Chapter III (1)

The Dinner.--Reflections on the Homage paid to American Women.--Observation of a Fashionable young Lady on American eating.--The Party after Dinner.--An American descanting on the Fashions.--Parallel between English and American Women.--Manner of rising in Society.--Extravagance and Waste of the Middle Classes.--Toad-eating of Fashionable Americans in Europe.--Their Contempt for the Liberal Institutions of their Country.--Manner in which the Society of America may be used as a means of correcting the Notions of European Exaltados.--The British Constitution in high favour with the Upper-Classes.--Southern and Northern Aristocracy contrasted.--Aristocracy of Literati.--American Women in Society and at Home.--Pushing in Society the cause of Failures.--Western Aristocracy.--An Aristocratic Lady in Pittsburgh.--Aristocracy in a Printer’s Shop.--Philosophical Windings-up of the Party.

“To feed, were best at home;
From thence, the sauce to meat is ceremony;
Meeting were bare without it.”

_Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 4.

When we entered the dining-room, soup and fish were already removed, and active operation commenced on chickens, ducks, turkeys, beef, veal, mutton, and pork,--the seven standing dishes in the United States. We were fortunate enough to obtain seats not far from the landlady, right in the middle of a garden of blooming beauties. The ladies were all _en grande toilette_, though among the gentlemen not one appeared to be dressed for dinner. The conversation was very loud; but, notwithstanding, completely drowned in the clatter of knives and forks. I perceived that the women talked, not only much more, but also much louder than the men; American gentlemen of the higher classes being indeed the most bashful creatures, in the presence of ladies of fashion, I ever saw. They approach women with the most indubitable consciousness of their own inferiority, and, either from modesty or prudence, seldom open their lips except to affirm what has been said by the ladies. One is always reminded of poor Candide’s honest prayer, “_Hélas! madame; je répondrai comme vous voudrez_.” I have seen one of the most distinguished old gentlemen in the United States,--one who held the highest rank in the gift of the American people, and whose learning and knowledge on most subjects rendered him a most pleasing and entertaining companion of men,--betray as little self-possession in the presence of women as if he had been making his _début_ in society, and this too in the house of one of his most intimate friends.

This excessive awkwardness in the men, to which even the most distinguished of their race make no exception, must be owing to something radically wrong in the composition of American society, which places men as well as women in a false position. The conviction of this fact must force itself on the mind of every impartial observer who has had an opportunity of making himself familiar with the customs and manners of the higher classes. There appears to be a singular mixture of respect and want of sincerity on the part of the men with regard to the women, produced, I believe, by the unnatural position which the latter hold wherever they are brought into contact with the former.

In the first place, American ladies occupy, from mere courtesy, a rank in society which is not only opposed to that which they hold in private life and in their own families, but which is actually incompatible with the exercise of discretion on the part of the gentlemen. “The ladies must be waited upon;” “the ladies must be helped;” “the ladies must be put into the carriage;” “the ladies must be taken out of the carriage;” “the ladies must have their shoe-strings tied;”[2] “the ladies must have their India-rubber shoes put on;” “the ladies must be wrapped up in shawls;” “the ladies must be led up stairs and down stairs;” “the ladies must have their candles lit for them when they go to bed.” On every occasion they are treated as poor helpless creatures who rather excite the pity than the admiration of men; and as the services they require are numerous, just in proportion to the scarcity of hired servants, the gentlemen are obliged to officiate in their stead.

These continual exigencies cannot but render the society of women often irksome to men who are daily engaged from ten to twelve hours in active business, before they dress to do the agreeable at a party; and hence the retiring of the ladies is but too frequently hailed as the signal for throwing off restraint, or, as I once heard it called, “for letting off the steam,” and being again natural and easy. If in any of these matters the men were allowed to use their own discretion in bestowing attention on those only whom they like, all would be well enough. The ladies would receive a great deal of voluntary tribute; and the gentlemen, delighted with the privilege of a choice, would be more prodigal of their _petits soins_ to those who would have a smile in return for their devotion. But, instead of this, a fashionable American is harassed by an uninterrupted series of exactions, made for no other purpose than for gratifying “the ladies;” while the rules of society are such, that he can scarcely ever find a chance of making himself agreeable to a particular individual. Hence an American _salon_ exhibits nothing but generalities of men and women, in which no other merit is recognised but that which belongs to the sex. In this manner American ladies are worshipped; but the adoration consists in a species of polytheism, in which no particular goddess has a temple or an altar dedicated to herself.

Whenever an American gentleman meets a lady, he looks upon her as the representative of her sex; and it is to her sex, not to her peculiar amiable qualities, that she is indebted for his attentions. But look upon the same lady when she returns home from a party, or after the company has been dismissed at her own house! She is indeed honoured and respected, a happy mother, a silent contented wife, and complete mistress at home; but how seldom is she the intimate friend of her husband, the repository of his secrets, his true and faithful counsellor,--in one word, the better half of his existence! And yet what woman would not rather be _that_, than an idol, placed on an artificial elevation in society, in order to be deprived of her true influence on the deliberations and actions of men. I have undoubtedly seen American ladies who were all a woman could wish to be to their husbands; but I scarcely remember one, especially in fashionable life, who was not quoted to me as an exception to the rule.

Such were my reflections as I took my seat next to the fashionable angel who, by doing me the honour of accepting my arm, was actually doing me out of my dinner. There were but six black servants in the room to wait upon more than fifty people; and in South Carolina I had often seen six negroes wait upon one person, without being able to make him comfortable. Under such circumstances, the business of a gentleman is to see that the lady next to him does not leave the table without having had something to eat; and for this purpose no small exertion and ingenuity are required, especially when one does not know the names of those sable attendants, and has no opportunity of slipping half a dollar into their hands.

At first we waited a while with great patience, showing to our greedy neighbours that we were neither as hungry nor as ill-bred as themselves; but when I saw one dish after the other disappear--the tender loin of the beef gone--the oyster sauce dried up by the side of the carcass of a turkey--everything which once had wings reduced to its bare legs--and these legs themselves to mere drumsticks--

“George!” exclaimed I in despair, “come and help this lady.”

“Never mind me, sir; I get plenty,” whispered the fair.

No answer from the servant.

“John, I say! why won’t you come hither?”

“My name is not John, sir,” grinned one of the negroes as he passed by to wait upon another person.

“Sam, then!” I cried, “and may the Lord have mercy on you!”

“Wat wil you be hept to, massa?” ejaculated a dark, glossy mulatto, whose face looked as if it had just been varnished.

“What will you have, Miss ***?” demanded I of the lady.

“Why, I really don’t know. I have not had time to think of it. They all eat so fast.”

“Sam!” exclaimed a stentorian voice from the other end of the table.

“Yes, massa,” replied Sam, and was seen no more.

“Don’t you think, Miss ***,” said I, “it would be better for you to make up your mind as to what you intend to eat before you come to dinner? It would, I think, be an easy task, as in every large hotel or boarding-house there appears to be the same daily variety of standing dishes.”

“I am not hungry,” replied the lady, with a furtive glance on the plate of her _vis-à-vis_, on which the white tender breast of a turkey, hugged in the embrace of a ruddy slice of Virginia ham, was softly reposing on a bed of mashed potatoes, and that delicious vegetable designated by the poetic appellation of “squash.” The extreme borders of the plate were garnished with cranberry and apple sauce; and a quarter of a cabbage, placed with the dexterity of an artist in the background, just completed the perspective.

“Neither am I,” said I. “Will you allow me to take wine with you?”

A slight convulsion of her body, similar to the one previously described,--and of which no one can form a correct idea who has not witnessed the effect of a galvanic battery on a person touching the two poles,--informed me of her acquiescence. Accordingly I filled both our glasses with champaign; and, looking at her with all the tenderness which the effervescence of that sparkling liquid is capable of inspiring, emptied mine to the very bottom. When I raised my eyes again I found hers dissolved in dew; for, instead of drinking, she had only suffered the spirituous ether to play with the end of her nose, the liquid itself remaining untouched in the vessel. I now began to feel concerned for her; so, seizing the arm of one of the attendants, who was just attempting to make his escape with the remnant of an oyster pie, I made at once a prize of his cargo, and without further ceremony shared it equally with my fastidious companion.

“Now what vegetable will you be helped to?” demanded I.

“To none, if you please, with a _pâté aux huîtres_,” was the reply of the young lady.

“But, before you will have done with the _pâté aux huîtres_, the vegetables will be gone.”

“I am sorry for that,” said she; “but I cannot bear taking so many things on one and the same plate. The very sight of it is sufficient to take away one’s appetite.”

Here her _vis-à-vis_ bestowed upon her a long look of astonishment, resting his left elbow on the table, and reducing the velocity of his right hand, which was armed with a formidable three-pronged fork, almost to zero.

“Indeed,” continued she, without appearing to notice his emotion, “our people do not know how to eat.”

“Indeed, I think they acquit themselves admirably,” said I.

“And do you call _that eating_?” said she. “What must the English think of us when they see us act in this manner? Oh! I wish dinner were over! Are the gentlemen not already leaving the table?”

“Yes, Miss ***; those, probably, whose business will not allow them to stop for pudding.”

“Oh, I did not wish to deprive you of your enjoyment; I would merely tax your politeness with the request of accompanying me to the door.”

“I know no greater happiness than that of obeying your commands,” said I, doing as I was bid. “I shall have the honour of joining you by-and-by in the parlour.”

“Pray, don’t let me interfere with your favourite amusements. I know you like to take a glass of wine and smoke a cigar after dinner.”

“I can assure you,” said I, “I do not smoke at all.”

“What! you don’t smoke? For mercy’s sake! I hope you don’t _chew_?”

“I do not use tobacco in any shape.”

“Well, that is certainly a great recommendation!” exclaimed she. “I wish I could persuade _our_ gentlemen to imitate your example; it would perhaps cure them of the disgusting habit of spitting.”

All this was said sufficiently loud for every one near her to hear; after which the young lady, having attracted the general attention of the company, vanished through the folding-doors with the same ease and composure as a French actress who has been the favourite of the public for years.

When I regained my place, pudding and pastry had disappeared; and, the cloth being removed, dessert was placed on the table. This was of course the signal for the general departure of ladies and gentlemen; so that in about five minutes my friend and myself, two or three elderly gentlemen, the agent of the Manchester house, and the fat English doctor, were the only persons remaining in the room.

“Let us club together,” said the doctor, “and call for an extra bottle of old Carolina madeira.”

“I am glad to hear that,” cried my friend; “but, above all things, let us get some biscuits and cheese,--I have not had a mouthful of dinner.”

“Served you right!” said the doctor; “why will you be prating to those girls? They have had their dinner long ago at a confectioner’s shop. I have made it a rule of my life, ever since I came to this country, to take my place at the end of the table, as far as possible removed from everything feminine; and to the observation of this maxim I am indebted for my good figure, in spite of the fogs and the easterly winds.”

“Why, you know, doctor,” interrupted a thin-looking American, “that your shape would not answer at all for a ladies’ man. In the first place, you have the chest and shoulders of an English collier; your face is full and round, as though you had been swilling porter all your life; your legs, especially your thighs, are the very essence of beef; and, above all, sir, you have a paunch!--a paunch which would frighten any of our West-end ladies into hysterics! An American exquisite must not measure more than twenty-four inches round the chest; his face must be pale, thin, and long; and he must be spindle-shanked, or he won’t do for a party. There is nothing our women dislike so much as corpulency: weak and refined are synonymous.”

“That’s a fact,” rejoined my friend; “I heard Mrs. ***, of F----a, descant on the vulgarity of English women, because they were accustomed to _walk_.”

“And in all sorts of weather, too, without being laid up six weeks with the hooping-cough!” cried the doctor.

“The fact is,” rejoined the American gentleman, “your English women _are_ of a much coarser make than ours; they are eternally taking exercise for their health; and, as for _physical_ strength, I believe there are no women equal to them in the world.”

“And it is well for them they are so,” observed another American, who, I understood, was a gentleman established in New York; “for they are not treated with nearly the same respect as ours.”

“If by respect you mean external attention,” rejoined the doctor, “and more especially exemption from labour and personal exertion, you are certainly right as far as regards your _city_ women of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, &c. Our London women of the middle and even higher classes can walk alone, stand alone, and, when taking tea or coffee, do not require a gentleman to hold the saucer for them. Whenever they require an attendance of this sort, they hire it; and, until they can afford paying a page, manage to dispense with his services.”

“Excellent Englishwomen!” cried the third American, who happened to be a Boston lawyer, and a great admirer of England. “Would to Heaven our Yankee women were like yours! I do not mean to cast a reflection on the high moral qualities of our ladies; for I believe that, in regard to virtue, they can challenge the world for a comparison. I speak of the excessive pretensions and fastidious conduct, not only of our rich fashionable women, but also of the wives and daughters of our men of moderate fortune. No sooner do they find out that their husbands or fathers have laid up a couple of thousand dollars in a bank, than they set up for ladies of the _ton_; and then they want to ride in their own carriages; live in houses for which they pay from eight hundred to a thousand dollars’ rent; give parties to which they invite people whom they never met before, and from which they exclude their friends and nearest relations, in order not to be shamed by their presence; rake up a relationship with some colonel in the revolutionary army, or some noble family in Europe,--the latter is by far the most respectable; hang up the portraits of their ancestors in their parlours; make the tour of the springs in the summer; and spend a winter in Washington. Waste becomes now the order of the day; and if, in spite of their scrambling after fashionable society, they do not obtain access to the very first of it, the men are teased and tormented until they leave their native city to seek in one of the numerous ‘growing places’ of the West an asylum in which they cannot be outdone by the _old families_.”

“Our Yankee moralist is right,” exclaimed the New-Yorker; “nothing can be more contemptible than the endless pretensions of our _parvenus_.”

“If you speak in this manner,” rejoined the Boston lawyer, bestowing a knowing glance on the New-Yorker, “you pronounce sentence on nine-tenths of our industrious citizens. What great difference, after all, is there between a _parvenu_ of ten years’ standing, and a _parvenu_ who is just making his _début_ in society? I have nothing to say against those who by perseverance and success in business have acquired fortunes that enable them to live in a style superior to that of their neighbours; but there is a way of playing the _bourgeois gentilhomme_ which exposes a man deservedly to ridicule.”

“Like Mr. *** the grocer, who has just turned India merchant, and who will crowd his rooms with the most costly furniture, in such a manner that you cannot pass from one into the other without running against a table, a sofa, or a piano.”

“Or like Mrs. ***, the wife of the iron-monger, who has taken it into her head to patronize the arts, and has overhung the nice clean walls of her parlour with all the dirty daubs her husband has bought on his late tour through Italy.”

“Or like Mrs. *** of Philadelphia, the wife of the auctioneer, whose _bals costumés_ are said to rival those of London and Paris, and whose husband gives to his male friends ‘a treat’ once a fortnight.”

“Or like those poor devils who live ‘all in a row’ in the West-end of our city without ever seeing one another, each expecting to be in due time admitted into fashionable society on paying the penalty of a party.”

“To which none but the gentlemen come.”

“And those only at a very late hour, just in time for supper.”

“I should not care for all that,” resumed the Bostonian, “if one could get away from that sort of society; but this is actually impossible, unless one emigrate to the South or West. The same artificial distinctions exist at the South: but then in the Southern States the distinctions are real, not imaginary; they date from the time of the colonies, and, being in part based on the possession of real estate, do not change with every fluctuation of trade. A man may there visit ten years in the same circle without seeing a single new face, except that of a stranger; while in New York every new quotation of exchange excludes a dozen families from the pale of fashion, and creates a dozen new candidates for its imaginary honours. Every commercial loss or gain,” he continued, “exercises a controlling influence on the happiness and prospects of our families. It changes at once their friends, their associates, and often their nearest relations, into strangers. How many ties are thus broken by a single failure in business! and how many failures occur, because the heads of those families dare not retrench,--have not the courage to live within their income,--cannot bring themselves to lead their children out of a higher circle into a lower one,--have not the heart to blight their prospects in life! No! they must play the hypocrite,--live as though they were men of fortune; marry their daughters, who are brought up in the most expensive habits, to young spendthrifts, who expect them to inherit fortunes; and then die, without leaving to their heirs wherewith to procure for them a decent funeral! This, sir, is a picture of our first society, established on the system of credit! And then how much real happiness is lost in the foolish endeavour to get into the first society of our Atlantic cities; which, after all, differs from the second and third, from which it is necessarily daily recruited, in nothing that could strike an European except in the greater display of wealth and waste. The little Miss at school is already panting for the society of ‘the higher girls,’ and cuts her old playmates the moment her father can dress her well enough for better company. No sooner has she left school than she teases and torments her parents until they allow her to give a party, to which, of course, none but her new acquaintances are invited; and which, with her, is the beginning of a new era,--the commencement of her formal separation for life from all her early friends, relatives, and often her own parents. This, sir, is the first act of a young fascinating creature of seventeen, introducing her to the attractions of fashionable life. At that tender age, when girls in other countries are considered as mere children, she has already learned to check the better impulses of her nature, in order to conform to the customs and usages of the world. But this is not all. The bold, sophisticated girl, who has struck out her independent course of life, is no longer conducted and watched by her parents, whose inferior rank in society does not allow them to accompany her to any of the balls and parties to which she is now invited: her mother ceases to be the repository of her secrets, her guardian, and friend; she is barely asked her consent when the young heroine is at last going to be married. If, under these circumstances, and despite of the perverse rules of society, the conduct of our women remains still unexceptionable, it must be ascribed to the force of religion, to the constant occupation of the men, the practice of early marriages, and, above all, to that all-embracing power of public opinion, which in no other country punishes the vicious and guilty with the same unrelenting severity.”

“And a good deal perhaps also to that part of public opinion which punishes the gentlemen as severely as the ladies,” observed the doctor, finishing his glass.

“You may perhaps object,” continued the Bostonian, who appeared to be bent on a homily, “that a similar sort of toad-eating to the higher classes exists also in England; the lower order of the English being even more submissive to those above them than the same classes in America: but on the Continent you seldom see a man or woman pay their court to a superior, except for a special object; the mere admission into fashionable society rarely induces a man to throw away his self-respect, and to cringe and fawn before titled personages.”

“It is for this reason that the manners of certain classes of the English are less free and natural than those of the same orders on the Continent; the former being only easy and agreeable in the society of their native town, where their character is known and understood. Go and visit all the courts of Europe, from Paris to St. Petersburg, and from Stockholm to Naples, and if you find a toad-eater caressing the feet of majesty, and exercising his utmost ingenuity to be on good terms with the most distinguished noble families, you may be sure he is either English or American. But the American will outdo the Englishman. He will be twice as humble before ribands and stars, and three times as insolent to an inferior, as honest John Bull. He will feast six months on the breakfast of a duke, and then regale his countrymen six months longer with the recital of its splendours. He will actually beg himself into society, solicit letters of introduction on the most humiliating terms, pocket quietly a thousand refusals, and, when finally he succeeds in being smuggled into the drawing-room of a princess, is the first to betray her hospitality in publishing her foibles to the world!

“Very few Englishmen will go as far as _that_; and, if there be some that forget to stand sentinel on their dignity, there are fortunately enough of those whose rank, title, and fortune, readily procure them the distinction others are obliged to _court_. But the Americans who go to Europe leave their self-assumed rank in society behind; they go thither as plain citizens of a republic, dependent entirely on their letters of introduction, and the civility of those to whom these letters are directed. Their first care, therefore, is to impress all with whom they come in contact with the belief that, though the spirit of the American constitution recognises no nobility, such an order of society nevertheless exists _de facto_; and that they themselves belong to the ‘few select’ of that ‘large Augean stable.’ I assure you I quote the very words of Americans, as I have often heard them; for railing against their country constitutes one of the chief amusements of our Yankee exquisites at home and abroad.

“In this manner they hope to ingratiate themselves with the old aristocracy of Europe, whom they flatter and console with repeated assurances that the ‘mob government of America’ will not last half a century; and that they themselves are so far converted to the ancient and noble doctrines as to be determined to leave their country for the purpose of sojourning amongst civilized men. On the principle, then, that _one_ repentant sinner is more acceptable in the eye of _the Lord_ than a hundred just men, these Americans are admitted into favour; but, notwithstanding their partial success, few of them understand the art of _se laisser aller_. One can always see that they are not brought up for sociable idleness; and when a bill is presented,--were it even for a patent of nobility,--you would see them wax pale with horror as they thrust their hands into their pockets.”

“I often remarked the penuriousness of fashionable Americans in Europe; but I cannot say that this is a fault to which they are much addicted at home,” observed my friend, with a sarcastic look on the New-Yorker, who, I understood, had just commenced a wholesale business without capital.

“In the United States,” rejoined the Bostonian, “a man will frequently be liberal with the money that is not precisely his own; the credit system allows him to spend more than his income: but in Europe, where he is obliged to pay for everything as he goes along, he soon learns to hold on to the cash.”

“That is one reason,” said my friend; “and the second is, he does not know how to spend his money. He lays it out on things Europeans value but little, and is most parsimonious where Europeans are most liberal. I knew a Bostonian in Paris who would pay twelve francs a day for his fire, and in the evening drive in a common hackney-coach to a party; another would give his wife a shawl of a thousand francs, but refuse her some Nancy embroidery; and a third would purchase for his wife and daughters pocket-handkerchiefs at a hundred francs a-piece, but object to their being washed. I was present when an American lady, who was told by a French gentleman that at a certain shop on the Boulevards there were very nice embroidered ladies’ handkerchiefs to be had at two napoleons a-piece, exclaimed, ‘_Comment! et vous croyez que je puisse porter des mouchoirs à quarante francs?_’

“‘_Et quels mouchoirs portez-vous donc, Madame?_’ exclaimed the Frenchman, half embarrassed and half amazed.

“‘_Je ne porte que des mouchoirs à six-cents francs._’

“‘_Et comment sont-ils donc faits, ces mouchoirs là?_’ demanded the astonished Frenchman.

“‘_Comme ce-ci_,’ replied the lady, turning up her nose, and throwing a huddled-up, dirty, pocket-handkerchief on the table, which the Frenchman, either from delicacy or fear, did not dare to unravel.

“‘_Ah! en vérité_,”’ cried the gallant Parisian, turning away his head, ‘_ils sont excessivement jolis_.’

“When the same lady was afterwards told that she could perform the journey from Paris to Nice for less than a thousand francs, she remarked to her husband who had made the inquiry, ‘Oh, I dare say _some_ people may do it even for less; but we always travel _en grand seigneur_.’”

“Pray,” said the Bostonian, “did that woman never claim any relationship to some European prince? They are seldom very extravagant unless they can prove themselves descended from a nobleman.”

“To be sure she did,” replied my friend; “not indeed to a prince, but to a duke, whose name is preserved in the history of his country. She told her friends and acquaintances that she only came to Europe to assist at the coronation of the Queen of England; which, she being a _dame d’atour_, could not very well be performed without her.”

“Oh, yes!” exclaimed the doctor; “I believe anything of your fashionable characters, except that they can live a month without Epsom salt or calomel.”

“I dare say she would have been just as humble and cringing in company of a British peer, as she was haughty and insolent with a poor Frenchman,” observed my friend. “She would have gone through all the regular stages of toad-eating, in order to procure, as a particular favour, a place in some corner of a room from which she might have peeped at the lovely person of her British Majesty.”

“I am sure of that,” cried the Bostonian; “that’s the way our people do when brought within the sphere of attraction of a court.”

“And is it not strange,” resumed my friend, “that the Americans, who at home are the most thin-skinned people in the world,--always ready to punish in the most severe, and sometimes in the most atrocious manner, every offence offered to the nation or to individuals,--should, on leaving home, so far lay aside their character and self-respect as to literally creep through the palaces of princes for the sordid satisfaction of being able to say that they have been there?”

“The contempt of our fashionable people for the liberal institutions of their country, and their admiration of everything that is European, are so well known and understood in Europe,” observed the Bostonian, “that of all the travellers through France, Germany, and Italy, the Americans suffer the least molestation or inconvenience from passports. Their presence in any country can only serve to chill the ardour of the liberals, as there is indeed no greater punishment for an European demagogue than to pass a year or two in the United States. Our fashionable society is capable of curing the maddest republican of his political distemper. Just send him over here for two months, with plenty of letters to our first people, and he will return home as quiet and loyal a subject as any one born in the sunshine of royal favour.”

“And, on the other hand, it is the European emigrants that have been chiefly instrumental in establishing our present mob government,” observed the New-Yorker. “Those blackguards--I mean principally the Germans and the Irish,--come here with the most ridiculous notions of liberty and equality. Having been slaves all their lives, they set an exaggerated value on freedom, without knowing the value of property. The British constitution, after all, is the best adapted to the wants of a free people; isn’t it?”

“Most assuredly it is,” replied the Bostonian; “we all know it, but none of us dare say so aloud, for fear of being mobbed: but murder will out, you know.”

“What can a man know about our institutions, if he be not ‘raised’ among us?” rejoined the New-Yorker. “Our institutions, after all, are but the English, improved or mutilated, just as you please; but, be this as it may, I prefer the English to our own. I cannot bear equality.”

“Nor I,” said the other American.

“Nor I either,” said the Bostonian; “and I know a number of our people who would not stay in Paris, on account of the ridiculous equality which pervades all classes of French society. They have had quarrels with their servants, and have been summoned with those scoundrels before the same tribunal.”

“That’s the reason I dislike the Irish so much,” resumed the New-Yorker. “They are scarcely a year in the country before they pretend to be equal to our _born_ citizens. I should have no objection to their coming here, provided they would be contented to remain servants,--the only condition, by the by, they are fit for: but when they come without a cent in their pockets, pretending to enjoy the same privileges as our oldest and most respectable citizens, my blood boils with rage; and I would rather live among the Hottentots at the Cape of Good Hope, than in the United States, where every cart-man is as good as myself.”

“I assure you,” said my friend, with a significant smile, “no people in the world are better satisfied of their superiority than the higher classes of Americans. If their pretensions were recognised by the people at large, there would be no happier set of men in the world. There is no species of perfection which they do not attribute to one another: so that one is constantly reminded of the fable of the two asses, one of which found the other an excellent singer, while the latter discovered in the first a great talent for public speaking; the rest of the animals seeing neither the singer nor the orator in either of them. I am at once for an aristocracy like the English, with some lasting, real distinctions. Our patriots have ruined the country by abolishing the institution among us. It would have protected us against the vulgarity of our moneyed men, and produced noblemen instead of fashionable dandies, who are talking of the privileges of gentlemen before they are entitled to the distinction.”

“You are right,” exclaimed the Bostonian, “to ridicule the wooden butterflies that play about our glass-house flowers. No one ever dreamt of mocking the manners of the Dutch merchants. They stick to trade; and, if our merchants were to do the same, they would command the respect of the world, instead of affording amusement by their attempt at aristocratic distinctions. You cannot but esteem Brother Jonathan when you see him on the ocean, or in his workshop; but his affectations in the parlour seldom fail to disgust you. In the _salon_ the most fashionable of our race is but an anomaly, with not one-tenth part the liberality, politeness, and affability of an European. His bow, his smile, his constrained ease, his affected carelessness, his very apparel, and, if he venture himself so far, his conversation, are unnatural; and you are actually moved to compassion when you see him sacrifice himself at a dance. The old people will tell you they give parties for their children; the girls dance because it is the way to get engaged and married; but the young men look upon society as a business they must go through at specified intervals.”

“And yet, mean and contemptible as the elements of our first society may be,” rejoined my Southern friend, “they produce incalculable mischief. In the first place, they are the means of spoiling our women; not that I mean that they destroy their virtue,--which, thank Heaven! is proof against greater temptation than that of our fashionable men, who, moreover, have so little time for the _petits soins_ which the ladies require of them, that they prefer the marrying for good and all to the tedium of a long courtship; but it makes our women indolent, unfit for the performance of domestic duties, and, in many instances, prodigal and sophisticated in the extreme,--and this at an age when Englishwomen scarcely venture out into company. And how small is the number of our fashionable people whose fortunes are at all commensurate with their expensive habits! The country at large is rich, on account of the great ease of our middle and even lower classes; but, in attempting to vie with the splendour of the English nobility, we introduce a reckless system of expenditure, wholly above the means even of our wealthiest people, and undermining the solid basis of our national wealth.”

“Society in America,” continued my friend, “is characterised by a spirit of exclusiveness and persecution unknown in any other country. Its gradations not being regulated according to rank and titles, selfishness and conceit are its principal elements; and its arbitrary distinctions the more offensive, as they principally refer to fortune. Our society takes it upon itself to punish political, moral, and religious dissenters; but most of its wrath is spent upon the champions of democracy. That society is the means of seducing our unsophisticated country members, making them believe that republicanism is only fit for backwoodsmen, is a fact too notorious to be mentioned. It destroys our independence in words and actions, and makes our duties of citizens subordinate to the exactions of a _coterie_. What man is there in this city that dares to be independent, at the risk of being considered bad company? And who can venture to infringe upon a single rule of society, without being published to the world, and persecuted for the remainder of his life? We take it as an insult offered to our joint judgment when a man stubbornly follows his own mind; for we are accustomed to everything, except seeing a man not influenced by the opinion of his neighbours.

“How often have I envied Englishmen for the privilege of being independent in private life! And how often did I wish myself in England, where I might be permitted to have an opinion of my own, and express it, without suffering in the consideration of my friends and the public! Political liberty is, after all, but an abstract and general good, never felt by individuals, unless it be joined to freedom of intercourse, and that degree of independence which leaves a man in all matters relating to himself sole arbiter of his actions. Intolerance and persecution in private and social intercourse are far more odious, and, perhaps, more destructive to the higher faculties of the mind, than the most systematic political despotism acting from above. And yet I would pardon our society all its faults, if it did not act perniciously on the women.”

“Let us hear what complaint our Anglo-maniac has against our women,” exclaimed the New-Yorker, who had already looked more than twenty times on his watch as if pressed by urgent business.

“Oh!” cried my friend, “my charge against them is small, and refers principally to our exclusives: I am sorry that they are unfit for anything but society, and that in society they do not fill the place which belongs to them.”

“A mere trifle!” said the doctor, filling his glass.

“I do not speak of the great mass of our women,” rejoined my friend; “much less of the wives and daughters of our Western settlers, who, Heaven knows, are as busy and industrious as the best German housewives: what I have to say applies merely to our aristocracy, and still more to those who aspire to being considered candidates for that distinction. Our women in general are, as you know, not brought up to work,--the chivalrous spirit of our men spurning such a vulgar abuse of their delicate limbs; they ought, therefore, to be brought up to save, or at least to live within their income. If, for instance, one of our tavern-keepers will not allow his wife and daughters to appear before his guests,--if a shopkeeper will not exhibit his wife before his customers,--I shall certainly respect the feelings and principles of both: but if the tavern or shopkeeper’s wife insists upon living in Broadway, wearing nothing but satin and gros de Naples, and is constantly emptying her husband’s purse for the purpose of ‘pushing in society;’ if she does not regulate her expenditure according to his means; if she takes no pains to ascertain what these means are; in short, if she be but a useless article of furniture in his parlour,--then I certainly maintain that there is something radically wrong either in her education or in the state of society of which she is a member.

“If we had as many distinct and established orders of society as in England, there would not be that everlasting attempt to go beyond one another which particularly characterises our women, and, joined to the credit system, is the cause of so many failures; a circumstance which, in whatever light merchants and bankers may view it, is nevertheless one of the greatest moral evils with which an honest community can be afflicted.

“A large portion of our matrons,” he continued, “would, I am sure, be more happy in wearing muslin or calico, instead of silk; and the men, instead of racking their brains in order to find the means of providing for a thousand unnecessary expenses, would find their homes cheap and comfortable. They would look upon their wives as friends and counsellors, instead of mere companions of their pleasures. Instead of ‘boarding out,’--a custom which is the grave of affection and domestic happiness,--young husbands would be enabled to keep house, and to give their wives a home; a thing which is not so much rendered difficult by the badness of the servants,--the usual complaint of the higher classes,--as by the exactions of society. I know many an American that is now living in Europe merely because he does not wish to board, and is not rich enough to keep house according to our expensive fashion.

“If this state of things were confined only to the wealthier classes,--to those who have large estates and expectances,--all would be well enough; the extravagance of the rich furnishes scope for the industry of the poor: but with us, where young men without fortunes marry, at the age of twenty-one, girls of eighteen that have no money either, where the husband relies solely on his wits for supporting his wife and children, but few men can indulge themselves in reckless expenditure without growing indifferent as to the ways and means of paying their debts. I am proud of the enterprising spirit of my countrymen, who are always full of speculation and hope,--who live in the future, and care little about the present; but I regret that our fashionable ladies too should have caught the inspiration. A large portion of these, as has been said before, know little or nothing about their husbands’ property; they live in houses built or rented on credit, drive in carriages that are not paid for, wear clothes that are charged by the milliner, sit down to a dinner which stands in the book of the victualler, and finally sink to rest on beds that are settled for by a note of six months. They have no other regulator of their expenses but fashion;--but not the fashions of their own country, grown out of the natural position and the manners and customs of the people; but the fashions of Paris and London, made for a different people,--at least different as regards custom and circumstances;--and are at last as much surprised at the bankruptcies of their husbands as their creditors, who took them for rich men.

“And this evil, as I said before, is not confined to a small class; it extends to all who wish to be considered ‘genteel,’--an appellation which is daily working the most incalculable mischief. In order to be ‘genteel,’ it is necessary, in the first place, to know nobody that is _not_ so; and our fashionable women and girls have a peculiar talent for staring their old friends and acquaintances out of countenance, as often as they take a new house. Next, they must live in a particular part of the town, and pay not less than from one to two thousand dollars’ rent. Then they must give so many parties a year, and not be seen wearing the same dress more than once in a season. And last, though not least, their husbands, brothers, and cousins must give evidence of their good breeding by abusing the republican institutions of their country.

“After they have been ‘genteel’ for a number of years, they are permitted to set up for ‘exclusives;’ for which purpose they must live in the West-end of the town, keep a carriage, claim a relationship with some French duke or British earl,--a colonel in the army or a captain in the navy will no longer answer at that stage,--invite the most distinguished Europeans (by way of hospitality) to their houses, and have their parlours ornamented with pictures in proof of their taste for the fine arts.”

“_A-propos!_” exclaimed the doctor; “you remind me of my friend Mr. *** in Boston, who commissioned a gentleman of his acquaintance to purchase in Italy ten thousand dollars’ worth of pictures for his parlour. What sort of pictures did he get? I believe you know him, don’t you?”

“He did not want ‘any good ones,’” replied my friend; “for, when Mr. *** offered to purchase half-a-dozen originals, he was quite out of humour about it, telling him that for that money he expected to have all his rooms full. But let me continue my argument.”

“Don’t interrupt him!” vociferated the Bostonian; “he is just labouring under a spell of Southern eloquence.”

“An American exclusive,” resumed my friend, “is not yet a finished ‘aristocrat.’ There are yet a thousand things about him which betray his low origin, or, as the English have it, ‘smell of the shop.’ Though extravagant and wasteful, he has not yet learned to spend his money with ease and gracefulness. The women do not know how to speak French or Italian; and the boys, brought up sometimes at a public school, (for there are few families in the Northern States incurring the expense of a private tutor,) would necessarily imbibe some of the _vulgarising_ spirit of democracy. As a finish then to the education of father, mother, and children, and perhaps, also, to drown in oblivion the tedious particulars of their rise and progress, our highest and best families emigrate for a short time to Europe, in order, in the society of noblemen, to attain that peculiar high polish and suavity of manners which it is impossible to acquire amidst the bustle of business and the vulgar turmoil of elections.

“How our ladies’ hearts beat when they think of Europe and its pleasures!--of the gay and graceful baronets!--the insinuating lords!--the rich, proud earls!--the noble dukes!--and, oh! the kings and princes and their courts! What magic is there in that word ‘KING!’ to the mind of a _genteel_ American! and how far will he stoop for the distinction of being admitted into his presence! What privilege, I heard them say, is it to shake hands with the President of the United States?--every blackguard, dressed in boots, can do the same. What honour is there in being present at a levee at the White House in Washington?--every journeyman mechanic may enjoy the same pleasure without even a decent suit of clothes. But a reception at a King’s, or a ball at court, are things to be proud of! They have slandered an American minister at St. Petersburg, by saying that he knelt before the Emperor; but I can assure you that in England Americans have assumed that attitude before the Queen!”

“That’s all right!” ejaculated the doctor; “a man cannot be too humble before a woman; but I do not like to see a Yankee humiliate himself before a King.”

“And in proportion before every duke or earl,” interrupted the Bostonian. “I remember, a year ago, while at Paris, to have called on an American lady who had been honoured by a visit from a distinguished Tory leader in the House of Lords. She felt, of course, the raptures of the blessed during his protracted presence; and when he at last rose to take his leave, and actually vanished through the parlour door, she observed to a young American, who had just been announced and was now entering the room, that the gentleman whom he had met in the entry was actually the famous Lord L----t. ‘Lord L----t!’ exclaimed the youth, sinking into a chair; ‘was it really Lord L----t?’ Here followed a pause of one or two minutes, during which he in vain struggled to recover his senses. ‘And this was Lord L----t!’ cried he, gasping for breath, and running to the window to catch another glimpse of the lord. ‘What an extraordinary man that Lord L----t is! How did you become acquainted with Lord L----t? Won’t you introduce me to Lord L----t?’”

“Such scenes as these are not worth relating,” observed my friend. “They occur every day in every capital of Europe infested by our Yankee exquisites. What I most regret is, that our women are the principal actors that flourish in them. I would rather marry a young Tartar girl, than a fashionable American _belle_ after she has made the tour of Europe. If she was heartless before she left America, she is sure to return marble-ised to her own country. And as for our striplings, who are actually worshipping the feudal institutions of Europe, they come home with signets and coats of arms, and a lordly loathing of republican equality.”

“And this is not only the case with your inexperienced boys and girls,” observed the doctor, sipping his glass; “but applies also to your men of letters, your distinguished orators and philosophers. However fiercely they may extol republican institutions in their writings, they all sink the republican in company with lords and ladies. ‘They know nothing of Berkeley-square, though they _fancy_ it to be inhabited by respectable people;’ but give a long account of the routs in the neighbourhood of Grosvenor-square, and are particularly happy in remembering the country seats of the most distinguished peers of the empire.”

“I grant you all this,” replied my friend; “and yet I would pardon Cooper all his sins that way for the love he once cherished for his country. He has suffered severely for the democracy of his earlier days; for the meanest scribbler for a penny paper in the United States thought himself justified in pouring out his venom on the author of ‘The Pilot.’ He is, after all, the only American that ever poetised American history; the nice, gentlemanly, English-looking Washington Irving has, in his ‘Knickerbocker’s History of New York,’ only raised a laugh at the expense of his country.”

“And yet,” observed the Bostonian, “he might have written the history of every American town, from the famous city of Boston down to the creole habitation of New Orleans, without rising into notice in America, had his works not been endorsed by the British public. No people in the world know better than our first society that they have no taste of their own; and it is for this reason that our poets must first seek a reputation in England, before they can expect one in their own country. Washington Irving had more credit as a merchant than as an author, and succeeded in his writings only after he had failed in business. Without the latter circumstance, which may really be called fortunate, his talents would perhaps never have been developed. But let the Carolinian go on with his aristocracy; he has already kept us over an hour, and, if you continue to interrupt him, he will never finish.”