Probably he was not personally a Upas tree, probably the rancor toward
him left from being bawled after by one of his gatemen at a turning we
had taken in his enclosure, “That’s a private path!” was unjust. There
was no sign, such as everywhere in England renders a place secure from
intrusion. The word “Private” painted up anywhere does the effect of
bolts and bars and of all obsolete man-traps beyond it, and is not for a
moment that challenge to the wayfaring foot which it seems so often
with us; but the warnings to the public which we make so mandatory, the
English language with unfailing gentleness. You are not told to keep
your foot or your wheel to a certain pathway; you are “requested,”
and sometimes even “kindly requested”; I do not know but once I was
“respectfully requested.” Perhaps that nobleman’s possession of these
lands was so new that his retainers had to practise something of
unwonted rudeness in keeping it wholly his where he chose. At any rate,
the rule of civility is so universal that the politeness from class to
class is, for what the stranger sees, all but unfailing. I dare say he
does not see everything, even the Argus-eyed American, but apparently
the manners of the lower class, where they have been touched by the
upper, have been softened and polished to the same consistence
and complexion. When it comes to the proffers, and refusals, and
insistences, and acceptances between people of condition, such as I
witnessed once in a crowded first-class carriage from London on an
Oxford holiday, nothing could be more gently urgent, more beautifully
forbearing. If the writers of our romantic novels could get just those
manners into their fiction, I should not mind their dealing so much with
the English nobility and gentry; for those who intend being our
nobility and gentry, by-and-by, could not do better than study such
high-breeding.
If we approach the morals of either superiors or inferiors, we are in
a region where it behooves us to tread carefully. To be honest, I know
nothing about them, and I will not assume to know anything. I heard from
authority which I could not suspect of posing for omniscience that the
English rustics were apt to be very depraved, but they may on the
other hand be saints for all that I can prove against them. They are
superstitious, it is said, and there are few villages or old houses
that have not their tutelary spectres. The belief in ghosts is almost
universal among the people; as I may allow without superiority, for I
do not know but I believe in them myself, and there are some million of
American spiritualists who make an open profession of faith in them. It
is said also that the poor in England are much spoiled by the constant
aid given them in charity. This is supposed to corrupt them, and to
make them dependent upon the favors of fortune, rather than the sweat of
their brows. On the other hand, they often cannot get work, as I infer
from the armies of the unemployed, and, in these cases, I cannot hold
them greatly to blame if they bless their givers by their readiness
to receive. If one may infer from the incessant beneficences, and the
constant demands for more and more charities, one heaped upon another,
there are more good objects in England than anywhere else under the sun,
for one only gives to good objects, of course. The oppression of the
subscriptions is tempered by the smallness of the sum which may satisfy
them. “Five shillings is a subscription,” said a friend who was accused
of really always giving five pounds.