THE MONOTONY OF TRAVELING IN THE STATES--"MANON LESCAUT" IN AMERICA.
_In the train from Cleveland to Albany, February 27._
Am getting tired and ill. I am not bed-ridden, but am fairly well rid of
a bed. I have lately spent as many nights in railway cars as in hotel
beds.
Am on my way to Albany, just outside "the neighborhood of Chicago." I
lecture in that place to-night, and shall get to New York to-morrow.
I am suffering from the monotony of life. My greatest objection to
America (indeed I do not believe I have any other) is the sameness of
everything. I understand the Americans who run away to Europe every year
to see an old church, a wall covered with moss and ivy, some good
old-fashioned peasantry not dressed like the rest of the world.
What strikes a European most, in his rambles through America, is the
absence of the picturesque. The country is monotonous, and eternally the
same. Burned-up fields, stumps of trees, forests, wooden houses all
built on the same pattern. All the stations you pass are alike. All the
towns are alike. To say that an American town is ten times larger than
another simply means that it has ten times more blocks of houses. All
the streets are alike, with the same telegraph poles, the same "Indian"
as a sign for tobacconists, the same red, white, and blue pole as a sign
for barbers. All the hotels are the same, all the _menus_ are the same,
all the plates and dishes the same--why, all the ink-stands are the
same. All the people are dressed in the same way. When you meet an
American with all his beard, you want to shake his hands and thank him
for not shaving it, as ninety-nine out of every hundred Americans do. Of
course I have not seen California, the Rocky Mountains, and many other
parts of America where the scenery is very beautiful; but I think my
remarks can apply to those States most likely to be visited by a
lecturer, that is, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin,
Minnesota, and others, during the winter months, after the Indian
summer, and before the renewal of verdure in May.
[Illustration: "THE SAME 'INDIAN.'"]
* * * * *
After breakfast, that indefatigable man of business, that intolerable
bore, who incessantly bangs the doors and brings his stock-in-trade to
the cars, came and whispered in my ears:
"New book--just out--a forbidden book!"
"A forbidden book! What is that?" I inquired.
He showed it to me. It was "Manon Lescaut."
[Illustration: "NEW BOOK JUST OUT--A FORBIDDEN BOOK!"]
Is it possible? That literary and artistic _chef-d'oeuvre_, which has
been the original type of "Paul et Virginie" and "Atala"; that touching
drama, which the prince of critics, Jules Janin, declared would be
sufficient to save contemporary literature from complete oblivion,
dragged in the mire, clothed in a dirty coarse English garb! and
advertised as a forbidden book! Three generations of French people have
wept over the pathetic story. Here it is now, stripped of its unique
style and literary beauty, sold to the American public as an improper
book--a libel by translation on a genius. British authors have
complained for years that their books were stolen in America. They have
suffered in pockets, it is true, but their reputation has spread through
an immense continent. What is their complaint compared to that of the
French authors who have the misfortune to see their works translated
into American? It is not only their pockets that suffer, but their
reputation. The poor French author is at the mercy of incapable and
malicious translators hired at starvation wages by the American pirate
publisher. He is liable to a species of defamation ten times worse than
robbery.
And as I looked at that copy of "Manon Lescaut," I almost felt grateful
that Prevost was dead.
[Illustration]