Part 34

[74] In speaking of the bad and disagreeable results of the political institutions of this country, as exhibited in the feelings and manners of the lower orders, I have every where dwelt upon those which, from my own disposition, and the opinions and sentiments in which I have been educated, have struck me most, and most unfavourably. But I should be sorry to be so blind, or so prejudiced, as not to perceive the great moral goods which arise from the very same source, and display themselves strongly in the same class of people: _honesty_ and _truth_, excellences so great, that the most bigoted worshipper of the forms and divisions of societies in the old world would surely be ashamed to weigh them in the balance against the deference there paid to rank or riches, or even the real and very agreeable qualities of civility and courtesy. Americans (I speak now of the _people_, not the gentlemen and ladies, _they_ are neither so honest and true, nor quite so rude,) are indeed independent. Every man that will work a little can live extremely well. No portion of the country is yet overstocked with followers of trades, not even the Atlantic cities. Living is cheap--labour is dear. To conclude, as the Irish woman said, "It is a darling country for poor folks; for if I work three days in the week, can't I lie in my bed the other three if I plase?" This being so, all dealings between handicraftsmen and those who employ them; tradesmen and those who buy of them; servants and those who are served by them; are conducted upon the most entire system of reciprocity of advantage; indeed, if any thing, the obligation appears always to lie on that party which, with us, is generally supposed to confer it. Thus,--my shoemaker, a person with whom I have now dealt largely for two years, said to me the other day, upon my remonstrating about being obliged regularly to come to his shop and unboot, whenever I order a new pair of walking-boots--"Well, ma'am, we can keep your measure certainly, _to oblige you_, but, as a rule, we don't do it for any of our customers, it's so very troublesome." These people are, then, as I said before, most truly independent; they are therefore never servile, and but seldom civil, but for the very same reason they do not rob you; they do not need to do so; neither do they lie to you, for your favour or displeasure in no way affects their interest. If you entrust to their care materials of any sort to make up, you are sure, no matter how long you may leave them in their hands, or how entirely you may have forgotten the quantity originally given, to have every inch of them returned to you: and you are also generally sure that any question you ask, with regard to the quality of what you purchase, will be answered without any endeavour to impose upon you, or palm upon your ignorance that which is worse for that which is better. Two circumstances, which have come under my own knowledge, will serve to illustrate the spirit of the people; and they are good illustrations to quote, for similar circumstances are of daily and hourly occurrence.

A farmer who is in the habit of calling at our house on his way to market, with eggs, poultry, etc., being questioned as to whether the eggs were new-laid, replied, without an instant's hesitation, "No, not the _very_ fresh ones, _we eat all those ourselves_."

On returning home late from the play one night, I could not find my slippers any where, and, after some useless searching, performed my toilet for bed without them. The next morning, on enquiring of my maid if she knew any thing of them, she replied with perfect equanimity, that having walked home through the snow, and got her feet extremely wet, she had put them on, and forgotten to restore them to their place before my return. Nobody, I think, will doubt that an English farmer, and an English servant, might sell stale eggs, and use their mistress's slippers; but I think it highly doubtful, that either fact would have been acknowledged with such perfect honesty any where but here. As to the servants here, except the blacks, and the poor Irish bread-hunters who come over, there are scarcely any to be found: the very name seems repugnant to an American; and however high their wages, and easy their situation, they seem hardly to be able to endure the bitterness of subserviency and subordination.

[75] The bridges here are all made of wood, and for the most part covered. Those which are so are by no means unpicturesque objects. The one-arched bridge at Fair Mount is particularly light and graceful in its appearance: at a little distance, it looks like a scarf, rounded by the wind, flung over the river.

[76] The time of locking of doors at gentlemen's dinner parties, and drinking till the company dropped one by one under the table, has, with the equally disgusting habit of spitting about the floors, long vanished in England before a more rational hospitality, and a better understanding of the very first rule of good breeding, not to do that which is to offend others. Spirituous liquors are the fashion alone among the numerous frequenters of the gin-palaces of Holborn, and St. Giles's; even the old-fashioned favourites of our country gentlemen, port, madeira, and sherry, are found too heavy and strongly-flavoured for the palate of our modern exquisites,--and the fragrant and delicate wines of Burgundy, Bordeaux, the Rhine, and its tributary streams, are the wines now preferred before all others, by persons of refined taste and moderate indulgence. This in itself is a great improvement. The gross desire of excitement by a quantity of powerful stimulants has given place to a temperate enjoyment of things, in themselves certainly the most excellent in the world. Wine-drinking in England is become altogether a species of _dilettante_ taste, instead of the disgusting excess it used to be; it is indulged in with extreme moderation,--and so much have all coarse and thick-blooded drinks gone out of fashion, that even liqueurs are very seldom taken after coffee but by foreigners. Our gentlemen have learnt to consider hard and gross drinking ungentlemanly. I wish I could say the same of American gentlemen. The quantity and the quality of their potations are as destructive of every thing like refinement of palate, as detrimental to their health. Americans are, generally speaking, the very worst judges of wine in the world, always excepting madeira, which they have in great perfection, and is the only wine of which they are tolerable judges. One reason of their ignorance upon this subject is the extremely indifferent quality of the foreign wines imported here, and a still more powerful reason, is the total loss of all niceness of taste consequent upon their continual swallowing of mint julaps, gin slings, brandy cocktails, and a thousand strong messes which they take _even before breakfast_, and indifferently at all hours of the day,--a practice as gross in taste as injurious to health. Burgundy I have never seen at an American table: I believe it will not stand the sea voyage. Claret they have now in very great perfection, thanks to Mr. ----, who has introduced it among them, and deserves to be considered a public benefactor therefor. Hock is, generally speaking, utterly undrinkable, and champagne (the only foreign wine of which they seem generally fond), though some of a good quality is occasionally presented to you, is for the most part a very nauseous compound, in which sugar is the only perceptible flavour. Although the American gentlemen do not indeed lock the doors upon their guests, they have two habits equally fatal to their sobriety, of which I have heard several Englishmen complain bitterly. The one is mixing their wines in a most unorthodox manner, equally distressing to the palate and the stomach; _i. e._ giving you to drink by turns, after dinner, claret, madeira, sherry, hock, champagne, all and each of which you are pressed to take as specimens of excellence in their various ways, forming altogether a vinous hotch-potch, which confounds alike the taste and the brain. The second ordeal, to which the sobriety of Englishmen dining out here is exposed, is at the close of all these various libations,--which of course last some time,--an instantaneous removal from the dinner to the supper table, where strong _whisky punch_ effectually _finishes_ the wits of their guests, and sends them home to repent for two days the excess of a few hours. Perhaps, when the real meaning of the word _society_ becomes better understood in this country, absurd display and disgusting intemperance will no more be resorted to as its necessary accompaniments; but of course the _real_ material of which society should be formed must increase a little first. I have been told that the women in this country drink. I never saw but one circumstance which would lead me to believe the assertion. At the baths in New York, one day, I saw the girl who was waiting upon the rooms carry mint julaps (a preparation of mint, sugar, and brandy,) into three of them. I was much surprised, and asked her if this was a piece of service she often performed for the ladies who visited the baths? She said, "Yes, pretty often." Bar-rooms are annexed to every species of public building,--in the theatres, in the hotels, in the bath-houses, on board the steam-boats,--and there are even temporary buildings which serve this purpose erected at certain distances along the rail-roads. Though the gentlemen drink more than any other _gentlemen_, the lower orders here are more temperate than with us. The appearance of a drunken man in the streets is comparatively rare here; and certainly Sunday is not, as with us, the appointed day for this disgusting vice among the lower classes here. Fortunately, most fortunately, it is not with them as with us, the only day on which the poor have rest, or drunkenness the only substitute they can find for every other necessary or comfort of life. Our poor are indeed intemperate. Alas! that vice of theirs will surely be visited on others; for it is the offspring of their misery. The effects of habitual intemperance in this country are lamentably visible in many young men of respectable stations and easy circumstances; and it is by no means uncommon to hear of young gentlemen--persons who rank as such here--destroying their health, their faculties, and eventually their lives, at a most untimely age, by this debasing habit.

[77] There is a species of home religion, so to speak, which is kept alive by the gathering together of families at stated periods of joy and festivity, which has a far deeper moral than most people imagine. The merry-making at Christmas, the watching out the old year, and in the new, the royalty of Twelfth-night, the keeping of birth-days, and anniversaries of weddings, are things which, to the worldly-wise in these wise times, may savour of childishness or superstition; but they tend to promote and keep alive some of the sweetest charities and kindliest sympathies of our poor nature. While we are yet children, these days are set in golden letters in the calendar,--long looked forward to,--enjoyed with unmixed delight,--the peculiar seasons of new frocks, new books, new toys, drinking of healths, bestowing of blessings and wishes by kindred and parents, and being brought into the notice of our elders, and, as children used to think in the dark ages, therefore their betters. To the older portion of the community, such times were times of many mingled emotions, all, all of a softening if not of so exhilarating a nature. The cares, the toils, of the world had become their portion,--some little of its coldness, its selfishness, and sad guardedness had crept upon them,--distance and various interests, and the weary works of life had engrossed their thoughts, and turned their hearts and their feet from the dear household paths, and the early fellowship of home; but at these seasons the world was in its turn pushed aside for a moment,--the old thresholds were crossed by those who had ceased to dwell in the house of their birth,--kindred and friends met again, as in the early days of childhood and youth, under the same roof-tree,--the nursery revel, and the school-day jubilee, was recalled to their thoughts by the joyful voices and faces of a new generation,--the blessed and holy influences of home flowed back into their souls, at such a time, by a thousand channels,--the heart was warmed with the kind old love and fellowship,--face brightened to kindred face, and hand grasped the hand where the same blood was flowing, and all the evil deeds of time seemed for a while retrieved. These were holy and happy seasons. Oh, England! dear, dear England! this sweet sacred worship, next to that of God the highest and purest, was long cherished in your soil, where the word home was surely more hallowed than any other save heaven. Far, far off be the day when a cold and narrow spirit shall quench in you these dear and good human yearnings, and make the consecrated earth around our door-stones as barren as the wide wilderness of life in strange lands. In this country I have been mournfully struck with the absence of every thing like this home-clinging. Here are comparatively no observances of tides and times. Christmas-day is no religious day, and hardly a holiday with them. New-year's day is perhaps a little, but only a little, more so. For Twelfth-day, it is unknown; and the household private festivals of birth-days are almost universally passed by unsevered from the rest of the toilsome days devoted to the curse of labour. Indeed, the young American leaves so soon the shelter of his home, the world so early becomes to him a home, that the happy and powerful influences and associations of that word to him are hardly known. Sent forth to earn his existence at the very opening time of mind and heart, like a young green-house plant just budding that should be thrust out into the colder air, the blight of worldliness, of coldness, and of care, drive in the coming blossoms; and if the tree lives, half its loveliness and half its _usefulness_ are shorn from it. These are some of the consequences of the universal doom of Americans, to labour for their bread: there are others and better ones.

[78] This happened on board a _western_ steam-boat, I beg to observe, if it happened at all.

[79] The evanescent nature of his triumph, however an actor may deplore it, is in fact but an instance of the broad moral justice by which all things are so evenly balanced. If he can hope for no fame beyond mere mention, when once his own generation passes away, at least his power, and his glory, and his reign is in his own person, and during his own life. There is scarcely to be conceived a popularity for the moment more intoxicating than that of a great actor in his day, so much of it becomes mixed up with the individual himself. The poet, the painter, and the sculptor, enchant us through their works; and, with very very few exceptions, their works, and not their very persons, are the objects of admiration and applause: it is to their minds we are beholden; and though a certain degree of curiosity and popularity necessarily wait even upon their bodily presence, it is faint compared with that which is bestowed upon the actor; and for good reasons--he is himself his work. His voice, his eyes, his gesture, are his art, and admiration of it cannot be separated from admiration for him. This renders the ephemeral glory which he earns so vivid, and in some measure may be supposed to compensate for its short duration. The great of the earth, whose fame has arisen like the shining of the sun, have often toiled through their whole lives in comparative obscurity, through the narrow and dark paths of existence. Their reward was never given to their hands here,--it is but just glory should be lasting.

[80] Another house has been opened at Baltimore within the last year, which, though unfinished at the time of our lodging there, promised to be extremely comfortable. The building adjoined, and indeed formed, part of the Exchange; the vestibule of which is the only very beautiful piece of architecture I have seen here. It is very beautiful.

[81] This very romantic piece of gallantry (serenading) is very common in this country. How it comes to be so I can't quite make out; for it is not at all of a piece with the national manners or tone of feeling. It's very agreeable, though, and is an anomaly worth cultivating.

[82] I have heard it several times asserted, that Catholicism was gaining ground extremely in this country. Surely the Preacher sayeth well, "The thing which has been, it is that which shall be, and there is nothing new beneath the sun." Is it not a marvellous thing to think of, that that mighty tree which has overshadowed the whole of the Christian world, under whose branches all the European empires were cradled, and which we have with our own eyes beheld droop, and fade, and totter, as it does at this moment in the old soils,--is it not strange to think of the seed being carried, and the roots taking hold in this new earth, perhaps to send up another such giant shadow over this hemisphere? Its growth here appears to me almost impossible; for if ever there were two things more opposite in their nature than all other things, they are the spirit of the Roman Catholic religion and the spirit of the American people. It's true, that of the thousands who take refuge from poverty upon this plenteous land, the greater number bring with them that creed, but the very air they inhale here presently gives them a political faith, so utterly incompatible with the spirit of subjection, that I shall think the Catholic priesthood here workers of miracles, to retain any thing like the influence over their minds which they possessed in those countries, where all creeds, political and polemical, have but one watch-word--faith and submission.

[83] In most European countries, the seat of government and residence of the ruling powers and foreign ambassadors is the capital, and generally the largest, most populous, most wealthy, and most influential city of the kingdom--the place of all others to which travellers would resort to become acquainted with its political, literary, and social spirit. In this, however, as in most other respects, this country differs from all others; and the spirit of independence, which renders every state a republic within itself, gives to each its own capital, the superior merits of which are advocated with no little pride and jealousy by the natives of the state to which it belongs. Thus, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, and New Orleans, are all capitals; each of them fulfilling in a much higher degree than Washington the foreigner's idea of that word. Indeed I cannot conceive any thing that would more amaze an European than to be transported into Washington, and told he was in the metropolis of the United States; nor, indeed, could any thing give him a less just idea of the curious political construction, and widely-scattered resources, of the country. Washington, in fact, is to America what Downing and Parliament Streets are to London--a congregation of government offices; where political characters, secretaries, clerks, place-holders, and place-seekers, most do congregate.

[84] As the winter resort of all the leading political men of the Union, Washington presents many attractions in point of society. Their wives and daughters, frequently the reigning beauties of their respective states and towns, generally accompany them thither during the session; and this congregating of people from all parts of the country, together with the foreign ministers residing there, and the travellers drawn thither from mere curiosity, combine to give more variety to the gaieties of Washington than those of any of the other cities in the Union can boast. The Capitol is a favourite lounge in the morning; and the American lady-politicians are just as zealous in their respective parties as our own. I don't know, however, that they would much relish listening to a long debate from that dismal hole, the lantern of the House of Commons, where one may listen, indeed and even just manage to see, but where to _be seen_ is an utter impossibility; neither do I think that many of them would stand for four long hours, as Miss ---- and poor Lady ---- did, during Brougham's famous reform bill speech.

[85] The love of the sublime and beautiful, those aspirations after something more refined, more exalted and perfect, than this world affords, in short, that spiritual propensity classed in its many and various manifestations by the phrenologists under the title of _ideality_, will have some vent, and, under circumstances most adverse to its existence, will creep out at some channel or another, and vindicate human nature by flourishing in some shape over the narrowest, homeliest, lowliest, and least favourable guise it may put on. Certainly America is nothe country of large idealities,--it is the very reverse; if I may create a bump, it is the country of large realities, _i. e._ large acquisitiveness, large causality, large caution, and small veneration and wonder. Nathless some ideality must needs be, and is, and it creeps out in Christian names. I have heard sempstresses called Amanda and Emmeline, and we had a housemaid in New England called Cynthia. Our village carpenter is named Rudolph; and if the spirit of the people appears to me unimaginative and unpoetical, I take great comfort in their fine names.

[86] I am neither sufficiently interested nor sufficiently well informed in the politics of this country to have conceived any opinion of General Jackson, beyond that which the floating discussions of the day might suggest. Of his merits as a statesman I am totally incapable of judging, or of the effect which his peculiar policy is calculated to have upon the country. When first I came here I heard and saw that he was the man of the people. In the dispute with South Carolina, his firmness and decision of character struck me a good deal; and when, in consequence of the temporary distress occasioned by his alteration of the currency, a universal howl was for a short time raised against him, which he withstood without a moment's flinching, I honoured him greatly. Of his measures I know nothing; but firmness, determination, decision, I respect above all things: and if the old General is, as they say, very obstinate, why obstinacy is so far more estimable than weakness, _especially_ in a ruler, that I think he sins on the right side of the question.