phrenologists in a day, wherever he appeared; and ever since itinerant
lecturers have been reproducing the same sensation in a milder way, by
retailing Spurzheimism, much deteriorated, in places where the
philosopher had not been. Meantime the light is always going out behind
as fast as it blazes up round the steps of the lecturer. While the world
of Richmond and Charleston is working at a multiplication of the fifteen
casts (the same fifteen or so) which every lecturer carries about, and
all caps and wigs are pulled off, and all fair tresses dishevelled in
the search after organization, Boston has gone completely round to the
opposite philosophy, and is raving about spiritualism to an excess which
can scarcely be credited by any who have not heard the Unknown Tongues.
If a phrenological lecturer from Paris, London, or Edinburgh should go
to Boston, the superficial, visible portion of the public would wheel
round once more, so rapidly and with so clamorous a welcome on their
tongues, that the transported lecturer would bless his stars which had
guided him over to a country whose inhabitants are so candid, so
enlightened, so ravenous for truth. Before five years are out, however,
the lecturer will find himself superseded by some professor of animal
magnetism, some preacher of homœopathy, some teacher who will
undertake to analyze children, prove to them that their spirits made
their bodies, and elicit from them truths fresh from heaven. All this is
very childish, very village-like; and it proves anything rather than
originality in the persons concerned. But it does not prove that there
is not originality in the bosom of a society whose superficial movement
is of this kind; and it does not prove that national originality may not
arise out of the very tendencies which indicate that it does not at
present exist.
The Americans appear to me an eminently imaginative people. The
unprejudiced traveller can hardly spend a week among them without being
struck with this every day. At a distance it is seen clearly enough that
they do not put their imaginative power to use in literature and the
arts; and it does certainly appear perverse enough to observers from the
Old World that they should be imitative in fictions (whether of the pen,
the pencil, stone, or marble), and imaginative in their science and
philosophy, applying their sober good sense to details, but being
sparing of it in regard to principles. This arbitrary direction of their
imaginative powers, or, rather, its restriction to particular
departments, is, I believe and trust, only temporary. As their numbers
increase and their society becomes more delicately organized; when,
consequently, the pursuit of literature, philosophy, and art shall
become as definitely the business of some men as politics and commerce
now are of others, I cannot doubt that the restraints of imitation will
be burst through, and that a plenitude of power will be shed into these
departments as striking as that which has made the organization of
American commerce (notwithstanding some defects) the admiration of the
world, and vindicated the originality of American politics in theory and
practice.
However this may be, it is certain that there are individuals existing
everywhere, in the very heart of Boston itself, as original as Sam
Weller and David Crockett, or any other self-complacent mortal who
finds scope for his humours amid the kindly intricacies of London or the
canebrakes of Tennessee.
Some of the most extraordinary instances I met with of persons growing
mentally awry were among the scholars who are thinly sprinkled through
the Southern and Western settlements. When these gentlemen first carried
their accomplishments into the wilderness, they were probably wiser than
any living and breathing being they encountered. The impression of their
own wisdom was deep from the beginning, and it continues to be deepened
by every accident of intercourse with persons who are not of their way
of thinking; for to differ from them is to be wrong. At the same time
their ways of thinking are such as are not at all likely to accord with
other people's; so that their case of delusion is complete. I saw a
charming pair of professors in a remote state most blessed in their
opinions of themselves. They were able men, or would have been so amid
the discipline of equal society; but their self-esteem had sprouted out
so luxuriantly as to threaten to exhaust all the better part of them.
One of the most remarkable circumstances in the case was that they
seemed aware of their self-complacency, and were as complacent about it
as about anything else. One speaking of the other, says, "A. has been
examining my cranium. He says I am the most conceited man in the States,
except himself."
The exception was a fair one. When I saw B., I thought that I had seen
the topmost wonder of the world for self-complacency; but upon this Alp
another was to arise, as I found when I knew A. The only point of
inferiority in A. is that he is not quite immoveably happy in himself.
His feet are far from handsome, and no bootmaker at the West End could
make them look so. This is the bitter drop in A.'s cup. This is the
vulnerable point in his peace. His pupils have found it out, and have
obtained a hold over him by it. They have but to fix their eyes upon his
feet to throw him into disturbance; but, if they have gone too far, and
desire to grow into favour again, they need only compliment his head,
and all is well again. He lectures to them on Phrenology; and, when on
the topic of Galen's scull, declares that there is but one head known
which can compare with Galen's in its most important characteristics.
The students all raise their eyes to the professor's bald crown, and
the professor bows. He exhibits a cast of Burke's head, mentioning that
it combines in the most perfect manner conceivable all grand
intellectual and moral characteristics; and adding that only one head
has been known perfectly to resemble it. Again the students fix their
gaze on the summit of the professor, and he congratulates them on their
scientific discernment.
This gentleman patronises Mrs. Somerville's scientific reputation. He
told me one morning, in the presence of several persons whom he wished
to impress with the highest respect for Mrs. Somerville, the particulars
of a call he once made upon her during a visit to England. It was a long
story; but the substance of it was, that he found her a most
extraordinary person, for that she knew more than he did. He had always
thought himself a pretty good mathematician, but she had actually gone
further. He had prided himself upon being a tolerable chymist, but he
found she could teach him something there. He had reason to think
himself a good mineralogist; but, when he saw her cabinet, he found that
it was possible to get beyond him. On entering her drawing-room he was
struck by some paintings which he ascertained to be done by her hand,
while he could not pretend to be able to paint at all. He acknowledged
that he had, for once, met his superior. Two days after, among a yet
larger party, he told me the whole story over again. I fell into an
absent fit in planning how I could escape from the rest of his string of
stories, to talk with some one on the opposite side of the room. When he
finally declared, "In short, I actually found that Mrs. Somerville knows
more than I do," I mechanically answered, "I have no doubt of it." A
burst of laughter from the whole party roused me to a sense of what I
had done in taking the professor at his word. His look of mortification
was pitiable.
It was amusing to see him with the greatest statesman in the country,
holding him by the button for an hour together, while lecturing in the
style of a master to a hopeful schoolboy. The pompous air of the
professor and the patient snufftaking of the statesman under instruction
made a capital caricature subject. One of the professor's most serious
declarations to me was, that the time had long been past when he
believed he might be mistaken. He had once thought that he might be in
the wrong like other people, but experience had taught him that he never
erred. As, therefore, he and I did not agree on the point we were
conversing about, I must be mistaken. I might rely upon him that it was
so.
It is not to be expected that women should resist dangers of position
which men, with their wider intercourses, cannot withstand. The really
learned and able women of the United States are as modest and simple as
people of sound learning and ability are; but the pedantry of a few
bookish women in retired country situations exceeds anything I ever saw
out of novels and farces.
In a certain region of the United States there are two sisters, living
at a considerable distance from each other, but united (in addition to
their undoubted sisterly regard) by their common belief that they are
conspicuous ornaments of their country. It became necessary for me to
make a call on one of these ladies. She knew when I was going, and had
made preparation for my reception. I was accompanied by three ladies,
one of whom was an avowed authoress; a second was a deep and
thoroughly-exercised scholar, and happened to have published, which the
pedantic lady did not know. The third was also a stranger to her, but a
very clever woman. We were treated with ludicrous precision, according
to our supposed merits; the third-mentioned lady being just honoured
with a passing notice, and the fourth totally neglected. There was such
an unblushing insolence in the manner in which the blue-stocking set
people who had written books above all the rest of the world, that I
could not let it pass unrebuked; and I treated her to my opinion that
they are not usually the cleverest women who write; and that far more
general power and wisdom are required to conduct life, and especially to
educate a family of children well, than to write any book or number of
books. As soon as there was a pause in the conversation, I rose to go.
Some weeks afterward, when I was on a journey, a lady drove up from a
distance of two miles to make an afternoon call upon me. It was the
sister. She told me that she came to carry me home with her for the
night, "in order," said she, "that you may see how we who scribble can
keep house." As I had never had any doubt of the compatibility of the
two things, it was of little consequence that I could not go. She
informed me that she lectured on Mental and Moral Philosophy to young
ladies. She talked with much admiration of Mr. Brown as a metaphysician.
I concluded this gentleman to be some American worthy with whom I had
to become acquainted; but it came out to be Dr. Thomas Brown whom she
was praising. She appeared not to know even the names of metaphysicians
out of the Scotch school; and if the ghosts of the Scotch schoolmen were
present, they might well question whether she understood much of them.
She told me that she had a great favour to ask of me: she wanted
permission to print, in a note to the second edition of her Lectures on
Mental and Moral Philosophy, a striking observation of mine made to her
sister, which her sister had transmitted to her by the next post. I
immediately assured her that she might print anything that I had said to
her sister. She then explained that the observation was that they are
not usually the cleverest women who write. I recommended her to make
sure of the novelty of the remark before she printed it; for I was
afraid that Shakspeare or somebody had had it first. What was the fate
of the opinion I do not know; but it may be of use to the sisters
themselves if it suggests that they may be mistaken in looking down upon
all their sex who do not "scribble."
I think it must have been a pupil of theirs who wrote me a letter which
I threw into the fire in a fit of disgust the moment I had read it. A
young lady, who described herself as "an ambitious girl," sent me some
poetry in a magazine, and an explanation in writing of her own powers
and aspirations. No one likes aspiration better than I, if only there be
any degree of rational self-estimate connected with it. This young lady
aspired to enter the hallowed precincts of the temple where Edgeworth,
More, and others were immortalized. As for how she was to do it, her
case seemed to be similar to that of a West Indian lady, who once
complained to me that, while she was destined by her innate love of the
sublime and the beautiful to be distinguished, Providence would not let
her. The American young lady, however, hoped that a friendship with me
might persuade the world to recognise her powers; and she informed me
that she had come to town from a distance, and procured an invitation to
a house where I was to spend the evening, that we might begin our
friendship. The rooms happened to be so tremendously crowded that I was
not obliged to see any more persons than those immediately about me. I
was told that the "ambitious girl" was making herself very conspicuous
by standing on tiptoe, beaming and fluttering; but I did not look that
way, and never saw her. I hope she may yet read her own poetry again
with new eyes, and learn that the best "ambition" does not write about
itself, and that the strongest "powers" are the least conscious of their
own operation.
In two of the eastern cities I met with two ladies who had got a twist
in opposite directions. It has been represented in England that a
jealousy of English superiority, even in natural advantages, is very
prevalent in the United States. I do not think so; and I am by no means
sure that it is not nearly as rare as the opposite extreme. One instance
of each kind of prejudice came under my notice, and I am not aware of
more. At a party at Philadelphia, a lady asked me if I had not crossed
the Alleghanies, and whether I did not think them stupendous mountains.
I admired the views they presented, and said all I could for the
Alleghanies; but it was impossible to agree that they were stupendous
mountains. The lady was so evidently mortified, that I began to call the
rivers stupendous, which I could honestly do; but this was not the same
thing. She said, in a complaining tone,
"Well, I cannot think how you can say there are no high mountains in the
United States."
"You mistake me," I said. "I have not seen the White Mountains yet; and
I hear they are very grand."
"You English boast so of the things you have got at home!" said she.
"Why, I have seen your river Avon, that you make so much of. I stood by
the Avon, under Warwick Castle, and I said to my husband that it was a
mighty small thing to be talked of at such a distance. Why, if I had
been ten years younger, I could almost have jumped over it."
I told her that I believed the Avon was not so celebrated for the
quantity of water in it as on some other accounts.
The lady who went on the opposite tack is not very old, and I suppose,
therefore, that her loyalty to the crown of England is hereditary. She
made great efforts to see me, that she might enjoy my British
sympathies. With a grieved countenance she asked me whether the folly
and conceit of her countrymen in separating themselves from the crown
were not lamentable. She had hoped that, before this, they would have
become convinced of the guilt and silliness of their rebellion, and have
sought to be taken back; but she hoped it was not yet too late. I fear
she considered me a traitor to my country in not condemning hers. I was
sorry to deprive her of her last hope of sympathy; but what could one do
in such a case?
There must be many local and professional oddities in a country like
America, where individuals fill a larger space in society, and are less
pressed upon by influences, other than local and professional, than in
Old World communities. A judge in the West is often a remarkable
personage to European eyes. I know one who unites all the odd
characteristics of the order so as to be worth a close study. Before I
left home, a friend desired me to bring her something, she did not care
what, that should be exclusively American; something which could not be
procurable anywhere else. When I saw this judge I longed to pack him up,
and direct him, per next packet from New-York, to my friend; for he was
the first article I met with that could not by possibility have been
picked up anywhere out of the United States. He was about six feet high,
lank as a flail, and seeming to be held together only by the long-tailed
drab greatcoat into which he was put. He had a quid in his cheek
whenever I saw him, and squirted tobacco-juice into the fireplace or
elsewhere at intervals of about twenty seconds. His face was long and
solemn, his voice monotonous, his manner dogmatical to a most amusing
degree. He was a dogged republican, with an uncompromising hatred of the
blacks, and with an indifferent sort of pity for all foreigners. This
last feeling probably induced him to instruct me on various matters. He
fixed his eyes on the fire, and talked on for my edification, but
without taking express notice of the presence of any one, so that his
lecture had the droll appearance of being a formal soliloquy. In the
same speech he declared that no man was made by God to run wild through
a forest who was not able to comprehend Christianity at sight; missions
to the heathen being therefore sanctioned from heaven itself; and that
men with a dark skin cannot, in three years, learn the name of a rope or
a point of the compass, and that they are therefore meant to be slaves.
It seemed to me that he was bound to suspend the operation of the law
against all coloured persons on the ground of their incapacity, their
lack of understanding of the common affairs of life. But the ground of
their punishment in this life seemed to be that they might be as wise as
they pleased about the affairs of the next. He proceeded with his
enunciations, however, without vouchsafing an explanation of these
mysteries. It must be an awkward thing to be either a heathen or a negro
under his jurisdiction, if he acts upon his own doctrines.
Country doctors are not unlike wild country judges. Being obliged to
call in the aid of a village doctor to a companion, I found we had
fallen in with a fine specimen of the class. I was glad of this
afterward, but much annoyed at the time by the impossibility of
extracting from him the slightest information as to my friend's state
and prospects in regard to her health. I detained him in conversation
day after day to no purpose, and varied my questions with as much
American ingenuity as I could command; but all in vain. He would neither
tell me what was the matter with her, nor whether her illness was
serious or trifling, or whether it was likely to be long or short. He
would give me no hint which could enable me to form my plans, or to give
my distant friends an idea whether or when they might expect to see us.
All that he would say was, "Hope your friend will be better;" "hope she
will enjoy better health;" "will make her better if we can;" "must try
to improve her health;" and so on. I was informed that this was all that
I should extract if the illness were to last a twelvemonth. He took a
blue paper with some white powder in it out of one pocket, and a white
paper with some other powder out of another pocket; spilled some at
random into smaller papers, and gave directions when they should be
taken, and my friend speedily and entirely recovered. I never was so
completely in the dark about the nature of any illness I saw, and I am
completely in the dark still. I fancy I hear now the short, sharp,
conceited tones of the doctor, doggedly using his power of exasperating
my anxiety. Such was not his purpose, however. The country doctors
themselves and their patients believe that they cure with far more
certainty than any other doctors; the profession are probably convinced
that they owe much to the implicit faith of their charge, and are
resolved to keep up this faith by being impenetrable, allowing no part
of their practice to be made a subject of discussion which can possibly
be rendered mysterious. The chief reason of the success of country
doctors is, doubtless, that they have to treat chiefly diseases of local
prevalence, about which they employ long experience and practised
sagacity, without having much account to give of their method of
proceeding.
A country physician of higher pretensions than the one who tormented me
while curing my friend, told me that Yankee inquisitiveness is the
plague of the life of a country doctor. The querists seem to forget that
families may object to have domestic sickness made the talk of the
village or hamlet, and that the doctor must dislike to be the originator
of news of this kind. They stop him on his rounds to ask whom he is
visiting in this direction, and whom in that, and who could be sick on
the road in which he was seen going yesterday morning; and what such a
one's complaint is called, and how it is going to be cured, &c. The
physician told me that he was driven to invent modes of escape. If he
was riding, he appeared to see some acquaintance at a distance, clapped
spurs to his horse, and was off; if he was walking, he gave a name of
six syllables to the disease talked about, and one of seven syllables to
the remedy, thus defying repetition. If our doctor took me to be one of
this class of querists, I could easily forgive his reserve.
I was told a story of an American physician which is characteristic (if
it be true), showing how patriotic regards may enter into the practice
of medicine. But I give it only as an _on dit_. It is well known that
Adams and Jefferson died on the 4th of July of one year, and Monroe of
another. Mr. Madison died on the 28th of June last year. It is said that
the physician who attended Mr. Monroe expressed regret that he had not
the charge of Mr. Madison, suspecting that he might have found means to
keep him alive (as he died of old age) till the 4th of July. The
practice in Mr. Monroe's case is said to have been this: When he was
sinking, some one observed what a remarkable thing it would be if he
should die on the anniversary, like Adams and Jefferson. The physician
determined he would give his patient the chance of its ending so. He
poured down brandy and other stimulants, and omitted no means to keep
life in the failing body. On the 3d of July, the patient was sinking so
rapidly that there seemed little chance of his surviving the day. The
physician's exertions were redoubled; and the consequence was, that, on
the morning of the 4th, there seemed every probability of the patient's
living to the 5th, which was not exactly desired. He died (just as if
he wished to oblige his friends to the last) late in the afternoon of
the 4th. So the story runs.
It is astonishing what may be done by original genius, in availing
itself of republican sentiment for professional purposes. The drollery
infused into the puffing system in America would command the admiration
of Puff himself. It may be doubted whether he would have been up to the
invention of a recommendation of a certain oil for the hair which I saw
at Washington, and which threw us into such a convulsion of laughter
that the druggist behind the counter had to stand waiting some time
before we could explain our business to him. A regiment of persons were
represented walking up to a perfumer's counter with bald sculls of all
degrees of ugliness, and walking away from it graced with flowing
tresses of every hue, which they were showing off with gestures of
delight. This was an ingenious device, but not perfectly wise, as it
contained no appeal to patriotic feelings. I saw one at an optician's at
Baltimore of a decidedly more elevated character. There were miniature
busts in the window of Franklin, Washington, and Lafayette, each adorned
with a tiny pair of spectacles, which made the busts appear as sage as
life. Washington's spectacles were white, Franklin's green, and
Lafayette's neutral tint.