CONCLUDING REMARKS
THERE are many passages in this book, where I have been at some pains to
resist the temptation of troubling my readers with my own deductions and
conclusions: preferring that they should judge for themselves, from such
premises as I have laid before them. My only object in the outset, was,
to carry them with me faithfully wheresoever I went: and that task I have
discharged.
But I may be pardoned, if on such a theme as the general character of the
American people, and the general character of their social system, as
presented to a stranger’s eyes, I desire to express my own opinions in a
few words, before I bring these volumes to a close.
They are, by nature, frank, brave, cordial, hospitable, and affectionate.
Cultivation and refinement seem but to enhance their warmth of heart and
ardent enthusiasm; and it is the possession of these latter qualities in
a most remarkable degree, which renders an educated American one of the
most endearing and most generous of friends. I never was so won upon, as
by this class; never yielded up my full confidence and esteem so readily
and pleasurably, as to them; never can make again, in half a year, so
many friends for whom I seem to entertain the regard of half a life.
These qualities are natural, I implicitly believe, to the whole people.
That they are, however, sadly sapped and blighted in their growth among
the mass; and that there are influences at work which endanger them still
more, and give but little present promise of their healthy restoration;
is a truth that ought to be told.
It is an essential part of every national character to pique itself
mightily upon its faults, and to deduce tokens of its virtue or its
wisdom from their very exaggeration. One great blemish in the popular
mind of America, and the prolific parent of an innumerable brood of
evils, is Universal Distrust. Yet the American citizen plumes himself
upon this spirit, even when he is sufficiently dispassionate to perceive
the ruin it works; and will often adduce it, in spite of his own reason,
as an instance of the great sagacity and acuteness of the people, and
their superior shrewdness and independence.
‘You carry,’ says the stranger, ‘this jealousy and distrust into every
transaction of public life. By repelling worthy men from your
legislative assemblies, it has bred up a class of candidates for the
suffrage, who, in their very act, disgrace your Institutions and your
people’s choice. It has rendered you so fickle, and so given to change,
that your inconstancy has passed into a proverb; for you no sooner set up
an idol firmly, than you are sure to pull it down and dash it into
fragments: and this, because directly you reward a benefactor, or a
public servant, you distrust him, merely because he is rewarded; and
immediately apply yourselves to find out, either that you have been too
bountiful in your acknowledgments, or he remiss in his deserts. Any man
who attains a high place among you, from the President downwards, may
date his downfall from that moment; for any printed lie that any
notorious villain pens, although it militate directly against the
character and conduct of a life, appeals at once to your distrust, and is
believed. You will strain at a gnat in the way of trustfulness and
confidence, however fairly won and well deserved; but you will swallow a
whole caravan of camels, if they be laden with unworthy doubts and mean
suspicions. Is this well, think you, or likely to elevate the character
of the governors or the governed, among you?’
The answer is invariably the same: ‘There’s freedom of opinion here, you
know. Every man thinks for himself, and we are not to be easily
overreached. That’s how our people come to be suspicious.’
Another prominent feature is the love of ‘smart’ dealing: which gilds
over many a swindle and gross breach of trust; many a defalcation, public
and private; and enables many a knave to hold his head up with the best,
who well deserves a halter; though it has not been without its
retributive operation, for this smartness has done more in a few years to
impair the public credit, and to cripple the public resources, than dull
honesty, however rash, could have effected in a century. The merits of a
broken speculation, or a bankruptcy, or of a successful scoundrel, are
not gauged by its or his observance of the golden rule, ‘Do as you would
be done by,’ but are considered with reference to their smartness. I
recollect, on both occasions of our passing that ill-fated Cairo on the
Mississippi, remarking on the bad effects such gross deceits must have
when they exploded, in generating a want of confidence abroad, and
discouraging foreign investment: but I was given to understand that this
was a very smart scheme by which a deal of money had been made: and that
its smartest feature was, that they forgot these things abroad, in a very
short time, and speculated again, as freely as ever. The following
dialogue I have held a hundred times: ‘Is it not a very disgraceful
circumstance that such a man as So-and-so should be acquiring a large
property by the most infamous and odious means, and notwithstanding all
the crimes of which he has been guilty, should be tolerated and abetted
by your Citizens? He is a public nuisance, is he not?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘A
convicted liar?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘He has been kicked, and cuffed, and
caned?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘And he is utterly dishonourable, debased, and
profligate?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘In the name of wonder, then, what is his
merit?’ ‘Well, sir, he is a smart man.’
In like manner, all kinds of deficient and impolitic usages are referred
to the national love of trade; though, oddly enough, it would be a
weighty charge against a foreigner that he regarded the Americans as a
trading people. The love of trade is assigned as a reason for that
comfortless custom, so very prevalent in country towns, of married
persons living in hotels, having no fireside of their own, and seldom
meeting from early morning until late at night, but at the hasty public
meals. The love of trade is a reason why the literature of America is to
remain for ever unprotected ‘For we are a trading people, and don’t care
for poetry:’ though we _do_, by the way, profess to be very proud of our
poets: while healthful amusements, cheerful means of recreation, and
wholesome fancies, must fade before the stern utilitarian joys of trade.
These three characteristics are strongly presented at every turn, full in
the stranger’s view. But, the foul growth of America has a more tangled
root than this; and it strikes its fibres, deep in its licentious Press.
Schools may be erected, East, West, North, and South; pupils be taught,
and masters reared, by scores upon scores of thousands; colleges may
thrive, churches may be crammed, temperance may be diffused, and
advancing knowledge in all other forms walk through the land with giant
strides: but while the newspaper press of America is in, or near, its
present abject state, high moral improvement in that country is hopeless.
Year by year, it must and will go back; year by year, the tone of public
feeling must sink lower down; year by year, the Congress and the Senate
must become of less account before all decent men; and year by year, the
memory of the Great Fathers of the Revolution must be outraged more and
more, in the bad life of their degenerate child.
Among the herd of journals which are published in the States, there are
some, the reader scarcely need be told, of character and credit. From
personal intercourse with accomplished gentlemen connected with
publications of this class, I have derived both pleasure and profit. But
the name of these is Few, and of the others Legion; and the influence of
the good, is powerless to counteract the moral poison of the bad.
Among the gentry of America; among the well-informed and moderate: in the
learned professions; at the bar and on the bench: there is, as there can
be, but one opinion, in reference to the vicious character of these
infamous journals. It is sometimes contended—I will not say strangely,
for it is natural to seek excuses for such a disgrace—that their
influence is not so great as a visitor would suppose. I must be pardoned
for saying that there is no warrant for this plea, and that every fact
and circumstance tends directly to the opposite conclusion.
When any man, of any grade of desert in intellect or character, can climb
to any public distinction, no matter what, in America, without first
grovelling down upon the earth, and bending the knee before this monster
of depravity; when any private excellence is safe from its attacks; when
any social confidence is left unbroken by it, or any tie of social
decency and honour is held in the least regard; when any man in that free
country has freedom of opinion, and presumes to think for himself, and
speak for himself, without humble reference to a censorship which, for
its rampant ignorance and base dishonesty, he utterly loathes and
despises in his heart; when those who most acutely feel its infamy and
the reproach it casts upon the nation, and who most denounce it to each
other, dare to set their heels upon, and crush it openly, in the sight of
all men: then, I will believe that its influence is lessening, and men
are returning to their manly senses. But while that Press has its evil
eye in every house, and its black hand in every appointment in the state,
from a president to a postman; while, with ribald slander for its only
stock in trade, it is the standard literature of an enormous class, who
must find their reading in a newspaper, or they will not read at all; so
long must its odium be upon the country’s head, and so long must the evil
it works, be plainly visible in the Republic.
To those who are accustomed to the leading English journals, or to the
respectable journals of the Continent of Europe; to those who are
accustomed to anything else in print and paper; it would be impossible,
without an amount of extract for which I have neither space nor
inclination, to convey an adequate idea of this frightful engine in
America. But if any man desire confirmation of my statement on this
head, let him repair to any place in this city of London, where scattered
numbers of these publications are to be found; and there, let him form
his own opinion. {206}
It would be well, there can be no doubt, for the American people as a
whole, if they loved the Real less, and the Ideal somewhat more. It
would be well, if there were greater encouragement to lightness of heart
and gaiety, and a wider cultivation of what is beautiful, without being
eminently and directly useful. But here, I think the general
remonstrance, ‘we are a new country,’ which is so often advanced as an
excuse for defects which are quite unjustifiable, as being, of right,
only the slow growth of an old one, may be very reasonably urged: and I
yet hope to hear of there being some other national amusement in the
United States, besides newspaper politics.
They certainly are not a humorous people, and their temperament always
impressed me is being of a dull and gloomy character. In shrewdness of
remark, and a certain cast-iron quaintness, the Yankees, or people of New
England, unquestionably take the lead; as they do in most other evidences
of intelligence. But in travelling about, out of the large cities—as I
have remarked in former parts of these volumes—I was quite oppressed by
the prevailing seriousness and melancholy air of business: which was so
general and unvarying, that at every new town I came to, I seemed to meet
the very same people whom I had left behind me, at the last. Such
defects as are perceptible in the national manners, seem, to me, to be
referable, in a great degree, to this cause: which has generated a dull,
sullen persistence in coarse usages, and rejected the graces of life as
undeserving of attention. There is no doubt that Washington, who was
always most scrupulous and exact on points of ceremony, perceived the
tendency towards this mistake, even in his time, and did his utmost to
correct it.
I cannot hold with other writers on these subjects that the prevalence of
various forms of dissent in America, is in any way attributable to the
non-existence there of an established church: indeed, I think the temper
of the people, if it admitted of such an Institution being founded
amongst them, would lead them to desert it, as a matter of course, merely
because it _was_ established. But, supposing it to exist, I doubt its
probable efficacy in summoning the wandering sheep to one great fold,
simply because of the immense amount of dissent which prevails at home;
and because I do not find in America any one form of religion with which
we in Europe, or even in England, are unacquainted. Dissenters resort
thither in great numbers, as other people do, simply because it is a land
of resort; and great settlements of them are founded, because ground can
be purchased, and towns and villages reared, where there were none of the
human creation before. But even the Shakers emigrated from England; our
country is not unknown to Mr. Joseph Smith, the apostle of Mormonism, or
to his benighted disciples; I have beheld religious scenes myself in some
of our populous towns which can hardly be surpassed by an American
camp-meeting; and I am not aware that any instance of superstitious
imposture on the one hand, and superstitious credulity on the other, has
had its origin in the United States, which we cannot more than parallel
by the precedents of Mrs. Southcote, Mary Tofts the rabbit-breeder, or
even Mr. Thorn of Canterbury: which latter case arose, some time after
the dark ages had passed away.
The Republican Institutions of America undoubtedly lead the people to
assert their self-respect and their equality; but a traveller is bound to
bear those Institutions in his mind, and not hastily to resent the near
approach of a class of strangers, who, at home, would keep aloof. This
characteristic, when it was tinctured with no foolish pride, and stopped
short of no honest service, never offended me; and I very seldom, if
ever, experienced its rude or unbecoming display. Once or twice it was
comically developed, as in the following case; but this was an amusing
incident, and not the rule, or near it.
I wanted a pair of boots at a certain town, for I had none to travel in,
but those with the memorable cork soles, which were much too hot for the
fiery decks of a steamboat. I therefore sent a message to an artist in
boots, importing, with my compliments, that I should be happy to see him,
if he would do me the polite favour to call. He very kindly returned for
answer, that he would ‘look round’ at six o’clock that evening.
I was lying on the sofa, with a book and a wine-glass, at about that
time, when the door opened, and a gentleman in a stiff cravat, within a
year or two on either side of thirty, entered, in his hat and gloves;
walked up to the looking-glass; arranged his hair; took off his gloves;
slowly produced a measure from the uttermost depths of his coat-pocket;
and requested me, in a languid tone, to ‘unfix’ my straps. I complied,
but looked with some curiosity at his hat, which was still upon his head.
It might have been that, or it might have been the heat—but he took it
off. Then, he sat himself down on a chair opposite to me; rested an arm
on each knee; and, leaning forward very much, took from the ground, by a
great effort, the specimen of metropolitan workmanship which I had just
pulled off: whistling, pleasantly, as he did so. He turned it over and
over; surveyed it with a contempt no language can express; and inquired
if I wished him to fix me a boot like _that_? I courteously replied,
that provided the boots were large enough, I would leave the rest to him;
that if convenient and practicable, I should not object to their bearing
some resemblance to the model then before him; but that I would be
entirely guided by, and would beg to leave the whole subject to, his
judgment and discretion. ‘You an’t partickler, about this scoop in the
heel, I suppose then?’ says he: ‘we don’t foller that, here.’ I repeated
my last observation. He looked at himself in the glass again; went
closer to it to dash a grain or two of dust out of the corner of his eye;
and settled his cravat. All this time, my leg and foot were in the air.
‘Nearly ready, sir?’ I inquired. ‘Well, pretty nigh,’ he said; ‘keep
steady.’ I kept as steady as I could, both in foot and face; and having
by this time got the dust out, and found his pencil-case, he measured me,
and made the necessary notes. When he had finished, he fell into his old
attitude, and taking up the boot again, mused for some time. ‘And this,’
he said, at last, ‘is an English boot, is it? This is a London boot,
eh?’ ‘That, sir,’ I replied, ‘is a London boot.’ He mused over it
again, after the manner of Hamlet with Yorick’s skull; nodded his head,
as who should say, ‘I pity the Institutions that led to the production of
this boot!’; rose; put up his pencil, notes, and paper—glancing at
himself in the glass, all the time—put on his hat—drew on his gloves very
slowly; and finally walked out. When he had been gone about a minute,
the door reopened, and his hat and his head reappeared. He looked round
the room, and at the boot again, which was still lying on the floor;
appeared thoughtful for a minute; and then said ‘Well, good arternoon.’
‘Good afternoon, sir,’ said I: and that was the end of the interview.
There is but one other head on which I wish to offer a remark; and that
has reference to the public health. In so vast a country, where there
are thousands of millions of acres of land yet unsettled and uncleared,
and on every rood of which, vegetable decomposition is annually taking
place; where there are so many great rivers, and such opposite varieties
of climate; there cannot fail to be a great amount of sickness at certain
seasons. But I may venture to say, after conversing with many members of
the medical profession in America, that I am not singular in the opinion
that much of the disease which does prevail, might be avoided, if a few
common precautions were observed. Greater means of personal cleanliness,
are indispensable to this end; the custom of hastily swallowing large
quantities of animal food, three times a-day, and rushing back to
sedentary pursuits after each meal, must be changed; the gentler sex must
go more wisely clad, and take more healthful exercise; and in the latter
clause, the males must be included also. Above all, in public
institutions, and throughout the whole of every town and city, the system
of ventilation, and drainage, and removal of impurities requires to be
thoroughly revised. There is no local Legislature in America which may
not study Mr. Chadwick’s excellent Report upon the Sanitary Condition of
our Labouring Classes, with immense advantage.
* * * * *
I HAVE now arrived at the close of this book. I have little reason to
believe, from certain warnings I have had since I returned to England,
that it will be tenderly or favourably received by the American people;
and as I have written the Truth in relation to the mass of those who form
their judgments and express their opinions, it will be seen that I have
no desire to court, by any adventitious means, the popular applause.
It is enough for me, to know, that what I have set down in these pages,
cannot cost me a single friend on the other side of the Atlantic, who is,
in anything, deserving of the name. For the rest, I put my trust,
implicitly, in the spirit in which they have been conceived and penned;
and I can bide my time.
I have made no reference to my reception, nor have I suffered it to
influence me in what I have written; for, in either case, I should have
offered but a sorry acknowledgment, compared with that I bear within my
breast, towards those partial readers of my former books, across the
Water, who met me with an open hand, and not with one that closed upon an
iron muzzle.
* * * * *
THE END
* * * * *
POSTSCRIPT
AT a Public Dinner given to me on Saturday the 18th of April, 1868, in
the City of New York, by two hundred representatives of the Press of the
United States of America, I made the following observations among others:
‘So much of my voice has lately been heard in the land, that I might have
been contented with troubling you no further from my present
standing-point, were it not a duty with which I henceforth charge myself,
not only here but on every suitable occasion, whatsoever and wheresoever,
to express my high and grateful sense of my second reception in America,
and to bear my honest testimony to the national generosity and
magnanimity. Also, to declare how astounded I have been by the amazing
changes I have seen around me on every side,—changes moral, changes
physical, changes in the amount of land subdued and peopled, changes in
the rise of vast new cities, changes in the growth of older cities almost
out of recognition, changes in the graces and amenities of life, changes
in the Press, without whose advancement no advancement can take place
anywhere. Nor am I, believe me, so arrogant as to suppose that in five
and twenty years there have been no changes in me, and that I had nothing
to learn and no extreme impressions to correct when I was here first.
And this brings me to a point on which I have, ever since I landed in the
United States last November, observed a strict silence, though sometimes
tempted to break it, but in reference to which I will, with your good
leave, take you into my confidence now. Even the Press, being human, may
be sometimes mistaken or misinformed, and I rather think that I have in
one or two rare instances observed its information to be not strictly
accurate with reference to myself. Indeed, I have, now and again, been
more surprised by printed news that I have read of myself, than by any
printed news that I have ever read in my present state of existence.
Thus, the vigour and perseverance with which I have for some months past
been collecting materials for, and hammering away at, a new book on
America has much astonished me; seeing that all that time my declaration
has been perfectly well known to my publishers on both sides of the
Atlantic, that no consideration on earth would induce me to write one.
But what I have intended, what I have resolved upon (and this is the
confidence I seek to place in you) is, on my return to England, in my own
person, in my own journal, to bear, for the behoof of my countrymen, such
testimony to the gigantic changes in this country as I have hinted at
to-night. Also, to record that wherever I have been, in the smallest
places equally with the largest, I have been received with unsurpassable
politeness, delicacy, sweet temper, hospitality, consideration, and with
unsurpassable respect for the privacy daily enforced upon me by the
nature of my avocation here and the state of my health. This testimony,
so long as I live, and so long as my descendants have any legal right in
my books, I shall cause to be republished, as an appendix to every copy
of those two books of mine in which I have referred to America. And this
I will do and cause to be done, not in mere love and thankfulness, but
because I regard it as an act of plain justice and honour.’
I said these words with the greatest earnestness that I could lay upon
them, and I repeat them in print here with equal earnestness. So long as
this book shall last, I hope that they will form a part of it, and will
be fairly read as inseparable from my experiences and impressions of
America.
CHARLES DICKENS.
_May_, 1868.
* * * * *
PRINTED BY
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BECCLES.
FOOTNOTES
{1} This Project Gutenberg eText contains just _American Notes_.
_Pictures from Italy_ is also available from Project Gutenberg as a
separate eText.—DP.
{206} NOTE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION.—Or let him refer to an able, and
perfectly truthful article, in _The Foreign Quarterly Review_, published
in the present month of October; to which my attention has been
attracted, since these sheets have been passing through the press. He
will find some specimens there, by no means remarkable to any man who has
been in America, but sufficiently striking to one who has not.