I hear and obey. You said to me, Go, and I went. You now say, come,
and I am coming, with the readiness that befits a slave, and the
cheerfulness that marks the philosopher.
Accustomed from my youth to breathe the scented air of Sennaar
saloons, and to lounge in listless idleness with young Sennaar, I am
weary of the simple purity of manners that distinguishes this people,
and long for the pleasing, if pointless frivolities of your court.
Coming, as you commanded, to observe and report the social state of
the metropolis of a people who, in the presence of the world, have
renounced the feudal organization of society, I have found them, as
you anticipated, totally free from the petty ambitions, the bitter
resolves, and the hollow pretences, that characterize the society of
older states.
The people of the first fashion unite the greatest simplicity of
character with the utmost variety of intelligence, and the most
graceful elegance of manner. Knowing that for an American the only
nobility is that of feeling; the only grace, generosity; and the only
elegance, simplicity; they have achieved a society which is a blithe
Arcadia, illustrating to the world the principles they profess, and
making the friend of man rejoice.
We, who are reputed savages, might well be astonished and fascinated
with the results of civilization, as they are here displayed. The
universal courtesy and consideration--the gentle charity, which does
not consider the appearance but the substance--the republican
independence, which teaches foreign lords and ladies the worthlessness
of mere rank, by obviously respecting the character and not the
title--the eagerness with which foreign habits are subdued, by the
positive nature of American manners--the readiness to assist--the
total want of coarse social emulation--the absence of ignorance,
prejudice and vulgarity, in the selecter circles--the broad, sweet,
catholic welcome to all that is essentially national and
characteristic, which sends the young American abroad only that he may
return eschewing European habits, and with a confidence in man and his
country, chastened by experience--these have most interested and
charmed me in the observation of this pleasing people.
It is here the pride of every man to bear his part in the universal
labor. The young men, instead of sighing for other institutions, and
the immunities of rank, prefer to deserve, by earning, their own
patents of Nobility. They are industrious, temperate, and frugal, as
becomes the youth to whom the destinies of so great a nation, and the
hopes of the world, are committed. They are proud to have raised
themselves from poverty, and they are never ashamed to confess that
they are poor. They acknowledge the equal dignity of all kinds of
labor, and do not presume upon any social differences between their
baker and themselves. Knowing that luxury enervates a nation, they aim
to show in their lives, as in their persons, that simplicity is the
finest ornament of dress, as health best decorates the body. They are
cheerfully obedient to those who command them, and gentle to those
they command. Full of charity, and knowing that if every man has some
sore weakness, he has also a human soul latent in him, they trust each
man as if that soul might, at any moment, look out of his eyes, and
acknowledge with tears, the sympathy that unites them.
They show in all this social independence and originality, the shrewd
common-sense which we have so often heard ascribed to them. For if, by
some fatal error, they should undertake a social rivalry, in kind,
with the old world and all its splendid accessories of antiquity,
wealth and hereditary refinement, the observer would see, what now is
never beheld, foolish parvenus frenzied in the pursuit of an elegance
which, in its nature, is inaccessible to them. We should see lavish
and unmeaning displays. We should see a gaudy ostentation,--serving
only as a magnificent frame to the vanity of the subject. We should
see the grave and thoughtful, the witty and accomplished, the men and
women whose genius fitted them for society, withdrawing from its
saloons, and preferring privacy to a vulgar and profuse publicity. We
should see society become a dancing school, and men and women
degenerated into dull and dandified boys and girls, content with
(pardon me, sable sir, but it would be the truth) “style.” We should
see, as if in an effete civilization, marriages of convenience. We
should hear the heirs, or the holders, of great fortunes, called
“gentlemanly,” if they were dull, and “a little wild” if they were
debauched. We should see parents panting to “marry off” their dear
daughters to the richest youths, and the richest youths affecting a
“jolly” and “stunning” life,--reputed to know the world because they
are licentious, and to have seen life because they have tasted foreign
dissipation. We should hear insipidity praised as good-humor, and
nonchalance as ease. We should have boorishness accounted manliness,
and impudence wit. We should gradually lose faith in man as we
associated with men, and soon perceive that the only safety for the
city was in its constant recruiting from the simplicity and strength
of the country.
The sharp common-sense of this people prevents so melancholy a
spectacle. In fact, you have only to consider that this society does
not remind you of the best characteristics of any other, to judge how
unique it is.
But, for myself, as milk disagrees with my constitution, and my mind
tires of this pastoral sweetness, I am too glad to obey your
summons. In my younger days when I loved to press the stops of oaten
pipes, and--a plaintive swain--fancied every woman what she seemed,
and every man my friend,--I should have hailed the prospect of a life
in an Arcadia like this. How gladly I should have climbed its
Pisgah-peaks of hope, and have looked off into the Future, flowing
with milk and honey. I would grieve (if I could) that my sated
appetite refuses more,--that I must lay down my crook and play the
shepherd no longer. Yet I know well enough that in the perfumed
atmosphere of the circle to which I return, I shall recur often, with
more than regret, to the humane, polished, intelligent, and simple
society I leave behind me,--shall wonder if Miss Minerva Tattle still
prattles kindly among the birds and flowers,--if Mrs. Potiphar still
leads, by her innate nobility, and not by the accident of wealth, the
swarm of gay, and graceful, and brilliant men and women that surround
her.
I humbly trust, sable son of midnight, my lord and master, that my
present report and summary will be found worthy of that implicit
confidence immemorially accorded to diplomatic communications. I
could ask for it no other reception.
Your slave,