and fro so often that I have ceased to like and dislike. Nothing strikes
me as unexpected; I expect everything in its order. Then, too, you know,
I am not a critic; I have no talent for keen analysis, as the magazines
say; I don’t go into the reasons of things. It is true I have been for a
longer time than usual on the wrong side of the water, and I admit that I
feel a little out of training for American life. They are breaking me in
very fast, however. I don’t mean that they bully me; I absolutely
decline to be bullied. I say what I think, because I believe that I
have, on the whole, the advantage of knowing what I think—when I think
anything—which is half the battle. Sometimes, indeed, I think nothing at
all. They don’t like that over here; they like you to have impressions.
That they like these impressions to be favourable appears to me perfectly
natural; I don’t make a crime to them of that; it seems to me, on the
contrary, a very amiable quality. When individuals have it, we call them
sympathetic; I don’t see why we shouldn’t give nations the same benefit.
But there are things I haven’t the least desire to have an opinion about.
The privilege of indifference is the dearest one we possess, and I hold
that intelligent people are known by the way they exercise it. Life is
full of rubbish, and we have at least our share of it over here. When
you wake up in the morning you find that during the night a cartload has
been deposited in your front garden. I decline, however, to have any of
it in my premises; there are thousands of things I want to know nothing
about. I have outlived the necessity of being hypocritical; I have
nothing to gain and everything to lose. When one is fifty years
old—single, stout, and red in the face—one has outlived a good many
necessities. They tell me over here that my increase of weight is
extremely marked, and though they don’t tell me that I am coarse, I am
sure they think me so. There is very little coarseness here—not quite
enough, I think—though there is plenty of vulgarity, which is a very
different thing. On the whole, the country is becoming much more
agreeable. It isn’t that the people are charming, for that they always
were (the best of them, I mean, for it isn’t true of the others), but
that places and things as well have acquired the art of pleasing. The
houses are extremely good, and they look so extraordinarily fresh and
clean. European interiors, in comparison, seem musty and gritty. We
have a great deal of taste; I shouldn’t wonder if we should end by
inventing something pretty; we only need a little time. Of course, as
yet, it’s all imitation, except, by the way, these piazzas. I am sitting
on one now; I am writing to you with my portfolio on my knees. This
broad light _loggia_ surrounds the house with a movement as free as the
expanded wings of a bird, and the wandering airs come up from the deep
sea, which murmurs on the rocks at the end of the lawn. Newport is more
charming even than you remember it; like everything else over here, it
has improved. It is very exquisite today; it is, indeed, I think, in all
the world, the only exquisite watering-place, for I detest the whole
genus. The crowd has left it now, which makes it all the better, though
plenty of talkers remain in these large, light, luxurious houses, which
are planted with a kind of Dutch definiteness all over the green carpet
of the cliff. This carpet is very neatly laid and wonderfully well
swept, and the sea, just at hand, is capable of prodigies of blue. Here
and there a pretty woman strolls over one of the lawns, which all touch
each other, you know, without hedges or fences; the light looks intense
as it plays upon her brilliant dress; her large parasol shines like a
silver dome. The long lines of the far shores are soft and pure, though
they are places that one hasn’t the least desire to visit. Altogether
the effect is very delicate, and anything that is delicate counts
immensely over here; for delicacy, I think, is as rare as coarseness. I
am talking to you of the sea, however, without having told you a word of
my voyage. It was very comfortable and amusing; I should like to take
another next month. You know I am almost offensively well at sea—that I
breast the weather and brave the storm. We had no storm fortunately, and
I had brought with me a supply of light literature; so I passed nine days
on deck in my sea-chair, with my heels up, reading Tauchnitz novels.
There was a great lot of people, but no one in particular, save some
fifty American girls. You know all about the American girl, however,
having been one yourself. They are, on the whole, very nice, but fifty
is too many; there are always too many. There was an inquiring Briton, a
radical M.P., by name Mr. Antrobus, who entertained me as much as any one
else. He is an excellent man; I even asked him to come down here and
spend a couple of days. He looked rather frightened, till I told him he
shouldn’t be alone with me, that the house was my brother’s, and that I
gave the invitation in his name. He came a week ago; he goes everywhere;
we have heard of him in a dozen places. The English are very simple, or
at least they seem so over here. Their old measurements and comparisons
desert them; they don’t know whether it’s all a joke, or whether it’s too
serious by half. We are quicker than they, though we talk so much more
slowly. We think fast, and yet we talk as deliberately as if we were
speaking a foreign language. They toss off their sentences with an air
of easy familiarity with the tongue, and yet they misunderstand
two-thirds of what people say to them. Perhaps, after all, it is only
_our_ thoughts they think slowly; they think their own often to a lively
tune enough. Mr. Antrobus arrived here at eight o’clock in the morning;
I don’t know how he managed it; it appears to be his favourite hour;
wherever we have heard of him he has come in with the dawn. In England
he would arrive at 5.30 p.m. He asks innumerable questions, but they are
easy to answer, for he has a sweet credulity. He made me rather ashamed;
he is a better American than so many of us; he takes us more seriously
than we take ourselves. He seems to think that an oligarchy of wealth is
growing up here, and he advised me to be on my guard against it. I don’t
know exactly what I can do, but I promised him to look out. He is
fearfully energetic; the energy of the people here is nothing to that of
the inquiring Briton. If we should devote half the energy to building up
our institutions that they devote to obtaining information about them, we
should have a very satisfactory country. Mr. Antrobus seemed to think
very well of us, which surprised me, on the whole, because, say what one
will, it’s not so agreeable as England. It’s very horrid that this
should be; and it’s delightful, when one thinks of it, that some things
in England are, after all, so disagreeable. At the same time, Mr.
Antrobus appeared to be a good deal pre-occupied with our dangers. I
don’t understand, quite, what they are; they seem to me so few, on a
Newport piazza, on this bright, still day. But, after all, what one sees
on a Newport piazza is not America; it’s the back of Europe! I don’t
mean to say that I haven’t noticed any dangers since my return; there are
two or three that seem to me very serious, but they are not those that
Mr. Antrobus means. One, for instance, is that we shall cease to speak
the English language, which I prefer so much to any other. It’s less and
less spoken; American is crowding it out. All the children speak
American, and as a child’s language it’s dreadfully rough. It’s
exclusively in use in the schools; all the magazines and newspapers are
in American. Of course, a people of fifty millions, who have invented a
new civilisation, have a right to a language of their own; that’s what
they tell me, and I can’t quarrel with it. But I wish they had made it
as pretty as the mother-tongue, from which, after all, it is more or less
derived. We ought to have invented something as noble as our country.
They tell me it’s more expressive, and yet some admirable things have
been said in the Queen’s English. There can be no question of the Queen
over here, of course, and American no doubt is the music of the future.
Poor dear future, how “expressive” you’ll be! For women and children, as
I say, it strikes one as very rough; and moreover, they don’t speak it
well, their own though it be. My little nephews, when I first came home,
had not gone back to school, and it distressed me to see that, though
they are charming children, they had the vocal inflections of little
news-boys. My niece is sixteen years old; she has the sweetest nature
possible; she is extremely well-bred, and is dressed to perfection. She
chatters from morning till night; but it isn’t a pleasant sound! These
little persons are in the opposite case from so many English girls, who
know how to speak, but don’t know how to talk. My niece knows how to
talk, but doesn’t know how to speak. _A propos_ of the young people,
that is our other danger; the young people are eating us up,—there is
nothing in America but the young people. The country is made for the
rising generation; life is arranged for them; they are the destruction of
society. People talk of them, consider them, defer to them, bow down to
them. They are always present, and whenever they are present there is an
end to everything else. They are often very pretty; and physically, they
are wonderfully looked after; they are scoured and brushed, they wear
hygienic clothes, they go every week to the dentist’s. But the little
boys kick your shins, and the little girls offer to slap your face!
There is an immense literature entirely addressed to them, in which the
kicking of shins and the slapping of faces is much recommended. As a
woman of fifty, I protest. I insist on being judged by my peers. It’s
too late, however, for several millions of little feet are actively
engaged in stamping out conversation, and I don’t see how they can long
fail to keep it under. The future is theirs; maturity will evidently be
at an increasing discount. Longfellow wrote a charming little poem
called “The Children’s Hour,” but he ought to have called it “The
Children’s Century.” And by children, of course, I don’t mean simple
infants; I mean everything of less than twenty. The social importance of
the young American increases steadily up to that age, and then it
suddenly stops. The young girls, of course, are more important than the
lads; but the lads are very important too. I am struck with the way they
are known and talked about; they are little celebrities; they have
reputations and pretentions; they are taken very seriously. As for the
young girls, as I said just now, there are too many. You will say,
perhaps, that I am jealous of them, with my fifty years and my red face.
I don’t think so, because I don’t suffer; my red face doesn’t frighten
people away, and I always find plenty of talkers. The young girls
themselves, I believe, like me very much; and as for me, I delight in the
young girls. They are often very pretty; not so pretty as people say in
the magazines, but pretty enough. The magazines rather overdo that; they
make a mistake. I have seen no great beauties, but the level of
prettiness is high, and occasionally one sees a woman completely
handsome. (As a general thing, a pretty person here means a person with
a pretty face. The figure is rarely mentioned, though there are several
good ones.) The level of prettiness is high, but the level of
conversation is low; that’s one of the signs of its being a young ladies’
country. There are a good many things young ladies can’t talk about; but
think of all the things they can, when they are as clever as most of
these. Perhaps one ought to content one’s self with that measure, but
it’s difficult if one has lived for a while by a larger one. This one is
decidedly narrow; I stretch it sometimes till it cracks. Then it is that
they call me coarse, which I undoubtedly am, thank Heaven! People’s talk
is of course much more _châtiée_ over here than in Europe; I am struck
with that wherever I go. There are certain things that are never said at
all, certain allusions that are never made. There are no light stories,
no propos _risqués_. I don’t know exactly what people talk about, for
the supply of scandal is small, and it’s poor in quality. They don’t
seem, however, to lack topics. The young girls are always there; they
keep the gates of conversation; very little passes that is not innocent.
I find we do very well without wickedness; and, for myself, as I take my
ease, I don’t miss my liberties. You remember what I thought of the tone
of your table in Florence, and how surprised you were when I asked you
why you allowed such things. You said they were like the courses of the
seasons; one couldn’t prevent them; also that to change the tone of your
table you would have to change so many other things. Of course, in your
house one never saw a young girl; I was the only spinster, and no one was
afraid of me! Of course, too, if talk is more innocent in this country,
manners are so, to begin with. The liberty of the young people is the
strongest proof of it. The young girls are let loose in the world, and
the world gets more good of it than _ces demoiselles_ get harm. In your
world—excuse me, but you know what I mean—this wouldn’t do at all. Your
world is a sad affair, and the young ladies would encounter all sorts of
horrors. Over here, considering the way they knock about, they remain
wonderfully simple, and the reason is that society protects them instead
of setting them traps. There is almost no gallantry, as you understand
it; the flirtations are child’s play. People have no time for making
love; the men, in particular, are extremely busy. I am told that sort of
thing consumes hours; I have never had any time for it myself. If the
leisure class should increase here considerably, there may possibly be a
change; but I doubt it, for the women seem to me in all essentials
exceedingly reserved. Great superficial frankness, but an extreme dread
of complications. The men strike me as very good fellows. I think that
at bottom they are better than the women, who are very subtle, but rather
hard. They are not so nice to the men as the men are to them; I mean, of
course, in proportion, you know. But women are not so nice as men,
“anyhow,” as they say here. The men, of course, are professional,
commercial; there are very few gentlemen pure and simple. This personage
needs to be very well done, however, to be of great utility; and I
suppose you won’t pretend that he is always well done in your countries.
When he’s not, the less of him the better. It’s very much the same,
however, with the system on which the young girls in this country are
brought up. (You see, I have to come back to the young girls.) When it
succeeds, they are the most charming possible; when it doesn’t, the
failure is disastrous. If a girl is a very nice girl, the American
method brings her to great completeness—makes all her graces flower; but
if she isn’t nice, it makes her exceedingly disagreeable—elaborately and
fatally perverts her. In a word, the American girl is rarely negative,
and when she isn’t a great success she is a great warning. In nineteen
cases out of twenty, among the people who know how to live—I won’t say
what _their_ proportion is—the results are highly satisfactory. The
girls are not shy, but I don’t know why they should be, for there is
really nothing here to be afraid of. Manners are very gentle, very
humane; the democratic system deprives people of weapons that every one
doesn’t equally possess. No one is formidable; no one is on stilts; no
one has great pretensions or any recognised right to be arrogant. I
think there is not much wickedness, and there is certainly less cruelty
than with you. Every one can sit; no one is kept standing. One is much
less liable to be snubbed, which you will say is a pity. I think it is
to a certain extent; but, on the other hand, folly is less fatuous, in
form, than in your countries; and as people generally have fewer revenges
to take, there is less need of their being stamped on in advance. The
general good nature, the social equality, deprive them of triumphs on the
one hand, and of grievances on the other. There is extremely little
impertinence; there is almost none. You will say I am describing a
terrible society,—a society without great figures or great social prizes.
You have hit it, my dear; there are no great figures. (The great prize,
of course, in Europe, is the opportunity to be a great figure.) You
would miss these things a good deal,—you who delight to contemplate
greatness; and my advice to you, of course, is never to come back. You
would miss the small people even more than the great; every one is
middle-sized, and you can never have that momentary sense of tallness
which is so agreeable in Europe. There are no brilliant types; the most
important people seem to lack dignity. They are very _bourgeois_; they
make little jokes; on occasion they make puns; they have no form; they
are too good-natured. The men have no style; the women, who are fidgety
and talk too much, have it only in their _coiffure_, where they have it
superabundantly. But I console myself with the greater _bonhomie_. Have
you ever arrived at an English country-house in the dusk of a winter’s
day? Have you ever made a call in London, when you knew nobody but the
hostess? People here are more expressive, more demonstrative and it is a
pleasure, when one comes back (if one happens, like me, to be no one in
particular), to feel one’s social value rise. They attend to you more;
they have you on their mind; they talk to you; they listen to you. That
is, the men do; the women listen very little—not enough. They interrupt;
they talk too much; one feels their presence too much as a sound. I
imagine it is partly because their wits are quick, and they think of a
good many things to say; not that they always say such wonders. Perfect
repose, after all, is not _all_ self-control; it is also partly
stupidity. American women, however, make too many vague exclamations—say
too many indefinite things. In short, they have a great deal of nature.
On the whole, I find very little affectation, though we shall probably
have more as we improve. As yet, people haven’t the assurance that
carries those things off; they know too much about each other. The
trouble is that over here we have all been brought up together. You will
think this a picture of a dreadfully insipid society; but I hasten to add
that it’s not all so tame as that. I have been speaking of the people
that one meets socially; and these are the smallest part of American
life. The others—those one meets on a basis of mere convenience—are much
more exciting; they keep one’s temper in healthy exercise. I mean the
people in the shops, and on the railroads; the servants, the hackmen, the
labourers, every one of whom you buy anything or have occasion to make an
inquiry. With them you need all your best manners, for you must always
have enough for two. If you think we are _too_ democratic, taste a
little of American life in these walks, and you will be reassured. This
is the region of inequality, and you will find plenty of people to make
your courtesy to. You see it from below—the weight of inequality is on
your own back. You asked me to tell you about prices; they are simply
dreadful.
IV.
FROM THE HONOURABLE EDWARD ANTROBUS, M.P.,
IN BOSTON, TO THE HONOURABLE MRS. ANTROBUS.
October 17.
MY DEAR SUSAN—I sent you a post-card on the 13th and a native newspaper
yesterday; I really have had no time to write. I sent you the newspaper
partly because it contained a report—extremely incorrect—of some remarks
I made at the meeting of the Association of the Teachers of New England;
partly because it is so curious that I thought it would interest you and
the children. I cut out some portions which I didn’t think it would be
well for the children to see; the parts remaining contain the most
striking features. Please point out to the children the peculiar
orthography, which probably will be adopted in England by the time they
are grown up; the amusing oddities of expression, etc. Some of them are
intentional; you will have heard of the celebrated American humour, etc.
(remind me, by the way, on my return to Thistleton, to give you a few
examples of it); others are unconscious, and are perhaps on that account
the more diverting. Point out to the children the difference (in so far
as you are sure that you yourself perceive it). You must excuse me if
these lines are not very legible; I am writing them by the light of a
railway lamp, which rattles above my left ear; it being only at odd
moments that I can find time to look into everything that I wish to. You
will say that this is a very odd moment, indeed, when I tell you that I
am in bed in a sleeping-car. I occupy the upper berth (I will explain to
you the arrangement when I return), while the lower forms the couch—the
jolts are fearful—of an unknown female. You will be very anxious for my
explanation; but I assure you that it is the custom of the country. I
myself am assured that a lady may travel in this manner all over the
Union (the Union of States) without a loss of consideration. In case of
her occupying the upper berth I presume it would be different; but I must
make inquiries on this point. Whether it be the fact that a mysterious
being of another sex has retired to rest behind the same curtains, or
whether it be the swing of the train, which rushes through the air with
very much the same movement as the tail of a kite, the situation is, at
any rate, so anomalous that I am unable to sleep. A ventilator is open
just over my head, and a lively draught, mingled with a drizzle of
cinders, pours in through this ingenious orifice. (I will describe to
you its form on my return.) If I had occupied the lower berth I should
have had a whole window to myself, and by drawing back the blind (a safe
proceeding at the dead of night), I should have been able, by the light
of an extraordinary brilliant moon, to see a little better what I write.
The question occurs to me, however,—Would the lady below me in that case
have ascended to the upper berth? (You know my old taste for contingent
inquiries.) I incline to think (from what I have seen) that she would
simply have requested me to evacuate my own couch. (The ladies in this
country ask for anything they want.) In this case, I suppose, I should
have had an extensive view of the country, which, from what I saw of it
before I turned in (while the lady beneath me was going to bed), offered
a rather ragged expanse, dotted with little white wooden houses, which
looked in the moonshine like pasteboard boxes. I have been unable to
ascertain as precisely as I should wish by whom these modest residences
are occupied; for they are too small to be the homes of country
gentlemen, there is no peasantry here, and (in New England, for all the
corn comes from the far West) there are no yeomen nor farmers. The
information that one receives in this country is apt to be rather
conflicting, but I am determined to sift the mystery to the bottom. I
have already noted down a multitude of facts bearing upon the points that
interest me most—the operation of the school-boards, the co-education of
the sexes, the elevation of the tone of the lower classes, the
participation of the latter in political life. Political life, indeed,
is almost wholly confined to the lower middle class, and the upper
section of the lower class. In some of the large towns, indeed, the
lowest order of all participates considerably—a very interesting phrase,
to which I shall give more attention. It is very gratifying to see the
taste for public affairs pervading so many social strata; but the
indifference of the gentry is a fact not to be lightly considered. It
may be objected, indeed, that there are no gentry; and it is very true
that I have not yet encountered a character of the type of Lord
Bottomley,—a type which I am free to confess I should be sorry to see
disappear from our English system, if system it may be called, where so
much is the growth of blind and incoherent forces. It is nevertheless
obvious that an idle and luxurious class exists in this country, and that
it is less exempt than in our own from the reproach of preferring
inglorious ease to the furtherance of liberal ideas. It is rapidly
increasing, and I am not sure that the indefinite growth of the
dilettante spirit, in connection with large and lavishly-expended wealth,
is an unmixed good, even in a society in which freedom of development has
obtained so many interesting triumphs. The fact that this body is not
represented in the governing class, is perhaps as much the result of the
jealousy with which it is viewed by the more earnest workers as of its
own—I dare not, perhaps, apply a harsher term than—levity. Such, at
least, is the impression I have gathered in the Middle States and in New
England; in the South-west, the North-west, and the far West, it will
doubtless be liable to correction. These divisions are probably new to
you; but they are the general denomination of large and flourishing
communities, with which I hope to make myself at least superficially
acquainted. The fatigue of traversing, as I habitually do, three or four
hundred miles at a bound, is, of course, considerable; but there is
usually much to inquire into by the way. The conductors of the trains,
with whom I freely converse, are often men of vigorous and original
minds, and even of some social eminence. One of them, a few days ago,
gave me a letter of introduction to his brother-in-law, who is president
of a Western University. Don’t have any fear, therefore, that I am not
in the best society! The arrangements for travelling are, as a general
thing, extremely ingenious, as you will probably have inferred from what
I told you above; but it must at the same time be conceded that some of
them are more ingenious than happy. Some of the facilities, with regard
to luggage, the transmission of parcels, etc., are doubtless very useful
when explained, but I have not yet succeeded in mastering the
intricacies. There are, on the other hand, no cabs and no porters, and I
have calculated that I have myself carried my _impedimenta_—which, you
know, are somewhat numerous, and from which I cannot bear to be
separated—some seventy, or eighty miles. I have sometimes thought it was
a great mistake not to bring Plummeridge; he would have been useful on
such occasions. On the other hand, the startling question would have
presented itself—Who would have carried Plummeridge’s portmanteau? He
would have been useful, indeed, for brushing and packing my clothes, and
getting me my tub; I travel with a large tin one—there are none to be
obtained at the inns—and the transport of this receptacle often presents
the most insoluble difficulties. It is often, too, an object of
considerable embarrassment in arriving at private houses, where the
servants have less reserve of manner than in England; and to tell you the
truth, I am by no means certain at the present moment that the tub has
been placed in the train with me. “On board” the train is the
consecrated phrase here; it is an allusion to the tossing and pitching of
the concatenation of cars, so similar to that of a vessel in a storm. As
I was about to inquire, however, Who would get Plummeridge _his_ tub, and
attend to his little comforts? We could not very well make our
appearance, on coming to stay with people, with _two_ of the utensils I
have named; though, as regards a single one, I have had the courage, as I
may say, of a life-long habit. It would hardly be expected that we
should both use the same; though there have been occasions in my travels,
as to which I see no way of blinking the fact, that Plummeridge would
have had to sit down to dinner with me. Such a contingency would
completely have unnerved him; and, on the whole, it was doubtless the
wiser part to leave him respectfully touching his hat on the tender in
the Mersey. No one touches his hat over here, and though it is doubtless
the sign of a more advanced social order, I confess that when I see poor
Plummeridge again, this familiar little gesture—familiar, I mean, only in
the sense of being often seen—will give me a measurable satisfaction.
You will see from what I tell you that democracy is not a mere word in
this country, and I could give you many more instances of its universal
reign. This, however, is what we come here to look at, and, in so far as
there seems to be proper occasion, to admire; though I am by no means
sure that we can hope to establish within an appreciable time a
corresponding change in the somewhat rigid fabric of English manners. I
am not even prepared to affirm that such a change is desirable; you know
this is one of the points on which I do not as yet see my way to going as
far as Lord B—. I have always held that there is a certain social ideal
of inequality as well as of equality, and if I have found the people of
this country, as a general thing, quite equal to each other, I am not
sure that I am prepared to go so far as to say that, as a whole, they are
equal to—excuse that dreadful blot! The movement of the train and the
precarious nature of the light—it is close to my nose, and most
offensive—would, I flatter myself, long since have got the better of a
less resolute diarist! What I was not prepared for was the very
considerable body of aristocratic feeling that lurks beneath this
republican simplicity. I have on several occasions been made the
confidant of these romantic but delusive vagaries, of which the
stronghold appears to be the Empire City,—a slang name for New York. I
was assured in many quarters that that locality, at least, is ripe for a
monarchy, and if one of the Queen’s sons would come and talk it over, he
would meet with the highest encouragement. This information was given me
in strict confidence, with closed doors, as it were; it reminded me a
good deal of the dreams of the old Jacobites, when they whispered their
messages to the king across the water. I doubt, however, whether these
less excusable visionaries will be able to secure the services of a
Pretender, for I fear that in such a case he would encounter a still more
fatal Culloden. I have given a good deal of time, as I told you, to the
educational system, and have visited no fewer than one hundred and
forty-three schools and colleges. It is extraordinary, the number of
persons who are being educated in this country; and yet, at the same
time, the tone of the people is less scholarly than one might expect. A
lady, a few days since, described to me her daughter as being always “on
the go,” which I take to be a jocular way of saying that the young lady
was very fond of paying visits. Another person, the wife of a United
States senator, informed me that if I should go to Washington in January,
I should be quite “in the swim.” I inquired the meaning of the phrase,
but her explanation made it rather more than less ambiguous. To say that
I am on the go describes very accurately my own situation. I went
yesterday to the Pognanuc High School, to hear fifty-seven boys and girls
recite in unison a most remarkable ode to the American flag, and shortly
afterward attended a ladies’ lunch, at which some eighty or ninety of the
sex were present. There was only one individual in trousers—his
trousers, by the way, though he brought a dozen pair, are getting rather
seedy. The men in America do not partake of this meal, at which ladies
assemble in large numbers to discuss religions, political, and social
topics. These immense female symposia (at which every delicacy is
provided) are one of the most striking features of American life, and
would seem to prove that men are not so indispensable in the scheme of
creation as they sometimes suppose. I have been admitted on the footing
of an Englishman—“just to show you some of our bright women,” the hostess
yesterday remarked. (“Bright” here has the meaning of _intellectual_.)
I perceived, indeed, a great many intellectual foreheads. These curious
collations are organised according to age. I have also been present as
an inquiring stranger at several “girls’ lunches,” from which married
ladies are rigidly excluded, but where the fair revellers are equally
numerous and equally bright. There is a good deal I should like to tell
you about my study of the educational question, but my position is
somewhat cramped, and I must dismiss it briefly. My leading impression
is that the children in this country are better educated than the adults.
The position of a child is, on the whole, one of great distinction.
There is a popular ballad of which the refrain, if I am not mistaken, is
“Make me a child again, just for to-night!” and which seems to express
the sentiment of regret for lost privileges. At all events they are a
powerful and independent class, and have organs, of immense circulation,
in the press. They are often extremely “bright.” I have talked with a
great many teachers, most of them lady-teachers, as they are called in
this country. The phrase does not mean teachers of ladies, as you might
suppose, but applies to the sex of the instructress, who often has large
classes of young men under her control. I was lately introduced to a
young woman of twenty-three, who occupies the chair of Moral Philosophy
and Belles-Lettres in a Western college, and who told me with the utmost
frankness that she was adored by the undergraduates. This young woman
was the daughter of a petty trader in one of the South western States,
and had studied at Amanda College, in Missourah, an institution at which
young people of the two sexes pursue their education together. She was
very pretty and modest, and expressed a great desire to see something of
English country life, in consequence of which I made her promise to come
down to Thistleton in the event of her crossing the Atlantic. She is not
the least like Gwendolen or Charlotte, and I am not prepared to say how
they would get on with her; the boys would probably do better. Still, I
think her acquaintance would be of value to Miss Bumpus, and the two
might pass their time very pleasantly in the school-room. I grant you
freely that those I have seen here are much less comfortable than the
school-room at Thistleton. Has Charlotte, by the way, designed any more
texts for the walls? I have been extremely interested in my visit to
Philadelphia, where I saw several thousand little red houses with white
steps, occupied by intelligent artizans, and arranged (in streets) on the
rectangular system. Improved cooking-stoves, rosewood pianos, gas, and
hot water, æsthetic furniture, and complete sets of the British
Essayists. A tramway through every street; every block of equal length;
blocks and houses scientifically lettered and numbered. There is
absolutely no loss of time, and no need of looking for anything, or,
indeed, at anything. The mind always on one’s object; it is very
delightful.
V.
FROM LOUIS LEVERETT, IN BOSTON, TO
HARVARD TREMONT, IN PARIS.
November.