Part 35

[87] The national vanity of the French, and pride and prejudice of the English are proverbial: it is, however, fortunate for both that they carry these qualities to such an excess, that it is a matter of extreme difficulty to shake the good opinion which they entertain of themselves. Thus, foreigners may visit England, as Frenchmen have done, and swear that the sun never shines there, and that the only ripe fruit the country affords is roasted apples. John Bull, nothing wroth, wraps himself still closer in his own dear self-approval, and, in the plenitude of self-content, drinks his brown stout, and basks by gas-light. On his part, he goes over to Paris, votes the whole _beau pays de France_ horrible, because he can't get port wine to drink, or boiled potatoes to eat; in spite of which, Monsieur does not attempt to turn him out of his country, but eats his ragouts, and drinks his chablis, and shrugs his shoulders at the savage islander, from the seventh heaven of self-satisfaction. It were much to be desired that Americans had a little _more_ national vanity, or national pride. Such an unhappily sensitive community surely never existed in this world; and the vengeance with which they visit people for saying they don't admire or like them, would be really terrible if the said people were but as mortally afraid of abuse as they seem to be. I would not advise either Mrs. Trollope, Basil Hall, or Captain Hamilton, ever to set their feet upon this ground again, unless they are ambitious of being stoned to death. I live myself in daily expectation of martyrdom; and as for any body attempting to earn a livelihood here who has but as much as said he prefers the country where he was born to this, he would stand a much better chance of thriving if he were to begin business after confinement in the penitentiary. This unhappy species of irritability is carried to such a degree here, that if you express an unfavourable opinion of any thing, the people are absolutely astonished at your temerity. I remember, to my no little amusement, a lady saying to me once, "I hear you are going to abuse us dreadfully; of course, you'll wait till you go back to England, and then shower it down upon us finely." I assured her I was not in the least afraid of staying where I was, and saying what I thought at the same time.

[88] I have been assured, I know not how truly, that the whole of this affair originated with an _Englishman_. This piece of information was given me by a person who said he knew such to be the fact, and also knew the man.

[89] It may not be amiss here to say one word with regard to the _gratitude_ which audiences in some parts of the world claim from actors, and about which I have lately heard a most alarming outcry. Do actors generally exercise their profession to please themselves and gratify their own especial delight in self-exhibition? Is that profession in its highest walks one of small physical exertion and fatigue (I say nothing of mental exertion), and in its lower paths is it one of much gain, glory, or ease? Do audiences, on the other hand, use to come in crowds to play-houses to see indifferent performers? and when there, do they, out of pure charity and good-will, bestow their applause as well as their money upon tiresome performances? I will answer these points as far as regards myself, and therein express the gratitude which I feel towards the frequenters of theatres. I individually disliked my profession, and had neither pride nor pleasure in the exercise of it. I exercised it as a matter of necessity, to earn my bread,--and verily it was in the sweat of my brow. The parts which fell to my lot were of a most laborious nature, and occasioned sometimes violent mental excitement, always immense physical exertion, and sometimes both. In those humbler walks of my profession, from whose wearisomeness I was exempted by my sudden favour with the public, I have seen, though not known, the most painful drudgery,--the most constant fatigue,--the most sad contrast between real cares and feigned merriments,--the most anxious, penurious, and laborious existence imaginable. For the part of my questions which regarded the audiences, I have only to say, that I never knew, saw, heard, or read of any set of people who went to a play-house to see what they did not like; this being the case, it never occurred to me that our houses were full but as a necessary consequence of our own attraction, or that we were applauded but as the result of our own exertions. I was glad the houses were full, because I was earning my livelihood, and wanted the money; and I was glad the people applauded us, because it is pleasant to please, and human vanity will find some sweetness in praise, even when reason weighs its worth most justly. Thus I cannot say that in general I had any great _gratitude_ towards my audiences. Once or twice, however, that feeling was excited between me and my witnesses, and the circumstance of which I have spoken in my journal was one of the instances. But this was a different matter altogether. I was no longer before an audience labouring for their approbation as an actress. I was dragged before so many judges in my own person, to answer for words spoken in private conversation. The same clapping of hands, with which they rewarded my exertions in my profession, was the only method by which they could intimate the "not guilty," which was their judgment upon the appeal that had been made to them against me; but with this difference, that I never felt _obliged_ to them, or _grateful_ for their applause before, and did feel obliged and grateful for their verdict then. Now, as regards the benefit-nights of actors, I do not observe that even on these occasions much _gratitude_ is owing to the people who attend them; for I know, and so does every member of the profession, that the oldest and best actor on any stage,--the one who for a series of years has appeared before audiences to whom his private respectability and worth were well known,--the longest-established _favourite_ of the public (as they are termed), will assuredly have empty houses on his benefit-nights, if, trusting to the feeling of that public, to whom he owes so much gratitude, he failed to secure the assistance of whatever star (tragedian, pantomimist, or dancing dog, it matters not which), happens to be the newest object of attraction. I speak all this more particularly as regards this country, for it is here that I have heard most of this species of cant. Gratitude is a good word and an excellent thing, and neither in speaking or acting should it be misapplied. In the aristocratical lands over the water, this nonsense about patronage might surprise one less; but in America it seems strange there should be any mistake about a simple matter of traffic--'tis nothing in life else. We give our health, our strength, our leisure, and our pleasure, for your money and your applause, neither of which do we beg or borrow from you. This being the case, where lies the obligation, and where the gratitude? As to the pretty speeches which actors make when called from behind the curtain, they always appeared to me very much of the same order as advertisements in newspapers--A. D. returns his grateful acknowledgments to the public for their liberal support, etc., etc. That calling performers on after a play is a foreign, not an English, custom, and, to my mind, one more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Extraordinary occasions might warrant extraordinary demonstrations; but it is a pity to make that a common ceremony, which, rarely granted, would be a gratifying testimony of feeling, and excite rational _gratitude_ in those on whom it was conferred.

[90] I would recommend Retsch's etchings of Macbeth to the study of all representatives of the witches: there is great sublimity and fearfulness in their figures and attitudes. By the by, in looking over those unique etchings (I mean _all_ those he has executed), the colossal genius of Shakspeare is brought more fully in its vastness to our conviction; for the genius of the artist,--which has fallen no whit behind the first work of one of the first men of this age,--sinks in utter impotence under the task of illustrating Shakspeare. The wonder, and the beauty, and the pity of Faust, are as strong and true in the outlines of Retsch, as in the words of Goethe--the drawings equal the poem; 'tis the highest praise they can receive: and it is only when we turn from these perfect works, to contemplate his outlines of Shakspeare, that we feel, by the force of comparison, how unutterably beyond all other conceptions are those of Shakspeare. Retsch's etchings, both of Hamlet and Macbeth, are, compared with his German illustrations, failures. Hamlet is the better of the two; but he seems to have quailed under the other in utter inability--Macbeth himself falls far short of all that he should be made to express; and as to Lady Macbeth, Retsch seems to have thought he had better not meddle with her.

[91] I wonder how long it will be before men begin to consider the rational education of the mothers of their children a matter of some little moment. How much longer are we to lead existences burdensome to ourselves and useless to others, under the influence of every species of ill training that can be imagined? How much longer are the physical evils under which our nature labours to be increased by effeminate, slothful, careless, unwholesome habits? How much longer are our minds, naturally weakened by the action of a highly sensitive nervous construction, to be abandoned, or rather devoted, to studies the least likely to strengthen and ennoble them, and render them independent, in some measure, of the infirmities of our bodies? How much longer are our imaginations and feelings to be the only portions of our spiritual nature on which culture is bestowed? Surely it were generous in those who are our earthly disposers to do something to raise us from the state of half-improvement in which we are suffered to linger. If our capacities are inferior to those of men,--which I believe, as much as I believe our bodies to be inferior to theirs in strength, swiftness, and endurance,--let us not be overwhelmed with all the additional shackles that foolish and vain bringing up can add; let us at least be made as strong in body and as wise in mind as we can, instead of being devoted to spiritual, mental, and physical weakness, far beyond that which we inherit from nature.

[92] Was it not Mme. de Sévigné who said, with such truth and bitter satire, "Mme de ---- s'est jetée dans la dévotion, c'est-à-dire, elle a changé d'amant"?

[93] The cleanliness of the table furniture, and the neatness of the attendants, is one of the most essential comforts of these boats. The linen, and knives and forks, etc. at our meals, were remarkably clean and bright. On more than one occasion, too, being rather late for the public breakfast, we have been indulged with a small separate table in the quiet recess at the end of the great eating and sleeping cabin,--a favour only to be appreciated by people unaccustomed to any ordinaries, much less steam-boat dinner-tables with sometimes near two hundred guests. On board all the other boats, the only alternative is to have what you eat brought to you into the ladies' cabin. To those who have once breathed the atmosphere of a "ladies' cabin," it will be difficult to imagine how such an alternative should not be productive of an amazing saving of the boat's provisions.

[94] My astonishment was unfeigned, when, upon an after inspection, I found this very lofty gateway was constructed of _painted wood_. What! a cheat, a sham thing at the threshold of the grave!--surely, thereabouts pretences should have an end. Sham magnificence, too, is sad; an iron railing, or a wooden paling, would, to my mind, have been a thousand times better than this _mock granite_. Let us hope that this is merely a temporary entrance,--there is _real_ granite enough to be had at Quincy; and if the living can't afford it, why the dead will never miss it,--and any thing would be better than an imitation gateway.

[95] The spirit of man of its own dignity ennobles whatever it devotes itself to. The most trivial actions may become almost heroical from the motive which prompts them, and the most absurd ceremonies of superstition, sincerely practised, may excite pity, but neither contempt nor ridicule. If such a thing as an enthusiastic shoemaker were to be met with, there is no doubt but his feeling of his craft would elevate it into something approximating an art, and his work would bear witness to his veneration for it. At the time when the stage was in its highest perfection, its members had _all_ a great love and admiration for their profession; many of them were men of education and mental accomplishment, and brought to bear upon their labour all the intellectual stores which they possessed. They respected their own work, and it was respectable; they thought acting capable of elevation, of refinement, of utility, and their faith in it invested it with dignity. Of this class were all my father's family. _One_ reason why the stage and every thing belonging to it has fallen to so low an ebb now, is because actors have ceased to care for their profession themselves,--they are no longer artists,--acting is no longer an art.

[96] Besides the advantage of possessing the very prettiest collection of actresses I ever saw, the theatre at Boston has decidedly the best company I have played with _any where_ out of London. Some of the old leaven alluded to in the last note exists amongst the ladies and gentlemen of the Tremont theatre: they do not seem to despise their work, and it is, generally speaking, well done therefore. Our pieces were all remarkably well got up there; and the green-room is both respectable and agreeable.

[97] To the English traveller, around whose heart the love of country and the influences of early association may yet cling, New England appears to me, of all the portions of the United States which I have visited, most likely to afford gratification; and the _Yankees_,--properly so called,--the Americans with whom he will find, and towards whom he will feel, most sympathy. They do us the honour to call themselves _purely English_ in their origin; they alone, of the whole population of the United States, undoubtedly were so; and in the abundant witness which their whole character, country, and institutions bear to that fact, I feel an additional reason to be proud of England,--of Old England, for these are her children,--this race of men, as a race incomparably superior to the other inhabitants of this country. In conversing with New Englandmen, in spite of any passing temporary bitterness, any political difference, or painful reference to past times of enmity, I have always been struck with the admiring and, in some measure, tender feeling with which England, as the mother-country, was named. Nor is it possible to travel through the New England states, and not perceive, indeed, a spirit (however modified by different circumstances and institutions) yet most truly English in its origin. The exterior of the houses,--their extreme neatness and cleanliness,--the careful cultivation of the land,--the tasteful and ornamental arrangement of the ground immediately surrounding the dwellings, that most English of all manifestations,--above all, the church spires pointing towards heaven, from the bosom of every village,--recalled most forcibly to my mind my own England, and presented images of order, of industry, of taste, and religious feeling, nowhere so exhibited in any other part of the Union. I visited Boston several times, and mixed in society there, the tone of which appeared to me far higher than that of any I found elsewhere. A general degree of cultivation exists among its members, which renders their intercourse desirable and delightful. Nor is this superior degree of education confined to Boston: the zeal and the judgment with which it is being propagated throughout that part of the country is a noble national characteristic. A small circumstance is a good illustration of the advance which knowledge has made in these states. Travelling by land from New Haven to Boston, at one of the very smallest places where we stopped to change horses, I got out of the carriage to reconnoitre our surroundings. The town (if town it could be called) did not appear to contain much more than fifty houses: amongst the most prominent of these, however, was a bookseller's shop. The first volumes I took up on the counter were Spurzheim's volume on education, and Dr. Abercrombie's works on the intellectual and moral faculties, I saw more pictures, more sculptures, and more books in private houses in Boston than I have seen any where else. I could name more men of marked talent that I met with there than any where else. Its charitable and literary institutions are upon a liberal scale, and enlightened principles. Among the New Englanders I have seen more honour and reverence of parents, and more witnesses of a high religions faith, than among any other Americans with whom I have lived and conversed.

[98] There are, I believe, no primroses, no wild thyme, and no heather, that grow naturally in this country. I do not remember to have seen either wild honeysuckle or clematis, both of which are so abundant with us. The laurestinus, rosemary, southernwood, and monthly roses, all of which are so common in England, growing out of doors all the year round, are kept in hot-houses during the winter, even as far south as Philadelphia. The common garden flowers--roses, pinks--are far less abundant and less fragrant than with us. Sweet peas, and mignonette, are comparatively scarce; serynga, and laburnum, I have never seen at all: but so little care is bestowed upon ornamental gardening, that I do not know whether this dearth of flowers is the fault of the climate, or the consequence of the utter neglect in which flower-gardens are held here.

[99] Lacking the nightingale and the lark, I think they want the two perfect specimens of natural music.

[100] Among the many signs of the total decay of dramatic mind and spirit in this age, a frequent piece of criticism passed upon modern plays appears to me a very conclusive one--"Such a play is exceedingly full of dramatic effect, but there's no poetry in it." "Such a playwright understands situation and character, but really, reading his plays, you find no poetry in them." I have heard this bright comment passed repeatedly upon the best dramatic composition of modern times,--the Hunchback; a play whose immense popularity every where is the surest and truest warrant of its excellence,--a play containing the most dramatic situations, the most pathetic and comic effects, and by far the finest conception of a female character of any play since the old golden dramatic age. I do not hesitate to say that this is a most false piece of criticism, induced alone by a want of perception of what are the requisites in a dramatic poem, and a total absence of true dramatic feeling. First, in the ingredients of a fine play, comes the fiction,--the invention; to this belong those same much-sneered-at stage effects, and theatrical situations; next comes the skilful and powerful delineation of individual character; _lastly_ comes the item of a poetical diction. _One_ alone has united these in their utmost perfection; for such another the world may look in vain. But I think the play-goers of Shakspeare's time would have been tolerably satisfied with a most interesting fiction, and a true and vigorous delineation of character; and let me ask, is there no poetry besides that of words?--is there no poetry in the fable of a play--none in the faithful portraying of a human being's mind and passions? As for all pretty speeches, lengthy descriptions, abstract disquisitions,--unless things placed in the mouth of characters to whose identity such mental manifestations belong,--they are inadmissible in a right good play, and should by all means be confined to the pages of those anomalous modern growths, plays for the closet. In all our elder dramatists, Shakspeare alone excepted, the main quality of a play, the story, is often defective to an excess, not only in morality, but in probability and consistency; and the same defects exist in the delineation of character in many of their noblest plays.

[101] Of the mental process which the pupils at this highland school undergo, I can say nothing, being totally unacquainted with the system of education adopted there; but a more advantageous residence for the cultivation of health, strength (for physical education), or the development of all those pious and poetical tendings of the human soul and mind which are fostered and ripened by the sublime influence of natural beauty and grandeur, cannot be imagined. The gentlemen at the head of this establishment are New Englanders. The observations I made upon the superior intelligence and cultivation of the natives of that part of the United States have been borne out constantly by the fact, that there is hardly any establishment in the States I have visited, in any way connected with education, or the dissemination of information, which is not conducted partially or entirely by New Englanders.

[102] Troy! and that Troy has a Mount Ida! The names of places in this country are truly astonishing. Troy, Syracuse, and Rome are pretty well in this way; but the state of New York alone, I believe, boasts of a Manlius, a Homer, a Virgil, an Ovid, a Cicero, and a Socrates, whose second appearance in this world is in all the glories of flaming red bricks, new boards, and white paint. Did Pythagoras admit of men becoming towns as well as beasts? I forget.

[103] These beautiful little delicate wild flowers seem to love the dewy neighbourhood of waterfalls: it is only at Trenton, and the Chaudière in Canada, that I remember to have seen them at all in this country. Some poor Scotch peasants, about to emigrate to Canada, took away with them some roots of the "bonny blooming heather," in hopes of making this beloved adorner of their native mountains the cheerer of their exile in the wild lands to which they were going. The heather, however, refused to grow in the Canadian soil, and the poor emigrants had not the melancholy pleasure of seeing its sweet familiar bloom round their new dwellings. The person who told me this said that the circumstance had been related to him by Walter Scott, whose sympathy with the disappointment of these poor children of the romantic heatherland betrayed itself even in tears. When I visited the beautiful falls of the Chaudière, our party was enlivened, and the picturesque effect of the scene much heightened, by some of the Highland band belonging to the regiment quartered in Quebec. I could not help wondering, as I gathered the blue bells, which grew profusely round the cataract, whether these poor fellows looked upon the emblem of their distant country with any of the feelings which I lent them; and the whole brought back to my mind the heather that would not gladden the exile's eyes in a foreign soil, and the compassion of Scott for his countrymen's disappointment.