Country, And Are So Sensitive In Europe
The temper of the Americans is vindictive, like that of all serious and
reflecting nations. They hardly ever forget an offence, but it is not
easy to offend them; and their resentment is as slow to kindle as it is
to abate. In aristocratic communities where a small number of persons
manage everything, the outward intercourse of men is subject to settled
conventional rules. Everyone then thinks he knows exactly what marks of
respect or of condescension he ought to display, and none are presumed
to be ignorant of the science of etiquette. These usages of the first
class in society afterwards serve as a model to all the others; besides
which each of the latter lays down a code of its own, to which all
its members are bound to conform. Thus the rules of politeness form a
complex system of legislation, which it is difficult to be perfectly
master of, but from which it is dangerous for anyone to deviate; so that
men are constantly exposed involuntarily to inflict or to receive
bitter affronts. But as the distinctions of rank are obliterated, as men
differing in education and in birth meet and mingle in the same places
of resort, it is almost impossible to agree upon the rules of good
breeding. As its laws are uncertain, to disobey them is not a crime,
even in the eyes of those who know what they are; men attach more
importance to intentions than to forms, and they grow less civil, but at
the same time less quarrelsome. There are many little attentions which
an American does not care about; he thinks they are not due to him, or
he presumes that they are not known to be due: he therefore either
does not perceive a rudeness or he forgives it; his manners become less
courteous, and his character more plain and masculine.
The mutual indulgence which the Americans display, and the manly
confidence with which they treat each other, also result from another
deeper and more general cause, which I have already adverted to in the
preceding chapter. In the United States the distinctions of rank
in civil society are slight, in political society they are null; an
American, therefore, does not think himself bound to pay particular
attentions to any of his fellow-citizens, nor does he require such
attentions from them towards himself. As he does not see that it is his
interest eagerly to seek the company of any of his countrymen, he is
slow to fancy that his own company is declined: despising no one on
account of his station, he does not imagine that anyone can despise him
for that cause; and until he has clearly perceived an insult, he does
not suppose that an affront was intended. The social condition of the
Americans naturally accustoms them not to take offence in small
matters; and, on the other hand, the democratic freedom which they
enjoy transfuses this same mildness of temper into the character of the
nation. The political institutions of the United States constantly bring
citizens of all ranks into contact, and compel them to pursue great
undertakings in concert. People thus engaged have scarcely time to
attend to the details of etiquette, and they are besides too strongly
interested in living harmoniously for them to stick at such things. They
therefore soon acquire a habit of considering the feelings and opinions
of those whom they meet more than their manners, and they do not allow
themselves to be annoyed by trifles.
I have often remarked in the United States that it is not easy to make
a man understand that his presence may be dispensed with; hints will not
always suffice to shake him off. I contradict an American at every word
he says, to show him that his conversation bores me; he instantly labors
with fresh pertinacity to convince me; I preserve a dogged silence, and
he thinks I am meditating deeply on the truths which he is uttering; at
last I rush from his company, and he supposes that some urgent business
hurries me elsewhere. This man will never understand that he wearies me
to extinction unless I tell him so: and the only way to get rid of him
is to make him my enemy for life.
It appears surprising at first sight that the same man transported to
Europe suddenly becomes so sensitive and captious, that I often find
it as difficult to avoid offending him here as it was to put him out
of countenance. These two opposite effects proceed from the same cause.
Democratic institutions generally give men a lofty notion of their
country and of themselves. An American leaves his country with a heart
swollen with pride; on arriving in Europe he at once finds out that we
are not so engrossed by the United States and the great people which
inhabits them as he had supposed, and this begins to annoy him. He has
been informed that the conditions of society are not equal in our part
of the globe, and he observes that among the nations of Europe the
traces of rank are not wholly obliterated; that wealth and birth still
retain some indeterminate privileges, which force themselves upon his
notice whilst they elude definition. He is therefore profoundly ignorant
of the place which he ought to occupy in this half-ruined scale of
classes, which are sufficiently distinct to hate and despise each other,
yet sufficiently alike for him to be always confounding them. He is
afraid of ranging himself too high--still more is he afraid of being
ranged too low; this twofold peril keeps his mind constantly on the
stretch, and embarrasses all he says and does. He learns from tradition
that in Europe ceremonial observances were infinitely varied according
to different ranks; this recollection of former times completes his
perplexity, and he is the more afraid of not obtaining those marks of
respect which are due to him, as he does not exactly know in what
they consist. He is like a man surrounded by traps: society is not a
recreation for him, but a serious toil: he weighs your least actions,
interrogates your looks, and scrutinizes all you say, lest there should
be some hidden allusion to affront him. I doubt whether there was ever
a provincial man of quality so punctilious in breeding as he is: he
endeavors to attend to the slightest rules of etiquette, and does not
allow one of them to be waived towards himself: he is full of scruples
and at the same time of pretensions; he wishes to do enough, but fears
to do too much; and as he does not very well know the limits of the one
or of the other, he keeps up a haughty and embarrassed air of reserve.
But this is not all: here is yet another double of the human heart. An
American is forever talking of the admirable equality which prevails in
the United States; aloud he makes it the boast of his country, but in
secret he deplores it for himself; and he aspires to show that, for his
part, he is an exception to the general state of things which he vaunts.
There is hardly an American to be met with who does not claim some
remote kindred with the first founders of the colonies; and as for the
scions of the noble families of England, America seemed to me to be
covered with them. When an opulent American arrives in Europe, his first
care is to surround himself with all the luxuries of wealth: he is so
afraid of being taken for the plain citizen of a democracy, that he
adopts a hundred distorted ways of bringing some new instance of his
wealth before you every day. His house will be in the most fashionable
part of the town: he will always be surrounded by a host of servants.
I have heard an American complain, that in the best houses of Paris the
society was rather mixed; the taste which prevails there was not pure
enough for him; and he ventured to hint that, in his opinion, there was
a want of elegance of manner; he could not accustom himself to see wit
concealed under such unpretending forms.
These contrasts ought not to surprise us. If the vestiges of former
aristocratic distinctions were not so completely effaced in the United
States, the Americans would be less simple and less tolerant in their
own country--they would require less, and be less fond of borrowed
manners in ours.