiful falls of the
Chaudière, our party was enlivened, and the picturesque effect of the
scene much heightened, by some of the Highland band belonging to the
regiment quartered in Quebec. I could not help wondering, as I gathered
the blue bells, which grew profusely round the cataract, whether these
poor fellows looked upon the emblem of their distant country with any of
the feelings which I lent them; and the whole brought back to my mind
the heather that would not gladden the exile's eyes in a foreign soil,
and the compassion of Scott for his countrymen's disappointment.
[104] I do not know that the sense of danger has ever been so vivid in
my mind as while walking along this narrow edge of eternity. Nothing
around Niagara appeared to me half so full of peril as the path along
the Trenton Falls, although I have hung over the brink of the last rock
that vibrates on the very verge of that great abyss, and explored,
entirely alone, the path under the huge watery curtain that falls from
Table Rock. I do not know whether the mention of the late accidents at
Trenton affected my imagination, and caused me to exaggerate the danger;
but it appeared to me almost miraculous that every body passing along
those narrow, dripping, uneven ledges did not share the fate of the two
unfortunate persons I have mentioned.
[105] Thank God! a firebrand, which shall throw all England into
confusion and anarchy, is not, indeed, of easy make. Italy, crushed
under the heel of her northern rulers; or France, blown about with every
breath of opinion, may rush into revolutions for a ballad or an opera.
The misery of the one, and the miserable excitability of the other
nation, render it easy to rouse, in the former, the spirit of
retribution; in the latter, the desire of change. But Englishmen, who
are neither slaves nor weathercocks, are less easily stirred to wild
excesses of political excitement. Let who will steer, the old ship is
too well ballasted to sink. Whoever rules, whatever party may be at the
head of her government, England is sound at heart: there is a broad
foundation of moral good and intelligence in the nation, which will not
be shaken or upturned, let factions erect or pull down what temporary
trophies they please, to their own short-lived and selfish triumphs. The
file of the mechanic may still gnaw angrily at the iron crown of the
aristocracy; interests of classes may still jar, parties wrangle, and
the eternal warfare between those who climb, and those who stand upon
the topmost round of the ladder, may still be waged. And so be it: in
none of these is there fear or danger; but rather a wholesome action of
power against power; a checking, winnowing, purifying, and preserving
influence. Moral evil, vice--and mental evil, ignorance--are the roots
of decay: surely England is far from the day of her downfalling.
[106] I have had occasion to observe, in a former note, that foreigners
travelling through this country see only the least desirable society of
the various cities they visit. There is another class of Americans, whom
they rarely, if ever, become acquainted with at all; by far the most
interesting, in my opinion, which the country affords. I speak of those
families thickly scattered through all the states, from whose original
settlers many of them are immediately descended; who reside upon lands
purchased by their grandfathers in the early days of the _British
colonies_; and who, living remote from the Atlantic cities, and the more
travelled routes between them, are free from all the peculiarities which
displease a European in the societies of the towns, and possess traits
of originality in their manners, minds, and mode of life, infinitely
refreshing to the observer, wearied of the eternal sameness which
pervades the human congregations of the Old World.
In mixing with the commercial fashionables and exclusives of the
American cities, the European is at once amused and annoyed with the
assumption of a social tone and spirit at variance with the whole _make_
of the country. He is told that he is in the best society of the place,
and with perfect justice condemns this best society as, probably, the
worst he ever saw: a society assuming the airs of separate rank where no
rank at all exists, attempting to copy the luxury and splendour of the
residents of European capitals, without possessing one tithe of their
wealth to excuse the extravagance, or enable them to succeed in the
endeavour, and presenting the most incongruous and displeasing mixture
possible of pretension, ignorance, affectation, and vulgarity. I have
before said, that even in the cities there are circles of a very
different order; but yet freer from all these drawbacks is the society
formed by the class of people of whom I have spoken above, and whom I
should designate as the gentry of this country; using that term in the
best sense in which it was once used in England.
Among this large but widely-scattered portion of the community, should
the European traveller's good fortune lead him, he will find hospitality
without ostentation, purity of morals independent of the dread of
opinion, intellectual cultivation unmixed with the desire of display,
great simplicity of life and ignorance of the world, originality of mind
naturally arising from independence and solitude, and _the best_,
because the most natural, manners. Of such, I know, from the lower
shores of the Chesapeake, to the half savage territory around
Michilimakinack.
[107] This spot is famous as the scene of the last exploit of a singular
individual, known by the name of Sam Patch. An Irishman by birth, I
believe, he came over to this country to earn his bread, and hit upon a
very ingenious method of doing so, _i. e._ jumping for large wagers down
cataracts; which daring feat he performed successfully more than once.
But, like the Sicilian diver of old, poor Sam Patch took one plunge too
many; and, after leaping with impunity from the rocks immediately below
the Falls of Niagara, he found his death in the Genesee--attempting the
leap, it is said, while in a state of intoxication.
[108] Although nobody, I believe, ever travelled a hundred miles by land
in this country without being overturned, the drivers deserve infinite
credit for the _rare occurrence_ of accidents. How they can carry a
coach at all over some of their roads is miraculous; and high praise is
due to them both for care and skill, that any body, in any part of this
country, ever arrives at the end of a land journey at all. I do not ever
remember to have seen six-in-hand driving except in New England, where
it is common, and where the stage-drivers are great adepts in their
mystery.
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|Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. |
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