Suffolk bar, but the bar of any inland county in New England, might
show a set of thin-visaged men looking wretchedly worn, sallow, deeply
wrinkled across the forehead, and grimly furrowed about the mouth, with
whom these heavy-cheeked English lawyers, slow-paced and fat-witted as
they must needs be, would stand very little chance in a professional
contest. How that matter might turn out, I am unqualified to decide. But
I state these results of my earliest glimpses at Englishmen, not for
what they are worth, but because I ultimately gave them up as worth
little or nothing. In course of time, I came to the conclusion that
Englishmen of all ages are a rather good-looking people, dress in
admirable taste from their own point of view, and, under a surface never
silken to the touch, have a refinement of manners too thorough and
genuine to be thought of as a separate endowment,--that is to say, if
the individual himself be a man of station, and has had gentlemen for
his father and grandfather. The sturdy Anglo-Saxon nature does not
refine itself short of the third generation. The tradesmen, too, and all
other classes, have their own proprieties.
The only value of my criticisms, therefore, lay in their exemplifying
the proneness of a traveler to measure one people by the distinctive
characteristics of another,--as English writers invariably measure us,
and take upon themselves to be disgusted accordingly, instead of trying
to find out some principle of beauty with which we may be in conformity.
In due time we were summoned to the table, and went thither in no solemn
procession, but with a good deal of jostling, thrusting behind, and
scrambling for places when we reached our destination. The legal
gentlemen, I suspect, were responsible for this indecorous zeal, which I
never afterwards remarked in a similar party. The dining-hall was of
noble size, and, like the other rooms of the suite, was gorgeously
painted and gilded and brilliantly illuminated. There was a splendid
table-service, and a noble array of footmen, some of them in plain
clothes, and others wearing the town-livery, richly decorated with
gold-lace, and themselves excellent specimens of the blooming young
manhood of Britain. When we were fairly seated, it was certainly an
agreeable spectacle to look up and down the long vista of earnest faces,
and behold them so resolute, so conscious that there was an important
business in hand, and so determined to be equal to the occasion. Indeed,
Englishman or not, I hardly know what can be prettier than a snow-white
tablecloth, a huge heap of flowers as a central decoration, bright
silver, rich china, crystal glasses, decanters of Sherry at due
intervals, a French roll and an artistically folded napkin at each
plate, all that airy portion of a banquet, in short, that comes before
the first mouthful, the whole illuminated by a blaze of artificial
light, without which a dinner of made-dishes looks spectral, and the
simplest viands are the best. Printed bills-of-fare were distributed,
representing an abundant feast, no part of which appeared on the table
until called for in separate plates. I have entirely forgotten what it
was, but deem it no great matter, inasmuch as there is a pervading
commonplace and identicalness in the composition of extensive dinners,
on account of the impossibility of supplying a hundred guests with
anything particularly delicate or rare. It was suggested to me that
certain juicy old gentlemen had a private understanding what to call
for, and that it would be good policy in a stranger to follow in their
footsteps through the feast. I did not care to do so, however, because,
like Sancho Panza's dip out of Camacho's caldron, any sort of potluck at
such a table would be sure to suit my purpose; so I chose a dish or two
on my own judgment, and, getting through my labors betimes, had great
pleasure in seeing the Englishmen toil onward to the end.
They drank rather copiously, too, though wisely; for I observed that
they seldom took Hock, and let the Champagne bubble slowly away out of
the goblet, solacing themselves with Sherry, but tasting it warily
before bestowing their final confidence. Their taste in wines, however,
did not seem so exquisite, and certainly was not so various, as that to
which many Americans pretend. This foppery of an intimate acquaintance
with rare vintages does not suit a sensible Englishman, as he is very
much in earnest about his wines, and adopts one or two as his lifelong
friends, seldom exchanging them for any Delilahs of a moment, and
reaping the reward of his constancy in an unimpaired stomach, and only
so much gout as he deems wholesome and desirable. Knowing well the
measure of his powers, he is not apt to fill his glass too often.
Society, indeed, would hardly tolerate habitual imprudences of that
kind, though, in my opinion, the Englishmen now upon the stage could
carry off their three bottles, at need, with as steady a gait as any of
their forefathers. It is not so very long since the three-bottle heroes
sank finally under the table. It may be (at least, I should be glad if
it were true) that there was an occult sympathy between our temperance
reform, now somewhat in abeyance, and the almost simultaneous
disappearance of hard-drinking among the respectable classes in England.
I remember a middle-aged gentleman telling me (in illustration of the
very slight importance attached to breaches of temperance within the
memory of men not yet old) that he had seen a certain magistrate, Sir
John Linkwater, or Drinkwater,--but I think the jolly old knight could
hardly have staggered under so perverse a misnomer as this last,--while
sitting on the magisterial bench, pull out a crown-piece and hand it to
the clerk. "Mr. Clerk," said Sir John, as if it were the most
indifferent fact in the world, "I was drunk last night. There are my
five shillings."
During the dinner, I had a good deal of pleasant conversation with the
gentlemen on either side of me. One of them, a lawyer, expatiated with
great unction on the social standing of the judges. Representing the
dignity and authority of the Crown, they take precedence, during
assize-time, of the highest military men in the kingdom, of the Lord
Lieutenant of the county, of the Archbishops, of the royal Dukes, and
even of the Prince of Wales. For the nonce, they are the greatest men in
England. With a glow of professional complacency that amounted to
enthusiasm, my friend assured me, that, in case of a royal dinner, a
judge, if actually holding an assize, would be expected to offer his arm
and take the Queen herself to the table. Happening to be in company with
some of these elevated personages, on subsequent occasions, it appeared
to me that the judges are fully conscious of their paramount claims to
respect, and take rather more pains to impress them on their ceremonial
inferiors than men of high hereditary rank are apt to do. Bishops, if it
be not irreverent to say so, are sometimes marked by a similar
characteristic. Dignified position is so sweet to an Englishman, that
he needs to be born in it, and to feel it thoroughly incorporated with
his nature from its original germ, in order to keep him from flaunting
it obtrusively in the faces of innocent by-standers.
My companion on the other side was a thick-set, middle-aged man, uncouth
in manners, and ugly where none were handsome, with a dark, roughly hewn
visage, that looked grim in repose, and seemed to hold within itself the
machinery of a very terrific frown. He ate with resolute appetite, and
let slip few opportunities of imbibing whatever liquids happened to be
passing by. I was meditating in what way this grisly featured
table-fellow might most safely be accosted, when he turned to me with a
surly sort of kindness, and invited me to take a glass of wine. We then
began a conversation that abounded, on his part, with sturdy sense, and,
somehow or other, brought me closer to him than I had yet stood to an
Englishman. I should hardly have taken him to be an educated man,
certainly not a scholar of accurate training; and yet he seemed to have
all the resources of education and trained intellectual power at
command. My fresh Americanism, and watchful observation of English
characteristics, appeared either to interest or amuse him, or perhaps
both. Under the mollifying influences of abundance of meat and drink, he
grew very gracious (not that I ought to use such a phrase to describe
his evidently genuine good-will), and by and by expressed a wish for
further acquaintance, asking me to call at his rooms in London and
inquire for Sergeant Wilkins,--throwing out the name forcibly, as if he
had no occasion to be ashamed of it. I remembered Dean Swift's retort to
Sergeant Bettesworth on a similar announcement,--"Of what regiment,
pray, sir?"--and fancied that the same question might not have been
quite amiss, if applied to the rugged individual at my side. But I heard
of him subsequently as one of the prominent men at the English bar, a
rough customer, and a terribly strong champion in criminal cases; and it
caused me more regret than might have been expected, on so slight an
acquaintanceship, when, not long afterwards, I saw his death announced
in the newspapers. Not rich in attractive qualities, he possessed, I
think, the most attractive one of all,--thorough manhood.
After the cloth was removed, a goodly group of decanters were set before
the Mayor, who sent them forth on their outward voyage, full freighted
with Port, Sherry, Madeira, and Claret, of which excellent liquors,
methought, the latter found least acceptance among the guests. When
every man had filled his glass, his Worship stood up and proposed a
toast. It was, of course, "Our gracious Sovereign," or words to that
effect; and immediately a band of musicians, whose preliminary tootings
and thrummings I had already heard behind me, struck up "God save the
Queen!" and the whole company rose with one impulse to assist in singing
that famous national anthem. It was the first time in my life that I had
ever seen a body of men, or even a single man, under the active
influence of the sentiment of Loyalty; for, though we call ourselves
loyal to our country and institutions, and prove it by our readiness to
shed blood and sacrifice life in their behalf, still the principle is as
cold and hard, in an American bosom, as the steel spring that puts in
motion a powerful machinery. In the Englishman's system, a force similar
to that of our steel spring is generated by the warm throbbings of human
hearts. He clothes our bare abstraction in flesh and blood,--at
present, in the flesh and blood of a woman,--and manages to combine
love, awe, and intellectual reverence, all in one emotion, and to embody
his mother, his wife, his children, the whole idea of kindred, in a
single person, and make her the representative of his country and its
laws. We Americans smile superior, as I did at the Mayor's table; and
yet, I fancy, we lose some very agreeable titillations of the heart in
consequence of our proud prerogative of caring no more about our
President than for a man of straw, or a stuffed scarecrow straddling in
a cornfield.
But, to say the truth, the spectacle struck me rather ludicrously, to
see this party of stout middle-aged and elderly gentlemen, in the
fullness of meat and drink, their ample and ruddy faces glistening with
wine, perspiration, and enthusiasm, rumbling out those strange old
stanzas from the very bottom of their hearts and stomachs, which two
organs, in the English interior arrangement, lie closer together than in
ours. The song seemed to me the rudest old ditty in the world; but I
could not wonder at its universal acceptance and indestructible
popularity, considering how inimitably it expresses the national faith
and feeling as regards the inevitable righteousness of England, the
Almighty's consequent respect and partiality for that redoubtable little
island, and his presumed readiness to strengthen its defense against the
contumacious wickedness and knavery of all other principalities or
republics. Tennyson himself, though evidently English to the very last
prejudice, could not write half so good a song for the purpose. Finding
that the entire dinner-table struck in, with voices of every pitch
between rolling thunder and the squeak of a cart-wheel, and that the
strain was not of such delicacy as to be much hurt by the harshest of
them, I determined to lend my own assistance in swelling the triumphant
roar. It seemed but a proper courtesy to the first Lady in the land,
whose guest, in the largest sense, I might consider myself. Accordingly,
my first tuneful efforts (and probably my last, for I purpose not to
sing any more, unless it be "Hail Columbia" on the restoration of the
Union) were poured freely forth in honor of Queen Victoria. The Sergeant
smiled like the carved head of a Swiss nutcracker, and the other
gentlemen in my neighborhood, by nods and gestures, evinced grave
approbation of so suitable a tribute to English superiority; and we
finished our stave and sat down in an extremely happy frame of mind.
Other toasts followed in honor of the great institutions and interests
of the country, and speeches in response to each were made by
individuals whom the Mayor designated or the company called for. None of
them impressed me with a very high idea of English post-prandial
oratory. It is inconceivable, indeed, what ragged and shapeless
utterances most Englishmen are satisfied to give vent to, without
attempting anything like artistic shape, but clapping on a patch here
and another there, and ultimately getting out what they want to say, and
generally with a result of sufficiently good sense, but in some such
disorganized mass as if they had thrown it up rather than spoken it. It
seemed to me that this was almost as much by choice as necessity. An
Englishman, ambitious of public favor, should not be too smooth. If an
orator is glib, his countrymen distrust him. They dislike smartness. The
stronger and heavier his thoughts, the better, provided there be an
element of commonplace running through them; and any rough, yet never
vulgar, force of expression, such as would knock an opponent down if it
hit him, only it must not be too personal, is altogether to their taste;
but a studied neatness of language, or other such superficial graces,
they cannot abide. They do not often permit a man to make himself a fine
orator of malice aforethought, that is, unless he be a nobleman (as, for
example, Lord Stanley, of the Derby family), who, as an hereditary
legislator and necessarily a public speaker, is bound to remedy a poor
natural delivery in the best way he can. On the whole, I partly agree
with them, and, if I cared for any oratory whatever, should be as likely
to applaud theirs as our own. When an English speaker sits down, you
feel that you have been listening to a real man, and not to an actor;
his sentiments have a wholesome earth-smell in them, though, very
likely, this apparent naturalness is as much an art as what we expend in
rounding a sentence or elaborating a peroration.
It is one good effect of this inartificial style, that nobody in England
seems to feel any shyness about shoveling the untrimmed and untrimmable
ideas out of his mind for the benefit of an audience. At least, nobody
did on the occasion now in hand, except a poor little Major of
Artillery, who responded for the Army in a thin, quavering voice, with a
terribly hesitating trickle of fragmentary ideas, and, I question not,
would rather have been bayoneted in front of his batteries than to have
said a word. Not his own mouth, but the cannon's, was this poor Major's
proper organ of utterance.
While I was thus amiably occupied in criticising my fellow-guests, the
Mayor had got up to propose another toast; and listening rather
inattentively to the first sentence or two, I soon became sensible of a
drift in his Worship's remarks that made me glance apprehensively
towards Sergeant Wilkins. "Yes," grumbled that gruff personage, shoving
a decanter of Port towards me, "it is your turn next;" and seeing in my
face, I suppose, the consternation of a wholly unpracticed orator, he
kindly added, "It is nothing. A mere acknowledgment will answer the
purpose. The less you say, the better they will like it." That being the
case, I suggested that perhaps they would like it best if I said nothing
at all. But the Sergeant shook his head. Now, on first receiving the
Mayor's invitation to dinner, it had occurred to me that I might
possibly be brought into my present predicament; but I had dismissed the
idea from my mind as too disagreeable to be entertained, and, moreover,
as so alien from my disposition and character that Fate surely could not
keep such a misfortune in store for me. If nothing else prevented, an
earthquake or the crack of doom would certainly interfere before I need
rise to speak. Yet here was the Mayor getting on inexorably,--and,
indeed, I heartily wished that he might get on and on forever, and of
his wordy wanderings find no end.
If the gentle reader, my kindest friend and closest confidant, deigns to
desire it, I can impart to him my own experience as a public speaker
quite as indifferently as if it concerned another person. Indeed, it
does concern another, or a mere spectral phenomenon, for it was not I,
in my proper and natural self, that sat there at table or subsequently
rose to speak. At the moment, then, if the choice had been offered me
whether the Mayor should let off a speech at my head or a pistol, I
should unhesitatingly have taken the latter alternative. I had really
nothing to say, not an idea in my head, nor, which was a great deal
worse, any flowing words or embroidered sentences in which to dress out
that empty Nothing, and give it a cunning aspect of intelligence, such
as might last the poor vacuity the little time it had to live. But time
pressed; the Mayor brought his remarks, affectionately eulogistic of the
United States and highly complimentary to their distinguished
representative at that table, to a close, amid a vast deal of cheering;
and the band struck up "Hail Columbia," I believe, though it might have
been "Old Hundred," or "God save the Queen" over again, for anything
that I should have known or cared. When the music ceased, there was an
intensely disagreeable instant, during which I seemed to rend away and
fling off the habit of a lifetime, and rose, still void of ideas, but
with preternatural composure, to make a speech. The guests rattled on
the table, and cried, "Hear!" most vociferously, as if now, at length,
in this foolish and idly garrulous world, had come the long-expected
moment when one golden word was to be spoken; and in that imminent
crisis, I caught a glimpse of a little bit of an effusion of
international sentiment, which it might, and must, and should do to
utter.
Well; it was nothing, as the Sergeant had said. What surprised me most
was the sound of my own voice, which I had never before heard at
declamatory pitch, and which impressed me as belonging to some other
person, who, and not myself, would be responsible for the speech: a
prodigious consolation and encouragement under the circumstances! I went
on without the slightest embarrassment, and sat down amid great
applause, wholly undeserved by anything that I had spoken, but well won
from Englishmen, methought, by the new development of pluck that alone
had enabled me to speak at all. "It was handsomely done!" quoth Sergeant
Wilkins; and I felt like a recruit who had been for the first time under
fire.[19]
[19] Anybody may make an after-dinner speech who will be content to talk
onward without saying anything. My speech was not more than two or three
inches long; and, considering that I did not know a soul there, except
the Mayor himself, and that I am wholly unpracticed in all sorts of
oratory, and that I had nothing to say, it was quite successful. I
hardly thought it was in me, but, being once started, I felt no
embarrassment, and went through it as coolly as if I were going to be
hanged.--I. 429.
I would gladly have ended my oratorical career then and there forever,
but was often placed in a similar or worse position, and compelled to
meet it as I best might; for this was one of the necessities of an
office which I had voluntarily taken on my shoulders, and beneath which
I might be crushed by no moral delinquency on my own part, but could not
shirk without cowardice and shame. My subsequent fortune was various.
Once, though I felt it to be a kind of imposture, I got a speech by
heart, and doubtless it might have been a very pretty one, only I forgot
every syllable at the moment of need, and had to improvise another as
well as I could. I found it a better method to prearrange a few points
in my mind, and trust to the spur of the occasion, and the kind aid of
Providence, for enabling me to bring them to bear. The presence of any
considerable proportion of personal friends generally dumfounded me. I
would rather have talked with an enemy in the gate. Invariably, too, I
was much embarrassed by a small audience, and succeeded better with a
large one,--the sympathy of a multitude possessing a buoyant effect,
which lifts the speaker a little way out of his individuality, and
tosses him towards a perhaps better range of sentiment than his private
one. Again, if I rose carelessly and confidently, with an expectation of
going through the business entirely at my ease, I often found that I
had little or nothing to say; whereas, if I came to the charge in
perfect despair, and at a crisis when failure would have been horrible,
it once or twice happened that the frightful emergency concentrated my
poor faculties, and enabled me to give definite and vigorous expression
to sentiments which an instant before looked as vague and far off as the
clouds in the atmosphere. On the whole, poor as my own success may have
been, I apprehend that any intelligent man with a tongue possesses the
chief requisite of oratorical power, and may develop many of the others,
if he deems it worth while to bestow a great amount of labor and pains
on an object which the most accomplished orators, I suspect, have not
found altogether satisfactory to their highest impulses. At any rate, it
must be a remarkably true man who can keep his own elevated conception
of truth when the lower feeling of a multitude is assailing his natural
sympathies, and who can speak out frankly the best that there is in him,
when by adulterating it a little, or a good deal, he knows that he may
make it ten times as acceptable to the audience.