My dear Brother in Science,
I resume my hasty notes, of which I sent you the first instalment some weeks ago. I mentioned that I intended to leave my hotel, not finding in it real matter. It was kept by a Pomeranian and the waiters without exception were from the Fatherland. I might as well have sat down with my note-book Unter den Linden, and I felt that, having come here for documentation, or to put my finger straight upon the social pulse, I should project myself as much as possible into the circumstances which are in part the consequence and in part the cause of its activities and intermittences. I saw there could be no well-grounded knowledge without this preliminary operation of my getting a near view, as slightly as possible modified by elements proceeding from a different combination of forces, of the spontaneous home-life of the nation.
I accordingly engaged a room in the house of a lady of pure French extraction and education, who supplements the shortcomings of an income insufficient to the ever-growing demands of the Parisian system of sense-gratification by providing food and lodging for a limited number of distinguished strangers. I should have preferred to have my room here only, and to take my meals in a brewery, of very good appearance, which I speedily discovered in the same street; but this arrangement, though very clearly set out by myself, was not acceptable to the mistress of the establishment—a woman with a mathematical head—and I have consoled myself for the extra expense by fixing my thoughts upon the great chance that conformity to the customs of the house gives me of studying the table-manners of my companions, and of observing the French nature at a peculiarly physiological moment, the moment when the satisfaction of the taste, which is the governing quality in its composition, produces a kind of exhalation, an intellectual transpiration, which, though light and perhaps invisible to a superficial spectator, is nevertheless appreciable by a properly adjusted instrument. I’ve adjusted my instrument very satisfactorily—I mean the one I carry in my good square German head—and I’m not afraid of losing a single drop of this valuable fluid as it condenses itself upon the plate of my observation. A prepared surface is what I need, and I’ve prepared my surface.
Unfortunately here also I find the individual native in the minority. There are only four French persons in the house—the individuals concerned in its management, three of whom are women, and one a man. Such a preponderance of the Weibliche is, however, in itself characteristic, as I needn’t remind you what an abnormally-developed part this sex has played in French history. The remaining figure is ostensibly that of a biped, and apparently that of a man, but I hesitate to allow him the whole benefit of the higher classification. He strikes me as less human than simian, and whenever I hear him talk I seem to myself to have paused in the street to listen to the shrill clatter of a hand-organ, to which the gambols of a hairy homunculus form an accompaniment.
I mentioned to you before that my expectation of rough usage in consequence of my unattenuated, even if not frivolously aggressive, Teutonism was to prove completely unfounded. No one seems either unduly conscious or affectedly unperceiving of my so rich Berlin background; I’m treated on the contrary with the positive civility which is the portion of every traveller who pays the bill without scanning the items too narrowly. This, I confess, has been something of a surprise to me, and I’ve not yet made up my mind as to the fundamental cause of the anomaly. My determination to take up my abode in a French interior was largely dictated by the supposition that I should be substantially disagreeable to its inmates. I wished to catch in the fact the different forms taken by the irritation I should naturally produce; for it is under the influence of irritation that the French character most completely expresses itself. My presence, however, operates, as I say, less than could have been hoped as a stimulus, and in this respect I’m materially disappointed. They treat me as they treat every one else; whereas, in order to be treated differently, I was resigned in advance to being treated worse. A further proof, if any were needed, of that vast and, as it were, fluid waste (I have so often dwelt on to you) which attends the process of philosophic secretion. I’ve not, I repeat, fully explained to myself this logical contradiction; but this is the explanation to which I tend. The French are so exclusively occupied with the idea of themselves that in spite of the very definite image the German personality presented to them by the war of 1870 they have at present no distinct apprehension of its existence. They are not very sure that there are, concretely, any Germans; they have already forgotten the convincing proofs presented to them nine years ago. A German was something disagreeable and disconcerting, an irreducible mass, which they determined to keep out of their conception of things. I therefore hold we’re wrong to govern ourselves upon the hypothesis of the revanche; the French nature is too shallow for that large and powerful plant to bloom in it.
The English-speaking specimens, too, I’ve not been willing to neglect the opportunity to examine; and among these I’ve paid special attention to the American varieties, of which I find here several singular examples. The two most remarkable are a young man who presents all the characteristics of a period of national decadence; reminding me strongly of some diminutive Hellenised Roman of the third century. He’s an illustration of the period of culture in which the faculty of appreciation has obtained such a preponderance over that of production that the latter sinks into a kind of rank sterility, and the mental condition becomes analogous to that of a malarious bog. I hear from him of the existence of an immense number of Americans exactly resembling him, and that the city of Boston indeed is almost exclusively composed of them. (He communicated this fact very proudly, as if it were greatly to the credit of his native country; little perceiving the truly sinister impression it made on me.)
What strikes one in it is that it is a phenomenon to the best of my knowledge—and you know what my knowledge is—unprecedented and unique in the history of mankind; the arrival of a nation at an ultimate stage of evolution without having passed through the mediate one; the passage of the fruit, in other words, from crudity to rottenness, without the interposition of a period of useful (and ornamental) ripeness. With the Americans indeed the crudity and the rottenness are identical and simultaneous; it is impossible to say, as in the conversation of this deplorable young man, which is the one and which the other: they’re inextricably confused. Homunculus for homunculus I prefer that of the Frenchman; he’s at least more amusing.
It’s interesting in this manner to perceive, so largely developed, the germs of extinction in the so-called powerful Anglo-Saxon family. I find them in almost as recognisable a form in a young woman from the State of Maine, in the province of New England, with whom I have had a good deal of conversation. She differs somewhat from the young man I just mentioned in that the state of affirmation, faculty of production and capacity for action are things, in her, less inanimate; she has more of the freshness and vigour that we suppose to belong to a young civilisation. But unfortunately she produces nothing but evil, and her tastes and habits are similarly those of a Roman lady of the lower Empire. She makes no secret of them and has in fact worked out a complete scheme of experimental adventure, that is of personal licence, which she is now engaged in carrying out. As the opportunities she finds in her own country fail to satisfy her she has come to Europe “to try,” as she says, “for herself.” It’s the doctrine of universal “unprejudiced” experience professed with a cynicism that is really most extraordinary, and which, presenting itself in a young woman of considerable education, appears to me to be the judgement of a society.
Another observation which pushes me to the same induction—that of the premature vitiation of the American population—is the attitude of the Americans whom I have before me with regard to each other. I have before me a second flower of the same huge so-called democratic garden, who is less abnormally developed than the one I have just described, but who yet bears the stamp of this peculiar combination of the barbarous and, to apply to them one of their own favourite terms, the ausgespielt, the “played-out.” These three little persons look with the greatest mistrust and aversion upon each other; and each has repeatedly taken me apart and assured me secretly, that he or she only is the real, the genuine, the typical American. A type that has lost itself before it has been fixed—what can you look for from this?
Add to this that there are two young Englanders in the house who hate all the Americans in a lump, making between them none of the distinctions and favourable comparisons which they insist upon, and for which, as involving the recognition of shades and a certain play of the critical sense, the still quite primitive insular understanding is wholly inapt, and you will, I think, hold me warranted in believing that, between precipitate decay and internecine enmities, the English-speaking family is destined to consume itself, and that with its decline the prospect of successfully-organised conquest and unarrested incalculable expansion, to which I alluded above, will brighten for the deep-lunged children of the Fatherland!
October 22.
Dear Mother,
I’m off in a day or two to visit some new country; I haven’t yet decided which. I’ve satisfied myself with regard to France, and obtained a good knowledge of the language. I’ve enjoyed my visit to Madame de Maisonrouge deeply, and feel as if I were leaving a circle of real friends. Everything has gone on beautifully up to the end, and every one has been as kind and attentive as if I were their own sister, especially Mr. Verdier, the French gentleman, from whom I have gained more than I ever expected (in six weeks) and with whom I have promised to correspond. So you can imagine me dashing off the liveliest and yet the most elegant French letters; and if you don’t believe in them I’ll keep the rough drafts to show you when I go back.
The German gentleman is also more interesting the more you know him; it seems sometimes as if I could fairly drink in his ideas. I’ve found out why the young lady from New York doesn’t like me! It’s because I said one day at dinner that I admired to go to the Louvre. Well, when I first came it seemed as if I did admire everything! Tell William Platt his letter has come. I knew he’d have to write, and I was bound I’d make him! I haven’t decided what country I’ll visit next; it seems as if there were so many to choose from. But I must take care to pick out a good one and to meet plenty of fresh experiences. Dearest mother, my money holds out, and it is most interesting!
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.
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?
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.
November 1880.
My dear Susan,
I sent you a post-card on the 13th and a native newspaper yesterday; I really have had no time to write. I sent you the newspaper partly because it contained a report—extremely incorrect—of some remarks I made at the meeting of the Association of the Teachers of New England; partly because it’s so curious that I thought it would interest you and the children. I cut out some portions I didn’t think it well the children should go into—the passages remaining contain the most striking features. Please point out to the children the peculiar orthography, which probably will be adopted in England by the time they are grown up; the amusing oddities of expression and the like. Some of them are intentional; you’ll have heard of the celebrated American humour—remind me, by the way, on my return to Thistleton, to give you a few of the examples of it that my own experience supplies. Certain other of the journalistic eccentricities I speak of are unconscious and are perhaps on that account the more diverting. Point out to the children the difference—in so far as you’re sure that you yourself perceive it. You must excuse me if these lines are not very legible; I’m writing them by the light of a railway lamp which rattles above my left ear; it being only at odd moments that I can find time to extend my personal researches. You’ll say this is a very odd moment indeed when I tell you I’m in bed in a sleeping-car. I occupy the upper berth (I will explain to you the arrangement when I return) while the lower forms the couch—the jolts are fearful—of an unknown female. You’ll be very anxious for my explanation, but I assure you that the circumstance I mention is the custom of the country. I myself am assured that a lady may travel in this manner all over the Union (the Union of States) without a loss of consideration. In case of her occupying the upper berth I presume it would be different, but I must make inquiries on this point. Whether it be the fact that a mysterious being of another sex has retired to rest behind the same curtains, or whether it be the swing of the train, which rushes through the air with very much the same movement as the tail of a kite, the situation is at the best so anomalous that I’m unable to sleep. A ventilator’s open just over my head, and a lively draught, mingled with a drizzle of cinders, pours in through this dubious advantage. (I will describe to you its mechanism on my return.) If I had occupied the lower berth I should have had a whole window to myself, and by drawing back the blind—a safe proceeding at the dead of night—I should have been able, by the light of an extraordinary brilliant moon, to see a little better what I write. The question occurs to me, however, would the lady below me in that case have ascended to the upper berth? (You know my old taste for hypothetic questions.) I incline to think (from what I have seen) that she would simply have requested me to evacuate my own couch. (The ladies in this country ask for anything they want.) In this case, I suppose, I should have had an extensive view of the country, which, from what I saw of it before I turned in (while the sharer of my privacy was going to bed) offered a rather ragged expanse dotted with little white wooden houses that resembled in the moonshine large pasteboard boxes. I’ve been unable to ascertain as precisely as I should wish by whom these modest residences are occupied; for they are too small to be the homes of country gentlemen, there’s no peasantry here, and (in New England, for all the corn comes from the far West) there are no yeomen nor farmers. The information one receives in this country is apt to be rather conflicting, but I’m determined to sift the mystery to the bottom.
I’ve already noted down a multitude of facts bearing on the points that interest me most—the operation of the school-boards, the co-education of the sexes, the elevation of the tone of the lower classes, the participation of the latter in political life. Political life indeed is almost wholly confined to the lower middle class and the upper section of the lower class. In fact in some of the large towns the lowest order of all participates considerably—a very interesting phase, to which I shall give more attention. It’s very gratifying to see the taste for public affairs pervading so many social strata, but the indifference of the gentry is a fact not to be lightly considered. It may be objected perhaps that there are no gentry; and it’s very true that I’ve not yet encountered a character of the type of Lord Bottomley—a type which I’m free to confess I should be sorry to see disappear from our English system, if system it may be called where so much is the growth of blind and incoherent forces. It’s nevertheless obvious that an idle and luxurious class exists in this country and that it’s less exempt than in our own from the reproach of preferring inglorious ease to the furtherance of liberal ideas. It’s rapidly increasing, and I’m not sure that the indefinite growth of the dilettante spirit, in connexion with large and lavishly-expended wealth, is an unmixed good even in a society in which freedom of development has obtained so many interesting triumphs. The fact that this body is not represented in the governing class is perhaps as much the result of the jealousy with which it is viewed by the more earnest workers as of its own (I dare not perhaps apply a harsher term than) levity. Such at least is the impression made on me in the Middle States and in New England; in the South-west, the North-west and the far West it will doubtless be liable to correction. These divisions are probably new to you; but they are the general denomination of large and flourishing communities, with which I hope to make myself at least superficially acquainted. The fatigue of traversing, as I habitually do, three or four hundred miles at a bound, is of course considerable; but there is usually much to feed the mind by the way. The conductors of the trains, with whom I freely converse, are often men of vigorous and original views and even of some social eminence. One of them a few days ago gave me a letter of introduction to his brother-in-law, who’s president of a Western University. Don’t have any fear therefore that I’m not in the best society!
The arrangements for travelling are as a general thing extremely ingenious, as you will probably have inferred from what I told you above; but it must at the same time be conceded that some of them are more ingenious than happy. Some of the facilities with regard to luggage, the transmission of parcels and the like are doubtless very useful when thoroughly mastered, but I’ve not yet succeeded in availing myself of them without disaster. There are on the other hand no cabs and no porters, and I’ve calculated that I’ve myself carried my impedimenta—which, you know, are somewhat numerous, and from which I can’t bear to be separated—some seventy or eighty miles. I have sometimes thought it was a great mistake not to bring Plummeridge—he would have been useful on such occasions. On the other hand the startling question would have presented itself of who would have carried Plummeridge’s portmanteau? He would have been useful indeed for brushing and packing my clothes and getting me my tub; I travel with a large tin one—there are none to be obtained at the inns—and the transport of this receptacle often presents the most insoluble difficulties. It is often too an object of considerable embarrassment in arriving at private houses, where the servants have less reserve of manner than in England; and to tell you the truth I’m by no means certain at the present moment that the tub has been placed in the train with me. “On board” the train is the consecrated phrase here; it’s an allusion to the tossing and pitching of the concatenation of cars, so similar to that of a vessel in a storm. As I was about to inquire, however, Who would get Plummeridge his tub and attend to his little comforts? We couldn’t very well make our appearance, on arriving for a visit, with two of the utensils I’ve named; even if as regards a single one I have had the courage, as I may say, of a lifelong habit. It would hardly be expected that we should both use the same; though there have been occasions in my travels as to which I see no way of blinking the fact that Plummeridge would have had to sit down to dinner with me. Such a contingency would completely have unnerved him, so that on the whole it was doubtless the wiser part to leave him respectfully touching his hat on the tender in the Mersey. No one touches his hat over here, and, deem this who will the sign of a more advanced social order, I confess that when I see poor Plummeridge again that familiar little gesture—familiar I mean only in the sense of one’s immemorial acquaintance with it—will give me a measurable satisfaction. You’ll see from what I tell you that democracy is not a mere word in this country, and I could give you many more instances of its universal reign. This, however, is what we come here to look at and, in so far as there appears proper occasion, to admire; though I’m by no means sure that we can hope to establish within an appreciable time a corresponding change in the somewhat rigid fabric of English manners. I’m not even inclined to believe such a change desirable; you know this is one of the points on which I don’t as yet see my way to going so far as Lord B. I’ve always held that there’s a certain social ideal of inequality as well as of equality, and if I’ve found the people of this country, as a general thing, quite equal to each other, I’m not quite ready to go so far as to say that, as a whole, they’re equal to—pardon that dreadful blot! The movement of the train and the precarious nature of the light—it is close to my nose and most offensive—would, I flatter myself, long since have got the better of a less resolute diarist!