I
FROM MISS AURORA CHURCH AT SEA TO MISS WHITESIDE IN PARIS
_September_ 1880.
. . . My dear child, the bromide of sodium (if that’s what you call it)
proved perfectly useless. I don’t mean that it did me no good, but that
I never had occasion to take the bottle out of my bag. It might have
done wonders for me if I had needed it; but I didn’t, simply because I’ve
been a wonder myself. Will you believe that I’ve spent the whole voyage
on deck, in the most animated conversation and exercise? Twelve times
round the deck make a mile, I believe; and by this measurement I’ve been
walking twenty miles a day. And down to every meal, if you please, where
I’ve displayed the appetite of a fishwife. Of course the weather has
been lovely; so there’s no great merit. The wicked old Atlantic has been
as blue as the sapphire in my only ring—rather a good one—and as smooth
as the slippery floor of Madame Galopin’s dining-room. We’ve been for
the last three hours in sight of land, and are soon to enter the Bay of
New York which is said to be exquisitely beautiful. But of course you
recall it, though they say everything changes so fast over here. I find
I don’t remember anything, for my recollections of our voyage to Europe
so many years ago are exceedingly dim; I’ve only a painful impression
that mamma shut me up for an hour every day in the stateroom and made me
learn by heart some religious poem. I was only five years old and I
believe that as a child I was extremely timid; on the other hand mamma,
as you know, had what she called a method with me. She has it to this
day; only I’ve become indifferent; I’ve been so pinched and
pushed—morally speaking, _bien entendu_. It’s true, however, that there
are children of five on the vessel to-day who have been extremely
conspicuous—ranging all over the ship and always under one’s feet. Of
course they’re little compatriots, which means that they’re little
barbarians. I don’t mean to pronounce _all_ our compatriots barbarous;
they seem to improve somehow after their first communion. I don’t know
whether it’s that ceremony that improves them, especially as so few of
them go in for it; but the women are certainly nicer than the little
girls; I mean of course in proportion, you know. You warned me not to
generalise, and you see I’ve already begun, before we’ve arrived. But I
suppose there’s no harm in it so long as it’s favourable.
Isn’t it favourable when I say I’ve had the most lovely time? I’ve never
had so much liberty in my life, and I’ve been out alone, as you may say,
every day of the voyage. If it’s a foretaste of what’s to come I shall
take very kindly to that. When I say I’ve been out alone I mean we’ve
always been two. But we two were alone, so to speak, and it wasn’t like
always having mamma or Madame Galopin, or some lady in the pension or the
temporary cook. Mamma has been very poorly; she’s so very well on land
that it’s a wonder to see her at all taken down. She says, however, that
it isn’t the being at sea; it’s on the contrary approaching the land.
She’s not in a hurry to arrive; she keeps well before her that great
disillusions await us. I didn’t know she _had_ any illusions—she has too
many opinions, I should think, for that: she discriminates, as she’s
always saying, from morning till night. Where would the poor illusions
find room? She’s meanwhile very serious; she sits for hours in perfect
silence, her eyes fixed on the horizon. I heard her say yesterday to an
English gentleman—a very odd Mr. Antrobus, the only person with whom she
converses—that she was afraid she shouldn’t like her native land, and
that she shouldn’t like not liking it. But this is a mistake; she’ll
like that immensely—I mean the not liking it. If it should prove at all
agreeable she’ll be furious, for that will go against her system. You
know all about mamma’s system; I’ve explained it so often. It goes
against her system that we should come back at all; that was _my_
system—I’ve had at last to invent one! She consented to come only
because she saw that, having no _dot_, I should never marry in Europe;
and I pretended to be immensely preoccupied with this idea in order to
make her start. In reality _cela m’est parfaitement égal_. I’m only
afraid I shall like it too much—I don’t mean marriage, of course, but the
sense of a native land. Say what you will, it’s a charming thing to go
out alone, and I’ve given notice that I mean to be always _en course_.
When I tell mamma this she looks at me in the same silence; her eyes
dilate and then she slowly closes them. It’s as if the sea were
affecting her a little, though it’s so beautifully calm. I ask her if
she’ll try my bromide, which is there in my bag; but she motions me off
and I begin to walk again, tapping my little boot-soles on the smooth
clean deck. This allusion to my boot-soles, by the way, isn’t prompted
by vanity; but it’s a fact that at sea one’s feet and one’s shoes assume
the most extraordinary importance, so that one should take the precaution
to have nice ones. They’re all you seem to see as the people walk about
the deck; you get to know them intimately and to dislike some of them so
much. I’m afraid you’ll think that I’ve already broken loose; and for
aught I know I’m writing as a demoiselle bien-élévee shouldn’t write. I
don’t know whether it’s the American air; if it is, all I can say is that
the American air’s very charming. It makes me impatient and restless,
and I sit scribbling here because I’m so eager to arrive and the time
passes better if I occupy myself.
I’m in the saloon, where we have our meals, and opposite me is a big
round porthole, wide open to let in the smell of the land. Every now and
then I rise a little and look through it to see if we’re arriving. I
mean in the Bay, you know, for we shall not come up to the city till
dark. I don’t want to lose the Bay; it appears it’s so wonderful. I
don’t exactly understand what it contains except some beautiful islands;
but I suppose you’ll know all about that. It’s easy to see that these
are the last hours, for all the people about me are writing letters to
put into the post as soon as we come up to the dock. I believe they’re
dreadful at the custom-house, and you’ll remember how many new things you
persuaded mamma that—with my preoccupation of marriage—I should take to
this country, where even the prettiest girls are expected not to go
unadorned. We ruined ourselves in Paris—that’s partly accountable for
mamma’s solemnity—_mais au moins je serai belle_! Moreover I believe
that mamma’s prepared to say or to do anything that may be necessary for
escaping from their odious duties; as she very justly remarks she can’t
afford to be ruined twice. I don’t know how one approaches these
terrible _douaniers_, but I mean to invent something very charming. I
mean to say “Voyons, Messieurs, a young girl like me, brought up in the
strictest foreign traditions, kept always in the background by a very
superior mother—_la voilà_; you can see for yourself!—what is it possible
that she should attempt to smuggle in? Nothing but a few simple relics
of her convent!” I won’t tell them my convent was called the Magasin du
Bon Marché. Mamma began to scold me three days ago for insisting on so
many trunks, and the truth is that between us we’ve not fewer than seven.
For relics, that’s a good many! We’re all writing very long letters—or
at least we’re writing a great number. There’s no news of the Bay as
yet. Mr. Antrobus, mamma’s friend, opposite to me, is beginning on his
ninth. He’s a Right Honourable and a Member of Parliament; he has
written during the voyage about a hundred letters and seems greatly
alarmed at the number of stamps he’ll have to buy when he arrives. He’s
full of information, but he hasn’t enough, for he asks as many questions
as mamma when she goes to hire apartments. He’s going to “look into”
various things; he speaks as if they had a little hole for the purpose.
He walks almost as much as I, and has enormous shoes. He asks questions
even of me, and I tell him again and again that I know nothing about
America. But it makes no difference; he always begins again, and indeed
it’s not strange he should find my ignorance incredible. “Now how would
it be in one of your South-western States?”—that’s his favourite way of
opening conversation. Fancy me giving an account of one of “my”
South-western States! I tell him he had better ask mamma—a little to
tease that lady, who knows no more about such places than I. Mr.
Antrobus is very big and black; he speaks with a sort of brogue; he has a
wife and ten children; he doesn’t say—apart from his talking—anything at
all to me. But he has lots of letters to people _là-bas_—I forget that
we’re just arriving—and mamma, who takes an interest in him in spite of
his views (which are dreadfully advanced, and not at all like mamma’s
own) has promised to give him the entrée to the best society. I don’t
know what she knows about the best society over here to-day, for we’ve
not kept up our connexions at all, and no one will know—or, I am afraid,
care—anything about us. She has an idea we shall be immensely
recognised; but really, except the poor little Rucks, who are bankrupt
and, I’m told, in no society at all, I don’t know on whom we can count.
C’est égal, mamma has an idea that, whether or no we appreciate America
ourselves, we shall at least be universally appreciated. It’s true we
have begun to be, a little; you would see that from the way Mr. Cockerel
and Mr. Louis Leverett are always inviting me to walk. Both of these
gentlemen, who are Americans, have asked leave to call on me in New York,
and I’ve said _Mon Dieu oui_, if it’s the custom of the country. Of
course I’ve not dared to tell this to mamma, who flatters herself that
we’ve brought with us in our trunks a complete set of customs of our own
and that we shall only have to shake them out a little and put them on
when we arrive. If only the two gentlemen I just spoke of don’t call at
the same time I don’t think I shall be too much frightened. If they do,
on the other hand, I won’t answer for it. They’ve a particular aversion
to each other and are ready to fight about poor little me. I’m only the
pretext, however; for, as Mr. Leverett says, it’s really the opposition
of temperaments. I hope they won’t cut each other’s throats, for I’m not
crazy about either of them. They’re very well for the deck of a ship,
but I shouldn’t care about them in a salon; they’re not at all
distinguished. They think they are, but they’re not; at least Mr. Louis
Leverett does; Mr. Cockerel doesn’t appear to care so much. They’re
extremely different—with their opposed temperaments—and each very amusing
for a while; but I should get dreadfully tired of passing my life with
either. Neither has proposed that as yet; but it’s evidently what
they’re coming to. It will be in a great measure to spite each other,
for I think that au fond they don’t quite believe in me. If they don’t,
it’s the only point on which they agree. They hate each other awfully;
they take such different views. That is Mr. Cockerel hates Mr.
Leverett—he calls him a sickly little ass; he pronounces his opinions
half affectation and the other half dyspepsia. Mr. Leverett speaks of
Mr. Cockerel as a “strident savage,” but he allows he finds him most
diverting. He says there’s nothing in which we can’t find a certain
entertainment if we only look at it in the right way, and that we have no
business with either hating or loving: we ought only to strive to
understand. He “claims”—he’s always claiming—that to understand is to
forgive. Which is very pretty, but I don’t like the suppression of our
affections, though I’ve no desire to fix mine upon Mr. Leverett. He’s
very artistic and talks like an article in some review. He has lived a
great deal in Paris, and Mr. Cockerel, who doesn’t believe in Paris, says
it’s what has made him such an idiot.
That’s not complimentary to you, dear Louisa, and still less to your
brilliant brother; for Mr. Cockerel explains that he means it (the bad
effect of Paris) chiefly of men. In fact he means the bad effect of
Europe altogether. This, however, is compromising to mamma; and I’m
afraid there’s no doubt that, from what I’ve told him, he thinks mamma
also an idiot. (I’m not responsible, you know—I’ve always wanted to go
home.) If mamma knew him, which she doesn’t, for she always closes her
eyes when I pass on his arm, she would think him disgusting. Mr.
Leverett meanwhile assures me he’s nothing to what we shall see yet.
He’s from Philadelphia (Mr. Cockerel); he insists that we shall go and
see Philadelphia, but mamma says she saw it in 1855 and it was then
_affreux_. Mr. Cockerel says that mamma’s evidently not familiar with
the rush of improvement in this country; he speaks of 1855 as if it were
a hundred years ago. Mamma says she knows it goes only too fast, the
rush—it goes so fast that it has time to do nothing well; and then Mr.
Cockerel, who, to do him justice, is perfectly good-natured, remarks that
she had better wait till she has been ashore and seen the improvements.
Mamma retorts that she sees them from here, the awful things, and that
they give her a sinking of the heart. (This little exchange of ideas is
carried on through me; they’ve never spoken to each other.) Mr.
Cockerel, as I say, is extremely good-natured, and he bears out what I’ve
heard said about the men in America being very considerate of the women.
They evidently listen to them a great deal; they don’t contradict them,
but it seems to me this is rather negative. There’s very little
gallantry in not contradicting one; and it strikes me that there are some
things the men don’t express. There are others on the ship whom I’ve
noticed. It’s as if they were all one’s brothers or one’s cousins. The
extent to which one isn’t in danger from them—my dear, my dear! But I
promised you not to generalise, and perhaps there will be more expression
when we arrive. Mr. Cockerel returns to America, after a general tour,
with a renewed conviction that this is the only country. I left him on
deck an hour ago looking at the coast-line with an opera-glass and saying
it was the prettiest thing he had seen in all his travels. When I
remarked that the coast seemed rather low he said it would be all the
easier to get ashore. Mr. Leverett at any rate doesn’t seem in a hurry
to get ashore, he’s sitting within sight of me in a corner of the
saloon—writing letters, I suppose, but looking, from the way he bites his
pen and rolls his eyes about, as if he were composing a sonnet and
waiting for a rhyme. Perhaps the sonnet’s addressed to me; but I forget
that he suppresses the affections! The only person in whom mamma takes
much interest is the great French critic, M. Lejaune, whom we have the
honour to carry with us. We’ve read a few of his works, though mamma
disapproves of his tendencies and thinks him a dreadful materialist.
We’ve read them for the style; you know he’s one of the new Academicians.
He’s a Frenchman like any other, except that he’s rather more quiet; he
has a grey moustache and the ribbon of the Legion of Honour. He’s the
first French writer of distinction who has been to America since De
Tocqueville; the French, in such matters, are not very enterprising.
Also he has the air of wondering what he’s doing _dans cette galère_. He
has come with his beau-frère, who’s an engineer and is looking after some
mines, and he talks with scarcely any one else, as he speaks no English
and appears to take for granted that no one speaks French. Mamma would
be delighted to convince him of the contrary; she has never conversed
with an Academician. She always makes a little vague inclination, with a
smile, when he passes her, and he answers with a most respectful bow; but
it goes no further, to mamma’s disappointment. He’s always with the
beau-frère, a rather untidy fat bearded man—decorated too, always smoking
and looking at the feet of the ladies, whom mamma (though she has very
good feet) has not the courage to _aborder_. I believe M. Lejaune is
going to write a book about America, and Mr. Leverett says it will be
terrible. Mr. Leverett has made his acquaintance and says M. Lejaune
will put him into his book; he says the movement of the French intellect
is superb. As a general thing he doesn’t care for Academicians, but M.
Lejaune’s an exception—he’s so living, so remorseless, so personal.
I’ve asked Mr. Cockerel meanwhile what he thinks of M. Lejaune’s plan of
writing a book, and he answers that he doesn’t see what it matters to him
that a Frenchman the more should make the motions of a monkey—on that
side poor Mr. Cockerel is _de cette force_. I asked him why he hadn’t
written a book about Europe, and he says that in the first place Europe
isn’t worth writing about, and that in the second if he said what he
thought people would call it a joke. He says they’re very superstitious
about Europe over here; he wants people in America to behave as if Europe
didn’t exist. I told this to Mr. Leverett, and he answered that if
Europe didn’t exist America wouldn’t, for Europe keeps us alive by buying
our corn. He said also that the trouble with America in the future will
be that she’ll produce things in such enormous quantities that there
won’t be enough people in the rest of the world to buy them, and that we
shall be left with our productions—most of them very hideous—on our
hands. I asked him if he thought corn a hideous production, and he
replied that there’s nothing more unbeautiful than too much food. I
think that to feed the world too well, however, will be after all a _beau
rôle_. Of course I don’t understand these things, and I don’t believe
Mr. Leverett does; but Mr. Cockerel seems to know what he’s talking
about, and he describes America as complete in herself. I don’t know
exactly what he means, but he speaks as if human affairs had somehow
moved over to this side of the world. It may be a very good place for
them, and heaven knows I’m extremely tired of Europe, which mamma has
always insisted so on my appreciating; but I don’t think I like the idea
of our being so completely cut off. Mr. Cockerel says it is not we that
are cut off, but Europe, and he seems to think Europe has somehow
deserved it. That may be; our life over there was sometimes extremely
tiresome, though mamma says it’s now that our real fatigues will begin.
I like to abuse those dreadful old countries myself, but I’m not sure I’m
pleased when others do the same. We had some rather pretty moments there
after all, and at Piacenza we certainly lived for four francs a day.
Mamma’s already in a terrible state of mind about the expenses here;
she’s frightened by what people on the ship (the few she has spoken to)
have told her. There’s one comfort at any rate—we’ve spent so much money
in coming that we shall have none left to get away. I’m scribbling
along, as you see, to occupy me till we get news of the islands. Here
comes Mr. Cockerel to bring it. Yes, they’re in sight; he tells me
they’re lovelier than ever and that I must come right up right away. I
suppose you’ll think I’m already beginning to use the language of the
country. It’s certain that at the end of the month I shall speak nothing
else. I’ve picked up every dialect, wherever we’ve travelled; you’ve
heard my Platt-Deutsch and my Neapolitan. But, _voyons un peu_ the Bay!
I’ve just called to Mr. Leverett to remind him of the islands. “The
islands—the islands? Ah my dear young lady, I’ve seen Capri, I’ve seen
Ischia!” Well, so have I, but that doesn’t prevent . . . (_A little
later_.) I’ve seen the islands—they’re rather queer.
II
MRS. CHURCH IN NEW YORK TO MADAME GALOPIN AT GENEVA
_October_ 1880.
If I felt far way from you in the middle of that deplorable Atlantic,
chère Madame, how do I feel now, in the heart of this extraordinary city?
We’ve arrived—we’ve arrived, dear friend; but I don’t know whether to
tell you that I consider that an advantage. If we had been given our
choice of coming safely to land or going down to the bottom of the sea I
should doubtless have chosen the former course; for I hold, with your
noble husband and in opposition to the general tendency of modern
thought, that our lives are not our own to dispose of, but a sacred trust
from a higher power by whom we shall be held responsible. Nevertheless
if I had foreseen more vividly some of the impressions that awaited me
here I’m not sure that, for my daughter at least, I shouldn’t have
preferred on the spot to hand in our account. Should I not have been
less (rather than more) guilty in presuming to dispose of _her_ destiny
than of my own? There’s a nice point for dear M. Galopin to settle—one
of those points I’ve heard him discuss in the pulpit with such elevation.
We’re safe, however, as I say; by which I mean we’re physically safe.
We’ve taken up the thread of our familiar pension-life, but under
strikingly different conditions. We’ve found a refuge in a
boarding-house which has been highly recommended to me and where the
arrangements partake of the barbarous magnificence that in this country
is the only alternative from primitive rudeness. The terms per week are
as magnificent as all the rest. The landlady wears diamond ear-rings and
the drawing-rooms are decorated with marble statues. I should indeed be
sorry to let you know how I’ve allowed myself to be rançonnée; and I
should be still more sorry that it should come to the ears of any of my
good friends in Geneva, who know me less well than you and might judge me
more harshly. There’s no wine given for dinner, and I’ve vainly
requested the person who conducts the establishment to garnish her table
more liberally. She says I may have all the wine I want if I will order
it at the merchant’s and settle the matter with himself. But I’ve never,
as you know, consented to regard our modest allowance of eau rougie as an
extra; indeed, I remember that it’s largely to your excellent advice that
I’ve owed my habit of being firm on this point.
There are, however, greater difficulties than the question of what we
shall drink for dinner, chère Madame. Still, I’ve never lost courage and
I shall not lose it now. At the worst we can re-embark again and seek
repose and refreshment on the shores of your beautiful lake. (There’s
absolutely no scenery here!) We shall not perhaps in that case have
achieved what we desired, but we shall at least have made an honourable
retreat. What we desire—I know it’s just this that puzzles you, dear
friend; I don’t think you ever really comprehended my motives in taking
this formidable step, though you were good enough, and your magnanimous
husband was good enough, to press my hand at parting in a way that seemed
to tell me you’d still be with me even were I wrong. To be very brief, I
wished to put an end to the ceaseless reclamations of my daughter. Many
Americans had assured her that she was wasting her belle jeunesse in
those historic lands which it was her privilege to see so intimately, and
this unfortunate conviction had taken possession of her. “Let me at
least see for myself,” she used to say; “if I should dislike it over
there as much as you promise me, so much the better for you. In that
case we’ll come back and make a new arrangement at Stuttgart.” The
experiment’s a terribly expensive one, but you know how my devotion never
has shrunk from an ordeal. There’s another point moreover which, from a
mother to a mother, it would be affectation not to touch upon. I
remember the just satisfaction with which you announced to me the
fiançailles of your charming Cécile. You know with what earnest care my
Aurora has been educated—how thoroughly she’s acquainted with the
principal results of modern research. We’ve always studied together,
we’ve always enjoyed together. It will perhaps surprise you to hear that
she makes these very advantages a reproach to me—represents them as an
injury to herself. “In this country,” she says, “the gentlemen have not
those accomplishments; they care nothing for the results of modern
research. Therefore it won’t help a young person to be sought in
marriage that she can give an account of the latest German presentation
of Pessimism.” That’s possible, and I’ve never concealed from her that
it wasn’t for this country I had educated her. If she marries in the
United States it’s of course my intention that my son-in-law shall
accompany us to Europe. But when she calls my attention more and more to
these facts I feel that we’re moving in a different world. This is more
and more the country of the many; the few find less and less place for
them; and the individual—well, the individual has quite ceased to be
recognised. He’s recognised as a voter, but he’s not recognised as a
gentleman—still less as a lady. My daughter and I of course can only
pretend to constitute a _few_!
You know that I’ve never for a moment remitted my pretensions as an
individual, though among the agitations of pension-life I’ve sometimes
needed all my energy to uphold them. “Oh yes, I may be poor,” I’ve had
occasion to say, “I may be unprotected, I may be reserved, I may occupy a
small apartment au quatrième and be unable to scatter unscrupulous bribes
among the domestics; but at least I’m a _person_ and have personal
rights.” In this country the people have rights, but the person has
none. You’d have perceived that if you had come with me to make
arrangements at this establishment. The very fine lady who condescends
to preside over it kept me waiting twenty minutes, and then came sailing
in without a word of apology. I had sat very silent, with my eyes on the
clock; Aurora amused herself with a false admiration of the room, a
wonderful drawing-room with magenta curtains, frescoed walls and
photographs of the landlady’s friends—as if one cares for her friends!
When this exalted personage came in she simply remarked that she had just
been trying on a dress—that it took so long to get a skirt to hang. “It
seems to take very long indeed!” I answered; “but I hope the skirt’s
right at last. You might have sent for us to come up and look at it!”
She evidently didn’t understand, and when I asked her to show us her
rooms she handed us over to a negro as dégingandé as herself. While we
looked at them I heard her sit down to the piano in the drawing-room; she
began to sing an air from a comic opera. I felt certain we had gone
quite astray; I didn’t know in what house we could be, and was only
reassured by seeing a Bible in every room. When we came down our musical
hostess expressed no hope the rooms had pleased us, she seemed grossly
indifferent to our taking them. She wouldn’t consent moreover to the
least diminution and was inflexible, as I told you, on the article of our
common beverage. When I pushed this point she was so good as to observe
that she didn’t keep a cabaret. One’s not in the least considered;
there’s no respect for one’s privacy, for one’s preferences, for one’s
reserves. The familiarity’s without limits, and I’ve already made a
dozen acquaintances, of whom I know, and wish to know, nothing. Aurora
tells me she’s the “belle of the boarding-house.” It appears that this
is a great distinction.
It brings me back to my poor child and her prospects. She takes a very
critical view of them herself—she tells me I’ve given her a false
education and that no one will marry her to-day. No American will marry
her because she’s too much of a foreigner, and no foreigner will marry
her because she’s too much of an American. I remind her how scarcely a
day passes that a foreigner, usually of distinction, doesn’t—as
perversely as you will indeed—select an American bride, and she answers
me that in these cases the young lady isn’t married for her fine eyes.
Not always, I reply; and then she declares that she’ll marry no foreigner
who shall not be one of the first of the first. You’ll say doubtless
that she should content herself with advantages that haven’t been deemed
insufficient for Cécile; but I’ll not repeat to you the remark she made
when I once employed this argument. You’ll doubtless be surprised to
hear that I’ve ceased to argue; but it’s time I should confess that I’ve
at last agreed to let her act for herself. She’s to live for three
months à l’Américaine and I’m to be a mere passive spectator. You’ll
feel with me that this is a cruel position for a cœur de mère. I count
the days till our three months are over, and I know you’ll join with me
in my prayers. Aurora walks the streets alone; she goes out in the
tramway: a voiture de place costs five francs for the least little
_course_. (I beseech you not to let it be known that I’ve sometimes had
the weakness.) My daughter’s frequently accompanied by a gentleman—by a
dozen gentlemen; she remains out for hours and her conduct excites no
surprise in this establishment. I know but too well the emotions it will
excite in your quiet home. If you betray us, chère Madame, we’re lost;
and why, after all, should any one know of these things in Geneva?
Aurora pretends she has been able to persuade herself that she doesn’t
care who knows them; but there’s a strange expression in her face which
proves that her conscience isn’t at rest. I watch her, I let her go, but
I sit with my hands clasped. There’s a peculiar custom in this country—I
shouldn’t know how to express it in Genevese: it’s called “being
attentive,” and young girls are the object of the futile process. It
hasn’t necessarily anything to do with projects of marriage—though it’s
the privilege only of the unmarried and though at the same time
(fortunately, and this may surprise you) it has no relation to other
projects. It’s simply an invention by which young persons of the two
sexes pass large parts of their time together with no questions asked.
How shall I muster courage to tell you that Aurora now constitutes the
main apparent recreation of several gentlemen? Though it has no relation
to marriage the practice happily doesn’t exclude it, and marriages have
been known to take place in consequence (or in spite) of it. It’s true
that even in this country a young lady may marry but one husband at a
time, whereas she may receive at once the attentions of several
gentlemen, who are equally entitled “admirers.” My daughter then has
admirers to an indefinite number. You’ll think I’m joking perhaps when I
tell you that I’m unable to be exact—I who was formerly l’exactitude
même.
Two of these gentlemen are to a certain extent old friends, having been
passengers on the steamer which carried us so far from you. One of them,
still young, is typical of the American character, but a respectable
person and a lawyer considerably launched. Every one in this country
follows a profession, but it must be admitted that the professions are
more highly remunerated than chez vous. Mr. Cockerel, even while I write
you, is in not undisputed, but temporarily triumphant, possession of my
child. He called for her an hour ago in a “boghey”—a strange unsafe
rickety vehicle, mounted on enormous wheels, which holds two persons very
near together; and I watched her from the window take her place at his
side. Then he whirled her away behind two little horses with terribly
thin legs; the whole equipage—and most of all her being in it—was in the
most questionable taste. But she’ll return—return positively very much
as she went. It’s the same when she goes down to Mr. Louis Leverett, who
has no vehicle and who merely comes and sits with her in the front salon.
He has lived a great deal in Europe and is very fond of the arts, and
though I’m not sure I agree with him in his views of the relation of art
to life and life to art, and in his interpretation of some of the great
works that Aurora and I have studied together, he seems to me a
sufficiently serious and intelligent young man. I don’t regard him as
intrinsically dangerous, but on the other hand he offers absolutely no
guarantees. I’ve no means whatever of ascertaining his pecuniary
situation. There’s a vagueness on these points which is extremely
embarrassing, and it never occurs to young men to offer you a reference.
In Geneva I shouldn’t be at a loss; I should come to you, chère Madame,
with my little inquiry, and what you shouldn’t be able to tell me
wouldn’t be worth my knowing. But no one in New York can give me the
smallest information about the état de fortune of Mr. Louis Leverett.
It’s true that he’s a native of Boston, where most of his friends reside;
I can’t, however, go to the expense of a journey to Boston simply to
learn perhaps that Mr. Leverett (the young Louis) has an income of five
thousand francs. As I say indeed, he doesn’t strike me as dangerous.
When Aurora comes back to me after having passed an hour with him she
says he has described to her his emotions on visiting the home of Shelley
or discussed some of the differences between the Boston temperament and
that of the Italians of the Renaissance. You’ll not enter into these
rapprochements, and I can’t blame you. But you won’t betray me, chère
Madame?
III
FROM MISS STURDY AT NEWPORT TO MRS. DRAPER AT OUCHY
_September_ 1880.
I promised to tell you how I like it, but the truth is I’ve gone to and
fro so often that I’ve ceased to like and dislike. Nothing strikes me as
unexpected; I expect everything in its order. Then too, you know, I’m
not a critic; I’ve no talent for keen analysis, as the magazines say; I
don’t go into the reasons of things. It’s true I’ve 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’re 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 I’ve 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 this; it seems to me on the contrary a very
amiable point. When individuals betray 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 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’ve outlived the necessity of being hypocritical; I’ve nothing to gain
and everything to lose. When one’s 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’s extremely marked, and though they don’t
tell me I’m coarse I feel they think me so. There’s very little
coarseness here—not quite enough, I think—though there’s plenty of
vulgarity, which is a very different thing. On the whole the country
becomes much more agreeable. It isn’t that the people are charming, for
that they always were (the best of them, I mean—it isn’t true of the
others), but that places and things as well recognise the possibility of
pleasing. The houses are extremely good and look extraordinarily fresh
and clean. Many European interiors seem in comparison 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 delicious piazzas. I’m
sitting on one now; I’m 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’s more charming even than you remember it; like everything else
over here it has improved. It’s very exquisite to-day; it’s 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’s 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 on 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 one hasn’t the least desire to
visit. Altogether the effect’s very delicate, and anything that’s
delicate counts immensely over here; for delicacy, I think, is as rare as
coarseness. I’m 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’m almost offensively well at
sea—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—passed them
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’re on the whole
very nice, but fifty’s 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’s 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’ve heard of him in a dozen places. The
English are strangely 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’re 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 in any case at eight o’clock in the morning; I
don’t know how he managed it; it appears to be his favourite hour;
wherever we’ve 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’re
easy to answer, for he has a sweet credulity. He made me rather ashamed;
he’s a better American than so many of us; he takes us more seriously
than we take ourselves. He seems to think we’ve an oligarchy of wealth
growing up which he advised me to be on my guard against. I don’t know
exactly what I can do, but I promised him to look out. He’s fearfully
energetic; the energy of the people here is nothing to that of the
inquiring Briton. If we should devote half the zeal 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, since, say what one
will, it’s far from being 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 hateful. At the same time Mr.
Antrobus appeared to be a good deal preoccupied with our dangers. I
don’t understand quite what they are; they seem to me so few on a Newport
piazza this bright still day. Yet alas what one sees on a Newport piazza
isn’t America; it’s only the back of Europe. I don’t mean to say I
haven’t noticed any dangers since my return; there are two or three that
seem to me very serious, but they aren’t those Mr. Antrobus apprehends.
One, for instance, is that we shall cease to speak the English language,
which I prefer so to any other. It’s less and less spoken; American’s
crowding it out. All the children speak American, which as a child’s
language is 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, when all’s said, it’s 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 small nephews, when I first came home, hadn’t gone back to
school, and it distressed me to see that, though they’re charming
children, they had the vocal inflexions of little news-boys. My niece is
sixteen years old; she has the sweetest nature possible; she’s extremely
well-bred and is dressed to perfection. She chatters from morning till
night; but its helplessness breaks my heart. 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.
If I allude to the young people, that’s our other danger; the young
people are eating us up—there’s nothing in America but the young people.
The country’s made for the rising generation; life’s arranged for them;
they’re the destruction of society. People talk of them, consider them,
defer to them, bow down to them. They’re always present, and whenever
they’re present nothing else of the smallest interest is. They’re often
very pretty, and physically are wonderfully looked after; they’re 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’s an immense literature entirely
addressed to them in which the kicking of shins and the slapping of faces
carries the day. 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’s theirs; adult forms
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 I naturally 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 suddenly
stops. The little girls of course are more important than the lads, but
the lads are very important too. I’m struck with the way they’re known
and talked about; they’re small celebrities; they have reputations and
pretensions; they’re taken very seriously. As for the little girls, as I
just said, they’re ever so much too many. You’ll say perhaps that my
fifty years and my red face are jealous of them. 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 things themselves, I believe,
like me very much, and I delight in the young things. They’re 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’ve 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’s 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 long by a larger one.
This one’s decidedly narrow—I stretch it sometimes till it cracks. Then
it is they call me coarse, which I undoubtedly am, thank goodness.
What it comes to, obviously, is that people’s talk is much less
conveniently free than in Europe; I’m 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 find to bite into, for the supply of
scandal’s small and it’s little more than twaddle at that. They don’t
seem, however, to lack topics. The little girls are always there; they
keep the gates of conversation; very little passes that’s 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 last year, 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’d have to change so many other things. Of
course in your house one never saw a little girl; I was the only spinster
and no one was afraid of me. Likewise if talk’s more innocent in this
country manners are so to begin with. The liberty of the young people is
the strongest proof of it. The little girls are let loose in the world,
and the world gets more good of it than ces demoiselles get harm. In
your world—pardon me, but you know what I mean—this wouldn’t do at all.
Your world’s a sad affair—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’s 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’m told that sort of thing
consumes hours; I’ve 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 find them at
bottom better than the women, who if not inveterately hard haven’t at
least the European, the (as I heard some one once call it) chemical
softness. They’re not so nice to the men as the men are to them; I mean
of course in proportion, you know. But women aren’t so nice as men
“anyway,” as they say here.
The men at any rate 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 he’s
always well done in your countries. When he’s not, the less of him the
better. It’s very much the same indeed with the system on which the
female young are brought up. (You see I have to come back to the female
young.) When it succeeds they’re the most charming creatures possible;
when it doesn’t the failure’s disastrous. If a girl’s a very nice girl
the American method brings her to great completeness—makes all her graces
flower; but if she isn’t nice it plays the devil with any possible
compromise or _biais_ in the interest of social convenience. In a word
the American girl’s rarely negative, and when she isn’t a great success
she’s 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 aren’t shy, but I don’t know why they
should be, for there’s 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’s formidable; no
one’s on stilts; no one has great pretensions or any recognised right to
be arrogant. I think there’s not much wickedness, and there’s certainly
less human or social cruelty—less than in “good” (that is in more
amusing) society. Every one can sit—no one’s kept standing. One’s 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’s less fatuous in
form than in your countries; and as people generally have fewer revenges
to take there’s less need of their being squashed in advance. The
general good nature, the social equality, deprive them of triumphs on the
one hand and of grievances on the other. There’s extremely little
impertinence, there’s almost none. You’ll say I’m describing a terrible
world, a world without great figures or great social prizes. You’ve 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’d miss these
things a good deal—you who delight to recognise greatness; and my advice
to you therefore is never to come back. You’d miss the small people even
more than the great; every one’s middle-sized, and you can never have
that momentary sense of profiting by the elevation of your class which is
so agreeable in Europe. I needn’t add that you don’t, either, languish
with its depression. There are at all events no brilliant types—the most
important people seem to lack dignity. They’re very bourgeois; they make
little jokes; on occasion they make puns; they’ve no form; they’re too
good-natured. The men have no style; the women, who are fidgety and talk
too much, have it only in their tournures, where they have it
superabundantly.
Well, I console myself—since consolation is needed—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’s a pleasure, when one comes back—if one happens,
like me, to be no one in particular—to feel one’s merely personal and
unclassified 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 prattle, one
feels their presence too much as importunate and untrained sound. I
imagine this is partly because their wits are quick and they think of a
good many things to say; not indeed that they always say such wonders!
Perfect repose, after all, is not _all_ self-control; it’s also partly
stupidity. American women, however, make too many vague exclamations—say
too many indefinite things, have in short still a great deal of nature.
The American order or climate or whatever gives them a nature they _can_
let loose. Europe has to protect itself with more art. 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’ve all been brought up together. You’ll think this a picture of a
dreadfully insipid society; but I hasten to add that it’s not all so tame
as that. I’ve been speaking of the people that one meets socially, and
these’re 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 hack-men, the labourers, the conductors;
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’re _too_ democratic taste a little of American
life in these walks and you’ll be reassured. This is the region of
inequality, and you’ll find plenty of people to make your curtsey to.
You see it from below—the weight of inequality’s on your own back. You
asked me to tell you about prices. They’re unspeakable.
IV
FROM THE RIGHT HON. EDWARD ANTROBUS, M.P., IN BOSTON TO THE HONOURABLE
MRS. ANTROBUS
_November_ 1880.