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diff --git a/17648.txt b/17648.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f0b1b42 --- /dev/null +++ b/17648.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8293 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Land of Contrasts, by James Fullarton Muirhead + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Land of Contrasts + A Briton's View of His American Kin + +Author: James Fullarton Muirhead + +Release Date: January 31, 2006 [EBook #17648] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAND OF CONTRASTS *** + + + + +Produced by Bethanne M. Simms, Karen Dalrymple, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + The + Land of Contrasts + + _A Briton's View of his American Kin_ + + + By + + James Fullarton Muirhead + + Author of _Baedeker's Handbooks to Great Britain + and the United States_ + + + Lamson, Wolffe and Company + Boston, New York and London + _MDCCCXCVIII._ + + + Copyright, 1898 + By Lamson, Wolffe and Company + _All rights reserved_ + + + Press of + Rockwell and Churchill + BOSTON, U.S.A. + + + _To + The Land + That has given me + What makes Life most worth living_ + + + + + +Contents + + + Chapter Page + + I. Introductory 1 + + II. The Land of Contrasts 7 + + III. Lights and Shadows of American Society 24 + + IV. An Appreciation of the American Woman 45 + + V. The American Child 63 + + VI. International Misapprehensions and National Differences 74 + + VII. Sports and Amusements 106 + + VIII. The Humour of the "Man on the Cars" 128 + + IX. American Journalism--A Mixed Blessing 143 + + X. Some Literary Straws 162 + + XI. Certain Features of Certain Cities 190 + + XII. Baedekeriana 219 + + XIII. The American Note 273 + + + + + +Author's Note + + +My first visit to the United States of America--a short one--was paid +in 1888. The observations on which this book is mainly based were, +however, made in 1890-93, when I spent nearly three years in the +country, engaged in the preparation of "Baedeker's Handbook to the +United States." My work led me into almost every State and Territory +in the Union, and brought me into direct contact with representatives +of practically every class. The book was almost wholly written in what +leisure I could find for it in 1895 and 1896. The foot-notes, added on +my third visit to the country (1898), while I was seeing the chapters +through the press, have at least this significance, that they show how +rapidly things change in the Land of Contrasts. + +No part of the book has been previously published, except some ten +pages or so, which appeared in the _Arena_ for July, 1892. Most of the +matter in this article has been incorporated in Chapter II. of the +present volume. + +So far as the book has any general intention, my aim has been, while +not ignoring the defects of American civilisation, to dwell rather on +those features in which, as it seems to me, John Bull may learn from +Brother Jonathan. I certainly have not had so much trouble in finding +these features as seems to have been the case with many other British +critics of America. My sojourn in the United States has been full of +benefit and stimulus to myself; and I should like to believe that my +American readers will see that this book is substantially a tribute of +admiration and gratitude. + +J.F.M. + + + + +I + +Introductory + + +It is not everyone's business, nor would it be everyone's pleasure, to +visit the United States of America. More, perhaps, than in any other +country that I know of will what the traveller finds there depend on +what he brings with him. Preconception will easily fatten into a +perfect mammoth of realisation; but the open mind will add +immeasurably to its garner of interests and experiences. It may be +"but a colourless crowd of barren life to the dilettante--a poisonous +field of clover to the cynic" (Martin Morris); but he to whom man is +more than art will easily find his account in a visit to the American +Republic. The man whose bent of mind is distinctly conservative, to +whom innovation always suggests a presumption of deterioration, will +probably be much more irritated than interested by a peregrination of +the Union. The Englishman who is wedded to his own ideas, and whose +conception of comfort and pleasure is bounded by the way they do +things at home, may be goaded almost to madness by the gnat-stings of +American readjustments--and all the more because he cannot adopt the +explanation that they are the natural outcome of an alien blood and a +foreign tongue. If he expects the same servility from his "inferiors" +that he has been accustomed to at home, his relations with them will +be a series of electric shocks; nay, his very expectation of it will +exasperate the American and make him show his very worst side. The +stately English dame must let her amusement outweigh her resentment if +she is addressed as "grandma" by some genial railway conductor of the +West; she may feel assured that no impertinence is intended. + +The lover of scenery who expects to see a Jungfrau float into his ken +before he has lost sight of a Mte. Rosa; the architect who expects to +find the railway time-table punctuated at hourly intervals by a +venerable monument of his art; the connoisseur who hopes to visit a +Pitti Palace or a Dresden Picture Gallery in every large city; the +student who counts on finding almost every foot of ground soaked with +historic gore and every building hallowed by immemorial association; +the sociologist who looks for different customs, costumes, and +language at every stage of his journey;--each and all of these will do +well to refrain his foot from the soil of the United States. On the +other hand, the man who is interested in the workings of civilisation +under totally new conditions; who can make allowances, and quickly and +easily readjust his mental attitude; who has learned to let the new +comforts of a new country make up, temporarily at least, for the loss +of the old; who finds nothing alien to him that is human, and has a +genuine love for mankind; who can appreciate the growth of general +comfort at the expense of caste; who delights in promising experiments +in politics, sociology, and education; who is not thrown off his +balance by the shifting of the centre of gravity of honour and +distinction; who, in a word, is not congealed by conventionality, but +is ready to accept novelties on their merits,--he, unless I am very +grievously mistaken, will find compensations in the United States that +will go far to make up for Swiss Alp and Italian lake, for Gothic +cathedral and Palladian palace, for historic charters and +time-honoured tombs, for paintings by Raphael and statues by Phidias. + +Perhaps, in the last analysis, our appreciation of America will depend +on whether we are optimistic or pessimistic in regard to the great +social problem which is formed of so many smaller problems. If we +think that the best we can do is to preserve what we have, America +will be but a series of disappointments. If, however, we believe that +man's sympathies for others will grow deeper, that his ingenuity will +ultimately be equal to at least a partial solution of the social +question, we shall watch the seething of the American crucible with +intensest interest. The solution of the social problem, speaking +broadly, must imply that each man must in some direction, simple or +complex, work for his own livelihood. Equality will always be a word +for fools and doctrinaires to conjure with, but those who believe in +man's sympathy for man must have faith that some day relative human +justice will be done, which will be as far beyond the justice of +to-day as light is from dark.[1] And it would be hard to say where we +are to look for this consummation if not in the United States of +America, which "has been the home of the poor and the eccentric from +all parts of the world, and has carried their poverty and passions on +its stalwart young shoulders." We may visit the United States, like M. +Bourget, _pour reprendre un peu de foi dans le lendemain de +civilisation_. + +The paragraph on a previous page is not meant to imply that the United +States are destitute of scenic, artistic, picturesque, and historic +interest. The worst that can be said of American scenery is that its +best points are separated by long intervals; the best can hardly be +put too strongly. Places like the Yosemite Valley (of which Mr. +Emerson said that it was the only scenery he ever saw where "the +reality came up to the brag"), the Yellowstone Park, Niagara, and the +stupendous Canon of the Colorado River amply make good their worldwide +reputation; but there are innumerable other places less known in +Europe, such as the primeval woods and countless lakes of the +Adirondacks, the softer beauties of the Berkshire Hills, the Hudson +(that grander American Rhine), the Swiss-like White Mountains, the +Catskills, the mystic Ocklawaha of Florida, and the Black Mountains of +Carolina that would amply repay the easy trouble of an Atlantic +passage under modern conditions. The historic student, too, will find +much that is worthy of his attention, especially in the older Eastern +States; and will, perhaps, be surprised to realise how relative a term +antiquity is. In a short time he will find himself looking at an +American building of the seventeenth century with as much reverence as +if it had been a contemporary of the Plantagenets; and, indeed, if +antiquity is to be determined by change and development rather than by +mere flight of time, the two centuries of New York will hold their own +with a cycle of Cathay. It is, as Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes remarked +to the present writer, like the different thermometrical scales; it +does not take very long to realise that twenty-five degrees of Reaumur +mean as great a heat as ninety degrees of Fahrenheit. Such a city as +Boston amply justifies its inclusion in a "Historic Towns" series, +along with London and Oxford; and it is by no means a singular +instance. Even the lover of art will not find America an absolute +Sahara. To say nothing of the many masterpieces of European painters +that have found a resting-place in America, where there is at least +one public picture gallery and several private ones of the first +class, the best efforts of American painters, and perhaps still more +those of American sculptors, are full of suggestion and charm; while I +cannot believe that the student of modern architecture will anywhere +find a more interesting field than among the enterprising and original +works of the American school of architecture. + +This book will be grievously misunderstood if it is supposed to be in +any way an attempt to cover, even sketchily, the whole ground of +American civilisation, or to give anything like a coherent +appreciation of it. In the main it is merely a record of personal +impressions, a series of notes upon matters which happened to come +under my personal observation and to excite my personal interest. Not +only the conditions under which I visited the country, but also my own +disqualifications of taste and knowledge, have prevented me from more +than touching on countless topics, such as the phenomena of politics, +religion, commerce, and industry, which would naturally find a place +in any complete account of America. I have also tried to avoid, so far +as possible, describing well-known scenery, or in other ways going +over the tracks of my predecessors. The phenomena of the United States +are so momentous in themselves that the observation of them from any +new standpoint cannot be wholly destitute of value; while they change +so rapidly that he would be unobservant indeed who could not find +something new to chronicle. + +It is important, also, to remember that the generalisations of this +book apply in very few cases to the whole extent of the United States. +I shall be quite contented if any one section of the country thinks +that I cannot mean _it_ in such-and-such an assertion, provided it +allows that the cap fits some other portion of the great community. As +a rule, however, it may be assumed that unqualified references to +American civilisation relate to it as crystallised in such older +communities as New York or Philadelphia, not to the fermenting process +of life-in-the-making on the frontier. + +In the comparisons between Great Britain and the United States I have +tried to oppose only those classes which substantially correspond to +each other. Thus, in contrasting the Lowell manufacturer, the +Hampshire squire, the Virginian planter, and the Manchester man, it +must not be forgotten that the first and the last have many points of +difference from the second and third which are not due to their +geographical position. Many of the instances on which my remarks are +based may undoubtedly be called _extreme_; but even extreme cases are +suggestive, if not exactly typical. There is a breed of poultry in +Japan, in which, by careful cultivation, the tail-feathers of the cock +sometimes reach a length of ten or even fifteen feet. This is not +precisely typical of the gallinaceous species; but it is none the less +a phenomenon which might be mentioned in a comparison with the +apteryx. + +Finally, I ought perhaps to say, with Mr. E.A. Freeman, that I +sometimes find it almost impossible to believe that the whole nation +can be so good as the people who have been so good to me. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] I have some suspicion that this ought to be in quotation marks, +but cannot now trace the passage. + + + + +II + +The Land of Contrasts + + +When I first thought of writing about the United States at all, I soon +came to the conclusion that no title could better than the above +express the general impression left on my mind by my experiences in +the Great Republic. It may well be that a long list of inconsistencies +might be made out for any country, just as for any individual; but so +far as my knowledge goes the United States stands out as preeminently +the "Land of Contrasts"--the land of stark, staring, and stimulating +inconsistency; at once the home of enlightenment and the happy hunting +ground of the charlatan and the quack; a land in which nothing happens +but the unexpected; the home of Hyperion, but no less the haunt of the +satyr; always the land of promise, but not invariably the land of +performance; a land which may be bounded by the aurora borealis, but +which has also undeniable acquaintance with the flames of the +bottomless pit; a land which is laved at once by the rivers of +Paradise and the leaden waters of Acheron. + +If I proceed to enumerate a few of the actual contrasts that struck +me, in matters both weighty and trivial, it is not merely as an +exercise in antithesis, but because I hope it will show how easy it +would be to pass an entirely and even ridiculously untrue judgment +upon the United States by having an eye only for one series of the +startling opposites. It should show in a very concrete way one of the +most fertile sources of those unfair international judgments which led +the French Academician Jouey to the statement: "Plus on reflechit et +plus on observe, plus on se convainct de la faussete de la plupart de +ces jugements portes sur un nation entiere par quelques ecrivains et +adoptes sans examen par les autres." The Americans themselves can +hardly take umbrage at the label, if Mr. Howells truly represents them +when he makes one of the characters in "A Traveller from Altruria" +assert that they pride themselves even on the size of their +inconsistencies. The extraordinary clashes that occur in the United +States are doubtless largely due to the extraordinary mixture of youth +and age in the character of the country. If ever an old head was set +upon young shoulders, it was in this case of the United States--this +"Strange New World, thet yit was never young." While it is easy, in a +study of the United States, to see the essential truth of the analogy +between the youth of an individual and the youth of a State, we must +also remember that America was in many respects born full-grown, like +Athena from the brain of Zeus, and cooerdinates in the most +extraordinary way the shrewdness of the sage with the naivete of the +child. Those who criticise the United States because, with the +experience of all the ages behind her, she is in some points vastly +defective as compared with the nations of Europe are as much mistaken +as those who look to her for the fresh ingenuousness of youth unmarred +by any trace of age's weakness. It is simply inevitable that she +should share the vices as well as the virtues of both. Mr. Freeman +has well pointed out how natural it is that a colony should rush ahead +of the mother country in some things and lag behind it in others; and +that just as you have to go to French Canada if you want to see Old +France, so, for many things, if you wish to see Old England you must +go to New England. + +Thus America may easily be abreast or ahead of us in such matters as +the latest applications of electricity, while retaining in its legal +uses certain cumbersome devices that we have long since discarded. +Americans still have "Courts of Oyer and Terminer" and still insist on +the unanimity of the jury, though their judges wear no robes and their +counsel apply to the cuspidor as often as to the code. So, too, the +extension of municipal powers accomplished in Great Britain still +seems a formidable innovation in the United States. + +The general feeling of power and scope is probably another fruitful +source of the inconsistencies of American life. Emerson has well said +that consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds; and no doubt the +largeness, the illimitable outlook, of the national mind of the United +States makes it disregard surface discrepancies that would grate +horribly on a more conventional community. The confident belief that +all will come out right in the end, and that harmony can be attained +when time is taken to consider it, carries one triumphantly over the +roughest places of inconsistency. It is easy to drink our champagne +from tin cans, when we know that it is merely a sense of hurry that +prevents us fetching the chased silver goblets waiting for our use. + +This, I fancy, is the explanation of one series of contrasts which +strikes an Englishman at once. America claims to be the land of +liberty _par excellence_, and in a wholesale way this may be true in +spite of the gap between the noble sentiments of the Declaration of +Independence and the actual treatment of the negro and the Chinaman. +But in what may be called the retail traffic of life the American puts +up with innumerable restrictions of his personal liberty. Max O'Rell +has expatiated with scarcely an exaggeration on the wondrous sight of +a powerful millionaire standing meekly at the door of a hotel +dining-room until the consequential head-waiter (very possibly a +coloured gentleman) condescends to point out to him the seat he may +occupy. So, too, such petty officials as policemen and railway +conductors are generally treated rather as the masters than as the +servants of the public. The ordinary American citizen accepts a long +delay on the railway or an interminable "wait" at the theatre as a +direct visitation of Providence, against which it would be useless +folly to direct cat-calls, grumbles, or letters to the _Times_. +Americans invented the slang word "kicker," but so far as I could see +their vocabulary is here miles ahead of their practice; they dream +noble deeds, but do not do them; Englishmen "kick" much better, +without having a name for it. The right of the individual to do as he +will is respected to such an extent that an entire company will put up +with inconvenience rather than infringe it. A coal-carter will calmly +keep a tramway-car waiting several minutes until he finishes his +unloading. The conduct of the train-boy, as described in Chapter XII., +would infallibly lead to assault and battery in England, but hardly +elicits an objurgation in America, where the right of one sinner to +bang a door outweighs the desire of twenty just persons for a quiet +nap. On the other hand, the old Puritan spirit of interference with +individual liberty sometimes crops out in America in a way that would +be impossible in this country. An inscription in one of the large +mills at Lawrence, Mass., informs the employees (or did so some years +ago) that "regular attendance at some place of worship and a proper +observance of the Sabbath will be expected of every person employed." +So, too, the young women of certain districts impose on their admirers +such restrictions in the use of liquor and tobacco that any less +patient animal than the native American would infallibly kick over the +traces. + +In spite of their acknowledged nervous energy and excitability, +Americans often show a good deal of a quality that rivals the phlegm +of the Dutch. Their above-mentioned patience during railway or other +delays is an instance of this. So, in the incident related in Chapter +XII. the passengers in the inside coach retained their seats +throughout the whole experiment. Their resemblance in such cases as +this to placid domestic kine is enhanced--out West--by the inevitable +champing of tobacco or chewing-gum, than which nothing I know of so +robs the human countenance of the divine spark of intelligence. Boston +men of business, after being whisked by the electric car from their +suburban residences to the city at the rate of twelve miles an hour, +sit stoically still while the congested traffic makes the car take +twenty minutes to pass the most crowded section of Washington +street,--a walk of barely five minutes.[2] + +Even in the matter of what Mr. Ambassador Bayard has styled "that form +of Socialism, Protection," it seems to me that we can find traces of +this contradictory tendency. Americans consider their country as +emphatically the land of protection, and attribute most of their +prosperity to their inhospitable customs barriers. This may be so; but +where else in the world will you find such a volume and expanse of +free trade as in these same United States? We find here a huge section +of the world's surface, 3,000 miles long and 1,500 miles wide, +occupied by about fifty practically independent States, containing +seventy millions of inhabitants, producing a very large proportion of +all the necessities and many of the luxuries of life, and all enjoying +the freest of free trade with each other. Few of these States are as +small as Great Britain, and many of them are immensely larger. +Collectively they contain nearly half the railway mileage of the +globe, besides an incomparable series of inland waterways. Over all +these is continually passing an immense amount of goods. The San +Francisco _News Letter_, a well-known weekly journal, points out that +of the 1,400,000,000 tons of goods carried for 100 miles or upwards on +the railways of the world in 1895, no less than 800,000,000 were +carried in the United States. Even if we add the 140,000,000 carried +by sea-going ships, there remains a balance of 60,000,000 tons in +favor of the United States as against the rest of the world. It is, +perhaps, impossible to ascertain whether or not the actual value of +the goods carried would be in the same proportion; but it seems +probable that the value of the 800,000,000 tons of the home trade of +America must considerably exceed that of the _free_ portion of the +trade of the British Empire, _i.e._, practically the whole of its +import trade and that portion of its export trade carried on with +free-trade countries or colonies. The internal commerce of the United +States makes it the most wonderful market on the globe; and Brother +Jonathan, the rampant Protectionist, stands convicted as the greatest +Cobdenite of them all! + +We are all, it is said, apt to "slip up" on our strongest points. +Perhaps this is why one of the leading writers of the American +democracy is able to assert that "there is no country in the world +where the separation of the classes is so absolute as ours," and to +quote a Russian revolutionist, who lived in exile all over Europe and +nowhere found such want of sympathy between the rich and poor as in +America. If this were true it would certainly form a startling +contrast to the general kind-heartedness of the American. But I fancy +it rather points to the condition of greater relative equality. Our +Russian friend was accustomed to the patronising kindness of the +superior to the inferior, of the master to the servant. It is easy, on +an empyrean rock, to be "kind" to the mortals toiling helplessly down +below. It costs little, to use Mr. Bellamy's parable, for those +securely seated on the top of the coach to subscribe for salve to +alleviate the chafed wounds of those who drag it. In America there is +less need and less use of this patronising kindness; there is less +kindness from class to class simply because the conscious realisation +of "class" is non-existent in thousands of cases where it would be to +the fore in Europe. As for the first statement quoted at the head of +this paragraph, I find it very hard of belief. It is true that there +are exclusive _circles_, to which, for instance, Buffalo Bill would +not have the entree, but the principle of exclusion is on the whole +analogous to that by which we select our intimate personal friends. No +man in America, who is personally fitted to adorn it, need feel that +he is _automatically_ shut out (as he might well be in England) from a +really congenial social sphere. + +Another of America's strong points is its sense of practical comfort +and convenience. It is scarcely open to denial that the laying of too +great stress on material comfort is one of the rocks ahead which the +American vessel will need careful steering to avoid; and it is certain +that Americans lead us in countless little points of household comfort +and labour-saving ingenuity. But here, too, the exception that proves +the rule is not too coy for our discovery. The terrible roads and the +atrociously kept streets are amongst the most vociferous instances of +this. It is one of the inexplicable mysteries of American civilisation +that a young municipality,--or even, sometimes, an old one,--with a +million dollars to spend, will choose to spend it in erecting a most +unnecessarily gorgeous town-hall rather than in making the street in +front of it passable for the ordinarily shod pedestrian. In New York +itself the hilarious stockbroker returning at night to his palace +often finds the pavement between his house and his carriage more +difficult to negotiate than even the hole for his latch-key; and I +have more than once been absolutely compelled to make a detour from +Broadway in order to find a crossing where the icy slush would not +come over the tops of my boots.[3] The American taste for luxury +sometimes insists on gratification even at the expense of the ordinary +decencies of life. It was an American who said, "Give me the luxuries +of life and I will not ask for the necessities;" and there is more +truth in this epigram, as characteristic of the American point of +view, than its author intended or would, perhaps, allow. In private +life this is seen in the preference shown for diamond earrings and +Paris toilettes over neat and effective household service. The +contrast between the slatternly, unkempt maid-servant who opens the +door to you and the general luxury of the house itself is sometimes of +the most startling, not to say appalling, description. It is not a +sufficient answer to say that good servants are not so easily obtained +in America as in England. This is true; but a slight rearrangement of +expenditure would secure much better service than is now seen. To the +English eye the cart in this matter often seems put before the horse; +and the combination of excellent waiting with a modest table equipage +is frequent enough in the United States to prove its perfect +feasibility. + +In American hotels we are often overwhelmed with "all the discomforts +that money can procure," while unable to obtain some of those things +which we have been brought up to believe among the prime necessaries +of existence. It is significant that in the printed directions +governing the use of the electric bell in one's bedroom, I never found +an instance in which the harmless necessary bath could be ordered with +fewer than nine pressures of the button, while the fragrant cocktail +or some other equally fascinating but dangerous luxury might often be +summoned by three or four. The most elaborate dinner, served in the +most gorgeous china, is sometimes spoiled by the Draconian regulation +that it must be devoured between the unholy hours of twelve and two, +or have all its courses brought on the table at once. Though the +Americans invent the most delicate forms of machinery, their hoop-iron +knives, silver plated for facility in cleaning, are hardly calculated +to tackle anything harder than butter, and compel the beef-eater to +return to the tearing methods of his remotest ancestors. The waiter +sometimes rivals the hotel clerk himself in the splendour of his +attire, but this does not render more appetising the spectacle of his +thumb in the soup. The furniture of your bedroom would not have +disgraced the Tuileries in their palmiest days, but, alas, you are +parboiled by a diabolic chevaux-de-frise of steam-pipes which refuse +to be turned off, and insist on accompanying your troubled slumbers by +an intermittent series of bubbles, squeaks, and hisses. The mirror +opposite which you brush your hair is enshrined in the heaviest of +gilt frames and is large enough for a Brobdignagian, but the basin in +which you wash your hands is little larger than a sugar-bowl; and when +you emerge from your nine-times-summoned bath you find you have to dry +your sacred person with six little towels, none larger than a +snuff-taker's handkerchief. There is no carafe of water in the room; +and after countless experiments you are reduced to the blood-curdling +belief that the American tourist brushes his teeth with ice-water, the +musical tinkling of which in the corridors is the most characteristic +sound of the American caravanserai. + +If there is anything the Americans pride themselves on--and justly--it +is their handsome treatment of woman. You will not meet five Americans +without hearing ten times that a lone woman can traverse the length +and breadth of the United States without fear of insult; every +traveller reports that the United States is the Paradise of women. +Special entrances are reserved for them at hotels, so that they need +not risk contamination with the tobacco-defiled floors of the public +office; they are not expected to join the patient file of room-seekers +before the hotel clerk's desk, but wait comfortably in the +reception-room while an employee secures their number and key. There +is no recorded instance of the justifiable homicide of an American +girl in her theatre hat. Man meekly submits to be the hewer of wood, +the drawer of water, and the beast of burden for the superior sex. But +even this gorgeous medal has its reverse side. Few things provided for +a class well able to pay for comfort are more uncomfortable and +indecent than the arrangements for ladies on board the sleeping cars. +Their dressing accommodation is of the most limited description; their +berths are not segregated at one end of the car, but are scattered +above and below those of the male passengers; it is considered +_tolerable_ that they should lie with the legs of a strange, disrobing +man dangling within a foot of their noses. + +Another curious contrast to the practical, material, matter-of-fact +side of the American is his intense interest in the supernatural, the +spiritualistic, the superstitious. Boston, of all places in the world, +is, perhaps, the happiest hunting-ground for the spiritualist medium, +the faith healer, and the mind curer. You will find there the most +advanced emancipation from theological superstition combined in the +most extraordinary way with a more than half belief in the +incoherences of a spiritualistic seance. The Boston Christian +Scientists have just erected a handsome stone church, with chime of +bells, organ, and choir of the most approved ecclesiastical cut; and, +greatest marvel of all, have actually had to return a surplus of +$50,000 (L10,000) that was subscribed for its building. There are two +pulpits, one occupied by a man who expounds the Bible, while in the +other a woman responds with the grandiloquent platitudes of Mrs. Eddy. +In other parts of the country this desire to pry into the Book of Fate +assumes grosser forms. Mr. Bryce tells us that Western newspapers +devote a special column to the advertisements of astrologers and +soothsayers, and assures us that this profession is as much recognised +in the California of to-day as in the Greece of Homer. + +It seems to me that I have met in America the nearest approaches to my +ideals of a _Bayard sans peur et sans reproche_; and it is in this +same America that I have met flagrant examples of the being wittily +described as _sans pere et sans proche_--utterly without the +responsibility of background and entirely unacquainted with the +obligation of _noblesse_. The superficial observer in the United +States might conceivably imagine the characteristic national trait to +be self-sufficiency or vanity (this mistake _has_, I believe, been +made), and his opinion might be strengthened should he find, as I did, +in an arithmetic published at Richmond during the late Civil War, such +a modest example as the following: "If one Confederate soldier can +whip seven Yankees, how many Confederate soldiers will it take to whip +forty-nine Yankees?" America has been likened to a self-made man, +hugging her conditions because she has made them, and considering +them divine because they have grown up with the country. Another +observer might quite as easily come to the conclusion that diffidence +and self-distrust are the true American characteristics. Certainly +Americans often show a saving consciousness of their faults, and lash +themselves with biting satire. There are even Americans whose very +attitude is an apology--wholly unnecessary--for the Great Republic, +and who seem to despise any native product until it has received the +hall-mark of London or of Paris. In the new world that has produced +the new book, of the exquisite delicacy and insight of which Mr. Henry +James and Mr. Howells may be taken as typical exponents, it seems to +me that there are more than the usual proportion of critics who prefer +to it what Colonel Higginson has well called "the brutalities of +Haggard and the garlic-flavors of Kipling." While, perhaps, the +characteristic charm of the American girl is her thorough-going +individuality and the undaunted courage of her opinions, which leads +her to say frankly, if she think so, that Martin Tupper is a greater +poet than Shakespeare, yet I have, on the other hand, met a young +American matron who confessed to me with bated breath that she and her +sister, for the first time in their lives, had gone unescorted to a +concert the night before last, and, _mirabile dictu_, no harm had come +of it! It is in America that I have over and over again heard language +to which the calling a spade a spade would seem the most delicate +allusiveness; but it is also in America that I have summoned a blush +to the cheek of conscious sixty-six by an incautious though innocent +reference to the temperature of my morning tub. In that country I have +seen the devotion of Sir Walter Raleigh to his queen rivalled again +and again by the ordinary American man to the ordinary American woman +(if there be an _ordinary_ American woman), and in the same country I +have myself been scoffed at and made game of because I opened the +window of a railway carriage for a girl in whose delicate veins flowed +a few drops of coloured blood. In Washington I met Miss Susan B. +Anthony, and realised, to some extent at least, all she stands for. In +Boston and other places I find there is actually an organised +opposition on the part of the ladies themselves to the extension of +the franchise to women. I have hailed with delight the democratic +spirit displayed in the greeting of my friend and myself by the porter +of a hotel as "You fellows," and then had the cup of pleasure dashed +from my lips by being told by the same porter that "the other +_gentleman_ would attend to my baggage!" I have been parboiled with +salamanders who seemed to find no inconvenience in a room-temperature +of eighty degrees, and have been nigh frozen to death in open-air +drives in which the same individuals seemed perfectly comfortable. Men +appear at the theatre in orthodox evening dress, while the tall and +exasperating hats of the ladies who accompany them would seem to +indicate a theory of street toilette. From New York to Buffalo I am +whisked through the air at the rate of fifty or sixty miles an hour; +in California I travelled on a train on which the engineer shot +rabbits from the locomotive, and the fireman picked them up in time to +jump on the baggage-car at the rear end of the train. At Santa Barbara +I visited an old mission church and convent which vied in quaint +picturesqueness with anything in Europe; but, alas! the old monk who +showed us round, though wearing the regulation gown and knotted cord, +had replaced his sandals by elastic-sided boots and covered his +tonsure with a common chummy.[4] + +Few things in the United States are more pleasing than the widespread +habits of kindness to animals (most American whips are, as far as +punishment to the horse is concerned, a mere farce). Yet no American +seems to have any scruple about adding an extra hundred weight or two +to an already villainously overloaded horse-car; and I have seen a +score of American ladies sit serenely watching the frantic straining +of two poor animals to get a derailed car on to the track again, when +I knew that in "brutal" Old England every one of them would have been +out on the sidewalk to lighten the load. + +In England that admirable body of men popularly known as Quakers are +indissolubly associated in the public mind with a pristine simplicity +of life and conversation. My amazement, therefore, may easily be +imagined, when I found that an entertainment given by a young member +of the Society of Friends in one of the great cities of the Eastern +States turned out to be the most elaborate and beautiful private ball +I ever attended, with about eight hundred guests dressed in the height +of fashion, while the daily papers (if I remember rightly) estimated +its expense as reaching a total of some thousands of pounds. Here the +natural expansive liberality of the American man proved stronger than +the traditional limitations of a religious society. But the opposite +art of cheese-paring is by no means unknown in the United States. +Perhaps not even canny Scotland can parallel the record of certain +districts in New England, which actually elected their parish paupers +to the State Legislature to keep them off the rates. Let the opponents +of paid members of the House of Commons take notice! + +Amid the little band of tourists in whose company I happened to enter +the Yosemite Valley was a San Francisco youth with a delightful +baritone voice, who entertained the guests in the hotel parlour at +Wawona by a good-natured series of songs. No one in the room except +myself seemed to find it in the least incongruous or funny that he +sandwiched "Nearer, my God, to thee" between "The man who broke the +bank at Monte Carlo" and "Her golden hair was hanging down her back," +or that he jumped at once from the pathetic solemnity of "I know that +my Redeemer liveth" to the jingle of "Little Annie Rooney." The name +Wawona reminds me how American weather plays its part in the game of +contrasts. When we visited the Grove of Big Trees near Wawona on May +21, it was in the midst of a driving snow-storm, with the thermometer +standing at 36 degrees Fahrenheit. Next day, as we drove into Raymond, +less than forty miles to the west, the sun was beating down on our +backs, and the thermometer marked 80 degrees in the shade. + +There is probably no country in the world where, at times, letters of +introduction are more fully honoured than in the United States. The +recipient does not content himself with inviting you to call or even +to dinner. He invites you to make his house your home; he invites all +his friends to meet you; he leaves his business to show you the lions +of the town or to drive you about the country; he puts you up at his +club; he sends you off provided with letters to ten other men like +himself, only more so. On the other hand, there is probably no country +in the world where a letter of introduction from a man quite entitled +to give it could be wholly ignored as it sometimes is in the United +States. The writer has had experience of both results. No more +fundamental contrast can well be imagined than that between the noisy, +rough, crude, and callous street-life of some Western towns and the +quiet, reticence, delicacy, spirituality, and refinement of many of +the adjacent interiors. + +The table manners of the less-educated American classes are hardly of +the best, but where but in America will you find eleven hundred +charity-school boys sit down daily to dinner, each with his own table +napkin, as they do at Girard College, Philadelphia? And where except +at that same institute will you find a man leaving millions for a +charity, with the stipulation that no parson of any creed shall ever +be allowed to enter its precincts? + +In concluding this chapter, let me say that its object, as indeed the +object of this whole book, will have been achieved if it convinces a +few Britons of the futility of generalising on the complex organism of +American society from inductions that would not justify an opinion +about the habits of a piece of protoplasm.[5] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] The Boston Subway, opened in 1898, has impaired the truth of this +sentence. + +[3] It is only fair to say that this was originally written in 1893, +and that matters have been greatly improved since then. + +[4] This may be paralleled in Europe: "The Franciscan monks of Bosnia +wear long black robes, with rope, black 'bowler hats,' and long and +heavy military moustachios (by special permission of the +Pope)."--_Daily Chronicle_, Oct 5, 1895. + +[5] In the just-ended war with Spain, the United States did not fail +to justify its character as the Land of Contrasts. From the wealthy +and enlightened United States we should certainly have expected all +that money and science could afford in the shape of superior weapons +and efficiency of commissariat and medical service, while we could +have easily pardoned a little unsteadiness in civilians suddenly +turned into soldiers. As a matter of fact, the poverty-stricken +Spaniards had better rifles than the Americans; the Commissariat and +Medical Departments are alleged to have broken down in the most +disgraceful way; the citizen-soldiers behaved like veterans. + + + + +III + +Lights and Shadows of American Society + + +By "society" I do not mean that limited body which, whether as the +Upper Ten Thousand of London or as the Four Hundred of New York, +usually arrogates the title. Such narrowness of definition seems +peculiarly out of place in the vigorous democracy of the West. By +society I understand the great body of fairly well-educated and fairly +well-mannered people, whose means and inclinations lead them to +associate with each other on terms of equality for the ordinary +purposes of good fellowship. Such people, not being fenced in by +conventional barriers and owning no special or obtrusive privileges, +represent much more fully and naturally the characteristic national +traits of their country; and their ways and customs are the most +fruitful field for a comparative study of national character. The +daughters of dukes and princes can hardly be taken as typical English +girls, since the conditions of their life are so vastly different from +those of the huge majority of the species--conditions which deny a +really natural or normal development to all but the choicest and +strongest souls. So the daughter of a New York multimillionaire, who +has been brought up to regard a British duke or an Italian prince as +her natural partner for life, does not look out on the world through +genuinely American spectacles, but is biassed by a point of view which +may be somewhat paradoxically termed the "cosmopolitan-exclusive." As +Mr. Henry James puts it: "After all, what one sees on a Newport piazza +is not America; it is the back of Europe." + +There are, however, reasons special to the United States why we should +not regard the "Newport set" as typical of American society. Illustrious +foreign visitors fall not unnaturally into this mistake; even so keen a +critic as M. Bourget leans this way, though Mr. Bryce gives another +proof of his eminent sanity and good sense by his avoidance of the +tempting error. But, as Walt Whitman says, "The pulse-beats of the nation +are never to be found in the sure-to-be-put-forward-on-such-occasions +citizens." European fashionable society, however unworthy many of its +members may be, and however relaxed its rules of admission have +become, has its roots in an honourable past; its theory is fine; not +_all_ the big names of the British aristocracy can be traced back to +strong ales or weak (Lucy) Waters. Even those who desire the abolition +of the House of Peers, or look on it, with Bagehot, as "a vapid +accumulation of torpid comfort," cannot deny that it is an institution +that has grown up naturally with the country, and that it is only now +(if even now) that it is felt with anything like universality to be an +anomaly. The American society which is typified by the four hundred of +New York, the society which marries its daughters to English peers, is +in a very different position. It is of mushroom growth even according +to American standards; it has theoretically no right to exist; it is +entirely at variance with the spirit of the country and contradictory +of its political system; it is almost solely conditioned by +wealth;[6] it is disregarded if not despised by nine-tenths of the +population; it does not really count. However seriously the little +cliques of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia may take themselves, +they are not regarded seriously by the rest of the country in any +degree comparable to the attitude of the British Philistine towards +the British Barbarian. Without the appropriate background of king and +nobility, the whole system is ridiculous; it has no _national_ basis. +The source of its honour is ineradicably tainted. It is the _reductio +ad absurdum_ of the idea of aristocratic society. It is divorced from +the real body of democracy. It sets no authoritative standard of +taste. If anything could reconcile the British Radical to his House of +Lords, it would be the rankness of taste, the irresponsible freaks of +individual caprice, that rule in a country where there is no carefully +polished noblesse to set the pattern. George William Curtis puts the +case well: "Fine society is no exotic, does not avoid, but all that +does not belong to it drops away like water from a smooth statue. We +are still peasants and parvenues, although we call each other princes +and build palaces. Before we are three centuries old we are +endeavouring to surpass, by imitating, the results of all art and +civilisation and social genius beyond the sea. By elevating the +standard of expense we hope to secure select society, but have only +aggravated the necessity of a labour integrally fatal to the kind of +society we seek." + +It would, of course, be a serious mistake to assume that, because +there are no titles and no theory of caste in the United States, there +are no social distinctions worth the trouble of recognition. Besides +the crudely obvious elevation of wealth and "smartness" already +referred to, there are inner circles of good birth, of culture, and so +on, which are none the less practically recognised because they are +theoretically ignored. Of such are the old Dutch clans of New York, +which still, I am informed, regard families like the Vanderbilts as +upstarts and parvenues. In Chicago there is said to be an inner circle +of forty or fifty families which is recognised as the "best society," +though by no means composed of the richest citizens. In Boston, though +the Almighty Dollar now plays a much more important role than before, +it is still a combination of culture and ancestry that sets the most +highly prized hall-mark on the social items. And indeed the heredity +of such families as the Quincys, the Lowells, the Winthrops, and the +Adamses, which have maintained their superior position for +generations, through sheer force of ability and character, without the +external buttresses of primogeniture and entail, may safely measure +itself against the stained lineage of many European families of high +title. The very absence of titular distinction often causes the lines +to be more clearly drawn; as Mr. Charles Dudley Warner says: "Popular +commingling in pleasure resorts is safe enough in aristocratic +countries, but it will not answer in a republic." There is, however, +no universal theory that holds good from New York to California; and +hence the generalising foreigner is apt to see nothing but practical +as well as theoretical equality. + +In spite of anything in the foregoing that may seem incompatible, the +fact remains that the distinguishing feature of American society, as +contrasted with the societies of Europe, is the greater approach to +equality that it has made. It is in this sphere, and not in those of +industry, law, or politics, that the British observer must feel that +the American breathes a distinctly more liberal and democratic air +than he. The processes of endosmose and exosmose go on under much +freer conditions; the individual particle is much more ready to +filtrate up or down to its proper level. Mr. W.D. Howells writes that +"once good society contained only persons of noble or gentle birth; +then persons of genteel or sacred callings were admitted; now it +welcomes to its level everyone of agreeable manners or cultivated +mind;" and this, which may be true of modern society in general, is +infinitely more true in America than elsewhere. It might almost be +asserted that everyone in America ultimately finds his proper social +niche; that while many are excluded from the circles for which they +_think_ themselves adapted, practically none are shut off from their +really harmonious _milieu_. The process of segregation is deprived to +a large extent of the disagreeableness consequent upon a rigid table +of precedence. Nothing surprises an American more in London society +than the uneasy sense of inferiority that many a distinguished man of +letters will show in the presence of a noble lord. No amount of +philosophy enables one to rise entirely superior to the trammels of +early training and hoary association. Even when the great novelist +feels himself as at least on a level with his ducal interlocutor, he +cannot ignore the fact that his fellow-guests do not share his +opinion. Now, without going the length of asserting that there is +absolutely nothing of this kind in the intercourse of the American +author with the American railroad magnate, it may be safely stated +that the general tone of society in America makes such an attitude +rare and unlikely. There social equality has become an instinct, and +the ruling note of good society is of pleasant cameraderie, without +condescension on the one hand or fawning on the other. "The democratic +system deprives people of weapons that everyone does not equally +possess. No one is formidable; no one is on stilts; no one has great +pretensions or any recognised right to be arrogant." (Henry James.) +The spirit of goodwill, of a desire to make others happy (especially +when it does not incommode you to do so), swings through a much larger +arc in American society than in English. One can be surer of one's +self, without either an overweening self-conceit or the assumption of +brassy self-assertion. + +The main rock of offence in American society is, perhaps, its tendency +to attach undue importance to materialistic effects. Plain living with +high thinking is not so much of an American formula as one would wish. +In the smart set of New York, and in other places _mutatis mutandis_, +this shows itself in an appallingly vulgar and ostentatious display of +mere purchase power. We are expected to find something grand in the +fact that an entertainment costs so much; there is little recognition +of the truth that a man who spends $100 where $10 would meet all the +demands of good taste is not only a bad economist, but essentially +bourgeois and _torne_ in soul. Even roses are vulgarised, if that be +possible, by production in the almost obtrusively handsome variety +known as the "American Beauty," and by being heaped up like hay-stacks +in the reception rooms. At a recent fashionable marriage in New York +no fewer than 20,000 sprays of lily of the valley are reported to have +been used. A short time ago a wedding party travelled from Chicago to +Burlington (Iowa) on a specially constructed train which cost L100,000 +to build; the fortunes of the heads of the few families represented +aggregated L100,000,000. The private drawing-room cars of millionaires +are _too_ handsome; they do not indicate so much a necessity of taste +as a craving to spend. Many of the best hotels are characterised by a +tasteless magnificence which annoys rather than attracts the artistic +sense. At one hotel I stayed at in a fashionable watering-place the +cheapest bedroom cost L1 a night; but I did not find that its costly +tapestry hangings, huge Japanese vases, and elaborately carved +furniture helped me to woo sweet slumber any more successfully than +the simple equipments of an English village inn. Indeed, they rather +suggested insomnia, just as the ominous name of "Macbeth," affixed to +one of the bedrooms in the Shakespeare Hotel at Stratford-on-Avon, +immediately suggested the line "Macbeth doth murder sleep." + +This materialistic tendency, however, which its defenders call a +higher standard of comfort, is not confined to the circles of the +millionaires; it crops out more or less at all the different levels. +Americans seem a _little_ more dependent on bodily comforts than +Englishmen, a _little_ more apt to coddle themselves, a _little_ less +hardy. They are more susceptible to variations of temperature, and +hence the prevalent over-heating of their houses, hotels, and +railway-cars. A very slight shower will send an American into his +overshoes.[7] There is more of a self-conscious effort in the +encouragement of manly sports. Americans seldom walk when they can +ride. The girls are apt to be annoyed if a pleasure-party be not +carried out so as to provide in the fullest way for their personal +comfort. + +This last sentence suggests a social practice of the United States +which, perhaps, may come under the topic we are at present discussing. +I mean the custom by which girls allow their young men friends to +incur expense in their behalf. I am aware that this custom is on the +wane in the older cities, that the most refined girls in all parts of +the Union dislike it, that it is "bad form" in many circles. In the +bowling-club to which I had the pleasure to belong the ladies paid +their subscriptions "like a man;" when I drove out on sleigh-parties, +the girls insisted on paying their share of the expense. The fact, +however, remains that, speaking generally and taking class for class, +the American girl allows her admirers to spend their money on her much +more freely than the English girl. A man is considered mean if he does +not pay the car-fare of his girl companion; a girl will allow a man +who is merely a "friend" to take her to the theatre, fetching her and +taking her home in a carriage hired at exorbitant rates. The +_Illustrated American_ (Jan. 19, 1895) writes: + + The advanced ideas prevalent in this country regarding the + relations of the opposite sexes make it not only proper, but + necessary, that a young man with serious intentions shall take + his sweetheart out, give her presents, send her flowers, go + driving with her, and in numberless little ways incur expense. + This is all very delightful for her, but to him it means ruin. + And at the end he may find that she was only flirting with him. + +In fact, whenever a young man and a young woman are associated in any +enterprise, it is quite usual for the young man to pay for both. On +the whole, this custom seems an undesirable one. It is so much a +matter of habit that the American girl usually plays her part in the +matter with absolute innocence and unconsciousness; she feels no more +obligation than an English girl would for the opening of a door. The +young man also takes it as a matter of course, and does not in the +least presume on his services. But still, I think, it has a slight +tendency to rub the bloom off what ought to be the most delicate and +ethereal form of social intercourse. It favours the well-to-do youth +by an additional handicap. It throws another obstacle in the track of +poverty and thrift. It is contrary to the spirit of democratic +equality; the woman who accepts such attentions is tacitly allowing +that she is not on the same footing as man. On reflection it must +grate a little on the finest feelings. There seems to me little doubt +that it will gradually die out in circles to which it would be strange +in Europe. + +On the whole, however, even with such drawbacks as the above, the +social relationship of the sexes in the United States is one of the +many points in which the new surpasses the old. The American girl is +thrown into such free and ample relations with the American boy from +her earliest youth up that she is very apt to look upon him simply as +a girl of a stronger growth. Some such word as the German +_Geschwister_ is needed to embrace the "young creatures" who, in +petticoats or trousers, form the genuine democracy of American youth. +Up to the doors of college, and often even beyond them, the boy and +girl have been "co-educated;" at the high school the boy has probably +had a woman for his teacher, at least in some branches, up to his +sixteenth or seventeenth year. The hours of recreation are often spent +in pastimes in which girls may share. In some of the most +characteristic of American amusements, such as the "coasting" of +winter, girls take a prominent place. There is no effort on the part +of elders to play the spy on the meetings of boy or girl, or to place +obstacles in their way. They are not thought of as opposite sexes; it +is "just all the young people together." The result is a spirit of +absolute good comradeship. There is little atmosphere of the unknown +or the mysterious about the opposite sex. The love that leads to +marriage is thus apt to be the product of a wider experience, and to +be based on a more intimate knowledge. The sentimental may cry fie on +so clear-sighted a Cupid, but the sensible cannot but rejoice over +anything that tends to the undoing of the phrase "lottery of +marriage." + +That the ideal attitude towards and in marriage has been attained in +average American society I should be the last to assert. The way in +which American wives leave their husbands toiling in the sweltering +city while they themselves fleet the time in Europe would alone give +me pause. But I am here concerned with the relative and not the +absolute; and my contention is that the average marriage in America is +apt to be made under conditions which, compared with those of other +nations, increase the chances of happiness. A great deal has been said +and written about the inconsistency of the marriage laws of the +different States, and much cheap wit has been fired off at the fatal +facility of divorce in the United States; but I could not ascertain +from my own observation that these defects touched any very great +proportion of the population, or played any larger part in American +society, as I have defined it, than the differences between the +marriage laws of England and Scotland do in our own island. M. +Bourget, quite arbitrarily and (I think) with a trace of the +proverbial Gallic way of looking at the relations of the sexes, has +attributed the admitted moral purity of the atmosphere of American +society to the coldness of the American temperament and the _sera +juvenum Venus_. It seems to me, however, that there is no call to +disparage American virtue by the suggestion of a constitutional want +of liability to temptation, and that Mark Twain, in his somewhat +irreverent rejoinder, is much nearer the mark when he attributes the +prevalent sanctity of the marriage tie to the fact that the husbands +and wives have generally married each other for love. This is +undoubtedly the true note of America in this particular, though it may +not be unreservedly characteristic of the smart set of New York. If +the sacred flame of Cupid could be exposed to the alembic of +statistics, I should be surprised to hear that the love matches of the +United States did not reach a higher percentage than those of any +other nation. One certainly meets more husbands and wives of mature +age who seem thoroughly to enjoy each other's society. + +There is a certain "snap" to American society that is not due merely +to a sense of novelty, and does not wholly wear off through +familiarity. The sense of enjoyment is more obvious and more evenly +distributed; there is a general willingness to be amused, a general +absence of the _blase_. Even Matthew Arnold could not help noticing +the "buoyancy, enjoyment, and freedom from restraint which are +everywhere in America," and which he accounted for by the absence of +the aristocratic incubus. The nervous fluid so characteristic of +America in general flows briskly in the veins of its social organism; +the feeling is abroad that what is worth doing is worth doing well. +There is a more general ability than we possess to talk brightly on +the topics of the moment; there is less lingering over one subject; +there is a constant savour of the humorous view of life. The more even +distribution of comfort in the United States (becoming, alas! daily +less characteristic) adds largely to the pleasantness of society by +minimising the semi-conscious feeling of remorse in playing while the +"other half" starves. The inherent inability of the American to +understand that there is any "higher" social order than his own +minimises the feeling of envy of those "above" him. "How dreadful," +says the Englishman to the American girl, "to be governed by men to +whom you would not speak!" "Yes," is the rejoinder, "and how +delightful to be governed by men who won't speak to you!" From this +latter form of delight American society is free. Henry James strikes a +true note when he makes Miranda Hope (in "A Bundle of Letters") +describe the fashionable girl she met at a Paris pension as "like the +people they call 'haughty' in books," and then go on to say, "I have +never seen anyone like that before--anyone that wanted to make a +difference." And her feeling of impersonal interest in the phenomenon +is equally characteristic. "She seemed to me so like a proud young +lady in a novel. I kept saying to myself all day, 'haughty, haughty,' +and I wished she would keep on so." Too much stress cannot easily be +laid on this feeling of equality in the air as a potent enhancer of +the pleasure of society. To feel yourself patronised--even, perhaps +especially, when you know yourself to be in all respects the superior +of the patroniser--may tickle your sense of humour for a while, but in +the long run it is distinctly dispiriting. The philosopher, no doubt, +is or should be able to disregard the petty annoyances arising from an +ever-present consciousness of social limitation, but society is not +entirely composed of philosophers, even in America; and the sense of +freedom and space is unqualifiedly welcome to its members. It is not +easy for a European to the manner born to realise the sort of +extravagant, nightmare effect that many of our social customs have in +the eyes of our untutored American cousins. The inherent absurdities +that are second nature to us exhale for them the full flavour of their +grotesqueness. The idea of an insignificant boy peer taking precedence +of Mr. John Morley! The idea of _having_ to appear before royalty in a +state of partial nudity on a cold winter day! The necessity of backing +out of the royal presence! The idea of a freeborn Briton having to get +out of an engagement long previously formed on the score that "he has +been _commanded_ to dine with H.R.H." The horrible capillary plaster +necessary before a man can serve decently as an opener of +carriage-doors! The horsehair envelopes without which our legal brains +cannot work! The unwritten law by which a man has to nurse his hat and +stick throughout a call unless his hostess specially asks him to lay +them aside! + +Mr. Bryce commits himself to the assertion that "Scotchmen and +Irishmen are more unlike Englishmen, the native of Normandy more +unlike the native of Provence, the Pomeranian more unlike the +Wurtemberger, the Piedmontese more unlike the Neapolitan, the Basque +more unlike the Andalusian, than the American from any part of the +country is to the American from any other." Max O'Rell, on the other +hand, writes: "L'habitant du Nord-est des Etats Unis, le Yankee, +differe autant de l'Americain de l'Ouest et du Midi que l'Anglais +differe de l'Allemand ou de l'Espagnol." On this point I find myself +far more in accord with the French than with the British observer, +though, perhaps, M. Blouet rather overstates his case. Wider +differences among civilised men can hardly be imagined than those +which subsist between the creole of New Orleans and the Yankee of +Maine, the Kentucky farmer and the Michigan lumberer. It is, however, +true that there is a distinct tendency for the stamp of the Eastern +States to be applied to the inhabitants of the cities, at least, of +the West. The founders of these cities are so largely men of Eastern +birth, the means of their expansion are so largely advanced by Eastern +capitalists, that this tendency is easily explicable. [So far as my +observation went it was to Boston rather than to New York or +Philadelphia that the educated classes of the Western cities looked +as the cynosure of their eyes. Boston seemed to stand for something +less material than these other cities, and the subtler nature of its +influence seemed to magnify its pervasive force.] None the less do the +people of the United States, compared with those of any one European +country, seem to me to have their due share of variety and even of +picturesqueness. This latter quality is indeed denied to the United +States not only by European visitors, but also by many Americans. This +denial, however, rests on a limited and traditional use of the word +picturesque. America has not the European picturesqueness of costume, +of relics of the past, of the constant presence of the potential +foeman at the gate. But apart altogether from the almost theatrical +romance of frontier life and the now obsolescent conflict with the +aborigines, is there not some element of the picturesque in the +processes of readjustment by which the emigrants of European stock +have adapted themselves and are adapting themselves to the conditions +of the New World? In some ways the nineteenth century is the most +romantic of all; and the United States embody and express it as no +other country. Is there not a picturesque side to the triumph of +civilisation over barbarism? Is there nothing of the picturesque in +the long thin lines of gleaming steel, thrown across the countless +miles of desert sand and alkali plain, and in the mighty mass of metal +with its glare of cyclopean eye and its banner of fire-illumined +smoke, that bears the conquerors of stubborn nature from side to side +of the great continent? Is there not an element of the picturesque in +the struggles of the Western farmer? Can anything be finer in its way +than a night view of Pittsburg--that "Hell with its lid off," where +the cold gleam of electricity vies with the lurid glare of the +furnaces and smelting works? I say nothing of the Californian +Missions; of the sallow creoles of New Orleans with their gorgeous +processions of Mardi-Gras; or of the almost equally fantastic fete of +the Veiled Prophet of St. Louis; or of the lumberers of Michigan; or +of the Mexicans of Arizona; or of the German beer-gardens of Chicago; +or of the swinging lanterns and banners of Chinatown in San Francisco +and Mott street in New York; or of the Italians of Mulberry Bend in +the latter city; or of the alternating stretches on a long railway +journey of forest and prairie, yellow corn-fields and sandy desert; or +of many other classes and conditions which are by no means void of +material for the artist in pen or brush. All these lend hues that are +anything but prosaic to my kaleidoscopic recollections of the United +States; but more than all these, _the_ characteristically picturesque +feature of American life, stands out the omnipresent negro. It was a +thrill to have one's boots blackened by a coloured "professor" in an +alley-way of Boston, and to hear his richly intoned "as shoh's you're +bawn." It was a delight to see the negro couples in the Public Garden, +conducting themselves and their courting, as Mr. Howells has well +remarked, with infinitely more restraint and refinement than their +Milesian compeers, or to see them passing out of the Charles-street +Church in all the Sunday bravery of broadcloth coats, shiny hats, +wonderfully laundered skirts of snowy whiteness, and bodices of all +the hues of the rainbow. And all through the Union their glossy black +faces and gleaming white teeth shed a kind of dusky radiance over the +traveller's path. Who but can recall with gratitude the expansive +geniality and reassuring smile of the white-coated negro waiter, as +compared with the supercilious indifference, if not positive rudeness, +of his pale colleague? And what will ever efface the mental kodak of +George (not Sambo any more) shuffling rapidly into the dining-room, +with his huge flat palm inverted high over his head and bearing a +colossal tray heaped up with good things for the guest under his +charge? And shall I ever forget the grotesque gravity of the negro +brakeman in Louisiana, with his tall silk hat? or the pair of gloves +pathetically shared between two neatly dressed negro youths in a +railway carriage in Georgia? or the pickaninnies slumbering sweetly in +old packing-cases in a hut at Jacksonville, while their father +thrummed the soft guitar with friendly grin? It has always seemed to +me a reproach to American artists that they fill the air with sighs +over the absence of the picturesque in the United States, while almost +totally overlooking the fine flesh-tones and gay dressing of the +coloured brother at their elbow. + +The most conventional society of America is apt to be more or less +shrouded by the pall of monotony that attends convention elsewhere, +but typical American society--the society of the great mass of +Americans--shows distinctly more variety than that of England. In +social meetings, as in business, the American is ever on the alert for +some new thing: and the brain of every pretty girl is cudgelled in +order to provide some novelty for her next party. Hence the +progressive euchre, the "library" parties, the "shadow" dances, the +conversation parties, and the long series of ingenious games, the +adoption of which, for some of us at least, has done much to lighten +the deadly dulness of English "small and earlies." Even the +sacro-sanctity of whist has not been respected, and the astonished +shade of Hoyle has to look on at his favourite game in the form of +"drive" and "duplicate." The way in which whist has been taken up in +the United States is a good example of the national unwillingness to +remain in the ruts of one's ancestors. Possibly the best club-players +of England are at least as good as the best Americans, but the general +average of play and the general interest in the game are distinctly +higher in the United States. Every English whist-player with any +pretension to science knows what he has to expect when he finds an +unknown lady as his partner, especially if she is below thirty; but in +America he will often find himself "put to his trumps" by a bright +girl in her teens. The girls in Boston and other large cities have +organised afternoon whist-clubs, at which all the "rigour of the game" +is observed. Many of them take regular lessons from whist experts; and +among the latter themselves are not a few ladies, who find the +teaching of their favourite game a more lucrative employment than +governessing or journalism. Even so small a matter as the eating of +ice-cream may illustrate the progressive nature of American society. +Elderly Americans still remember the time when it was usual to eat +this refreshing delicacy out of economical wine-glasses such as we +have still to be content with in England. But now-a-days no American +expects or receives less than a heaping saucer of ice-cream at a time. + +Americans are born dancers; they have far more quicksilver in their +feet than their English cousins. Perhaps the very best waltzers I have +ever danced with were English girls, who understood the poetry of the +art and knew how to reflect not merely the time of the music, but its +_nuances_ of rhythm and tone. But dancers such as these are like +fairies' visits, that come but once or twice in a lifetime; and a +large proportion of English girls dance very badly. In America one +seldom or never finds a girl who cannot dance fairly, and most of them +can claim much warmer adverbs than that. The American invention of +"reversing" is admirable in its unexaggerated form, but requires both +study and practice; and the reason that it was voted "bad form" in +England was simply that the indolence of the gilded youth prevented +him ever taking the trouble to master it. Our genial satirist _Punch_ +hit the nail on the head: "Shall we--eh--reverse, Miss Lilian?" +"Reverse, indeed; it's as much as you can do to keep on your legs as +it is." + +One custom at American dances struck me as singularly stupid and +un-American in its inelasticity. I know not how widespread it is, or +how fashionable, but it reigned in circles which seemed to my +unsophisticated eyes quite _comme il faut_. The custom is that by +which a man having once asked a lady to dance becomes responsible for +her until someone else offers himself as her partner. It probably +arose from the chivalrous desire not to leave any girl partnerless, +but in practice it works out quite the other way. When a man realises +that he _may_ have to retain the same partner for several dances, or +even for the greater part of the evening, he will, unless he is a +Bayard absolutely _sans peur et sans reproche_, naturally think twice +of engaging a lady from whom his release is problematical. Hence the +tendency is to increase the triumphs of the belle, and decrease the +chances of the less popular maiden. It is also extremely uncomfortable +for a girl to feel that a man has (to use the ugly slang of the +occasion) "got stuck" with her; and it takes more adroitness and +self-possession than any young girl can be expected to possess to +extricate herself neatly from the awkward position. Another funny +custom at subscription balls of a very respectable character is that +many of the matrons wear their bonnets throughout the evening. But +this, perhaps, is not stranger than the fact that ladies wear hats in +the theatre, while the men who accompany them are in evening dress--a +curious habit which to the uninitiated observer would suggest that the +nymphs belonged to a less fashionable stratum than their attendant +swains. A parallel instance is that of afternoon receptions, where the +hostess and her myrmidons appear in ball costume, while the visitors +are naturally in the toilette of the street. The contrast thus evolved +of low necks and heavy furs is often very comical. The British +convention by which the hostess always dresses as plainly as possible +so as to avoid the chance of eclipsing any of her guests, and so +chooses to _briller par sa simplicite_, is in other cases also more +honoured in the breach than in the observance in America. + +A very characteristic little piece of the social democracy of America +is seen at its best in Chicago, though not unknown in other large +cities. On the evening of a hot summer day cushions and rugs are +spread on the front steps of the houses, and the occupants take +possession of these, the men to enjoy their after-dinner cigars, the +women to talk and scan the passers-by. The general effect is very +genial and picturesque, and decidedly suggestive of democratic +sociability. The same American indifference to the exaggerated British +love of privacy which leads John Bull to enclose his fifty-foot-square +garden by a ten-foot wall is shown in the way in which the gardens of +city houses are left unfenced. Nothing can be more attractive in its +way than such a street as Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, where the pretty +villas stand in unenclosed gardens, and the verdant lawns melt +imperceptibly into each other without advertisement of where one +leaves off and the other begins, while the fronts towards the street +are equally exposed. The general effect is that of a large and +beautiful park dotted with houses. The American is essentially +gregarious in his instinct, and the possession of a vast feudal +domain, with a high wall round it, can never make up to him for the +excitement of near neighbours. It may seriously be doubted whether the +American millionaire who buys a lordly demesne in England is not doing +violence to his natural and national tastes every day that he inhabits +it. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[6] Mrs. Burton Harrison reports that a young New York matron said to +her, "Really, now that society in New York is getting so large, one +must draw the line somewhere; after this I shall visit and invite only +those who have more than five millions." + +[7] I have seen a brakeman on a passenger train wear overshoes on a +showery day, though his duties hardly ever compelled him to leave the +covered cars. + + + + +IV + +An Appreciation of the American Woman + + +Compared to the appearance of the American girl in books written about +the United States, that of Charles I.'s head in Mr. Dick's memorial +might perhaps be almost called casual. All down the literary ladder, +from the weighty tomes of a Professor Bryce to the witty persiflage of +a Max O'Rell, we find a considerable part of every rung occupied by +the skirts appropriated to the gentler sex; and--what is, perhaps, +stranger still--she holds her own even in books written by women. It +need not be asserted that all the references to her are equally +agreeable. That amiable critic, Sir Lepel Griffin, alludes to her only +to assure us that "he had never met anyone who had lived long or +travelled much in America who did not hold that female beauty in the +States is extremely rare, while the average of ordinary good looks is +unusually low," and even visitors of an infinitely more subtle and +discriminating type, such as M. Bourget, mingle not a little vinegar +with their syrup of appreciation. But the fact remains that almost +every book on the United States contains a chapter devoted explicitly +to the female citizen; and the inevitableness of the record must have +some solid ground of reason behind or below it. It indicates a vein of +unusual significance, or at the very least of unusual conspicuousness, +in the phenomenon thus treated of. Observers have usually found it +possible to write books on the social and economical traits of other +countries without a parade of petticoats in the head-lines. This is +not to say that one can ignore one-half of society in writing of it; +but if you search the table of contents of such books as Mr. Philip +Hamerton's charming "French and English," or Mr. T.H.S. Escott's +"England: Its People, Polity, and Pursuits," you will not find the +words "woman" or "girl," or any equivalent for them. But the writer on +the United States seems irresistibly compelled to give woman all that +cooerdinate importance which is implied by the prominence of capital +letters and separate chapters. + +This predominance of woman in books on America is not by any means a +phase of the "woman question," technically so called. It has no direct +reference to the woman as voter, as doctor, as lawyer, as the +competitor of man; the subject of interest is woman as woman, the +_Ding an sich_ of German philosophical slang. No doubt the writer may +have occasion to allude to Dr. Mary Walker, to the female mayors of +Wyoming, to the presidential ambitions of Mrs. Belva Lockwood; but +these are mere adjuncts, not explanations, of the question under +consideration. The European visitor to the United States _has_ to +write about American women because they bulk so largely in his view, +because they seem essentially so prominent a feature of American life; +because their _relative_ importance and interest impress him as +greater than those of women in the lands of the Old World, because +they seem to him to embody in so eminent a measure that intangible +quality of Americanism, the existence, or indeed the possibility, of +which is so hotly denied by some Americans. + +Indeed, those who look upon the prominent role of the American woman +merely as one phase of the "new woman" question--merely as the +inevitable conspicuousness of woman intruding on what has hitherto +been exclusively the sphere of man--are many degrees beside the point. +The American note is as obvious in the girl who has never taken the +slightest interest in polities, the professions, or even the bicycle, +as in Dr. Mary Walker or Mrs. Lockwood. The prevalent English idea of +the actual interference of the American woman in public life is +largely exaggerated. There are, for instance, in Massachusetts 625,000 +women entitled to vote for members of the school committees; and the +largest actual vote recorded is 20,140. Of 175,000 women of voting age +in Connecticut the numbers who used their vote in the last three years +were 3,806, 3,241, and 1,906. These, if any, are typical American +States; and there is not the shadow of a doubt that the 600,000 women +who stayed at home are quite as "American" as the 20,000 who went to +the poll. The sphere of the American woman's influence and the reason +of her importance lie behind politics and publicity. + +It seems a reasonable assumption that the formation of the American +girl is due to the same large elemental causes that account for +American phenomena generally; and her _relative_ strikingness may be +explained by the reflection that there was more room for these great +forces to work in the case of woman than in the case of man. The +Englishman, for instance, through his contact with public life and +affairs, through his wider experience, through his rubbing shoulders +with more varied types, had already been prepared for the working of +American conditions in a way that his more sheltered womankind had +not been. In the bleaching of the black and the grey, the change will +be the more striking in the former; the recovery of health will be +conspicuous in proportion to the gravity of the disease. America has +meant opportunity for women even more in some ways than for men. The +gap between them has been lessened in proportion as the gap between +the American and the European has widened. The average American woman +is distinctly more different from her average English sister than is +the case with their respective brothers. The training of the English +girl starts from the very beginning on a different basis from that of +the boy; she is taught to restrain her impulses, while his are allowed +much freer scope; the sister is expected to defer to the brother from +the time she can walk or talk. In America this difference of training +is constantly tending to the vanishing point. The American woman has +never learned to play second fiddle. The American girl, as Mr. Henry +James says, is rarely negative; she is either (and usually) a most +charming success or (and exceptionally) a most disastrous failure. The +pathetic army of ineffective spinsters clinging apologetically to the +skirts of gentility is conspicuous by its absence in America. The +conditions of life there encourage a girl to undertake what she can do +best, with a comparatively healthy disregard of its fancied +"respectability." Her consciousness of efficiency reacts in a thousand +ways; her feet are planted on so solid a foundation that she +inevitably seems an important constructive part of society. The +contrast between the American woman and the English woman in this +respect may be illustrated by the two Caryatides in the Braccio Nuovo +at the Vatican. The first of these, a copy of one of the figures of +the Erechtheum, seems to bear the superincumbent architrave easily and +securely, with her feet planted squarely and the main lines running +vertically. In the other, of a later period, the fact that the feet +are placed close together gives an air of insecurity to the attitude, +an effect heightened by the prevalence of curved lines in the folds of +the drapery. + +The American woman, too, has had more time than the American man to +cultivate the more amiable--if you will, the more showy--qualities of +American civilisation. The leisured class of England consists of both +sexes, that of America practically of one only. The problem of the +American man so far has mainly been to subdue a new continent to human +uses, while the woman has been sacrificing on the altar of the Graces. +Hence the wider culture and the more liberal views are often found in +the sex from which the European does not expect them; hence the woman +of New York and other American cities is often conspicuously superior +to her husband in looks, manners, and general intelligence. This has +been denied by champions of the American man; but the observation of +the writer, whatever it may be worth, would deny the denial. + +The way in which an expression such as "Ladies' Cabin" is understood +in the United States has always seemed to me very typical of the +position of the gentler sex in that country. In England, when we see +an inscription of that kind, we assume that the enclosure referred to +is for ladies _only_. In America, unless the "only" is emphasized, the +"Ladies' Drawing Room" or the "Ladies' Waiting Room" extends its +hospitality to all those of the male sex who are ready to behave as +gentlemen and temporarily forego the delights of tobacco. Thus half of +the male passengers of the United States journey, as it were, under +the aegis of woman, and think it no shame to be enclosed in a box +labelled with her name. + +Put roughly, what chiefly strikes the stranger in the American woman +is her candour, her frankness, her hail-fellow-well-met-edness, her +apparent absence of consciousness of self or of sex, her spontaneity, +her vivacity, her fearlessness. If the observer himself is not of a +specially refined or delicate type, he is apt at first to +misunderstand the cameraderie of an American girl, to see in it +suggestions of a possible coarseness of fibre. If a vain man, he may +take it as a tribute to his personal charms, or at least to the +superior claims of a representative of old-world civilisation. But +even to the obtuse stranger of this character it will ultimately +become obvious--as to the more refined observer _ab initio_--that he +can no more (if as much) dare to take a liberty with the American girl +than with his own countrywoman. The plum may appear to be more easily +handled, but its bloom will be found to be as intact and as ethereal +as in the jealously guarded hothouse fruit of Europe. He will find +that her frank and charming companionability is as far removed from +masculinity as from coarseness; that the points in which she differs +from the European lady do not bring her nearer either to a man on the +one hand, or to a common woman on the other. He will find that he has +to readjust his standards, to see that divergence from the best type +of woman hitherto known to him does not necessarily mean +deterioration; if he is of an open and susceptible mind, he may even +come to the conclusion that he prefers the transatlantic type! + +Unless his lines in England have lain in _very_ pleasant places, the +intelligent Englishman in enjoying his first experience of +transatlantic society will assuredly be struck by the sprightliness, +the variety, the fearless individuality of the American girl, by her +power of repartee, by the quaint appositeness of her expressions, by +the variety of her interests, by the absence of undue deference to his +masculine dignity. If in his newly landed innocence he ventures to +compliment the girl he talks with on the purity of her English, and +assumes that she differs in that respect from her companions, she will +patriotically repel the suggested accusation of her countrywomen by +assuring him, without the ghost of a smile, "that she has had special +advantages, inasmuch as an English missionary had been stationed near +her tribe." If she prefers Martin Tupper to Shakespeare, or Strauss to +Beethoven, she will say so without a tremor. Why should she +hypocritically subordinate her personal instincts to a general theory +of taste? Her independence is visible in her very dress; she wears +what she thinks suits her (and her taste is seldom at fault), not +merely what happens to be the fashionable freak of the moment. What +Englishman does not shudder when he remembers how each of his +womankind--the comely and the homely, the short and the long, the +stout and the lean--at once assumed the latest form of hat, apparently +utterly oblivious to the question of whether it suited her special +style of beauty or not? Now, an American girl is not built that way. +She wishes to be in the fashion just as much as she can; but if a +special item of fashion does not set her off to advantage, she +gracefully and courageously resigns it to those who can wear it with +profit. But honour where honour is due! The English girl generally +shows more sense of fitness in the dress for walking and travelling; +she, consciously or unconsciously, realises that adaptability for its +practical purpose is essential in such a case. + +The American girl, as above said, strikes one as individual, as +varied. In England when we meet a girl in a ball-room we can +generally--not always--"place" her after a few minutes' talk; she +belongs to a set of which you remember to have already met a volume or +two. In some continental countries the patterns in common use seem +reduced to three or four. In the United States every new girl is a new +sensation. Society consists of a series of surprises. Expectation is +continually piqued. A and B and C do not help you to induce D; when you +reach Z you _may_ imagine you find a slight trace of reincarnation. +Not that the surprises are invariably pleasant. The very force and +self-confidence of the American girl doubly and trebly underline the +undesirable. Vulgarity that would be stolid and stodgy in Middlesex +becomes blatant and aggressive in New York. + +The American girl is not hampered by the feeling of class distinction, +which has for her neither religious nor historical sanction. The +English girl is first the squire's daughter, second a good +churchwoman, third an English subject, and fourthly a woman. Even the +best of them cannot rise wholly superior to the all-pervading, and, +in its essence, vulgarising, superstition that some of her +fellow-creatures are not fit to come between the wind and her +nobility. Those who reject the theory do so by a self-conscious effort +which in itself is crude and a strain. The American girl is, however, +born into an atmosphere of unconsciousness of all this, and, unless +she belongs to a very narrow coterie, does not reach this point of +view either as believer or antagonist. This endues her, at her best, +with a sweet and subtle fragrance of humanity that is, perhaps, +unique. Free from any sense of inherited or conventional superiority +or inferiority, as devoid of the brutality of condescension as of the +meanness of toadyism, she combines in a strangely attractive way the +charm of eternal womanliness with the latest aroma of a progressive +century. It is, doubtless, this quality that M. Bourget has in view +when he speaks of the incomparable delicacy of the American girl, or +M. Paul Blouet when he asserts that "you find in the American woman a +quality which, I fear, is beginning to disappear in Paris and is +almost unknown in London--a kind of spiritualised politeness, a tender +solicitude for other people, combined with strong individuality." + +There is one type of girl, with whom even the most modest and most +moderately eligible of bachelors must be familiar in England, who is +seldom in evidence in the United States--she whom the American +aborigines might call the "Girl-Anxious-to-be-Married." What +right-minded man in any circle of British society has not shuddered at +the open pursuit of young Croesus? Have not our novelists and +satirists reaped the most ample harvest from the pitiable spectacle +and all its results? A large part of the advantage that American +society has over English rests in the comparative absence of this +phenomenon. Man there does not and cannot bear himself as the cynosure +of the female eye; the art of throwing the handkerchief has not been +included in his early curriculum. The American dancing man does not +dare to arrive just in time for supper or to lounge in the doorway +while dozens of girls line the walls in faded expectation of a waltz. +The English girl herself can hardly be blamed for this state of +things. She has been brought up to think that marriage is the be-all +and end-all of her existence. "For my part," writes the author of +"Cecil, the Coxcomb," "I never blame them when I see them capering and +showing off their little monkey-tricks, for conquest. The fault is +none of theirs. It is part of an erroneous system." Lady Jeune +expresses the orthodox English position when she asserts flatly that +"to deny that marriage is the object of woman's existence is absurd." +The anachronistic survival of the laws of primogeniture and entail +practically makes the marriage of the daughter the only alternative +for a descent to a lower sphere of society. In the United States the +proportion of girls who strike one as obvious candidates for marriage +is remarkably small. This _may_ be owing to the art with which the +American woman conceals her lures, but all the evidence points to its +being in the main an entirely natural and unconscious attitude. The +American girl has all along been so accustomed to associate on equal +terms with the other sex that she naturally and inevitably regards him +more in the light of a comrade than of a possible husband. She has so +many resources, and is so independent, that marriage does not bound +her horizon. + +Her position, however, is not one of antagonism to marriage. If it +were, I should be the last to commend it. It rather rests on an +assurance of equality, on the assumption that marriage is an +honourable estate--a rounding and completing of existence--for man as +much as for woman. Nor does it mean, I think, any lack of passion and +the deepest instincts of womanhood. All these are present and can be +wakened by the right man at the right time. Indeed, the very fact that +marriage (with or without love) is not incessantly in the foreground +of an American girl's consciousness probably makes the awakening all +the more deep and tender because comparatively unanticipated and +unforeseen. + +The marriages between American heiresses and European peers do not +militate seriously against the above view of American marriage. It +cannot be sufficiently emphasised that the doings of a few wealthy +people in New York are not characteristic of American civilisation. +The New York _Times_ was entirely right when it said, in commenting +upon the frank statement of the bridegroom in a recent alliance of +this kind that it had been _arranged_ by friends of both parties: "A +few years ago this frankness would have cost him his bride, if his +'friends' had chosen an American girl for that distinction, and even +now it would be resented to the point of a rupture of the engagement +by most American girls." + +The American girl may not be in reality better educated than her +British sister, nor a more profound thinker; but her mind is +indisputably more agile and elastic. In fact, a slow-going Britisher +has to go through a regular course of training before he can follow +the rapid transitions of her train of associations. She has the +happiest faculty in getting at another's point of view and in putting +herself in his place. Her imagination is more likely to be over-active +than too sluggish. One of the most popular classes of the "Society for +the Encouragement of Study at Home" is that devoted to imaginary +travels in Europe. She is wonderfully adaptable, and makes herself at +ease in an entirely strange _milieu_ almost before the transition is +complete. Both M. Blouet and M. Bourget notice this, and claim that it +is a quality she shares with the Frenchwoman. The wife of a recent +President is a stock illustration of it--a girl who was transferred in +a moment from what we should call a quiet "middle-class" existence to +the apex of publicity, and comported herself in the most trying +situations with the ease, dignity, unconsciousness, taste, and +graciousness of a born princess. + +The innocence of the American girl is neither an affectation, nor a +prejudiced fable, nor a piece of stupidity. The German woman, quoted +by Mr. Bryce, found her American compeer _furchtbar frei_, but she had +at once to add _und furchtbar fromm_. "The innocence of the American +girl passes abysses of obscenity without stain or knowledge." She may +be perfectly able to hold her own under any circumstances, but she has +little of that detestable quality which we call "knowing." The +immortal Daisy Miller is a charming illustration of this. I used +sometimes to get into trouble with American ladies, who "hoped I did +not take Daisy Miller as a type of the average American girl," by +assuring them that "I did not--that I thought her much too good for +that." And in truth there seemed to me a lack of subtlety in the +current appreciation of the charming young lady from Schenectady, who +is much _finer_ than many readers give her credit for. And on this +point I think I may cite Mr. Henry James himself as a witness on my +side, since, in a dramatic version of the tale published in the +_Atlantic Monthly_ (Vol. 51, 1883), he makes his immaculate Bostonian, +Mr. Winterbourne, marry Daisy with a full consciousness of all she was +and had been. As I understand her, Miss Daisy Miller, in spite of her +somewhat unpropitious early surroundings, was a young woman entirely +able to appreciate the very best when she met it. She at once +recognised the superiority of Winterbourne to the men she had hitherto +known, and she also recognised that her "style" was not the "style" of +him or of his associates. But she was very young, and had all the +unreasonable pride of extreme youth; and so she determined not to +alter her behaviour one jot or tittle in order to attract him--nay, +with a sort of bravado, she exaggerated those very traits which she +knew he disliked. Yet all the time she had the highest appreciation of +his most delicate refinements, while she felt also that he ought to +see that at bottom she was just as refined as he, though her outward +mask was not so elegant. I have no doubt whatever that, as Mrs. +Winterbourne, she adapted herself to her new _milieu_ with absolute +success, and yet without loss of her own most fascinating +individuality.[8] + +The whole atmosphere of the country tends to preserve the spirit of +unsuspecting innocence in the American maiden. The function of a +chaperon is very differently interpreted in the United States and in +England. On one occasion I met in a Pullman car a young lady +travelling in charge of her governess. A chance conversation elicited +the fact that she was the daughter of a well-known New York banker; +and the fact that we had some mutual acquaintances was accepted as +all-sufficing credentials for my respectability. We had happened to +fix on the same hotel at our destination; and in the evening, after +dinner, I met in the corridor the staid and severe-looking +_gouvernante_, who saluted me with "Oh, Mr. Muirhead, I have such a +headache! Would you mind going out with my little girl while she makes +some purchases?" I was a little taken aback at first; but a moment's +reflection convinced me that I had just experienced a most striking +tribute to the honour of the American man and the social atmosphere of +the United States. + +The psychological method of suggestive criticism has, perhaps, never +been applied with more delicacy of intelligence than in M. Bourget's +chapter on the American woman. Each stroke of the pen, or rather each +turn of the scalpel, amazes us by its keen penetration. As we at last +close the book and meditate on what we have read, it is little by +little borne in upon us that though due tribute is paid to the +charming traits of the American woman, yet the general outcome of M. +Bourget's analysis is truly damnatory. If this sprightly, fascinating, +somewhat hard and calculating young woman be a true picture of the +transatlantic maiden, we may sigh indeed for her lack of the _Ewig +Weibliche_. I do not pretend to say where M. Bourget's appreciation is +at fault, but that it is false--unaccountably false--in the general +impression it leaves, I have no manner of doubt. Perhaps his attention +has been fixed too exclusively on the Newport girl, who, it must again +be insisted on, is too much impregnated with cosmopolitan _fin de +siecle-ism_ to be taken as the American type. Botanise a flower, use +the strongest glasses you will, tear apart and name and analyse,--the +result is a catalogue, the flower with its beauty and perfume is not +there. So M. Bourget has catalogued the separate qualities of the +American woman; as a whole she has eluded his analysis. Perhaps this +chapter of his may be taken as an eminent illustration of the +limitations of the critical method, which is at times so illuminating, +while at times it so utterly fails to touch the heart of things, or, +better, the wholeness of things. + +Among the most searching tests of the state of civilisation reached by +any country are the character of its roads, its minimising of noise, +and the position of its women. If the United States does not stand +very high on the application of the first two tests, its name +assuredly leads all the rest in the third. In no other country is the +legal status of women so high or so well secured, or their right to +follow an independent career so fully recognised by society at large. +In no other country is so much done to provide for their convenience +and comfort. All the professions are open to them, and the opportunity +has widely been made use of. Teaching, lecturing, journalism, +preaching, and the practice of medicine have long been recognised as +within woman's sphere, and she is by no means unknown at the bar. +There are eighty qualified lady doctors in Boston alone, and +twenty-five lady lawyers in Chicago. A business card before me as I +write reads, "Mesdames Foster & Steuart, Members of the Cotton +Exchange and Board of Trade, Real Estate and Stock Brokers, 143 Main +Street, Houston, Texas." The American woman, however, is often found +in still more unexpected occupations. There are numbers of women +dentists, barbers, and livery-stable keepers. Miss Emily Faithful saw +a railway pointswoman in Georgia; and one of the regular steamers on +Lake Champlain, when I was there, was successfully steered by a pilot +in petticoats. There is one profession that is closed to women in the +United States--that of barmaid. That professional association of woman +with man when he is apt to be in his most animal moods is firmly +tabooed in America--all honour to it! + +The career of a lady whose acquaintance I made in New York, and whom I +shall call Miss Undereast, illustrates the possibilities open to the +American girl. Born in Iowa, Miss Undereast lost her mother when she +was three years old, and spent her early childhood in company with her +father, who was a travelling geologist and mining prospector. She +could ride almost before she could walk, and soon became an expert +shot. Once, when only ten years of age, she shot down an Indian who +was in the act of killing a white woman with his tomahawk; and on +another occasion, when her father's camp was surrounded by hostile +Indians, she galloped out upon her pony and brought relief. "She was +so much at home with the shy, wild creatures of the woods that she +learned their calls, and they would come to her like so many domestic +birds and animals. She would come into camp with wild birds and +squirrels on her shoulder. She could lasso a steer with the best of +them. When, at last, she went to graduate at the State University of +Colorado, she paid for her last year's tuition with the proceeds of +her own herd of cattle." After graduating at Colorado State +University, she took a full course in a commercial college, and then +taught school for some time at Denver. Later she studied and taught +music, for which she had a marked gift. The next important step +brought her to New York, where she gained in a competitive examination +the position of secretary in the office of the Street Cleaning +Department. Her linguistic accomplishments (for she had studied +several foreign languages) stood her in good stead, and during the +illness of her chief she practically managed the department and +"bossed" fifteen hundred Italian labourers in their own tongue. Miss +Undereast carried on her musical studies far enough to be offered a +position in an operatic company, while her linguistic studies +qualified her for the post of United States Custom House Inspectress. +Latterly she has devoted her time mainly to journalism and literature, +producing, _inter alia_, a guidebook to New York, a novel, and a +volume of essays on social topics. It is a little difficult to realise +when talking with the accomplished and womanly _litterateur_ that she +has been in her day a slayer of Indians and "a mighty huntress before +the Lord;" but both the facts and the opportunities underlying them +testify in the most striking manner to the largeness of the sphere of +action open to the _puella Americana_. + +If American women have been well treated by their men-folk, they have +nobly discharged their debt. It is trite to refer to the numerous +schemes of philanthropy in which American women have played so +prominent a part, to allude to the fact that they have as a body used +their leisure to cultivate those arts and graces of life which the +preoccupation of man has led him too often to neglect. This chapter +may well close with the words of Professor Bryce: "No country seems to +owe more to its women than America does, nor to owe to them so much of +what is best in its social institutions and in the beliefs that govern +conduct." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[8] Since writing the above I have learned that Mr. W.D. Howells has +written of "Daisy Miller" in a similar vein, speaking of her +"indestructible innocence and her invulnerable new-worldliness." "It +was so plain that Mr. James disliked her vulgar conditions that the +very people to whom he revealed her essential sweetness and light were +furious that he should have seemed not to see what existed through +him." + + + + +V + +The American Child + + +The United States has sometimes been called the "Paradise of Women;" +from the child's point of view it might equally well he termed the +"Paradise of Children," though the thoughtful observer might be +inclined to qualify the title by the prefix "Fool's." Nowhere is the +child so constantly in evidence; nowhere are his wishes so carefully +consulted; nowhere is he allowed to make his mark so strongly on +society in general. The difference begins at the very moment of his +birth, or indeed even sooner. As much fuss is made over each young +republican as if he were the heir to a long line of kings; his +swaddling clothes might make a ducal infant jealous; the family +physician thinks $100 or $150 a moderate fee for ushering him into the +light of day. Ordinary milk is not good enough for him; _sterilised_ +milk will hardly do; "_modified_" milk alone is considered fit for +this democratic suckling. Even the father is expected to spend hours +in patient consultation over his food, his dress, his teething-rings, +and his outgoing. He is weighed daily, and his nourishment is changed +at once if he is a fraction either behind or ahead of what is deemed a +normal and healthy rate of growth. American writers on the care of +children give directions for the use of the most complex and +time-devouring devices for the proper preparation of their food, and +seem really to expect that mamma and nurse will go through with the +prescribed juggling with pots and pans, cylinders and lamps. + +A little later the importance of the American child is just as +evident, though it takes on different forms. The small American seems +to consider himself the father of the man in a way never contemplated +by the poet. He interrupts the conversation of his elders, he has a +voice in every matter, he eats and drinks what seems good to him, he +(or at any rate _she_) wears finger-rings of price, he has no shyness +or even modesty. The theory of the equality of man is rampant in the +nursery (though I use this word only in its conventional and +figurative sense, for American children do not confine themselves to +their nurseries). You will actually hear an American mother say of a +child of two or three years of age: "I can't _induce_ him to do this;" +"She _won't_ go to bed when I tell her;" "She _will_ eat that lemon +pie, though I _know_ it is bad for her." Even the public authorities +seem to recognise the inherent right of the American child to have his +own way, as the following paragraph from the New York _Herald_ of +April 8, 1896, will testify: + + WASHINGTON, April 7.--The lawn in front of the White + House this morning was littered with paper bags, the dyed shells + of eggs, and the remains of Easter luncheon baskets. It is said + that a large part of the lawn must be resodded. The children, + shut out from their usual romp in the grounds at the back of the + mansion, made their way into the front when the sun came out in + the afternoon, and gambolled about at will, to the great injury + of the rain-soaked turf. + + The police stationed in the grounds _vainly endeavored to + persuade the youngsters to go away_, and were finally successful + only through pretending to be about to close all the gates for + the night. + +It is, perhaps, superfluous to say that this kind of bringing up +hardly tends to make the American child an attractive object to the +stranger from without. On the contrary, it is very apt to make the +said stranger long strenuously to spank these budding citizens of a +free republic, and to send them to bed _instanter_. So much of what I +want to say on this topic has been well said by my brother Findlay +Muirhead in an article on "The American Small Boy," contributed to the +_St. James's Gazette_, that I venture to quote the bulk of that +article below. + + The American Small Boy + + The American small boy is represented in history by the youthful + George Washington, who suffered through his inability to invent a + plausible fiction, and by Benjamin Franklin, whose abnormal + simplicity in the purchase of musical instruments has become + proverbial. But history is not taken down in shorthand as it + occurs, and it sometimes lags a little. The modern American small + boy is a vastly different being from either of these + transatlantic worthies; at all events his most prominent + characteristics, as they strike a stranger, are not illustrated + in the earlier period of their career. + + The peculiarities of young America would, indeed, matter but + little to the stranger if young America stayed at home. But young + America does not stay at home. It is not necessary to track the + American small boy to his native haunts in order to see what he + is like. He is very much in evidence even on this side the + Atlantic. At certain seasons he circulates in Europe with the + facility of the British sovereign; for the American nation + cherishes the true nomadic habit of travelling in families, and + the small boy is not left behind. He abounds in Paris; he is + common in Italy; and he is a drug in Switzerland. He is an + element to be allowed for by all who make the Grand Tour, for his + voice is heard in every land. On the Continent, during the + season, no first-class hotel can be said to be complete without + its American family, including the small boy. He does not, + indeed, appear to "come off" to his full extent in this country, + but in all Continental resorts he is a small boy that may be + felt, as probably our fellow-countrymen all over Europe are now + discovering. + + There is little use in attempting to disguise the fact that the + subject of the present paper is distinctly disagreeable. There is + little beauty in him that we should desire him. He is not only + restless himself, but he is the cause of restlessness in others. + He has no respect even for the quiescent evening hour, devoted to + cigarettes on the terrace after _table d'hote_, and he is not to + be overawed by a look. It is a constant source of wonder to the + thoughtfully inclined how the American man is evolved from the + American boy; it is a problem much more knotty than the + difficulty concerning apple-dumplings which so perplexed "Farmer + George." No one need desire a pleasanter travelling companion + than the American man; it is impossible to imagine a more + disagreeable one than the American boy. + + The American small boy is precocious; but it is not with the + erudite precocity of the German Heinecken, who at three years of + age was intimately acquainted with history and geography ancient + and modern, sacred and profane, besides being able to converse + fluently in Latin, French, and German. We know, of course, that + each of the twenty-two Presidents of the United States gave such + lively promise in his youth that twenty-two aged friends of the + twenty-two families, without any collusion, placed their hands + upon the youthful heads, prophesying their future eminence. But + even this remarkable coincidence does not affect the fact that + the precocity of the average transatlantic boy is not generally + in the most useful branches of knowledge, but rather in the + direction of habits, tastes, and opinion. He is not, however, + evenly precocious. He unites a taste for jewelry with a passion + for candy. He combines a penetration into the motives of others + with an infantile indifference to exposing them at inconvenient + times. He has an adult decision in his wishes, but he has a + youthful shamelessness in seeking their fulfilment. One of his + most exasperating peculiarities is the manner in which he + querulously harps upon the single string of his wants. He sits + down before the refusal of his mother and shrilly besieges it. He + does not desist for company. He does not wish to behave well + before strangers. He desires to have his wish granted; and he + knows he will probably be allowed to succeed if he insists before + strangers. He is distinguished by a brutal frankness, combined + with a cynical disregard for all feminine ruses. He not seldom + calls up the blush of shame to the cheek of scheming innocence; + and he frequently crucifies his female relatives. He is generally + an adept in discovering what will most annoy his family circle; + and he is perfectly unscrupulous in avenging himself for all + injuries, of which he receives, in his own opinion, a large + number. He has an accurate memory for all promises made to his + advantage, and he is relentless in exacting payment to the + uttermost farthing. He not seldom displays a singular ingenuity + in interpreting ambiguous terms for his own behoof. A youth of + this kind is reported to have demanded (and received) eight + apples from his mother, who had bribed him to temporary + stillness by the promise of a few of that fruit, his ground being + that the Scriptures contained the sentence, "Wherein few, that + is, eight, souls were saved by water." + + The American small boy is possessed, moreover, of a well-nigh + invincible _aplomb_. He is not impertinent, for it never enters + into his head to take up the position of protesting inferiority + which impertinence implies. He merely takes things as they come, + and does not hesitate to express his opinion of them. An American + young gentleman of the mature age of ten was one day overtaken by + a fault. His father, more in sorrow than in anger, expressed his + displeasure. "What am I to do with you, Tommy? What am I to do + with you?" "I have no suggestions to offer, sir," was the + response of Tommy, thus appealed to. Even in trying + circumstances, even when serious misfortune overtakes the + youthful American, his _aplomb_, his confidence in his own + opinion, does not wholly forsake him. Such a one was found + weeping in the street. On being asked the cause of his tears, he + sobbed out in mingled alarm and indignation: "I'm lost; mammy's + lost me; I _told_ the darned thing she'd lose me." The + recognition of his own liability to be lost, and at the same time + the recognition of his own superior wisdom, are exquisitely + characteristic. They would be quite incongruous in the son of any + other soil. In his intercourse with strangers this feeling + exhibits itself in the complete self-possession and _sang-froid_ + of the youthful citizen of the Western Republic. He scorns to own + a curiosity which he dare not openly seek to satisfy by direct + questions, and he puts his questions accordingly on all subjects, + even the most private and even in the case of the most reverend + strangers. He is perfectly free in his remarks upon all that + strikes him as strange or reprehensible in any one's personal + appearance or behaviour; and he never dreams that his victims + might prefer not to be criticised in public. But he is quick to + resent criticism on himself, and he shows the most perverted + ingenuity in embroiling with his family any outsider who may + rashly attempt to restrain his ebullitions. He is, in fact, like + the Scottish thistle: no one may meddle with him with impunity. + It is better to "never mind him," as one of the evils under the + sun for which there is no remedy. + + Probably this development of the American small boys is due in + great measure to the absorption of their fathers in business, + which necessarily surrenders the former to a too undiluted + "regiment of women." For though Thackeray is unquestionably right + in estimating highly the influence of refined feminine society + upon youths and young men, there is no doubt that a small boy is + all the better for contact with some one whose physical prowess + commands his respect. Some allowance must also be made for the + peevishness of boys condemned to prolonged railway journeys, and + to the confinement of hotel life in cities and scenes in which + they are not old enough to take an interest. They would, + doubtless, be more genial if they were left behind at school. + +The American boy has no monopoly of the characteristics under +consideration. His little sister is often his equal in all +departments. Miss Marryat tells of a little girl of five who appeared +alone in the _table d'hote_ room of a large and fashionable hotel, +ordered a copious and variegated breakfast, and silenced the timorous +misgivings of the waiter with "I guess I pay my way." At another hotel +I heard a similar little minx, in a fit of infantile rage, address her +mother as "You nasty, mean, old crosspatch;" and the latter, who in +other respects seemed a very sensible and intelligent woman, yielded +to the storm, and had no words of rebuke. I am afraid it was a little +boy who in the same way called his father a "black-eyed old skunk;" +but it might just as well have been a girl. + +While not asserting that all American children are of this brand, I do +maintain that the sketch is fairly typical of a very large +class--perhaps of all except those of exceptionally firm and sensible +parents. The strangest thing about the matter is, however, that the +fruit does not by any means correspond to the seed; the wind is sown, +but the whirlwind is not reaped. The unendurable child does not +necessarily become an intolerable man. By some mysterious chemistry of +the American atmosphere, social or otherwise, the horrid little minx +blossoms out into a charming and womanly girl, with just enough of +independence to make her piquant; the cross and dyspeptic little boy +becomes a courteous and amiable man. Some sort of a moral miracle +seems to take place about the age of fourteen or fifteen; a violent +dislocation interrupts the natural continuity of progress; and, +presto! out springs a new creature from the modern cauldron of Medea. + +The reason--or at any rate one reason--of the normal attitude of the +American parent towards his child is not far to seek. It is almost +undoubtedly one of the direct consequences of the circumambient spirit +of democracy. The American is so accustomed to recognise the essential +equality of others that he sometimes carries a good thing to excess. +This spirit is seen in his dealings with underlings of all kinds, who +are rarely addressed with the bluntness and brusqueness of the older +civilisations. Hence the father and mother are apt to lay almost too +much stress on the separate and individual entity of their child, to +shun too scrupulously anything approaching the violent coercion of +another's will. That the results are not more disastrous seems owing +to a saving quality in the child himself. The characteristic American +shrewdness and common sense do their work. A badly brought up American +child introduced into a really well-regulated family soon takes his +cue from his surroundings, adapts himself to his new conditions, and +sheds his faults as a snake its skin. The whole process may tend to +increase the individuality of the child; but the cost is often great, +the consequences hard for the child itself. American parents are +doubtless more familiar than others with the plaintive remonstrance: +"Why did you not bring me up more strictly? Why did you give me so +much of my own way?" The present type of the American child may be +described as one of the experiments of democracy; that he is not a +necessary type is proved by the by no means insignificant number of +excellently trained children in the United States, of whom it has +never been asserted that they make any less truly democratic citizens +than their more pampered playmates. + +The idea of establishing summer camps for schoolchildren may not have +originated in the United States--it was certainly put into operation +in Switzerland and France several years ago; but the most +characteristic and highly organised institution of the kind is the +George Junior Republic at Freeville, near Ithaca, in the State of New +York, and some account of this attempt to recognise the "rights of +children," and develop the political capacity of boys and girls, may +form an appropriate ending to this chapter. The republic was +established by Mr. William R. George, in 1895. It occupies a large +tent and several wooden buildings on a farm forty-eight acres in +extent. In summer it accommodates about two hundred boys and girls +between the ages of twelve and seventeen; and about forty of these +remain in residence throughout the year. The republic is +self-governing, and its economic basis is one of honest industry. +Every citizen has to earn his living, and his work is paid for with +the tin currency of the republic. Half of the day is devoted to work, +the other half to recreation. The boys are employed in farming and +carpentry; the girls sew, cook, and so on. The rates of wages vary +from 50 cents to 90 cents a day according to the grade of work. +Ordinary meals cost about 10 cents, and a night's lodging the same; +but those who have the means and the inclination may have more +sumptuous meals for 25 cents, or board at the "Waldorf" for about $4 +(16s.) a week. As the regular work offered to all is paid for at rates +amply sufficient to cover the expenses of board and lodging, the idle +and improvident have either to go without or make up for their neglect +by overtime work. Those who save money receive its full value on +leaving the republic, in clothes and provisions to take back to their +homes in the slums of New York. Some boys have been known to save $50 +(L10) in the two months of summer work. The republic has its own +legislature, court-house, jail, schools, and the like. The legislature +has two branches. The members of the lower house are elected by ballot +weekly, those of the senate fortnightly. Each grade of labour elects +one member and one senator for every twelve constituents. Offences +against the laws of the republic are stringently dealt with, and the +jail, with its bread-and-water diet, is a by no means pleasant +experience. The police force consists of thirteen boys and two girls; +the office of "cop," with its wages of 90 cents a day, is eagerly +coveted, but cannot be obtained without the passing of a stiff civil +service examination. + +So far this interesting experiment is said by good authorities to have +worked well. It is not a socialistic or Utopian scheme, but frankly +accepts existing conditions and tries to make the best of them. It is +not by any means merely "playing at house." The children have to do +genuine work, and learn habits of real industry, thrift, +self-restraint, and independence. The measures discussed by the +legislature are not of the debating society order, but actually affect +the personal welfare of the two hundred citizens. It has, for example, +been found necessary to impose a duty of twenty-five per cent. "on all +stuff brought in to be sold," so as to protect the native farmer. +Female suffrage has been tried, but did not work well, and was +discarded, largely through the votes of the girls themselves. + +The possible disadvantages connected with an experiment of this kind +easily suggest themselves; but since the "precocity" of the American +child is a recognised fact, it is perhaps well that it should be +turned into such unobjectionable channels. + + + + +VI + +International Misapprehensions and National Differences + + +Some years ago I was visiting the cyclorama of Niagara Falls in London +and listening to the intelligent description of the scene given by the +"lecturer." In the course of this he pointed out Goat Island, the +wooded islet that parts the headlong waters of the Niagara like a +coulter and shears them into the separate falls of the American and +Canadian shores. Behind me stood an English lady who did not quite +catch what the lecturer said, and turned to her husband in surprise. +"Rhode Island? Well, I knew Rhode Island was one of the smallest +States, but I had no idea it was so small as that!" On another +occasion an Englishman, invited to smile at the idea of a +fellow-countryman that the Rocky Mountains flanked the west bank of +the Hudson, exclaimed: "How absurd! The Rocky Mountains must be at +least two hundred miles from the Hudson." Even so intelligent a +traveller and so friendly a critic as Miss Florence Marryat (Mrs. +Francis Lean), in her desire to do justice to the amplitude of the +American continent, gravely asserts that "Pennsylvania covers a tract +of land larger than England, France, Spain, and Germany all put +together," the real fact being that even the smallest of the countries +named is much larger than the State, while the combined area of the +four is more than fourteen times as great. Texas, the largest State in +the Union, is not so very much more extensive than either Germany or +France. + +An analogous want of acquaintance with the mental geography of America +was shown by the English lady whom Mr. Freeman heard explaining to a +cultivated American friend who Sir Walter Scott was, and what were the +titles of his chief works. + +It is to such international ignorance as this that much, if not most, +of the British want of appreciation of the United States may be +traced; just as the acute critic may see in the complacent and +persistent misspelling of English names by the leading journals of +Paris an index of that French attitude of indifference towards +foreigners that involved the possibility of a Sedan. It is not, +perhaps, easy to adduce exactly parallel instances of American +ignorance of Great Britain, though Mr. Henry James, who probably knows +his England better than nine out of ten Englishmen, describes Lord +Lambeth, the eldest son of a duke, as himself a member of the House of +Lords ("An International Episode"). It was amusing to find when _meine +Wenigkeit_ was made the object of a lesson in a Massachusetts school, +that many of the children knew the name England only in connection +with their own New England home. Nor, I fear, can it be denied that +much of the historical teaching in the primary schools of the United +States gives a somewhat one-sided view of the past relations between +the mother country and her revolted daughter. The American child is +not taught as much as he ought to be that the English people of to-day +repudiate the attitude of the aristocratic British government of 1770 +as strongly as Americans themselves. + +The American, however, must not plume himself too much on his superior +knowledge. Shameful as the British ignorance of America often is, a +corresponding American ignorance of Great Britain would be vastly more +shameful. An American cannot understand himself unless he knows +something of his origins beyond the seas; the geography and history of +an American child must perforce include the history and geography of +the British Isles. For a Briton, however, knowledge of America is +rather one of the highly desirable things than one of the absolutely +indispensable. It would certainly betoken a certain want of humanity +in me if I failed to take any interest in the welfare of my sons and +daughters who had emigrated to New Zealand; but it is evident that for +the conduct of my own life a knowledge of their doings is not so +essential for me as a knowledge of what my father was and did. The +American of Anglo-Saxon stock visiting Westminster Abbey seems +paralleled alone by the Greek of Syracuse or Magna Graecia visiting the +Acropolis of Athens; and the experience of either is one that less +favoured mortals may unfeignedly envy. But the American and the +Syracusan alike would be wrong were he to feel either scorn or elation +at the superiority of the guest's knowledge of the host over the +host's knowledge of the guest. + +However that may be, and whatever latitude we allow to the proverbial +connection of familiarity and contempt, there seems little reason to +doubt that closer knowledge of one another will but increase the +mutual sympathy and esteem of the Briton and the American. The former +will find that Brother Jonathan is not so exuberantly and perpetually +starred-and-striped as the comic cartoonist would have us believe; +and the American will find that John Bull does not always wear +top-boots or invariably wield a whip. Things that from a distance seem +preposterous and even revolting will often assume a very different +guise when seen in their native environment and judged by their +inevitable conditions. It is not always true that "_coelum non +animum mutant qui trans mare currunt_" that is, if we allow ourselves +to translate "_animum_" in its Ciceronian sense of "opinion."[9] To +hold this view does not make any excessive demand on our optimism. +There seems absolutely no reason why in this particular case the line +of cleavage between one's likes and one's dislikes should coincide +with that of foreign and native birth. The very word "foreign" rings +false in this connection. It is often easier to recognise a brother in +a New Yorker than in a Yorkshireman, while, alas! it is only +theoretically and in a mood of long-drawn-out aspiration that we can +love our alien-tongued European neighbour as ourselves. + +The man who wishes to form a sound judgment of another is bound to +attain as great a measure as possible of accurate self-knowledge, not +merely to understand the reaction of the foreign character when +brought into relation with his own, but also to make allowance for +fundamental differences of taste and temperament. The golden rule of +judging others by ourselves can easily become a dull and leaden +despotism if we insist that what _we_ should think and feel on a given +occasion ought also to be the thoughts and actions of the Frenchman, +the German, or the American. There are, perhaps, no more pregnant +sentences in Mr. Bryce's valuable book than those in which he warns +his British readers against the assumption that the same phenomena in +two different countries must imply the same sort of causes. Thus, an +equal amount of corruption among British politicians, or an equal +amount of vulgarity in the British press, would argue a much greater +degree of rottenness in the general social system than the same +phenomena in the United States. So, too, some of the characteristic +British vices are, so to say, of a spontaneous, involuntary, +semi-unconscious growth, and the American observer would commit a +grievous error if he ascribed them to as deliberate an intent to do +evil as the same tendencies would betoken in his own land. Neither +Briton nor American can do full justice to the other unless each +recognises that the other is fashioned of a somewhat different clay. + +The strong reasons, material and otherwise, why Great Britain and the +United States should be friends need not be enumerated here. In spite +of some recent and highly unexpected shocks, the tendencies that make +for amity seem to me to be steadily increasing in strength and +volume.[10] It is the American in the making rather than the matured +native product that, as a rule, is guilty of blatant denunciation of +Great Britain; and it is usually the untravelled and preeminently +insular Briton alone that is utterly devoid of sympathy for his +American cousins. The American, as has often been pointed out, has +become vastly more pleasant to deal with since his country has won an +undeniable place among the foremost nations of the globe. The +epidermis of Brother Jonathan has toughened as he has grown in +stature, and now that he can look over the heads of most of his +compeers he regards the sting of a gnat as little as the best of them. +Perhaps not _quite_ so little as John Bull, whose indifference to +criticism and silent assurance of superiority are possibly as far +wrong in the one direction as a too irritable skin is in the other. + +Of the books written about the United States in the last score of +years by European writers of any weight, there are few which have not +helped to dissipate the grotesquely one-sided view of America formerly +held in the Old World. Preeminent among such books is, of course, the +"American Commonwealth" of Mr. James Bryce; but such writers as Mr. +Freeman, M. Paul Bourget, Sir George Campbell, Mr. William Sanders, +Miss Catherine Bates, Mme. Blanc, Miss Emily Faithful, M. Paul de +Rousiers, Max O'Rell, and Mr. Stevens have all, in their several +degrees and to their several audiences, worked to the same end. It +may, however, be worth while mentioning one or two literary +performances of a somewhat different character, merely to remind my +British readers of the sort of thing we have done to exasperate our +American cousins in quite recent times, and so help them to understand +the why and wherefore of certain traces of resentment still lingering +beyond the Atlantic. In 1884 Sir Lepel Griffin, a distinguished Indian +official, published a record of his visit to the United States, under +the title of "The Great Republic." Perhaps this volume might have been +left to the obscurity which has befallen it, were it not that Mr. +Matthew Arnold lent it a fictitious importance by taking as the text +for some of his own remarks on America Sir Lepel's assertion that he +knew of no civilised country, Russia possibly excepted, where he +should less like to live than the United States. To me it seems a book +most admirably adapted to infuriate even a less sensitive folk than +the Americans. I do not in the least desire to ascribe to Sir Lepel +Griffin a deliberate design to be offensive; but it is just his calm, +supercilious Philistinism, aggravated no doubt by his many years' +experience as a ruler of submissive Orientals, that makes it no less a +pleasure than a duty for a free and intelligent republican to resent +and defy his criticisms. + +Can, for instance, anything more wantonly and pointlessly insulting be +imagined than his assertion that an intelligent and well-informed +American would probably name the pork-packing of Chicago as the thing +_best worth seeing_ in the United States? After that it is not +surprising that he considers American scenery singularly tame and +unattractive, and that he finds female beauty (can his standard for +this have been Orientalised?) very rare. He predicts that it would be +impossible to maintain the Yellowstone National Park as such, and +asserts that it was only a characteristic spirit of swagger and +braggadocio that prompted this attempt at an impossible ideal. He also +seems to think lynching an any-day possibility in the streets of New +York. The value of his forecasts may, however, be discounted by his +prophecy in the same book that the London County Council would be +merely a glorified vestry, utterly indifferent to the public interest, +and unlikely to attract any candidates of distinction! + +An almost equal display of Philistinism--perhaps greater in proportion +to its length--is exhibited by an article entitled "Twelve Hours of +New York," published by Count Gleichen in _Murray's Magazine_ +(February, 1890). This energetic young man succeeded (in his own +belief) in seeing all the sights of New York in the time indicated by +the title of his article, and apparently met nothing to his taste +except the Hoffman House bar and the large rugs with which the +cab-horses were swathed. He found his hotel a den of incivility and +his dinner "a squashy, sloppy meal." He wishes he had spent the day in +Canada instead. He is great in his scorn for the "glue kettle" helmets +of the New York police, and for the ferry-boats in the harbour, to +which he vastly prefers what he wittily and originally styles the +"common or garden steamer." His feet, in his own elegant phrase, felt +"like a jelly" after four hours of New York pavement. What are the +Americans to think of us when they find one of our innermost and most +aristocratic circle writing stuff like this under the aegis of, +perhaps, the foremost of British publishers? + +As a third instance of the ingratiating manner in which Englishmen +write of Americans, we may take the following paragraph from "Travel +and Talk," an interesting record of much journeying by that well-known +London clergyman, the Rev. H.R. Haweis: "Among the numerous kind +attentions I was favoured with and somewhat embarrassed by was the +assiduous hospitality of another singular lady, _also since dead_. I +allude to Mrs. Barnard, the wife of the venerable principal of +Columbia College, a well-known and admirably appointed educational +institution in New York. This good lady was bent upon our staying at +the college, and hunted us from house to house until we took up our +abode with her, and, I confess, I found her rather amusing at first, +and I am sure she meant most kindly. But there was an inconceivable +fidgetiness about her, and an incapacity to let people alone, or even +listen to anything they said in answer to her questions, which poured +as from a quick-firing gun, that became at last intolerable." Comment +on this passage would be entirely superfluous; but I cannot help +drawing attention to the supreme touch of gracefulness added by the +three words I have italicised. + +There is one English critic of American life whose opinion cannot be +treated cavalierly--least of all by those who feel, as I do, how +inestimable is our debt to him as a leader in the paths of sweetness +and light. But even in the presence of Matthew Arnold I desire to +preserve the attitude of "_nullius addictus jurare in verba +magistri_," and I cannot but believe that his estimate of America, +while including much that is subtle, clear-sighted, and tonic, is in +certain respects inadequate and misleading. He unfortunately committed +the mistake of writing on the United States before visiting the +country, and had made up his mind in advance that it was almost +exclusively peopled by, and entirely run in the interests of, the +British dissenting Philistine with a difference. + +It is the more to be regretted that he adopted this attitude of +premature judgment of American characteristics because it is only too +prevalent among his less distinguished fellow-countrymen. From this +position of _parti pris_, maintained with all his own inimitable +suavity and grace, it seems to me that he was never wholly able to +advance (or retire), though he candidly admitted that he found the +difference between the British and American Philistine vastly greater +than he anticipated. The members of his preconceived syllogism seem to +be somewhat as follows: the money-making and comfort-loving classes in +England are essentially Philistine; the United States as a nation is +given over to money-making; _ergo_, its inhabitants must all be +Philistines. Furthermore, the British Philistines are to a very large +extent dissenters: the United States has no established church; +_ergo_, it must be the Paradise of the dissenter. + +This line of argument ignores the fact that the stolid +self-satisfaction in materialistic comfort, which he defines as the +essence of Philistinism, is _not_ a predominant trait in the American +class in which our English experience would lead us to look for it. +The American man of business, with his restless discontent and +nervous, over-strained pursuit of wealth, may not be a more inspiring +object than his British brother, but he has little of the smugness +which Mr. Arnold has taught us to associate with the label of +Philistinism. And his womankind is perhaps even less open to this +particular reproach. Mr. Arnold ignores a whole far-reaching series of +American social phenomena which have practically nothing in common +with British nonconformity, and lets a similarity of nomenclature +blind him too much to the differentiation of entirely novel +conditions. The Methodist "Moonshiner" of Tennessee is hardly cast in +the same mould as the deacon of a London Little Bethel; and even the +most legitimate children of the Puritans have not descended from the +common stock in parallel lines in England and America. + +Mr. Arnold admitted that the political clothes of Brother Jonathan +fitted him admirably, and allowed that he can and does think +straighter (_c'est le bonheur des hommes quand ils pensent juste_) +than we can in the maze of our unnatural and antiquated complications; +he wholly admired the natural, unselfconscious manner of the American +woman; he saw that the wage-earner lived more comfortably than in +Europe; he noted that wealthy Americans were not dogged by envy in the +same way as in England, partly because wealth was felt to be more +within the range of all, and partly because it was much less often +used for the gratification of vile and selfish appetites; he admitted +that America was none the worse for the lack of a materialised +aristocracy such as ours; he praises the spirit which levels false and +conventional distinctions, and waives the use of such invidious +discriminations as our "Mr." and "Esquire." Admissions such as these, +coming from such a man as he, are of untold value in promoting the +growth of a proper sentiment towards our transatlantic kinsmen. When +he points out that the dangers of such a community as the United +States include a tendency to rely too much on the machinery of +institutions; an absence of the discipline of respect; a proneness to +hardness, materialism, exaggeration, and boastfulness; a false +smartness and a false audacity,--the wise American will do well to +ponder his sayings, hard though they may sound. When, however, he goes +on to point out the "prime necessity of civilisation being +interesting," and to assert that American civilisation is lacking in +interest, we may well doubt whether on the one hand the quality of +interest is not too highly exalted, and, on the other, whether the +denial of interest to American life does not indicate an almost +insular narrowness in the conception of what is interesting. When he +finds a want of soul and delicacy in the American as compared with +John Bull, some of us must feel that if he is right the latitude of +interpretation of these terms must indeed be oceanic. When he gravely +cites the shrewd and ingenious Benjamin Franklin as the most +considerable man whom America has yet produced, we must respectfully +but firmly take exception to his standard of measurement. When he +declares that Abraham Lincoln has no claim to distinction, we feel +that the writer must have in mind distinction of a singularly +conventional and superficial nature; and we are not reassured by the +_quasi_ brutality of the remark in one of his letters, to the effect +that Lincoln's assassination brought into American history a dash of +the tragic and romantic in which it had hitherto been so sadly lacking +("_sic semper tyrannis_ is so unlike anything Yankee or English middle +class"). When he asserts that from Maine to Florida and back again all +America Hebraises, we reflect with some bewilderment that hitherto we +had believed the New Orleans creole (_e.g._) to be as far removed from +Hebraising as any type we knew of. It is strikingly characteristic of +the weak side of Mr. Arnold's outlook on America that he went to stay +with Mr. P.T. Barnum, the celebrated showman, without the least idea +that his American friends might think the choice of hosts a peculiar +one. To him, to a very large extent, Americans were all alike +middle-class, dissenting Philistines; and so far as appears on the +surface, Mr. Barnum's desire to "belong to the minority" pleased him +as much as any other sign of approval conferred upon him in America. + +A native of the British Isles is sometimes apt to be a little nettled +when he finds a native of the United States regarding him as a +"foreigner" and talking of him accordingly. An Englishman never means +the natives of the United States when he speaks of "foreigners;" he +reserves that epithet for non-English-speaking races. In this respect +it would seem as if the Briton, for once, took the wider, the more +genial and human, point of view; as if he had the keener appreciation +of the ties of race and language. It is as if he cherished continually +a sub-dominant consciousness of the fact that the occupation of the +North American continent by the Anglo-Saxons is one of the greatest +events in English history--that America is peopled by Englishmen. When +he thinks of the events of 1776 he feels, to use Mr. Hall Caine's +illustration, like Dr. Johnson, who dreamed that he had been worsted +in conversation, but reflected when he awoke that the conversation of +his adversary must also have been his own. As opposed to this there +may be a grain of self-assertion in the American use of the term as +applied to the British; it is as if they would emphasise the fact that +they are no mere offshoot of England, that the Colonial days have long +since gone by, and that the United States is an independent nation +with a right to have its own "foreigners." An American friend suggests +that the different usage of the two lands may be partly owing to the +fact that the cordial, frank demeanour of the American, coupled with +his use of the same tongue, makes an Englishman absolutely forget that +he is not a fellow-countryman, while the subtler American is keenly +conscious of differences which escape the obtuser Englishman. Another +partial explanation is that the first step across our frontier brings +us to a land where an unknown tongue is spoken, and that we have +consequently welded into one the two ideas of foreignhood and +unintelligibility; while the American, on the other hand, identifies +himself with his continent and regards all as foreigners who are not +natives of it. + +The point would hardly be worth dwelling upon, were it not that the +different attitude it denotes really leads in some instances to actual +misunderstanding. The Englishman, with his somewhat unsensitive +feelers, is apt, in all good faith and unconsciousness, to criticise +American ways to the American with much more freedom than he would +criticise French ways to a Frenchman. It is as if he should say, "You +and I are brothers, or at least cousins; we are a much better sort +than all those foreign Johnnies; and so there's no harm in my pointing +out to you that you're wrong here and ought to change there." But, +alas, who is quicker to resent our criticism than they of our own +household? And so the American, overlooking the sort of clumsy +compliment that is implied in the assurance of kinship involved in the +very frankness of our fault-finding criticism, resents most keenly the +criticisms that are couched in his own language, and sees nothing but +impertinent hostility in the attitude of John Bull. And who is to +convince him that it is, as in a Scottish wooing, because we love him +that we tease him, and in so doing put him (in our eyes) on a vastly +higher pedestal than the "blasted foreigner" whose case we consider +past praying for? And who is to teach us that Brother Jonathan is able +now to give us at least as many hints as we can give him, and that we +must realise that the same sauce must be served with both birds? Thus +each resiles from the encounter infinitely more pained than if the +antagonist had been a German or a Frenchman. The very fact that we +speak the same tongue often leads to false assumptions of mutual +knowledge, and so to offences of unguarded ignorance. + +One of the most conspicuous differences between the American and the +Briton is that the former, take him for all in all, is distinctly the +more articulate animal of the two. The Englishman seems to have +learned, through countless generations, that he can express himself +better and more surely in deeds than in words, and has come to +distrust in others a fatal fluency of expressiveness which he feels +would be exaggerated and even false in himself. A man often has to +wait for his own death to find out what his English friend thinks of +him; and + + "Wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us + To see oursels as others see us," + +we might often be surprised to discover what a wealth of real +affection and esteem lies hid under the glacier of Anglican +indifference. The American poet who found his song in the heart of a +friend could have done so, were the friend English, only by the aid of +a post-mortem examination. The American, on the other hand, has the +most open and genial way of expressing his interest in you; and when +you have readjusted the scale of the moral thermometer so as to allow +for the change of temperament, you will find this frankness most +delightfully stimulating. It requires, however, an intimate knowledge +of both countries to understand that when an Englishman congratulates +you on a success by exclaiming, "Hallo, old chap, I didn't know you +had it in you," he means just as much as your American friend, whose +phrase is: "Bravo, Billy, I always _knew_ you could do something +fine." + +That the superior powers of articulation possessed by the American +sometimes takes the form of profuse and even extreme volubility will +hardly be denied by those conversant with the facts. The American may +not be more profound than his English cousin or even more fertile in +ideas, but as a rule he is much more ready and easy in the discussion +of the moment; whatever the state of his "gold reserve" may be, he has +no lack of the small counters of conversation. In its proper place +this faculty is undoubtedly most agreeable; in the fleeting interviews +which compose so much of social intercourse, he is distinctly at an +advantage who has the power of coming to the front at once without +wasting precious time in preliminaries and reconnaissances. Other +things being equal, the chances of agreeable conversation at dinner, +at the club, or in the pauses of the dance are better in the United +States than in England. The "next man" of the new world is apt to talk +better and to be wider in his sympathies than the "next man" of the +old. On the other hand, it seems to me equally true that the Americans +possess the defects of their qualities in this as in other respects; +they are often apt to talk too much, they are afraid of a +conversational lull, and do not sufficiently appreciate the charm of +"flashes of brilliant silence." It seemed to me that they often +carried a most unnecessary amount of volubility into their business +life; and I sometimes wondered whether the greater energy and rush +that they apparently put into their conduct of affairs were not due to +the necessity of making up time lost in superfluous chatter. If an +Englishman has a mile to go to an appointment he will take his +leisurely twenty minutes to do the distance, and then settle his +business in two or three dozen sentences; an American is much more +likely to devour the ground in five minutes, and then spend an hour or +more in lively conversation not wholly pertinent to the matter in +hand. The American mind is discursive, open, wide in its interests, +alive to suggestion, pliant, emotional, imaginative; the English mind +is concentrated, substantial, indifferent to the merely relative, +matter-of-fact, stiff, and inflexible. + +The English have reduced to a fine art the practice of a stony +impassivity, which on its highest plane is not devoid of a certain +impressiveness. On ordinary occasions it is apt to excite either the +ire or the amusement of the representatives of a more animated race. I +suppose it is almost impossible for an untravelled Englishman to +realise the ridiculous side of the Church Parade in Hyde Park--as it +would appear, say, to a lively girl from Baltimore. The parade is a +collection of human beings, presumably brought together for the sake +of seeing and being seen. Yet the obvious aim of each English item in +the crowd is to deprive his features of all expression, and to look as +if he were absolutely unconscious that his own party were not the only +one on the ground. Such vulgarity as the exhibition of the slightest +interest in a being to whom he has not been introduced would be +treason to his dearest traditions. In an American function of the same +kind, the actors take an undisguised interest in each other, while a +French or Italian assembly would be still more demonstrative. On the +surface the English attitude is distinctly inhuman; it reminds one +that England is still the stronghold of the obsolescent institution of +caste, that it frankly and even brutally asserts the essential +inequality of man. Nowhere, perhaps, will you see a bigger and +handsomer, healthier, better-groomed, more efficient set of human +animals; but their straight-ahead, phlegmatic, expressionless gaze, +the want of animated talk, the absence of any show of intelligence, +emphasises our feeling that they are _animals_. + +The Briton's indifference to criticism is at once his strength and his +weakness. It makes him invincible in a cause which has dominated his +conscience; it hinders him in the attainment of a luminous +discrimination between cause and cause. His profound self-confidence, +his sheer good sense, his dogged persistence, his bulldog courage, his +essential honesty of purpose, bring him to the goal in spite of the +unnecessary obstacles that have been heaped on his path by his own +[Greek: hubris] and contempt of others. He chooses what is physically +the shortest line in preference to the line of least resistance. He +makes up for his want of light by his superiority in weight. Social +adaptability is not his foible. He accepts the conventionality of his +class and wears it as an impenetrable armour. Out of his own class he +may sometimes appear less conventional than the American, simply +because the latter is quick to adopt the manners of a new _milieu_, +while John Bull clings doggedly or unconsciously to his old conventions. +If an American and an English shop-girl were simultaneously married to +peers of the realm, the odds would be a hundred to one in favour of the +former in the race for self-identification with her new environment. + +The American facility of expression, if I do not err, springs largely +from an amiable difference in temperament. The American is, on the +whole, more genially disposed to all and sundry. I do not say that he +is capable of truer friendships or of greater sacrifices for a friend +than the Englishman; but the window through which he looks out on +humanity at large has panes of a ruddier hue, he cultivates a mildness +of tone, which a Briton is apt to despise as weakness. His desire to +oblige sometimes impels him to uncharacteristic actions, which lead to +fallacious generalisations on the part of his British critic. He +shrinks from any assumption of superiority; he is apt to think twice +of the feelings of his inferiors. The American tends to consider each +stranger he meets--at any rate within his own social sphere--as a good +fellow until he proves himself the contrary; with the Englishman the +presumption is rather the other way. An Englishman usually excuses +this national trait as really due to modesty and shyness; but I fear +there is in it a very large element of sheer bad manners, and of a +cowardly fear of compromising one's self with undesirable +acquaintances. Englishmen are apt to take _omne ignotum pro +horribile_, and their translation of the Latin phrase varies from the +lifting of the aristocratic eyebrow over the unwarranted address of +the casual companion at _table d'hote_ down to the "'ere's a stranger, +let's 'eave 'arf a brick at 'im" of the Black Country. In England I am +apt to feel painfully what a lame dog I am; in America I feel, well, +if I am a lame dog I am being helped most delightfully over the +conversational stile. An Englishman says, "Would you _mind_ doing +so-and-so for me?" showing by the very form of the question that he +thinks kindness likely to be troublesome. An American says, "Wouldn't +you _like_ to do this for me?" assuming the superior attitude of one +who feels that to give an opportunity to do a kindness is itself to +confer a favour. The Continental European shares with the American the +merit of having manners on the self-regarding pattern of _noblesse +oblige_, while the Englishman wants to know who _you_ are, so as to +put on his best manners only if the _force majeure_ of your social +standing compels him. No one wishes the Englishman to express more +than he really feels or to increase the already overwhelming mass of +conventional insincerity; but it might undoubtedly be well for him to +consider whether it is not his positive duty to drop a little more of +the oil of human kindness on the wheels of the social machinery, and +to understand that it is perfectly possible for two strangers to speak +with and look at each other pleasantly without thereby contracting the +obligation of eternal friendship. Why should an English traveller deem +it worthy of special record that when calling at a Boston club, he +found his friend and host not yet arrived, other members of the club, +unknown to him, had put themselves about to entertain him? An American +gentleman would find this too natural to call for remark. + +Whether we like it or not, we have to acknowledge the fact that our +brutal frankness, our brusqueness, and our extreme fondness for +calling a spade a spade are often extremely disagreeable to our +American cousins, and make them (temporarily at any rate) feel +themselves to be our superiors in the matter of gentle breeding. As +Col. T.W. Higginson has phrased it, they think that "the English +nation has truthfulness enough for a whole continent, and almost too +much for an island." They think that a line might be drawn somewhere +between dissembling our love and kicking them downstairs. They also +object to our use of such terms as "beastly," "stinking," and "rot;" +and we must admit that they do so with justice, while we cannot assoil +them altogether of the opposite tendency of a prim prudishness in the +avoidance of certain natural and necessary words. For myself I +unfeignedly admire the delicacy which leads to a certain parsimony in +the use of words like "perspiration," "cleaning one's self," and so +on. And, however much we may laugh at the class that insists upon the +name of "help" instead of "servant," we cannot but respect the class +which yields to the demand and looks with horror on the English slang +word "slavey." + +On the other hand there are certain little personal habits, such as +the public use of the toothpick, and what Mr. Morley Roberts calls the +modern form of [Greek: kottabos], which I think often find themselves +in better company in America than in England. Still I desire to speak +here with all due diffidence. I remember when I pointed out to a +Boston girl that an American actor in a piece before us, representing +high life in London, was committing a gross solecism in moistening his +pencil in his mouth before adding his address to his visiting card, +she trumped my criticism at once by the information that a +distinguished English journalist, with a handle to his name, who +recently made a successful lecturing tour in the United States, +openly and deliberately moistened his thumb in the same ingenuous +fashion to aid him in turning over the leaves of his manuscript. + +A feature of the average middle-class Englishman which the American +cannot easily understand is his tacit recognition of the fact that +somebody else (the aristocrat) is his superior. In fact, this is +sometimes a fertile source of misunderstanding, and it is apt to beget +in the American an entirely false idea of what he thinks the innate +servility of the Englishman. He must remember that the aristocratic +prestige is a growth of centuries, that it has come to form part of +the atmosphere, that it is often accepted as unconsciously as the law +of gravitation. This is a case where the same attitude in an American +mind (and, alas, we occasionally see it in American residents in +London) would betoken an infinitely lower moral and mental plane than +it does in the Englishman. No true American could accept the +proposition that "Lord Tom Noddy might do so-and-so, but it would be a +very different thing for a man in my position;" and yet an Englishman +(I regret to say) might speak thus and still be a very decent fellow, +whom it would be unjust cruelty to call a snob. No doubt the English +aristocracy (as I think Mr. Henry James has said) now occupies a +heroic position without heroism; but the glamour of the past still +shines on their faded escutcheons, and "the love of freedom itself is +hardly stronger in England than the love of aristocracy." + +Matthew Arnold has pointed out to us how the aristocracy acts like an +incubus on the middle classes of Great Britain, and he has put it on +record that he was struck with the buoyancy, enjoyment of life, and +freedom of constraint of the corresponding classes in America. In +England, he says, a man feels that it is the _upper class_ which +represents him; in the United States he feels that it is the _State_, +_i.e._, himself. In England it is the Barbarian alone that dares be +indifferent to the opinion of his fellows; in America everyone +expresses his opinion and "voices" his idiosyncrasies with perfect +freedom. This position has, however, its seamy side. There is in +America a certain anarchy in questions of taste and manners which the +long possession of a leisured, a cultivated class tends to save us +from in England. I never felt so kindly a feeling towards our +so-called "upper class" as when travelling in the United States and +noting some effects of its absence. This class has an accepted +position in the social hierarchy; its dicta are taken as authoritative +on points of etiquette, just as the clergy are looked on as the +official guardians of religious and ecclesiastical standards. I do not +here pretend to discuss the value of the moral example of our +_jeunesse doree_, filtering down through the successive strata of +society; but their influence in setting the fashion on such points as +scrupulous personal cleanliness, the avoidance of the _outre_ in +costume, and the maintenance of an honourable and generous standard in +their money dealings with each other, is distinctly on the side of the +humanities. In America--at least, "Out West"--everyone practically is +his own guide, and the _nouveau riche_ spends his money strictly in +accordance with his own standard of taste. The result is often as +appalling in its hideousness as it is startling in its costliness. On +the other hand I am bound to state that I have known American men of +great wealth whose simplicity of type could hardly be paralleled in +England (except, perchance, within the Society of Friends). They do +not feel any social pressure to imitate the establishment of My Lord +or His Grace; and spend their money for what really interests them +without reference to the demands of society. + +It is rather interesting to observe the different forms which +vulgarity is apt to take in the two countries. In England vulgarity is +stolid; in America it is smart and aggressive. We are apt, I think, to +overestimate the amount in the latter country because it is so much +more in voluble evidence. An English vulgarian is often hushed into +silence by the presence of his social superior; an American vulgarian +either recognises none such or tries to prove himself as good as you +by being unnecessarily _grob_. This has, at any rate, a manlier air +than the vulgar obsequiousness of England towards the superior on the +one hand or its cynical insolence to the inferior on the other. The +feeling which made a French lady of fashion in the seventeenth century +dress herself in the presence of a footman with as much unconcern as +if he were a piece of furniture still finds its modified analogy in +England, but scarcely in America. Almost the only field in which the +Americans struck me as showing anything like servility was in their +treatment of such mighty potentates as railway conductors, hotel +clerks, and policemen. Whether, until a millenial golden mean is +attained, this is better than our English bullying tone in the same +sphere might be an interesting question for casuists. + +Americans can rarely understand the amount of social recognition given +by English duchesses to such American visitors as Col. William Cody, +generally known as "Buffalo Bill." They do not reflect that it is +just because the social gap between the two is so irretrievably vast +and so universally recognised that the duchesses can afford to amuse +themselves cursorily with any eccentricity that offers itself. As +Pomona's husband put it, people in England are like types with letters +at one end and can easily be sorted out of a state of "pi," while +Americans are theoretically all alike, like carpet-tacks. Thus +Americans of the best class often shun the free mixing that takes +place in England, because they know that the process of redistribution +will be neither easy nor popular. The intangible sieve thus placed +between the best and the not-so-good is of a fine discrimination, +beside which our conventional net-works seem coarse and ineffective. + +Since returning from the United States I have occasionally been asked +how the general tone of morality in that country compared with that in +our own. To answer such a question with anything approaching to an air +of finality or absoluteness would be an act of extreme presumption. +The opinions which one holds depend so obviously on a number of +contingent and accidental circumstances, and must so inevitably be +tinged by one's personal experiences, that their validity can at best +have but an approximate and tentative character. In making this +comparison, too, it is only right to disregard the phenomena of mining +camps and other phases of life on the fringes of American +civilisation, which can be fairly compared only with pioneer life on +the extreme frontiers of the British Empire. From a similar cause we +may omit from the comparison a great part of the Southern States, +where we do not find a homogeneous mass of white civilisation, but a +state of society inexpressibly complicated by the presence of an +inferior race. To compare the Southerner with the Englishman we should +need to observe the latter as he exists in, say, one of our African +colonies. Speaking, then, with these reservations, I should feel +inclined to say that in domestic and social morality the Americans are +ahead of us, in commercial morality rather behind than before, and in +political morality distinctly behind. + +Thus, in the first of these fields we find the American more +good-tempered and good-natured than the Englishman. Women, children, +and animals are treated with considerably more kindness. The American +translation of paterfamilias is not domestic tyrant. Horses are driven +by the voice rather than by the whip. The superior does not thrust his +superiority on his inferior so brutally as we are apt to do. There is +a general intention to make things pleasant--at any rate so long as it +does not involve the doer in loss. There is less _gratuitous_ +insolence. Servility, with its attendant hypocrisy and deceit, is +conspicuously absent; and the general spirit of independence, if +sometimes needlessly boorish in its manifestations, is at least sturdy +and manly. In England we are rude to those weaker than ourselves; in +America the rudeness is apt to be directed against those whom we +suspect to be in some way our superior. Man is regarded by man rather +as an object of interest than as an object of suspicion. Charity is +very widespread; and the idea of a fellow-creature actually suffering +from want of food or shelter is, perhaps, more repugnant to the +average American than to the average Englishman, and more apt to act +immediately on his purse-strings. In that which popular language +usually means when it speaks of immorality, all outward indications +point to the greater purity of the American. The conversation of the +smoking-room is a little less apt to be _risque_; the possibility of +masculine continence is more often taken for granted; solicitation on +the streets is rare; few American publishers of repute dare to issue +the semi-prurient style of novel at present so rife in England; the +columns of the leading magazines are almost prudishly closed to +anything suggesting the improper. The tone of the stage is distinctly +healthier, and adaptations of hectic French plays are by no means so +popular, in spite of the general sympathy of American taste with +French. The statistics of illegitimacy point in the same direction, +though I admit that this is not necessarily a sign of unsophisticated +morality. In a word, when an Englishman goes to France he feels that +the moral tone in this respect is more lax than in England; when he +goes to America he feels that it is more firm. And he will hardly find +adequate the French explanation, _viz._, that there is not less vice +but more hypocrisy in the Anglo-Saxon community. + +There is another very important sphere of morality in which the +general attitude of the United States seems to me very appreciably +superior to that of England. It is that to which St. Paul refers when +he says, "If a man will not work, neither shall he eat." American +public sentiment is distinctly ahead of ours in recognising that a +life of idleness is wrong in itself, and that the possibility of +leading such a life acts most prejudicially on character. The American +answer to the Englishman trying to define what he meant by "gentlemen +of leisure" "Ah, we call them _tramps_ in America"--is not merely a +jest, but enshrines a deep ethnical and ethical principle. Most +Americans would, I think, agree strongly with Mr. Bosanquet's +philosophical if somewhat cumbersomely worded definition of legitimate +private property, "that things should not come miraculously and be +unaffected by your dealings with them, but that you should be in +contact with something which in the external world is the definite +material representative of yourself" ("Aspects of the Social Problem," +p. 313). The British gentleman, aware that his dinner does not agree +with him unless he has put forth a certain amount of physical energy, +reverts to one of the earliest and most primitive forms of work, +_viz._, hunting. There is a small--a very small--class in the United +States in the same predicament; but as a rule the worker there is not +only more honoured, but also works more in accordance with the spirit +of the age. + +The general attitude of Americans towards militarism seems to me also +superior to ours; and one of the keenest dreads of the best American +citizens during a recent wave of jingoism was that of "the reflex +influence of militarism upon the national character, the +transformation of a peace-loving people into a nation of swaggerers +ever ready to take offence, prone to create difficulties, eager to +shed blood, and taking all sorts of occasions to bring the Christian +religion to shame under pretence of vindicating the rights of humanity +in some other country." The spectacle of a section in the United +States apparently ready to step down from its pedestal of honourable +neutrality, and run its head into the ignoble web of European +complications, was indeed one to make both gods and mortals weep. But +I do not believe it expressed the true attitude of the real American +people. Perhaps the personal element enters too largely into my +ascription of superior morality to the Americans in this matter, +because I can never thoroughly enjoy a military pageant, no matter how +brilliant, for thinking of the brutal, animal, inhuman element in our +nature of which it is, after all, the expression: military pomp is to +me merely the surface iridescence of a malarious pool, and the honour +paid to our life destroyers would, from my point of view, be +infinitely better bestowed on life preservers, such as the noble and +intrepid corps of firemen. Sympathisers with this view seem much more +numerous in the United States than in England.[11] + +The judgment of an uncommercial traveller on commercial morality may +well be held as a feather-weight in the balance. Such as mine is, it +is gathered mainly from the tone of casual conversation, from which I +should conclude that a considerable proportion of Americans read a +well-known proverb as "All's fair in love or business." Men--I will +not say of a high character and standing, but men of a standing and +character who would not have done it in England--told me instances of +their sharp practices in business, with an evident expectation of my +admiration for their shrewdness, and with no apparent sense of the +slightest moral delinquency. Possibly, when the "rules of the game" +are universally understood, there is less moral obliquity in taking +advantage of them than an outsider imagines. The prevalent belief that +America is more sedulous in the worship of the Golden Calf than any +other country arises largely, I believe, from the fact that the +chances of acquiring wealth are more frequent and easy there than +elsewhere. Opportunity makes the thief. Anyhow, the reproach comes +with a bad grace from the natives of a country which has in its annals +the outbreak of the South Sea Bubble, the railway mania of the Hudson +era, and the revelations of Mr. Hooley. + +Politics enter so slightly into the scope of this book that a very few +words on the question of political morality must suffice. That +political corruption exists more commonly in the United States than in +Great Britain--especially in municipal government--may be taken as +admitted by the most eminent American publicists themselves. A very +limited degree of intercourse with "professional politicians" yields +ample confirmatory evidence. Thus, to give but one instance, a wealthy +citizen of one of the largest Eastern towns told me, with absolute +ingenuousness, how he had "dished" the (say) Republican party in a +municipal contest, not in the least because he had changed his +political sympathies, but simply because the candidates had refused to +accede to certain personal demands of his own. He spoke throughout the +conversation as if it must be perfectly apparent to me, as to any +intelligent person, that the only possible reason for working and +voting for a political party must be personal interest. I confess this +seemed to me a very significant straw. On the other hand the +conclusions usually drawn by stay-at-home English people on these +admissions is ludicrously in excess of what is warranted by the facts. +"To imagine for a moment that 60,000,000 of people--better educated +than any other nation in the world--are openly tolerating universal +corruption in all Federal, State, and municipal government is simply +assuming that these 60,000,000 are either criminals or fools." Now, +"you can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the +people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of +the time." A more competent judge[12] than the present writer estimates +the morals of the American political "wire-puller" as about on a level +with those of our company directors. And before my English readers +make their final decision on the American political system let them +study Chapter XLVI. of that very fascinating novel, "The Honorable +Peter Stirling," by Paul Leicester Ford. It may give them some new +light on the subject of "a government of the average," and show them +what is meant by the saying, "The boss who does the most things that +the people want can do the most things that the people don't want." + +We must remember, too, that nothing is hidden from general knowledge +in America: every job comes sooner or later into the merciless glare +of publicity. And if our political sins are not the same as theirs, +they are perhaps equally heinous. Was not the British landlord who +voted against the repeal of the corn laws, so that land might continue +to bring in a high rent at the expense of the poor man, really acting +from just as corrupt a motive of self-interest as the American +legislator who accepts a bribe? It does not do to be too superior on +this question. + +We may end this chapter by a typical instance of the way in which +British opinion of America is apt to be formed that comes under my +notice at the very moment I write these lines. The _Daily Chronicle_ +of March 24, 1896, published a leading article on "Family Life in +America," in which it quotes with approval Mme. Blanc's assertion that +"the single woman in the United States is infinitely superior to her +European sister." In the same issue of the paper is a letter from Mrs. +Fawcett relating to a recent very deplorable occurrence in Washington, +where the daughter of a well-known resident shot a coloured boy who +was robbing her father's orchard. In the _Chronicle_ of March 25th +appears a triumphant British letter from "Old-Fashioned," asking +satirically whether the habit of using loaded revolvers is a proof of +the "infinite superiority" of the American girl. Now this estimable +gentleman is making the mistake that nine out of ten of his countrymen +constantly make in swooping down on a single _outre_ instance as +_characteristic_ of American life. If "Old-Fashioned" has not time to +pay a visit to America or to read Mr. Bryce's book, let him at least +accept my assurance that the above-mentioned incident seems to the +full as extraordinary to the Bostonian as to the Londoner, and that it +is just as typical of the habits of the American society girl as the +action of Miss Madeleine Smith was of English girls. + + "Of all the sarse thet I can call to mind, + England doos make the most onpleasant kind. + It's you're the sinner ollers, she's the saint; + Whot's good's all English, all thet isn't, ain't. + She is all thet's honest, honnable, an' fair. + An' when the vartoos died they made her heir." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[9] See, _e.g._, "Ad Familiares," 5, 18. + +[10] This was written just after President Cleveland's pronunciamento +in regard to Venezuela, and thus long before the outbreak of the war +with Spain. + +[11] This paragraph was written before the outbreak of the +Spanish-American war; but the events of that struggle do not seem to +me to call for serious modification of the opinion expressed above. + +[12] Sir George Campbell, in "Black and White in America." + + + + +VII + +Sports and Amusements + + +In face of the immense sums of money spent on all kinds of sport, the +size and wealth of the athletic associations, the swollen salaries of +baseball players, the prominence afforded to sporting events in the +newspapers, the number of "world's records" made in the United States, +and the tremendous excitement over inter-university football matches +and international yacht-races, it may seem wanton to assert that the +love of sport is not by any means so genuine or so universal in the +United States as in Great Britain; and yet I am not at all sure that +such a statement would not be absolutely true. By true "love of sport" +I understand the enjoyment that arises from either practising or +seeing others practise some form of skill-demanding amusement for its +own sake, without question of pecuniary profit; and the true sport +lover is not satisfied unless the best man wins, whether he be friend +or foe. Sport ceases to be sport as soon as it is carried on as if it +were war, where "all" is proverbially "fair." The excitement of +gambling does not seem to me to be fairly covered by the phrase "love +of sport," and no more does the mere desire to see one's university, +state, or nation triumph over someone else's university, state, or +nation. There are thousands of people who rejoice over or bewail the +result of the Derby without thereby proving their possession of any +right to the title of sportsman; there is no difference of quality +between the speculator in grain and the speculator in horseflesh and +jockeys' nerves. So, too, there are many thousands who yell for Yale +in a football match who have no real sporting instinct whatever. +Sport, to be sport, must jealously shun all attempts to make it a +business; the more there is of the spirit of professionalism in any +game or athletic exercise the less it deserves to be called a sport. A +sport in the true sense of the word must be practised for fun or +glory, not for dollars and cents; and the desire to win must be very +strictly subordinated to the sense of honour and fair play. The +book-making spirit has undoubtedly entered far too largely into many +of the most characteristic of British sports, and I have no desire to +palliate or excuse our national shortcomings in this or other +respects. But the hard commercial spirit to which I have alluded seems +to me to pervade American sport much more universally than it does the +sport of England, and to form almost always a much larger factor in +the interest excited by any contest. + +This is very clearly shown by the way in which games are carried on at +the universities of the two countries. Most members of an English +college are members of some one or other of the various athletic +associations connected with it, and it cannot be denied that the +general interest in sport is both wide and keen. But it does not +assume so "business-like" an air as it does in such a university as +Yale or Princeton. Not nearly so much money is spent in the +paraphernalia of the sport or in the process of training. The +operation of turning a pleasure into a toil is not so consistently +carried on. The members of the intercollegiate team do not obtain +leave of absence from their college duties to train and practise in +some remote corner of England as if they were prize-fighters or +yearlings. "Gate-money" does not bulk so largely in the view; in fact, +admission to many of the chief encounters is free. The atmosphere of +mystery about the doings of the crew or team is not so sedulously +cultivated. The men do not take defeat so hardly, or regard the loss +of a match as a serious calamity in life. I have the authority of Mr. +Caspar W. Whitney, the editor of _Forest and Stream_, and perhaps the +foremost living writer on sport in the United States, for the +statement that members of a defeated football team in America will +sometimes throw themselves on their faces on the turf and weep (see +his "Sporting Pilgrimage," Chapter IV., pp. 94, 95).[13] It was an +American orator who proposed the toast: "My country--right or wrong, +my country;" and there is some reason to fear that American college +athletes are tempted to adapt this in the form "Let us _win_, by fair +means or foul." I should hesitate to suggest this were it not that the +evidence on which I do so was supplied from American sources. Thus, +one American friend of mine told me he heard a member of a leading +university football team say to one of his colleagues: "You try to +knock out A.B. this bout; I've been warned once." Tactics of this kind +are freely alleged against our professional players of association +football; but it may safely be asserted that no such sentence could +issue from the lips of a member of the Oxford or Cambridge university +teams. + +Mr. E.J. Brown, Track Captain of the University of California, +asserted, on his return from a visit to the Eastern States, that +Harvard was the only Eastern university in which the members of the +athletic teams were all _bona fide_ students. This is doubtless a very +exaggerated statement, but it would seem to indicate which way the +wind blows. The entire American tendency is to take amusement too +seriously, too strenuously. They do not allow sport to take care of +itself. "It runs to rhetoric and interviews." All good contestants +become "representatives of the American people." One serious effect of +the way in which the necessity of winning or "making records" is +constantly held up as the _raison d'etre_ of athletic sports is that +it suggests to the ordinary student, who has no hopes of brilliant +success in athletics, that moderate exercise is contemptible, and that +he need do nothing to keep up his bodily vigour. Thus, Dr. Birkbeck +Hill found that the proportion of students who took part in some +athletic sport was distinctly less at Harvard than at Oxford. Nor +could I ascertain that nearly so large a proportion of the adult +population themselves played games or followed athletics of any kind +as in England. I should say, speaking roughly, that the end of his +university career or his first year in responsible business +corresponded practically for the ordinary American to the forty-fifth +year of the ordinary Englishman, _i.e._, after this time he would +either entirely or partially give up his own active participation in +outdoor exercises. Of course there are thousands of exceptions on both +sides; but the general rule remains true. The average American +professional or business man does not play baseball as his English +cousin does cricket. He goes in his thousands to see baseball +matches, and takes a very keen and vociferous interest in their +progress; but he himself has probably not handled a club since he left +college. No doubt this contrast is gradually diminishing, and such +games as lawn tennis and golf have made it practically a vanishing +quantity in the North-eastern States; but as one goes West one cannot +but feel that baseball and other sports, like dancing in China, are +almost wholly in the hands of paid performers. + +The national games of cricket and baseball serve very well to +illustrate this, as well as other contrasts in the pastimes of the two +nations. In cricket the line between the amateur and the professional +has hitherto been very clearly drawn; and Englishmen are apt to +believe that there is something elevating in the very nature of the +game which makes it shed scandals as a duck's back sheds water. The +American view is, perhaps, rather that cricket is so slow a game that +there is little scope for betting, with all its attendant excitement +and evils. They point to the fact that the staid city of Philadelphia +is the only part of the United States in which cricket flourishes; +and, if in a boasting mood, they may claim with justice that it has +been cultivated there in a way that shows that it is not lack of +ability to shine in it that makes most Americans indifferent to the +game. A first-class match takes three days to play, and even a match +between two teams of small boys requires a long half-holiday. Hence +the game is largely practised by the members of the leisure class. The +grounds on which it is played are covered with the greenest and +best-kept of turf, and are often amid the most lovely surroundings. +The season at which the game is played is summer, so that looking on +is warm and comfortable. There is comparatively little chance of +serious accident; and the absence of personal contact of player with +player removes the prime cause of quarrelling and ill-feeling. Hence +ladies feel that they may frequent cricket matches in their daintiest +summer frocks and without dread of witnessing any painful accident or +unseemly scuffle. The costumes of the players are varied, appropriate, +and tasteful, and the arrangement of the fielders is very picturesque. + +Baseball, on the other hand (which, _pace_, my American friends, is +simply glorified rounders), with the exception of school and college +teams, is almost wholly practised by professional players; and the +place of the county cricket matches is taken by the games between the +various cities represented in the National League, in which the +amateur is severely absent. The dress, with a long-sleeved semmet +appearing below a short-sleeved jersey, is very ugly, and gives a sort +of ruffianly look to a "nine" which it might be free from in another +costume. The ground is theoretically grass, but practically (often, at +least) hard-trodden earth or mud. A match is finished in about one +hour and a half. In running for base a player has often to throw +himself on his face, and thereby covers himself with dust or mud. The +spectators have each paid a sum varying from 1s. or 2s. to 8s. or even +10s. for admission, and are keenly excited in the contest; while their +yells, and hoots, and slangy chaff are very different to the decorous +applause of the cricket field, and rather recall an association +football crowd in the Midlands. As a rule not much sympathy or +courtesy is extended to the visiting team, and the duties of an +umpire are sometimes accompanied by real danger.[14] Several features +of the play seem distinctly unsportsmanlike. Thus, it is the regular +duty of one of the batting team, when not in himself, to try to +"rattle" the pitcher or fielder by yells and shouts just as he is +about to "pitch" or "catch" or "touch." It is not considered +dishonourable for one of the waiting strikers to pretend to be the +player really at a base and run from base to base just outside the +real line so as to confuse the fielders. On the other hand the game is +rapid, full of excitement and variety, and susceptible of infinite +development of skill. The accuracy with which a long field will throw +to base might turn an English long-leg green with envy; and the way in +which an expert pitcher will make a ball deflect _in the air_, either +up or down, to the right or left, must be seen to be believed. A +really skilful pitcher is said to be able to throw a ball in such a +way that it will go straight to within a foot of a tree, _turn out for +the tree_, and resume its original course on the other side of it! + +The football match between Yale and Princeton on Thanksgiving Day +(last Thursday in November) may, perhaps, be said to hold the place in +public estimation in America that the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race +does in England. In spite of the inclement season, spectators of +either sex turn out in their thousands; and the scene, except that +furs are substituted for summer frocks, easily stands comparison with +the Eton and Harrow day at Lord's. The field is surrounded in the same +way with carriages and drags, on which the colours of the rival teams +are profusely displayed; and there are the same merry coach-top +luncheons, the same serried files of noisy partisans, and the same +general air of festivity, while the final touch is given by the fact +that a brilliant sun is not rarer in America in November than it is in +England in June. The American game of football is a developed form of +the Rugby game; but is, perhaps, not nearer it than baseball is to +rounders. It is played by eleven a side. American judges think that +neither Rugby nor Association football approaches the American game +either in skill or in demand on the player's physical endurance. This +may be so: in fact, so far as my very inexpert point of view goes I +should say that it is so. Undoubtedly the American teams go through a +much more prolonged and rigid system of training, and their scheme of +tactics, codes of signals, and sharp devices of all kinds are much +more complicated. "Tackling" is probably reduced to a finer art than +in England. Mr. Whitney, a most competent and impartial observer, does +not think that our system of "passing" would be possible with American +tacklers. Whether all this makes a better _game_ is a very different +question, and one that I should be disposed to answer in the negative. +It is a more serious business, just as a duel _a outrance_ is a more +serious business than a fencing match; but it is not so interesting to +look at and does not seem to afford the players so much _fun_. There +is little running with the ball, almost no dropping or punting, and +few free kicks. The game between Princeton and Yale which I, +shivering, saw from the top of a drag in 1891, seemed like one +prolonged, though rather loose, scrimmage; and the spectators fairly +yelled for joy when they saw the ball, which happened on an average +about once every ten or fifteen minutes. Americans have to gain five +yards for every three "downs" or else lose possession of the ball; and +hence the field is marked off by five-yard lines all the way from goal +to goal. American writers acknowledge that the English Rugby men are +much better kickers than the American players, and that it is now +seldom that the punter in America gets a fair chance to show his +skill. There are many tiresome waits in the American game; and the +practice of "interference," though certainly managed with wonderful +skill, can never seem quite fair to one brought upon the English +notions of "off-side." The concerted cheering of the students of each +university, led by a regular fugle-man, marking time with voice and +arms, seems odd to the spectator accustomed to the sparse, +spontaneous, and independent applause of an English crowd. + +An American football player in full armour resembles a deep-sea diver +or a Roman retiarius more than anything else. The dress itself +consists of thickly padded knickerbockers, jersey, canvas jacket, very +heavy boots, and very thick stockings. The player then farther +protects himself by shin guards, shoulder caps, ankle and knee +supporters, and wristbands. The apparatus on his head is fearful and +wonderful to behold, including a rubber mouthpiece, a nose mask, +padded ear guards, and a curious headpiece made of steel springs, +leather straps, and India rubber. It is obvious that a man in this +cumbersome attire cannot move so quickly as an English player clad +simply in jersey, short breeches, boots, and stockings; and I question +very much whether--slugging apart--the American assumption that the +science of Yale would simply overwhelm the more elementary play of an +English university is entirely justified. Anyone who has seen an +American team in this curious paraphernalia can well understand the +shudder of apprehension that shakes an American spectator the first +time he sees an English team take the field with bare knees. + +Certainly the spirit and temper with which football is played in the +United States would seem to indicate that the over-elaborate way in +which it has been handled has not been favourable to a true ideal of +manly sport. On this point I shall not rely on my own observation, but +on the statements of Americans themselves, beginning with the +semi-jocular assertion, which largely belongs to the order of true +words spoken in jest, that "in old English football you kicked the +ball; in modern English football you kick the man when you can't kick +the ball; in American football you kick the ball when you can't kick +the man." In Georgia, Indiana, Nebraska, and possibly some other +States, bills to prohibit football have actually been introduced in +the State Legislatures within the past few years. The following +sentences are taken from an article in the _Nation_ (New York), +referring to the Harvard and Yale game of 1894: + + The game on Saturday at Springfield between the two great teams + of Harvard and Yale was by the testimony--unanimous, as far as + our knowledge goes--of spectators and newspapers the most brutal + ever witnessed in the United States. There are few members of + either university--we trust there are none--who have not hung + their heads for shame in talking over it, or thinking of it. + + In the first place, we respectfully ask the governing body of all + colleges what they have to say for a game between youths + presumably engaged in the cultivation of the liberal arts which + needs among its preliminaries a supply on the field of litters + and surgeons? Such preparations are not only brutal, but + brutalising. How any spectator, especially any woman, can witness + them without a shudder, so distinctly do they recall the duelling + field and the prize ring, we are unable to understand. But that + they are necessary and proper under the circumstances the result + showed. There were actually seven casualties among twenty-two men + who began the game. This is nearly 33 per cent. of the + combatants--a larger proportion than among the Federals at Cold + Harbor (the bloodiest battle of modern times), and much larger + than at Waterloo or at Gravelotte. What has American culture and + civilisation to say to this mode of training youth? "Brewer was + so badly injured that he had to be taken off the field crying + with mortification." Wright, captain of the Yale men, jumped on + him with both knees, breaking his collar bone. Beard was next + turned over to the doctors. Hallowell had his nose broken. Murphy + was soon badly injured and taken off the field on a stretcher + unconscious, with concussion of the brain. Butterworth, who is + said nearly to have lost an eye, soon followed. Add that there + was a great deal of "slugging"--that is, striking with the fist + and kicking--which was not punished by the umpires, though two + men were ruled out for it. + + * * * * * + + It may be laid down as a sound rule among civilised people that + games which may be won by disabling your adversary, or wearing + out his strength, or killing him, ought to be prohibited, at all + events among its youth. Swiftness of foot, skill and agility, + quickness of sight, and cunning of hands, are things to be + encouraged in education. The use of brute force against an + unequally matched antagonist, on the other hand, is one of the + most debauching influences to which a young man can be exposed. + The hurling of masses of highly trained athletes against one + another with intent to overcome by mere weight or kicking or + cuffing, without the possibility of the rigid superintendence + which the referee exercises in the prize ring, cannot fail to + blunt the sensibilities of young men, stimulate their bad + passions, and drown their sense of fairness. When this is done in + the sight of thousands, under the stimulation of their frantic + cheers and encouragement, and in full view of the stretchers + which carry their fellows from the field, for aught they know + disabled for life, how, in the name of common sense, does it + differ in moral influence from the Roman arena? + +Now, the point in the above notice is that it is written of +"gentlemen"--of university men. It is to be feared that very similar +charges might be brought against some of the professionals of our +association teams: but our amateurs are practically exempt from any +such accusation. The climax of the whole thing is the statement by a +professor of a well-known university, that a captain of one of the +great football teams declared in a class prayer-meeting "that the +great success of the team the previous season was in his opinion due +to the fact that among the team and substitutes there were so many +praying men." The true friends of sport in the United States must wish +that the football mania may soon disappear in its present form; and +the Harvard authorities are to be warmly congratulated on the manly +stand they have taken against the evil. And it is to be devoutly hoped +that no president of a college in the future will ever, as one did in +1894, congratulate his students on the fact "that their progress and +success in study during the term just finished had been _fully equal_ +to their success in intercollegiate athletics and football!".[15] + +I have, however, no desire to pose as the British Pharisee, and I am +aware that, though we make the better showing in this instance, there +are others in which our record is at least as bad. The following +paragraph is taken from the _Field_ (December 7th, 1895): + + HIGHCLERE.--As various incorrect reports have been + published of the shooting at Highclere last week, Lord Carnarvon + has desired me to forward the enclosed particulars of the game + shot on three days: November 26, 27, and 29, James McCraw (13, + Berkeley-square, w.). November 26, Grotto (Brooks) Beat, 5 + partridges, 1,160 pheasants, 42 hares, 2,362 rabbits, 7 various; + total, 3,576. November 27, Highclere Wood (Cross) Beat, 5 + partridges, 1,700 pheasants, 1 hare, 1,702 rabbits, 4 woodcock, + 16 various; total, 3,428. November 29, Beeches (Cross) Beat, 6 + partridges, 2,811 pheasants, 969 rabbits, 2 wild fowl, 15 + various; total, 3,803. Grand total: 16 partridges, 5,671 + pheasants, 43 hares, 5,033 rabbits, 4 woodcock, 2 wild fowl, 38 + various; total, 10,807. The shooters on the first two days were + Prince Victor Duleep Singh, Prince Frederick Duleep Singh, Lord + de Grey, Lord Ashburton, Lord Carnarvon, and Mr. Chaplin. On + November 29 Mr. Rutherford took the place of Mr. Chaplin. + +A little calculation will show that each of the six gentlemen +mentioned in the paragraph must have killed one head of game every +minute or two. This makes it impossible that there could have been +many misses. This in turn makes it certain that the pheasants in the +bag must have been nearly as tame as barndoor fowl. The shooting, +then, must have been one long drawn-out massacre of semi-tame animals, +with hardly a breathing interval. I confess such a record seems to me +as absolutely devoid of sport and as full of brutality as the worst +slugging match between Princeton and Yale; and it, moreover, lacks the +element of physical courage which is certainly necessary in the +football match. Besides, the English sinners are grown men and members +of the class which is supposed to set the pattern for the rest of the +nation; the university footballers, in spite of their own sense of +importance, are after all raw youths, to whom reason does not +altogether forbid us to hope that riper years may bring more sense and +more true manliness. + +Two of the most popular outdoor amusements in the United States are +driving and sailing. I do not know how far statistics would bear me +out, but one certainly gets the impression that more people keep +horses for pleasure in America than in England. Horses are +comparatively cheap, and their keep is often lower than with us. The +light buggies must cost less than the more substantial carriages of +England. Hence, if a man is so fond of driving as to be willing to be +his own coachman and groom, the keeping of a horse and shay is not +very ruinous, especially in the country or smaller towns. As soon as +the element of wages enters into the question the result is very +different: carriage-hire is usually twice as high as in England and +often more. However that may be, it is certainly very striking to see +the immense number of one-horse "teams" that turn out for an afternoon +or evening spin in the parks and suburban roads of places like New +York, Boston, and Chicago. Many of these teams are of a plainness, not +to say shabbiness, which would make an English owner too shamefaced to +exhibit them in public. The fact that the owner is his own stableman +is often indicated by the ungroomed coat of his horse, and by the +month-old mud on his wheels. The horse, however, can generally do a +bit of smart trotting, and his owner evidently enjoys his speed and +grit. The buggies, unsubstantial as they look, are comfortable enough +when one is seated; but the access, between, through, and over the +wheels, is unpleasantly suggestive for the nervous. So fond are the +Americans of driving that they evidently look upon it as a form of +active exercise for themselves as well as for their nags. One man said +to me: "I am really getting too stout; I must start a buggy." + +I am almost ashamed to avow that I spent five years in the United +States without seeing a trotting-race, though this was owing to no +lack of desire. The only remark that I shall, therefore, venture to +make about this form of sport is that the American claim that it has a +more practical bearing than the English form of horse-racing seems +justified. It is alleged indeed that the English "running" races are +of immense importance in keeping up the breed of horses; but it may +well be open to question whether the same end could not be better +attained by very different means. What is generally wanted in a horse +is draught power and ability to trot well and far. It is not clear to +the layman that a flying machine that can do a mile in a minute and a +half is the ideal parent for this form of horse. On the other hand, +the famous trotting-horses of America are just the kind of animal that +is wanted for the ordinary uses of life. Moreover, the trot is the +civilised or artificial gait as opposed to the wild and natural +gallop. There are 1,500 trotting-tracks in the United States, owned by +as many associations, besides those at all county and State fairs as +well as many private tracks at brood-farms and elsewhere. Stakes, +purses, and added moneys amount to more than $3,000,000 annually; and +the capital invested in horses, tracks, stables, farms, etc., is +enormous. The tracks are level, with start and finish directly in +front of the grand stand, and are either one mile or one-half mile in +length. They are always of earth, and are usually elliptical in shape, +though the "kite-shaped track" was for a time popular on account of +its increased speed. In this there is one straight stretch of +one-third mile, then a wide turn of one-third mile, and then a +straight run of one-third mile back to the start and finish. The +horses are driven in two-wheeled "sulkies" of little weight, and the +handicapping is exclusively by time-classes. Records of every race are +kept by two national associations. Horses that have never trotted a +mile in less than two minutes and forty seconds are in one class; +those that have never beaten 2.35 in another; those that have never +beaten 2.30 in a third; and so on down to 2.05, which has been beaten +but a dozen times. Races are always run in heats, and the winner must +win three heats. With a dozen entries (or even six or eight, the more +usual number) a race may thus occupy an entire afternoon, and require +many heats before a decision is reached. Betting is common at every +meeting, but is not so prominent as at running tracks. + +The record for fast trotting is held at present by Mr. Morris Jones' +mare "Alix," which trotted a mile in two minutes three and +three-quarters seconds at Galesburg in 1894. Turfmen confidently +expect that a mile will soon be trotted in two minutes. The two-minute +mark was attained in 1897 by a _pacing_ horse. + +Sailing is tremendously popular at all American seaside resorts; and +lolling over the ropes of a "cat-boat" is another form of active +exercise that finds innumerable votaries. Rowing is probably practised +in the older States with as much zest as in Great Britain, and the +fresh-water facilities are perhaps better. Except as a means to an +end, however, this mechanical form of sport has never appealed to me. +The more nearly a man can approximate to a triple-expansion engine the +better oarsman he is; no machine can be imagined that could play +cricket, golf, or tennis. + +The recent development of golf--perhaps the finest of all games--both +in England and America might give rise to a whole series of +reflections on the curious vicissitudes of games and the mysterious +reasons of their development. Golf has been played universally in +Scotland for hundreds of years, right under the noses of Englishmen; +yet it is just about thirty years ago that (except Blackheath) the +first golf-club was established south of the Tweed, and the present +craze for it is of the most recent origin (1885 or so). Yet of the +eight hundred golf-clubs of the United Kingdom about four hundred are +in England. The Scots of Canada have played golf for many years, but +the practice of the game in the United States may be dated from the +establishment of the St. Andrew's Club at Yonkers in 1888. Since then +the game has been taken up with considerable enthusiasm at many +centres, and it is estimated that there are now at least forty +thousand American golfers. There is, perhaps, no game that requires +more patience to acquire satisfactorily than golf, and the preliminary +steps cannot be gobbled. It is therefore doubtful whether the game +will ever become extensively popular in a country with so much nervous +electricity in the air. I heartily wish that this half-prophecy may +prove utterly mistaken, for no better relief to overcharged nerves and +wearied brains has ever been devised than a well-matched "twosome" or +the more social "foursome;" and the fact that golf gently exercises +_all_ the muscles of the body and can be played at _all_ ages from +eight to eighty gives it a unique place among outdoor games. The skill +already attained by the best American players is simply marvellous; +and it seems by no means beyond the bounds of possibility that the +open champion of (say) the year 1902 may not have been trained on +American soil. The natural impatience of the active-minded American +makes him at present very apt to neglect the etiquette of the game. +The chance of being "driven into" is much larger on the west side of +the Atlantic than on the conservative greens of Scotland; and it seems +almost impossible to make Brother Jonathan "replace that divot." I +have seen three different parties holing out at the same time on the +same putting green. In one open handicap tournament I took part in +near Boston the scanty supply of caddies was monopolized by the +members of the club holding the tournament, and strangers, who had +never seen the course, were allowed to go round alone and carrying +their own clubs. On another occasion a friend and myself played in a +foursome handicap tournament and were informed afterwards that the +handicaps were yet to be arranged! As the match was decided in our +favour it would be ungracious to complain of this irregularity. Those +little infringements of etiquette are, after all, mere details, and +will undoubtedly become less and less frequent before the growing +knowledge and love of the game. + +Lacrosse, perhaps the most perspicuous and fascinating of all games to +the impartial spectator, is, of course, chiefly played in Canada, but +there is a Lacrosse League in the Atlantic cities of the United +States. The visitor to Canada should certainly make a point of seeing +a good exposition of this most agile and graceful game, which is seen +at its best in Montreal, Toronto, or Ottawa. Unfortunately it seems to +be most trying to the temper, and I have more than once seen players +in representative matches neglect the game to indulge in a bout of +angry quarter-staff with their opponents until forcibly stopped by the +umpires, while the spectators also interfere occasionally in the most +disgraceful manner. Another drawback is the interval of ten minutes +between each game of the match, even when the game has taken only two +minutes to play. This absurd rule has been promptly discarded by the +English Lacrosse Clubs, and should certainly be modified in Canada +also. + +Lawn tennis is now played almost everywhere in the United States, and +its best exponents, such as Larned and Wrenn, have attained all +but--if not quite--English championship form. The annual contest for +the championship of America, held at Newport in August, is one of the +prettiest sporting scenes on the continent. Polo and court tennis also +have their headquarters at Newport. Hunting, shooting, and fishing +are, of course, immensely popular (at least the last two) in the +United States, but lie practically beyond the pale of my experience. + +Bowling or ten-pins is a favourite winter amusement of both sexes, and +occupies a far more exalted position than the English skittles. The +alleys, attached to most gymnasia and athletic-club buildings, are +often fitted up with great neatness and comfort; and even the +fashionable belle does not disdain her "bowling-club" evening, where +she meets a dozen or two of the young men and maidens of her +acquaintance. Regular meetings take place between the teams of various +athletic associations, records are made and chronicled, and +championships decided. If the game could be naturalised in England +under the same conditions as in America, our young people would find +it a most admirable opportunity for healthy exercise in the long dark +evenings of winter. + +Track athletics (running, jumping, etc.) occupy very much the same +position in the United States as in England; and outside the +university sphere the same abuses of the word "amateur" and the same +instances of selling prizes and betting prevail. Mr. Caspar Whitney +says that "amateur athletics are absolutely in danger of being +exterminated in the United States if something is not done to cleanse +them." The evils are said to be greatest in the middle and far West. +There are about a score of important athletic clubs in fifteen of the +largest cities of the United States, with a membership of nearly +25,000; and many of these possess handsome clubhouses, combining the +social accommodations of the Carlton or Reform with the sporting +facilities of Queen's. The Country Club is another American +institution which may be mentioned in this connection. It consists of +a comfortably and elegantly fitted-up clubhouse, within easy driving +distance of a large city, and surrounded by facilities for tennis, +racquets, golf, polo, baseball, racing, etc. So far it has kept clear +of the degrading sport of pigeon shooting. + +Training is carried out more thoroughly and consistently than in +England, and many if not most of the "records" are held in America. +The visits paid to the United States by athletic teams of the L.A.C. +and Cambridge University opened the eyes of Englishmen to what +Americans could do, the latter winning seventeen out of twenty events +and making several world's records. Indeed, there is almost too much +of a craze to make records, whereas the real sport is to beat a +competitor, not to hang round a course till the weather or other +conditions make "record-making" probable. A feature of American +athletic meetings with which we are unfamiliar in England is the +short sprinting-races, sometimes for as small a distance as fifteen +yards. + +Bicycling also is exposed, as a public sport, to the same reproaches +on both sides of the Atlantic. The bad roads of America prevented the +spread of wheeling so long as the old high bicycle was the type, but +the practice has assumed enormous proportions since the invention of +the pneumatic-tired "safety." The League of American Wheelmen has done +much to improve the country roads. The lady's bicycle was invented in +the United States, and there are, perhaps, more lady riders in +proportion in that country than in any other. As evidence of the +rapidity with which things move in America it may be mentioned that +when I quitted Boston in 1893 not a single "society" lady so far as I +could hear had deigned to touch the wheel; now (1898) I understand +that even a house in Beacon Street and a lot in Mt. Auburn Cemetery +are not enough to give the guinea-stamp of rank unless at least one +member of the family is an expert wheelwoman. An amazing instance of +the receptivity and adaptability of the American attitude is seen in +the fact that the outsides of the tramway-cars in at least one Western +city are fitted with hooks for bicycles, so that the cyclist is saved +the unpleasant, jolting ride over stone pavements before reaching +suburban joys. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[13] I wish to confess my obligation to this interesting book for much +help in writing the present chapter. + +[14] A match played in no less aristocratic a place than Newport on +Sept. 2, 1897, between the local team and a club from Brockton, ended +in a general scrimmage, in which even women joined in the cry of "Kill +the umpire!" + +[15] It is, perhaps, only fair to quote on the other side the opinion +of Mr. Rudolf Lehmann, the well-known English rowing coach, who +witnessed the match between Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania +in 1897. He writes in the London _News_: "I have never seen a finer +game played with a manlier spirit. The quickness and the precision of +the players were marvellous.... The game as I saw it, though it was +violent and rough, was never brutal. Indeed, I cannot hope to see a +finer exhibition of courage, strength, and manly endurance, without a +trace of meanness." + +And to Mr. Lehmann's voice may be added that of a "Mother of Nine +Sons," who wrote to the Boston _Evening Transcript_ in 1897, speaking +warmly of the advantages of football in the formation of habits of +self-control and submission to authority. + + + + +VIII + +The Humour of the "Man on the Cars" + + +"A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections." +So wrote George Eliot in "Daniel Deronda." And the truth of the +apothegm may account for much of the friction in the intercourse of +John Bull and Brother Jonathan. For, undoubtedly, there is a wide +difference between the humour of the Englishman and the humour of the +American. John Bull's downrightness appears in his jests also. His +jokes must be unmistakable; he wants none of your quips masquerading +as serious observations. A mere twinkle of the eye is not for him a +sufficient illumination between the serious and the comic. "Those +animals are horses," Artemus Ward used to say in showing his panorama. +"I know they are--because my artist says so. I had the picture two +years before I discovered the fact. The artist came to me about six +months ago and said, 'It is useless to disguise it from you any +longer--they are horses.'"[16] This is the form of introduction that +John Bull prefers for his witticisms. He will welcome a joke as +hospitably as a visitor, if only the credentials of the one as of the +other are unimpeachable. + +Now the American does not wish his joke underlined like an urgent +parliamentary whip. He wants something left to his imagination; he +wants to be tickled by the feeling that it requires a keen eye to see +the point; he may, in a word, like his champagne sweet, but he wants +his humour dry. His telephone girls halloo, but his jokes don't. In +this he resembles the Scotsman much more than the Englishman; and both +European foreigners and the Americans themselves seem aware of this. +Thus, Max O'Rell writes: + + De tous les citoyens du _Royaume_ plus ou moins _Uni_ l'ami + Donald est le plus fini, le plus solide, le plus positif, le plus + perseverant, le plus laborieux, et le plus spirituel. + + Le plus spirituel! voila un grand mot de lache. Oui, le plus + spirituel, n'en deplaise a l'ombre de Sydney Smith.... J'espere + bien prouver, par quelques anecdotes, que Donald a de l'esprit, + de l'esprit de bon aloi, d'humour surtout, de cet humour fin + subtil, qui passerait a travers la tete _d'un Cockney_ sans y + laisser la moindre trace, sans y faire la moindre impression. + +The testimony of the American is equally explicit. + +The following dialogue, quoted from memory, appeared some time since +in one of the best American comic journals: + + _Tomkyns_ (of London).--I say, Vanarsdale, I told such a good + joke, don't you know, to MacPherson, and he didn't laugh a bit! I + suppose that's because he's a Scotsman? + + _Vanarsdale_ (of New York).--I don't know; I think it's more + likely that it's because you are an Englishman! + +An English audience is usually much slower than an American or +Scottish one to take up a joke that is anything less than obvious. I +heard Max O'Rell deliver one of his witty orations in London. The +audience was good humored, entirely with the lecturer, and only too +ready to laugh. But if his joke was the least bit subtle, the least +bit less apparent than usual, it was extraordinary how the laughter +hung fire. There would be an appreciable interval of silence; then, +perhaps, a solitary laugh in a corner of the gallery; then a sort of +platoon fire in different parts of the house; and, finally, a +simultaneous roar. So, when Mr. John Morley, in his admirable lecture +on the Carlyle centenary celebration (Dec. 5, 1895), quoted Carlyle's +saying about Sterling: "We talked about this thing and that--except in +opinion not disagreeing," there was a lapse of half-a-minute before +the audience realised that the saying had a humorous turn. In an +American audience, and I believe also in a Scottish one, the report +would have been simultaneous with the flash. + +Perhaps the Americans themselves are just a little too sure of their +superiority to the English in point of humour, and indeed they often +carry their witticisms on the supposed English "obtuseness" to a point +at which exaggeration ceases to be funny. It is certainly not every +American who scoffs at English wit that is entitled to do so. There +are dullards in the United States as well as elsewhere; and nothing +can well be more ghastly than American humour run into the ground. On +the other hand their sense of loyalty to humour makes them much more +free in using it at their own expense; and some of their stories show +themselves up in the light usually reserved for John Bull. I +remember, unpatriotically, telling a stock story (to illustrate the +English slowness to take a joke) to an American writer whose pictures +of New England life are as full of a delicate sense of humour as they +are of real and simple pathos. It was, perhaps, the tale of the London +bookseller who referred to his own coiffure the American's remark +apropos of the two-volume English edition of a well-known series of +"Walks in London"--"Ah, I see you part your _Hare_ in the middle." +Whatever it was, my hearer at once capped it by the reply of a Boston +girl to her narration of the following anecdote: A railway conductor, +on his way through the cars to collect and check the tickets, noticed +a small hair-trunk lying in the forbidden central gangway, and told +the old farmer to whom it apparently belonged that it must be moved +from there at once. On a second round he found the trunk still in the +passage, reiterated his instructions more emphatically, and passed on +without listening to the attempted explanations of the farmer. On his +third round he cried: "Now, I gave you fair warning; here goes;" and +tipped the trunk overboard. Then, at last, the slow-moving farmer +found utterance and exclaimed: "All right! the trunk is none o' mine!" +To which the Boston girl: "Well, whose trunk was it?" We agreed, _nem. +con._, that this was indeed _Anglis ipsis Anglior_. + +These remarks as to the comparative merits of English and American +humour must be understood as referring to the average man in each +case--the "Man on the Cars," as our cousins have it. It would be a +very different position, and one hardly tenable, to maintain that the +land of Mark Twain has produced greater literary humorists than the +land of Charles Lamb. In the matter of comic papers it may also be +doubted, even by those who most appreciate American humour, whether +England has altogether the worst of it. It is the fashion in the +States to speak of "poor old _Punch_," and to affect astonishment at +seeing in its "senile pages" anything that they have to admit to be +funny. Doubtless a great deal of very laborious and vapid jesting goes +on in the pages of the _doyen_ of English comic weeklies; but at its +best _Punch_ is hard to beat, and its humours have often a literary +quality such as is seldom met with in an American journal of the same +kind. No American paper can even remotely claim to have added so much +to the gaiety of nations as the pages that can number names like Leech +and Thackeray, Douglas Jerrold and Tom Hood, Burnand and Charles +Keene, Du Maurier and Tenniel, Linley Sambourne and the author of +"Vice Versa," among its contributors past and present. And +besides--and the claim is a proud one--_Punch_ still remains the only +comic paper of importance that is always a perfect gentleman--a +gentleman who knows how to behave both in the smoking-room and the +drawing-room, who knows when a jest oversteps the boundary line of +coarseness, who realises that a laugh can sometimes be too dearly won. +_Punch_ is certainly a comic journal of which the English have every +reason to be proud; but if we had to name the paper most typical of +the English taste in humour we should, perhaps, be shamefacedly +compelled to turn to _Ally Sloper_. + +The best American comic paper is _Life_, which is modelled on the +lines of the _Muenchener Fliegende Blaetter_, perhaps the funniest and +most mirth-provoking of all professedly humorous weeklies. Among the +most attractive features are the graceful and dignified drawings of +Mr. Charles Dana Gibson, who has in its pages done for American +society what Mr. Du Maurier has done for England by his scenes in +_Punch_; the sketches of F.G. Attwood and S.W. Van Schaick; and the +clever verses of M.E.W. The dryness, the smart exaggeration, the +point, the unexpectedness of American humour are all often admirably +represented in its pages; and the faults and foibles of contemporary +society are touched off with an inimitable delicacy of satire both in +pencil and pen work. _Life_, like _Punch_, has also its more serious +side; and, if it has never produced a "Song of the Shirt," it earns +our warm admiration for its steadfast championing of worthy causes, +its severe and trenchant attacks on rampant evils, and its eloquent +tributes to men who have deserved well of the country. On the other +hand, it not unfrequently publishes jokes the birth of which +considerably antedates that of the United States itself; and it +sometimes descends to a level of trifling flatness and vapidity which +no English paper of the kind can hope to equal. It is hard--for a +British critic at any rate--to see any perennial interest in the long +series of highly exaggerated drawings and jests referring to the +gutter children of New York, a series in which the same threadbare +_motifs_ are constantly recurring under the thinnest of disguises. And +occasionally--very occasionally--there is a touch of coarseness in the +drawings of _Life_ which suggests the worst features of its German +prototype rather than anything it has borrowed from England. + +Among the political comic journals of America mention may be made of +_Puck_, the rough and gaudy cartoons of which have often what the +Germans would call a _packende Derbheit_ of their own that is by no +means ineffective. Of the other American--as, indeed, of the other +British--comic papers I prefer to say nothing, except that I have +often seen them in houses and in hands to which they seemed but ill +adapted. + +Among the characteristics of American humour--the humour of the +average man, the average newspaper, the average play--are its utter +irreverence, its droll extravagance, its dry suggestiveness, its +_naivete_ (real or apparent), its affectation of seriousness, its +fondness for antithesis and anti-climax. Mark Twain may stand as the +high priest of irreverence in American humour, as witnessed in his +"Innocents Abroad" and his "Yankee at the Court of King Arthur." In +this regard the humour of our transatlantic cousins cannot wholly +escape a charge of debasing the moral currency by buffoonery. It has +no reverence for the awful mystery of death and the Great Beyond. An +undertaker will place in his window a card bearing the words: "You +kick the bucket; we do the rest." A paper will head an account of the +hanging of three mulattoes with "Three Chocolate Drops." It has no +reverence for the names and phrases associated with our deepest +religious feelings. Buckeye's patent filter is advertised as +thoroughly reliable--"being what it was in the beginning, is now, and +ever shall be." Mr. Boyesen tells of meeting a venerable clergyman, +whose longevity, according to his introducer, was due to the fact that +"he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity." One of the daily +bulletins of the captain of the large excursion steamer on which I +visited Alaska read as follows: "The Lord only knows when it will +clear; and _he_ won't tell." And none of the two hundred passengers +seemed to find anything unseemly in this official freedom with the +name of their Creator. On a British steamer there would almost +certainly have been some sturdy Puritan to pull down the notice. One +of the best newspaper accounts of the Republican convention that +nominated Mr. J.G. Blaine for President in 1884 began as follows: "Now +a man of God, with a bald head, calls the Deity down into the _melee_ +and bids him make the candidate the right one and induce the people to +elect him in November." If I here mention the newspaper head-line +(apropos of a hanging) "Jerked to Jesus," it is mainly to note that M. +Blouet saw it in 1888 and M. Bourget also purports to have seen it in +1894. Surely the American journalist has a fatal facility of +repetition or--? + +American humour has no reverence for those in high position or +authority. An American will say of his chief executive, "Yes, the +President has a great deal of taste--and all of it bad." A current +piece of doggerel when I was in Washington ran thus: + + "Benny runs the White House, + Levi keeps a bar, + Johnny runs a Sunday School-- + And, damme, there you are!" + +The gentlemen named are the then President, Mr. Harrison; the +Vice-President, Mr. Morton, who was owner or part owner of one of the +large Washington hotels; and Mr. Wanamaker, Postmaster General, well +known as "an earnest Christian worker." + +I have seen even the sacred Declaration of Independence imitated, both +in wording and in external form, as the advertisement of a hotel. + +A story current in Philadelphia refers to Mr. Richard Vaux, an eminent +citizen and member of a highly respected old Quaker family, who in his +youth had been an _attache_ of the American Legation in London. One of +his letters home narrated with pardonable pride that he had danced +with the Princess Victoria at a royal ball and had found her a very +charming partner. His mother replied: "It pleaseth me much, Richard, +to hear of thy success at the ball in Buckingham Palace; but thee must +remember it would be a great blow to thy father to have thee marry out +of meeting." + +Philosophy, art, and letters receive no greater deference at the hands +of the American humorist. Even an Oliver Wendell Holmes will say of +metaphysics that it is like "splitting a log; when you have done, you +have two more to split." A poster long used by the comedians Crane and +Robson represented these popular favourites in the guise of the two +lowermost cherubs in the Sistine Madonna. Bill Nye's assertion that +"the peculiarity of classical music is that it is so much better than +it sounds" is typical of a whole battalion of quips. Scenery, even +when associated with poetry, fares no better. The advertising fiend +who defaces the most picturesque rocks with his atrocious +announcements is, perhaps, hardly entitled to the name of humorist; +but the man who affixed the name of Minniegiggle to a small fall near +the famous Minnehaha evidently thought himself one. So, doubtless, did +one of my predecessors in a dressing-cabin at Niagara, who had +inscribed on its walls: + + "Cannon to right of them, + Cannon to left of them, + Cannon in front of them, + Volleyed and thundered! + But the man who desc_i_nds + Through the Cave of the Winds + Can give points to the noble six hundred." + +Of the extravagant exaggeration of American humour it is hardly +necessary to give examples. This, to the ordinary observer, has +perhaps been always its salient feature; and stock examples will occur +to everyone. It is easy to see how readily this form of humour can be +abused, and as a matter of fact it is abused daily and hourly. Many +would-be American humorists fail entirely to see that exaggeration +_alone_ is not necessarily funny. + +To illustrate: the story of the woman who described the suddenness of +the American cyclone by saying that, as she looked up from her +gardening, "she saw the air black with her intimate friends," seems to +me a thoroughly humorous application of the exaggeration principle. +So, too, is the description of a man so terribly thin that he never +could tell whether he had the stomach-ache or the lumbago. But the +jester who expects you to laugh at the tale of the fish that was so +large that the water of the lake subsided two feet when it was drawn +ashore simply does not know where humour ends and drivelling idiocy +begins. + +The dry suggestiveness of American humour is also a well-known +feature. In its crudest phase it assumes such forms as the following: +"Mrs. William Hankins lighted her fire with coal oil on February 23. +Her clothes fit the present Mrs. Hankins to a T." The ordinary +Englishman will see the point of a jest like this (though his mind +will not fly to it with the electric rapidity of the American's), but +the more delicate forms of this allusive style of wit will often +escape him altogether. Or, if he now begins to "jump" with an almost +American agility it is because the cleverest witticisms of the Detroit +_Free Press_ are now constantly served up to him in the comic columns +of his evening paper. We have got the length of being consumers if not +producers of this style of jest. + +In its higher developments this quality of humour melts imperceptibly +into irony. This has been cultivated by the Americans with great +success--perhaps never better than in the columns of that admirable +weekly journal the _Nation_. Anyone who cares to search the files of +about eight or ten years back will find a number of ironical leaders, +which by their subtlety and wit delighted those who "caught on," +while, on the other hand, they often deceived even the elect Americans +themselves and provoked a shower of innocently approving or +depreciatory letters. + +Apart altogether from the specific difference between American and +English humour we cannot help noticing how humour penetrates and gives +savour to the _whole_ of American life. There is almost no business +too important to be smoothed over with a jest; and serio-comic +allusions may crop up amongst the most barren-looking reefs of scrip +and bargaining. It is almost impossible to imagine a governor of the +Bank of England making a joke in his official capacity, but wit is +perfected in the mouth of similar sucklings in New York. Of recent +prominent speakers in America all except Carl Schurz and George +William Curtis are professed humorists. + +When Professor Boyesen, at an examination in Columbia College, set as +one of the questions, "Write an account of your life," he found that +seventeen out of thirty-two responses were in a jocular vein. Fifteen +of the seventeen students bore names that indicated American +parentage, while all but three of the non-jokers had foreign names. +Abraham Lincoln is, of course, the great example of this tendency to +introduce the element of humour into the graver concerns of life; and +his biography narrates many instances of its most happy effect. _All_ +the newspapers, including the religious weeklies, have a comic column. + +The tremendous seriousness with which the Englishman takes himself and +everything else is practically unknown in America; and the ponderous +machinery of commercial and political life is undoubtedly facilitated +in its running by the presence of the oil of a sub-conscious humorous +intention. The American attitude, when not carried too far, seems, +perhaps, to suggest a truer view of the comparative importance of +things; the American seems to say: "This matter is of importance to +you and for me, but after all it does not concern the orbit of a +planet and there is no use talking and acting as if it did." This +sense of humour often saves the American in a situation in which the +Englishman would have recourse to downright brutality; it unties the +Gordian knot instead of cutting it. A too strong conviction of being +in the right often leads to conflicts that would be avoided by a more +humorous appreciation of the relative importance of phenomena. To look +on life as a jest is no doubt a deep of cynicism which is not and +cannot lead to good, but to recognise the humorous side, the humorous +possibilities running through most of our practical existence, often +works as a saving grace. To his lack of this grace the Englishman owes +much of his unpopularity with foreigners, much of the difficulty he +experiences in inducing others to take his point of view, even when +that point of view is right. You may as well hang a dog as give him a +bad name; and a sense of humour which would prevent John Bull from +calling a thing "un-English," when he means bad or unpractical, would +often help him smoothly towards his goal. To his possession of a keen +sense of humour the Yankee owes much of his success; it leads him, +with a shrug of his shoulders, to cease fighting over names when the +real thing is granted; it may sometimes lean to a calculating +selfishness rather than spontaneous generosity, but on the whole it +softens, enriches, and facilitates the problems of existence. It may, +however, be here noted that some observers, such as Professor Boyesen, +think that there is altogether too much jocularity in American life, +and claim that the constant presence of the jest and the comic +anecdote have done much to destroy conversation and eloquence. + +Humour also acts as a great safety-valve for the excitement of +political contests. When I was in New York, just before the election +of President Harrison in 1888, two great political processions took +place on the same day. In the afternoon some thirty thousand +Republicans paraded the streets between lines of amused spectators, +mostly Democrats. In the evening as many Democrats carried their +torches through the same thoroughfares. No collisions of any kind +took place; no ill humour was visible. The Republicans seemed to enjoy +the jokes and squibs and flaunting mottoes of the Democrats; and when +a Republican banner appeared with the legend, "No frigid North, no +torrid South, no temperate East, no _Sackville West_," nobody appeared +to relish it more than the hard-hit Democrat. The Cleveland cry of +"Four, four, four years more" was met forcibly and effectively with +the simple adaptation, "Four, four, four _months_ more," which proved +the more prophetic of that gentleman's then stay at the White House. +At midnight, three days later, I was jammed in the midst of a yelling +crowd in Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, watching the electoral returns +thrown by a stereopticon light, as they arrived, on large white +sheets. Keener or more interested partisans I never saw; but at the +same time I never saw a more good-humored crowd. If I encountered one +policeman that night that was all I did see; and the police reports +next morning, in a city of a million inhabitants let loose in the +streets on a public holiday, reported the arrest of five drunk men and +one pickpocket! + +Election bets are often made payable in practical jokes instead of in +current coin. Thus, after election day you will meet a defeated +Republican wheeling his Democratic friend through the chuckling crowd +in a wheelbarrow, or walking down the Bond Street of his native town +with a coal-black African laundress on his arm. But in such forms of +jesting as in "White Hat Day," at the Stock Exchange of New York, +Americans come perilously near the Londoner's standard of the truly +funny. + +In comparing American humour with English we must take care that we +take class for class. Those of us who find it difficult to get up a +laugh at _Judge_, or Bill Nye, or Josh Billings, have at least to +admit that they are not quite so feeble as _Ally Sloper_ and other +cognate English humorists. When we reach the level of Artemus Ward, Ik +Marvel, H.C. Bunner, Frank Stockton, and Mark Twain, we may find that +we have no equally popular contemporary humorists of equal excellence; +and these are emphatically humorists of a pure American type. If +humour of a finer point be demanded it seems to me that there are few, +if any, living English writers who can rival the delicate satiric +powers of a Henry James or the subtle suggestiveness of Mr. W.D. +Howells' farces, for an analogy to which we have to look to the best +French work of the kind. But this takes us beyond the scope of this +chapter, which deals merely with the humour of the "Man on the Cars." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[16] In an English issue of Artemus Ward, apparently edited by Mr. +John Camden Hotten (Chatto and Windus), this passage is accompanied +with the following gloss: "Here again Artemus called in the aid of +pleasant banter as the most fitting apology for the atrocious badness +of the painting." + +This note is an excellent illustration of English obtuseness--if +needed, on the part of the reading public; if needless, on the part of +the editor. + + + + +IX + +American Journalism--A Mixed Blessing + + +The average British daily newspaper is, perhaps, slightly in advance +of its average reader; if we could imagine an issue of the _Standard_, +or the _Daily Chronicle_, or the _Scotsman_ metamorphosed into human +form, we should probably have to admit that the being thus created was +rather above the average man in taste, intelligence, and good feeling. +Speaking roughly, and making allowances for all obvious exceptions, I +should be inclined to say that a similar statement would not be as +universally true of the American paper and the American public, +particularly if the female citizen were included under the latter +head. If the intelligent foreigner were to regard the British citizen +as practically an incarnation of his daily press, whether metropolitan +or provincial, he would be doing him more than justice; if he were to +apply the same standard to the American press and the American +citizen, it would not be the latter who would profit by the +assumption. The American paper represents a distinctly lower level of +life than the English one; it would often seem as if the one catered +for the least intelligent class of its readers, while the other +assumed a standard higher than most of its readers could reach. The +cultivated American is certainly not so slangy as the paper he reads; +he is certainly not keenly interested in the extremely silly social +items of which it contains several columns. Such journals as the New +York _Evening Post_ and the Springfield _Republican_ are undoubtedly +worthy of mention alongside of our most reputable dailies; but +journals of their admirably high standard are comparatively rare, and +no cultivated English visitor to the United States can have been +spared a shock at the contrast between his fastidious and gentlemanly +host and the general tone of the sheet served up with the matutinal +hot cakes, or read by him on the cars and at the club. + +Various causes may be suggested for this state of affairs. For one +thing, the mass of half-educated people in the United States--people +intelligent enough to take a lively interest in all that pertains to +humanity, but not trained enough to insist on literary _form_--is so +immense as practically to swamp the cultivated class and render it a +comparatively unimportant object for the business-like editor. In +England a standard of taste has been gradually evolved, which is +insisted on by the educated class and largely taken on authority by +others. In America practically no such standard is recognised; no one +there would continue to take in a paper he found dull because the +squire and the parson subscribed for it. The American reader--even +when himself of high education and refinement--is a much less +responsible being than the Englishman, and will content himself with a +shrug of his shoulders where the latter would write a letter of +indignant protest to the editor. I have more than once asked an +American friend how he could endure such a daily repast of pointless +vulgarity, slipshod English, and general second-rateness; but elicited +no better answer than that one had to see the news, that the +editorial part of the paper was well done, and that a man had to make +the best of what existed. This is a national trait; it has simply to +be recognised as such. Perhaps the fact that there is no metropolitan +press in America to give tone to the rest of the country may also +count for something in this connection. The press of Washington, the +political capital, is distinctly provincial; and the New York papers, +though practically representative of the United States for the outside +world, can hardly be said to play a genuinely metropolitan role within +the country itself. + +The principal characteristics of American journalism may be summed up +in the word "enterprise." No one on earth is more fertile in +expedients than an American editor, kept constantly to the collar by a +sense of competing energies all around him. No trouble, or expense, or +contrivance is spared in the collection of news; scarcely any item of +interest is overlooked by the army of alert reporters day and night in +the field. The old-world papers do not compete with those of the new +in the matter of _quantity_ of news. But just here comes in one of the +chief faults of the American journal, one of the besetting sins of the +American people,--their well-known love of "bigness," their tendency +to ask "How much?" rather than "Of what kind?" There is a lack of +discrimination in the daily bill of fare served up by the American +press that cannot but disgust the refined and tutored palate. It is +only the boor who demands a savoury and a roast of equal bulk; it is +only the vulgarian who wishes as much of his paper occupied by brutal +prize-fights or vapid "personals" as by important political +information or literary criticism. There is undoubtedly a modicum of +truth in Matthew Arnold's sneer that American journals certainly +supply news enough--but it is the news of the servants' hall. It is as +if the helm were held rather by the active reporter than by the able +editor. It is said that while there are eight editors to one reporter +in Denmark, the proportion is exactly reversed in the United States. +The net of the ordinary American editor is at least as indiscriminating +as that of the German historiographer: every detail is swept in, +irrespective of its intrinsic value. The very end for which the +newspaper avowedly exists is often defeated by the impossibility of +finding out what is the important news of the day. The reporter prides +himself on being able to "write up" the most intrinsically +uninteresting and unimportant matter. The best American critics +themselves agree on this point. Mr. Howells writes: "There are too +many things brought together in which the reader can and should have +no interest. The thousand and one petty incidents of the various +casualties of life that are grouped together in newspaper columns are +profitless expenditure of money and energy." + +The culminating point of this aimless congeries of reading matter, +good, bad, and indifferent, is attained in the Sunday editions of the +larger papers. Nothing comes amiss to their endless columns: scandal, +politics, crochet-patterns, bogus interviews, puerile hoaxes, highly +seasoned police reports, exaggerations of every kind, records of +miraculous cures, funny stories with comic cuts, society paragraphs, +gossip about foreign royalties, personalities of every description. In +fact, they form the very ragbag of journalism. An unreasonable pride +is taken in their very bulk--as if forty pages _per se_ were better +than one; as if the tons of garbage in the Sunday issue of the Gotham +_Gasometer_ outweighed in any valuable sense the ten or twelve small +pages of the Parisian _Temps_. Not but that there is a great deal of +good matter in the Sunday papers. _Wer vieles bringt wird manchem +etwas bringen_; and he who knows where to look for it will generally +find some edible morsel in the hog-trough. It has been claimed that +the Sunday papers of America correspond with the cheaper English +magazines; and doubtless there is some truth in the assertion. The +pretty little tale, the interesting note of popular science, or the +able sketch of some contemporary political condition is, however, so +hidden away amid a mass of feebly illustrated and vulgarly written +notes on sport, society, criminal reports, and personal interviews +with the most evanescent of celebrities that one cannot but stand +aghast at this terrible misuse of the powerful engine of the press. It +is idle to contend that the newspaper, as a business undertaking, must +supply this sort of thing to meet the demand for it. It is (or ought +to be) the proud boast of the press that it leads and moulds public +opinion, and undoubtedly journalism (like the theatre) is at least as +much the cause as the effect of the depravity of public taste. +Enterprising stage-managers have before now proved that Shakespeare +does _not_ spell ruin, and there are admirable journals in the United +States which have shown themselves to be valuable properties without +undue pandering to the frivolous or vicious side of the public +instinct.[17] + +A straw shows how the wind blows; let one item show the unfathomable +gulf in questions of tone and taste that can subsist between a great +American daily and its English counterparts. In the summer of 1895 an +issue of one of the richest and most influential of American +journals--a paper that such men as Mr. Cleveland and Mr. McKinley have +to take account of--published under the heading "A Fortunate Find" a +picture of two girls in bathing dress, talking by the edge of the sea. +One says to the other: "How did you manage your father? I thought he +wouldn't let you come?" The answer is: "I caught him kissing the +typewriter." It is, of course, perfectly inconceivable that any +reputable British daily could descend to this depth of purposeless and +odious vulgarity. If this be the style of humour desiderated, the +Thunderer may take as a well-earned compliment the American sneer that +"no joke appears in the London _Times_, save by accident." If another +instance be wanted, take this: Major Calef, of Boston, officiated as +marshal at the funeral of his friend, Gen. Francis Walker. In so doing +he caught a cold, of which he died. An evening paper hereupon +published a cartoon showing Major Calef walking arm in arm with Death +at General Walker's funeral. + +Americans are also apt to be proud of the number of their journals, +and will tell you, with evident appreciation of the fact, that "nearly +two thousand daily papers and fourteen thousand weeklies are published +in the United States." Unfortunately the character of their local +journals does not altogether warrant the inference as to American +intelligence that you are expected to draw. Many of them consist +largely of paragraphs such as the following, copied verbatim from an +issue of the Plattsburg _Sentinel_ (September, 1888): + + George Blanshard, of Champlain, an experienced prescription clerk + and a graduate of the Albany School of Pharmacy, has accepted a + position in Breed's drug-store at Malone. + + Clerk Whitcomb, of the steamer "Maquam," has finished his + season's work in the boat, and has resumed his studies at + Burlington. + +I admit that the interest of the readers of the _Sentinel_ in the +doings of their friends Mr. Blanshard and Mr. Whitcomb is, perhaps, +saner and healthier than that of the British snob in the fact that +"Prince and Princess Christian walked in the gardens of Windsor Castle +and afterwards drove out for an airing." But that is the utmost that +can be said for the propagation of such utter vapidities; and the man +who pays his five cents for the privilege of reading them can scarcely +be said to produce a certificate of intelligence in so doing. If the +exhibition of such intellectual feebleness were the worst charge that +could be brought against the American newspaper, there would be little +more to say; but, alas, "there are some among the so-called leading +newspapers of which the influence is wholly pernicious because of the +perverted intellectual ability with which they are conducted." (Prof. +Chas. E. Norton, in the _Forum_, February, 1896.) + +The levity with which many--perhaps most--American journals treat +subjects of serious importance is another unpleasant feature. They +will talk of divorces as "matrimonial smash-ups," or enumerate them +under the caption "Divorce Mill." Murders and fatal accidents are +recorded with the same jocosity. Questions of international importance +are handled as if the main purpose of the article was to show the +writer's power of humour. Serious speeches and even sermons are +reported in a vein of flippant jocularity. The same trait often +obtrudes into the review of books of the first importance. The +traditional "No case--abuse the plaintiff's attorney" is translated +into "Can't understand or appreciate this--let's make fun of it." + +By the best papers--and these are steadily multiplying--the +"interview" is looked upon as a serious opportunity to obtain in a +concise form the views of a person of greater or less eminence on +subjects of which he is entitled to speak with authority. By the +majority of journals, however, the interview is abused to an +inordinate extent, both as regards the individual and the public. It +is used as a vehicle for the cheapest forms of wit and the most +personal attack or laudation. My own experience was that the +interviewer put a series of pre-arranged questions to me, published +those of my answers which met his own preconceptions, and invented +appropriate substitutes for those he did not honour with his approval. +A Chicago reporter made me say that English ignorance of America was +so dense that "a gentleman of considerable attainments asked me if +Connecticut was not the capital of Pittsburgh and notable for its +great Mormon temple,"--an elaborate combination due solely to his own +active brain. The same ingenuous (and ingenious) youth caused me to +invent "an erratic young Londoner, who packed his bag and started at +once for any out-of-the-way country for which a new guide-book was +published." Another, with equal lack of ground, committed me to the +unpatriotic assertion that neither in Great Britain nor in any other +part of Europe was there any scenery to compare with that of the +United States. But perhaps the unkindest cut of all was that of the +reporter at Washington who made me introduce my remarks by the fatuous +expression "Methought"! Mr. E.A. Freeman was much amused by a reporter +who said of him: "When he don't know a thing, he says he don't. When +he does, he speaks as if he were certain of it." Mr. Freeman adds: "To +the interviewer this way of action seemed a little strange, though he +clearly approved of the eccentricity." This gentleman's mental +attitude, like his superiority to grammar, is, unfortunately, +characteristic of hundreds of his colleagues on the American press. + +The distinction between the editorial and reportorial functions of a +newspaper are apt to be much less clearly defined in the United States +than in England. The English reporter, as a rule, confines himself +strictly to his report, which is made without bias. A Conservative +speech is as accurately (though perhaps not as lengthily) reported in +a Liberal paper as in one of its own colour. All comment or criticism +is reserved for the editorial columns. This is by no means the case in +America. Such an authority as the _Atlantic Monthly_ admits that +wilful distortion is not infrequent: the reporter seems to consider it +as part of his duty to amend the record in the interest of his own +paper or party. The American reporter, in a word, may be more +active-minded, more original, more amusing, than his English +colleague; but he is seldom so accurate. This want of impartiality is +another of the patent defects of the American daily press. It is a too +unscrupulous partisan; it represents the ethics of the ward politician +rather than the seeker after truth. + +If restraint be a sign of power, then the American press is weak +indeed. There is no reticence about it. Nothing is sacred to an +American reporter; everything that can be in any sense regarded as an +item of news is exposed to the full glare of publicity. It has come to +be so widely taken for granted that one likes to see his name in the +papers, that it is often difficult to make a lady or gentleman of the +American press understand that you really prefer to have your family +affairs left in the dusk of private life. The touching little story +entitled "A Thanksgiving Breakfast," in _Harper's Magazine_ for +November, 1895, records an experience that is almost a commonplace +except as regards the unusually thin skin of the victim and the +unusual delicacy and good feeling of the operator. The writer of an +interesting article in the _Outlook_ (April 25, 1896), an admirable +weekly paper published in New York, sums it up in a sentence: "It is +no exaggeration to say that the wanton and unrestricted invasion of +privacy by the modern press constitutes in certain respects the most +offensive form of tyranny which the world has ever known." The writer +then narrates the following incident to illustrate the length to which +this invasion of domestic privacy is carried: + + A cultivated and refined woman living in a boarding-house was so + unfortunate as to awaken the admiration of a young man of + unbalanced mind who was living under the same roof. He paid her + attentions which were courteously but firmly declined. He wrote + her letters which were at first acknowledged in the most formal + way, and finally ignored. No woman could have been more + circumspect and dignified. The young man preserved copies of his + own letters, introduced the two or three brief and formal notes + which he had received in reply, made a story of the incident, + stole the photograph of the woman, enclosed his own photograph, + mailed the whole matter to a New York newspaper, and committed + suicide. The result was a two or three column report of the + incident, with portraits of the unfortunate woman and the + suicide, and an elaborate and startling exaggeration of the few + inconspicuous, insignificant, and colorless facts from which the + narrative was elaborated. That a refined woman in American + society should be exposed to such a brutal invasion of her + privacy as that which was committed in this case reflects upon + every gentleman in the country. + +No doubt, as the _Outlook_ goes on to show, the American people are +themselves largely responsible for this attitude of the press. They +have as a whole not only less reverence than Europeans for the privacy +of others, but also less resentment for the violation of their own +privacy. The new democracy has resigned itself to the custom of living +in glass houses and regards the desire to shroud one's personal life +in mystery as one of the survivals of the dark ages. The newspaper +personalities are largely "the result of the desperate desire of the +new classes, to whom democratic institutions have given their first +chance, to discover the way to _live_, in the wide social meaning of +the word." + +One regrettable result of the way in which the American papers turn +liberty into license is that it actually deters many people from +taking their share in public life. The fact that any public action is +sure to bring down upon one's head a torrent of abuse or adulation, +together with a microscopic investigation of one's most intimate +affairs, is enough to give pause to all but the most resolute. Leading +journals go incredible lengths in the way they speak of public men. +One of the best New York dailies dismissed Mr. Bryan as "a wretched, +rattle-pated boy." Others constantly alluded to Mr. Cleveland as "His +Corpulency." For weeks the New York _Sun_ published a portrait of +President Hayes with the word FRAUD printed across the forehead. + +Such competent observers as Mr. George W. Smalley (_Harper's +Magazine_, July, 1898) bear testimony to the fact that the +irresponsibility of the press has seriously diminished its influence +for good. Thus he points out that "the combined and active support +given by the American press to the Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty +weighed as nothing with the Senate." In recent mayoralty contests in +New York and in Boston, almost the whole of the local press carried on +vigorous but futile campaigns against the successful candidates. +Several public libraries and reading-rooms have actually put some of +the leading journals in an Index Expurgatorius.[18] + +The moral and intellectual defects of the American newspaper are +reflected in its outward dress. Neither the paper nor the printing of +a New York or Boston daily paper is so good as that of the great +English dailies. American editors are apt to claim a good deal of +credit for the illustrations with which the pages of their journals +are sprinkled; but a less justifiable claim for approbation was surely +never filed. In nine cases out of ten the wood-cuts in an American +paper are an insult to one's good taste and sense of propriety, and, +indeed, form one of the chief reasons for classing the American daily +press as distinctly lower than that of England. The reason of this +physical inferiority I do not pretend to explain. It is, however, a +strange phenomenon in a country which produces the most beautiful +monthly magazines in the world, and also holds its own in the paper, +printing, and binding of its books. But, as Mr. Freeman remarks, the +magazines and books of England and America are merely varieties of the +same species, while the daily journals of the two countries belong to +totally different orders. Many of the better papers are now beginning +to give up illustrations. A bill to prevent the insertion in +newspapers of portraits without the consent of the portrayed was even +brought before the New York Legislature. An exasperating feature of +American newspapers, which seems to me to come also under the head of +physical inferiority, is the practice of scattering an article over +the whole of an issue. Thus, on reaching the foot of a column on page +1 we are more likely than not to be directed for its continuation on +page 7 or 8. The reason of this is presumably the desire to have all +the best goods in the window; _i.e._, all the most important +head-lines on the front page; but the custom is a most annoying one to +the reader. + +It is frequently asserted by Americans that their press is very +largely controlled by capitalists, and that its columns are often +venal. On such points as these I venture to make no assertion. To +prove them would require either a special knowledge of the +back-lobbies of journalism or so intimate an understanding of the +working of American institutions and the evolution of American +character as to be able to decide definitely that no other explanation +can be given of the source of such-and-such newspaper actions and +attitude. I confine myself to criticism on matters such as he who runs +may read. It is, however, true that, contrary to the general spirit of +the country, such questions as socialism and the labour movement +seldom receive so fair and sympathetic treatment as in the English +press. + +So many of the journalists I met in the United States were men of high +character, intelligence, and breeding that it may seem ungracious and +exaggerated to say that American newspaper men as a class seem to me +distinctly inferior to the pressmen of Great Britain. But I believe +this to be the case; and indeed a study of the journals of the two +countries would alone warrant the inference. The trail of the reporter +is over them all. Not that I, mindful of the implied practicability of +the passage of a needle's eye by a camel, believe it impossible for +reporters to be gentlemen; but I do say that it is difficult for a +reporter on the American system to preserve to the full that delicacy +of respect for the mental privacy of others which we associate with +the idea of true gentlemanliness. Mr. Smalley, in a passage +controverting the general opinion that a journalist should always +begin at the lowest rung of the ladder, admits that a modern reporter +has often to approach people in a way that he will find it hard to +reconcile with his own self-respect or the dignity of his profession. +The representative of the press whom one meets in English society and +clubs is very apt to be a university graduate, distinguished from his +academic colleagues, if at all, by his superior ability and address. +This is also true of many of the editorial writers of large American +journals; but side by side with these will be found a large number of +men who have worked their way up from the pettiest kind of reporting, +and who have not had the advantage, at the most impressionable period +of their career, of associating with the best-mannered men of the +time. It is, of course, highly honourable to American society and to +themselves that they have and take the opportunity of advancement, but +the fact remains patent in their slipshod style and the faulty grammar +of their writings, and in their vulgar familiarity of manner. It has +been asserted that journalism in America is not a profession, and is +"subject to none of the conditions that would entitle it to the name. +There are no recognised rules of conduct for its members, and no +tribunal to enforce them if there were." + +The startling contrasts in America which suggested the title of the +present volume are, of course, well in evidence in the American press. +Not only are there many papers which are eminently unobnoxious to the +charges brought against the American press generally, but different +parts of the same paper often seem as if they were products of totally +different spheres (or, at any rate, hemispheres). The "editorials," or +leaders, are sometimes couched in a form of which the scholarly +restraint, chasteness of style, moral dignity, and intellectual force +would do honour to the best possible of papers in the best possible of +worlds, while several columns on the front page of the same issue are +occupied by an illustrated account of a prize-fight, in which the most +pointless and disgusting slang, such as "tapping his claret" and +"bunging his peepers," is used with blood-curdling frequency. + +In a paper that lies before me as I write, something like a dozen +columns are devoted to a detailed account of the great contest between +John L. Sullivan and Jim Corbett (Sept. 7, 1892), while the principal +place on the editorial page (but only _one_ column) is occupied by a +well-written and most appreciative article on the Quaker poet +Whittier, who had gone to his long home just about the time the +pugilists were battering each other at New Orleans.[19] + +It would give a false impression of American journalism as a whole if +we left the question here. While American newspapers certainly +exemplify many of the worst sides of democracy and much of the rawness +of a new country, it would be folly to deny that they also participate +in the attendant virtues of both the one and the other. The same +inspiring sense of largeness and freedom that we meet in other +American institutions is also represented in the press: the same +absence of slavish deference to effete authority, the same openness of +opportunity, the same freshness of outlook, the same spontaneity of +expression, the same readiness in windbag-piercing, the same +admiration for talent in whatever field displayed. The time-honoured +alliance of dulness and respectability has had its decree _nisi_ from +the American press. Several of our own journalists have had the wit to +see and the energy to adopt the best feature of the American style; +and the result has been a distinct advance in the raciness and +readableness of some of our best-known journals. The "Americanisation +of the British press" is no bugbear to stand in awe of, if only it be +carried on with good sense and discrimination. We can most +advantageously exchange lessons of sobriety and restraint for +suggestions of candour, humour, and point; and America's share in the +form of the ideal English reading journal of the future will possibly +not be the smaller. + +The _Nation_, a political and literary weekly, and the religious or +semi-religious weekly journals like the _Outlook_ and the +_Independent_, are superior to anything we have in the same _genre_; +and the high-water mark even of the daily political press, though not +very often attained, is perhaps almost on a level with the best in +Europe. Richard Grant White found a richness in the English papers, +due to the far-reaching interests of the British empire, which made +all other journalism seem tame and narrow; but perhaps he would +now-a-days hesitate to attach this stigma to the best journals of New +York. And, in conclusion, we must not forget that American papers have +often lent all their energies to the championship of noble causes, +ranging from the enthusiastic anti-slavery agitation of the New York +_Tribune_, under Horace Greeley, down to the crusade against +body-snatching, successfully carried on by the _Press_ of +Philadelphia, and to the agitation in favour of the horses of the +Fifth-avenue stages so pertinaciously fomented by the humorous journal +_Life_. + + * * * * * + +I cannot resist the temptation of printing part of a notice of +"Baedeker's Handbook to the United States," which will show the almost +incredible lengths to which the less cultured scribes of the American +press carry their "spread-eagleism" even now. It is from a journal +published in a city of nearly 100,000 inhabitants, the capital (though +not the largest city) of one of the most important States in the +Union. It is headed "A Blind Guide:" + + It is simply incomprehensible that an author of so much literary + merit in his preparation of guides to European countries should + make the absolute failure that he has in the building of a guide + to the United States intended for European travellers. As a + guide, it is a monstrosity, fully as deceptive and misleading in + its aims as it is ridiculous and unworthy in its criticisms of + our people, our customs and habitations. It is not a guide in any + sense, but a general tirade of abuse of Americans and their + country; a compilation of mean, unfair statements; of presumed + facts that are a tissue of transparent falsehoods; of comparisons + with Europe and Europeans that are odius (_sic_). Baedeker sees + very little to commend in America, but a great deal to criticise, + and warns Europeans coming to this country that they must use + discretion if they expect to escape the machinations of our + people and the snares with which they will be surrounded. Any + person who has ever travelled in Europe and America will concede + that in the United States the tourist enjoys better advantages in + every way than he can in Europe. Our hotels possess by far better + accommodations, and none of that "flunkeyism" which causes + Americans to smile as they witness it on arrival. Our railway + service is superior in every respect to that of Europe. As + regards civility to strangers the Americans are unequalled on the + face of the globe. In antiquity Europe excels; but in natural + picturesque scenery the majestic grandeur of our West is so far + ahead of anything to be seen in Europe, even in beautiful + Switzerland, that the alien beholder cannot but express wonder + and admiration. Baedeker has made a mistake in his attempt to + underrate America and Americans, its institutions and their + customs. True, our nation is in a crude state as compared with + the old monarchies of Europe, but in enterprise, business + qualifications, politeness, literary and scientific attainments, + and in fact all the essential qualities that tend to constitute a + people and a country, America is away in the advance of staid, + old foggy (_sic_) Europe, and Baedeker will find much difficulty + to eradicate that all-important fact. + +I hasten to assure my English readers that this is no fair sample of +transatlantic journalism, and that nine out of ten of my American +acquaintances would deem it as unique a literary specimen as they +would. At the same time I may remind my American readers that the +scutcheon of American journalism is not so bright as it might be while +blots of this kind occur on it, and that it is the blatancy of +Americans of this type that tends to give currency to the distorted +opinion of Uncle Sam that prevails so widely in Europe. + +Perhaps I shall not be misunderstood if I say that this review is by +no means typical of the notice taken by American journals of +"Baedeker's Handbook to the United States." Whatever other defects +were found in it, reviewers were almost unanimous in pronouncing it +fair and free from prejudice. Indeed, the reception of the Handbook by +the American press was so much more friendly than I had any right to +expect that it has made me feel some qualms in writing this chapter of +criticism, while it must certainly relieve me of any possible charge +of a wish to retaliate. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[17] Writing of theatrical managers, the _Century_ (November, 1895) +says: "One of the greatest obstacles in the way of reform is the +inability of these same men to discern the trend of intelligent, to +say nothing of cultivated, public opinion, or to inform themselves of +the existence of the widespread craving for higher and better +entertainment." + +[18] The so-called "Yellow Press" has reached such an extreme of +extravagance during the progress of the Spanish-American war that it +may be hoped that it has at last dug its own grave. On the other hand, +many journals were perceptibly steadied by having so vital an issue to +occupy their columns, and the tone of a large section of the press was +distinctly creditable. + +[19] It may be doubted, however, whether any American author of +similar standing would devote a chapter to the loathsome details of +the prize-ring, as Mr. George Meredith does in his novel "The Amazing +Marriage." + + + + +X + +Some Literary Straws + + +By far the most popular novel of the London season of 1894 was "The +Manxman," by Mr. Hall Caine. Its sale is said to have reached a +fabulous number of thousands of copies, and the testimony of the +public press and the circulating library is unanimous as to the +supremacy of its vogue. In the United States the favourite book of the +year was Mr. George Du Maurier's "Trilby." To the practical and +prosaic evidence of the eager purchase of half a million copies we +have to add the more romantic homage of the new Western towns +(Trilbyville!) and patent bug exterminators named after the heroine. +It may, possibly, be worth while examining the predominant qualities +of the two books with a view to ascertain what light their +similarities and differences may throw upon the respective literary +tastes of the Englishman and the American. + +There has, I believe, been no important critical denial of the right +of "The Manxman" to rank as a "strong" book. The plot is drawn with +consummate skill--not in the sense of a Gaborian-like unravelment of +mystery, but in its organic, natural, inevitable development, and in +the abiding interest of its evolution. The details are worked in with +the most scrupulous care. Rarely, in modern fiction, have certain +elemental features of the human being been displayed with more +determination and pathos. + +The central _motif_ of the story--the corrosion of a predominantly +righteous soul by a repented but hidden sin culminating in an +overwhelming necessity of confession--is so powerfully presented to us +that we forget all question of originality until our memory of the +fascinating pages has cooled down. Then we may recall the resemblance +of theme in the recent novel entitled "The Silence of Dean Maitland," +while we find the prototype of both these books in "The Scarlet +Letter" of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who has handled the problem with a +subtlety and haunting weirdness to which neither of the English works +can lay any claim. As our first interest in the story farther cools, +it may occur to us that the very perfection of plot in "The Manxman" +gives it the effect of a "set piece;" its association with Mr. Wilson +Barrett and the boards seems foreordained. It may seem to us that +there is a little forcing of the pathos, that a certain artificiality +pervades the scene. In a word, we may set down "The Manxman" as +melodrama--melodrama at its best, but still melodrama. Its effects are +vivid, positive, sensational; its analysis of character is keen, but +hardly subtle; it appeals to the British public's love of the obvious, +the full-blooded, the thorough-going; it runs on well-tried lines; it +is admirable, but it is not new. + +"Trilby" is a very different book, and it would be a catholic palate +indeed that would relish equally the story of the Paris grisette and +the story of the Manx deemster. In "Trilby" the blending of the novel +and the romance, of the real and the fantastic, is as much of a +stumbling-block to John Bull as it is, for example, in Ibsen's "Lady +from the Sea." "The central idea," he might exclaim, "is utterly +extravagant; the transformation by hypnotism of the absolutely +tone-deaf girl into the unutterably peerless singer is unthinkable and +absurd." The admirers of "Trilby" may very well grant this, and yet +feel that their withers are unwrung. It is not in the hypnotic device +and its working out that they find the charm of the story; it is not +the plot that they are mainly interested in; it is not even the +slightly sentimental love-story of Trilby and Little Billee. They are +willing to let the whole framework, as it were, of the book go by the +board; it is not the thread of the narrative, but the sketches and +incidents strung on it, that appeals to them. They revel in the +fascinating novelty and ingenuousness of the Du Maurier vein, the art +that is superficially so artless, the exquisitely simple delicacy of +touch, the inimitable fineness of characterisation, the constant +suggestion of the tender and true, the keen sense of the pathetic in +life and the humour that makes it tolerable, the lovable drollery that +corrects the tendency to the sentimental, the subtle blending of the +strength of a man with the _naivete_ of the child, the ambidextrous +familiarity with English and French life, the kindliness of the +satire, the absence of all straining for effect, the deep humanity +that pervades the book from cover to cover. + +If, therefore, we take "The Manxman" and "Trilby" as types of what +specially appeals to the reading public of England and America, we +should conclude that the Englishman calls for strength and directness, +the American for delicacy and suggestiveness. The former does not +insist so much on originality of theme, if the handling be but new and +clever; there are certain elementary passions and dramatic situations +of which the British public never wearies. The American does not +clamour for telling "curtains," if the character-drawing be keen, the +conversations fresh, sparkling, and humorous. John Bull likes +vividness and solidity of impasto; Jonathan's eye is often more +pleasantly affected by a delicate gradation of half-tones. The one +desires the downright, the concrete, the real; the other is titillated +by the subtle, the allusive, the half-spoken. The antithesis is +between _force_ and _finesse_, between the palpable and the +impalpable.[20] + +If anybody but George Du Maurier could have written "Trilby," it seems +to me it would have been an American rather than a full-blooded +Englishman. The keenness of the American appreciation of the book +corresponds to elements in the American nature. The Anglo-French blend +of Mr. Du Maurier's literary genius finds nearer analogues in American +literature than in either English or French. + +The best writing of our American cousins has, of course, much that it +shares with our own, much that is purely English in source and +inspiration. Longfellow, for instance, might almost have been an +Englishman, and his great popularity in England probably owed nothing +to the attraction exercised by the unfamiliar. The English traits, +moreover, are often readily discernible even in those works that smack +most of the soil. When, however, we seek the differentiating marks of +American literature, we find that many of them are also +characteristics of the writings of Mr. Du Maurier, while they are much +less conspicuous in those of Mr. Hall Caine. Among such marks are its +freshness and spontaneity, untrammelled by authority or tradition; its +courage in tackling problems elsewhere tabooed; its breezy +intrepidity, rooted half in conscious will and half in _naive_ +ignorance. Besides these, we find features that we should hardly have +expected on _a priori_ grounds. A wideness of sweep and elemental +greatness in proportion to the natural majesty of the huge new +continent are hardly present; Walt Whitman remains an isolated +phenomenon. Instead, we meet in the best American literature an almost +aristocratic daintiness and feeling for the refined and select. As +compared with the British school, the leading American school is +marked by an increased delicacy of _finesse_, a tendency to refine and +refine, a perhaps exaggerated dread of the platitude and the +commonplace, a fondness for analysis, a preference for character over +event, an avoidance of absolutely untempered seriousness and solidity. +Mr. Bryce notes that the verdicts of the best literary circles of the +United States often seem to "proceed from a more delicate and +sympathetic insight" than ours. + +This fastidiousness of the best writers and critics of America is by +no means inconsistent with the existence of an enormous class of +half-educated readers, who devour the kind of "literature" provided +for them, and batten in their various degrees on the productions of +Mr. E.P. Roe, Miss Laura Jean Libbey, or the _Sunday War-Whoop_. The +evolution of democracy in the literary sphere is exactly analogous to +its course in the political sphere. In both there is the same tendency +to go too far, to overturn the good and legitimate authority as well +as the bad and oppressive; both are apt, to use the homely German +proverb, "to throw the baby out of the bath along with the dirty +water." This lack of discrimination leads to the rushing in of fools +where angels might well fear to tread. All sorts of men try to write +books, and all sorts of men think they are able to judge them. The old +standard of authority is overthrown, and for a time no other takes its +place with the great mass of the reading public. This state of affairs +is, however, by no means one that need make us despair of the literary +future of America. It reminds me of the mental condition of a kindly +American tourist who once called at our office in Leipsic to give us +the benefit of the corrections he had made on "Baedeker's Handbooks" +during his peregrination of Europe. "Here," he said, "is one error +which I am absolutely sure of: you call this a statue of Minerva; but +I know that's wrong, because I saw _Pallas_ carved on the pedestal!" +When I told this tale to English friends, they saw in it nothing but a +proof of the colossal ignorance of the travelling American. To my +mind, however, it redounded more to the credit of America than to its +discredit. It showed that Americans of defective education felt the +need of culture and spared no pains to procure it. A London tradesman +with the education of my American friend would probably never extend +his ideas of travelling beyond Margate, or at most a week's excursion +to "Parry." But this indefatigable tourist had visited all the chief +galleries of Europe, and had doubtless greatly improved his taste in +art and educated his sense of the refined and beautiful, even though +his book-learning had not taught him that the same goddess might have +two different names. + +The application of this anecdote to the present condition of American +literature is obvious. The great fact is that there is an enormous +crowd of readers, and the great hope is that they will eventually work +their way up through Miss Laura Jean Libbey to heights of purer air. +America has not so much degraded a previously existing literary palate +as given a taste of some sort to those who under old-world conditions +might never have come to it. In American literature as in American +life we find all the phenomena of a transition period--all the +symptoms that might be expected from the extraordinary mixture of the +old and the new, the childlike and the knowing, the past and the +present, in this Land of Contrasts. The startling difference between +the best and the worst writers is often reflected in different works +by the same author; or a real and strong natural talent for writing +will be found conjoined with an extraordinary lack of education and +training. An excellent piece of English--pithy, forcible, and even +elegant--will often shatter on some simple grammatical reef, such as +the use of "as" for "that" ("he did not know as he could"), or of the +plural for the singular ("a long ways off"). Mr. James Lane Allen, the +author of a series of refined and delicately worded romances, can +write such phrases as "In a voice neither could scarce hear" and +"Shake hands with me and _tell_ me good-by." ("The Choir Invisible," +pp. 222, 297.) + +I know not whether the phrase "was graduated," applied not to a +vernier, but to a student, be legitimate or not; it is certainly so +used by the best American writers. Another common American idiom that +sounds queer to British ears is, "The minutes were ordered printed" +(for "to be printed"). Misquotations and misuse of foreign phrases are +terribly rife; and even so spirited and entertaining a writer as Miss +F.C. Baylor will write: "This Jenny, with the _esprit de l'escalier_ +of her sex, had at once divined and resented" ("On Both Sides," p. +26). In the same way one is constantly appalled in conversation by +hearing college graduates say "acrost" for "across" and making other +"bad breaks" which in England could not be conjoined with an equal +amount of culture and education. + +The extreme fastidiousness and delicacy of the leading American +writers, as above referred to, may be to a large extent accounted for +by an inevitable reaction against the general tendency to the careless +and the slipshod, and is thus in its way as significant and natural a +result of existing conditions as any other feature of American +literature. Perhaps a secondary cause of this type of writing may be +looked for in the fact that so far the spirit of New England has +dominated American literature. Even those writers of the South and +West who are freshest in their material and vehicle are still +permeated by the tone, the temper, the method, the ideals, of the New +England school. And certainly Allibone's dictionary of authors shows +that an enormous proportion of American writers are to this day of New +England origin or descent. + +Among living American writers the two whose names occur most +spontaneously to the mind as typical examples are, perhaps, Henry +James and W.D. Howells. Of these the former has identified himself so +much with European life and has devoted himself so largely to European +subjects that we, perhaps, miss to some extent the American atmosphere +in his works, though he undoubtedly possesses the American quality of +workmanship in a very high degree. Or, to put it in another way, his +touch is indisputably American, while his accessories, his _staffage_, +are cosmopolitan. His American hand has become dyed to that it works +in. This, however, is more true of his later than of his earlier +works. That imperishable little classic "Daisy Miller" is a very +exquisite and typical specimen of the American suggestiveness of +style; indeed, as I have hinted (Chapter IV.), its suggestiveness +almost overshot the mark and required the explanation of a dramatic +key. His dislike of the obvious and the commonplace sometimes leads +Mr. James to become artificial and even obscure,[21] but at its best +his style is as perspicuous as it is distinguished, dainty, and +subtle; there is, perhaps, no other living artist in words who can +give his admirers so rare a literary pleasure in mere exquisiteness of +workmanship. + +Mr. Howells, unlike Mr. James, is purely and exclusively American, in +his style as in his subject, in his main themes as in his incidental +illustrations, in his spirit, his temperament, his point of view. No +one has written more pleasantly of Venice; but just as surely there is +a something in his Venetian sketches which no one but an American +could have put there. Mr. James may be as patriotic a citizen of the +Great Republic, but there is not so much tangible evidence of the fact +in his writings; Mr. Howells may be as cosmopolitan in his sympathies +as Mr. James, but his writings alone would hardly justify the +inference. Mr. Howells also possesses a _bonhomie_, a geniality, a +good-nature veiled by a slight mask of cynicism, that may be personal, +but which strikes one as also a characteristic American trait. Mr. +James is not, I hasten to say, the reverse of this, but he shows a +coolness in his treatment, a lordly indifference to the fate of his +creations, an almost pitiless keenness of analysis, which savour a +little more of an end-of-the-century European than of a young and +genial democracy. + +Mr. Howells is, perhaps, not always so well appreciated in his own +country as he deserves--and this in spite of the facts that his novels +are widely read and his name is in all the magazines. What I mean is, +that in the conversation of the cultured circles of Boston or New York +too much stress is apt to be laid on the prosaic and commonplace +character of his materials. There are, perhaps, unusually good reasons +for this point of view. Cromwell's wife and daughters would probably +prefer to have him painted wartless, but posterity wants him warts and +all. So those to whom the average--the _very_ average--American is an +every-day and all-day occurrence cannot abide him in their literature; +while we who are removed by the ocean of space can enjoy these +pictures of common life, as enabling us, better than any idealistic +romance or study of the rare and extraordinary, to realise the life of +our American cousins. To those who can read between the lines with any +discretion, I should say that novels like "Silas Lapham" and "A Modern +Instance" will give a clearer idea of American character and +tendencies than any other contemporary works of fiction; to those who +can read between the lines--for it is obvious that the commonplace and +the slightly vulgar no more exhaust the field of society in the United +States than elsewhere. But to me Mr. Howells, even when in his most +realistic and sordid vein, always _suggests_ the ideal and the noble; +the reverse of the medal proclaims loudly that it _is_ the reverse, +and that there is an obverse of a very different kind to be seen by +those who will turn the coin. It seems to me that no very great +palaeontological skill is necessary to reconstruct the whole frame of +the animal from the portion that Mr. Howells sets up for us. His +novels remind me of those maps of a limited area which indicate very +clearly what lies beyond, by arrows on their margins. In nothing does +Mr. Howells more clearly show his "Americanism" than in his almost +divinely sympathetic and tolerant attitude towards commonplace, +erring, vulgar humanity. "Ah, poor real life, which I love!" he writes +somewhere; "can I make others share the delight I find in thy foolish +and insipid face!" We must remember in reading him his own theory of +the duty of the novelist. "I am extremely opposed to what we call +ideal characters. I think their portrayal is mischievous; it is +altogether offensive to me as an artist, and, as far as the morality +goes, I believe that when an artist tries to create an ideal he mixes +some truth up with a vast deal of sentimentality, and produces +something that is extremely noxious as well as nauseous. I think that +no man can consistently portray a probable type of human character +without being useful to his readers. When he endeavors to create +something higher than that, he plays the fool himself and tempts his +readers to folly. He tempts young men and women to try to form +themselves upon models that would be detestable in life, if they were +ever found there." + +Perhaps the delicacy of Mr. Howells' touch and the gentle subtlety of +his satire are nowhere better illustrated than in the little +drawing-room "farces" of which he frequently publishes one in an +American magazine about Christmas time. I call them farces because he +himself applies that name to them; but these dainty little comediettas +contain none of the rollicking qualities which the word usually +connotes to English ears. They have all the _finesse_ of the best +French work of the kind, combined with a purity of atmosphere and of +intent that we are apt to claim as Anglo-Saxon, and which, perhaps, is +especially characteristic of America. One is tired of hearing, in this +connection, of the blush that rises to the innocent girl's cheek; but +why should even those who are supposed to be past the age of blushing +not also enjoy humour unspiced by even a suggestion of lubricity? The +"Mikado" and "Pinafore" have done yeoman's service in displacing the +meretricious delights of Offenbach and Lecocq; and Howells' little +pieces yield an exquisite, though innocent, enjoyment to those whose +taste in farces has not been fashioned and spoiled by clumsy English +adaptations or imitations of intriguing _levers-de-rideau_, and to +those who do not associate the name of farce with horse-play and +practical joking. They form the best illustration of what has been +described as Mr. Howells' "method of occasionally opening up to the +reader through the bewilderingly intricate mazes of his dialogue clear +perceptions of the true values of his characters, imitating thus the +actual trick of life, which can safely be depended on to now and then +expose meanings that words have cleverly served the purpose of +concealing." If I hesitate to call them comediettas "in porcelain," it +is because the suggested analogy falls short, owing to the greater +reconditeness, the purer intellectual quality, of Mr. Howells' humour +as compared with Mr. Austin Dobson's. So intensely American in quality +are these scenes from the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Willis Campbell, Mr. +and Mrs. Roberts, and their friends, that it sometimes seems to me +that they might almost be used as touchstones for the advisability of +a visit to the United States. If you can appreciate and enjoy these +farces, go to America by all means; you will have a "good time." If +you cannot, better stay at home, unless your motive is merely one of +base mechanic necessity; you will find the American atmosphere a +little too rare. + +A recent phase of Mr. Howells' activity--that, namely, in which, like +Mr. William Morris, he has boldly risked his reputation as a literary +artist in order to espouse unpopular social causes of whose justice he +is convinced--will interest all who have hearts to feel as well as +brains to think. He made his fame by consummately artistic work, +addressed to the daintiest of literacy palates; and yet in such books +as "A Hazard of New Fortunes" and "A Traveller from Altruria" he has +conscientiously taken up the defence and propagation of a form of +socialism, without blanching before the epicure who demands his +literature "neat" or the Philistine householder who brands all +socialistic writings as dangerous. Mr. Howells, however, knows his +public; and the reforming element in him cannot but rejoice at the +hearing he has won through its artistic counterpart. No one of his +literary brethren of any importance has, so far as I know, emulated +his courage in this particular. Some, like Mr. Bellamy, have made a +reputation by their socialistic writings; none has risked so +magnificent a structure already built up on a purely artistic +foundation. It is mainly on account of this phase of his work, in +which he has not forsaken his art, but makes it "the expression of his +whole life and the thought and feeling mature life has brought to +him," that Mr. Howells has been claimed as _the_ American novelist, +the best delineator of American life.[22] + +Mr. Howells the poet is not nearly so well known as Mr. Howells the +novelist; and there are doubtless many European students of American +literature who are unaware of the extremely characteristic work he has +done in verse. The accomplished critic, Mr. R.H. Stoddard, writes thus +of a volume of poems published by Mr. Howells about three years +ago:[23] "There is something here which, if not new in American +poetry, has never before made itself so manifest there, never before +declared itself with such vivacity and force, the process by which it +emerged from emotion and clothed itself in speech being so +undiscoverable by critical analysis that it seems, as Matthew Arnold +said of some of Wordsworth's poetry, as if Nature took the pen from +his hand and wrote in his stead." These poems are all short, and their +titles (such as "What Shall It Profit?" "The Sphinx," "If," +"To-morrow," "Good Society," "Equality," "Heredity," and so forth) +sufficiently indicate that they do not rank among the lighter +triflings with the muse. Their abiding sense of an awful and +inevitable fate, their keen realisation of the startling contrasts +between wealth and poverty, their symbolical grasp on the great +realities of life and death, and the consummate skill of the artistic +setting are all pervaded with something that recalls the paintings of +Mr. G.F. Watts or the visions of Miss Olive Schreiner. One specimen +can alone be given here: + + "The Bewildered Guest + + "I was not asked if I should like to come. + I have not seen my host here since I came, + Or had a word of welcome in his name. + Some say that we shall never see him, and some + That we shall see him elsewhere, and then know + Why we were bid. How long I am to stay + I have not the least notion. None, they say, + Was ever told when he should come or go. + But every now and then there bursts upon + The song and mirth a lamentable noise, + A sound of shrieks and sobs, that strikes our joys + Dumb in our breasts; and then, someone is gone. + They say we meet him. None knows where or when. + We know we shall not meet him here again." + +Mr. Howells has, naturally enough, the defects of his qualities; and +if it were my purpose here to present an exhaustive study of his +writings, rather than merely to touch lightly upon his "American" +characteristics, it would be desirable to consider some of these in +this place. In his desire to avoid the merely pompous he sometimes +falls into the really trifling. His love of analysis runs away with +him at times; and parts of such books as "A World of Chance" must +weary all but his most undiscriminating admirers. His self-restraint +sometimes disappoints us of a vivid colour or a passionate throb which +we feel to be our due. His humour and his satire occasionally pass +from the fine to the thin. + +It is, however, with Mr. Howells in his capacity of literary critic +alone that my disappointment is too great to allow of silence. For the +exquisiteness of a writer like Mr. Henry James he has the keenest +insight, the warmest appreciation. His thorough-going conviction in +the prime necessity of realism even leads him out of his way to +commend Gabriele d'Annunzio, in whom some of us can detect little but +a more than Zolaesque coarseness with a total lack of Zola's genius, +insight, purpose, or philosophy. But when he comes to speak of a +Thackeray or a Scott, his attitude is one that, to put it in the most +complimentary form that I can think of, reminds us strongly of Homeric +drowsiness. The virtue of James is one thing and the virtue of Scott +is another; but surely admiration for both does not make too +unreasonable a demand on catholicity of palate? Mr. Howells could +never write himself down an ass, but surely in his criticism of the +"Wizard of the North" he has written himself down as one whose +literary creed is narrower than his human heart. The school of which +Mr. Henry James is a most accomplished member has added more than one +exquisite new flavour to the banquet of letters; but it may well be +questioned whether a taste for these may not be acquired at too dear a +cost if it necessitates a loss of relish for the steady good sense, +the power of historic realisation, the rich humanity, and the +marvellously fertile imagination of Walter Scott. It is not, I hope, a +merely national prejudice that makes me oppose Mr. Howells in this +point, though, perhaps, there is a touch of remonstrance in the +reflection that that great novelist seems to have no use for the +Briton in his works except as a foil or a butt for his American +characters. + +In considering Mr. Howells as an exponent of Americanism in +literature, we have left him in an attitude almost of _Americanus +contra mundum_--at any rate in the posture of one who is so entirely +absorbed by his delight in the contemporary and national existence +around him as to be partially blind to claims separated from him by +tracts of time and space. My next example of the American in +literature is, I think, to the full as national a type as Mr. Howells, +though her Americanism is shown rather in subjective character than in +objective theme. Miss Emily Dickinson is still a name so unfamiliar to +English readers that I may be pardoned a few lines of biographical +explanation. She was born in 1830, the daughter of the leading lawyer +of Amherst, a small and quiet town of New England, delightfully +situated on a hill, looking out over the undulating woods of the +Connecticut valley. It is a little larger than the English +Marlborough, and like it owes its distinctive tone to the presence of +an important educational institute, Amherst College being one of the +best-known and worthiest of the smaller American colleges. In this +quiet little spot Miss Dickinson spent the whole of her life, and even +to its limited society she was almost as invisible as a cloistered nun +except for her appearances at an annual reception given by her father +to the dignitaries of the town and college. There was no definite +reason either in her physical or mental health for this life of +extraordinary seclusion; it seems to have been simply the natural +outcome of a singularly introspective temperament. She rarely showed +or spoke of her poems to any but one or two intimate friends; only +three or four were published during her lifetime; and it was with +considerable surprise that her relatives found, on her death in 1886, +a large mass of poetical remains, finished and unfinished. A +considerable selection from them has been published in three little +volumes, edited with tender appreciation by two of her friends, Mrs. +Mabel Loomis Todd and Col. T.W. Higginson. + +Her poems are all in lyrical form--if the word form may be applied to +her utter disregard of all metrical conventions. Her lines are rugged +and her expressions wayward to an extraordinary degree, but "her +verses all show a strange cadence of inner rhythmical music," and the +"thought-rhymes" which she often substitutes for the more regular +assonances appeal "to an unrecognised sense more elusive than hearing" +(Mrs. Todd). In this curious divergence from established rules of +verse Miss Dickinson may be likened to Walt Whitman, whom she differs +from in every other particular, and notably in her pithiness as +opposed to his diffuseness; but with her we feel in the strongest way +that her mode is natural and unsought, utterly free from affectation, +posing, or self-consciousness. + +Colonel Higginson rightly finds her nearest analogue in William Blake; +but this "nearest" is far from identity. While tenderly feminine in +her sympathy for suffering, her love of nature, her loyalty to her +friends, she is in expression the most unfeminine of poets. The usual +feminine impulsiveness and full expression of emotion is replaced in +her by an extraordinary condensation of phrase and feeling. In her +letters we find the eternal womanly in her yearning love for her +friends, her brooding anxiety and sympathy for the few lives closely +intertwined with her own. In her poems, however, one is rather +impressed with the deep well of poetic insight and feeling from which +she draws, but never unreservedly. In spite of frequent strange +exaggeration of phrase one is always conscious of a fund of reserve +force. The subjects of her poems are few, but the piercing delicacy +and depth of vision with which she turned from death and eternity to +nature and to love make us feel the presence of that rare thing, +genius. Hers is a wonderful instance of the way in which genius can +dispense with experience; she sees more by pure intuition than others +distil from the serried facts of an eventful life. Perhaps, in one of +her own phrases, she is "too intrinsic for renown," but she has +appealed strongly to a surprisingly large band of readers in the +United States, and it seems to me will always hold her audience. Those +who admit Miss Dickinson's talent, but deny it to be poetry, may be +referred to Thoreau's saying that no definition of poetry can be given +which the true poet will not somewhere sometime brush aside. It is a +new departure, and the writer in the _Nation_ (Oct. 10, 1895) is +probably right when he says: "So marked a new departure rarely leads +to further growth. Neither Whitman nor Miss Dickinson ever stepped +beyond the circle they first drew." + +It is difficult to select quite adequate samples of Miss Dickinson's +art, but perhaps the following little poems will give some idea of her +naked simplicity, terseness, oddness,--of her method, in short, if we +can apply that word to anything so spontaneous and unconscious: + + "I'm nobody! Who are you? + Are you nobody, too? + Then there's a pair of us. Don't tell! + They'd banish us, you know. + + "How dreary to be somebody! + How public, like a frog, + To tell your name the livelong day + To an admiring bog!" + + * * * * * + + "I taste a liquor never brewed, + From tankards scooped in pearl; + Not all the vats upon the Rhine + Yield such an alcohol! + + "Inebriate of air am I, + And debauchee of dew, + Reeling, through endless summer days, + From inns of molten blue. + + "When landlords turn the drunken bee + Out of the foxglove's door, + When butterflies renounce their drams, + I shall but drink the more! + + "Till seraphs swing their snowy hats, + And saints to windows run, + To see the little tippler + Leaning against the sun!" + + * * * * * + + "But how he set I know not. + There seemed a purple stile + Which little yellow boys and girls + Were climbing all the while, + + "Till when they reached the other side, + A dominie in grey + Put gently up the evening bars, + And led the flock away." + + * * * * * + + "He preached upon 'breadth' till it argued him narrow-- + The broad are too broad to define; + And of 'truth' until it proclaimed him a liar-- + The truth never flaunted a sign. + Simplicity fled from his counterfeit presence + As gold the pyrites would shun. + What confusion would cover the innocent Jesus + To meet so enabled a man!" + +The "so _enabled_ a man" is a very characteristic Dickinsonian phrase. +So, too, are these: + + "He put the belt around my life-- + I heard the buckle snap." + "Unfitted by an instant's grace + For the contented beggar's face + I wore an hour ago." + + * * * * * + + "Just his sigh, accented, + Had been legible to me." + + * * * * * + + "The bustle in a house + The morning after death + Is solemnest of industries + Enacted upon earth-- + The sweeping up the heart, + And putting love away + We shall not want to use again + Until eternity." + +Her interest in all the familiar sights and sounds of a village garden +is evident through all her verses. Her illustrations are not +recondite, literary, or conventional; she finds them at her own door. +The robin, the buttercup, the maple, furnish what she needs. The bee, +in particular, seems to have had a peculiar fascination for her, and +hums through all her poems. She had even a kindly word for that +"neglected son of genius," the spider. Her love of children is equally +evident, and no one has ever better caught the spirit of + + "Saturday Afternoon + + "From all the jails the boys and girls + Ecstatically leap, + Beloved, only afternoon + That prison doesn't keep. + + "They storm the earth and stun the air, + A mob of solid bliss. + Alas! that frowns could lie in wait + For such a foe as this!" + +The bold extravagance of her diction (which is not, however, _mere_ +extravagance) and her ultra-American familiarity with the forces of +nature may be illustrated by such stanzas as: + + "What if the poles should frisk about + And stand upon their heads! + I hope I'm ready for the worst, + Whatever prank betides." + + * * * * * + + "If I could see you in a year, + I'd wind the months in balls, + And put them each in separate drawers + Until their time befalls. + + "If certain, when this life was out, + That yours and mine should be, + I'd toss it yonder like a rind, + And taste eternity." + +For her the lightnings "skip like mice," the thunder "crumbles like a +stuff." What a critic has called her "Emersonian self-possession" +towards God may be seen in the little poem on the last page of her +first volume, where she addresses the Deity as "burglar, banker, +father." There is, however, no flippancy in this, no conscious +irreverence; Miss Dickinson is not "orthodox," but she is genuinely +spiritual and religious. Inspired by its truly American and "_actuel_" +freedom, her muse does not fear to sing of such modern and mechanical +phenomena as the railway train, which she loves to see "lap the miles +and lick the valleys up," while she is fascinated by the contrast +between its prodigious force and the way in which it stops, "docile +and omnipotent, at its own stable door." But even she can hardly bring +the smoking locomotive into such pathetic relations with nature as the +"little brig," whose "white foot tripped, then dropped from sight," +leaving "the ocean's heart too smooth, too blue, to break for you." + +Her poems on death and the beyond, on time and eternity, are full of +her peculiar note. Death is the "one dignity" that "delays for all;" +the meanest brow is so ennobled by the majesty of death that "almost a +powdered footman might dare to touch it now," and yet no beggar would +accept "the _eclat_ of death, had he the power to spurn." "The quiet +nonchalance of death" is a resting-place which has no terrors for her; +death "abashed" her no more than "the porter of her father's lodge." +Death's chariot also holds Immortality. The setting sail for "deep +eternity" brings a "divine intoxication" such as the "inland soul" +feels on its "first league out from land." Though she "never spoke +with God, nor visited in heaven," she is "as certain of the spot as if +the chart were given." "In heaven somehow, it will be even, some new +equation given." "Christ will explain each separate anguish in the +fair schoolroom of the sky." + + "A death-blow is a life-blow to some + Who, till they died, did not alive become; + Who, had they lived, had died, but when + They died, vitality begun." + +The reader who has had the patience to accompany me through these +pages devoted to Miss Dickinson will surely own, whether in scoff or +praise, the essentially American nature of her muse. Her defects are +easily paralleled in the annals of English literature; but only in the +liberal atmosphere of the New World, comparatively unshadowed by +trammels of authority and standards of taste, could they have +co-existed with so much of the highest quality. + +A prominent phenomenon in the development of American literature--so +prominent as to call for comment even in a fragmentary and haphazard +sketch like the present--is the influence exercised by the monthly +magazine. The editors of the leading literary periodicals have been +practically able to wield a censorship to which there is no parallel +in England. The magazine has been the recognised gateway to the +literary public; the sweep of the editorial net has been so wide that +it has gathered in nearly all the best literary work of the past few +decades, at any rate in the department of _belles lettres_. It is not +easy to name many important works of pure literature, as distinct from +the scientific, the philosophical, and the instructive, that have not +made their bow to the public through the pages of the _Century_, the +_Atlantic Monthly_, or some one or other of their leading competitors. +And probably the proportion of works by new authors that have appeared +in the same way is still greater. There are, possibly, two sides as to +the value of this supremacy of the magazine, though to most observers +the advantages seem to outweigh the disadvantages. Among the former +may be reckoned the general encouragement of reading, the +opportunities afforded to young writers, the raising of the rate of +authors' pay, the dissemination of a vast quantity of useful and +salutary information in a popular form. Perhaps of more importance +than any of these has been the maintenance of that purity of moral +tone in which modern American literature is superior to all its +contemporaries. Malcontents may rail at "grandmotherly legislation in +letters," at the undue deference paid to the maiden's blush, at the +encouragement of the mealy-mouthed and hypocritical; but it is a +ground of very solid satisfaction, be the cause what it may, that +recent American literature has been so free from the emasculate +_fin-de-siecle-ism_, the nauseating pseudo-realism, the epigrammatic +hysteria, that has of late been so rife in certain British circles. +Moreover, it is impossible to believe that any really strong talent +could have been stifled by the frown of the magazine editor. Walt +Whitman made his mark without that potentate's assistance; and if +America had produced a Zola, he would certainly have come to the +front, even if his genius had been hampered with a burden of more than +Zolaesque filth. + +It is undoubtedly to the predominance of the magazine, among other +causes, that are due the prevalence and perfection of the American +short story. It has often been remarked that French literature alone +is superior in this _genre_; and many of the best American productions +of the kind can scarcely be called second even to the French in +daintiness of phrase, sureness of touch, sense of proportion, and +skilful condensation of interest. Excellent examples of the short +story have been common in American literature from the times of +Hawthorne, Irving, and Poe down to the present day. Mr. Henry James, +perhaps, stands at the head of living writers in this branch. Miss +Mary E. Wilkins is inimitable in her sketches of New England, the +pathos, as well as the humour of which she touches with a master hand. +It is interesting to note that, foreign as her subject would seem to +be to the French taste, her literary skill has been duly recognised by +the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. Bret Harte and Frank Stockton are so +eminently short-story writers that the longer their stories become, +the nearer do they approach the brink of failure. Other names that +suggest themselves in a list that might be indefinitely extended are +those of Miss Jewett, Mrs. Elizabeth Phelps Ward, Mr. Richard Harding +Davis, Mr. T.B. Aldrich, Mr. Thos. Nelson Page, Mr. Owen Wister, Mr. +Hamlin Garland, Mr. G.W. Cable, and (in a lighter vein) Mr. H.C. +Bunner. + +This chapter may fitly close with a straw of startling literary +contrast, that seems to me alone almost enough to bring American +literature under the rubric of this volume's title. If a critic +familiar only with the work chiefly associated with the author's name +were asked to indicate the source of the following quotations, I +should be surprised if he were to guess correctly in his first hundred +efforts. Indeed, I should not be astonished if some of his shots +missed the mark by centuries of time as well as oceans of space. One +hesitates to use lightly the word Elizabethan; but at present I do not +recall any other modern work that suggests it more strongly than some +of the lines I quote below: + + "So wanton are all emblems that the cloak + Which folds a king will kiss a crooked nail + As quickly as a beggar's gabardine + Will do like office." + + * * * * * + + "Thou art so like to substance that I'd think + Myself a shadow ere thyself a dream." + + * * * * * + + "Not so much beauty, sire, + As would make full the pocket of thine eye." + + * * * * * + + "A vein + That spilt its tender blue upon her eyelid, + As though the cunning hand that dyed her eyes + Had slipped for joy of its own work." + + * * * * * + + "What am I who doth rail against the fate + That binds mankind? The atom of an atom, + Particle of this particle the earth, + That with its million kindred worlds doth spin + Like motes within the universal light. + What if I sin--am lost--do crack my life + Against the gateless walls of Fate's decree? + Is the world fouler for a gnat's corpse? Nay, + The ocean, is it shallower for the drop + It leaves upon a blade of grass?" + + * * * * * + + "There is a boy in Essex, they do say, + Can crack an ox's ribs in one arm-crotch." + +All these passages are taken from the tragedy of "Athelwold," written +by Miss Amelie Rives, the author of a novel entitled "The Quick and +the Dead." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[20] I confess I should have felt myself on still firmer ground in +making the above comparison if I had been able to select "Peter +Ibbetson" instead of "Trilby" as the American favourite. It is +distinctly the finest, the most characteristic, and the most +convincing of Mr. Du Maurier's novels, though it is easy to see why it +did not enjoy such a "boom" as its successor. In "Peter Ibbetson" our +moral sense does not feel outraged by the fact of the sympathy we have +to extend to a man-slayer; we are made to feel that a man may kill his +fellow in a moment of ungovernable and not unrighteous wrath without +losing his fundamental goodness. On the other hand, it seems to me, +Mr. Du Maurier fails to convert us to belief in the possibility of +such a character as Trilby, and fails to make us wholly sympathise +with his paeans in her praise. It seems psychologically impossible for +a woman to sin so repeatedly as Trilby, and so apparently without any +overwhelming temptation, and yet at the same time to retain her +essential purity. It is a prostitution of the word "love" to excuse +Trilby's temporary amourettes with a "_quia multum amavit_." + +[21] His extraordinary article on George Du Maurier in _Harper's +Magazine_ for September, 1897, is, perhaps, so far as style is +concerned, as glaring an example of how not to do it as can be found +in the range of American letters. + +[22] Perhaps Mr. George W. Cable is entitled to rank with Mr. Howells +in this respect as a man who refused to disguise his moral convictions +behind his literary art, and thus infallibly and with full +consciousness imperilled his popularity among his own people. + +[23] "Stops of Various Quills," by W.D. Howells (Harper & Brothers, +New York, 1895). + + + + +XI + +Certain Features of Certain Cities + + +One of the dicta in M. Bourget's "Outre Mer" to which I cannot but +take exception is that which insists on the essential similarity and +monotony of all the cities of the United States. Passing over the +question of the right of a Parisian to quarrel with monotony of street +architecture, I should simply ask what single country possesses cities +more widely divergent than New York and New Orleans, Philadelphia and +San Francisco, Chicago and San Antonio, Washington and Pittsburg? If +M. Bourget merely means that there is a tendency to homogeneity in the +case of modern cities which was not compatible with the picturesque +though uncomfortable reasons for variety in more ancient foundations, +his remark amounts to a truism. For his implied comparison with +European cities to have any point, he should be able to assert that +the recent architecture of the different cities of Europe is more +varied than the contemporary architecture of the United States. This +seems to me emphatically not the case. Modern Paris resembles modern +Rome more closely than any two of the above-named cities resemble each +other; and it is simply the universal tendency to note similarity +first and then unlikeness that makes the brief visitor to the United +States fail to find characteristic individuality in the various great +cities of the country. We are also too prone to forget that the +United States, though continental in its proportions, is after all but +a single nation, enjoying the same institutions and speaking +practically one tongue; and this of necessity introduces an element of +sameness that must be absent from the continent of Europe with which +we are apt to compare it. If we oppose to the United States that one +European country which approaches it most nearly in size, we shall, I +think, find the balance of uniformity does not incline to the American +side. When all is said, however, it cannot be denied that there _is_ a +great deal of similarity in the smaller and newer towns and cities of +the West, and Mr. W.S. Caine's likening them to "international +exhibitions a week before their opening" will strike many visitors as +very apposite. It is only to the indiscriminate and unhedged form of +M. Bourget's statement that objection need be made. + +Architecture struck me as, perhaps, the one art in which America, so +far as modern times are concerned, could reasonably claim to be on a +par with, if not ahead of, any European country whatsoever. I say this +with a full realisation of the many artistic nightmares that oppress +the soil from the Atlantic to the Pacific, with a perfect recollection +of the acres of petty, monotonous, and mean structures in almost every +great city of the Union, with a keen appreciation of the witty saying +that the American architect often "shows no more self-restraint than a +bunch of fire-crackers." It is, however, distinctly true, as Mr. +Montgomery Schuyler well puts it, that "no progress can result from +the labour of architects whose training has made them so fastidious +that they are more revolted by the crudity of the forms that result +from the attempt to express a new meaning than by the failure to make +the attempt;" and it is in his freedom from this fastidious lack of +courage that the American architect is strong. His earlier efforts at +independence were, perhaps, hardly fortunate; but he is now entering a +phase in which adequate professional knowledge cooeperates with good +taste to define the limits within which his imagination may +legitimately work. I know not where to look, within the last quarter +of a century or so, for more tasteful designs, greater sincerity of +purpose, or happier adaptations to environment than the best creations +of men like Mr. H.H. Richardson, Mr. R.M. Hunt, Mr. J.W. Root, Mr. +G.B. Post, and Messrs. McKim, Mead, and White. Some of the new +residential streets of places as recent as Chicago or St. Paul more +than hold their own, as it seems to me, with any contemporaneous +thoroughfares of their own class in Europe. To my own opinion let me +add the valuable testimony of Mr. E.A. Freeman, in his "Impressions of +the United States" (pp. 246, 247): + + I found the modern churches, of various denominations, certainly + better, as works of architecture, than I had expected. They may + quite stand beside the average of modern churches in England, + setting aside a few of the very best.... But I thought the + churches, whose style is most commonly Gothic of one kind or + another, decidedly less successful than some of the civil + buildings. In some of these, I hardly know how far by choice, how + far by happy accident, a style has been hit upon which seemed to + me far more at home than any of the reproductions of Gothic. Much + of the street architecture of several cities has very + successfully caught the leading idea of the true Italian style. + +New York, the gateway to America for, perhaps, nine out of ten +visitors, is described by Mr. Richard Grant White, the American +writer, as "the dashing, dirty, demi-rep of cities." Mr. Joaquin +Miller, the poet of the Sierras, calls it "an iron-fronted, +iron-footed, and iron-hearted town." Miss Florence Marryat asserts +that New York is "_without any exception_ the most charming city she +has ever been in." Miss Emily Faithful admits that at first it seems +rough and new, but says that when one returns to it from the West, one +recognises that it has everything essential in common with his +European experiences. In my own note-book I find that New York +impressed me as being "like a lady in ball costume, with diamonds in +her ears, and her toes out at her boots." + +Here, then, is evidence that New York makes a pretty strong impression +on her guests, and that this impression is not by any means the same +in every case. New York is evidently a person of character, and of a +character with many facets. To most European visitors it must, on the +_whole_, be somewhat of a disappointment; and it is not really an +advantageous or even a characteristic portal to the American +continent. For one thing, it is too overwhelmingly cosmopolitan in the +composition of its population to strike the distinctive American note. +It is not alone that New York society imitates that of France and +England in a more pronounced way than I found anywhere else in +America, but the names one sees over the shops seem predominantly +German and Jewish, accents we are familiar with at home resound in +our ears, the quarters we are first introduced to recall the dinginess +and shabbiness of the waterside quarters of cities like London and +Glasgow. More intimate acquaintance finds much that is strongly +American in New York; but this is not the first impression, and first +impressions count for so much that it seems to me a pity that New York +is for most travellers the prologue to their American experiences. + +The contrasts between the poverty and wealth of New York are so +extreme as sometimes to suggest even London, where misery and +prosperity rub shoulders in a more heartrending way than, perhaps, +anywhere else in the wide world. But the contrasts that strike even +the most unobservant visitor to the so-called American "metropolis" +are of a different nature. When I was asked by American friends what +had most struck me in America, I sometimes answered, if in malicious +mood, "The fact that the principal street of the largest and richest +city in the Union is so miserably paved;" and, indeed, my +recollections of the holes in Broadway, and of the fact that in wintry +weather I had sometimes to diverge into University Place in order to +avoid a mid-shin crossing of liquid mud in Broadway, seem as strange +as if they related to a dream.[24] New York, again, possesses some of +the most sumptuous private residences in the world, often adorned in +particular with exquisite carvings in stone, such as Europeans have +sometimes furnished for a cathedral or minster, but which it has been +reserved for republican simplicity to apply to the residence of a +private citizen.[25] Yet it is by no means _ausgeschlossen_, as the +Germans say, that the pavement in front of this abode of luxury may +not be seamed by huge cracks and rents that make walking after +nightfall positively dangerous. + +Fifth Avenue is not, to my mind, one of the most attractive city +streets in the United States, but it is, perhaps, the one that makes +the greatest impression of prosperity. It is eminently solid and +substantial; it reeks with respectability and possibly dulness. It is +a very alderman among streets. The shops at its lower end, and +gradually creeping up higher like the modest guest of the parable, +make no appeal to the lightly pursed, but are as aristocratic-looking +as those of Hanover Square. Its hotels and clubs are equally +suggestive of well-lined pockets. Its churches more than hint at +golden offertories; and the visitor is not surprised to be assured (as +he infallibly will be) that the pastor of one of them preaches every +Sunday to "two hundred and fifty million dollars." Even the beautiful +Roman Catholic cathedral lends its aid to this impression, and +encourages the faithful by a charge of fifteen to twenty-five cents +for a seat. The "stoops" of the lugubrious brown sandstone houses seem +to retain something more of their Dutch origin than the mere name. The +Sunday Parade here is better dressed than that of Hyde Park, but +candour compels me to admit, at the expense of my present point, +considerably less stiff and non-committal. Indeed, were it not for +the miserable horses of the "stage lines" Fifth Avenue might present a +clean bill of unimpeachable affluence. + +Madison Avenue, hitherto uninvaded by shops, rivals Fifth Avenue in +its suggestions of extreme well-to-do-ness, and should be visited, if +for no other reason, to see the Tiffany house, one of the most daring +and withal most captivating experiments known to me in city +residences. + +Unlike those of many other American cities, the best houses of New +York are ranged side by side without the interposition of the tiniest +bit of garden or greenery; it is only in the striking but unfinished +Riverside Drive, with its grand views of the Hudson, that architecture +derives any aid whatsoever from natural formations or scenic +conditions. The student of architecture should not fail to note the +success with which the problem of giving expression to a town house of +comparatively simple outline has often been tackled, and he will find +many charming single features, such as doors, or balconies, or +windows. Good examples of these are the exquisite oriel and other +decorative features of the house of Mr. W.K. Vanderbilt, by Mr. Hunt, +in Fifth Avenue, at the corner of 52d Street, and specimens will also +be found in 34th, 36th, 37th, 43d, 52d, 56th, and 57th Streets, near +their junction with Fifth Avenue. The W.H. Vanderbilt houses (Fifth +Avenue, between 50th and 51st Streets) have been described as +"brown-stone boxes with architecture applique;" but the applied +carving, though meaningless enough as far as its position goes, is so +exquisite in itself as to deserve more than a passing glance. The iron +railings which surround the houses are beautiful specimens of +metal-work. The house of Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt, a little farther +up the avenue, with its red brick and slates, and its articulations +and dormers of grey limestone, is a good example of an effective use +of colour in domestic architecture--an effect which the clear, dry +climate of New York admits and perpetuates.[26] The row of quiet +oldtime houses on the north side of Washington Square will interest at +least the historical student of architecture, so characteristic are +they of times of restfulness and peace to which New York has long been +a stranger. Down towards the point of the island, in the "city" +proper, the visitor will find many happy creations for modern +mercantile purposes, besides such older objects of architectural +interest as Trinity Church and the City Hall, praised by Professor +Freeman and many other connoisseurs of both continents. Among these +business structures may be named the "Post Building," the building of +the Union Trust Company (No. 80 Broadway), and the Guernsey Building +(also in Broadway). At the extreme apex of Manhattan Island lie the +historic Bowling Green and Battery Park, the charm of which has not +been wholly annihilated by the intrusion of the elevated railway. Here +rises the huge rotunda of Castle Garden, through which till lately all +the immigrants to New York made their entry into the New World. Surely +this has a pathetic interest of its own when we consider what this +landing meant to so many thousands of the poor and needy. A suitable +motto for its hospitable portals would have been, "Imbibe new hope, +all ye who enter here." + +As I have said, there is no lack of good Americanism in New York. Let +the Englishman who does not believe in an American school of sculpture +look at St. Gaudens' statue of Admiral Farragut in Madison Square, and +say where we have a better or as good a single figure in any of our +streets. Let him who thinks that fine public picture galleries are +confined to Europe go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art,[27] with its +treasures by Rembrandt and Rubens, Holbein and Van Dyck, Frans Hals +and Teniers, Reynolds and Hogarth, Meissonier and Detaille, Rosa +Bonheur and Troyon, Corot and Breton. Let the admirer of engineering +marvels, after he has sufficiently appreciated the elastic strength of +the Brooklyn Suspension Bridge, betake himself to the other end of the +island and enjoy the more solid, but in their way no less imposing, +proportions of the Washington Bridge over the Harlem, and let him +choose his route by the Ninth-avenue Elevated Railroad with its dizzy +curve at 110th street. And, finally, let not the lover of the +picturesque fail to enjoy the views from the already named Riverside +Drive, the cleverly created beauties of Central Park, and the district +known as Washington Heights. + +The Englishman in New York will probably here make his first +acquaintance with the American system of street nomenclature; and if +he at once masters its few simple principles, it will be strange if he +does not find it of great utility and convenience. The objection +usually made to it is that the numbering of streets, instead of +naming them, is painfully arithmetical, bald, and uninteresting; but +if a man stays long enough to be really familiar with the streets, he +will find that the bare numbers soon clothe themselves with +association, and Fifth Avenue will come to have as distinct an +individuality as Broadway, while 23d Street will call up as definite a +picture of shopping activity as Bond Street or Piccadilly. The chief +trouble is the facility of confusing such an address as No. 44 East +45th Street with No. 45 East 44th Street; and so natural is an +inversion of the kind that one is sometimes heedless enough to make it +in writing one's own address. + +The transition from New York to Boston in a chapter like this is as +inevitable as the tax-collector, though perhaps less ingenuity is now +spent in the invention of anecdotes typical of the contrasts between +these two cities since Chicago, by the capture of the World's Fair, +drew upon herself the full fire of the satire-shotted guns of New +York's rivalry. It seems to me, however, that in many ways there is +much more similarity between New York and Chicago than between New +York and Boston, and that it is easier to use the latter couple than +the former to point a moral or adorn a tale. In both New York and +Chicago the prevailing note is that of wealth and commerce, the +dominant social impression is one of boundless material luxury, the +atmosphere is thick with the emanations of those who hurry to be rich. +I hasten to add that of course this is largely tempered by other +tendencies and features; it would be especially unpardonable of me to +forget the eminently intellectual, artistic, and refined aspects of +New York life of which I was privileged to enjoy glimpses. In Boston, +however, there is something different. Mere wealth, even in these +degenerate days, does not seem to play so important a part in her +society. The names one constantly hears or sees in New York are names +like Astor, Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, and Bradley-Martin, names which, +whatever other qualities they connote, stand first and foremost for +mere crude wealth. In Boston the prominent public names--the names +that naturally occur to my mind as I think of Boston as I saw it--are +Oliver Wendell Holmes, the poet and novelist; Eliot, the college +president; Francis Walker, the political economist; Higginson, the +generous cultivator of classical music; Robert Treat Paine, the +philanthropist; Edward Everett Hale; and others of a more or less +similar class. Again, in New York and in Chicago (Pullman, Marshall +Field, Armour) the prominent names are emphatically men of to-day and +seem to change with each generation. In Boston we have the names of +the first governor and other leaders of the early settlers still +shining in their descendants with almost undiminished lustre. The +present mayor of Boston, for example, is a member of a family the name +of which has been illustrious in the city's annals for two hundred +years. He is the fifth of his name in the direct line to gain fame in +the public service, and the third to occupy the mayor's chair. No less +than sixteen immediate members of the family are recorded in the +standard biographical dictionaries of America. + +While doubtless the Attic tales of Boeotian dulness were at least as +often well invented as true, it is perhaps the case that there is +generally some ground for the popular caricatures of any given +community. I duly discounted the humorous and would-be humorous +stories of Boston's pedantry that I heard in New York, and found that +as a rule I had done right so to do. Blue spectacles are not more +prominent in Boston than elsewhere; its theatres do not make a +specialty of Greek plays; the little boys do not petition the +Legislature for an increase in the hours of school. There yet remains, +however, a basis of truth quite large enough to show the observer how +the reputation was acquired. It is a solemn fact that what would +appear in England as "No spitting allowed in this car" is translated +in the electric cars of Boston into: "The Board of Health hereby +adjudges that the deposit of sputum in street-cars is a public +nuisance."[28] The framer of this announcement would undoubtedly speak +of the limbs of a piano and allude to a spade as an agricultural +implement. And in social intercourse I have often noticed needless +celerity in skating over ice that seemed to my ruder British sense +quite well able to bear any ordinary weight, as well as a certain +subtlety of allusiveness that appeared to exalt ingenuity of phrase at +the expense of common sense and common candour. Too high praise cannot +easily be given to the Boston Symphony Concerts; but it is difficult +to avoid a suspicion of affectation in the severe criticism one hears +of the conductor whenever he allows a little music of a lighter class +than usual to appear on the programme. + +Boston is, in its way, as prolific of contrasts as any part of the +United States. There is certainly no more cultivated centre in the +country, and yet the letter _r_ is as badly maltreated by the Boston +scholar as by the veriest cockney. To the ear of Boston _centre_ has +precisely the same sound as the name of the heroine of Wagner's +"Flying Dutchman," and its most cultivated graduates speak of Herbert +Spenc_ah_'s Data_r_ of Ethics. The critical programmes of the Symphony +Concerts are prepared by one of the ablest of living musical critics, +and are scholarly almost to excess; yet, as the observant Swiss +critic, M. Wagniere, has pointed out, their refined and subtle text +has to endure the immediate juxtaposition of the advertisements of +tea-rooms and glove-sellers. Boston has the deserved reputation of +being one of the best-governed cities in America, yet some of its +important streets seldom see a municipal watering-cart, dust flies in +clouds both summer and winter, and myriads of life-endangering +bicycles shoot through its thoroughfares at night without lamps. The +Boston matron holds up her hands in sanctified horror at the freedom +of Western manners, and yet it is a local saying, founded on a solid +basis of fact, that Kenney & Clark (a well-known firm of livery-stable +keepers) are the only chaperon that a Boston girl needs in going to or +from a ball. The Bostonians are not the least intelligent of mortals, +and yet I know no other city in America which is content with such an +anomalous system of hack hire, where no reduction in rate is made for +the number of persons. One person may drive in a comfortable two-horse +brougham to any point within Boston proper for 50 cents; two persons +pay $1, three persons $1.50, and so on. My advice to a quartette of +travellers visiting Boston is to hire _four_ carriages at once and _go +in a procession_, until they find a liveryman who sees the point. + +One acute observer has pointed out that it is the men of New York who +grow haggard, wrinkled, anxious-looking, and prematurely old in their +desperate efforts to provide diamonds and balls and Worth costumes and +trips to Europe for their debonair, handsome, easy-going, and +well-nourished spouses and daughters; while the men of Boston are +"jolly dogs, who make money by legitimate trade instead of wild +speculation, and show it in their countenances, illumined with the +light of good cigars and champagne and other little luxuries," while +their womankind are constantly worried by the New England conscience, +and constantly creating anxieties for themselves where none exist. +There is indeed a large amount of truth in this description, if +allowance be made for pardonable exaggeration. It is among the women +of Boston that one finds its traditional mantle of intellectuality +worn most universally, and it is among the women of New York that one +finds the most characteristic displays of love of pleasure and social +triumphs. It is, perhaps, not a mere accident that the daughters of +Boston's millionaires seem to marry their fellow-citizens rather than +foreign noblemen. "None of _their_ money goes to gild rococo +coronets." + +I have a good deal of sympathy with a Canadian friend who exclaimed: +"Oh, Boston! I don't include _Boston_ when I speak of the United +States." Max O'Rell has similarly noted that if you wish to hear +severe criticism of America you have only to go to Boston. "_La on +loue Boston et Angleterre, et l'on debine l'Amerique a dire +d'experts._" It would be a mistake, however, to infer that Boston is +not truly American, or that it devotes itself to any voluntary +imitation of England. In a very deep sense Boston is one of the most +intensely American cities in the Union; it represents, perhaps, the +finest development of many of the most characteristic ideals of +Americanism. Its resemblances to England seem to be due to the simple +fact that like causes produce like results. The original English stock +by which Boston was founded has remained less mixed here than, +perhaps, in any other city of America; and the differences between the +descendants of the Puritans who emigrated and the descendants of those +of them who remained at home are not complicated by a material +infusion of alien blood in either case. The independence of the +original settlers, their hatred of coercion and tyranny, have +naturally grown with two centuries and a half of democracy; even the +municipal administration has not been wholly captured by the Irish +voter. The Bostonian has, to a very appreciable extent, solved the +problem of combining the virtues of democracy with the manners of +aristocracy; and I know not where you will find a better type of the +American than the Boston gentleman: patriotic with enlightened +patriotism; finely mannered even to the class immediately below his +own; energetic, but not a slave to the pursuit of wealth; liberal in +his religion, but with something of the Puritan conscience still lying +_perdu_ beneath his universalism; distributing his leisure between +art, literature, and outdoor occupations; a little cool in his initial +manner to strangers, but warmly hospitable when his confidence in your +merit is satisfied. We, in England, may well feel proud that the blood +which flows in the veins of the ideal Bostonian is as distinctly and +as truly English as that of our own Gladstones and Morleys, our +Brownings and our Tennysons. + +Prof. Hugo Muensterberg, of Berlin, writes thus of Boston and Chicago: +"_Ja, Boston ist die Hauptstadt jenes jungen, liebenswerthen, +idealistischen Amerikas und wird es bleiben; Chicago dagegen ist die +Hochburg der alten protzigen amerikanischen Dollarsucht, und die +Weltausstellung schliesslich ist ueberhaupt nicht Amerika, sondern +chicagosirtes Europa._" Whatever may be thought of the first part of +this judgment, the second member of it seems to me rather unfair to +Chicago and emphatically so as regards the Chicago exhibition. + +Since 1893 Chicago ought never to be mentioned as Porkopolis without a +simultaneous reference to the fact that it was also the creator of the +White City, with its Court of Honour, perhaps the most flawless and +fairy-like creation, on a large scale, of man's invention. We expected +that America would produce the largest, most costly, and most gorgeous +of all international exhibitions; but who expected that she would +produce anything so inexpressibly poetic, chaste, and restrained, such +an absolutely refined and soul-satisfying picture, as the Court of +Honour, with its lagoon and gondolas, its white marble steps and +balustrades, its varied yet harmonious buildings, its colonnaded vista +of the great lake, its impressive fountain, its fairy-like outlining +after dark by the gems of electricity, its spacious and well-modulated +proportions which made the largest crowd in it but an unobtrusive +detail, its air of spontaneity and inevitableness which suggested +nature itself, rather than art? No other scene of man's creation +seemed to me so perfect as this Court of Honour. Venice, Naples, Rome, +Florence, Edinburgh, Athens, Constantinople, each in its way is lovely +indeed; but in each view of each of these there is some jarring +feature, something that we have to _ignore_ in order to thoroughly +lose ourselves in the beauty of the scene. The Court of Honour was +practically blameless; the aesthetic sense of the beholder was as fully +and unreservedly satisfied as in looking at a masterpiece of painting +or sculpture, and at the same time was soothed and elevated by a sense +of amplitude and grandeur such as no single work of art could produce. +The glamour of old association that illumines Athens or Venice was in +a way compensated by our deep impression of the pathetic +transitoriness of the dream of beauty before us, and by the revelation +it afforded of the soul of a great nation. For it will to all time +remain impossibly ridiculous to speak of a country or a city as wholly +given over to the worship of Mammon which almost involuntarily gave +birth to this ethereal emanation of pure and uneconomic beauty. + +Undoubtedly there are few things more dismal than the sunless canons +which in Chicago are called streets; and the luckless being who is +concerned there with retail trade is condemned to pass the greater +part of his life in unrelieved ugliness. Things, however, are rather +better in the "office" quarter; and he who is ready to admit that +exigency of site gives some excuse for "elevator architecture" will +find a good deal to interest him in its practice at Chicago. Indeed, +no one can fail to wonder at the marvellous skill of architectural +engineering which can run up a building of twenty stories, the walls +of which are merely a veneer or curtain. Few will cavil at the +handsome and comfortable equipment of the best interiors; but, given +the necessity of their existence, the wide-minded lover of art will +find something to reward his attention even in their exteriors. In +many instances their architects have succeeded admirably in steering a +middle course between the ornate style of a palace on the one hand +and the packing case with windows on the other; and the observer might +unreservedly admire the general effect were it not for the crick in +his neck that reminds him most forcibly that he cannot get far enough +away for a proper estimate of the proportions. Any city might feel +proud to count amid its commercial architecture such features as the +entrance of the Phenix Building, the office of the American Express +Company, and the monumental Field Building, by Richardson, with what +Mr. Schuyler calls its grim utilitarianism of expression; and the same +praise might, perhaps, be extended to the Auditorium, the Owings +Building, the Rookery, and some others. In non-commercial architecture +Chicago may point with some pride to its City Hall, its University, +its libraries, the admirable Chicago Club (the old Art Institute), and +the new Art Institute on the verge of Lake Michigan. Of its churches +the less said the better; their architecture, regarded as a studied +insult to religion, would go far to justify the highly uncomplimentary +epithet Mr. Stead applied to Chicago. + +In some respects Chicago deserves the name City of Contrasts, just as +the United States is the Land of Contrasts; and in no way is this more +marked than in the difference between its business and its residential +quarters. In the one--height, narrowness, noise, monotony, dirt, +sordid squalor, pretentiousness; in the other--light, space, +moderation, homelikeness. The houses in the Lake Shore Drive, the +Michigan Boulevard, or the Drexel Boulevard are as varied in style as +the brown-stone mansions of New York are monotonous; they face on +parks or are surrounded with gardens of their own; they are seldom +ostentatiously large; they suggest comfort, but not offensive +affluence; they make credible the possession of some individuality of +taste on the part of their owners. The number of massive round +openings, the strong rusticated masonry, the open loggie, the absence +of mouldings, and the red-tiled roofs suggest to the cognoscenti that +Mr. H.H. Richardson's spirit was the one which brooded most +efficaciously over the domestic architecture of Chicago. The two +houses I saw that were designed by Mr. Richardson himself are +undoubtedly not so satisfactory as some of his public buildings, but +they had at least the merit of interest and originality; some of the +numerous imitations were by no means successful. + +The parks of Chicago are both large and beautiful. They contain not a +few very creditable pieces of sculpture, among which Mr. St. Gaudens' +statue of Lincoln is conspicuous as a wonderful triumph of artistic +genius over unpromising material. The show of flowers in the parks is +not easily paralleled in public domains elsewhere. Of these, rather +than of its stockyards and its lightning rapidity in pig-sticking, +will the visitor who wishes to think well of Chicago carry off a +mental picture. + +The man who has stood on Inspiration Point above Oakland and has +watched the lights of San Francisco gleaming across its noble bay, or +who has gazed down on the Golden Gate from the heights of the +Presidio, must have an exceptionally rich gallery of memory if he does +not feel that he has added to its treasures one of the most entrancing +city views he has ever witnessed. The situation of San Francisco is +indeed that of an empress among cities. Piled tier above tier on the +hilly knob at the north end of a long peninsula, it looks down on the +one side over the roomy waters of San Francisco Bay (fifty miles long +and ten miles wide), backed by the ridge of the Coast Range, while in +the other direction it is reaching out across the peninsula, here six +miles wide, to the placid expanse of the Pacific Ocean. On the north +the peninsula ends abruptly in precipitous cliffs some hundreds of +feet high, while a similar peninsula, stretching southwards, faces it +in a similar massive promontory, separated by a scant mile of water. +This is the famous Golden Gate, the superb gateway leading from the +ocean to the shelters of the bay. To the south the eye loses itself +among the fertile valleys of corn and fruit stretching away toward the +Mexican frontier. + +When we have once sated ourselves with the general effect, there still +remains a number of details, picturesque, interesting, or quaint. +There is the Golden Gate Park, the cypresses and eucalypti at one end +of which testify to the balminess of the climate, while the sand-dunes +at its other end show the original condition of the whole surface of +the peninsula, and add to our admiration of nature a sense of +respectful awe for the transforming energy of man. Beyond Golden Gate +Park we reach Sutro Heights, another desert that has been made to +blossom like the rose. Here we look out over the Pacific to the +musically named Farralone Islands, thirty miles to the west. Then we +descend for luncheon to the Cliff House below, and watch the uncouth +gambols of hundreds of fat sea-lions (Spanish _lobos marinos_), which, +strictly protected from the rifle or harpoon, swim, and plunge, and +bark unconcernedly within a stone's throw of the observer. The largest +of these animals are fifteen feet long and weigh about a ton; and it +is said that certain individuals, recognisable by some peculiarity, +are known to have frequented the rocks for many years. On our way back +to the lower part of the city we use one of the cable-cars crawling up +and down the steep inclines like flies on a window-pane; and we find, +if the long polished seat of the car be otherwise unoccupied, that we +have positive difficulty in preventing ourselves slipping down from +one end of the car to the other. By this time the strong afternoon +wind[29] has set in from the sea, and we notice with surprise that the +seasoned Friscans, still clad in the muslins and linens that seemed +suitable enough at high noon, seek by preference the open seats of the +locomotive car, while we, puny visitors, turn up our coat-collars and +flee to the shelter of the "trailer" or covered car. As we come over +"Nob Hill" we take in the size of the houses of the Californian +millionaires, note that they are of wood (on account of the +earthquakes?), and bemoan the misdirected efforts of their architects, +who, instead of availing themselves of the unique chance of producing +monuments of characteristically developed timber architecture, have +known no better than to slavishly imitate the incongruous features of +stone houses in the style of the Renaissance. Indeed, we shall feel +that San Francisco is badly off for fine buildings of all and every +kind. If daylight still allows we may visit the Mission Dolores, one +of the interesting old Spanish foundations that form the origin of so +many places in California, and if we are historically inclined we may +inspect the old Spanish grants in the Surveyor-General's office. Those +of us whose tastes are modern and literary may find our account in +identifying some of the places in R.L. Stevenson's "Ebb Tide," and it +will go hard with us if we do not also meet a few of his characters +amid the cosmopolitan crowd in the streets or on the wharves. At night +we may visit China without the trouble of a voyage, and perambulate a +city of 25,000 Celestials under the safe guidance of an Irish-accented +detective. So often have the features of Chinatown been described--its +incense-scented joss-houses, its interminable stage-plays, its +opium-joints, its drug-stores with their extraordinary remedies, its +curiosity shops, and its restaurants--that no repetition need be +attempted here. We leave it with a sense of the curious incongruity +which allows this colony of Orientals to live in the most wide-awake +of western countries with an apparently almost total neglect of such +sanitary observances as are held indispensable in all other modern +municipalities. It is certain that no more horrible sight could be +seen in the extreme East than the so-called "Hermit of Chinatown," an +insane devotee who has lived for years crouched in a miserable little +outhouse, subsisting on the offerings of the charitable, and degraded +almost beyond the pale of humanity by his unbroken silence, his blank +immobility, and his neglect of all the decencies of life. And this is +an American resident, if not an American citizen! If the reader is as +lucky as the writer, he may wind up the day with a smart shock of +earthquake; and if he is equally sleepy and unintelligent (which +Heaven forefend!), he may miss its keen relish by drowsily wondering +what on earth they mean by moving that _very_ heavy grand piano +overhead at that time of night. + +"Two-thirds of them come here to die, and they can't do it." This was +said by the famous Mr. Barnum about Colorado Springs; and the active +life and cheerful manners of the condemned invalids who flourish in +this charming little city go far to confirm the truth concealed +beneath the jest. The land has insensibly sloped upwards since the +traveller left the Mississippi behind him, and he now finds himself in +a flowery prairie 6,000 feet above the sea level, while close by one +of the finest sections of the Rocky Mountains rears its snowy peaks to +a height of 6,000 to 8,000 feet more. The climate resembles that of +Davos, and like it is preeminently suited for all predisposed to or +already affected with consumption; but Colorado enjoys more sunshine +than its Swiss rival, and has no disagreeable period of melting snow. +The town is sheltered by the foothills, except to the southeast, where +it lies open to the great plains; and, being situated where they meet +the mountains, it enjoys the openness and free supply of fresh air of +the seashore, without its dampness. The name is somewhat of a +misnomer, as the nearest springs are those of Manitou, about five +miles to the north. + +Colorado Springs may be summed up as an oasis of Eastern civilisation +and finish in an environment of Western rawness and enterprise. It has +been described as "a charming big village, like the well-laid-out +suburb of some large Eastern city." Its wide, tree-shaded streets are +kept in excellent order. There is a refreshing absence of those "loose +ends" of a new civilisation which even the largest of the Western +cities are too apt to show. No manufactures are carried on, and no +"saloons" are permitted. The inhabitants consist very largely of +educated and refined people from the Eastern States and England, whose +health does not allow them to live in their damper native climes. The +tone of the place is a refreshing blend of the civilisation of the +East and the unconventionalism of the West. Perhaps there is no +pleasanter example of extreme social democracy. The young man of the +East, unprovided with a private income, finds no scope here for his +specially trained capacities, and is glad to turn an honest penny and +occupy his time with anything he can get. Thus there are gentlemen in +the conventional sense of the word among many of the so-called humbler +callings, and one may rub shoulders at the charming little clubs with +an Oxford-bred livery-stable keeper or a Harvard graduate who has +turned his energies toward the selling of milk. Few visitors to +Colorado Springs will fail to carry away a grateful and pleasant +impression of the English doctor who has found vigorous life and a +prosperous career in the place of exile to which his health condemned +him in early manhood, and who has repaid the place for its gift of +vitality by the most intelligent and effective championship of its +advantages. These latter include an excellent hotel and a flourishing +college for delicate girls and boys. + +Denver, a near neighbour of Colorado Springs (if we speak _more +Americano_), is an excellent example, both in theory and practice, of +the confident expectation of growth with which new American cities are +founded. The necessary public buildings are not huddled together as a +nucleus from which the municipal infant may grow outwards; but a large +and generous view is taken of the possibilities of expansion. Events +do not always justify this sanguine spirit of forethought. The capitol +at Washington still turns its back on the city of which it was to be +the centre as well as the crown. In a great number of cases, however, +hope and fact eventually meet together. The capitol of Bismarck, chief +town of North Dakota, was founded in 1883, nearly a mile from the +city, on a rising site in the midst of the prairie. It has already +been reached by the advancing tide of houses, and will doubtless, in +no long time, occupy a conveniently central situation. Denver is an +equally conspicuous instance of the same tendency. The changes that +took place in that city between the date of my visit to it and the +reading of the proof-sheets of "Baedeker's United States" a year or so +later demanded an almost entire rewriting of the description. +Doubtless it has altered at least as much since then, and very likely +the one or two slightly critical remarks of the handbook of 1893 are +already grossly libellous. Denver quadrupled its population between +1880 and 1890. The value of its manufactures and of the precious ores +smelted here reaches a fabulous amount of millions of dollars. The +usual proportion of "million" and "two million dollar buildings" have +been erected. Many of the principal streets are (most wonderful of +all!) excellently paved and kept reasonably clean. But the crowning +glory of Denver for every intelligent traveller is its magnificent +view of the Rocky Mountains, which are seen to the West in an unbroken +line of at least one hundred and fifty miles. Though forty miles +distant, they look, owing to the purity of the atmosphere, as if they +were within a walk of two or three hours. Denver is fond of calling +herself the "Queen City of the Plains," and few will grudge the +epithet queenly if it is applied to the possession of this matchless +outlook on the grandest manifestations of nature. If the Denver +citizen brags more of his State Capitol, his Metropole Hotel (no +accent, please!), and his smelting works than of his snow-piled +mountains and abysmal canons, he only follows a natural human instinct +in estimating most highly that which has cost him most trouble. + +Mr. James Bryce has an interesting chapter on the absence of a capital +in the United States. By capital he means "a city which is not only +the seat of political government, but is also by the size, wealth, and +character of its population the head and centre of the country, a +leading seat of commerce and industry, a reservoir of financial +resources, the favoured residence of the great and powerful, the spot +in which the chiefs of the learned professions are to be found, where +the most potent and widely read journals are published, whither men of +literary and scientific capacity are drawn." New York journalists, +with a happy disregard of the historical connotation of language, are +prone to speak of their city as a metropolis; but it is very evident +that the most liberal interpretation of the word cannot elevate New +York to the relative position of such European metropolitan cities as +Paris or London. Washington, the nominal capital of the United States, +is perhaps still farther from satisfying Mr. Bryce's definition. It +certainly is a relatively small city, and it is not a leading seat of +trade, manufacture, or finance. It is also true that its journals do +not rank among the leading papers of the land; but, on the other hand, +it must be remembered that every important American journal has its +Washington correspondent, and that in critical times the letters of +these gentlemen are of very great weight. As the seat of the Supreme +Judicial Bench of the United States, it has as good a claim as any +other American city to be the residence of the "chiefs of the learned +professions;" and it is quite remarkable how, owing to the great +national collections and departments, it has come to the front as the +main focus of the scientific interests of the country. The Cosmos +Club's list of members is alone sufficient to illustrate this. Its +attraction to men of letters has proved less cogent; but the life of +an eminent literary man of (say) New Orleans or Boston is much more +likely to include a prolonged visit to Washington than to any other +American city not his own. The Library of Congress alone, now +magnificently housed in an elaborately decorated new building, is a +strong magnet. In the same way there is a growing tendency for all who +can afford it to spend at least one season in Washington. The belle of +Kalamazoo or Little Rock is not satisfied till she has made her bow in +Washington under the wing of her State representative, and the senator +is no-wise loath to see his wife's tea-parties brightened by a bevy of +the prettiest girls from his native wilds. University men throughout +the Union, leaders of provincial bars, and a host of others have often +occasion to visit Washington. When we add to all this the army of +government employees and the cosmopolitan element of the diplomatic +corps, we can easily see that, so far as "society" is concerned, +Washington is more like a European capital than any other American +city. Nothing is more amusing--for a short time, at least--than a +round of the teas, dinners, receptions, and balls of Washington, where +the American girl is seen in all her glory, with captives of every +clime, from the almond-eyed Chinaman to the most faultlessly correct +Piccadilly exquisite, at her dainty feet. I never saw a bevy of more +beautiful women than officiated at one senatorial afternoon tea I +visited; so beautiful were they as to make me entirely forget what +seemed to my untutored European taste the absurdity of their wearing +low-necked evening gowns while their guests sported hat and jacket and +fur. The whole tone of Washington society from the President downward +is one of the greatest hospitality and geniality towards strangers. +The city is beautifully laid out, and its plan may be described as +that of a wheel laid on a gridiron, the rectangular arrangement of the +streets having superimposed on it a system of radiating avenues, lined +with trees and named for the different States of the Union. The city +is governed and kept admirably in order by a board of commissioners +appointed by the President. The sobriquet of "City of Magnificent +Distances," applied to Washington when its framework seemed +unnecessarily large for its growth, is still deserved, perhaps, for +the width of its streets and the spaciousness of its parks and +squares. The floating white dome of the Capitol dominates the entire +city, and almost every street-vista ends in an imposing public +building, a mass of luxuriant greenery, or at the least a memorial +statue. The little wooden houses of the coloured squatters that used +to alternate freely with the statelier mansions of officialdom are now +rapidly disappearing; and some, perhaps, will regret the obliteration +of the element of picturesqueness suggested in the quaint contrast. +The absence of the wealth-suggesting but artistically somewhat sordid +accompaniments of a busy industrialism also contributes to +Washington's position as one of the most singularly handsome cities on +the globe. Among the other striking features of the American capital +is the Washington Memorial, a huge obelisk raising its metal-tipped +apex to a height of five hundred and fifty-five feet. There are those +who consider this a meaningless pile of masonry; but the writer +sympathises rather with the critics who find it, in its massive and +heaven-reaching simplicity, a fit counterpart to the Capitol and one +of the noblest monuments ever raised to mortal man. When gleaming in +the westering sun, like a slender, tapering, sky-pointing finger of +gold, no finer index can be imagined to direct the gazer to the record +of a glorious history. Near the monument is the White House, a +building which, in its modest yet adequate dimensions, embodies the +democratic ideal more fitly, it may be feared, than certain other +phases of the Great Republic. Without cataloguing the other public +buildings of Washington, we may quit it with a glow of patriotic +fervour over the fact that the Smithsonian Institute here, one of the +most important scientific institutions in the world, was founded by an +Englishman, who, so far as is known, never even visited the United +States, but left his large fortune for "the increase and diffusion of +knowledge among men," to the care of that country with whose generous +and popular principles he was most in sympathy. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[24] This refers to 1893; things are much better now. + +[25] This suggestion of topsy-turvydom in the relations of God and +Mammon is much intensified when we find an apartment house like the +"Osborne" towering high above the church-spire on the opposite side of +the way, or see Trinity Church simply smothered by the contiguous +office buildings. + +[26] Compare Montgomery Schuyler's "American Architecture," an +excellent though brief account and appreciation of modern American +building. + +[27] The position of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is so assured that +in 1896 its trustees declined a bequest of 90 paintings (claiming to +include specimens of Velazquez, Titian, Rubens, and other great +artists), because it was hampered with the condition that it had to be +accepted and exhibited _en bloc_. + +[28] This was changed to simple English in 1898. + +[29] It is to this wind, the temperature of which varies little all +the year round, that San Francisco owes her wonderfully equable +climate, which is never either too hot or too cold for comfortable +work or play. The mean annual temperature is about 57 deg. Fahr., or +rather higher than that of New York; but while the difference between +the mean of the months is 40 deg. at the latter city, it is about 10 deg. only +at the Golden Gate. The mean of July is about 60 deg., that of January +about 50 deg.. September is a shade warmer than July. Observations +extending over 30 years show that the freezing point on the one hand +and 80 deg. Fahr. on the other are reached on an average only about half a +dozen times a year. The hottest day of the year is more likely to +occur in September than any other month. + + + + +XII + +Baedekeriana + + +This chapter deals with subjects related to the tourist and the +guidebook, and with certain points of a more personal nature connected +with the preparation of "Baedeker's Handbook to the United States." +Readers uninterested in topics of so practical and commonplace a +character will do well to skip it altogether. + +When the scheme of publishing a "Baedeker" to the United States was +originally entertained, the first thought was to invite an American to +write the book for us. On more mature deliberation it was, however, +decided that a member of our regular staff would, perhaps, do the work +equally well, inasmuch as he would combine, with actual experience in +the art of guidebook making, the stranger's point of view, and thus +the more acutely realise, by experiment in his own _corpus vile_, the +points on which the ignorant European would require advice, warning, +or assistance. So far as my own voice had aught to do with this +decision, I have to confess that I severely grudged the interesting +task to an outsider. The opportunity of making a somewhat extensive +survey of the country that stood preeminently for the modern ideas of +democracy and progress was a peculiarly grateful one; and I even +contrived to infuse (for my own consumption) a spice of the ideal into +the homely brew of the guidebook by reflecting that it would +contribute (so far as it went) to that mutual knowledge, intimacy of +which is perhaps all that is necessary to ensure true friendship +between the two great Anglo-Saxon powers. + +While thus reserving the editing of the book for one of our own +household, we realised thoroughly that no approach to completeness +would be attainable without the cooeperation of the Americans +themselves; and I welcome this opportunity to reiterate my keen +appreciation of the open-handed and open-minded way in which this was +accorded. Besides the signed articles by men of letters and science in +the introductory part of the handbook, I have to acknowledge thousands +of other kindly offices and useful hints, many of which hardly allow +themselves to be classified or defined, but all of which had their +share in producing aught of good that the volume may contain. So many +Americans have used their Baedekers in Europe that I found troops of +ready-made sympathisers, who, half-interested, half-amused, at the +attempt to Baedekerise their own continent, knew pretty well what was +wanted, and were able to put me on the right track for procuring +information. Indeed, the book could hardly have been written but for +these innumerable streams of disinterested assistance, which enabled +the writer so to economise his time as to finish his task before the +part first written was entirely obsolete. + +The process of change in the United States goes on so rapidly that the +attempt of a guidebook to keep abreast of the times (not easy in any +country) becomes almost futile. The speed with which Denver +metamorphosed her outward appearance has already been commented on at +page 214; and this is but one instance in a thousand. Towns spring up +literally in a night. McGregor in Texas, at the junction of two new +railways, had twelve houses the day after it was fixed upon as a town +site, and in two months contained five hundred souls. Towns may also +disappear in a night, as Johnstown (Penn.) was swept away by the +bursting of a dam on May 31, 1889, or as Chicago was destroyed by the +great fire of 1871. These are simply exaggerated examples of what is +happening less obtrusively all the time. The means of access to points +of interest are constantly changing; the rough horse-trail of to-day +becomes the stage-road of to-morrow and the railway of the day after. +The conservative clinging to the old, so common in Europe, has no +place in the New World; an apparently infinitesimal advantage will +occasion a _bouleversement_ that is by no means infinitesimal. + +Next to the interest and beauty of the places to be visited, perhaps +the two things in which a visitor to a new country has most concern +are the means of moving from point to point and the accommodation +provided for him at his nightly stopping-places--in brief, its +conveyances and its inns. During the year or more I spent in almost +continuous travelling in the United States I had abundant opportunity +of testing both of these. In all I must have slept in over two hundred +different beds, ranging from one in a hotel-chamber so gorgeous that +it seemed almost as indelicate to go to bed in it as to undress in the +drawing-room, down through the berths of Pullman cars and river +steamboats, to an open-air couch of balsam boughs in the Adirondack +forests. My means of locomotion included a safety bicycle, an +Adirondack canoe, the back of a horse, the omnipresent buggy, a +bob-sleigh, a "cutter," a "booby," four-horse "stages," river, lake, +and sea-going steamers, horse-cars, cable-cars, electric cars, +mountain elevators, narrow-gauge railways, and the Vestibuled Limited +Express from New York to Chicago. + +Perhaps it is significant of the amount of truth in many of the +assertions made about travelling in the United States that I traversed +about 35,000 miles in the various ways indicated above without a +scratch and almost without serious detention or delay. Once we were +nearly swamped in a sudden squall in a mountain lake, and once we had +a minute or two's pleasant experience of the iron-shod heels of our +horse _inside_ the buggy, the unfortunate animal having hitched his +hind-legs over the dash-board and nearly kicking out our brains in his +frantic efforts to get free. These, however, were accidents that might +have happened anywhere, and if my experiences by road and rail in +America prove anything, they prove that travelling in the United +States is just as safe as in Europe.[30] Some varieties of it are +rougher than anything of the kind I know in the Old World; but on the +other hand much of it is far pleasanter. The European system of small +railway compartments, in spite of its advantage of privacy and quiet, +would be simply unendurable in the long journeys that have to be made +in the western hemisphere. The journey of twenty-four to thirty hours +from New York to Chicago, if made by the Vestibuled Limited, is +probably less fatiguing than the day-journey of half the time from +London to Edinburgh. The comforts of this superb train include those +of the drawing-room, the dining-room, the smoking-room, and the +library. These apartments are perfectly ventilated by compressed air +and lighted by movable electric lights, while in winter they are +warmed to an agreeable temperature by steam-pipes. Card-tables and a +selection of the daily papers minister to the traveller's amusement, +while bulletin boards give the latest Stock Exchange quotations and +the reports of the Government Weather Bureau. Those who desire it may +enjoy a bath _en route_, or avail themselves of the services of a +lady's maid, a barber, a stenographer, and a type-writer. There is +even a small and carefully selected medicine chest within reach; and +the way in which the minor delicacies of life are consulted may be +illustrated by the fact that powdered soap is provided in the +lavatories, so that no one may have to use the same cake of soap as +his neighbour. + +No one who has not tried both can appreciate the immense difference in +comfort given by the opportunity to move about in the train. No matter +how pleasant one's companions are in an English first-class +compartment, their _enforced_ proximity makes one heartily sick of +them before many hours have elapsed; while a conversation with Daisy +Miller in the American parlour car is rendered doubly delightful by +the consciousness that you may at any moment transfer yourself and +your _bons mots_ to Lydia Blood at the other end of the car, or retire +with Gilead P. Beck to the snug little smoking-room. The great size +and weight of the American cars make them very steady on well-laid +tracks like those of the Pennsylvania Railway, and thus letter-writing +need not be a lost art on a railway journey. Even when the permanent +way is inferior, the same cause often makes the vibration less than on +the admirable road-beds of England. + +Theoretically, there is no distinction of classes on an American +railway; practically, there is whenever the line is important enough +or the journey long enough to make it worth while. The parlour car +corresponds to our first class; and its use has this advantage (rather +curious in a democratic country), that the increased fare for its +admirable comforts is relatively very low, usually (in my experience) +not exceeding 1/2_d._ a mile. The ordinary fare from New York to +Boston (220 to 250 miles) is $5 (L1); a seat in a parlour car costs $1 +(4_s._), and a sleeping-berth $1.50 (6_s._). Thus the ordinary +passenger pays at the rate of about 1-1/4_d._ per mile, while the +luxury of the Pullman may be obtained for an additional expenditure of +just about 1/2_d._ a mile. The extra fare on even the Chicago +Vestibuled Limited is only $8 (32_s._) for 912 miles, or considerably +less than 1/2_d._ a mile. These rates are not only less than the +difference between first-class and third-class fares in Europe, but +also compare very advantageously with the rates for sleeping-berths on +European lines, being usually 50 to 75 per cent. lower. The +parlour-car rates, however, increase considerably as we go on towards +the West and get into regions where competition is less active. A good +instance of this is afforded by the parlour-car fares of the Canadian +Pacific Railway, which I select because it spans the continent with +its own rails from the Atlantic to the Pacific; the principle on the +United States lines is similar. The price of a "sleeper" ticket from +Montreal to Fort William (998 miles) is $6, or about 3/5_d._ per mile; +that from Banff to Vancouver (560 miles) is the same, or at the rate +of about 14/15_d._ per mile. The rate for the whole journey from +Halifax to Vancouver (3,362 miles) is about 2/3_d._ per mile. + +Travellers who prefer the privacy of the European system may combine +it with the liberty of the American system by hiring, at a small extra +rate, the so-called "drawing-room" or "state-room," a small +compartment containing four seats or berths, divided by partitions +from the rest of the parlour car. The ordinary carriage or "day coach" +corresponds to the English second-class carriage, or, rather, to the +excellent third-class carriages on such railways as the Midland. It +does not, I think, excel them in comfort except in the greater size, +the greater liberty of motion, and the element of variety afforded by +the greater number of fellow-passengers. The seats are disposed on +each side of a narrow central aisle, and are so arranged that the +occupants can ride forward or backward as they prefer. Each seat holds +two persons, but with some difficulty if either has any amplitude of +bulk. The space for the legs is also very limited. The chief +discomfort, however, is the fact that there is no support for the head +and shoulders, though this disability might be easily remedied by a +movable head-rest. Very little provision is made for hand luggage, the +American custom being to "check" anything checkable and have it put in +the "baggage car." Rugs are entirely superfluous, as the cars are far +more likely to be too warm than too cold. The windows are usually +another weak point. They move vertically as ours do, but up instead of +down; and they are frequently made so that they cannot be opened more +than a few inches. The handles by which they are lifted are very +small, and afford very little purchase; and the windows are frequently +so stiff that it requires a strong man to move them. I have often seen +half a dozen passengers struggle in vain with a refractory glass, and +finally have to call in the help of the brawny brakeman. This +difficulty, however, is of less consequence from the fact that even if +you can open your window, there is sure to be some one among your +forty or fifty fellow-passengers who objects to the draught. Or if +_you_ object to the draught of a window in front of you, you have +either to grin and bear it or do violence to your British diffidence +in requesting its closure. The windows are all furnished with small +slatted blinds, which can be arranged in hot weather so as to exclude +the sun and let in the air. The conductor communicates with the +engine-driver by a bell-cord suspended from the roof of the carriages +and running throughout the entire length of the train. It is well to +remember that this tempting clothes-rope is not meant for hanging up +one's overcoat. Whatever be the reason, the plague of cinders from the +locomotive smoke is often much worse in America than in England. As we +proceed, they patter on the roof like hailstones, in a way that is +often very trying to the nerves, and they not unfrequently make open +windows a doubtful blessing, even on immoderately warm days. At +intervals the brakeman carries round a pitcher of iced water, which he +serves gratis to all who want it; and it is a pleasant sight on +sultry summer days to see how the children welcome his coming. In some +cases there is a permanent filter of ice-water with a tap in a corner +of the car. At each end of the car is a lavatory, one for men and one +for women. In spite, then, of the discomforts noted above, it may be +asserted that the poor man is more comfortable on a long journey than +in Europe; and that on a short journey the American system affords +more entertainment than the European. When Richard Grant White +announced his preference for the English system because it preserves +the traveller's individuality, looks after his personal comfort, and +carries all his baggage, he must have forgotten that it is practically +first-class passengers only who reap the benefit of those advantages. + +One most unpleasantly suggestive equipment of an American railway +carriage is the axe and crowbar suspended on the wall for use in an +accident. This makes one reflect that there are only two doors in an +American car containing sixty people, whereas the same number of +passengers in Europe would have six, eight, or even ten. This is +extremely inconvenient in crowded trains (_e.g._, in the New York +Elevated), and might conceivably add immensely to the horrors of an +accident. The latter reflection is emphasised by the fact that there +are practically no soft places to fall on, sharp angles presenting +themselves on every side, and the very arm-rests of the seats being +made of polished iron. + +There is always a smoking-car attached to the train, generally +immediately after the locomotive or luggage van. Labourers in their +working clothes and the shabbily clad in general are apt to select +this car, which thus practically takes the place of third-class +carriages on European railways. On the long-distance trains running +to the West there are emigrant cars which also represent our +third-class cars, while the same function is performed in the South by +the cars reserved for coloured passengers. In a few instances the +trains are made up of first-class and second-class carriages actually +so named. A "first-class ticket," however, in ordinary language means +one for the universal day-coach as above described. + +The ticket system differs somewhat from that in vogue in Europe, and +rather curious developments have been the result. For short journeys +the ticket often resembles the small oblong of pasteboard with which +we are all familiar. For longer journeys it consists of a narrow strip +of coupons, sometimes nearly two feet in length. If this is +"unlimited" it is available at any time until used, and the holder may +"stop over" at any intermediate station. The "limited" and cheaper +ticket is available for a continuous passage only, and does not allow +of any stoppages _en route_. The coupons are collected in the cars by +the conductors in charge of the various sections of the line. The +skill shown by these officials, passing through a long and crowded +train after a stoppage, in recognising the newcomers and asking for +their tickets, is often very remarkable. Sometimes the conductor gives +a coloured counter-check to enable him to recognise the sheep whom he +has already shorn. These checks are generally placed in the hat-band +or stuck in the back of the seat. The conductor collects them just +before he hands over the train to the charge of his successor. As many +complaints are made by English travellers of the incivility of +American conductors, I may say that the first conductor I met found +me, when he was on his rounds to collect his counter-checks, lolling +back on my seat, with my hat high above me in the rack. I made a +motion as if to get up for it, when he said, "Pray don't disturb +yourself, sir; I'll reach up for it." Not all the conductors I met +afterwards were as polite as this, but he has as good a right to pose +as the type of American conductor as the overbearing ruffians who +stalk through the books of sundry British tourists. In judging him it +should be remembered that he democratically feels himself on a level +with his passengers, that he would be insulted by the offer of a tip, +that he is harassed all day long by hundreds of foolish questions from +foolish travellers, that he has a great deal to do in a limited time, +and that however "short" he may be with a male passenger he is almost +invariably courteous and considerate to the unprotected female. Though +his address may sometimes sound rather familiar, he means no +disrespect; and if he takes a fancy to you and offers you a cigar, you +need not feel insulted, and will probably find he smokes a better +brand than your own. + +A feature connected with the American railway system that should not +be overlooked is the mass of literature prepared by the railway +companies and distributed gratis to their passengers. The illustrated +pamphlets issued by the larger companies are marvels of paper and +typography, with really charming illustrations and a text that is +often clever and witty enough to suggest that authors of repute are +sometimes tempted to lend their anonymous pens for this kind of work. +But even the tiniest little "one-horse" railway distributes neat +little "folders," showing conclusively that its tracks lead through +the Elysian Fields and end at the Garden of Eden. A conspicuous +feature in all hotel offices is a large rack containing packages of +these gaily coloured folders, contributed by perhaps fifty different +railways for the use of the hotel guests. + +Owing to the unlimited time for which tickets are available, and to +other causes, a race of dealers in railway tickets has sprung up, who +rejoice in the euphonious name of "scalpers," and often do a roaring +trade in selling tickets at less than regular fares. Thus, if the fare +from A to B be $10 and the return fare $15, it is often possible to +obtain the half of a return ticket from a scalper for about $8. Or a +man setting out for a journey of 100 miles buys a through ticket to +the terminus of the line, which may be 400 miles distant. On this +through ticket he pays a proportionally lower rate for the distance he +actually travels, and sells the balance of his ticket to a scalper. Or +if a man wishes to go from A to B and finds that a special excursion +ticket there and back is being sold at a single fare ($10), he may use +the half of this ticket and sell the other half to a scalper in B. It +is obvious that anything he can get for it will be a gain to him, +while the scalper _could_ afford to give up to about $7 for it, though +he probably will not give more than $4. The profession of scalper may, +however, very probably prove an evanescent one, as vigorous efforts +are being made to suppress him by legislative enactment. + +Americans often claim that the ordinary railway-fare in the United +States is less than in England, amounting only to 2 cents (1_d._) per +mile. My experience, however, leads me to say that this assertion +cannot be accepted without considerable deduction. It is true that in +many States (including all the Eastern ones) there is a statutory fare +of 2 cents per mile, but this (so far as I know) is not always granted +for ordinary single or double tickets, but only on season, +"commutation," or mileage tickets. The "commutation" tickets are good +for a certain number of trips. The mileage tickets are books of small +coupons, each of which represents a mile; the conductor tears out as +many coupons as the passenger has travelled miles. This mileage system +is an extremely convenient one for (say) a family, as the books are +good until exhausted, and the coupons are available on any train (with +possibly one or two exceptions) on any part of the system of the +company issuing the ticket. Which of our enlightened British companies +is going to be the first to win the hearts of its patrons by the +adoption of this neat and easy device? Out West and down South the +fares for ordinary tickets purchased at the station are often much +higher than 2 cents a mile; on one short and very inferior line I +traversed the rate was 7 cents (3-1/2_d._) per mile. I find that Mr. +W.M. Acworth calculates the average fare in the United States as +1-1/4_d._ per mile as against 1-1/6_d._ in Great Britain. Professor +Hadley, an American authority, gives the rates as 2.35 cents and 2 +cents respectively. + +British critics would, perhaps, be more lenient in their +animadversions on American railways, if they would more persistently +bear in mind the great difference in the conditions under which +railways have been constructed in the Old and the New World. In +England, for example, the railway came _after_ the thick settlement +of a district, and has naturally had to pay dearly for its privileges, +and to submit to stringent conditions in regard to construction and +maintenance. In the United States, on the other hand, the railways +were often the first _roads_ (hence rail_road_ is the American name +for them) in a new district, the inhabitants of which were glad to get +them on almost any terms. Hence the cheap and provisional nature of +many of the lines, and the numerous deadly level crossings. The land +grants and other privileges accorded to the railway companies may be +fairly compared to the road tax which we willingly submit to in +England as the just price of an invaluable boon. This reflection, +however, need not be carried so far as to cover with a mantle of +justice _all_ the railway concessions of America! + +Two things in the American parlour-car system struck me as evils that +were not only unnecessary, but easily avoidable. The first of these is +that most illiberal regulation which compels the porter to let down +the upper berth even when it is not occupied. The object of this is +apparently to induce the occupant of the lower berth to hire the whole +"section" of two berths, so as to have more ventilation and more room +for dressing and undressing. Presumably the parlour-car companies know +their own business best; but it would seem to the average "Britisher" +that such a petty spirit of annoyance would be likely to do more harm +than good, even in a financial way. The custom would be more excusable +if it were confined to those cases in which two people shared the +lower berth. The custom is so unlike the usual spirit of the United +States, where the practice is to charge a liberal round sum and then +relieve you of all minor annoyances and exactions, that its +persistence is somewhat of a mystery. + +The continuance of the other evil I allude to is still less +comprehensible. The United States is proverbially the paradise of what +it is, perhaps, now behind the times to term the gentler sex. The path +of woman, old or new, in America is made smooth in all directions, and +as a rule she has the best of the accommodation and the lion's share +of the attention wherever she goes. But this is emphatically not the +case on the parlour car. No attempt is made there to divide the sexes +or to respect the privacy of a lady. If there are twelve men and four +women on the car, the latter are not grouped by themselves, but are +scattered among the men, either in lower or upper berths, as the +number of their tickets or the courtesy of the men dictates. The +lavatory and dressing-room for men at one end of the car has two or +more "set bowls" (fixed in basins), and can be used by several +dressers at once. The parallel accommodation for ladies barely holds +one, and its door is provided with a lock, which enables a selfish +bang-frizzler and rouge-layer to occupy it for an hour while a queue +of her unhappy sisters remains outside. It is difficult to see why a +small portion at one end of the car should not be reserved for ladies, +and separated at night from the rest of the car by a curtain across +the central aisle. Of course the passage of the railway officials +could not be hindered, but the masculine passengers might very well be +confined for the night to entrance and egress at their own end of the +car. An improvement in the toilette accommodation for ladies also +seems a not unreasonable demand. + +Miss Catherine Bates, in her "Year in the Great Republic," narrates +the case of a man who was nearly suffocated by the fact that a slight +collision jarred the lid of the top berth in which he was sleeping and +snapped it to! This story _may_ be true; but in the only top berths +which I know the occupant _lies_ upon the lid, which, to close, would +have to spring _upwards_ against his weight! + +A third nuisance, or combination of benefit and nuisance, or benefit +with a very strong dash of avoidable nuisance, is the train boy. This +young gentleman, whose age varies from fifteen to fifty, though +usually nearer the former than the latter, is one of the most +conspicuous of the embryo forms of the great American speculator or +merchant. He occupies with his stock in trade a corner in the baggage +car or end carriage of the train, and makes periodical rounds +throughout the cars, offering his wares for sale. These are of the +most various description, ranging from the daily papers and current +periodicals through detective stories and tales of the Wild West, to +chewing-gum, pencils, candy, bananas, skull-caps, fans, tobacco, and +cigars. His pleasing way is to perambulate the cars, leaving samples +of his wares on all the seats and afterwards calling for orders. He +does this with supreme indifference to the occupation of the +passenger. Thus, you settle yourself comfortably for a nap, and are +just succumbing to the drowsy god, when you feel yourself "taken in +the abdomen," not (fortunately) by "a chunk of old red sandstone," but +by the latest number of the _Illustrated American_ or _Scribner's +Monthly_. The rounds are so frequent that the door of the car never +seems to cease banging or the cold draughts to cease blowing in on +your bald head. Mr. Phil Robinson makes the very sensible suggestion +that the train boy should have a little printed list of his wares +which he could distribute throughout the train, whereupon the +traveller could send for him when wanted. Another suggestion that I +venture to present to this independent young trader is that he should +provide himself with copies of the novels treating of the districts +which the railway traverses. Thus, when I tried to procure from him +"Ramona" in California, or "The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains" +in Tennessee, or "The Hoosier Schoolmaster" in Ohio, or "The +Grandissimes" near New Orleans, the nearest he could come to my modest +demand was "The Kreutzer Sonata" or the last effort of Miss Laura Jean +Libbey, a popular American novelist, who describes in glowing colours +how two aristocratic Englishmen, fighting a duel near London somewhere +in the seventies, were interrupted by the heroine, who drove between +them in a hansom _and pair_ and received the shots in its panels! Out +West, too, he could probably put more money in his pocket if he were +disposed to put his pride there too. One pert youth in Arizona +preferred to lose my order for cigars rather than bring the box to me +for selection; he said "he'd be darned if he'd sling boxes around for +me; I could come and choose for myself." However, when criticism has +been exhausted it is an undeniable fact that the American Pullman cars +are more comfortable and considerably cheaper than the so-called +_compartiments de luxe_ of European railways. + +It is, perhaps, worth noting that the comfort of the engine-driver, or +engineer as he is called _lingua Americana_, is much better catered +for in the United States than in England. His cab is protected both +overhead and at the sides, while his bull's-eye window permits him to +look ahead without receiving the wind, dust, and snow in his eyes. The +curious English conservatism which, apparently, believes that a driver +will do his work better because exposed to almost the full violence of +the elements always excites a very natural surprise in the American +visitor to our shores. + +The speed of American trains is as a rule slower than that of English +ones, though there are some brilliant exceptions to this rule. I never +remember dawdling along in so slow and apparently purposeless a manner +as in crossing the arid deserts of Arizona--unless, indeed, it was in +travelling by the Manchester and Milford line in Wales. The train on +the branch between Raymond (a starting-point for the Yosemite) and the +main line went so cannily that the engine-driver (an excellent +marksman) shot rabbits from the engine, while the fireman jumped down, +picked them up, and clambered on again at the end of the train. The +only time the train had to be stopped for him was when the engineer +had a successful right and left, the victims of which expired at some +distance from each other. It should be said that there was absolutely +no reason to hurry on this trip, as we had "lashins" of time to spare +for our connection at the junction, and the passengers were all much +interested in the sport. + +At the other end of the scale are the trains which run from New York +to Philadelphia (90 miles) in two hours, the train of the Reading +Railway that makes the run of 55 miles from Camden to Atlantic City in +52 minutes, and the Empire State Express which runs from New York to +Buffalo (436-1/2 miles) at the rate of over 50 miles an hour, +including stops. These, however, are exceptional, and the traveller +may find that trains known as the "Greased Lightning," "Cannon Ball," +or "G-Whizz" do not exceed (if they even attain) 40 miles an hour. The +possibility of speed on an American railway is shown by the record run +of 436-1/2 miles in 6-3/4 hours, made on the New York Central Railroad +in 1895 (= 64.22 miles per hour, exclusive of stops), and by the run +of 148.8 miles in 137 minutes, made on the same railway in 1897. The +longest unbroken runs of regular trains are one of 146 miles on the +Chicago Limited train on the Pennsylvania route, and one of 143 miles +by the New York Central Railway running up the Hudson to Albany. As +experts will at once recognise, these are feats which compare well +with anything done on this side of the Atlantic. + +In the matter of accidents the comparison with Great Britain is not +so overwhelmingly unfavourable as is sometimes supposed. If, indeed, +we accept the figures given by Mullhall in his "Dictionary of +Statistics," we have to admit that the proportion of accidents is +five times greater in the United States than in the United Kingdom. +The statistics collected by the Railroad Commissioners of +Massachusetts, however, reduce this ratio to five to four. The +safety of railway travelling differs hugely in different parts of +the country. Thus Mr. E.B. Dorsey shows ("English and American +Railways Compared") that the average number of miles a passenger can +travel in Massachusetts without being killed is 503,568,188, while +in the United Kingdom the number is only 172,965,362, leaving a +very comfortable margin of over 300,000,000 miles. On the whole, +however, it cannot be denied that there are more accidents in +American railway travelling than in European, and very many of them +from easily preventable causes. The whole spirit of the American +continent in such matters is more "casual" than that of Europe; the +American is more willing to "chance it;" the patriarchal regime is +replaced by the every-man-for-himself-and-devil-take-the-hindmost +system. When I hired a horse to ride up a somewhat giddy path to the +top of a mountain, I was supplied (without warning) with a young +animal that had just arrived from the breeding farm and had never +even seen a mountain. Many and curious, when I regained my hotel, +were the enquiries as to how he had behaved himself; and it was no +thanks to them that I could report that, though rather frisky on the +road, he had sobered down in the most sagacious manner when we +struck the narrow upward trail. In America the railway passenger has +to look out for himself. There is no checking of tickets before +starting to obviate the risk of being in the wrong train. There is +no porter to carry the traveller's hand-baggage and see him +comfortably ensconced in the right carriage. When the train does +start, it glides away silently without any warning bell, and it is +easy for an inadvertent traveller to be left behind. Even in large +and important stations there is often no clear demarcation between +the platforms and the permanent way. The whole floor of the station +is on one level, and the rails are flush with the spot from which +you climb into the car. Overhead bridges or subways are practically +unknown; and the arriving passenger has often to cross several +lines of rails before reaching shore. The level crossing is, +perhaps, inevitable at the present stage of railroad development in +the United States, but its annual butcher's bill is so huge that one +cannot help feeling it might be better safeguarded. Richard Grant +White tells how he said to the station-master at a small wayside +station in England, _a propos_ of an overhead footbridge: "Ah, I +suppose you had an accident through someone crossing the line, and +then erected that?" "Oh, no," was the reply, "we don't wait for an +accident." Mr. White makes the comment, "The trouble in America is +that we _do_ wait for the accident." + +When I left England in September, 1888, we sailed down the Mersey on +one of those absolutely perfect autumn days, the very memory of which +is a continual joy. I remarked on the beauty of the weather to an +American fellow-passenger. He replied, half in fun, "Yes, this is good +enough for England; but wait till you see our American weather!" As +luck would have it, it was raining heavily when we steamed up New York +harbour, and the fog was so dense that we could not see the statue of +Liberty Enlightening the World, though we passed close under it. The +same American passenger had expatiated to me during the voyage on the +merits of the American express service. "You have no trouble with +porters and cabs, as in the Old World; you simply point out your +trunks to an express agent, give him your address, take his receipt, +and you will probably find your trunks at the house when you arrive." +We reached New York on a Saturday; I confidently handed over my trunk +to a representative of the Transfer Company about 9 A.M., hied to my +friend's house in Brooklyn, and saw and heard nothing more of my trunk +till Monday morning! + +Such was the way in which two of my most cherished beliefs about +America were dissipated almost before I set foot upon her free and +sacred soil! It is, however, only fair to say that if I had assumed +these experiences to be really characteristic, I should have made a +grievous mistake. It is true that I afterwards experienced a good many +stormy days in the United States, and found that the predominant +weather in all parts of the country was, to judge from my apologetic +hosts, the "exceptional;" but none the less I revelled in the bright +blue, clear, sunny days with which America is so abundantly blessed, +and came to sympathise very deeply with the depression that sometimes +overtakes the American exile during his sojourn on our fog-bound +coasts. So, too, I found the express system on the whole what our +friend Artemus Ward calls "a sweet boon." Certainly it is as a rule +necessary, in starting from a private house, to have one's luggage +ready an hour or so before one starts one's self, and this is hardly +so convenient as a hansom with you inside and your portmanteau on top; +and it is also true that there is sometimes (especially in New York) a +certain delay in the delivery of one's belongings. In nine cases out +of ten, however, it was a great relief to get rid of the trouble of +taking your luggage to or from the station, and feel yourself free to +meet it at your own time and will. It was not often that I was reduced +to such straits as on one occasion in Brooklyn, when, at the last +moment, I had to charter a green-grocer's van and drive down to the +station in it, triumphantly seated on my portmanteau. + +The check system on the railway itself deserves almost unmitigated +praise, and only needs to be understood to be appreciated. On arrival +at the station the traveller hands over his impedimenta to the baggage +master, who fastens a small metal disk, bearing the destination and a +number, to each package, and gives the owner a duplicate check. The +railway company then becomes responsible for the luggage, and holds it +until reclaimed by presentation of the duplicate check. This system +avoids on the one hand the chance of loss and trouble in claiming +characteristic of the British system, and on the other the waste of +time and expense of the Continental system of printed paper tickets. +On arrival at his destination the traveller may hurry to his hotel +without a moment's delay, after handing his check either to the hotel +porter or to the so-called transfer agent, who usually passes through +the train as it reaches an important station, undertaking the delivery +of trunks and giving receipts in exchange for checks. + +Besides the city express or transfer companies, the chief duty of +which is to convey luggage from the traveller's residence to the +railway station or _vice versa_, there are also the large general +express companies or carriers, which send articles all over the United +States. One of the most characteristic of these is the Adams Express +Company, the widely known name of which has originated a popular +conundrum with the query, "Why was Eve created?" This company began in +1840 with two men, a boy, and a wheelbarrow; now it employs 8,000 men +and 2,000 wagons, and carries parcels over 25,000 miles of railway. +The Wells, Fargo & Company Express operates over 40,000 miles of +railway. + +Coaching in America is, as a rule, anything but a pleasure. It is true +that the chance of being held up by "road agents" is to-day +practically non-existent, and that the spectacle of a crowd of yelling +Apaches making a stage-coach the pin-cushion for their arrows is now +to be seen nowhere but in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. But the +roads! No European who has done much driving in the United States can +doubt for one moment that the required Man of the Hour is General +Wade.[31] Even in the State of New York I have been in a stage that +was temporarily checked by a hole two feet deep in the centre of the +road, and that had to be emptied _and held up_ while passing another +part of the same road. In Virginia I drove over a road, leading to one +of the most frequented resorts of the State, which it is simple truth +to state offered worse going than any ordinary ploughed field. The +wheels were often almost entirely submerged in liquid mud, and it is +still a mystery to me how the tackle held together. To be jolted off +one's seat so violently as to strike the top of the carriage was not a +unique experience. Nor was the spending of ten hours in making thirty +miles with four horses. In the Yellowstone one of the coaches of our +party settled down in the midst of a slough of despond on the highway, +from which it was finally extricated _backwards_ by the combined +efforts of twelve horses borrowed from the other coaches. Misery makes +strange bedfellows, and the ingredients of a Christmas pudding are not +more thoroughly shaken together or more inextricably mingled than +stage-coach passengers in America are apt to be. The difficulties of +the roads have developed the skill, courage, and readiness of the +stage-coach men to an extraordinary degree, and I have never seen +bolder or more dexterous driving than when California Bill or Colorado +Jack rushed his team of four young horses down the breakneck slopes of +these terrible highways. After one particularly hair-raising descent +the driver condescended to explain that he was afraid to come down +more slowly, lest the hind wheels should skid on the smooth rocky +outcrop in the road and swing the vehicle sideways into the abyss. In +coming out of the Yosemite, owing to some disturbance of the ordinary +traffic arrangements our coach met the incoming stage at a part of the +road so narrow that it seemed absolutely impossible for the two to +pass each other. On the one side was a yawning precipice, on the other +the mountain rose steeply from the roadside. The off-wheels of the +incoming coach were tilted up on the hillside as far as they could be +without an upset. In vain; our hubs still locked. We were then allowed +to dismount. Our coach was backed down for fifty yards or so. Small +heaps of stones were piled opposite the hubs of the stationary coach. +Our driver whipped his horses to a gallop, ran his near-wheels over +these stones so that their hubs were raised _above_ those of the +near-wheels of the other coach, and successfully made the dare-devil +passage, in which he had not more than a couple of inches' margin to +save him from precipitation into eternity. I hardly knew which to +admire most--the ingenuity which thus made good in altitude what it +lacked in latitude, or the phlegm with which the occupants of the +other coach retained their seats throughout the entire episode. + +The Englishman arriving in Boston, say in the middle of the lovely +autumnal weather of November, will be surprised to find a host of +workmen in the Common and Public Garden busily engaged in laying down +miles of portable "plank paths" or "board walks," elevated three or +four inches above the level of the ground. A little later, when the +snowy season has well set in, he will discover the usefulness of these +apparently superfluous planks; and he will hardly be astonished to +learn that the whole of the Northern States are covered in winter with +a network of similar paths. These gangways are made in sections and +numbered, so that when they are withdrawn from their summer seclusion +they can be laid down with great precision and expedition. No +statistician, so far as I know, has calculated the total length of the +plank paths of an American winter; but I have not the least doubt that +they would reach from the earth to the moon, if not to one of the +planets. + +The river and lake steamboats of the United States are on the average +distinctly better than any I am acquainted with elsewhere. The +much-vaunted splendours of such Scottish boats as the "Iona" and +"Columba" sink into insignificance when compared with the wonderful +vessels of the line plying from New York to Fall River. These steamers +deserve the name of floating hotel or palace much more than even the +finest ocean-liner, because to their sumptuous appointments they add +the fact that they are, except under very occasional circumstances, +_floating_ palaces and not _reeling_ or _tossing_ ones. The only hotel +to which I can honestly compare the "Campania" is the one at San +Francisco in which I experienced my first earthquake. But even the +veriest landsman of them all can enjoy the passage of Long Island +Sound in one of these stately and stable vessels, whether sitting +indoors listening to the excellent band in one of the spacious +drawing-rooms in which there is absolutely no rude reminder of the +sea, or on deck on a cool summer night watching the lights of New York +gradually vanish in the black wake, or the moon riding triumphantly as +queen of the heavenly host, and the innumerable twinkling beacons that +safeguard our course. And when he retires to his cabin, pleasantly +wearied by the glamour of the night and soothed by the supple +stability of his floating home, he will find his bed and his bedroom +twice as large as he enjoyed on the Atlantic, and may let the breeze +enter, undeterred by fear of intruding wave or breach of regulation. +If he takes a meal on board he will find the viands as well cooked and +as dexterously served as in a fashionable restaurant on shore; he may +have, should he desire it, all the elbow-room of a separate table, and +nothing will suggest to him the confined limits of the cook's galley +or the rough-and-ready ways of marine cookery. + +Little inferior to the Fall River boats are those which ascend the +Hudson from New York to Albany, one of the finest river voyages in the +world; and worthy to be compared with these are the Lake Superior +steamers of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Among the special advantages +of these last are the device by which meals are served in the fresh +atmosphere of what is practically the upper deck, the excellent +service of the neat lads who officiate as waiters and are said to be +often college students turning an honest summer penny, and the +frequent presence in the bill of fare of the _Coregonus clupeiformis_, +or Lake Superior whitefish, one of the most toothsome morsels of the +deep. Most of the other steamboat lines by which I travelled in the +United States and Canada seemed to me as good as could be expected +under the circumstances. There is, however, certainly room for +improvement in some of the boats which ply on the St. Lawrence, and +the Alaska service will probably grow steadily better with the growing +rush of tourists. + +Another wonderful instance of British conservatism is the way in which +we have stuck to the horrors of our own ferry-boat system long after +America has shown us the way to cross a ferry comfortably. It is true +that the American steam ferry-boats are not so graceful as ours, +looking as they do like Noah's arks or floating houses, and being +propelled by the grotesque daddy-long-leg-like arrangement of the +walking-beam engine. They are, however, far more suitable for their +purpose. The steamer as originally developed was, I take it, intended +for long (or at any rate longish) voyages, and was built as far as +possible on the lines of a sailing-vessel. The conservative John Bull +never thought of modifying this shape, even when he adopted the +steamboat for ferries such as that across the Mersey from Liverpool to +Birkenhead. He still retained the sea-going form, and passengers had +either to remain on a lofty deck, exposed to the full fury of the +elements, or dive down into the stuffy depths of an unattractive +cabin. As soon, however, as Brother Jonathan's keen brain had to +concern itself with the problem, he saw the topsy-turvyness of this +arrangement. Hence in his ferry-boats there are no "underground" +cabins, no exasperating flights of steps. We enter the ferry-house and +wait comfortably under shelter till the boat approaches its "slip," +which it does end on. The disembarking passengers depart by one +passage, and as soon as they have all left the boat we enter by +another. A roadway and two side-walks correspond to these divisions on +the boat, which we enter on the level we are to retain for the +passage. In the middle is the gangway for vehicles, to the right and +left are the cabins for "ladies" and "gentlemen," each running almost +the whole length of the boat. There is a small piece of open deck at +each end, and those who wish may ascend to an upper deck. These +long-drawn-out cabins are simply but suitably furnished with seats +like those in a tramway-car or American railway-carriage. The boat +retraces its course without turning round, as it is a "double-ender." +On reaching the other side of the river we simply walk out of the boat +as we should out of a house on the street-level. The tidal difficulty +is met by making the landing-stage a floating one, and of such length +that the angle it forms with terra firma is never inconvenient. + +A Swiss friend of mine, whose ocean steamer landed him on the New +Jersey shore of the North River, actually entered the cabin of the +ferry-boat under the impression that it was a waiting-room on shore. +The boat slipped away so quietly that he did not discover his mistake +until he had reached the New York side of the river; and then there +was no more astonished man on the whole continent! + +The transition from travelling facilities to the telegraphic and +postal services is natural. The telegraphs of the United States are +not in the hands of the government, but are controlled by private +companies, of which the Western Union, with its headquarters in New +York, is _facile princeps_. This company possesses the largest +telegraph system in the world, having 21,000 offices and 750,000 miles +of wire. It also leases or uses seven Atlantic cables. In this, +however, as in many other cases, size does not necessarily connote +quality. My experiences _may_ (like the weather) have been +exceptional, and the attempt to judge of this Hercules by the foot I +saw may be wide of the mark; but here are three instances which are at +any rate suspicious: + +I was living at Germantown, a suburb of Philadelphia, and left one day +about 2 P.M. for the city, intending to return for dinner. On the way, +however, I made up my mind to dine in town and go to the theatre, and +immediately on my arrival at Broad-street station (about 2.15 P.M.) +telegraphed back to this effect. When I reached the house again near +midnight, I found the messenger with my telegram ringing the bell! +Again, a friend of mine in Philadelphia sent a telegram to me one +afternoon about a meeting in the evening; it reached me in Germantown, +at a distance of about five miles, at 8 o'clock the following morning. +Again, I left Salisbury (N.C.) one morning about 9 A.M. for Asheville, +having previously telegraphed to the baggage-master at the latter +place about a trunk of mine in his care. My train reached Asheville +about 5 or 6 P.M. I went to the baggage-master, but found he had not +received my wire. While I was talking to him, one of the train-men +entered and handed it to him. _It had, apparently, been sent by hand +on the train by which I had travelled!_ This telegraphic giant may, of +course, have accidentally and exceptionally put his wrong foot +foremost on those occasions; but such are the facts. + +The postal service also struck me as on the whole less prompt and +accurate than that of Great Britain. The comparative infrequency of +fully equipped post-offices is certainly an inconvenience. There are +letter-boxes enough, and the commonest stamps may be procured in every +drug-store (and of these there is no lack!) or even from the postmen; +but to have a parcel weighed, to register a letter, to procure a +money-order, or sometimes even to buy a foreign stamp or post-card, +the New Yorker or Philadelphian has to go a distance which a Londoner +or Glasgowegian would think distinctly excessive. It appears from an +official table prepared in 1898 that about half the population of the +United States live outside the free delivery service, and have to call +at the post-office for their letters. On the other hand, the +arrangements at the chief post-offices are very complete, and the +subdivisions are numerous enough to prevent the tedious delays of the +offices on the continent of Europe. The registration fee (eight cents) +is double that of England. The convenient "special delivery stamp" +(ten cents) entitles a letter to immediate delivery by special +messenger. The tendency for the establishment of slight divergency in +language between England and America is seen in the terms of the +post-office as in those of the railway. A letter is "mailed," not +"posted;" the "postman" gives way to the "letter-carrier;" a +"post-card" is expanded into a "postal-card." The stranger on arrival +at New York will be amused to see the confiding way in which newspaper +or book packets, too large for the orifice, are placed on the top of +the street letter-boxes (affixed to lamp-posts), and will doubtless be +led to speculate on the different ways and instincts of the street +Arabs of England and America. A second reflection will suggest to him +the superior stability of the New York climate. On what day in England +could we leave a postal packet of printed matter in the open air with +any certainty that it would not be reduced to pulp in half an hour by +a deluge of rain? + +No remarks on the possible inferiority of the American telegraph and +postal systems would be fair if unaccompanied by a tribute to the +wonderful development of the use of the telephone. New York has (or +had very recently) more than twice as many subscribers to the +telephonic exchanges as London, and some American towns possess one +telephone for every twenty inhabitants, while the ratio in the British +metropolis is 1:3,000. In 1891 the United States contained 240,000 +miles of telephone wires, used by over 200,000 regular subscribers. In +1895 the United Kingdom had about 100,000 miles of wire. The +Metropolitan telephone in New York alone has 30,000 miles of +subterranean wire and about 9,000 stations. The great switch-board at +its headquarters is 250 feet long, and accommodates the lines of 6,000 +subscribers. Some subscribers call for connection over a hundred times +a day, and about one hundred and fifty girls are required to answer +the calls. + +The generalisations made in travellers' books about the hotels of +America seem to me as fallacious as most of the generalisations about +this chameleon among nations. Some of the American hotels I stayed at +were about the best of their kind in the world, others about the +worst, others again about half-way between these extremes. On the +whole, I liked the so-called "American system" of an inclusive price +by the day, covering everything except such purely voluntary extras as +wine; and it seems to me that an ideal hotel on this system would +leave very little to wish for. The large American way of looking at +things makes a man prefer to give twenty shillings per day for all he +needs and consumes rather than be bothered with a bill for sixteen to +seventeen shillings, including such items (not disdained even by the +swellest European hotels) as one penny for stationery or a shilling +for lights. The weak points of the system as at present carried on are +its needless expense owing to the wasteful profusion of the +management, the tendency to have cast-iron rules for the hours within +which a guest is permitted to be hungry, the refusal to make any +allowance for absence from meals, and the general preference for +quantity over quality. It is also a pity that baths are looked upon as +a luxury of the rich and figure as an expensive extra; it is seldom +that a hotel bath can be obtained for less than two shillings. There +would seem, however, to be no reason why the continental _table +d'hote_ system should not be combined with the American plan. The +bills of fare at present offered by large American hotels, with lists +of fifty to one hundred different dishes to choose from, are simply +silly, and mark, as compared with the _table d'hote_ of, say, a good +Parisian hotel, a barbaric failure to understand the kind of meal a +lady or gentleman should want. To prepare five times the quantity +that will be called for or consumed is to confess a lack of all +artistic perception of the relations of means and end. The man who +gloats over a list of fifty possible dishes is not at all the kind of +customer who deserves encouragement. The service would also be +improved if the waiters had not to carry in their heads the +heterogeneous orders of six or eight people, each selecting a dozen +different meats, vegetables, and condiments. The European or _a la +carte_ system is becoming more and more common in the larger cities, +and many houses offer their patrons a choice of the two plans; but the +fixed-price system is almost universal in the smaller towns and +country districts. In houses on the American system the price +generally varies according to the style of room selected; but most of +the inconvenience of a bedchamber near the top of the house is +obviated by the universal service of easy-running "elevators" or +lifts. (By the way, the persistent manner in which the elevators are +used on all occasions is often amusing. An American lady who has some +twenty shallow steps to descend to the ground floor will rather wait +patiently five minutes for the elevator than walk downstairs.) + +Many of the large American hotels have defects similar to those with +which we are familiar in their European prototypes. They have the +same, if not an exaggerated, gorgeousness of bad taste, the same +plethora of ostentatious "luxuries" that add nothing to the real +comfort of the man of refinement, the same pier glasses in heavy gilt +frames, the same marble consoles, the same heavy hangings and absurdly +soft carpets. On the other hand, they are apt to lack some of the +unobtrusive decencies of life, which so often mark the distinction +between the modest home of a private gentleman and the palace of the +travelling public. Indeed, it might truthfully be said that, _on the +whole_, the passion for show is more rampant among American +hotel-keepers than elsewhere. They are apt to be more anxious to have +all the latest "improvements" and inventions than to ensure the smooth +and easy running of what they already have. You will find a huge +"teleseme" or indicator in your bedroom, on the rim of which are +inscribed about one hundred different objects that a traveller may +conceivably be supposed to want; but you may set the pointer in vain +for your modest lemonade or wait half an hour before the waiter +answers his complicated electric call. The service is sometimes very +poor, even in the most pretentious establishments. On the other hand, +I never saw better service in my life than that of the neat and +refined white-clad maidens in the summer hotels of the White +Mountains, who would take the orders of half-a-dozen persons for half +a dozen different dishes each, and execute them without a mistake. It +is said that many of these waitresses are college-girls or even +school-mistresses, and certainly their ladylike appearance and +demeanour and the intelligent look behind their not infrequent +spectacles would support the assertion. It gave one a positive thrill +to see the margin of one's soup-plate embraced by a delicate little +pink-and-white thumb that might have belonged to Hebe herself, instead +of the rawly red or clumsily gloved intruder that we are all too +familiar with. The waiting of the coloured gentleman is also pleasant +in its way to all who do not demand the episcopal bearing of the best +English butler. The smiling darkey takes a personal interest in your +comfort, may possibly enquire whether you have dined to your liking, +is indefatigable in ministering to your wants, slides and shuffles +around with a never-failing _bonhomie_, does everything with a +characteristic flourish, and in his neat little white jacket often +presents a most refreshing cleanliness of aspect as compared with the +greasy second-hand dress coats of the European waiter. + +As a matter of fact, so much latitude is usually allowed for each meal +(breakfast from 8 to 11, dinner from 12 to 8, and so on) that it is +seldom really difficult to get something to eat at an American hotel +when one is hungry. At some hotels, however, the rules are very +strict, and nothing is served out of meal hours. At Newport I came in +one Sunday evening about 8 o'clock, and found that supper was over. +The manager actually allowed me to leave his hotel at once (which I +did) rather than give me anything to eat. The case is still more +absurd when one arrives by train, having had no chance of a square +meal all day, and is coolly expected to go to bed hungry! The genuine +democrat, however, may take what comfort he can from the thought that +this state of affairs is due to the independence of the American +servants, who have their regular hours and refuse to work beyond them. + +The lack of smoking-rooms is a distinct weak point in American hotels. +One may smoke in the large public office, often crowded with loungers +not resident in the hotel, or may retire with his cigar to the +bar-room; but there is no pleasant little snuggery provided with +arm-chairs and smokers' tables, where friends may sit in pleasant, +nicotine-wreathed chat, ringing, when they want it, for a +whiskey-and-soda or a cup of coffee. + +American hotels, even when otherwise good, are apt to be noisier than +European ones. The servants have little idea of silence over their +work, and the early morning chambermaids crow to one another in a way +that is very destructive of one's matutinal slumbers. Then somebody or +other seems to crave ice-water at every hour of the day or night, and +the tinkle, tinkle, tinkle of the ice-pitcher in the corridors becomes +positively nauseous when one wants to go to sleep. The innumerable +electric bells, always more or less on the go, are another auditory +nuisance. + +While we are on the question of defects in American hotels, it should +be noticed that the comfortable little second-class inns of Great +Britain are practically unknown in the United States. The second-class +inns there are run on the same lines as the best ones; but in an +inferior manner at every point. The food is usually as abundant, but +it is of poorer quality and worse cooked; the beds are good enough, +but not so clean; the table linen is soiled; the sugar bowls are left +exposed to the flies from week-end to week-end; the service is poor +and apt to be forward; and (last, but not least) the manners of the +other guests are apt to include a most superfluous proportion of +tobacco-chewing, expectorating, an open and unashamed use of the +toothpick, and other little amenities that probably inflict more +torture on those who are not used to them than would decorous breaches +of the Decalogue. + +In criticising American hotels, it must not be forgotten that the +rapid process of change that is so characteristic of America operates +in this sphere with especial force. This is at work a distinct +tendency to substitute the subdued for the gaudy, the refined for the +meretricious, the quiet for the loud; and even now the cultured +American who knows his _monde_ may spend a great part of his time in +hotels without conspicuously lowering the tone of his environment. + +The prevalent idea that the American hotel clerk is a mannerless +despot is, _me judice_, rather too severe. He is certainly apt to be +rather curt in his replies and ungenial in his manner; but this is not +to be wondered at when one reflects under what a fire of questions he +stands all day long and from week to week; and, besides, he does +generally give the information that is wanted. That he should wear +diamond studs and dress gorgeously is not unnatural when one considers +the social stratum from which he is drawn. Do not our very cooks the +same as far as they can? That he should somewhat magnify the +importance of his office is likewise explicable; and, after all, how +many human beings have greater power over the actual personal comforts +of the fraction of the world they come into contact with? I can, +however, truthfully boast that I met hotel clerks who, in moments of +relief from pressure, treated me almost as an equal, and one or two +who seemed actually disposed to look on me as a friend. I certainly +never encountered any actual rudeness from the American hotel clerk +such as I have experienced from the pert young ladies who sometimes +fill his place in England; and in the less frequented resorts he +sometimes took a good deal of trouble to put the stranger in the way +to do his business speedily and comfortably. His omniscience is great, +but not so phenomenal as I expected; I posed him more than once with +questions about his abode which, it seemed to me, every intelligent +citizen should have been able to answer easily. In his most +characteristic development the American hotel clerk is an urbane +living encyclopaedia, as passionless as the gods, as unbiassed as the +multiplication table, and as tireless as a Corliss engine. + +Traveller's tales as to the system of "tipping" in American hotels +differ widely. The truth is probably as far from the indignant +Briton's assertion, based probably upon one flagrant instance in New +York, that "it is ten times worse than in England and tantamount to +robbery with violence," as from the patriotic American's assurance +that "The thing, sir, is absolutely unknown in our free and +enlightened country; no American citizen would demean himself to +accept a gratuity." To judge from my own experience, I should say that +the practice was quite as common in such cities as Boston, New York, +and Philadelphia as in Europe, and more onerous because the amounts +expected are larger. A dollar goes no farther than a shilling. +Moreover, the gratuity is usually given in the form of "refreshers" +from day to day, so that the vengeance of the disappointed is less +easily evaded. Miss Bates, a very friendly writer on America, reports +various unpleasantnesses that she received from untipped waiters, and +tells of an American who found that his gratuities for two months at a +Long Branch hotel (for three persons and their horses) amounted to +L40. In certain other walks of life the habit of tipping is carried to +more extremes in New York than in any European city I know of. Thus +the charge for a shave (already sufficiently high) is 7-1/2_d._, but +the operator expects 2-1/2_d._ more for himself. One barber with whom +I talked on the subject openly avowed that he considered himself +wronged if he did not get his fee, and recounted the various devices +he and his fellows practised to extract gratuities from the unwilling. +As one goes West or South the system of tipping seems to fall more and +more into abeyance, though it will always be found a useful smoother +of the way. In California, so far as I could judge, it was almost +entirely unknown, and the Californian hotels are among the best in the +Union. + +Among the lessons which English and other European hotels might learn +from American hotels may be named the following: + +1. The combination of the present _a la carte_ system with the +inclusive or American system, by which those who don't want the +trouble of ordering their repasts may be sure of finding meals, with a +reasonable latitude of choice in time and fare, ready when desired. It +is a sensible comfort to know beforehand exactly, or almost exactly, +what one's hotel expenses will amount to. + +2. The abolition of the charge for attendance. + +3. A greater variety of dishes than is usually offered in any except +our very largest hotels. This is especially to be desired at +breakfast. Without going to the American extreme of fifty or a hundred +dishes to choose from, some intermediate point short of the Scylla of +sole and the Charybdis of ham and eggs might surely be found. There is +probably more pig-headed conservatism than justified fear of expense +in the reluctance to follow this most excellent "American lead." The +British tourist in the United States takes so kindly to the +preliminary fruit and cereal dishes of America that he would probably +show no objection to them on his native heath. + +4. An extension of the system of ringing once for the boots, twice for +the chambermaid, and so on. The ordinary American table of calls goes +up to nine. + +5. The provision of writing materials free for the guests of the +hotels. The charge for stationery is one of the pettiest and most +exasperating cheese-parings of the English Boniface's system of +account-keeping. If, however, he imitates the liberality of his +American brother, it is to be hoped that he will "go him one better" +in the matter of blotting-paper. Nothing in the youthful country +across the seas has a more venerable appearance than the strips of +blotting-paper supplied in the writing-rooms of its hotels. + +Nothing in its way could be more inviting or seem more appropriate +than the cool and airy architecture of the summer hotels in such +districts as the White Mountains, with their wide and shady verandas, +their overhanging eaves, their balconies, their spacious corridors and +vestibules, their simple yet tasteful wood-panelling, their creepers +outside and their growing plants within. Mr. Howells has somewhere +reversed the threadbare comparison of an Atlantic liner to a floating +hotel, by likening a hostelry of this kind to a saloon steamer; and +indeed the comparison is an apt one, so light and buoyant does the +construction seem, with its gaily painted wooden sides, its +glass-covered veranda decks, and its streaming flags. Perhaps the +nearest analogue that we have to the life of an American summer hotel +is seen in our large hydropathic establishments, such as those at +Peebles or Crieff, where the therapeutic appliances play but a +subdued obbligato to the daily round of amusements. The same spirit of +camaraderie generally rules at both; both have the same regular +meal-hours, at which almost as little drinking is seen at the one as +the other; both have their evening entertainments got up (_gotten_ up, +our American cousins say, with a delightfully old fashioned flavour) +by the enterprise of the most active guests. The hydropathists have to +go to bed a little sooner, and must walk to the neighbouring village +if they wish a bar-room; but on the whole their scheme of life is much +the same. Whether it is due to the American temperament or the +American weather, the palm for brightness, vivacity, variety, and +picturesqueness must be adjudged to the hotel. For those who are young +enough to "stand the racket," no form of social gaiety can he found +more amusing than a short sojourn at a popular summer hotel among the +mountains or by the sea, with its constant round of drives, rides, +tennis and golf matches, picnics, "germans," bathing, boating, and +loafing, all permeated by flirtation of the most audacious and +innocent description. The focus of the whole carnival is found in the +"piazza" or veranda, and no prettier sight in its way can be imagined +than the groups and rows of "rockers" and wicker chairs, each occupied +by a lithe young girl in a summer frock, or her athletic admirer in +his tennis flannels. + +The enormous extent of the summer exodus to the mountains and the seas +in America is overwhelming; and a population of sixty-five millions +does not seem a bit too much to account for it. I used to think that +about all the Americans who could afford to travel came to Europe. But +the American tourists in Europe are, after all, but a drop in the +bucket compared with the oceans of summer and winter visitors to the +Adirondacks and Florida, Manitoba Springs and the coast of Maine, the +Catskills and Long Branch, Newport and Lenox, Bar Harbor and +California, White Sulphur Springs and the Minnesota Lakes, Saratoga +and Richfield, The Thousand Isles and Martha's Vineyard, Niagara and +Trenton Falls, Old Point Comfort and Asheville, the Yellowstone and +the Yosemite, Alaska and the Hot Springs of Arkansas. And everywhere +that the season's visitor is expected he will find hotels awaiting him +that range all the way from reasonable comfort to outrageous +magnificence; while a simpler taste will find a plain boarding-house +by almost every mountain pool or practicable beach in the whole wide +expanse of the United States. The Briton may not have yet abdicated +his post as the champion traveller or explorer of unknown lands, but +the American is certainly the most restless mover from one resort of +civilisation to another. + +Perhaps the most beautiful hotel in the world is the Ponce de Leon at +St. Augustine, Florida, named after the Spanish voyager who discovered +the flowery[32] State in 1512, and explored its streams on his +romantic search for the fountain of eternal youth. And when I say +beautiful I use the word in no auctioneering sense of mere size, and +height, and evidence of expenditure, but as meaning a truly artistic +creation, fine in itself and appropriate to its environment. The hotel +is built of "coquina," or shell concrete, in a Spanish renaissance +style with Moorish features, which harmonises admirably with the +sunny sky of Florida and the historic associations of St. Augustine. +Its colour scheme, with the creamy white of the concrete, the +overhanging roofs of red tile, and the brick and terra-cotta details, +is very effective, and contrasts well with the deep-blue overhead and +the luxuriant verdancy of the orange-trees, magnolias, palmettos, +oleanders, bananas, and date-palms that surround it. The building +encloses a large open court, and is lined by columned verandas, while +the minaret-like towers dominate the expanse of dark-red roof. The +interior is richly adorned with wall and ceiling paintings of +historical or allegorical import, skilfully avoiding crudity or +garishness; and the marble and oak decorations of the four-galleried +rotunda are worthy of the rest of the structure. The general effect is +one of luxurious and artistic ease, with suggestions of an Oriental +_dolce far niente_ in excellent keeping with the idea of the winter +idler's home. The Ponce de Leon and the adjoining and more or less +similar structures of the Alcazar, the Cordova, and the Villa Zorayda +form indeed an architectural group which, taken along with the +semi-tropical vegetation and atmosphere, alone repays a long journey +to see. But let the strictly economical traveller take up his quarters +in one of the more modest hostelries of the little town, unless he is +willing to pay dearly (and yet not perhaps too dearly) for the +privilege of living in the most artistic hotel in the world. + +It is a long cry from Florida to California, where stands another +hotel which suggests mention for its almost unique perfections. The +little town of Monterey, with its balmy air, its beautiful sandy +beach, its adobe buildings, and its charming surroundings, is, like +St. Augustine, full of interesting Spanish associations, dating back +to 1602. The Hotel del Monte, or "Hotel of the Forest," one of the +most comfortable, best-kept, and moderate-priced hotels of America, +lies amid bluegrass lawns and exquisite grounds, in some ways +recalling the parks of England's gentry, though including among its +noble trees such un-English specimens as the sprawling and moss-draped +live-oaks and the curious Monterey pines and cypresses. Its gardens +offer a continual feast of colour, with their solid acres of roses, +violets, calla lilies, heliotrope, narcissus, tulips, and crocuses; +and one part of them, known as "Arizona," contains a wonderful +collection of cacti. The hotel itself has no pretension to rival the +Ponce de Leon in its architecture or appointments, and is, I think, +built of wood. It is, however, very large, encloses a spacious +garden-court, and makes a pleasant enough impression, with its +turrets, balconies, and verandas, its many sharp gables, dormers, and +window-hoods. The economy of the interior reminded me more strongly of +the amenities and decencies of the house of a refined, well-to-do, and +yet not extravagantly wealthy family than of the usual hotel +atmosphere. There were none of the blue satin hangings, ormolu vases, +and other entirely superfluous luxuries for which we have to pay in +the bills of certain hotels at Paris and elsewhere; but on the other +hand nothing was lacking that a fastidious but reasonable taste could +demand. The rooms and corridors are spacious and airy; everything was +as clean and fresh as white paint and floor polish could make them; +the beds were comfortable and fragrant; the linen was spotless; there +was lots of "hanging room;" each pair of bedrooms shared a bathroom; +the _cuisine_ was good and sufficiently varied; the waiters were +attentive; flowers were abundant without and within. The price of all +this real luxury was $3 to $3.50 (12_s._ to 14_s._) a day. Possibly +the absolute perfection of the bright and soft Californian spring when +I visited Monterey, and the exquisite beauty of its environment, may +have lulled my critical faculties into a state of unusual somnolence; +but when I quitted the Del Monte Hotel I felt that I was leaving one +of the most charming homes I had ever had the good fortune to live in. + +The only hotel that to my mind contests with the Del Monte the +position of the best hotel in the North American continent is the +Canadian Pacific Hotel at Banff, in the National Rocky Mountains Park +of Canada. Here also magnificent scenery, splendid weather, and +moderate charges combined to bias my judgment; but the residuum, after +all due allowance made for these factors, still, after five years, +assures me of most unusual excellence. Two things in particular I +remember in connection with this hotel. The one is the almost absolute +perfection of the waiting, carried on by gentlemanly youths of about +eighteen or twenty, who must, I think, have formed the _corps d'elite_ +of the thousands of waiters in the service of the Canadian Pacific +Railway. The marvellous speed and dexterity with which they ministered +to my wants, the absolutely neat and even dainty manner in which +everything was done by them, and their modest readiness to make +suggestions and help one's choice (always to the point!) make one of +the pleasantest pictures of hotel life lurking in my memory. The other +dominant recollection of the Banff Hotel is the wonderfully beautiful +view from the summer-house at its northeast corner. Just below the +bold bluff on which this hotel stands the piercingly blue Bow River +throws itself down in a string of foaming white cataracts to mate with +the amber and rapid-rushing Spray. The level valley through which the +united and now placid stream flows is carpeted with the vivid-red +painter's brush, white and yellow marguerites, asters, fireweed, +golden-rod, and blue-bells; to the left rise the perpendicular cliffs +of Tunnel Mountain, while to the right Mt. Rundle lifts its weirdly +sloping, snow-flecked peaks into the azure. + +In the dense green woods of the Adirondacks, five miles from the +nearest high road on the one side and on the other lapped by an ocean +of virgin forest which to the novice seems almost as pathless as the +realms of Neptune, stands the Adirondack Lodge, probably one of the +most quaint, picturesque little hotels in the world. It is tastefully +built in the style of a rustic log-hut, its timber being merely +rough-hewn by the axe and not reduced to monotonous symmetry by the +saw-mill. It is roofed with bark, and its wide-eaved verandas are +borne by tree-trunks with the bark still on. The same idea is carried +out in the internal equipment, and the bark is left intact on much of +the furniture. The wood retains its natural colours, and there are no +carpets or paint. This charming little hotel is due to the taste or +whim of a New York electrical engineer (the inventor, I believe, of +the well-known "ticker"), who acts the landlord in such a way as to +make the sixty or seventy inmates feel like the guests of a private +host. The clerk is a medical student, the very bell-boy ("Eddy") a +candidate for Harvard, and both mix on equal terms with the genial +circle that collects round the bonfire lighted in front of the house +every summer's evening. As one lazily lay there, watching the wavering +play of the ruddy blaze on the dark-green pines, listening to the +educated chatter of the boy who cleaned the boots, realising that a +deer, a bear, or perchance even a catamount might possibly be lurking +in the dark woods around, and knowing that all the material comforts +of civilised life awaited one inside the house, one felt very keenly +the genuine Americanism of this Arcadia, and thought how hard it would +be to reproduce the effect even in the imagination of the European. + +It was in this same Adirondack Wilderness that I stayed in the only +hotel that, so far as I know, caught on to the fact that I was a +"chiel amang them takin' notes" for a guidebook. With true American +enterprise I was informed, when I called for my bill, that that was +all right; and I still recall with amusement the incredulous and +obstinate resistance of the clerk to my insistence on paying my way. I +hope that the genial proprietors do not attribute the asterisk that I +gave the hotel to their well-meant efforts to give me _quid pro quo_, +but credit me with a totally unbiassed admiration for their good +management and comfortable quarters. + +Mention has already been made (p. 30) of a hotel at a frequented +watering-place, at which the lowest purchasable quantity of sleep cost +one pound sterling. It is, perhaps, superfluous to say that the rest +procured at this cost was certainly not four or five times better than +that easily procurable for four or five shillings; and that the luxury +of this hotel appealed, not in its taste perhaps, but certainly in +its effect, to the shoddy rather than to the refined demands of the +traveller. Shenstone certainly never associated the ease of his inn +with any such hyperbolical sumptuousness as this; and it probably +could not arise in any community that did not include a large class of +individuals with literally more money than they knew what to do with, +and desirous of any means of indicating their powers of expenditure. +It has been said of another hotel at Bar Harbor that "Anyone can stay +there who is worth two millions of dollars, or can produce a +certificate from the Recorder of New York that he is a direct +descendant of Hendrik Hudson or Diedrich Knickerbocker." + +Many other American hotels suggest themselves to me as sufficiently +individual in character to discriminate them from the ruck. Such are +the Hygieia at Old Point Comfort, with its Southern guests in summer +and its Northern guests in winter; looking out from its carefully +enclosed and glazed piazzas over the waste of Hampton Roads, where the +"Merrimac" wrought devastation to the vessels of the Union until +itself vanquished by the turret-ship "Monitor;" the enormous +caravansaries of Saratoga, one of which alone accommodates two +thousand visitors, or the population of a small town, while the three +largest have together room for five thousand people; the hotel at the +White Sulphur Springs of Virginia, for nearly a century the typical +resort of the wealth and aristocracy of the South, and still +furnishing the eligible stranger with a most attractive picture of +Southern beauty, grace, warm-heartedness, and manners; the Stockbridge +Inn in the Berkshire Hills, long a striking exception to the statement +that no country inns of the best English type can be found in the +United States, but unfortunately burned down a year or two ago; the +Catskill Mountain House, situated on an escarpment rising so abruptly +from the plain of the Hudson that the view from it has almost the same +effect as if we were leaning out of the car of a balloon or over the +battlements of a castle two thousand feet high; the colossal +Auditorium of Chicago, with its banquet hall and kitchen on the tenth +floor; and the Palace Hotel of San Francisco, with its twelve hundred +beds and its covered and resonant central court. Enough has, however, +been said to show that all American hotels are not the immense and +featureless barracks that many Europeans believe, but that they also +run through a full gamut of variety and character. + +The restaurant is by no means such an institution in the United States +as in the continental part of Europe; in this matter the American +habit is more on all fours with English usage. The cafe of Europe is, +perhaps, best represented by the piazza. Of course there are numerous +restaurants in all the larger cities; but elsewhere the traveller will +do well to stick to the meals at his hotel. The best restaurants are +often in the hands of Germans, Italians, or Frenchmen. This is +conspicuously so at New York. Delmonico's has a worldwide reputation, +and is undoubtedly a good restaurant; but it may well be questioned +whether the New York estimate of its merits is not somewhat excessive. +If price be the criterion, it has certainly few superiors. The _a la +carte_ restaurants are, indeed, all apt to be expensive for the single +traveller, who will find that he can easily spend eight to twelve +shillings on a by no means sumptuous meal. The French system of +supplying one portion for two persons or two portions for three is, +however, in vogue, and this diminishes the cost materially. The _table +d'hote_ restaurants, on the other hand, often give excellent value for +their charges. The Italians have especially devoted themselves to this +form of the art, and in New York and Boston furnish one with a very +fair dinner indeed, including a flask of drinkable Chianti, for four +or five shillings. At some of the simple German restaurants one gets +excellent German fare and beer, but these are seldom available for +ladies. The fair sex, however, takes care to be provided with more +elegant establishments for its own use, to which it sometimes admits +its husbands and brothers. The sign of a large restaurant in New York +reads: "Women's Cooeperative Restaurant; tables reserved for +gentlemen," in which I knew not whether more to admire the +uncompromising antithesis between the plain word "women" and the +complimentary term "gentlemen" or the considerateness that supplies +separate accommodation for the shrinking creatures denoted by the +latter. Perhaps this is as good a place as any to note that it is +usually as unwise to patronise a restaurant which professedly caters +for "gents" as to buy one's leg-coverings of a tailor who knows them +only as "pants." Probably the "adult gents' bible-class," which +Professor Freeman encountered, was equally unsatisfactory. + +Soup, poultry, game, and sweet dishes are generally as good as and +often better than in English restaurants. Beef and mutton, on the +other hand, are frequently inferior, though the American porterhouse +and other steaks sometimes recall English glories that seem largely +to have vanished. The list of American fish is by no means identical +with that of Europe, and some of the varieties (such as salmon) seem +scarcely as savoury. The stranger, however, will find some of his new +fishy acquaintances decided acquisitions, and it takes no long time to +acquire a very decided liking for the bass, the pompano, and the +bluefish, while even the shad is discounted only by his innumerable +bones. The praises of the American oyster should be sung by an abler +and more poetic pen than mine! He may not possess the full oceanic +flavour (coppery, the Americans call it) of our best "natives," but he +is large, and juicy, and cool, and succulent, and fresh, and (above +all) cheap and abundant. The variety of ways in which he is served is +a striking index of the fertile ingenuity of the American mind; and +the man who knows the oyster only on the half-shell or _en escalope_ +is a mere culinary suckling compared with him who has been brought +face to face with the bivalve in stews, plain roasts, fancy roasts, +fries, broils, and fricassees, to say nothing of the form "pigs in +blankets," or as parboiled in its own liquor, creamed, sauted, or +pickled. + +Wine or beer is much less frequently drunk at meals than in Europe, +though the amount of alcoholic liquor seen on the tables of a hotel +would be a very misleading measure of the amount consumed. The men +have a curious habit of flocking to the bar-room immediately after +dinner to imbibe the stimulant that preference, or custom, or the fear +of their wives has deprived them of during the meal. Wine is generally +poor and dear. The mixed drinks at the bar are fascinating and +probably very indigestible. Their names are not so bizarre as it is +an article of the European's creed to believe. America possesses the +largest brewery in the world, that of Pabst at Milwaukee, producing +more than a million of gallons a year; and there are also large +breweries at St. Louis, Rochester, and many other places. The beer +made resembles the German lager, and is often excellent. Its use is +apparently spreading rapidly from the German Americans to Americans of +other nationalities. The native wine of California is still fighting +against the unfavourable reputation it acquired from the ignorance and +impatience of its early manufacturers. The art of wine-growing, +however, is now followed with more brains, more experience, and more +capital, and the result is in many instances excellent. The _vin +ordinaire_ of California, largely made from the Zinfandel grape, has +been described as a "peasant's wine," but when drunk on the spot +compares fairly with the cheaper wines of Europe. Some of the finest +brands of Californian red wine (such as that known as Las Palmas), +generally to be had from the producers only, are sound and +well-flavoured wines, which will probably improve steadily. It is a +thousand pities that the hotels and restaurants of the United States +do not do more to push the sale of these native wines, which are at +least better than most of the foreign wine sold in America at +extravagant charges. It is also alleged that the Californian and other +American wines are often sold under French labels and at French +prices, thus doing a double injustice to their native soil. Coffee or +tea is always included in the price of an American meal, and these +comforting beverages (particularly coffee) appear at luncheon and +dinner in the huge cups that we associate with breakfast exclusively. +Nor do they follow the meal, as with us, but accompany it. This +practice, of course, does not hold in the really first-class hotels +and restaurants. + +The real national beverage is, however, ice-water. Of this I have +little more to say than to warn the British visitor to suspend his +judgment until he has been some time in the country. I certainly was +not prejudiced in favour of this chilly draught when I started for the +United States, but I soon came to find it natural and even necessary, +and as much so from the dry hot air of the stove-heated room in winter +as from the natural ambition of the mercury in summer. The habit so +easily formed was as easily unlearned when I returned to civilisation. +On the whole, it may be philosophic to conclude that a universal habit +in any country has some solid if cryptic reason for its existence, and +to surmise that the drinking of ice-water is not so deadly in the +States as it might be elsewhere. It certainly is universal enough. +When you ring a bell or look at a waiter, ice-water is immediately +brought to you. Each meal is started with a full tumbler of that +fluid, and the observant darkey rarely allows the tide to ebb until +the meal is concluded. Ice-water is provided gratuitously and +copiously on trains, in waiting-rooms, even sometimes in the public +fountains. If, finally, I were asked to name the characteristic sound +of the United States, which would tell you of your whereabouts if +transported to America in an instant of time, it would be the musical +tinkle of the ice in the small white pitchers that the bell-boys in +hotels seem perennially carrying along all the corridors, day and +night, year in and year out. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[30] Lady Theodora Guest, sister of the Duke of Westminster, in her +book, "A Round Trip in North America," bears the same testimony: "Over +eleven thousand miles of railway travelling and miles untold of +driving besides, without an accident or a semblance of one. No +_contretemps_ of any kind, except the little delay at Hope from the +'washout,' which did not matter the least; lovely weather, and +universal kindness and courtesy from man, woman, and child." + +[31] + "Had you seen but those roads before they were made, + You would hold up your hands and bless General Wade." + +[32] This epithet must not confirm the usual erroneous belief that +Florida means "the flowery State." It is so called because discovered +on Easter Day (Spanish _Pascua Florida_). + + + + +XIII + +The American Note + + +Those who have done me the honour to read through the earlier pages of +this volume will probably find nothing in the present chapter that has +not already been implied in them, if not expressed. Indeed, I should +not consider these pages written to any purpose if they did not give +some indication of what I believe to be the dominant trend of American +civilisation. A certain amount of condensed explication and +recapitulation may not, however, be out of place. + +In spite of the heterogeneous elements of which American civilisation +consists, and in spite of the ever-ready pitfalls of spurious +generalisation, it seems to me that there is very distinctly an +American note, different in pitch and tone from any note in the +European concert. The scale to which it belongs is not, indeed, one +out of all relation to that of the older hemisphere, in the way, for +example, in which the laws governing Chinese music seem to stand apart +from all relations to those on which the Sonata Appassionata is +constructed. "The American," as Emerson said, "is only the +continuation of the English genius into new conditions, more or less +propitious;" and the American note, as I understand it, is, with +allowance for modifications by other nationalities, after all merely +the New World incarnation of a British potentiality. + +To sum it up in one word is hardly practicable; even a Carlylean +epithet could scarcely focus the content of this idea. It includes a +sense of illimitable expansion and possibility; an almost childlike +confidence in human ability and fearlessness of both the present and +the future; a wider realisation of human brotherhood than has yet +existed; a greater theoretical willingness to judge by the individual +rather than by the class; a breezy indifference to authority and a +positive predilection for innovation; a marked alertness of mind and a +manifold variety of interest; above all, an inextinguishable +hopefulness and courage. It is easy to lay one's finger in America +upon almost every one of the great defects of civilisation--even those +defects which are specially characteristic of the civilisation of the +Old World. The United States cannot claim to be exempt from +manifestations of economic slavery, of grinding the faces of the poor, +of exploitation of the weak, of unfair distribution of wealth, of +unjust monopoly, of unequal laws, of industrial and commercial +chicanery, of disgraceful ignorance, of economic fallacies, of public +corruption, of interested legislation, of want of public spirit, of +vulgar boasting and chauvinism, of snobbery, of class prejudice, of +respect of persons, of a preference of the material over the +spiritual. In a word, America has not attained, or nearly attained, +perfection. But below and behind and beyond all its weaknesses and +evils, there is the grand fact of a noble national theory, founded on +reason and conscience. Those may scoff who will at the idea of +anything so intangible being allowed to count seriously in the +estimation of a nation's or an individual's happiness but the man of +any imagination can surely conceive the stimulus of the constantly +abiding sense of a fine national ideal. The vagaries of the Congress +at Washington may sometimes cause a man more personal inconvenience +than the doings of the Parliament at Westminster, but they cannot +wound his self-respect or insult his reason in the same way as the +idea of being ruled by a group of individuals who have merely taken +the trouble to be born. The hauteur and insolence of those "above" us +are always unpleasant, but they are much easier to bear when we feel +that they are entirely at variance with the theory of the society in +which they appear, and are at worst merely sporadic manifestations. +Even the tyranny of trusts is not to be compared to the tyranny of +landlordism; for the one is felt to be merely an unhappy and (it is +hoped) temporary aberration of well-meant social machinery, while the +other seems bred in the very bone of the national existence. It is the +old story of freedom and hardship being preferable to chains and +luxury. The material environment of the American may often be far less +interesting and suggestive than that of the European, but his mind is +freer, his mental attitude more elastic. Every American carries a +marshal's baton in his knapsack in a way that has hardly ever been +true in Europe. It may not assume a more tangible shape than a feeling +of self-respect that has never been wounded by the thought of personal +inferiority for merely conventional reasons; but he must be a +materialist indeed who undervalues this priceless possession. It is +something for a country to have reached the stage of passing +"resolutions," even if their conversion into "acts" lags a little; it +is bootless to sneer at a real "land of promise" because it is not at +once and in every way a "land of performance." + +There is something wonderfully rare and delicate in the finest +blossoms of American civilisation--something that can hardly be +paralleled in Europe. The mind that has been brought up in an +atmosphere theoretically free from all false standards and +conventional distinctions acquires a singularly unbiassed, detached, +absolute, purely human way of viewing life. In Matthew Arnold's +phrase, "it sees life steadily and sees it whole." Just this attitude +seems unattainable in England; neither in my reading nor my personal +experience have I encountered what I mean elsewhere than in America. +We may feel ourselves, for example, the equal of a marquis, but does +he? And even if he does, do A, and B, and C? No profoundness of belief +in our own superiority or the superiority of a humble friend to the +aristocrat can make us ignore the circumambient feeling on the subject +in the same way that the man brought up in the American vacuum does. + +The true-born American is absolutely incapable of comprehending the +sense of difference between a lord and a plebeian that is forced on +the most philosophical among ourselves by the mere pressure of the +social atmosphere. It is for him a fourth dimension of space; it may +be talked about, but practically it has no existence. It is entirely +within the bounds of possibility for an American to attempt graciously +to put royalty at its ease, and to try politely to make it forget its +anomalous position. The British radical philosopher may attain the +height of saying, "With a great sum obtained I this 'freedom';" the +American may honestly reply, "But I was free-born." + +It is necessary to take long views of American civilisation; not to +fix our gaze upon small evils in the foreground, not to mistake an +attack of moral measles for a scorbutic taint. It is quite conceivable +that a philosophic observer of a century ago might almost have +predicted the moral and social course of events in the United States, +if he had only been informed of the coming material conditions, such +as the overwhelmingly rapid growth of the country in wealth and +population, coupled with a democratic form of government. Even if +assured that the ultimate state of the nation would be satisfactory, +he would still have foreseen the difficulties hemming its progress +toward the ideal: the inevitable delays, disappointments, and +set-backs; the struggle between the gross and the spiritual; the +troubles arising from the constant accession of new raw material +before the old was welded into shape. There is nothing in the present +evils of America to lead us to despair of the Republic, if only we let +a legitimate imagination place us on a view-point sufficiently distant +and sufficiently high to enable us to look backwards and forwards over +long stretches of time, and lose the effect of small roughnesses in +the foreground. Even M. de Tocqueville exaggerated the evils existing +when he wrote his famous work, and forecast catastrophes that have +never arisen and seem daily less and less likely ever to arise. Let it +be enough for the present that America has worked out "a rough average +happiness for the million," that the great masses of the people have +attained a by no means despicable amount of independence and comfort. +Those who are apt to think that the comfort of the crowd must mean the +_ennui_ of the cultured may safely be reminded of Obermann's saying, +that no individual life can (or ought to) be happy _passee au milieu +des generations qui souffrent_. _This_ source of unhappiness, at any +rate, is less potent in the United States than elsewhere. It is only +natural that material prosperity should come more quickly than +emancipation from ignorance, as Professor Norton has noted in a +masterly, though perhaps characteristically pessimistic, article in +the _Forum_ for February, 1896. It may, too, be true, as the same +writer remarks, that the common school system of America does little +"to quicken the imagination, to refine and elevate the moral +intelligence;" and the remark is valuable as a note of warning. But it +may well be asked whether the American school system is in this +respect unfavourably distinguished from that of any other country; and +it must not be forgotten that even instruction in ordinary topics +stimulates the soil for more valuable growths. The methods of the +Salvation Army do not appeal to the dilettante; but it is more than +possible that the grandchildren of the man whose imagination has been +touched, if ever so slightly, by the crude appeal of trombones out of +tune and the sight of poke-bonnets and backward-striding maidens, will +be more intelligent and susceptible human beings than the +grandchildren of the chawbacon whose mental horizon has been bounded +by the bottom of his pewter mug. + +Those who think for themselves will naturally make more mistakes than +those who carefully follow the dictates of a competent authority; but +there are other counterbalancing advantages which bring the +enterprising mistake-maker more speedily to the goal than his +impeccable rival. The poet might almost have sung "'Tis better to have +erred and learned than never to have erred at all." The _intellectual_ +monopoly of England is, perhaps, even more dangerous than the +material. The monastic societies of Oxford and Cambridge are too apt +to insist on certain _forms_ of knowledge, and to think that real +wisdom is the prerogative of the few. And we undoubtedly owe many of +the healthy breezes of rebellion and scepticism in such matters to the +example of America. The keen-eyed Yankees distinguish more clearly +than we do between the essential conditions of existence and the +"stupid and vulgar accidents of human contrivance," and are +consequently readier to lay irreverent hands on time-honoured abuses. +If a balance could be struck between the influence of Europe on +America and that of America on Europe, it is not by any means clear +that the scale would descend in favour of the older world. + +There is a long list of influential witnesses in favour of the theory +that the development of the democratic spirit is bound inevitably to +hamper individuality and encourage mediocrity. De Tocqueville, +Scherer, Renan, Maine, Bourget, Matthew Arnold, all lend the weight of +their names to this conclusion. It does not seem to me that this +theory is supported by the social facts of the United States. When we +have made allowance for the absence of a number of picturesque +phenomena which are due to temporal and physical conditions, and would +be equally lacking if the country were an autocracy or oligarchy, +there remains in the United States greater room for the development +of idiosyncrasy than, perhaps, in any other country. It has been +paradoxically argued by an English writer that individualism could not +reach its highest point except in a socialistic community; _i.e._, +that the unbridled competition of the present day drives square pegs +into round holes and thus forces the individual, for the sake of bread +and butter, to do that which is foreign to his nature; whereas in an +ideal socialism each individual would be encouraged to follow his own +bent and develop his own special talent for the good of the community. +To a certain extent this seems true of the United States. The career +there is more open to the talents; the world is an oyster which the +individual can open with many kinds of knives; what the Germans call +"_umsatteln_", or changing one's profession as one changes one's +horse, is much more feasible in the New World than in the Old. The +freedom and largeness of opportunity is a stimulus to all strong +minds. Lincoln, as Professor Dowden remarks, would in the Middle Ages +have probably continued to split rails all his life. + + The fact is that if the predominant power of a few great minds is + diminished in a democracy, it is because, together with such + minds, a thousand others are at work contributing to the total + result.... It is surely for the advantage of the most eminent + minds that they should be surrounded by men of energy and + intellect, who belong neither to the class of hero-worshippers + nor to the class of _valets de chambre_. + + The truth seems to be that with an increased population and the + multiplicity of interests and influences at play on men, we may + expect a greater diversity of mental types in the future than + could be found at any period in the past. The supposed uniformity + of society in a democratic age is apparent, not real; artificial + distinctions are replaced by natural differences; and within the + one great community exists a vast number of smaller communities, + each having its special intellectual and moral characteristics. + In the few essentials of social order the majority rightly has + its way, but within certain broad bounds, which are fixed, there + remains ample scope for the action of a multitude of various + minorities.--_"New Studies in Literature," by Prof. E. Dowden._ + +The so-called uniformity and monotony of American life struck me as +existing in appearance much more than in reality. If all my ten +neighbours have pretty much the same income and enjoy pretty much the +same comforts, their little social circle is certainly in a sense much +more uniform than if their incomes ranged down from L10,000 to L300 +and their household state from several powdered footmen to a little +maid-of-all-work; but surely in all that really matters--in thoughts, +ideas, personal habits and tastes, internal storms and calms, the +elements of tragedy and comedy, talents and ambitions, loves and +fears--the former circle might be infinitely more varied than the +latter. Many critics of American life seem to have been led away by +merely external similarities, and to have jumped at once to the +conclusion that one Philadelphian must be as much like another as each +little red-brick, white-stooped house of the Quaker City is like its +neighbours. A single glance at the enormous number of _intelligent_ +faces one sees in American society, or even in an American street, is +enough to dissipate the idea that this can be a country of greater +monotony than, say, England, where expressionless faces are by no +means uncommon, even in the best circles. America is more monotonous +than England, if a more equitable distribution of material comforts be +monotony; it is not so, if the question be of originality of character +and susceptibility to ideas. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Land of Contrasts, by James Fullarton Muirhead + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAND OF CONTRASTS *** + +***** This file should be named 17648.txt or 17648.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/6/4/17648/ + +Produced by Bethanne M. 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