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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 33944 ***
+
+
+
+
+    HOW TO OBSERVE.
+         -----
+    MORALS AND MANNERS.
+
+
+    BY
+    HARRIET MARTINEAU.
+
+
+    "Hélas! où donc chercher, où trouver le bonheur?
+    ----Nulle part tout entier, partout avec mesure."
+                                                VOLTAIRE.
+
+    "Opening my journal-book, and dipping my pen in my ink-horn, I
+    determined, as far as I could, to justify myself and my
+    countrymen in wandering over the face of the earth."
+                                                ROGERS.
+
+
+    LONDON:
+    CHARLES KNIGHT AND CO. 22, LUDGATE STREET.
+    1838.
+
+
+    LONDON:
+    PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY,
+    Dorset Street, Fleet Street.
+
+
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+
+"The best mode of exciting the love of observation is by teaching 'How
+to Observe.' With this end it was originally intended to produce, in one
+or two volumes, a series of hints for travellers and students, calling
+their attention to the points necessary for inquiry or observation in
+the different branches of Geology, Natural History, Agriculture, the
+Fine Arts, General Statistics, and Social Manners. On consideration,
+however, it was determined somewhat to extend the plan, and to separate
+the great divisions of the field of observation, so that those whose
+tastes led them to one particular branch of inquiry might not be
+encumbered with other parts in which they do not feel an equal
+interest."
+
+The preceding passage is contained in the notice accompanying the first
+work in this series--Geology, by Mr. De la Bèche, published in 1835.
+Thus, the second work in the series is in continuation of the plan above
+announced.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+    PART I. REQUISITES FOR OBSERVATION.                 Page
+
+    INTRODUCTION                                           1
+
+    CHAP. I.   Philosophical Requisites.
+                   Section I.                             11
+                   Section II.                            14
+                   Section III.                           21
+                   Section IV.                            27
+
+    CHAP. II.  Moral Requisites                           40
+
+    CHAP. III. Mechanical Requisites                      51
+
+
+    PART II.   WHAT TO OBSERVE                            61
+
+    CHAP. I.   Religion                                   68
+                   Churches                               80
+                   Clergy                                 84
+                   Superstitions                          90
+                   Suicide                                94
+
+    CHAP. II.  General Moral Notions                     101
+                   Epitaphs                              108
+                   Love of Kindred and Birth-place       111
+                   Talk of Aged and Children             113
+                   Character of prevalent Pride          114
+                   Character of popular Idols            118
+                   Epochs of Society                     122
+                   Treatment of the Guilty               124
+                   Testimony of Criminals                129
+                   Popular Songs                         132
+                   Literature and Philosophy             137
+
+    CHAP. III. Domestic State                            144
+                   Soil and Aspect of the Country        153
+                   Markets                               154
+                   Agricultural Class                    155
+                   Manufacturing Class                   157
+                   Commercial Class                      158
+                   Health                                161
+                   Marriage and Woman                    167
+                   Children                              181
+
+    CHAP. IV.  Idea of Liberty                           183
+                   Police                                184
+                   Legislation                           188
+                   Classes in Society                    190
+                   Servants                              192
+                   Imitation of the Metropolis           196
+                   Newspapers                            197
+                   Schools                               198
+                   Objects and Form of Persecution       203
+
+    CHAP. V.   Progress                                  206
+                   Conditions of Progress                209
+                   Charity                               213
+                   Arts and Inventions                   216
+                   Multiplicity of Objects               218
+
+    CHAP. VI. Discourse                                  221
+
+
+    PART III. MECHANICAL METHODS                         231
+
+
+
+
+HOW TO OBSERVE.
+
+
+MORALS AND MANNERS.
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+REQUISITES FOR OBSERVATION.
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+    "Inest sua gratia parvis."
+
+    "Les petites choses n'ont de valeur que de la part de ceux qui
+    peuvent s'élever aux grandes."--DE JOUY.
+
+
+There is no department of inquiry in which it is not full as easy to
+miss truth as to find it, even when the materials from which truth is to
+be drawn are actually present to our senses. A child does not catch a
+gold fish in water at the first trial, however good his eyes may be, and
+however clear the water; knowledge and method are necessary to enable
+him to take what is actually before his eyes and under his hand. So it
+is with all who fish in a strange element for the truth which is living
+and moving there: the powers of observation must be trained, and habits
+of method in arranging the materials presented to the eye must be
+acquired before the student possesses the requisites for understanding
+what he contemplates.
+
+The observer of Men and Manners stands as much in need of intellectual
+preparation as any other student. This is not, indeed, generally
+supposed, and a multitude of travellers act as if it were not true. Of
+the large number of tourists who annually sail from our ports, there is
+probably not one who would dream of pretending to make observations on
+any subject of physical inquiry, of which he did not understand even the
+principles. If, on his return from the Mediterranean, the unprepared
+traveller was questioned about the geology of Corsica, or the public
+buildings of Palermo, he would reply, "Oh, I can tell you nothing about
+that--I never studied geology; I know nothing about architecture." But
+few, or none, make the same avowal about the morals and manners of a
+nation. Every man seems to imagine that he can understand men at a
+glance; he supposes that it is enough to be among them to know what they
+are doing; he thinks that eyes, ears, and memory are enough for morals,
+though they would not qualify him for botanical or statistical
+observation; he pronounces confidently upon the merits and social
+condition of the nations among whom he has travelled; no misgiving ever
+prompts him to say, "I can give you little general information about the
+people I have been seeing; I have not studied the principles of morals;
+I am no judge of national manners."
+
+There would be nothing to be ashamed of in such an avowal. No wise man
+blushes at being ignorant of any science which it has not suited his
+purposes to study, or which it has not been in his power to attain. No
+linguist wrings his hands when astronomical discoveries are talked of in
+his presence; no political economist covers his face when shown a shell
+or a plant which he cannot class; still less should the artist, the
+natural philosopher, the commercial traveller, or the classical scholar,
+be ashamed to own himself unacquainted with the science which, of all
+the sciences which have yet opened upon men, is, perhaps, the least
+cultivated, the least definite, the least ascertained in itself, and the
+most difficult in its application.
+
+In this last characteristic of the science of Morals lies the excuse of
+as many travellers as may decline pronouncing on the social condition of
+any people. Even if the generality of travellers were as enlightened as
+they are at present ignorant about the principles of Morals, the
+difficulty of putting those principles to interpretative uses would
+deter the wise from making the hasty decisions, and uttering the large
+judgments, in which travellers have hitherto been wont to indulge. In
+proportion as men become sensible how infinite are the diversities in
+man, how incalculable the varieties and influences of circumstances,
+rashness of pretension and decision will abate, and the great work of
+classifying the moral manifestations of society will be confided to the
+philosophers, who bear the same relation to the science of society as
+Herschel does to astronomy, and Beaufort to hydrography.
+
+Of all the tourists who utter their decisions upon foreigners, how many
+have begun their researches at home? Which of them would venture upon
+giving an account of the morals and manners of London, though he may
+have lived in it all his life? Would any one of them escape errors as
+gross as those of the Frenchman who published it as a general fact that
+people in London always have, at dinner parties, soup on each side, and
+fish at four corners? Which of us would undertake to classify the morals
+and manners of any hamlet in England, after spending the summer in it?
+What sensible man seriously generalizes upon the manners of a street,
+even though it be Houndsditch or Cranbourn-Alley? Who pretends to
+explain all the proceedings of his next-door neighbour? Who is able to
+account for all that is said and done by the dweller in the same
+house,--by parent, child, brother, or domestic? If such judgments were
+attempted, would they not be as various as those who make them? And
+would they not, after all, if closely looked into, reveal more of the
+mind of the observer than of the observed?
+
+If it be thus with us at home, amidst all the general resemblances, the
+prevalent influences which furnish an interpretation to a large number
+of facts, what hope of a trustworthy judgment remains for the foreign
+tourist, however good may be his method of travelling, and however long
+his absence from home? He looks at all the people along his line of
+road, and converses with a few individuals from among them. If he
+diverges, from time to time, from the high road,--if he winds about
+among villages, and crosses mountains, to dip into the hamlets of the
+valleys,--he still pursues only a line, and does not command the
+expanse; he is furnished, at best, with no more than a sample of the
+people; and whether they be indeed a sample, must remain a conjecture
+which he has no means of verifying. He converses, more or less, with,
+perhaps, one man in ten thousand of those he sees; and of the few with
+whom he converses, no two are alike in powers and in training, or
+perfectly agree in their views on any one of the great subjects which
+the traveller professes to observe; the information afforded by one is
+contradicted by another; the fact of one day is proved error by the
+next; the wearied mind soon finds itself overwhelmed by the multitude of
+unconnected or contradictory particulars, and lies passive to be run
+over by the crowd. The tourist is no more likely to learn, in this way,
+the social state of a nation, than his valet would be qualified to speak
+of the meteorology of the country from the number of times the umbrellas
+were wanted in the course of two months. His children might as well
+undertake to exhibit the geological formation of the country from the
+pebbles they picked up in a day's ride.
+
+I remember some striking words addressed to me, before I set out on my
+travels, by a wise man, since dead. "You are going to spend two years in
+the United States," said he. "Now just tell me,--do you expect to
+understand the Americans by the time you come back? You do not: that is
+well. I lived five-and-twenty years in Scotland, and I fancied I
+understood the Scotch; then I came to England, and supposed I should
+soon understand the English. I have now lived five-and-twenty years
+here, and I begin to think I understand neither the Scotch nor the
+English."
+
+What is to be done? Let us first settle what is not to be done.
+
+The traveller must deny himself all indulgence of peremptory decision,
+not only in public on his return, but in his journal, and in his most
+superficial thoughts. The experienced and conscientious traveller would
+word the condition differently. Finding peremptory decision more trying
+to his conscience than agreeable to his laziness, he would call it not
+indulgence, but anxiety; he enjoys the employment of collecting
+materials, but would shrink from the responsibility of judging a
+community.
+
+The traveller must not generalize on the spot, however true may be his
+apprehension--however firm his grasp, of one or more facts. A raw
+English traveller in China was entertained by a host who was
+intoxicated, and a hostess who was red-haired; he immediately made a
+note of the fact that all the men in China were drunkards, and all the
+women red-haired. A raw Chinese traveller in England was landed by a
+Thames waterman who had a wooden leg. The stranger saw that the wooden
+leg was used to stand in the water with, while the other was high and
+dry. The apparent economy of the fact struck the Chinese; he saw in it
+strong evidence of design, and wrote home that in England one-legged men
+are kept for watermen, to the saving of all injury to health, shoe, and
+stocking, from standing in the river. These anecdotes exhibit but a
+slight exaggeration of the generalizing tendencies of many modern
+travellers. They are not so much worse than some recent tourists' tales,
+as they are better than the old narratives of "men whose heads do grow
+beneath their shoulders."
+
+Natural philosophers do not dream of generalizing with any such speed as
+that used by the observers of men; yet they might do it with more
+safety, at the risk of an incalculably smaller mischief. The geologist
+and the chemist make a large collection of particular appearances,
+before they commit themselves to propound a principle drawn from them,
+though their subject matter is far less diversified than the human
+subject, and nothing of so much importance as human emotions,--love and
+dislike, reverence and contempt, depends upon their judgment. If a
+student in natural philosophy is in too great haste to classify and
+interpret, he misleads, for a while, his fellow-students (not a very
+large class); he vitiates the observations of a few successors; his
+error is discovered and exposed; he is mortified, and his too docile
+followers are ridiculed, and there is an end; but if a traveller gives
+any quality which he may have observed in a few individuals as a
+characteristic of a nation, the evil is not speedily or easily
+remediable. Abject thinkers, passive readers, adopt his words; parents
+repeat them to their children; and townspeople spread the judgment into
+the villages and hamlets--the strongholds of prejudice; future
+travellers see according to the prepossessions given them, and add their
+testimony to the error, till it becomes the work of a century to reverse
+a hasty generalization. It was a great mistake of a geologist to assign
+a wrong level to the Caspian Sea; and it is vexatious that much time and
+energy should have been devoted to account for an appearance which,
+after all, does not exist. It is provoking to geologists that they
+should have wasted a great deal of ingenuity in finding reasons for
+these waters being at a different level from what it is now found that
+they have; but the evil is over; the "pish!" and the "pshaw!" are said;
+the explanatory and apologetical notes are duly inserted in new
+editions of geological works, and nothing more can come of the mistake.
+But it is difficult to foresee when the British public will believe that
+the Americans are a mirthful nation, or even that the French are not
+almost all cooks or dancing-masters. A century hence, probably, the
+Americans will continue to believe that all the English make a regular
+study of the art of conversation; and the lower orders of French will be
+still telling their children that half the people in England hang or
+drown themselves every November. As long as travellers generalize on
+morals and manners as hastily as they do, it will probably be impossible
+to establish a general conviction that no civilized nation is
+ascertainably better or worse than any other on this side barbarism, the
+whole field of morals being taken into the view. As long as travellers
+continue to neglect the safe means of generalization which are within
+the reach of all, and build theories upon the manifestations of
+individual minds, there is little hope of inspiring men with that spirit
+of impartiality, mutual deference, and love, which are the best
+enlighteners of the eyes and rectifiers of the understanding.
+
+Above all things, the traveller must not despair of good results from
+his observations. Because he cannot establish true conclusions by
+imperfect means, he is not to desist from doing anything at all. Because
+he cannot safely generalize in one way, it does not follow that there is
+no other way. There are methods of safe generalization of which I shall
+speak by-and-by. But, if there were not such within his reach, if his
+only materials were the discourse, the opinions, the feelings, the way
+of life, the looks, dress, and manners of individuals, he might still
+afford important contributions to science by his observations on as wide
+a variety of these as he can bring within his mental grasp. The
+experience of a large number of observers would in time yield materials
+from which a cautious philosopher might draw conclusions. It is a safe
+rule, in morals as in physics, that no fact is without its use. Every
+observer and recorder is fulfilling a function; and no one observer or
+recorder ought to feel discouragement, as long as he desires to be
+useful rather than shining; to be the servant rather than the lord of
+science, and a friend to the home-stayers rather than their dictator.
+
+One of the wisest men living writes to me, "No books are so little to be
+trusted as travels. All travellers do and must generalize too rapidly.
+Most, if not all, take a fact for a principle, or the exception for the
+rule, more or less; and the quickest minds, which love to reason and
+explain more than to observe with patience, go most astray. My faith in
+travels received a mortal wound when I travelled. I read, as I went
+along, the books of those who had preceded me, and found that we did not
+see with the same eyes. Even descriptions of nature proved false. The
+traveller had viewed the prospect at a different season, or in a
+different light, and substituted the transient for the fixed. Still I
+think travels useful. Different accounts give means of approximation to
+truth; and by-and-by what is fixed and essential in a people will be
+brought out."
+
+It ought to be an animating thought to a traveller that, even if it be
+not in his power to settle any one point respecting the morals and
+manners of an empire, he can infallibly aid in supplying means of
+approximation to truth, and of bringing out "what is fixed and essential
+in a people." This should be sufficient to stimulate his exertions and
+satisfy his ambition.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+PHILOSOPHICAL REQUISITES.
+
+    "Only I believe that this is not a bow for every man to shoot in
+    that counts himself a teacher, but will require sinews almost
+    equal to those which Homer gave Ulysses; yet I am withal
+    persuaded that it may prove much more easy in the essay than it
+    now seems at a distance."--MILTON.
+
+
+There are two parties to the work of observation on Morals and
+Manners--the observer and the observed. This is an important fact which
+the traveller seldom dwells upon as he ought; yet a moment's
+consideration shows that the mind of the observer--the instrument by
+which the work is done, is as essential as the material to be wrought.
+If the instrument be in bad order, it will furnish a bad product, be the
+material what it may. In this chapter I shall point out what requisites
+the traveller ought to make sure that he is possessed of before he
+undertakes to offer observations on the Morals and Manners of a people.
+
+
+SECTION I.
+
+He must have made up his mind as to what it is that he wants to know. In
+physical science, great results may be obtained by hap-hazard
+experiments; but this is not the case in Morals. A chemist can hardly
+fail of learning something by putting any substances together, under new
+circumstances, and seeing what will arise out of the combination; and
+some striking discoveries happened in this way, in the infancy of the
+science; though no one doubts that more knowledge may be gained by the
+chemist who has an aim in his mind, and who conducts his experiment on
+some principle. In Morals, the latter method is the only one which
+promises any useful results. In the workings of the social system, all
+the agents are known in the gross--all are determined. It is not their
+nature, but the proportions in which they are combined, which have to be
+ascertained.
+
+What does the traveller want to know? He is aware that, wherever he
+goes, he will find men, women, and children; strong men and weak men;
+just men and selfish men. He knows that he will everywhere find a
+necessity for food, clothing, and shelter; and everywhere some mode of
+general agreement how to live together. He knows that he will everywhere
+find birth, marriage, and death; and therefore domestic affections. What
+results from all these elements of social life does he mean to look for?
+
+For want of settling this question, one traveller sees nothing truly,
+because the state of things is not consistent with his speculations as
+to how human beings ought to live together; another views the whole with
+prejudice, because it is not like what he has been accustomed to see at
+home; yet each of these would shrink from the recognition of his folly,
+if it were fully placed before him. The first would be ashamed of having
+tried any existing community by an arbitrary standard of his own--an act
+much like going forth into the wilderness to see kings' houses full of
+men in soft raiment; and the other would perceive that different
+nations may go on judging one another by themselves till doomsday,
+without in any way improving the chance of self-advancement and mutual
+understanding. Going out with the disadvantage of a habit of mind
+uncounteracted by an intellectual aim, will never do. The traveller may
+as well stay at home, for anything he will gain in the way of social
+knowledge.
+
+The two considerations just mentioned must be subordinated to the grand
+one,--the only general one,--of the relative amount of human happiness.
+Every element of social life derives its importance from this great
+consideration. The external conveniences of men, their internal emotions
+and affections, their social arrangements, graduate in importance
+precisely in proportion as they affect the general happiness of the
+section of the race among whom they exist. Here then is the wise
+traveller's aim,--to be kept in view to the exclusion of prejudice, both
+philosophical and national. He must not allow himself to be perplexed or
+disgusted by seeing the great ends of human association pursued by means
+which he could never have devised, and to the practice of which he could
+not reconcile himself. He is not to conclude unfavourably about the diet
+of the multitude because he sees them swallowing blubber, or scooping
+out water-melons, instead of regaling themselves with beef and beer. He
+is not to suppose their social meetings a failure because they eat with
+their fingers instead of with silver forks, or touch foreheads instead
+of making a bow. He is not to conclude against domestic morals, on
+account of a diversity of methods of entering upon marriage. He might
+as well judge of the minute transactions of manners all over the world
+by what he sees in his native village. There, to leave the door open or
+to shut it bears no relation to morals, and but little to manners;
+whereas, to shut the door is as cruel an act in a Hindoo hut as to leave
+it open in a Greenland cabin. In short, he is to prepare himself to
+bring whatever he may observe to the test of some high and broad
+principle, and not to that of a low comparative practice. To test one
+people by another, is to argue within a very small segment of a circle;
+and the observer can only pass backwards and forwards at an equal
+distance from the point of truth. To test the morals and manners of a
+nation by a reference to the essentials of human happiness, is to strike
+at once to the centre, and to see things as they are.
+
+
+SECTION II.
+
+Being provided with a conviction of what it is that he wants to know,
+the traveller must be furthermore furnished with the means of gaining
+the knowledge he wants. When he was a child, he was probably taught that
+eyes, ears, and understanding are all-sufficient to gain for him as much
+knowledge as he will have time to acquire; but his self-education has
+been a poor one, if he has not become convinced that something more is
+needful--the enlightenment and discipline of the understanding, as well
+as its immediate use. It is not enough for a traveller to have an active
+understanding, equal to an accurate perception of individual facts in
+themselves; he must also be in possession of principles which may serve
+as a rallying point for his observations, and without which he cannot
+determine their bearings, or be secure of putting a right interpretation
+upon them. A traveller may do better without eyes, or without ears, than
+without such principles, as there is evidence to prove. Holman, the
+blind traveller, gains a wonderful amount of information, though he is
+shut out from the evidence yielded by the human countenance, by way-side
+groups, by the aspect of cities, and the varying phenomena of country
+regions. In his motto, he indicates something of his method.
+
+    "Sightless to see, and judge thro' judgment's eyes,
+       To make four senses do the work of five,
+     To arm the mind for hopeful enterprise,
+       Are lights to him who doth in darkness live."
+
+In order to "judge through judgment's eyes," those eyes must be made
+strong and clear; and a traveller may gain more without the bodily organ
+than with an untrained understanding. The case of the Deaf Traveller[A]
+leads us to say the same about the other great avenue of knowledge. His
+writings prove, to all who are acquainted with them, that, though to a
+great degree deprived of that inestimable commentary upon perceived
+facts--human discourse--the Deaf Traveller is able to furnish us with
+more knowledge of foreign people than Fine-Ear himself could have done
+without the accompaniments of analytical power and concentrative
+thought. All senses, and intellectual powers, and good habits, may be
+considered essential to a perfect observation of morals and manners; but
+almost any one might be better spared than a provision of principles
+which may serve as a rallying point and a test of facts. The blind and
+the deaf travellers must suffer under a deprivation or deficiency of
+certain classes of facts. The condition of the unphilosophical traveller
+is much worse. It is a chance whether he puts a right interpretation on
+any of the facts he perceives.
+
+Many may object that I am making much too serious a matter of the
+department of the business of travelling under present notice. They do
+not pretend to be moral philosophers;--they do not desire to be
+oracles;--they attempt nothing more than to give a simple report of what
+has come under their notice. But what work on earth is more serious than
+this of giving an account of the most grave and important things which
+are transacted on this globe? Every true report is a great good; every
+untrue report is a great mischief. Therefore, let there be none given
+but by persons in some good degree qualified. Such travellers as will
+not take pains to provide themselves with the requisite thought and
+study should abstain from reporting at all.
+
+It is a mistake, however, to suppose that the study shown to be
+requisite is vast and deep. Some knowledge of the principles of Morals
+and the rule of Manners is required, as in the case of other sciences to
+be brought into use on a similar occasion; but the principles are few
+and simple, and the rule easy of application.
+
+The universal summary notions of Morals may serve a common traveller in
+his judgments as to whether he would like to live in any foreign
+country, and as to whether the people there are as agreeable to him as
+his own nation. For such an one it may be sufficient to bear about the
+general notions that lying, thieving, idleness, and licentiousness are
+bad; and that truth, honesty, industry, and sobriety are good; and for
+common purposes, such an one may be trusted to pronounce what is
+industry and what idleness; what is licentiousness and what sobriety.
+But vague notions, home prepossessions, even on these great points of
+morals, are not sufficient, in the eyes of an enlightened traveller, to
+warrant decisions on the moral state of nations who are reared under a
+wide diversity of circumstances. The true liberality which alone is
+worthy to contemplate all the nations of the earth, does not draw a
+broad line through the midst of human conduct, declaring all that falls
+on the one side vice, and all on the other virtue; such a liberality
+knows that actions and habits do not always carry their moral impress
+visibly to all eyes, and that the character of very many must be
+determined by a cautious application of a few deep principles. Is the
+Shaker of New England a good judge of the morals and manners of the Arab
+of the Desert? What sort of a verdict would the shrewdest gipsy pass
+upon the monk of La Trappe? What would the Scotch peasant think of the
+magical practices of Egypt? or the Russian soldier of a meeting of
+electors in the United States? The ideas of right and wrong in the minds
+of these people are not of the enlarged kind which would enable them to
+judge persons in situations the most opposite to their own. The true
+philosopher, the worthy observer, first contemplates in imagination the
+area of humanity, and then ascertains what principles of morals are
+applicable to them all, and judges by these.
+
+The enlightened traveller, if he explore only one country, carries in
+his mind the image of all; for, only in its relation to the whole of the
+race can any one people be judged. Almost without exaggeration, he may
+be said to see what the rhapsodist in Volney saw.
+
+"There, from above the atmosphere, looking down upon the earth I had
+quitted, I beheld a scene entirely new. Under my feet, floating in empty
+space, a globe similar to that of the moon, but less luminous, presented
+to me one of its faces.... 'What!' exclaimed I, 'is that the earth which
+is inhabited by human beings?'"[B]
+
+The differences are, that, instead of "one of its faces," the moralist
+would see the whole of the earth in one contemplation; and that, instead
+of a nebulous expanse here, and a brown or grey speck there,--continents,
+seas, or volcanoes,--he would look into the homes and social assemblies
+of all lands. In the extreme North, there is the snow-hut of the
+Esquimaux, shining with the fire within, like an alabaster lamp left
+burning in a wide waste; within, the beardless father is mending his
+weapons made of fishbones, while the dwarfed mother swathes her infant in
+skins, and feeds it with oil and fat. In the extreme East, there is the
+Chinese family in their garden, treading its paved walks, or seated under
+the shade of its artificial rocks; the master displaying the claws of his
+left hand as he smokes his pipe, and his wife tottering on her deformed
+feet as she follows her child,--exulting over it if it be a boy; grave
+and full of sighs if heaven have sent her none but girls. In the extreme
+South, there is the Colonist of the Cape, lazily basking before his door,
+while he sends his labourer abroad with his bullock-waggon, devolves the
+business of the farm upon the women, and scares from his door any poor
+Hottentot who may have wandered hither over the plain. In the extreme
+West, there is the gathering together on the shores of the Pacific of the
+hunters laden with furs. The men are trading, or cleaning their arms, or
+sleeping; the squaws are cooking, or dyeing with vegetable juices the
+quills of the porcupine or the hair of the moose-deer. In the intervals
+between these extremities, there is a world of morals and manners, as
+diverse as the surface of the lands on which they are exhibited. Here is
+the Russian nobleman on his estate, the lord of the fate of his serfs,
+but hard pressed by the enmity of rival nobles, and silenced by the
+despotism of his prince; his wife leads a languid life among her spinning
+maidens; and his young sons talk of the wars in which they shall serve
+their emperor in time to come. There is the Frankfort trader, dwelling
+among equals, fixing his pride upon having wronged no man, or upon having
+a son distinguished at the university, or a daughter skilled in domestic
+accomplishments; while his wife emulates her neighbours in supporting the
+comfort and respectability of the household. Here is the French peasant
+returning from the field in total ignorance of what has taken place in
+the capital of late; and there is the English artizan discussing with his
+brother-workman the politics of the town, or carrying home to his wife
+some fresh hopes of the interference of parliament about labour and
+wages. Here is a conclave of Cardinals, consulting upon the interests of
+the Holy See; there a company of Brahmins setting an offering of rice
+before their idol. In one direction, there is a handful of citizens
+building a new town in the midst of a forest; in another, there is a
+troop of horsemen hovering on the horizon, while a caravan is traversing
+the Desert. Under the twinkling shadows of a German vineyard, national
+songs are sung; from the steep places of the Swiss mountains the Alp-horn
+resounds; in the coffee-house at Cairo, listeners hang upon the voice of
+the romance reciter; the churches of Italy echo with solemn hymns; and
+the soft tones of the child are heard, in the New England parlour, as the
+young scholar reads the Bible to parent or aged grandfather.
+
+All these, and more, will a traveller of the most enlightened order
+revolve before his mind's eye as he notes the groups which are presented
+to his senses. Of such travellers there are but too few; and vague and
+general, or merely traditional, notions of right and wrong must serve
+the purpose of the greater number. The chief evil of moral notions being
+vague or traditional is, that they are irreconcileable with liberality
+of judgment; and the great benefit of an ascertainment of the primary
+principles of morals is, that such an investigation dissolves prejudice,
+and casts a full light upon many things which cease to be fearful and
+painful when they are no longer obscure. We all know how different a
+Sunday in Paris appears to a sectarian, to whom the word of his priest
+is law; and to a philosopher, in whom religion is indigenous, who
+understands the narrowness of sects, and sees how much smaller even
+Christendom itself is than Humanity. We all know how offensive the
+prayers of Mahomedans at the corners of streets, and the pomp of
+catholic processions, are to those who know no other way than entering
+into their closet, and shutting the door when they pray; but how felt
+the deep thinker who wrote the Religio Medici? He was an orderly member
+of a Protestant church, yet he uncovered his head at the sight of a
+crucifix; he could not laugh at pilgrims walking with peas in their
+shoes, or despise a begging friar; he could "not hear an Ave Maria bell
+without an elevation;" and it is probable that even the Teraphim of the
+Arabs would not have been wholly absurd, or the car of Juggernaut itself
+altogether odious in his eyes. Such is the contrast between the sectary
+and the philosopher.
+
+
+SECTION III.
+
+As an instance of the advantage which a philosophical traveller has over
+an unprepared one, look at the difference which will enter into a man's
+judgment of nations, according as he carries about with him the vague
+popular notion of a Moral Sense, or has investigated the laws under
+which feelings of right and wrong grow up in all men. It is worth while
+to dwell a little on this important point.
+
+Most persons who take no great pains to think for themselves, have a
+notion that every human being has feelings, or a conscience, born with
+him, by which he knows, if he will only attend to it, exactly what is
+right and wrong; and that, as right and wrong are fixed and immutable,
+all ought to agree as to what is sin and virtue in every case. Now,
+mankind are, and always have been, so far from agreeing as to right and
+wrong, that it is necessary to account in some manner for the wide
+differences in various ages, and among various nations. A great
+diversity of doctrines has been put forth for the purpose of lessening
+the difficulty; but they all leave certain portions of the race under
+the condemnation or compassion of the rest for their error, blindness,
+or sin. Moreover, no doctrines yet invented have accounted for some
+total revolutions in the ideas of right and wrong, which have occurred
+in the course of ages. A person who takes for granted that there is an
+universal Moral Sense among men, as unchanging as he who bestowed it,
+cannot reasonably explain how it was that those men were once esteemed
+the most virtuous who killed the most enemies in battle, while now it is
+considered far more noble to save life than to destroy it. They cannot
+but wonder how it was that it was once thought a great shame to live in
+misery, and an honour to commit suicide; while now the wisest and best
+men think exactly the reverse. And, with regard to the present age, it
+must puzzle men who suppose that all ought to think alike on moral
+subjects, that there are parts of the world where mothers believe it a
+duty to drown their children, and that eastern potentates openly deride
+the king of England for having only one wife instead of one hundred.
+There is no avoiding illiberality, under this belief,--as the
+philosopher understands illiberality. There is no avoiding the
+conclusion that the people who practice infanticide and polygamy are
+desperately wicked; and that minor differences of conduct are, abroad as
+at home, so many sins.
+
+The observer who sets out with a more philosophical belief, not only
+escapes the affliction of seeing sin wherever he sees difference, and
+avoids the suffering of contempt and alienation from his species, but,
+by being prepared for what he witnesses, and aware of the causes, is
+free from the agitation of being shocked and alarmed, preserves his
+calmness, his hope, his sympathy; and is thus far better fitted to
+perceive, understand, and report upon the morals and manners of the
+people he visits. His more philosophical belief, derived from all fair
+evidence and just reflexion, is, that every man's feelings of right and
+wrong, instead of being born with him, grow up in him from the
+influences to which he is subjected. We see that in other cases,--with
+regard to science, to art, and to the appearances of nature,--feelings
+grow out of knowledge and experience; and there is every evidence that
+it is so with regard to morals. The feelings begin very early; and this
+is the reason why they are supposed to be born with men; but they are
+few and imperfect in childhood, and, in the case of those who are
+strongly exercised in morals, they go on enlarging and strengthening and
+refining through life. See the effect upon the traveller's observations
+of his holding this belief about conscience! Knowing that some
+influences act upon the minds of all people in all countries, he looks
+everywhere for certain feelings of right and wrong which are as sure to
+be in all men's minds as if they were born with them. For instance, to
+torment another without any reason, real or imaginary, is considered
+wrong all over the world. In the same manner, to make others happy is
+universally considered right. At the same time, the traveller is
+prepared to find an infinite variety of differences in smaller matters,
+and is relieved from the necessity of pronouncing each to be a vice in
+one party or another. His own moral education having been a more
+elevated and advanced one than that of some of the people he
+contemplates, he cannot but feel sorrow and disgust at various things
+that he witnesses; but it is ignorance and barbarism that he mourns, and
+not vice. When he sees the Arab or American Indian offer daughter or
+wife to the stranger, as a part of the hospitality which is, in the
+host's mind, the first of duties, the observer regards the fact as he
+regards the mode of education in old Sparta, where physical hardihood
+and moral slavery constituted a man most honourable. If he sees an
+American student spend the whole of his small fortune, on leaving
+college, in travelling in Europe, he will not blame him as he would
+blame a young Englishman for doing the same thing. The Englishman would
+be a spendthrift; the American is wise: and the reason is, that their
+circumstances, prospects, and therefore their views of duty, are
+different. The American, being sure of obtaining an independent
+maintenance, may make the enlargement of his mind, and the cultivation
+of his tastes by travel, his first object; while the conscientious
+Englishman must fulfil the hard conditions of independence before he can
+travel. Capital is to him one of the chief requisites of honest
+independence; while to the American it is in the outset no requisite at
+all. To go without clothing was, till lately, perfectly innocent in the
+South Sea Islands; but now that civilization has been fairly established
+by the missionaries, it has become a sin. To let an enemy escape with
+his life is a disgrace in some countries of the world; while in others
+it is held more honourable to forgive than to punish him. Instances of
+such varieties and oppositions of conscience might be multiplied till
+they filled a volume, to the perplexity and grief of the
+unphilosophical, and the serene instruction of the philosophical
+observer.
+
+The general influences under which universal ideas and feelings of right
+and wrong are formed, are dispensed by the Providence under which all
+are educated. That man should be happy is so evidently the intention of
+his Creator, the contrivances to that end are so multitudinous and so
+striking, that the perception of the aim may be called universal.
+Whatever tends to make men happy, becomes a fulfilment of the will of
+God. Whatever tends to make them miserable, becomes opposition to his
+will. There are, and must be, a host of obstacles to the express
+recognition of, and practical obedience to, these great principles; but
+they may be discovered as the root of religion and morals in all
+countries. There are impediments from ignorance, and consequent error,
+selfishness, and passion: the most infantile men mistake the means of
+human happiness, and the wisest have but a dim and fluctuating
+perception of them: but yet all men entertain one common conviction,
+that what makes people happy is good and right, and that what makes them
+miserable is evil and wrong. This conviction is at the bottom of
+practices which seem the most inconsistent with it. When the Ashantee
+offers a human sacrifice, it is in order to secure blessings from his
+gods. When the Hindoo exposes his sick parent in the Ganges, he thinks
+he is putting him out of pain by a charmed death. When Sand stabbed
+Kotzebue, he believed he was punishing and getting rid of an enemy and
+an obstacle to the welfare of his nation. When the Georgian planter
+buys and sells slaves, he goes on the supposition that he is preserving
+the order and due subordination of society. All these notions are shown
+by philosophy to be narrow, superficial, and mistaken. They have been
+outgrown by many, and are doubtless destined to be outgrown by all; but,
+acted upon by the ignorant and deluded, they are very different from the
+wickedness which is perpetrated against better knowledge. But these
+things would be wickedness, perpetrated against better knowledge, if the
+supposition of a universal, infallible Moral Sense were true. The
+traveller who should consistently adhere to the notion of a Moral Sense,
+must pronounce the Ashantee worshipper as guilty as Greenacre: the
+Hindoo son a parricide, not only in fact, but in the most revolting
+sense of the term: Sand, a Thurtell: and the Georgian planter such a
+monster of tyranny as a Sussex farmer would be if he set up a
+whipping-post for his labourers, and sold their little ones to gipsies.
+Such judgments would be cruelly illiberal. The traveller who is
+furnished with the more accurate philosophy of Conscience would arrive
+at conclusions, not only more correct, but far less painful; and,
+without any laxity of principle, far more charitable.
+
+So much for one instance of the advantage to the traveller of being
+provided with definite principles, to be used as a rallying point and
+test of his observations, instead of mere vague moral notions and
+general prepossessions, which can serve only as a false medium, by which
+much that he sees must necessarily be perverted or obscured.
+
+
+SECTION IV.
+
+The traveller having satisfied himself that there are some universal
+feelings about right and wrong, and that in consequence some parts of
+human conduct are guided by general rules, must next give his attention
+to modes of conduct, which seem to him good or bad, prevalent in a
+nation, or district, or society of smaller limits. His first general
+principle is, that the law of nature is the only one by which mankind at
+large can be judged. His second must be, that every prevalent virtue or
+vice is the result of the particular circumstances amidst which the
+society exists.
+
+The circumstances in which a prevalent virtue or vice originates, may or
+may not be traceable by a traveller. If traceable, he should spare no
+pains to make himself acquainted with the whole case. If obscure, he
+must beware of imputing disgraces to individuals, as if those
+individuals were living under the influences which have made himself
+what he is. He will not blame a deficiency of moral independence in a
+citizen of Philadelphia so severely as in a citizen of London; seeing,
+as he must do, that the want of moral independence is a prevalent fault
+in the United States, and that there must be some reason for it. Again,
+he will not look to the Polish peasant for the political intelligence,
+activity, and principle which delight him in the log-house of the
+American farmer. He sees that Polish peasants are generally supine, and
+American farmers usually interested about politics; and that there must
+be reasons for the difference.
+
+In a majority of cases such reasons are, to a great extent,
+ascertainable. In Spain, for instance, there is a large class of
+wretched and irretrievable beggars; and their idleness, dirt, and lying
+trouble the very soul of the traveller. What is the reason of the
+prevalence of this degraded class and of its vices? A Court Lady[C]
+wrote, in ancient days, piteous complaints of the poverty of the
+sovereign, the nobility, the army, and the destitute ladies who waited
+upon the queen. The sovereign could not give his attendants their
+dinners; the nobility melted down their plate and sold their jewels; the
+soldiers were famishing in garrison, so that the young deserted, and the
+aged and invalids wasted away, actually starved to death. The lady
+mentions with surprise, that a particularly large amount of gold and
+silver had arrived from the foreign possessions of Spain that year, and
+tries to account for the universal misery by saying that a great
+proportion of these riches was appropriated by merchants who supplied
+the Spaniards with the necessaries of life from abroad; and she speaks
+of this as an evil. She is an example of an unphilosophical
+observer,--one who could not be trusted to report--much less to account
+for--the morals and manners of the people before her eyes. What says a
+philosophical observer?[D] "Spain and Portugal, the countries which
+possess the mines, are, after Poland, perhaps the two most beggarly
+countries in Europe."--"Their trade to their colonies is carried on in
+their own ships, and is much greater" (than their foreign commerce,) "on
+account of the great riches and extent of those colonies. But it has
+never introduced any considerable manufactures for distant sale into
+either of those countries, and the greater part of both remains
+uncultivated."--"The proportion of gold and silver to the annual produce
+of the land and labour of Spain is said to be very considerable, and
+that you frequently find there a profusion of plate in houses where
+there is nothing else which would in other countries be thought suitable
+or correspondent to this sort of magnificence. The cheapness of gold and
+silver, or, what is the same thing, the dearness of all commodities,
+which is the necessary effect of this redundance of the precious metals,
+discourages both the agriculture and manufactures of Spain and Portugal,
+and enables foreign nations to supply them with many sorts of rude, and
+with almost all sorts of manufactured produce, for a smaller quantity of
+gold and silver than what they themselves can either raise or make them
+for at home."--When it is considered that in Spain gold and silver are
+called wealth, and that there is little other; that manufactures and
+commerce scarcely exist; that agriculture is discouraged, and that
+therefore there is a lack of occupation for the lower classes, it may be
+fairly concluded that the idle upper orders will be found lazy, proud,
+and poor; the idle lower classes in a state of beggary; and that the
+most virtuous and happy part of the population will be those who are
+engaged in tilling the soil, and in the occupations which are absolutely
+necessary in towns. One may see with the mind's eye the groups of
+intriguing grandees, who have no business on their estates to occupy
+their time and thoughts; or the crowd of hungry beggars, thronging round
+the door of a convent, to receive the daily alms; or the hospitable and
+courteous peasants, of whom a traveller[E] says, "There is a civility to
+strangers, and an easy style of behaviour familiar to this class of
+Spanish society, which is very remote from the churlish and awkward
+manners of the English and German peasantry. Their sobriety and
+endurance of fatigue are very remarkable; and there is a constant
+cheerfulness in their demeanour which strongly prepossesses a stranger
+in their favour."--"I should be glad if I could, with justice, give as
+favourable a picture of the higher orders of society in this country;
+but, perhaps, when we consider their wretched education, and their early
+habits of indolence and dissipation, we ought not to wonder at the state
+of contempt and degradation to which they are reduced. I am not speaking
+the language of prejudice, but the result of the observations I have
+made, in which every accurate observer among our countrymen has
+concurred with me, in saying that the figures and countenances of the
+higher orders are as much inferior to those of the peasants, as their
+moral qualities are in the view I have given of them."--All this might
+be foreseen to be unavoidable in a country where the means of living are
+passively derived from abroad, and where the honour and rewards of
+successful industry are confined to a class of the community. The mines
+should bear the blame of the prevalent faults of the saucy beggars and
+beggarly grandees of Spain.
+
+To any one who has at all considered at home the bearings of a social
+system which is grounded upon physical force, or those of the opposite
+arrangements which rely upon moral power, it can be no mystery abroad
+that there should be prevalent moral characteristics among the subjects
+of such systems; and the vices which exist under them will be, however
+mourned, leniently judged. Take the Feudal System as an instance, first,
+and then its opposite. A little thought makes it clear what virtues and
+vices will be almost certain to subsist under the influences of each.
+
+The baron lives in his castle, on a rock or some other eminence, whence
+he can overlook his domains, or where his ancestor reared his abode for
+purposes of safety. During this stage of society there is little
+domestic refinement and comfort. The furniture is coarse; the library is
+not tempting; and the luxurious ease of cities is out of the question.
+The pleasures of the owner lie abroad. There he devotes himself to rough
+sports, and enjoys his darling luxury,--the exercise of power. Within
+the dwelling the wife and her attendants spend their lives in
+handiworks, in playing with the children and keeping them in order, in
+endless conversation on the few events which come under their notice,
+and in obedience to and companionship with the priest. While the master
+is hunting, or gathering together his retainers for the feast, the women
+are spinning or sewing, gossiping, confessing, or doing penance; while
+the priest studies in his apartment, shares in the mirth, or soothes the
+troubles of the household, and rules the mind of the noble by securing
+the confidence of his wife. Out of doors, there are the retainers, by
+whatever name they may be called. Their poor dwellings are crowded round
+the castle of the lord; their patches of arable land lie nearest, and
+the pastures beyond; that, at least, the supply of human food may be
+secured from any enemy. These portions of land are held on a tenure of
+service; and, as the retainers have no property in them, and no interest
+in their improvement, and are, moreover, liable to be called away from
+their tillage at any moment, to perform military or other service, the
+soil yields sorry harvests, and the lean cattle are not very ornamental
+to the pastures. The wives of the peasantry are often left, at an hour's
+warning, in the unprotected charge of their half-clothed and untaught
+children, as well as of the cattle and the field.--The festivals of the
+people are on holy days, and on the return of the chief from war, or
+from a pre-eminent chase.
+
+Now, what must be the morals of such a district as this? and, it may be
+added, of the whole country of which it forms a part? for, if there be
+one feudal settlement of the kind, there must be more; and the society
+is in fact made up of a certain number of complete sets of persons,--of
+establishments like this.--There is no need to go back some centuries
+for an original to the picture: it exists in more than one country in
+Europe now.
+
+This kind of society is composed of two classes only; those who have
+something, and those who have nothing. The chief has property, some
+knowledge, and great power. With individual differences, the chiefs may
+be expected to be imperious, from their liberty and indulgence of will;
+brave, from their exposure to toil and danger; contemptuous of men, from
+their own supremacy; superstitious, from the influence of the priest in
+the household; lavish, from the permanency of their property; vain of
+rank and personal distinction, from the absence of pursuits unconnected
+with self; and hospitable, partly from the same cause, and partly from
+their own hospitality being the only means of gratifying their social
+dispositions.
+
+The clergy will be politic, subservient, studious, or indolent,
+kind-hearted, effeminate, with a strong tendency to spiritual pride, and
+love of spiritual dominion. It will be surprising, too, if they are not
+driven into infidelity by the credulity of their pupils.
+
+The women will be ignorant and superstitious, for want of varied
+instruction; brave, from the frequent presence or promise of danger;
+efficient, from the small division of labour which is practicable in the
+superintendence of such a family; given to gossip and uncertainty of
+temper, from the sameness of their lives; devoted to their husbands and
+children, from the absence of all other important objects; and vain of
+such accomplishments as they have, from an ignorance of what remains to
+be achieved.
+
+The retainers must be ignorant,--physically strong and imposing,
+perhaps, but infants in mind, and slaves in morals. Their worship is
+idolatry--of their chief. The virtues permitted to them are fidelity,
+industry, domestic attachment, and sobriety. It is difficult to see what
+others are possible. Their faults are all comprehended in the word
+barbarism.
+
+These characteristics may be extended to the divisions of the nation
+corresponding to those of the household: for the sovereign is only a
+higher feudal chief: his nobles are a more exalted sort of serfs; and
+those who are masters at home become slaves at court. Under this system,
+who would be so hardy as to treat brutality in a serf, cunning in a
+priest, prejudice in a lady, and imperiousness in a lord, as any thing
+but the results--inevitable as mournful--of the state of society?
+
+Feudalism is founded upon physical force, and therefore bears a relation
+to the past alone. Right begins in might, and all the social relations
+of men have originated in physical superiority. The most prevalent ideas
+of the feudal period arise out of the past; what has been longest
+honoured is held most honourable; and the understanding of men,
+unexercised by learning, and undisciplined by society and political
+action, falls back upon precedent, and reposes there. The tastes, and
+even the passions, of the feudal period bear a relation to antiquity.
+Ambition, prospective as it is in its very nature, has, in this case, a
+strong retrospective character. The glory that the descendant derives
+from his fathers, he burns to transmit. The past is everything: the
+future, except in as far as it may resemble the past, is nothing.
+
+Such, with modifications, have been the prevalent ideas, tastes, and
+passions of the civilized world, till lately. The opposite state of
+society, which has begun to be realized, occasions prevalent ideas, and
+therefore prevalent virtues and vices, of an opposite character.
+
+As commerce enlarges, as other professions besides the clerical arise,
+as trades become profitable, as cities swell in importance, as
+communication improves, raising villages into towns, and hamlets into
+villages, and the affairs of central communities become spread through
+the circumference, the lower classes rise, the chiefs lose much of their
+importance, the value of men for their intrinsic qualifications is
+discovered, and such men take the lead in managing the affairs of
+associated citizens. Instead of all being done by orders issued from a
+central power,--commands carrying forth an imperious will, and bringing
+back undoubting obedience,--social affairs begin to be managed by the
+heads and hands of the parties immediately interested. Self-government
+in municipal affairs takes place; and, having taken place in any one set
+of circumstances, it appears likely to be employed within a wider and a
+wider range, till all the government of the community is of that
+character. The United States are the most remarkable examples now before
+the world of the reverse of the feudal system,--its principles, its
+methods, its virtues and vices. In as far as the Americans revert, in
+ideas and tastes, to the past, this may be attributed to the transition
+being not yet perfected,--to the generation which organized the republic
+having been educated amidst the remains of feudalism. There are still
+Americans who boast of ancestors high in the order of birth rather than
+of merit; who in talking of rank have ideas of birth in their minds, and
+whose tastes lie in the past. But such will be the case while the
+literature of the world breathes the spirit of former ages, and softens
+the transition to an opposite social state. A new literature, new modes
+of thought, are daily arising, which point more and more towards the
+future. We have already records of the immediate state of the minds and
+fortunes of men and of communities, and not a few speculations which
+stretch far forward into the future. Every year is the admission more
+extensively entered into that moral power is nobler than physical force;
+there is more earnestness in the conferences of nations, and less
+proneness to war. The highest creations of literature itself, however
+long ago produced, are now discovered to bear as close a relation to the
+future as the past. They are for all time, through all its changes.
+While pillars of light in the dim regions of antiquity, they pass over
+in the dawn, and are still before us, casting their shadows to our feet
+as guides into the dazzling future. Pre-eminent among them is the Book
+which never had any retrospective character in it. It never sanctioned
+physical force, pride of ancestry, of valour, of influence, or any other
+pride. It never sanctioned arbitrary division of ranks. It never lauded
+the virtues of feudalism in their disconnection with other virtues; it
+never spared the faults of feudalism, on the ground of their being the
+necessary product of feudal circumstances; neither does it now laud and
+tolerate the virtues and vices developed by democracy. This guide has
+never yet taken up its rest. It is in advance of all existing
+democracies, as it ever was of all despotisms. The fact is, that, while
+all manifestations of eminent intellectual and moral force have an
+imperishable quality, this supreme book has not only an immortal
+freshness, but bears no relation to time:--to it "one day is as a
+thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."
+
+What are the prevalent virtues and faults which are to be looked for in
+the future,--or in those countries which represent somewhat of the
+future, as others afford a weakened image of the past? What allowance is
+the traveller in America to make? Almost precisely the reverse of what
+he would make in Russia.
+
+In-door luxury has succeeded to out-door sports: the mechanical arts
+flourish from the elevation of the lower classes, and prowess is gone
+out of fashion. The consequence of this is that the traveller sees
+ostentation of personal luxury instead of retinue. In the course of
+transition to the time when merit will constitute the highest claim to
+rank, wealth succeeds to birth: but even already, the claims of wealth
+give way before those of intellect. The popular author has more
+observance than the millionaire in the United States. This is
+honourable, and yields promise of a still better graduation of ranks.
+Where moral force is recognized as the moving power of society, it seems
+to follow that the condition of Woman must be elevated; that new
+pursuits will be opened to her, and a wider and stronger discipline be
+afforded to her powers. It is not so in America; but this is owing to
+the interference of other circumstances with the full operation of
+democratic principles. The absence of an aristocratic or a sovereign
+will impels men to find some other will on which to repose their
+individual weakness, and with which to employ their human veneration.
+The will of the majority becomes their refuge and unwritten law. The few
+free-minded resist this will, when it is in opposition to their own, and
+the slavish many submit. This is accordingly found to be the most
+conspicuous fault of the Americans. Their cautious subservience to
+public opinion,--their deficiency of moral independence,--is the crying
+sin of their society. Again, the social equality by which the whole of
+life is laid open to all in a democratic republic, in which every man
+who has power in him may attain all to which that power is a requisite,
+cannot but enhance the importance of each in the eyes of all; and the
+consequence is a mutual respect and deference, and also a mutual
+helpfulness, which are in themselves virtues of a high order, and
+preparatives for others. In these the Americans are exercised and
+accomplished to a degree never generally attained in any other country.
+This class of virtues constitutes their distinguishing honour, their
+crowning grace in the company of nations.--Activity and ingenuity are a
+matter of course where every man's lot is in his own hands.
+Unostentatious hospitality and charity might, in some democracies, be
+likely to languish; but the Americans have the wealth of a young
+country, and the warmth of a young national existence, as stimulus and
+warrant for pecuniary liberality of every kind.--Popular vanity, and the
+subservience of political representatives, are the chief dangers which
+remain to be alluded to; and there will probably be no republic for ages
+where these will not be found in the form of prevalent vices.--If, under
+a feudal system, there is a wholesome exercise of reverence in the
+worship of ancestry, there is, under the opposite system, a no less
+salutary and perpetual impulse to generosity in the care for posterity.
+The one has been, doubtless, a benignant influence, tempering the
+ruggedness and violence of despotism; the other will prove an elevating
+force, lifting men above the personal selfishness and mutual
+subservience which are the besetting perils of equals who unite to
+govern by their common will.
+
+Whatever may be his philosophy of individual character, the reflective
+observer cannot travel, with his mind awake, without admitting that
+there can be no question but that national character is formed, or
+largely influenced, by the gigantic circumstances which, being the
+product of no individual mind, are directly attributable to the great
+Moral Governor of the human race. Every successive act of research or
+travel will impress him more and more deeply with this truth, which, for
+the sake of his own peace and liberality, it would be well that he
+should carry about with him from the outset. He will not visit
+individuals with any bitterness of censure for participating in
+prevalent faults. He will regard social virtues and graces as shedding
+honour on all whom they overshadow, from the loftiest to the lowliest;
+while he is not disposed to indulge contempt, or anything but a mild
+compassion, for any social depravity or deformity which, being the clear
+result of circumstances, and itself a circumstance, may be considered as
+surely destined to be remedied, as the wisdom of associated, like that
+of individual man, grows with his growth, and strengthens with his
+strength.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+MORAL REQUISITES.
+
+    "I respect knowledge; but I do not despise ignorance. They think
+    only as their fathers thought, worship as they worshipped. They
+    do no more."--ROGERS.
+
+                        "He was alive
+    To all that was enjoyed where'er he went,
+    And all that was endured."          WORDSWORTH.
+
+
+The traveller, being furnished with the philosophical requisites for the
+observation of morals and manners,
+
+1stly. With a certainty of what it is that he wants to know,--
+
+2ndly. With principles which may serve as a rallying point and test of
+his observations,--
+
+3rdly. With, for instance, a philosophical and definite, instead of a
+popular and vague, notion about the origin of human feelings of right
+and wrong,--
+
+4thly. And with a settled conviction that prevalent virtues and vices
+are the result of gigantic general influences,--is yet not fitted for
+his object if certain moral requisites be wanting in him.
+
+An observer, to be perfectly accurate, should be himself perfect. Every
+prejudice, every moral perversion, dims or distorts whatever the eye
+looks upon. But as we do not wait to be perfect before we travel, we
+must content ourselves with discovering, in order to avoidance, what
+would make our task hopeless, and how we may put ourselves in a state to
+learn at least something truly. We cannot suddenly make ourselves a
+great deal better than we have been, for such an object as observing
+Morals and Manners; but, by clearly ascertaining what it is that the
+most commonly, or the most grossly, vitiates foreign observation, we may
+put a check upon our spirit of prejudice, and carry with us restoratives
+of temper and spirits which may be of essential service to us in our
+task.
+
+The observer must have sympathy; and his sympathy must be untrammelled
+and unreserved. If a traveller be a geological inquirer, he may have a
+heart as hard as the rocks he shivers, and yet succeed in his immediate
+objects: if he be a student of the fine arts, he may be as silent as a
+picture, and yet gain his ends: if he be a statistical investigator, he
+may be as abstract as a column of figures, and yet learn what he wants
+to know: but an observer of morals and manners will be liable to
+deception at every turn, if he does not find his way to hearts and
+minds. Nothing was ever more true than that "as face answers to face in
+water, so is the heart of man." To the traveller there are two meanings
+in this wise saying, both worthy of his best attention. It means that
+the action of the heart will meet a corresponding action, and that the
+nature of the heart will meet a corresponding nature. Openness and
+warmth of heart will be greeted with openness and warmth:--this is one
+truth. Hearts, generous or selfish, pure or gross, gay or sad, will
+understand, and therefore be likely to report of, only their like:--this
+is another truth.
+
+There is the same human heart everywhere,--the universal growth of mind
+and life,--ready to open to the sunshine of sympathy, flourishing in the
+enclosures of cities, and blossoming wherever dropped in the wilderness;
+but folding up when touched by chill, and drooping in gloom. As well
+might the Erl-king go and play the florist in the groves and plains of
+the tropics, as an unsympathizing man render an account of society. It
+will all turn to stubble and sapless rigidity before his eyes.
+
+There is the same human heart everywhere; and, if the traveller has a
+good one himself, he will presently find this out, whatever may have
+been his fears at home of checks to his sympathy from difference of
+education, objects in life, &c. There is no place where people do not
+suffer and enjoy; where love is not the high festival of life; where
+birth and death are not occasions of emotion; where parents are not
+proud of their boy-children; where thoughtful minds do not speculate
+upon the two eternities; where, in short, there is not broad ground on
+which any two human beings may meet and clasp hands, if they have but
+unsophisticated hearts. If a man have not sympathy, there is no point of
+the universe--none so wide even as the Mahomedan bridge over the
+bottomless pit--where he can meet with his fellow. Such an one is indeed
+floundering in the bottomless pit, with only the shadows of men ever
+flitting about him.
+
+I have mentioned elsewhere, what will well bear repetition,--that an
+American merchant, who had made several voyages to China, dropped a
+remark by his own fire-side on the narrowness which causes us to
+conclude, avowedly or silently, that, however well men may use the
+light they have, they cannot be more than nominally our brethren, unless
+they have our religion, our philosophy, and our methods of attaining
+both. He said he often recurred, with delight, to the conversations he
+had enjoyed with his Chinese friends on some of the highest speculative,
+and some of the deepest and widest practical subjects, which his
+fellow-citizens of New England were apt to think could be the business
+only of Protestant Christians. This American merchant's observations on
+oriental morals and manners had an incalculable weight after he had said
+this; for it was known that he had seen into hearts, as well as met
+faces, and discovered what people's minds were busy about, as their
+hands were pursuing the universal employment of earning their
+subsistence.
+
+Unless a traveller interprets by his sympathies what he sees, he cannot
+but misunderstand the greater part of that which comes under his
+observation. He will not be admitted with freedom into the retirements
+of domestic life; the instructive commentary on all the facts of
+life,--discourse,--will be of a slight and superficial character. People
+will talk to him of the things they care least about, instead of seeking
+his sympathy about the affairs which are deepest in their hearts. He
+will be amused with public spectacles, and informed of historical and
+chronological facts; but he will not be invited to weddings and
+christenings; he will hear no love-tales; domestic sorrows will be kept
+as secrets from him; the old folks will not pour out their stories to
+him, nor the children bring him their prattle. Such a traveller will be
+no more fitted to report on morals and manners than he would be to give
+an account of the silver mines of Siberia by walking over the surface,
+and seeing the entrance and the product.
+
+"Human conduct," says a philosopher, "is guided by rules." Without these
+rules, men could not live together, and they are also necessary to the
+repose of individual minds. Robinson Crusoe could not have endured his
+life for a month without rules to live by. A life without purpose is
+uncomfortable enough; but a life without rules would be a wretchedness
+which, happily, man is not constituted to bear. The rules by which men
+live are chiefly drawn from the universal convictions about right and
+wrong which I have mentioned as being formed everywhere, under strong
+general influences. When sentiment is connected with these rules, they
+become religion; and this religion is the animating spirit of all that
+is said and done. If the stranger cannot sympathize in the sentiment, he
+cannot understand the religion; and without understanding the religion,
+he cannot appreciate the spirit of words and acts. A stranger who has
+never felt any strong political interest, and cannot sympathize with
+American sentiment about the majesty of social equality, and the beauty
+of mutual government, can never understand the political religion of the
+United States; and the sayings of the citizens by their own fire-sides,
+the perorations of orators in town-halls, the installations of public
+servants, and the process of election, will all be empty sound and
+grimace to him. He will be tempted to laugh,--to call the world about
+him mad,--like one who, without hearing the music, sees a room-full of
+people begin to dance. The case is the same with certain Americans who
+have no antiquarian sympathies, and who think our sovereigns mad for
+riding to St. Stephen's in the royal state-coach, with eight horses
+covered with trappings, and a tribe of grotesque footmen. I have found
+it an effort of condescension to inform such observers that we should
+not think of inventing such a coach and appurtenances at the present
+day, any more than we should the dress of the Christ-Hospital boys. If
+an unsympathizing stranger is so perplexed by a mere matter of external
+arrangement,--a royal procession, or a popular election,--what can he be
+expected to make of that which is far more important, more intricate,
+more mysterious,--neighbourly and domestic life? If he knows and feels
+nothing of the religion of these, he could learn but little about them,
+even if the roofs of all the houses of a city were made transparent to
+him, and he could watch all that is done in every parlour, kitchen, and
+nursery in a circuit of five miles.
+
+What strange scenes and transactions must such an one think that there
+are in the world! What would he have thought of the spectacle one day
+seen in Hayti, when Toussaint L'Ouverture ranged his negro forces before
+him, called out thirteen men from the ranks by name, and ordered them to
+repair to a certain spot to be immediately shot? What would he have
+thought of these thirteen men for crossing their arms upon their
+breasts, bowing their heads submissively, and yielding instant
+obedience? He might have pronounced Toussaint a ferocious despot, and
+the thirteen so many craven fools: while the facts wear a very different
+aspect to one who knows the minds of the men. It was necessary to the
+good-will of a society but lately organized out of chaos, to make no
+distinction between negro and other insurgents; and these thirteen men
+were ringleaders in a revolt, Toussaint's nephew being one of them.
+This accounts for the general's share in the transaction. As for the
+negroes, the General was also the Deliverer,--an object of worship to
+people of his colour. Obedience to him was a rule, exalted by every
+sentiment of gratitude, awe, admiration, pride, and love, into a
+religion; and a Haytian of that day would no more have thought of
+resisting a command of Toussaint, than of disputing a thunder-stroke or
+an earthquake.--What would an unsympathizing observer make of the
+Paschal supper, as celebrated in the houses of Hebrews throughout the
+world,--of the care not to break a bone of the lamb,--of the company all
+standing, the men girded and shod as for a journey, and the youngest
+child of the household invariably asking what this is all for? What
+would the observer call it but mummery, if he had no feeling for the
+awful traditional and religious emotion involved in the symbol?--What
+would such an one think of the terrified flight of two Spanish nobles
+from the wrath of their sovereign, incurred by their having saved his
+beloved queen from being killed by a fall from her horse? What a puzzle
+is here,--even when all the facts of the case are known;--that the king
+was looking from a balcony to see his queen mount her Andalusian horse:
+that the horse reared, plunged, and bolted, throwing the queen, whose
+foot was entangled in the stirrup: that she was surrounded with
+gentlemen who stood aloof, because by the law of Spain it was death to
+any but her little pages to touch the person, and especially the foot of
+the queen, and her pages were too young to rescue her; that these two
+gentlemen devoted themselves to save her; and having caught the horse,
+and extricated the royal foot, fled for their lives from the legal
+wrath of the king! Whence such a law? From the rule that the queen of
+Spain has no legs. Whence such a rule? From the meaning that the queen
+of Spain is a being too lofty to touch the earth. Here we come at last
+to the sentiment of loyal admiration and veneration which sanctifies the
+law and the rule, and interprets the incident. To a heartless stranger
+the whole appears a mere solemn absurdity, fit only to be set aside, as
+it was apparently by pardon from the king being obtained by the instant
+intercession of the queen. But in the eyes of every Spaniard the
+transaction was, in all its parts, as far from absurdity as the danger
+of the two nobles was real and pressing.--Again, what can a heartless
+observer understand by the practice, almost universal in the world, of
+celebrating the naming of children? The Christian parent employs a form
+by which the infant is admitted as a lamb of Christ's flock: the Chinese
+father calls his kindred together to witness the conferring first of the
+surname, and then of "the milk-name,"--some endearing diminutive, to
+cease with infancy: the Moslem consults an astrologer before giving a
+name to his child: and the savage selects a name-sake for his infant
+from among the beasts or birds, with whose characteristic quality he
+would fain endow his offspring. What a general rule is here, exalted by
+a universal sentiment into an act of religion! The ceremonial observed
+in each case is widely different in its aspect to one who sees in it
+merely a cumbrous way of transacting a matter of convenience, and to
+another who perceives in it the initiation of a new member into the
+family of mankind, and a looking forward to,--an attempt to make
+provision for, the future destiny of an unconscious and helpless being.
+
+Thus it will be through the whole range of the traveller's observation.
+If he be full of sympathy, every thing he sees will be instructive, and
+the most important matters will be the most clearly revealed. If he be
+unsympathizing, the most important things will be hidden from him, and
+symbols (in which every society abounds) will be only absurd or trivial
+forms. The stranger will be wise to conclude, when he sees anything
+seriously done which appears to him insignificant or ludicrous, that
+there is more in it than he perceives, from some deficiency of knowledge
+or feeling of his own.
+
+The other way in which heart is found to answer to heart is too obvious
+to require to be long dwelt upon. Men not only see according to the
+light they shed from their own breasts,--whether it be the sunshine of
+generosity or the hell-flames of bad passions,--but they attract to
+themselves spirits like their own. The very same persons appear very
+differently to a traveller who calls into exercise all their best
+qualities, and to one who has an affinity with their worst: but it is a
+yet more important consideration that actually different elements of
+society will range themselves round the observer according to the
+scepticism or faith of his temper, the purity or depravity of his
+tastes, and the elevation or insignificance of his objects. The
+Americans, somewhat nettled with the injustice of English travellers'
+reports of their country, have jokingly proposed to take lodgings in
+Wapping for some thorough-bred American vixen, of low tastes and coarse
+manners, and employ her to write an account of English morals and
+manners from what she might see in a year's abode in the choice locality
+selected for her. This would be no great exaggeration of the process of
+observation of foreigners which is perpetually going on.
+
+What should gamesters know of the philanthropists of the society they
+pass through? or the profligate, of the real state of domestic life?
+What can the moral sceptic report of religious or philosophical
+confessorship in any nation? or the sordid trader, of the higher kinds
+of intellectual cultivation? or the dandy, of the extent and
+administration of charity? It may be said that neither can the
+philanthropic traveller--the missionary--see otherwise than partially
+for want of "knowledge of the world;" that persons of sober habits can
+learn nothing that is going on in the moral depths of society; and the
+good are actually scoffed at for their absence from many scenes of human
+life, and their supposed ignorance of many things in human nature. But
+it is certain that the best part of every man's mind is far more a
+specimen of himself than the worst; and that the characteristics of a
+society, in like manner, are to be traced in the wisest and most genial
+of its pervading ideas and common transactions, instead of those
+disgraceful ones which are common to all. Swindlers, drunkards, people
+of low tastes and bad passions, are found in every country, and nowhere
+characterise a nation; while the reverence of man in America, the
+pursuit of speculative truth in Germany, philanthropic enterprise in
+France, love of freedom in Switzerland, popular education in China,
+domestic purity in Norway,--each of these great moral beauties is a star
+on the forehead of a nation. Goodness and simplicity are indissolubly
+united. The bad are the most sophisticated, all the world over; and the
+good the least. It may be taken as a rule that the best qualities of a
+people, as of an individual, are the most characteristic--(what is
+really _best_ being tested, not by prejudice, but principle). He has the
+best chance of ascertaining these best qualities who has them in
+himself; and he who has them not may as well pretend to give a picture
+of a metropolitan city by showing a map of its drainage, as report of a
+nation after an intercourse with its knaves and its profligates. To
+stand on the highest pinnacle is the best way of obtaining an accurate
+general view, in contemplating a society as well as a city.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+MECHANICAL REQUISITES.
+
+    "He travels and expatiates, as the bee
+     From flower to flower, so he from land to land:
+     The manners, customs, policy, of all
+     Pay contribution to the stores he gleans."--_The Task._
+
+    "Thy speaking of my tongue, and I thine, most truly falsely, must
+    needs be granted to be much at one."--_King Henry V._
+
+
+No philosophical or moral fitness will qualify a traveller to observe a
+people if he does not select a mode of travelling which will enable him
+to see and converse with a great number and variety of persons. An
+ambassador has no chance of learning much of the people he visits
+anywhere but in a new country like America. While he is _en route_, he
+is too stately in appearance to allow of any familiarity on the part of
+the people by the road-side. His carriages might almost as well roll
+through a city of the dead, for anything he will learn from intercourse
+with the living. The case is not much better when a family or a party of
+friends travel together on the Continent, committing the business of the
+expedition to servants, and shrinking from intercourse, on all social
+occasions, with English shyness or pride.
+
+The behaviour of the English on the Continent has become a matter of
+very serious consequence to the best informed and best mannered of their
+countrymen, as it has long been to the natives into whose society they
+may happen to fall. I have heard gentlemen say that they lose half their
+pleasure in going abroad, from the coldness and shyness with which the
+English are treated; a coldness and shyness which they think fully
+warranted by the conduct of their predecessors in travel. I have heard
+ladies say that they find great difficulty in becoming acquainted with
+their neighbours at the tables-d'hôte; and that, when they have
+succeeded, an apology for the reluctance to converse has been offered,
+in the form of explanation that English travellers generally "appear to
+dislike being spoken to" so much as to render it a matter of civility to
+leave them alone. The travelling arrangements of the English seem
+designed to cut them off from companionship with the people they go to
+see; and they preclude the possibility of studying morals and manners in
+a way which is perfectly ludicrous to persons of a more social
+temperament and habits.
+
+A good deal may be learned on board steam-boats, and in such vehicles as
+the American stages; and when accommodations of the kind become common,
+it will be difficult for the sulkiest Englishman to avoid admitting some
+ideas into his mind from the conversation and actions of the groups
+around him. When steam-boats ply familiarly on the Indus, and we have
+the rail-road to Calcutta which people are joking about, and another
+across the Pampas,--when we make trips to New Zealand, and think little
+of a run down the west coast of Africa,--places where we shall go for
+fashion's sake, and cannot go boxed up in a carriage of Long Acre
+origin,--our countrymen will, perforce, exchange conversation with the
+persons they meet, and may chance to get rid of the unsociability for
+which they are notorious, and by which they cast a veil over hearts and
+faces, and a shadow over their own path, wherever they go.
+
+Meantime, the wisest and happiest traveller is the pedestrian. If
+gentlemen and ladies want to see pictures, let them post to Florence,
+and be satisfied with learning what they can from the windows by the
+way. But if they want to see either scenery or people, let all who have
+strength and courage go on foot. I prefer this even to horseback. A
+horse is an anxiety and a trouble. Something is sure to ail it; and one
+is more anxious about its accommodation than about one's own. The
+pedestrian traveller is wholly free from care. There is no such freeman
+on earth as he is for the time. His amount of toil is usually within his
+own choice,--in any civilized region. He can go on and stop when he
+likes: if a fit of indolence overtakes him, he can linger for a day or a
+week in any spot that pleases him. He is not whirled past a beautiful
+view almost before he has seen it. He is not tantalized by the idea that
+from this or that point he could see something still finer, if he could
+but reach it. He can reach almost every point his wishes wander to. The
+pleasure is indescribable of saying to one's self, "I will go
+there,"--"I will rest yonder,"--and forthwith accomplishing it. He can
+sit on a rock in the midst of a rushing stream as often in a day as he
+likes. He can hunt a waterfall by its sound; a sound which the
+carriage-wheels prevent other travellers from hearing. He can follow out
+any tempting glade in any wood. There is no cushion of moss at the foot
+of an old tree that he may not sit down on if he pleases. He can read
+for an hour without fear of passing by something unnoticed while his
+eyes are fixed upon his book. His food is welcome, be its quality what
+it may, while he eats it under the alders in some recess of a brook. He
+is secure of his sleep, be his chamber ever so sordid; and when his
+waking eyes rest upon his knapsack, his heart leaps with pleasure as he
+remembers where he is, and what a day is before him. Even the weather
+seems to be of less consequence to the pedestrian than to other
+travellers. A pedestrian journey presupposes abundance of time, so that
+the traveller can rest in villages on rainy days, and in the shade of a
+wood during the hours when the sun is too powerful. And if he prefers
+not waiting for the rain, it is not the evil to him that it would be in
+cities and in the pursuit of business. The only evil of rain that I know
+of, to healthy persons in exercise, is that it spoils the clothes; and
+the clothes of a pedestrian traveller are not usually of a spoilable
+quality. Rain does not deform the face of things everywhere as it does
+in a city. It adds a new aspect of beauty occasionally to a wood, to
+mountains, to lake and ocean scenery. I remember a hale, cheerful
+pedestrian tourist whom we met frequently among the White Mountains of
+New Hampshire, and whom we remarked as being always the briskest of the
+company at the hotel table in the evening, and the merriest at
+breakfast. He had the best of it one day, when we passed him in
+Franconia Defile, after a heavy rain had set in. We were packed in a
+waggon which seemed likely to fill with water before we got to our
+destination; and miserable enough we looked, drenched and cold. The
+traveller was marching on over the rocky road, his book safe in its
+oil-skin cover, and his clothes-bag similarly protected; his face
+bright and glowing with exercise, and his summer jacket of linen
+feeling, as he told us, all the pleasanter for being wet through. As he
+passed each recess of the defile, he looked up perpetually to see the
+rain come smoking out of the fissures of the rocks; and when he reached
+the opening by which he was to descend to the plain, he stood still, to
+watch the bar of dewy yellow light which lay along the western sky where
+the sun had just set. He looked just as happy on other days. Sometimes
+we passed him lying along on a hill side; sometimes talking with a
+family at the door of a log-house; sometimes reading as he walked under
+the shade of the forest. I, for one, often longed to dismiss our waggon
+or barouche, and to follow his example.
+
+One peculiar advantage of pedestrian travelling is the pleasure of a
+gradual approach to celebrated or beautiful places. Every turn of the
+road gains in interest; every object that meets the eye seems to have
+some initiative meaning; and when the object itself at last appears,
+nothing can surpass the delight of flinging one's self on the ground to
+rest upon the first impression, and to interpose a delicious pause
+before the final attainment. It is not the same thing to desire your
+driver to stop when you come to the point of view. The first time that I
+felt this was on a pedestrian tour in Scotland, when I was at length to
+see mountains. The imagination of myself and my companion had fixed
+strongly on Dunkeld, as being a scene of great beauty, and our first
+resting-place among the mountains. The sensation had been growing all
+the morning. Men, houses, and trees had seemed to be growing
+diminutive,--an irresistible impression to the novice in mountain
+scenery: the road began to follow the windings of the Tay, a sign that
+the plain was contracting into a pass. Beside a cistern, on a green bank
+of this pass, we had dined; a tract of heath next lay before us, and we
+traversed it so freshly and merrily as to be quite unaware that we were
+getting towards the end of our seventeen miles, though still conscious
+that the spirit of the mountains was upon us. We were deeply engaged in
+talk, when a winding of the road brought us in full view of the lovely
+scene which is known to all who have approached Dunkeld by the Perth
+road. We could scarcely believe that this was _it_, so soon. We turned
+to our map and guide-book, and found that we were standing on the site
+of Birnam wood; that Dunsinane hill was in sight, and that it was indeed
+the old cathedral tower of Dunkeld that rose so grandly among the
+beeches behind the bridge. We took such a long and fond gaze as I never
+enjoyed from a carriage window. If it was thus with an object of no more
+importance or difficulty of attainment than Dunkeld, what must it be to
+catch the first view of the mysterious temples that
+
+    "Stand between the mountains and the sea;
+     Awful memorials, but of whom we know not!"
+
+or to survey from a height, at sunrise, the brook Kedron and the valley
+of Jehoshaphat!
+
+What is most to our present purpose, however, is the consideration of
+the facilities afforded by pedestrian travelling for obtaining a
+knowledge of the people. We all remember Goldsmith's travels with his
+flute, his sympathies, his cordiality of heart and manner, and his
+reliance on the hospitality of the country people. Such an one as he is
+not bound to take up with such specimens as he may meet with by the side
+of the high road; he can penetrate into the recesses of the country, and
+drop into the hamlet among the hills, and the homesteads down the lanes,
+and now and then spend a day with the shepherd in his fold on the downs;
+he can stop where there is a festival, and solve many a perplexity by
+carrying over the conversation of one day into the intercourse of the
+next, with a fresh set of people; he can obtain access to almost every
+class of persons, and learn their own views of their own affairs. His
+opportunities are inestimable.
+
+If it were a question which could learn most of Morals and Manners by
+travel,--the gentleman accomplished in philosophy and learning,
+proceeding in his carriage, with a courier,--or a simple pedestrian
+tourist, furnished only with the language, and with an open heart and
+frank manners,--I should have no doubt that the pedestrian would return
+more familiar with his subject than the other. If the wealthy scholar
+and philosopher could make himself a citizen of the world for the time,
+and go forth on foot, careless of luxury, patient of fatigue, and
+fearless of solitude, he would be not only of the highest order of
+tourists, but a benefactor to the highest kind of science; and he would
+become familiarized with what few are acquainted with,--the best
+pleasures, transient and permanent, of travel. Those who cannot pursue
+this method will achieve most by laying aside state, conversing with the
+people they fall in with, and diverging from the high road as much as
+possible.
+
+Nothing need be said on a matter so obvious as the necessity of
+understanding the language of the people visited. Some familiarity with
+it must be attained before anything else can be done. It seems to be
+unquestioned, however, that a good deal of the unsociability of the
+English abroad is owing not so much to contempt of their neighbours, as
+to the natural pride which makes them shrink from attempting what they
+cannot do well. I am confident that we say much less than we feel about
+the awkwardness and constraint of our first self-committals to a foreign
+language. It is impossible but that every one must feel the weight of
+the penalty of making himself ridiculous at every step, and of
+presenting a kind of false appearance of himself to every one with whom
+he converses. A German gentleman in America, who has exactly that right
+degree of self-respect which enabled him to set strenuously about
+learning English, of which he did not understand a word, and who
+mastered it so completely as to lecture in faultless English at the end
+of two years, astonished a party of friends one day, persuaded as they
+were that they perfectly knew him, and that the smooth and deliberate
+flow of his beautiful language was a consequence of the calmness of his
+temper, and the philosophical character of his mind. A German woman with
+children came begging to the house while the party were at their
+dessert. The professor caught her tones when the door of the dining-room
+was open; he rushed into the hall, presently returned for a dish or two,
+and emptied the gingerbread, and other material of the dessert, into her
+lap. The company went out to see, and found the professor transformed;
+he was talking with a rapidity and vehemence which they had never
+supposed him capable of; and one of the party told me how sorry she
+felt, and has felt ever since, to think of the state of involuntary
+disguise in which he is living among those who would know him best.
+Difference of language is undeniably a cause of great suffering and
+difficulty, magnificent and incalculable as are its uses. It is no
+exception to the general rule that every great good involves some evil.
+
+Happily, however, the difficulty may be presently so far surmounted as
+not to interfere with the object of observing Morals and Manners.
+Impossible as it may be to attain to an adequate expression of one's
+self in a foreign tongue, it is easy to most persons to learn to
+understand it perfectly when spoken by others. During this process, a
+common and almost unavoidable mistake is to suppose a too solemn and
+weighty meaning in what is expressed in an unfamiliar language. This
+arises partly from our having become first acquainted with the language
+in books; and partly from the meaning having been attained with effort,
+and seeming, by natural association, worth the pains. The first French
+dialogues which a child learns, seem more emphatic in their meanings
+than the same material would in English; and the student of German finds
+a grandeur in lines of Schiller, and in clauses of Herder's and
+Krummacher's Parables, which he looks for in vain when he is practised
+in the language. It is well to bear this in mind on a first entrance
+into a foreign society, or the traveller may chance to detect himself
+treasuring up nonsense, and making much of mere trivialities, because
+they reached him clothed in the mystery of a strange language. He will
+be like lame Jervas, when he first came up from the mine in which he was
+born, caressing the weeds he had gathered by the road side, and refusing
+till the last moment to throw away such wonderful and beautiful things.
+The raw traveller not only sees something mysterious, picturesque, or
+classical in every object that meets his eye after passing the frontier,
+from the children's toys to palaces and general festivals, but is apt to
+discern wisdom and solemnity in everything that is said to him, from the
+greeting of the landlord to the speculations of the politician. If not
+guarded against, this natural tendency will more or less vitiate the
+observer's first impressions, and introduce something of the ludicrous
+into his record of them.
+
+From the consideration of the requisites for observation in the
+traveller himself, we now proceed to indicate what he is to observe, in
+order to inform himself of foreign Morals and Manners.
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+WHAT TO OBSERVE.
+
+    "Nous nous en tiendrons aux moeurs, aux habitudes extérieures
+    dont se forme, pour les differentes classes de la société, une
+    sorte de physionomie morale, où se retracent les moeurs
+    privées."                                   DE JOUY.
+
+
+It is a perpetual wonder to an inexperienced person that the students of
+particular classes of facts can learn so much as they do from a single
+branch of inquiry. Tell an uninformed man of the daily results of the
+study of Fossil Remains, and he will ask how the student can possibly
+know what was done in the world ages before man was created. It will
+astonish a thoughtless man to hear the statements about the condition of
+the English nation which are warranted by the single study of the
+administration of the Poor Laws, since their origin. Some physiognomists
+fix their attention on a single feature of the human face, and can
+pretty accurately interpret the general character of the mind from it:
+and I believe every portrait painter trusts mainly to one feature for
+the fidelity of his likenesses, and bestows more study and care on that
+one than on any other.
+
+A good many features compose the physiognomy of a nation; and scarcely
+any traveller is qualified to study them all. The same man is rarely
+enlightened enough to make investigation at once into the religion of a
+people, into its general moral notions, its domestic and economical
+state, its political condition, and the facts of its progress;--all
+which are necessary to a full understanding of its morals and manners.
+Few have even attempted an inquiry of this extent. The worst of it is
+that few dream of undertaking the study of any one feature of society at
+all. We should by this time have been rich in the knowledge of nations
+if each intelligent traveller had endeavoured to report of any one
+department of moral inquiry, however narrow; but, instead of this, the
+observations offered to us are almost purely desultory. The traveller
+hears and notes what this and that and the other person says. If three
+or four agree in their statements on any point, he remains unaware of a
+doubt, and the matter is settled. If they differ, he is perplexed, does
+not know whom to believe, and decides, probably, in accordance with
+prepossessions of his own. The case is almost equally bad, either way.
+He will hear only one side of every question if he sees only one class
+of persons,--like the English in America, for instance, who go commonly
+with letters of introduction from merchants at home to merchants in the
+maritime cities, and hear nothing but federal politics, and see nothing
+but aristocratic manners. They come home with notions which they suppose
+to be indisputable about the great Bank question, the state of parties,
+and the relations of the General and State governments; and with words
+in their mouths of whose objectionable character they are
+unaware,--about the common people, mob government, the encroachment of
+the poor upon the rich, and so on. Such partial intercourse is fatal to
+the observations of a traveller; but it is less perplexing and painful
+at the time than the better process of going from one set of people to
+another, and hearing what all have to say. No traveller in the United
+States can learn much of the country without conversing equally with
+farmers and merchants, with artizans and statesmen, with villagers and
+planters; but, while discharging this duty, he will be so bewildered
+with the contrariety of statements and convictions, that he will often
+shut his note-book in a state of scepticism as to whether there be any
+truth at all shining steadily behind all this tempest of opinions. Thus
+it is with the stranger who traverses the streets of Warsaw, and is
+trusted with the groans of some of the outraged mourners who linger in
+its dwellings; and then goes to St. Petersburg, and is presented with
+evidences of the enlightenment of the Czar, of his humanity, his
+paternal affection for his subjects, and his general superiority to his
+age. At Warsaw the traveller called him a miscreant; at Petersburg he is
+required to pronounce him a philanthropist. Such must be the uncertainty
+of judgment when it is based upon the testimony of individuals. To
+arrive at the facts of the condition of a people through the discourse
+of individuals, is a hopeless enterprise. The plain truth is--it is
+beginning at the wrong end.
+
+The grand secret of wise inquiry into Morals and Manners is to begin
+with the study of THINGS, using the DISCOURSE OF PERSONS as a commentary
+upon them.
+
+Though the facts sought by travellers relate to Persons, they may most
+readily be learned from Things. The eloquence of Institutions and
+Records, in which the action of the nation is embodied and perpetuated,
+is more comprehensive and more faithful than that of any variety of
+individual voices. The voice of a whole people goes up in the silent
+workings of an institution; the condition of the masses is reflected
+from the surface of a record. The Institutions of a nation,--political,
+religious, or social,--put evidence into the observer's hands as to its
+capabilities and wants which the study of individuals could not yield in
+the course of a lifetime. The Records of any society, be they what they
+may, whether architectural remains, epitaphs, civic registers, national
+music, or any other of the thousand manifestations of the common mind
+which may be found among every people, afford more information on Morals
+in a day than converse with individuals in a year. Thus also must
+Manners be judged of, since there never was a society yet, not even a
+nunnery or a Moravian settlement, which did not include a variety of
+manners. General indications must be looked for, instead of
+generalizations being framed from the manners of individuals. In cities,
+do social meetings abound? and what are their purposes and character?
+Are they most religious, political, or festive? If religious, have they
+more the character of Passion Week at Rome, or of a camp-meeting in
+Ohio? If political, do the people meet on wide plains to worship the Sun
+of the Celestial Empire, as in China; or in town-halls, to remonstrate
+with their representatives, as in England; or in secret places, to
+spring mines under the thrones of their rulers, as in Spain? If
+festive, are they most like an Italian carnival, where everybody laughs;
+or an Egyptian holiday, when all eyes are solemnly fixed on the whirling
+Dervishes? Are women there? In what proportions, and under what law of
+liberty? What are the public amusements? There is an intelligible
+difference between the opera at Milan, and the theatre at Paris, and a
+bull-fight at Madrid, and a fair at Leipzig, and a review at St.
+Petersburg.--In country towns, how is the imitation of the metropolis
+carried on? Do the provincials emulate most in show, in science, or in
+the fine arts?--In the villages, what are the popular amusements? Do the
+people meet to drink or to read, to discuss, or play games, or dance?
+What are the public houses like? Do the people eat fruit and tell
+stories? or drink ale and talk politics or call for tea and saunter
+about? or coffee and play dominoes? or lemonade and laugh at Punch? Do
+they crowd within four walls, or gather under the elm, or spread
+themselves abroad over the cricket-field or the yellow sands?--There is
+as wide a difference among the humbler classes of various countries as
+among their superiors in rank. A Scotch burial is wholly unlike the
+ceremonies of the funeral pile among the Cingalese; and an interment in
+the Greek church little resembles either. A conclave of White Boys in
+Mayo, assembled in a mud hovel on a heath, to pledge one another to
+their dreadful oath, is widely different from a similar conclave of
+Swiss insurgents, met in a pine wood on a steep, on the same kind of
+errand: and both are as little like as may be to the heroes of the last
+revolution in Paris, or to the companies of Covenanters that were wont
+to meet, under a similar pressure of circumstances, in the defiles of
+the Scottish mountains.--In the manners of all classes, from the highest
+to the lowest, are forms of manners enforced in action, or dismissed in
+words? Is there barbarous freedom in the lower, while there is formality
+in the higher ranks, as in newly settled countries? or have all grown up
+together to that period of refined civilization when ease has superseded
+alike the freedom of the Australian peasantry, and the etiquette of the
+court of Ava?--What are the manners of professional men of the society,
+from the eminent lawyer or physician of the metropolis down to the
+village barber? The manners of the great body of the professional men
+must indicate much of the requisitions of the society they serve.--So,
+also, must every circumstance connected with the service of society: its
+character, whether slavish or free, abject or prosperous, comprehensive
+or narrow in its uses, must testify to the desires and habits, and
+therefore to the manners of a community, better than the conversation or
+deportment of any individual in the society can do. A traveller who
+bears all this in mind can hardly go wrong. Every thing that he looks
+upon will instruct him, from an aqueduct to a punch-bowl, from a
+penitentiary to an aviary, from the apparatus of a university to the
+furniture of an alehouse or a nursery. When it was found that the chiefs
+of the Red men could not be impressed with any notion of the
+civilization of the Whites by all that many white men could say, they
+were brought into the cities of the Whites. The exhibition of a ship was
+enough for some. The warriors of the prairies were too proud to utter
+their astonishment,--too noble to hint, even to one another, their fear;
+but the perspiration stood on their brows as they dumbly gazed, and no
+word of war passed their lips from that hour. Another, who could listen
+with calmness to the tales of boastful traders in the wilderness, was
+moved from his apathy by seeing a workman in a glasshouse put a handle
+upon a pitcher. He was transported out of his silence and reserve: he
+seized and grasped the hand of the workman, crying out that it was now
+plain that he had had intercourse with the Great Spirit. By the evidence
+of things these Indians had learned more of the manners of the Whites
+than had ever been taught them by speech.--Which of us would not learn
+more of the manners of the Pompeians by a morning's walk among the
+relics of their abodes and public halls than by many a nightly
+conference with certain of their ghosts?
+
+The usual scholastic division of Morals is into personal, domestic, and
+social or political morals. The three kinds are, however, so apt to run
+into one another,--so practically inseparable,--that the traveller will
+find the distinction less useful to him than some others which he can
+either originate or adopt.
+
+It appears to me that the Morals and Manners of a nation may be included
+in the following departments of inquiry--the Religion of the people;
+their prevalent Moral Notions; their Domestic State; their Idea of
+Liberty; and their Progress, actual or in prospect.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+RELIGION.
+
+    "Dieu nous a dit, Peuples, je vous attends."
+                                                DE BERANGER.
+
+
+Of religion, in its widest sense, (the sense in which the traveller must
+recognize it,) there are three kinds; not in all cases minutely
+distinguishable, but bearing different general impress; viz. the
+Licentious, the Ascetic, and the Moderate. These kinds are not divided
+from each other by the boundaries of sects. We cannot say that pagan
+religions come under one head, and Mahomedanism under another, and
+Christianity under a third. The difference lies not in creeds, but in
+spirit. Many pagans have been as moderate as any Christians; many
+Christians as licentious as any pagans; many Mahomedans as licentious,
+and many as ascetic, as any pagans or Christians. The truer distinction
+seems to be that the licentious religions of the world worship
+unspiritualized nature,--material objects and their movements, and the
+primitive passions of man: that the ascetic despises nature, and
+worships its artificial restraints: and that the moderate worships
+spiritualized nature,--God in his works, both in the material universe
+and in the disciplined human mind, with its regulated affections.
+
+The Licentious religion is always a ritual one. Its gods are natural
+phenomena and human passions personified; and, when once the power of
+doing good or harm is attributed to them, the idea of propitiation
+enters, and a ritual worship begins. Earthquakes, inundations, the
+chase, love, revenge,--all these agents of evil and good are to be
+propitiated, and sacrifices and prayers are to be offered to them; in
+these rites alone religious acts are supposed to be performed. This,
+however modified, is a low state of religious sentiment. It may show
+itself among the Hindoos dipping in the Ganges, or among Christians who
+accept absolution in its grossest sense. In either case its tendency is
+to render the worshipper satisfied with a low moral state, and to
+perpetuate his taste for selfish indulgence.
+
+The Ascetic religions are ritual also. The Pharisees of old need but be
+cited to show why; and there is a set of people in the Society Islands
+now who seem to be spiritually descended from the ascetic priests of
+Judaism. The inhabitants of the Society Islands are excluded from many
+innocent privileges and natural pleasures by the Tabu; and the Pharisees
+in just the same manner laid burdens upon men's shoulders too heavy to
+be borne, ordaining irksome ceremonies to be proofs of holiness, and
+extravagant self-denial to be required by devotion. Spiritual licence
+has always kept pace with this extravagance of self-denial. Spiritual
+vices,--pride, vanity, and hypocrisy,--are as fatal to high morals under
+this state of religious sentiment as sensual indulgence under the other:
+and it does not matter much to the moral welfare of the people sunk in
+it, whether they exist under a profession of Christianity, or of
+Mahomedanism, or of paganism. The morals of those people are low who
+engage themselves to serve God by a slothful life in monastic celibacy,
+no less than those of the Fakîrs, who let their nails grow through the
+backs of their hands, or those of the wretched mothers in the islands of
+the Pacific, who strangle their infants, and cast them at the feet of
+their grinning idol.
+
+The Moderate is the least of a ritual religion of the three, and drops
+such rites as it has in proportion to its advance towards purity.
+Religion in its purity is not a pursuit, but a temper; and its
+expression is not by sacrifices, by prayers in the corners of the
+streets, by fasts or public exhibitions. The highest manifestations of
+this order of religion are found in Christian countries; though in
+others there are individuals, and even orders of men, who understand
+that the orderly enjoyment of all blessings that Providence has
+bestowed, and the regulated workings of all human affections, are the
+truest homage to the Maker of all. As there are Christians whose
+reliance is upon their ritual worship, and who enter upon a monastic
+life, so there are Mahomedans and pagans whose high religious aim is
+self-perfection, sought through the free but disciplined exercise of
+their whole nature.
+
+The dependence of morals upon the character of the religion is clear. It
+is clear that among a people whose gods are supposed to be licentious,
+whose priests are licentious, and where worship is associated with the
+indulgence of the passions, political and domestic morals must be very
+low. What purity can be expected of a people whose women are demanded
+in turn for the obscene service of the Buddhist temple; and what
+humanity from the inhabitants of districts whose dwellings are
+necessarily closed against the multitudes flocking to the festivals of
+Juggernaut,--multitudes from amidst which thousands annually drop down
+dead, so that their skeletons strew the road to the abominable
+temple?--Where asceticism is the character of the religion, the natural
+and irrepressible exercise of human affections becomes licentiousness,
+so called; and, of consequence, it soon becomes licentiousness in fact,
+according to the general rule that a bad name changes that to which it
+is affixed into a bad quality.--Hannah and Philip grew up in a Moravian
+settlement; and, Moravians as they were, they loved. The days came when
+the destiny of each was decided by lot. It was scarcely possible that
+they should draw a lot to marry each other; yet both secretly hoped to
+the last. Philip drew a missionary lot, and Hannah another husband. They
+were allowed to shake hands once before parting. "Good-bye, Hannah!"
+"Good-bye, Philip!" was all that was said. If Hannah had gone off with
+Philip, it would have been called a profligate act; and, if they were
+sound Moravians, it would in fact have been so: whereas, in a community
+of really high morals, the profligacy would have been seen to lie in
+Hannah's marrying a man she did not love.
+
+To proceed with the dependence of the morals on the character of the
+religion,--it is clear that in proportion as any religion encourages
+licentiousness, either positively or negatively,--encourages, that is to
+say, the excess of the passions, might will have the victory over
+right; the weak will succumb to the strong; and thus the condition of
+the poorer classes depends on the character of the religion of their
+country. In proportion as the religion tends to licentiousness, will the
+poorer classes be liable to slavery. In proportion as the religion tends
+to asceticism, will be the amount (other things being equal) of the
+hardship and want which they must sustain. In proportion as the religion
+approximates to the moderate, (the use without the abuse of means of
+enjoyment,) will the poorer classes rise to a condition of freedom and
+comfort.
+
+The character of the religion serves, in like manner, as an index to
+that of the government. A licentious religion cannot be adopted by a
+people who are so moderate in their passions as to be able to govern
+themselves. One would not look for a display of meats offered to idols
+in the Capitol of the American Congress. An ascetic religion, too,
+inflicts personal and mutual wrongs which could never be endured among a
+people who agree to govern one another. There is no power which could
+induce such to submit to privations and sufferings which can be
+tolerable to none but devotees,--a small fraction of every society.
+Absolutism is commonly the character of the government of any country
+where either of these religions prevails;--a despotism more or less
+tempered by a variety of influences. It is the observer's business to
+bring the religion and the government into comparison, and to see how
+the latter is modified by the coexistence of the former.
+
+The friendly, no less than the domestic and political relations of
+society, are dependent upon the prevailing religion. Under the
+licentious, the manners will be made up of the conventional and the
+gross. A Burmese minister was sitting on the poop of a steam-vessel when
+a squall came on. "I suggested to his Excellency," says Mr. Crawford,
+"the convenience of going below, which he long resisted, under the
+apprehension of committing his dignity by placing himself in a situation
+where persons might tread over his head; for this singular antipathy is
+common both to the Burmese and Siamese. The prejudice is more especially
+directed against the fair sex,--a pretty conclusive proof of the
+estimation in which they are held. His Excellency seriously demanded to
+know whether any woman had ever trod upon the poop; and, being assured
+in the negative, he consented at length to enter the cabin." The house
+fixed for the residence of an American missionary was not allowed to be
+fitted up, as it stood on ground which was higher than the king's barge
+as it lay in the river; and such a spectacle would not become the king's
+dignity. The prime minister of this same king was one day, for absence
+from his post at a fire, "spread out in the hot sun." He was extended on
+his back in the public road for some hours in the most sultry part of
+the day, with a heavy weight upon his chest,--the public executioners
+being employed to administer the punishment. Nor is the king alone
+authorized to perpetrate such barbarisms. A creditor is permitted to
+seize the wife, children, and slaves of a debtor, and bind them at his
+door to broil in the sun of Ava. Here we see in perfection the union of
+the conventional and the gross in manners; and such manners cannot be
+conceived to coexist with any religion of a higher character than
+Buddhism.
+
+Under ascetic forms, what grossness there is will be partially
+concealed; but there will be no nearer an approach to simplicity than
+under the licentious. The religion being made still to consist much in
+observances, the society becomes formal in proportion as it believes
+itself growing pure. We must again take an extreme case for an example.
+The Shakers of America are as sophisticated a set of persons as can be
+found; with their minds, and even their public discourses, full of the
+one subject of their celibacy, and their intercourse with each other
+graduated according to strict rules of etiquette. So extreme an
+asceticism can never now spread in any nation to such an extent as to
+bear a relation to its general government: but it is observable that
+such societies of ascetics live under a despotism;--one of their own
+appointment, if the general will has not furnished them with one.
+
+Under the moderate aspect of religion is an approximation towards
+simplicity of social manners alone to be found. There is as yet only a
+remote anticipation of it in any country in the world; only a remote
+anticipation of that ease of social manners which must exist there alone
+where the enjoyments of life are freely used without abuse. It matters
+not that the licentious and the ascetic parties each boast of having
+attained this consummation,--the one under the name of ease, and the
+other of simplicity. There is too much pain attendant upon grossness to
+justify the boast of ease; and too much effort in asceticism to admit of
+the grace of simplicity. It is the observer's business to mark, wherever
+he goes, the degree in which the one is chastened and the other relaxed,
+giving place to the higher form of the moderate, which, if society
+learns from experience, as the individual does, must finally prevail.
+When many individuals of a society attain that self-forgetfulness which
+is promoted by a high and free religious sentiment, but which is
+incompatible with either licentious or ascetic tendencies, the tone of
+manners in that society will be much raised. When, free from the
+grossness of self-indulgence, and from the constraint of self-denial,
+every one spontaneously thinks more of his neighbour than of himself,
+the world will witness, at last, the perfection of manners. It is clear
+that the high morals of which such refined manners will be the
+expression, must greatly depend on the exaltation of the religious
+sentiment from which they emanate.
+
+The traveller may possibly object the difficulty of classing societies
+by their religious tendencies, and ask whether minds of every sort are
+not to be found in all numerous assemblages of persons. This is true:
+but yet there is a prevailing religious sentiment in all communities.
+Religious, like other sentiment, is modified by the strong general
+influences under which each society lives; and in it, as in other kinds,
+there will be general resemblance, with particular differences under it.
+It is well known that even sects, exclusive in their opinions and
+straitened by forms, differ in different countries almost as much as if
+there were no common bond. Not only is episcopacy not the same religion
+among born East Indians as in England, but the Quakers of the United
+States, though like the English in doctrine and in manners, are easily
+distinguishable from them in religious sentiment: and even the Jews,
+who might be expected to be the same all over the world, differ in
+Russia, Persia, and Great Britain as much as if a spirit of division had
+been sent among them. They not only appear here in furs, there in cotton
+or silk, and elsewhere in broadcloth; but the hearts they bear beneath
+the garments, the thoughts that stir under the cap, the turban, and the
+hat, are modified in their action as the skies under which they move are
+in aspect. They are strongly tinctured with the national sentiment of
+Russia, Persia, and England; and if the fond dream of some of them (in
+which, by the way, large numbers of their body have ceased to
+sympathize,) could come true, and they should ever be brought together
+within their ancient borders, they would find that their religion, so
+unique in its fixedness, though one in word, is many in spirit.--Much
+more easy is the assimilation between different forms of Christianity,
+and between Christianity and an elevated natural religion: and the
+search can never therefore be in vain for a pervading religious
+sentiment among the various religious institutions of any and every
+people.
+
+It is, of course, more difficult to discover this religious sentiment
+among a nation enlightened enough to be divided in theological matters,
+than among a rude people who regulate their devotions by the bidding of
+a single order of priests. The African traveller, passing up the Niger,
+sees at a glance what all the worshippers on the banks feel, and must
+feel, towards the deities to whom their temples are erected. A rude
+shed, with a doll,--an image of deformity,--perched on a stand, and
+supposed to be enjoying the fumes of the cooking going on before his
+face;--a place of worship like this, in its character of the habitation
+of a deity, and of a sensual deity, leaves no doubt as to what the
+religious sentiment of a country must be where there is no dissent from
+such a worship. In such a society there are absolutely none to feel that
+their deep palm groves are a nobler temple than human hands can rear.
+There are none who see that it is by a large divine benignity that all
+the living creatures of that region are made happy in their rank
+seclusion. There is no feeling of gratitude in the minds of those who
+see the myriads of gay butterflies that flit in the glare of noon, and
+the river-horse which bathes in the shady places of the mysterious great
+stream. There a god is seen only in his temple, and there is nothing
+known of any works of his. That he is great, is learned only through the
+word of his priests, who say that yams are too common a food for him,
+and that nothing less than hippopotamus' flesh must be cooked beneath
+his shrine. That he is good is an idea which has not yet entered any
+mind.--In other places, the religious sentiment is almost equally
+unquestionable; as when every man in Cairo is seen in his turn to put on
+the dress of pilgrimage, and direct his steps to Mount Arafat. Here the
+sentiment is of a higher order, but equally evident and uniform.--A
+further advance, with somewhat less uniformity of sentiment, is found
+among the followers of the Greek church in a Russian province. The
+peasants there make a great point of having time for their devotions;
+and those who have the wherewithal to offer some showy present at a
+shrine are complacent. They make the sign of the cross, and have therein
+done their whole duty: and if some speculative worshipper of the Virgin
+with Three Hands is not satisfied about the way in which his patroness
+came by her third hand, he keeps his doubts to himself when he tells his
+sins to his confessor.--A still further advance, with an increased
+diversity, may be met with among the simple Vaudois, the general
+characteristics of whose faith are alike, but who entertain it, some
+more in the spirit of fear, others more in the spirit of love. The
+prevailing sentiment among them is of the ascetic character, as the
+stranger may perceive, who sees the peasantry marching in serene gravity
+to their plain places of worship on the mountain pinnacle, or under the
+shelter yielded by a clump of black pines amidst a waste of snow: but
+here the clergy are more guides than dictators; and not a few may be
+found who doubt their opinions, and find matter for thoughtless delight,
+rather than religious awe, when they follow the echoes from steep to
+steep, and watch for the gleams of the summer lightning playing among
+the defiles.--The diversity grows more striking as civilization
+advances; but it has not yet become perplexing in the most enlightened
+nations in the world. In England, in France, in America, there is a
+distinct religious sentiment: in England, where there is every variety
+of dissent from the established faith; in America, where there is every
+variety of opinion, and no establishment at all; and in France, now in
+that state which most baffles observation,--a state of transition from
+an exaggerated superstition to a religious faith which is being groped
+for, but is not yet found. Even in this uncertain state, no one can
+confound the religious sentiment of New England and of France; and an
+observation of their places of worship will indicate their differences.
+In New England, the populous towns have their churches in the midst,
+spacious and conspicuous,--not exhibiting any of the signs of antique
+origin which are impressed on those of Europe, and to be accounted for
+only by the immediate religious tastes of the people. In new
+settlements, the church rises side by side with the house of
+entertainment, and is obviously considered one of the necessaries of
+social life. The first thing to be learned about a fresh inhabitant is,
+how he stands disposed towards the church, whatever may be its
+denomination. In France, such of the old churches as are still used for
+their ancient purpose, bespeak a ritual religion, and therefore a
+religion light and gay in its spirit; all religions being so which cast
+responsibility into outward observances, especially where the outward
+observances are not of a very burdensome character. If nuns in their
+cloister, and Jews in their synagogues, have been characterized by the
+lightness of their religious spirit, well may the Catholics of an
+enlightened country be so, discarding the grossest and most burdensome
+of their rites, and retaining the ritual principle. The searchers after
+a new faith in France must increase by millions before they can change
+the character of the religious sentiment of the country; and perhaps
+before that which is now gross can be elevated into what is genial, and
+before a mixture of levity and fear can be changed into the cheerful
+earnestness of a moderate or truly catholic religious conviction, the
+ancient churches of France may be standing in ruins,--objects for the
+research of the antiquary.
+
+The rule of examining things before persons must be observed in
+ascertaining the religious sentiment of any country. A stranger in
+England might interrogate everybody he saw, and be little wiser at the
+end of a year. He might meet a fanatic one day, an indifferent person
+the next, and a calmly convinced one the third: he might go from a
+Churchman to a Jew; from a Jew to a Quaker; from a Quaker to a Catholic;
+and every day be farther from understanding the prevailing religious
+sentiment of the country. A much shorter and surer method is, to examine
+the Places of Worship, the condition of the Clergy, the Popular
+Superstitions, the observance of Holy Days, and some other particulars
+of the kind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+First, for the Churches. There is that about all places of worship which
+may tell nearly as plain a tale as the carved idols, with messes of rice
+before them, in Hindoo temples; or as the human bones hung round the hut
+of an African god. The proportion and resemblance of modern places of
+worship to those which were built in dark times of superstition; the
+suitability or incongruity of all that is of late introduction into
+their furniture and worship with what had its origin in those dim
+ages;--such circumstances as these cannot but indicate whether the
+common religious sentiment is as nearly as possible the same as in
+centuries past, or whether it is approximating, slowly or rapidly,
+towards the ascetic or the moderate.
+
+There is evidence in the very forms of churches. The early Christian
+churches were in the basilica form,--bearing a resemblance to the Roman
+courts of justice. This is supposed to have arisen from the churches
+being, in fact, the courts of spiritual justice, where penance was
+awarded by the priest to the guilty, and absolution granted to the
+penitent. From imitation, the Christian churches of all Europe for
+centuries bore this form; and even some built since the Reformation
+preserve it. But they have something of their own which serves as a
+record of their own times. The history of the Crusades does not present
+a more vivid picture of feudal society than shines out from the nooks of
+our own cathedrals. The spirit of monachism is as distinguishable as if
+the cowled ghosts of the victims were actually seen flitting along the
+aisles. What say the chantries ranged along the sides? There perpetual
+prayers were to be kept up for the prosperity of a wealthy family and
+its retainers in life, and for their welfare after death. What says the
+chapter-house? There the powerful members of the church hierarchy were
+wont to assemble, to use and confirm their rule. What say the cloisters?
+Under their shelter did the monks go to and fro in life; and in the plot
+of ground enclosed by these sombre passages were they laid in death.
+What says the Ladye chapel? What say the niches with their stone basins?
+They tell of the intercessory character of the sentiment, and of the
+ritual character of the worship of the times when they were set up. The
+handful of worshippers here collected from among the tens of thousands
+of a cathedral town also testify to the fact that such establishments
+could not be originated now, and are no longer in harmony with the
+spirit of the multitude.--The contrast of the most modern sacred
+buildings tells as plain a tale:--the red-brick meeting-house of the
+Friends; the stone chapel of the less rigid dissenters, standing back
+from the noise of the busy street; the aristocratic chapel nestling
+amidst the shades of the nobleman's park; and the village church in the
+meadow, with its neighbouring parsonage. These all tell of a diversity
+of opinion; but also of something else. The more ancient buildings are
+scantily attended; the more modern are thronged;--and indeed, if they
+had not been wanted by numbers, they would not have been built. This
+speaks the decline of a ritual religion, and the preference of one which
+is more exclusively spiritual in its action.
+
+In Scotland the kirks look exactly suitable to the population which
+throngs towards them, with sober dress and gait, and countenances of
+solemnity. These edifices stand in severe simplicity, whether on the
+green shore of a lake, or in the narrow street of a town; and asceticism
+is marked on every stone of the walls, and every article of their
+decorations.
+
+No one who has travelled in Ireland can forget the aspect of its places
+of worship,--the lowly Catholic chapels, with their beggarly ornaments
+of lace and crucifixes, placed in the midst of villages, the whole of
+whose inhabitants crowd within those four walls; and a little way off,
+in a field, or on an eminence by the road side, the Protestant church,
+one end in ruins, and with ample harbourage for the owl, while the rest
+is encompassed with nettles and thorns, and the mossy grave-stones are
+half hidden by rank grass. In a country where the sun rises upon
+contrasts like these, it is clear in what direction the religious
+sentiment of the people is indulged.
+
+What the stranger may thus learn in our own country, we may learn in
+his, whatever it be. The large plain churches of Massachusetts, their
+democratic benches (in the absence of aristocratic pews) silently filled
+for long hours of a Sabbath, as still as a summer noon, by hundreds and
+thousands who restore the tones of their pilgrim ancestors in their
+hymn-singing, and seem to carry about their likeness in their faces,
+cannot fail to instruct the observer.--Then there is the mosque at
+Cairo, with its great tank or fountain of ablution in the midst; and its
+broad pavement spread out for men of every degree to kneel on together;
+its doors standing wide from sunrise to sunset, for the admission of all
+but women and strangers; its outside galleries, from which the summons
+to prayer is sounded;--these things testify to the ritual character of
+the worship, and to the low type of the morals of a faith which despises
+women and strangers, giving privileges to the strong from which the weak
+are excluded.--Then there is the Buddhist temple, rearing its tapering
+form in a recess of the hills, with its colossal stone figures guarding
+the entrance, and others sanctifying the interior,--all eloquently
+explaining that physical force is worshipped here: its images of saints
+show that the intercessory superstition exists; and the drum and gong,
+employed to awaken the attention of the gods, can leave little danger of
+misapprehension to the observer. There are lanterns continually burning,
+and consecrated water, sanctified to the cure of diseased eyes.--Such
+places of worship tell a very plain tale; while there is not perhaps a
+church on earth which does not convey one that is far from obscure.
+
+The traveller must diligently visit the temples of nations; he must mark
+their locality, whether placed among men's dwellings or apart from them;
+their number, whether multiplied by diversity of theological opinion;
+and their aspect, whether they are designed for the service of a ritual
+or a spiritual religion. Thus he may, at the same time, ascertain the
+character of the most prominent form of religion, and that of the
+dissent from it; which must always illustrate each other.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next to the Churches comes the consideration of the Clergy. The clergy
+are usually the secondary potentates of a young country. In a young
+country, physical force, and that which comes to represent it, is the
+first great power; and knowledge is the next. The clergy are the first
+learned men of every nation; and when the streams of knowledge are only
+just issuing from the fountain, and the key is in the hands of the
+clergy, they enjoy, rightly and unavoidably, a high degree of
+consequence. Knowledge spreads abroad; and it is as impossible for man
+to dam it up as for the fool to stop the Danube by filling the narrow
+channel at its source with his great boots,--crying out the while, "How
+the people will wonder when the Danube does not come!" As knowledge
+becomes diffused, the consequence of the clergy declines. If that
+consequence is to be preserved, it must be by their attaining the same
+superiority in morals which they once held in intellect. Where the
+clergy are now a cherished class, it is, in fact, on the supposition of
+this moral superiority,--a claim for whose justification it would be
+unreasonable to look, and for the forfeiture of which the clergy should
+be less blamed than those who expect that, in virtue of a profession,
+any class of men should be better than others. Moral excellence has no
+regard to classes and professions; and religion, being not a pursuit but
+a temper, cannot, in fact, be professionally cultivated with personal
+advantage. It will be for the traveller to note whether this is more or
+less understood where he travels; whether the clergy are viewed with
+indifference as mere professional men; or whether they are reverenced
+for their supposed holiness; or for their real superiority in learning;
+or whether the case wears the lowest aspect of all--when the clergy are
+merely the jugglers and puppet-masters of the multitude. A patient
+consideration of this will lead to a pretty safe conclusion as to the
+progress the people have made in knowledge, and the spiritual freedom
+which it brings;--a freedom which is at once a virtue and a cause of
+virtue.
+
+The observer must note what the clergy themselves consider their
+function to be;--whether to guide individual minds; or to cultivate
+theological and other studies, in order to place their results at the
+disposal of the minds with which they have to deal; or to express in
+worship the feelings of those minds; or to influence the social
+institutions by which the minds of the people are modified; or to do any
+other of the many things which the priests of different countries, and
+ages, and faiths, have in turn included in their function. He will note
+whether they are most like the tyrannical Brahmins, who at one
+stroke--by declaring the institution of Caste to be of divine
+authority--obtained boundless control over a thousand generations,
+subjecting all intellects and all hands to a routine which could be
+easily superintended by the forty thousand of the favoured priestly
+race; or whether they are like the Christian clergy of the dark ages, a
+part of whose duty it was to learn the deepest secrets of the proudest
+and lowliest,--thus obtaining the means of bringing to pass what events
+they wished, both in public and private life;--or whether they are like
+such students as have been known in the theological world,--men who have
+not crossed the threshold of their libraries for eighteen years, and who
+are satisfied with their lives, if they have been able to elevate
+Biblical science, and to throw any new light on sacred history;--or
+whether they are like the American clergy of the present day, whose
+exertions are directed towards the art of preaching;--or whether they
+are like the ministers of the Established Church in England, who are
+politically represented, and large numbers of whom employ their
+influence for political purposes. Each of these kinds of clergy must be
+yielded by a particular state of society, and could not belong to any
+other. The Hindoos must be in a low degree of civilization, and sunk in
+a deadly superstition, or they would tolerate no Brahmins. The people of
+four centuries ago must have depended solely upon their priests for
+knowledge and direction, or they would not have submitted to their
+inquisitorial practices. Germany must have advanced far in her
+appreciation of philosophical and critical research in theology, or she
+would not have such devoted students as she can boast of. The Americans
+cannot have attained to any high practice of spiritual liberty, or they
+could not follow preaching so zealously as they do. The English cannot
+have fully understood, or taken to heart the principles of the
+Reformation, which have so long been their theme of eulogy, or they
+would not foster a political hierarchy within the bosom of their church.
+
+As the studies of the clergy lie in the past, as the days of their
+strongest influence are behind, and as the religious feelings of men
+have hitherto reposed on the antique, and are but just beginning to
+point towards the future, it is natural, it is unavoidable, that the
+clergy should retard rather than aid the progress of society. A
+disposition to assist in the improvement of institutions is what ought
+not to be looked for from any priestly class; and, if looked for, it
+will not be found. Such a mode of operation must appear to them
+suicidal. But much may be learned by comparing the degree of clerical
+resistance to progression with the proportion of favour in which the
+clergy are held by the people. Where that resistance is greatest, and a
+clerical life is one of peculiar worldly ease, the state of morals and
+manners must be low. Where that resistance is least, where any social
+improvement whatever is found to originate with the clergy, and where
+they bear a just share of toil, the condition of morals and manners
+cannot be very much depressed. Where there is an undue partition of
+labour and its rewards among the clergy themselves,--where some do the
+work and others reap the recompence,--the fair inference is that morals
+and manners are in a state of transition. Such a position of affairs
+cannot be a permanent one; and the observer may be assured that the
+morals and manners of the people are about to be better than they have
+been.--The characteristics of the clergy will indicate, or at least
+direct attention to, the characteristics of dissent: and any extensive
+form of dissent is no other than the most recent exposition of the
+latest condition of morals among a large, active, and influential
+portion of the people. A foreign traveller in Germany, in Luther's time,
+could learn but little of the moral state of that empire, if he shut his
+eyes to the philosophy and the deeds of the reformers. If he saw nothing
+in the train of nuns winding down into the valleys from their now
+unconsecrated convent on the steep; if the tidings of the marriage of
+Catherine de Boria came to him like any other wedding news; if he did
+not mark the subdued triumph in family faces when the Book--Luther's
+Bible--was brought out for the daily lecture; if the decrees of Worms
+seemed to him like the common orders of the church, and the levelling of
+altars and unroofing of crypts was in his eyes but masons' work, he was
+not qualified to observe the people of Germany, and had no more title to
+report of them than if he had never left home. Thus it is now, in less
+extreme cases. The traveller in Spain knows little of the Spaniards
+unless he is aware of the theological studies, and the worship without
+forms, which are carried on in private by those who are keeping alive
+the fires of liberty in that priest and tyrant-ridden country. The
+foreigner in England will carry away but a partial knowledge of the
+religious sentiment of the people if he enters only the cathedrals of
+cities and the steepled churches in the villages, passing by the square
+meeting-houses in the manufacturing towns, and hearing nothing of the
+conferences, the assemblies, and the missionary enterprises of the
+dissenters. The same may be said of observation in every country
+enlightened enough to have shaken off its subservience to an
+unquestioned and irresponsible priesthood: that is, of every country
+advanced enough to maintain dissent.
+
+The expressions of established forms of prayer convey more information
+as to the state of the clergy than of the people; since these
+expressions are furnished by the clergy, and continue to be prompted by
+them, while the people have no means of dismissing or changing the words
+of their framed prayers for long after the words may have ceased to
+represent the feeling. The traveller will receive such objectionable
+expressions as he may hear, not as indications of the then present
+sentiments of the crowd of worshippers, but rather as evidencing the
+disinclination of the clergy to change. It would be hard, for instance,
+to impute to Moslem worshippers in general the formation of such desires
+as are uttered by the school-boys of Cairo at the close of their daily
+attendance. "O God! destroy the infidels and polytheists, thine enemies,
+the enemies of the religion! O God! make their children orphans, and
+defile their abodes, and cause their feet to slip, and give them and
+their families, and their households, and their women, and their
+children, and their relations by marriage, and their brothers, and their
+friends, and their possessions, and their race, and their wealth, and
+their lands, as booty to the Moslems! O Lord of all creatures!"--It
+would be unjust to impute a horror of "sudden death" to all who use the
+words of prayer against it which are found in the Litany of the Church
+of England. Sudden death deserved to be classed among the most deadly
+evils when the Litany was framed,--in the days of the viaticum; but now
+it would be unjust to a multitude of worshippers who use the Litany to
+suppose that they are afraid to commit themselves to the hands of their
+Father without a passport from a priest; and that they are not willing
+to die in the way which pleases God,--some rather preferring, probably,
+a mode which will save those who are nearest and dearest to them the
+anguish of suspense, or of witnessing hopeless decline. In all antique
+forms of devotion there must be expressions which are inconsistent with
+the philosophy and the tastes of the time; and these are to be regarded
+therefore as no indications of such philosophy and taste, but as an
+evidence, more or less distinct, of the condition of the clergy in
+enlightenment and temper.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The splendid topic of human Superstitions can be only just touched upon
+here. In this boundless field, strewn with all the blossoms of all
+philosophy, the human observer may wander for ever. He can never have
+done culling the evidence that it presents, or enjoying the promise
+which it yields. All that we can now do is just to suggest that as the
+superstitions of all nations are the embodiment of their idealized
+convictions, the state of religious sentiment may be learned from them
+almost without danger of mistake.
+
+No society is without its superstitions, any more than it is without its
+convictions and its imaginations. Even under the moderate form of
+religion, there is room for superstition; and the ascetic, which glories
+in having put away the superstitions of the licentious forms, has
+superstitions of its own.--The followers of an ascetic religion have
+more or less belief in judgments,--in retributive evils, arbitrarily
+inflicted. Among them may be gathered a harvest of tales of divine
+interference,--from the bee stinging the tip of the swearer's tongue to
+the sudden death of false witnesses. Among them do superstitions about
+times and seasons flourish, even to the forgetfulness that the Sabbath
+is made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Some ascetics have faith
+in the lot,--like the Moravians in ordering marriage, or Wesley in
+opening his Bible to light upon texts. Others believe in warnings of
+evil; and most dread the commission of ritual fully as much as of moral
+sins. To play even a hymn tune on the piano on Sundays is an offence in
+the Highlands of Scotland; and to miss prayers is a matter of penance in
+a convent. The superstitions of the ascetic are scarcely fewer or more
+moderate than those of the licentious form of religion; the chief
+difference between the two lies in the spirit from which they emanate.
+The superstitions of the ascetic arise from the spirit of fear; those of
+the heathen arise perhaps equally from the spirit of love and the spirit
+of fear.
+
+It seems as if the portents which present themselves to ascetic
+minds must necessarily be of evil, since the only good which their
+imaginations admit is supposed to be secured by grace, and by acts of
+service or self-denial. To the Fakîr, to the Shaker, to the nun, no
+good remains over and above what has been long claimed, while
+punishment may follow any breach of observance. On the other hand,
+before one who makes himself gods of the movements of inanimate nature
+and human passions, the two worlds of evil and good lie open, and he
+is perpetually on the watch for messengers from both. The poor pagan
+looks for tokens of his gods being pleased or angry; of their
+intentions of giving him a good or a bad harvest; or of their sending
+him a rich present or afflicting him with a bereavement. Whatever he
+wants to know, he seeks for in portents;--whether he shall live
+again,--whether his departed friends think of him,--whether his child
+shall be fortunate or wretched,--whether his enemy or he shall
+prevail. It is open to the traveller's observation whether these
+superstitions are of a generous or selfish kind,--whether they elevate
+the mind with hope, or depress it with fear,--whether they nourish the
+faith of the spirit, or extort merely the service of the lip and hand.
+
+The Swiss herdsmen believe that the three deliverers (the founders of
+the Helvetic Confederacy) sleep calmly in a cave near the Lake of
+Lucerne; and that, whenever their country is in her utmost need, they
+will come forth in their antique garb, and assuredly save her. This is a
+superstition full of veneration and hope.--When the Arabs see a falling
+star, they believe it to be a dart thrown by God at a wanderer of the
+race of the genii, and they exclaim, "May God transfix the enemy of the
+faith!" Here we find in brief the spirit of their religion.--In Brazil,
+a bird which sings plaintively at night is listened to with intent
+emotion, from its being supposed to be sent with tidings from the dead
+to the living. The choice of a bird with a mournful instead of a lively
+note speaks volumes.--The three angels in white that come to give
+presents to good children in Germany at Christmas, come in a good
+spirit.--There is a superstition in China which has a world of
+tenderness in it. A father collects a hundred copper coins from a
+hundred families, and makes the metal into a lock which he hangs, as a
+charm, round his child's neck, believing that he locks his child to life
+by this connection with a hundred persons in full vigour.--But, as is
+natural, death is the region of the Unseen to which the larger number of
+portents relates. The belief of the return of the dead has been held
+almost universally among the nations; and their unseen life is the grand
+theme of speculation wherever there are men to speculate. The Norwegians
+lay the warrior's horse, and armour, and weapons, beside him. The
+Hindoos burn the widow. The Malabar Indians release caged birds on the
+newly-made grave, to sanction the flight of the soul. The Buccaneers
+(according to Penrose) concealed any large booty that fell into their
+hands, till they should have leisure to remove it,--murdering and
+burying near it any helpless wretch whom they might be able to capture,
+in order that his spirit might watch over the treasure, and drive from
+the spot all but the parties who had signed their names in a
+round-robin, in claim of proprietorship. The professors of many faiths
+resemble each other in practices of propitiation or atonement
+laboriously executed on behalf of the departed. Some classes of mourners
+act towards their dead friends in a spirit of awe; some in fear; but
+very many in love. The trust in the immortality of the affections is the
+most general feature in superstitions of this class; and it is a fact
+eloquent to the mind of the observer.--An only child of two poor savages
+died. The parents appeared inconsolable; and the father soon sank under
+his grief. From the moment of his death, the mother was cheerful. On
+being asked what had cheered her, she said she had mourned for her
+child's loneliness in the world of spirits: now he had his father with
+him, and she was happy for them both. What a divine spirit of
+self-sacrifice is here! but there is scarcely a superstition sincerely
+entertained which does not tell as plain a tale. Those which express
+fear indicate moral abasement, greater or less. Those which express
+trust and love indicate greater or less moral elevation and purity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The practice of Suicide is worth the contemplation of a traveller, as
+affording some clear indications as to religious sentiment. Suicide in
+the largest sense is here intended,--the voluntary surrender of life
+from any cause.
+
+There has been a stage in the moral advancement of every nation when
+suicide, in one form or another, has been considered a duty; and it is
+impossible to foresee the time when it will cease to be so considered.
+It was a necessary result from the idea of honour once prevalent in the
+most civilized societies, when men and women destroyed themselves to
+avoid disgrace. The defeated warrior, the baffled statesman, the injured
+woman, destroyed themselves when the hope of honour was gone. In the
+same age, as in every succeeding one, there have been suicides who have
+devoted themselves for others, presenting a series of tales which may
+almost redeem the disgraces which darken the annals of the race.--The
+most illustrious of the Christian Fathers, immersed in the superstitions
+about the transcendent excellence of the virtue of chastity which have
+extinguished so many other virtues, and injured the morals of society to
+this day, by sacrificing other principles to fanaticism on this,
+permitted women to kill themselves to escape from violence which left
+the mind in its purity, and the will in its rectitude.--Martyrdom for
+the truth existed also before the venerating eyes of men,--the noblest
+kind of suicide: it attracted glory to itself from the faithful heart of
+the race; and, from its thus attracting glory, it became a means of
+gaining glory, and sank from being martyrdom to be a mere fanatical
+self-seeking. While the spirit of persecution was roaming abroad,
+seeking whom it might devour, there were St. Theresas roaming abroad,
+seeking to be devoured, from a spirit of cupidity after the crown of
+martyrdom.--Soldiers, in all times and circumstances, pledge themselves
+to the possible duty of suicide by the very act of becoming soldiers.
+They engage to make the first charge, and to mount a breach if called
+upon. And there have been found soldiers for every perilous service that
+has been required, throughout all wars. There have been volunteers to
+mount the breach, solitary men or small bands to hold narrow bridges and
+passes, from the first incursion of tribe upon tribe in barbarous
+conflict, up to the suicide of Van Speyk, whose monument is still fresh
+from the chisel in the Nieuw Kerk of Amsterdam. Van Speyk commanded a
+gun-boat which was stranded in a heavy gale, and boarded by the
+Belgians,--the foe. Van Speyk had sworn never to surrender his boat, and
+his suicide was a point of military honour. He seems to have considered
+the matter thus; for he prayed for pardon of his crime of
+self-destruction after laying his lighted cigar on the open barrel of
+powder which blew up the boat. The remaining suicides (except, of
+course, the insane,) are justified by none. Persons who shrink from
+suffering so far as to withdraw from their duties, and to forsake those
+to whom their exertions are due, are objects of contemptuous compassion
+in the present day, when, moral having succeeded to physical force in
+men's esteem, it is seen to be nobler to endure evils than to hide one's
+spirit from them.
+
+Every society has its suicides, and much may be learned from their
+character and number, both as to the notions on morals which prevail,
+and the religious sentiment which animates to or controls the act. It is
+with the last that we now have to do.--The act of laying down life is
+one thing among a people who have dim and mournful anticipations of a
+future life, like the ancient Greeks; and quite another among those who,
+like the first Christians, have a clear vision of bliss and triumph in
+the world on which they rush. Suicide is one thing to a man who is
+certain of entering immediately upon purgatory; and to another whose
+first step is to be upon the necks of his enemies; and to a third who
+believes that he is to lie conscious in his grave for some thousands of
+years; and to a fourth who has no idea that he shall survive or revive
+at all. When Curtius leaped into the gulf, he probably leaped into utter
+darkness, other than physical; but when Guyon of Marseilles sunned
+himself for the last time in the balcony of the house where he was shut
+up with the plague-spotted body which he was to die in dissecting, he
+had faith that he should step out of a waxing and waning sunlight into a
+region which "had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in
+it, the glory of God being the light of it." The sick Moslem who,
+falling behind his troop, and fearing to lie unburied, scoops his grave
+and lies down in it, wrapped in his grave-clothes, and covers himself
+up, except the face, leaving it to the winds to heap sand upon it,
+trembles the while at the thought of the two examining angels, who are
+this night to prove and perhaps torture him. The English lady who took
+laudanum on learning that she had a fatal disease, from fear of becoming
+loathsome to a husband for whom she had lived, had before her the
+prominent idea of reunion with him; so that life in one world presented
+as much of hope as in the other of despair.--Nations share in
+differences like these, according to the prevalent religious sentiment;
+and from this species of act may the sentiment be more or less correctly
+inferred.
+
+Suicide is very common among a race of Africans who prefer it to
+slavery. They believe in a life of tropical ease and freedom after
+death, and rush into it so eagerly on being reduced to slavery, that
+the planters of Cuba refuse them in the market, knowing that after a few
+hours, or days, in spite of all precautions, nothing but their dead
+bodies will remain in the hands of their masters. The French have, of
+late years, abounded in suicides, while there are few or none in
+Ireland. The most vain and the most sympathetic part of the French
+multitude were found to be the classes which yielded the victims. If a
+young lady and her lover shot one another with pistols tied with pink
+ribbons, two or three suicides amidst blue and green ribbons were sure
+to follow the announcement of the first in the newspaper, till a
+sensible physician suggested that suicides should not be noticed in
+newspapers, or should be treated with ridicule: the advice was acted
+upon, and proved by the result to be sound. This profusion of
+self-murders could not have taken place amidst a serious belief of an
+immediate entrance upon purgatory, such as is held by the majority of
+the Irish. Only in a state of vague speculation as to another life could
+the future have operated as so slight a check upon the rash impulses of
+the present. The Irish, an impetuous race, like the French, and with a
+good share of vanity, of sympathy, and of sentiment, are probably
+deterred from throwing away life by those religious convictions and
+sentiments which the French once held in an equal degree, but from which
+they are now passing over into another state.
+
+A single act of suicide is often indicative, negatively or positively,
+of a state of prevalent sentiment. A single instance of the Suttee
+testifies to the power of Brahmins, and the condition of Hindoo
+worshippers, in a way which cannot be mistaken. An American child of
+six years old accidentally witnessed in India such a spectacle. On
+returning home, she told her mother she had seen hell, and was whipped
+for saying so,--not knowing why, for she spoke in all earnestness, and,
+as it seems to us, with eloquent truth.--The somewhat recent
+self-destruction of an estimable English officer, on the eve of a
+court-martial, might fully instruct a stranger on the subject of
+military honour in this country. This officer fell in the collision of
+universal and professional principles. His justice and humanity had led
+him to offer a kindly bearing towards an irresolute mob of rioters, in
+the absence of authority to act otherwise than as he did, and of all
+co-operation from the civil power; his military honour was placed in
+jeopardy, and the innocent man preferred self-destruction to meeting the
+risk; thus testifying that numbers here sustain an idea of honour which
+is at variance with that which they expect to prevail elsewhere and
+hereafter.--Every act of self-devotion for others, extending to death,
+testifies to the existence of philanthropy, and to its being regarded as
+an honour and a good. Every voluntary martyrdom tells a national tale as
+plain as that written in blood and spirit by Arnold Von Winkelried, in
+1386. When the Swiss met their oppressors at the battle of Sempach, it
+appeared impossible for the Swiss to charge with effect, so thick was
+the hedge of Austrian lances. Arnold Von Winkelried cried, "I will make
+a lane for you! Dear companions, remember my family!" He clasped an
+armful of the enemy's lances, and made a sheaf of them in his body. His
+comrades entered the breach, and won the battle. They remembered his
+family, and their descendants commemorate the sacrifice to this day;
+thus bearing testimony to the act being a trait of the national spirit.
+
+By observations such as these, may the religious sentiment of a people
+be ascertained. While making them, or struggling with the difficulties
+of opposing evidence, the observer has to bear in mind,--first, that the
+religious sentiment does everywhere exist, however low its tone, and
+however uncouth its expression; secondly, that personal morals must
+greatly depend on the low or high character of the religious sentiment;
+and, thirdly, that the philosophy and morals of government accord with
+both,--despotism of some sort being the natural rule where licentious
+and ascetic religions prevail; and democratic government being possible
+only under a moderate form of religion, where the use without the abuse
+of all blessings is the spirit of the religion of the majority.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+GENERAL MORAL NOTIONS.
+
+    "Une différente coutume donnera d'autres principes naturels. Cela
+    se voit par expérience; et s'il y en a d'ineffaçables à la coutume,
+    il y en a aussi de la coutume ineffaçables à la  nature."--PASCAL.
+
+
+Next to the religion of a people, it is necessary to learn what are
+their Ideas of Morals. In speaking of the popular notion of a Moral
+Sense, it was mentioned that, so far from there being a general
+agreement on the practice of morals, some things which are considered
+eminently right in one age or country are considered eminently wrong in
+another; while the people of each age or country, having grown up under
+common influences, think and feel sufficiently alike to live together in
+a general agreement as to right and wrong. It is the business of the
+traveller to ascertain what this general agreement is in the society he
+visits.
+
+In one society, spiritual attainments will be the most highly honoured,
+as in most religious communities. In another, the qualities attendant
+upon intellectual eminence will be worshipped,--as now in countries
+which are the most advanced in preparation for political
+freedom,--France, Germany, and the United States. In others, the moral
+qualities allied to physical or extrinsic power are chiefly
+venerated,--as in all uncivilized countries, and all which lie under
+feudal institutions.
+
+The lower moral qualities which belong to the last class have been
+characteristics of nations. The valour of the Spartans, the love of
+glory of the Romans and the French, the pride of the Spaniards,--these
+infantile moral qualities have belonged to a people as distinctly as to
+an individual.--Those which are in alliance with intellectual eminence
+are not so strikingly characteristic of entire nations; though we praise
+the Athenians for their love of letters and honour of philosophy; the
+Italians for their liberality towards art, and their worship of it while
+a meaner glory was the fashion of the world; the Germans for their
+speculative enterprise, and patience of research; and the Americans for
+their reverence for intellect above military fame and the splendour of
+wealth.--No high spiritual qualities have ever yet characterized a
+nation, or even--in spite of much profession--any considerable
+community. Hospitality and beneficence have distinguished some religious
+societies: the non-resistance of Quakers, the industry of Moravians, and
+of several kinds of people united on the principle of community of
+property, may be cited: but this seems to be all. The enforced
+temperance, piety, and chastity of monastic societies go for nothing in
+this view; because, being enforced, they indicate nothing of the
+sentiment subsequent to the taking of the vow. The people of the United
+States have come the nearest to being characterized by lofty spiritual
+qualities. The profession with which they set out was high,--a
+circumstance greatly to their honour, though (as might have been
+expected) they have not kept up to it. They are still actuated by
+ambition of territory, and have not faith enough in moral force to rely
+upon it, as they profess to do. The Swiss, in their unshaken and
+singularly devoted love of freedom, seem to be spiritually distinguished
+above other nations: but they have no other strong characteristic of
+this highest class.
+
+The truth is that, whatever may be the moral state of nations when the
+human world emerges hereafter from its infancy, high spiritual qualities
+are now matters of individual concern, as those of the intellectual
+class were once; and their general prevalence is a matter of prospective
+vision alone. Time was when the swampy earth resounded with the tramp
+and splash of monstrous creatures, whom there was no reason present to
+classify, and no language to name. Then, after a certain number of ages,
+the earth grew drier; palm-groves and tropical thickets flourished where
+Paris now stands; and the waters were collected into lakes in the
+regions where the armies of Napoleon were of late encamped. Then came
+the time when savage, animal man appeared, using his physical force like
+the lower animals, and taught by the experience of its deficiency that
+he was in possession of another kind of force. Still, for ages, the use
+he made of reason was to overcome the physical force of others, and to
+render available his own portion. On this principle, and for this
+object, variously modified, and more or less refined, have societies
+been formed to this day; though, as morals are the fruit of which
+intellect is the blossom, spiritualism--faith in moral power--has
+existed in individuals ever since the first free exercise of reason.
+While all nations were ravaging one another as they had opportunity,
+there were always parents who did not abuse their physical power over
+their children. In the midst of a general worship of power, birth, and
+wealth, the affections have wrought out in individual minds a preference
+of obscurity and poverty for the sake of spiritual objects. Amidst the
+supremacy of the worship of honour and social ease, there have always
+been confessors who could endure disgrace for the truth, and martyrs who
+could die for it.--Such individual cases have never been wanting: and,
+in necessary connexion with this fact, there has always been a sympathy
+in this pure moral taste,--an appreciation which could not but help its
+diffusion. Thence arose the formation of communities for the fostering
+of holiness,--projects which, however mistaken in their methods and
+injurious in their consequences, have always commanded, and do still
+command, sympathy, from the venerableness of their origin. Not all the
+stories of the abuses of monastic institutions can destroy the respect
+of every ingenuous mind for the spiritual preferences out of which they
+arose. The Crusades are still holy, notwithstanding all their
+defilements of vain-glory, superstition, and barbarism of various kinds.
+The retreat of the Pilgrim Fathers to the forests of the New World
+silences the ridicule of the thoughtless about the extravagances of
+Puritanism in England.
+
+Thus far has the race advanced; and, having thus advanced, there is
+reason to anticipate that the age may come when the individual worship
+of spiritual supremacy may expand into national; when a people may agree
+to govern one another with the smallest possible application of physical
+force; when goodness shall come to be naturally more honoured than
+birth, wealth, or even intellect; when ambition of territory shall be
+given up; when all thought of war shall be over; when the pursuit of the
+necessaries and luxuries of external life shall be regarded as means to
+an end; and when the common aim of exertion shall be self and mutual
+perfection. It does not seem to be rash to anticipate such a state of
+human affairs as this, when an aspiration like the following has been
+received with sympathy by thousands of republicans united under a
+constitution of ideas. "Talent and worth are the only eternal grounds of
+distinction. To these the Almighty has affixed his everlasting patent of
+nobility; and these it is which make the bright, 'the immortal names,'
+to which our children may aspire, as well as others. It will be our own
+fault if, in our land, society as well as government is not organized on
+a new foundation."--"Knowledge and goodness,--these make degrees in
+heaven, and they must be the graduating scale of a true democracy."[F]
+
+Meantime, it is the traveller's business to learn what is the species of
+Moral Sentiment which lies deepest in the hearts of the majority of the
+people.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He will find no better place of study than the Cemetery,--no more
+instructive teaching than Monumental Inscriptions. The brief language of
+the dead will teach him more than the longest discourses of the living.
+
+He will learn what are the prevalent views of death; and when he knows
+what is the common view of death, he knows also what is the aspect of
+life to no small number;--that is, he will have penetrated into the
+interior of their morals.--If it should ever be fully determined that
+the pyramids of Egypt were designed solely as places of sepulture, they
+will cease to be the mute witness they have been for ages. They will
+tell at least that death was not regarded as the great leveller,--that
+kings and peasants were not to sleep side by side in death, any more
+than in life. How they contrast with the Moravian burial-grounds, where
+all are laid in rows as they happen to be brought to the grave, and
+where memorial is forbidden!--The dead of Constantinople are cast out
+from among the living in waste, stillness, and solitude. The cemeteries
+lie beyond the walls, where no hum from the city is heard, and where the
+dark cypresses overhanging the white marble tombs give an air of
+mourning and desolation to the scene. In contrast with these are the
+church-yards of English cities, whose dead thus lie in full view of the
+living; the school-boy trundles his hoop among them, and the news of the
+day is discussed above their place of rest. This fact of where the dead
+are laid is an important one. If out of sight, death and religion may or
+may not be connected in the general sentiment; if within or near the
+places of worship, they certainly are so connected. In the cemeteries of
+Persia, the ashes of the dead are ranged in niches of the walls: in
+Egypt we have the most striking example of affection to the body, shown
+in the extraordinary care to preserve it; while some half-civilized
+people seem to be satisfied with putting their dead out of sight, by
+summarily sinking them in water, or hiding them in the sand; and the
+Caffres throw their dead to the hyenas,--impelled to this, however, not
+so much by disregard of the dead, as by a superstitious fear of death
+taking place in their habitations, which causes them to remove the
+dying, and expose them in this state to beasts of prey. The burial of
+the dead by the road-side by some of the ancients, seems to have brought
+death into the closest relation with life; and when the place chosen is
+taken in connexion with the inscriptions on the tombs,--words addressed
+to the wayfarer as from him who lies within,--from the pilgrim now at
+rest to the pilgrim still on his way, they give plain indications of the
+views of death and life entertained by those who placed them.
+
+Much may be learned from the monumental inscriptions of all nations. The
+first epitaph is supposed to be traced back to the year of the world
+2700, when the scholars of Linus, the Theban poet, bewailed their master
+in verses which were inscribed upon his tomb. From that day to this,
+wherever there have been letters, there have been epitaphs; and, where
+letters have been wanting, there have been symbols. Mysterious symbolic
+arrangements are traced in the monumental mounds in the interior of the
+American continent, where a race of whom we know nothing else flourished
+before the Red man opened his eyes upon the light. One common rule,
+drawn from a universal sentiment, has presided at the framing of all
+epitaphs for some thousands of years. "De mortuis nil nisi bonum" is the
+universal agreement of mourners.[G] It follows that epitaphs must
+everywhere indicate what is there considered good.
+
+The observer must give his attention to this. Among a people "whose
+merchants are princes," the praise of the departed will be in a
+different strain from that which will be found among a warlike nation,
+or a community of agriculturists. Here one may find monumental homage to
+public spirit, in the form of active citizenship; there to domestic
+virtue as the highest honour. The glory of eminent station, of ancient
+family, of warlike deeds, and of courtly privileges may be conspicuously
+exhibited in one district; while in another the dead are honoured in
+proportion to their contempt of human greatness, even when won by
+achievements; to their having lived with a sole regard "to things unseen
+and eternal." An inscription which breathes the pride of a noble family
+in telling that "all the sons were brave, and all the daughters chaste,"
+presents a summary of the morals of the age and class to which it
+belongs. It tells that the supreme honour of men was to be brave, and of
+women to be chaste; excluding the supposition of each sharing the virtue
+of the other: whereas, when courage and purity shall be understood in
+their full signification, it will have become essential to the honour of
+a noble family that all the sons should be also pure, and all the
+daughters brave. Then bravery will signify moral rather than physical
+courage, and purity of mind will be considered no attribute of sex.
+
+Even the nature of the public services commemorated, where public
+service is considered the highest praise, may indicate much. It is a
+fact of no small significance whether a man is honoured after death for
+having made a road, or for having founded a monastery, or endowed a
+school; whether he introduced a new commodity, or erected a church;
+whether he marched adventurously in the pursuit of conquest, or fought
+bravely among his native mountains to guard the homes of his countrymen
+from aggression. The German, the French, the Swiss monuments of the
+present century all tell the common tale that men have lived and died:
+but with what various objects did they live! and in what a variety of
+hope and heroism did they die! All were proud of their respective
+differences while they lived; and, now that their contests are at an
+end, they afford materials of speculation to the stranger who ponders
+upon their tombs.
+
+A variety, perhaps a contrariety of praise, may be found in the epitaphs
+of a country, a city, or a single cemetery. Where this diversity is
+found, it testifies to the diversity of views held, and therefore to the
+freedom of the prevailing religious sentiment. Everywhere, however,
+there is an affection and esteem for certain virtues. Disinterestedness,
+fidelity, and love are themes of praise everywhere. Some may have no
+sympathy for the deeds of the warrior, and others for the discoveries of
+the philosopher and the adventurer; but the honoured parent, the devoted
+child, the philanthropic citizen, are sure of their tribute from all
+hearts.
+
+Even if there were a variety of praise proportioned to the diversity of
+hearts and minds that utter it, the inscriptions of a cemetery cannot
+but breathe a spirit which must animate, more or less, the morals of the
+society. For instance, the cemetery of Père la Chaise utters, from end
+to end, one wail. It is all mourning, and no hope. Every expression of
+grief, from tender regret to blank despair, is to be found there; but
+not a hint of consolation, except from memory. All is over, and the
+future is vacant. A remarkable contrast to this is seen in the cemetery
+of Mount Auburn, Massachusetts. The religious spirit of New England is
+that which has hope for one of its largest elements, and which was
+believed by the Puritan fathers to forbid the expression of sorrow. One
+of those fathers made an entry in his journal, in the early days of the
+colony, that it had pleased God to take from him by an accident his
+beloved son Henry, whom he committed to the Lord's mercy;--and this was
+all. In a similar spirit are the epitaphs at Mount Auburn framed. There
+is a religious silence about the sorrows of the living, and every
+expression of joy, thanksgiving, and hope for the dead. One who had
+never heard of death, might take this for the seed-field of life; for
+the oratory of the happy; for the heaven of the hopeful. Parents invite
+their children from the grave to follow them. Children remind their
+parents that the term of separation will be short; and all repose their
+hopes together on an authority which is to them as stable and
+comprehensive as the blue sky which is over all.--What a contrast is
+here! and how eloquent as to the moral views of the respective nations!
+There is not a domestic attachment or social relation which is not
+necessarily modified, elevated, or depressed by the conviction of its
+being transient or immortal,--an end or means to a higher end. Though
+human hearts are so far alike as that there must be a hope of reunion,
+more or less defined and assured, in all who love, and a practical
+falling below the elevation of this hope in those even who enjoy the
+strongest assurance,--yet the moral notions of any society must be very
+different where the ground of hope is taken for granted, and where it is
+kept wholly out of sight.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The observer may obtain further light upon the moral ideas of a people
+by noting the degree of their Attachment to Kindred and Birth-place.
+This species of attachment is so natural, that none are absolutely
+without it; but it varies in degree, according as the moral taste of the
+people goes to enhance or to subdue it. The Swiss and the American
+parent both send their children abroad; but with what different feelings
+and views! The Swiss father dismisses his daughter to teach in a school
+at Paris or London, and his sons to commerce or war. He resigns himself
+to a hard necessity, and supports them with suggestions of the honour of
+virtuous independence, and of the delight of returning when it is
+achieved. They, in their exile, can never see a purple shade upon a
+mountain side, a gleaming sheet of water, or a nestling village, without
+a throb of the heart, and a sickening longing for home.--The New
+England mother, with her tribe of children around her on her hill-side
+farm, nourishes them with tales of the noble extent of their
+country,--how its boundary is ever shifting westwards, and what a wild
+life it is there in the forest, with the Red men for neighbours, and
+inexhaustible wealth in the soil, ready for the hand which shall have
+enterprise to work for it. She tells of one and another, but lately boys
+like her children, who are now judges and legislators,--founders of
+towns, or having counties named after them. As her young people grow up,
+they part off eagerly from the old farm,--one into a southern city,
+another into the western forest, a third to a prairie in a new
+territory; and the daughters marry, and go over the mountains too. The
+mother may have sighs to conceal, but she does conceal them; and the
+sons, so far from lingering,--are impatient till they are gone. Their
+idea of national honour,--both their patriotic and their personal
+ambition,--is concerned; and they welcome the hour of dispersion as the
+first step towards the great objects of their life. Some return to the
+old neighbourhood to take a wife; but they do not think of passing their
+second childhood where they spent their first,--any more than the Greek
+colonists who swarmed from their narrow native districts. The settlers
+of the west go there, not to obtain a certain amount of personal
+property, but land, station, and power.--How different again are the
+Scotch--the people of the strongest family attachments! In the modified
+and elevated feudalism of clanship, pride and love of kindred constitute
+the animating social principle. Their clan-music is to them what the
+Ranz de Vaches is to the Swiss: the one echoing the harmonics of social
+intercourses, as the other revives the melodies of mountain life.
+Through the love of kindred, the love of birth-place flourishes among
+the Scotch. The Highland emigrants in Canada not only clasp hands when
+they hear played the march of their clan, but wept when they found that
+heather would not grow in their newly-adopted soil.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The traveller must talk with Old People, and see what is the character
+of the garrulity of age. He must talk with Children, and mark the
+character of the aspirations of childhood. He will thus learn what is
+good in the eyes of those who have passed through the society he
+studies, and in the hopes of those who have yet to enter upon it. Is it
+the aged mother's pride that her sons are all unstained in honour, and
+her daughters safe in happy homes? or does she boast that one is a
+priest, and another a peeress? Does the grandmother relate that all her
+descendants who are of age are "received church-members"? or that her
+favourite grandchild has been noticed by the emperor? Do the old men
+prose of a single happy love, or of exploits of gallantry? or of
+commercial success, or of political failure? What is the section of life
+to which the greatest number of ancient memories cling? Is it to
+struggles for a prince in disguise, or to a revolutionary conflict? Is
+it to the removal of a social oppression, or to a season of domestic
+trial, or to an accession of personal consequence? Is it the having
+acquired an office or a title? or the having assisted in the abolition
+of slavery? or the having conversed with a great author? or the having
+received a nod from a prince, or a curtsey from a queen? or have you to
+listen to details of the year of the scarcity, or the season of the
+plague?--What are the children's minds full of? The little West Indian
+will not talk of choosing a profession, any more than the infant
+Portuguese will ask for books. One nation of children will tell of the
+last saint's day, and another will refer every thing to the emperor.
+Elsewhere you will be treated with legends without end; or you will be
+instructed about bargains and wages; or the boys will ask you why a
+king's son should be king whether the people like him or not; and the
+girls will whisper something to you about their brother being President
+some day. As the minds of the young are formed, generally speaking, to
+an adaptation to the objects presented to them, their preference of
+warlike to commercial, or literary to political honour, is an eloquent
+circumstance: and so of their sense of greatness in any
+direction,--whether it be of the physical order, or the intellectual, or
+the spiritual.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From this, the transition is natural to the study of the character of
+the Pride of each nation. Learn what people glory in, and you learn much
+of both the theory and practice of their morals. All nations, like all
+individuals, have pride, sooner or later, in one thing or another. It is
+a stage through which they have to pass in their moral progression, and
+out of which the most civilized have not yet advanced, nor discerned
+that they will have to advance, though the passion becomes moderated at
+each remove from barbarism. It is by no means clear that the essential
+absurdity of each is relieved by its dilution. Hereafter, the most
+modern pride of the most civilized people may appear as ridiculous in
+its nature as the grossest conceit of utter barbarians now appears to
+us; but, still, the direction taken by the general pride must show what
+class of objects is held in most esteem.
+
+The Chinese have no doubt that all other countries are created for the
+benefit of theirs; they call their own "the central empire," as certain
+philosophers once called our earth the centre round which everything
+else was to revolve. They call it the Celestial Empire, of which their
+ruler is the Sun: "they profess to rule barbarians by misrule, like
+beasts, and not like native subjects." Here we have the extreme of
+national pride, which must involve various moral qualities;--all the bad
+ones which are the consequence of ignorance, subservience to domestic
+despotism, and contempt of the race of man; and the good ones which are
+the consequence of national seclusion,--cheerful industry, social
+complacency, quietness, and order.--The Arab pride bears a resemblance
+to the Chinese, but is somewhat refined and spiritualized. The Arabs
+believe that the earth, "spread out like a bed," and upheld by a
+gigantic angel (the angel standing upon a rock, and the rock upon a
+bull, and the bull upon a fish, and the fish floating upon water, and
+the water upon darkness,)--that the earth, thus upheld, is surrounded by
+the Circumambient Ocean; that the inhabited part of the earth is to the
+rest but as a tent in the desert; and that in the very centre of this
+inhabited part is--Mecca. Their exclusive faith makes a part of their
+nationality, and their insolence shows itself eminently in their
+devotions. Their spiritual supremacy is their strong point; and they can
+afford to be somewhat less outwardly contemptuous to the race at large,
+from the certainty they have that all will be made plain and
+indisputable at last, when the followers of the Prophet alone will be
+admitted to bliss, and the punishments of the future world will be
+eternal to all but wicked Mahomedans. There will be found among the
+Arabs, in accordance with this pride, a strong mutual fidelity; and,
+among the best class of believers, a real devotion and a kindly
+compassion towards outcasts; while, among lower orders of minds, we may
+expect to witness the extreme exasperation of vindictiveness, insult,
+and rapacity.--We may pass over the pride of caste in India, of royal
+race in Africa, and the wild notions of Caribbean and Esquimaux dignity,
+which are almost as painful to contemplate as the freaks of pride in
+Bedlam. There is quite enough to look upon in the most civilized parts
+of the earth.--The whole national character of the Spaniards might be
+inferred from their particularly notorious pride; the quarterings of
+German barons are a popular joke; the French pride of military glory is
+an index to the national morals of France; while, in the United States,
+the pride of Washington and of territory is oddly combined and
+contrasted. Nothing can be more indicative of the true moral state of
+the Americans; they hang between the past and the future, with many of
+the feudal prepossessions of the past, mingled with the democratic
+aspirations which relate to the future. The ambition and pride of
+territory belong to the first, and their pride in the leader of their
+revolution to the last: he is their personification of that moral power
+to which they profess allegiance. The consequences of this arbitrary
+union of two kinds of national pride may be foreseen. The Americans
+unite some of the low qualities of feudalism with some of the highest of
+a more equal social organization. Without the first, slavery, cupidity,
+and ostentation could not exist to any great extent; without the others,
+there could not be the splendid moral conflict which we now see going on
+in opposition to slavery, nor the reverence for man which is the
+loveliest feature of American morals and manners.
+
+From the aristocratic pride of the English the stranger might draw
+inferences no less correct. If it is found that there is scarcely a
+gamekeeper or a tradesman among us who is not stiffened with prejudices
+about rank; that gossips can tell what noblemen pay, and which do not
+pay, their tradesmen's bills; that persons who have never seen a lord
+can furnish all information about the genealogy and intermarriages of
+noble families; that every class is emulating the manners of the one
+above it; and that democratic principles are held chiefly in the
+manufacturing districts, or, if in country regions, among the tenantry
+of landlords of liberal politics;--the moral condition of such a people
+lies, as it were, mapped out beneath the eye of the observer. They must
+be orderly, eminently industrious, munificent in their grants to rulers,
+and mechanically oppressive to the lowest class of the ruled; nationally
+complacent, while wanting in individual self-respect; reverentially
+inclined towards the lofty minority, and contemptuously disposed
+towards the lowly majority of their race; a generous devotion being
+advantageously mingled, however, with the select reverence, and a kindly
+spirit of protection with the gross contempt. Such, to the eye of an
+observer, are the qualities involved in English pride. Upon this moral
+material, everywhere diffused, should the traveller observe and reflect.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Man-worship is as universal a practice as that of the higher sort of
+religion. As men everywhere adore some supposed agents of unseen things,
+they are, in like manner, disposed to do homage to what is venerable
+when it is presented to their eyes in the actions of a living man. This
+man-worship is one of the most honourable and one of the most hopeful
+circumstances in the mind of the race. An individual here and there may
+scoff at the credulity of others, and profess unbelief in human virtue;
+but no society has ever yet wanted faith in man. Every community has its
+saints, its heroes, its sages,--whose tombs are visited, whose deeds are
+celebrated, whose words have become the rules by which men live.
+
+Now, the moral taste of a people is nowhere more clearly shown than in
+its choice of idols. Of these idols there are two kinds;--those whose
+divinity is confirmed by the lapse of time, like Gustavus Adolphus among
+the Swedes, Tell in Switzerland, Henri IV. among the French, and
+Washington among the Americans; and those who are still living, and upon
+whose daily doings a multitude of eyes are fixed.
+
+Those of the first class reign singly; their uncontested sway is over
+national character, as well as the affections of individual minds; and
+from their character may that of the whole people be, in certain
+respects, inferred. Who supposes that the Swiss would have been the same
+as they are, if Tell's character and deeds could have been hidden in
+oblivion from the moment those deeds were done? What would the Americans
+have been now if every impression of Washington could have been effaced
+from their minds fifty years ago? This is not the place in which to
+enlarge on the power--the greatest power we know of--which man exercises
+over men through their affections; but it is a fact which the observer
+should keep ever in view. The existence of a great man is one of those
+gigantic circumstances,--one of those national influences,--which have
+before been mentioned as modifying the conscience--the feelings about
+right and wrong--in a whole people. The pursuits of a nation for ever
+may be determined by the fact of the great man of five centuries being a
+poet, a warrior, a statesman, or a maritime adventurer. The morals of a
+nation are influenced to all eternity by the great man's being ambitious
+or moderate, passionate or philosophical, licentious or self-governed.
+Certain lofty qualities he must have, or he could not have attained
+greatness,--energy, perseverance, faith, and consequently earnestness.
+These are essential to his immortality; upon the others depends the
+quality of his influence; and upon these must the observer of the
+present generation reflect.
+
+It is not by dogmas that Christianity has permanently influenced the
+mind of Christendom. No creeds are answerable for the moral revolution
+by which physical has been made to succumb to moral force; by which
+unfortunates are cherished by virtue of their misfortunes; by which the
+pursuit of speculative truth has become an object worthy of
+self-sacrifice. It is the character of Jesus of Nazareth which has
+wrought to these purposes. Notwithstanding all the obscuration and
+defilement which that character has sustained from superstition and
+other corruption, it has availed to these purposes, and must prevail
+more and more now that it is no longer possible to misrepresent his
+sayings and conceal his deeds, as was done in the dark ages. In all
+advancing time, as corruption is surmounted, there are more and more who
+vividly feel that life does not consist in the abundance that a man
+possesses, but in energy of spirit, and in a power and habit of
+self-sacrifice: there are perpetually more and more who discern and live
+by the persuasion that the pursuit of worldly power and ease is a matter
+totally apart from the function of Christianity; and this persuasion has
+not been wrought into activity by declarations of doctrine in any form,
+but by the spectacle, vivid before the eye of the mind, of the Holy One
+who declined the sword and the crown, lived without property, and
+devoted himself to die by violence, in an unparalleled simplicity of
+duty. The being himself is the mover here; and every great man is, in a
+similar manner, however inferior may be the degree, a spring by which
+spirits are moved. By the study of them may much of the consequent
+movement be understood. The observer of British morals should gather up
+the names of their idols; he will hear of Hampden, Bacon, Shakspeare,
+Newton, Howard, and Wesley. In Scotland, he will hear of Bruce and
+Knox. What a flood of light do these names shed on our _morale_! It is
+the same with the Englishman abroad when his attention is referred in
+France to Henri IV, Richelieu, Turenne, and Napoleon, to Bossuet and
+Fenelon, to Voltaire, and their glorious list of natural philosophers:
+in Italy, to Lorenzo de' Medici, Galileo, and their constellations of
+poets and artists: in Germany, to Charles V, Luther, Schwartz, Göthe,
+Copernicus, Handel, and Mozart. There is in every nation a succession of
+throned gods, each of whom is the creator of some region of the national
+mind, and has formed men into more or less of his own likeness.
+
+The other kind of idols are those who are still living, and whose
+influence upon morals and manners is strong, but may or may not be
+distinguishably permanent. These afford a less faithful evidence,--but
+yet an evidence which is not to be neglected. The spirit of the times is
+seen in the character of the idols of the day, however the nation may be
+divided in its choice of idols, and however many sects there may be in
+the man-worship of the generation. In our own day, for instance, how
+plainly is the movement of society discerned, from the fact of the
+eminence of philanthropists in many countries! Whether they presently
+sink, or continue to rise, they testify to a prevailing feeling in
+society. Père Enfantin in France, Wilberforce in England, Garrison in
+America,--these are watchmen set on a pinnacle (whoever may object to
+their being there) who can tell us "what of the night," and how a new
+morning is breaking. Whether they may be most cause or effect, whether
+they have more or less decidedly originated the interest of which they
+are the head, it is clear that there is a certain adaptation between
+themselves and the general mind, without which they could not have risen
+to be what they are.--Every society has always its idols. If there are
+none by merit, at any moment, station is received as a qualification.
+Large numbers are always worshipping the heads of the aristocracy, of
+whatever kind they may be; and there is rarely a long interval in which
+there is not some warrior, some poet, artist, or philanthropist on whom
+the multitude are flinging crowns and incense. The popularity of Byron
+testified to the existence of a gloomy discontent in a multitude of
+minds, as the adoration of De Béranger discloses the political feelings
+of the French. Statesmen rarely command an overwhelming majority of
+worshippers, because interest enters much more than sentiment into
+politics: but every author, or other artist who can reach the general
+mind,--every preacher, philanthropist, soldier, or discoverer, who has
+risen into an atmosphere of worship in pursuit of a purpose, is a fresh
+Peter the Hermit, meeting and stimulating the spirit of his time, and
+exhibiting its temper to the observer,--foreign as to either clime or
+century. The physical observer of a new region might as well shut his
+eyes to the mountains, and omit to note which way the streams run, as
+the moral observer pass by the idols of a nation with a heedless gaze.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Side by side with this lies the inquiry into the great Epochs of the
+society visited. Find out what individuals and nations date from, and
+you discover what events are most interesting to them. A child reckons
+from his first journey, or his entrance upon school: a man from his
+marriage, his beginning practice in his profession, or forming a fresh
+partnership in trade; if he be a farmer, from the year of a good or bad
+crop; if he be a merchant, from the season of a currency pressure; if he
+be an operative, from the winter of the Strike: a matron dates from the
+birth of her children; her nursemaid from her change of place. Nations,
+too, date from what interests them most. It is important to learn what
+this is. The major date of American citizens is the Revolution; their
+minor dates are elections, and new admissions into the Union. The people
+at Amsterdam date from the completion of the Stadt Huis; the Spaniards
+from the achievement of Columbus; the Germans from the deed of Luther;
+the Haytians from the abduction of Toussaint L'Ouverture; the Cherokees
+from treaties with the Whites; the people of Pitcairn's Island from the
+mutiny of the Bounty; the Turks, at present, from the massacre of the
+Janissaries; the Russians from the founding of St. Petersburgh and the
+deaths of its monarchs; the Irish (for nearer times than the battle of
+the Boyne) by the year of the fever, the year of the rebellion, the year
+of the famine. There is a world of instruction in this kind of fact; and
+if a new species of epoch, of which there is a promise, should
+arise,--if the highest works of men should come to be looked upon as the
+clearest operations of Providence,--if Germany or Europe should date
+from Göthe as the civilized world does from Columbus,--this sole test
+might reveal almost the entire moral state of society.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The treatment of the Guilty is all-important as an index to the moral
+notions of a society. This class of facts will hereafter yield
+infallible inferences as to the principles and views of governments and
+people upon vice, its causes and remedies. At present, such facts must
+be used with great caution, because the societies of civilized countries
+are in a state of transition from the old vindictiveness to a purer
+moral philosophy. The ancient methods, utterly disgraceful as they are,
+must subsist till society has fully agreed upon and prepared for better
+ones; and it would be harsh to pronounce upon the humanity of the
+English from their prisons, or the justice of the French from their
+galley system. The degrees of reliance upon brute force and upon public
+opinion are yet by no means proportioned to the civilization of
+respective societies, as at first sight might be expected, and as must
+be before punishments and prisons can be taken as indications of morals
+and manners.
+
+The treatment of the guilty in savage lands, and also in countries under
+a despotism, indicates the morals of rulers only,--except in so far as
+it points out the political subservience of the people. It is true that
+the Burmese must needs be in a deplorable social state, if their king
+can "spread out" his prime minister in the sun, as formerly described:
+but the mercy or cruelty of his subjects can be inferred only from the
+liberty they may have and may use to treat one another in the same
+manner. In their case, we see that such a power is possessed and put to
+use. The creditor exposes his debtor's wife, children, and slaves, to
+the same noon-day sun which broils the prime minister. In Austria, it
+would be harsh to suppose that subjects have any desire to treat one
+another as the Emperor and his minister treat political offenders within
+the walls of the castle of Spielburg. The Russians at large are not to
+be made answerable for the transportation of coffles of nobles and
+gentlemen to the silver mines of Siberia, and the regiments on the
+frontier. It is only under a representative government that prisons, and
+the treatment of criminals under the law, can be fairly considered a
+test of the feelings of the majority.
+
+It is too true, however, that punishments are almost everywhere
+vindictive in their character; and have more relation to some supposed
+principle of "not letting vice go unpunished," than either to the
+security of society, or the reformation of the offender. The few
+exceptions that exist are a far more conclusive testimony to an
+advancing state of morals than the old methods are to the vindictiveness
+of the mind of the society which they corrupt and deform. The
+Philadelphia penitentiary is a proof of the thoughtful and laborious
+humanity of those who instituted it; but Newgate cannot be regarded as
+the expressed decision of the English people as to how criminals should
+be guarded. Such a prison would not now be instituted by any civilized
+nation. Its existence is to be interpreted, not as a token of the
+cruelty and profligacy of the mind of society, but of its ignorance of
+the case, or of its bigoted adherence to ancient methods, or of its
+apathy in regard to improvements to which there is no peremptory call of
+self-interest. Any one of these is enough, Heaven knows, for any
+society to have to answer for; enough to yield, by contrast, surpassing
+honour to the philanthropy which has pulled down the pillory, and is
+labouring to supersede the hangman, and to convert every prison in the
+civilized world into an hospital for the cure of moral disease. But the
+reform has begun; the spirit of Howard is on its pilgrimage; and
+barbarous as is still our treatment of the guilty, better days are in
+prospect.
+
+What the traveller has to observe then is, first, whether there has been
+any amelioration of the treatment of criminals in countries where the
+people have a voice upon it: and, in countries despotically ruled,
+whether public sentiment is moved about the condition of state
+criminals, and whether men treat one another vindictively in their
+appeals to the laws of citizenship: whether there is a Burmese cruelty
+in the exercise of the legal rights of the creditor; whether there is a
+reluctance to plunge others into the woes of legal penalties; or whether
+offenders are considered as beyond the pale of sympathy. It may thus
+appear whether the people entertain the pernicious notion that there is
+a line drawn for human conduct, on one side of which all is virtue, and
+on the other all vice; or whether they are approximating to the more
+philosophical and genial belief that all wickedness is weakness and woe,
+and that therefore the guilty need more care and tenderness in the
+arrangement of the circumstances under which they live than those who
+enjoy greater strength against temptation, and an ease of mind which
+criminals can never know. In some parts of the United States this
+general persuasion is remarkably evident, and is an incontestable proof
+of the advanced state of morals there. In some prisons of the United
+States, as much care is bestowed on the arrangements by which the guilty
+are preserved from contaminating one another, are exposed to good
+influences and precluded from bad, as in any infirmary on the
+ventilation of the wards, and the diet and nursing of the sick. In such
+a region, vindictiveness in social punishments must be going out, and
+Christ-like views of human guilt and infirmity beginning to prevail.
+
+The same conclusions may be drawn from an observation of the methods of
+legal punishment. Recklessness of human life is one of the surest
+symptoms of barbarism, whether life is taken by law or by assassination.
+As men grow civilized, and learn to rate the spiritual higher and higher
+above the physical life, human life grows sacred. The Turk orders off
+the head of a slave almost without a serious thought. The New Zealanders
+have murdered men by scores, to supply their dried and grinning heads to
+English purchasers, who little imagined the cost at which they were
+obtained. This is the way in which life is squandered in savage
+societies. Up to a comparatively high point of civilization, the law
+makes free with life, long after the private expenditure of it has been
+checked or has ceased. Duels, brawls, assassinations, have nearly been
+discontinued, and even war in some measure discountenanced, before the
+law duly recognises the sacredness of human life. But the time comes.
+One generation after another grows up with a still improving sense of
+the majesty of life,--of the mystery of the existence of such a being as
+man,--of the infinity of ideas and emotions in the mind of each, and of
+the boundlessness of his social relations. These recognitions may not be
+express; but they are sufficiently real to hold back the hand from
+quenching life. The reluctance to destroy such a creation is found to be
+on the increase. Men prefer suffering wrong to being accessary to so
+fearful an act as what now appears a judicial murder: the law is left
+unused,--is evaded,--and it becomes necessary to alter it. Capital
+punishments are restricted,--are further restricted,--are abolished.
+Such is the process. It is now all but completed in the United States:
+it is advancing rapidly in England. During its progress further light is
+thrown on the moral notions of a represented people by a change in the
+character of other (called inferior) punishments. Bodily torments and
+disfigurements go out. Torture and mutilation are discontinued, and
+after a while the grosser mental inflictions. The pillory (as mere
+ignominious exposure) was a great advance upon the maiming with which it
+was once connected; but it is now discontinued as barbarous. All
+ignominious exposure will ere long be considered equally
+barbarous,--including capital punishment, of which such exposure is the
+recommendatory principle. To refer once more to the Pennsylvania
+case,--these notions of ignominious exposure are there so far outgrown,
+that avoidance of it is the main principle of the management. Seclusion,
+under the guardianship of the law, is there the method,--on the
+principle of consideration to the weak, and of supreme regard to the
+feeling of self-respect in the offender,--the feeling in which he is
+necessarily most deficient. When we consider the brutalizing methods of
+punishment in use in former times, and now in some foreign countries,
+in contrast with the latest instituted and most successful, we cannot
+avoid perceiving that such are indications of the moral notions of those
+at whose will they exist, be they a council of despots, or an
+association of nations. We cannot avoid perceiving from them what
+barbarism is held to be justice in some ages and countries; and how that
+which would then and there be condemned as culpable leniency, comes
+elsewhere to be considered less than justice. The treatment of the
+guilty is one of the strongest evidences as to the general moral notions
+of society, when it is evidence at all; that is, when the guilty are in
+the hands of society.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is another species of evidence of which travellers are not in the
+habit of making use, but which is well worth their attention,--the
+Conversation of convicted Criminals. There are not many places in the
+world where it is possible to obtain this, without a greater sacrifice
+of comfort than the ordinary tourist is disposed to make. There is
+little temptation to enter prisons where squalid wretches are crowded
+together in dirt, noise, and utter profligacy; where no one of them
+could speak seriously for fear of the ridicule of his comrades; where
+the father sees his young son corrupted before his eyes, and the mother
+utters cruel jests upon the frightened child that hides its face in her
+apron. In scenes like these, there is nothing for the stranger to do and
+to learn. The whole is one great falsehood, where the people are acting
+falsely under false circumstances. It affords an enterprise for the
+philanthropist, but no real knowledge for the observer. He may pass by
+such places, knowing that they are pretty much alike in all countries
+where they exist. Criminals herded together in virtue of their
+criminality, and outraged into a diabolical hardihood, must present one
+uniform aspect of disgust. What variety should there be in them? About
+as much as in the leper settlements in the wildernesses of the world two
+thousand years ago.
+
+The traveller will not be permitted to see the state prisoners of any
+despotic government; but wherever the subject of prison reform has been
+entertained, (and Howard's spirit is at work in many countries of the
+world,) there will probably be opportunity to converse with offenders in
+a better way than by singling them out from the crowd, in a spirit of
+condescension, and asking them a few questions, in the answers to which
+you can place no confidence. If you can converse face to face with a
+convict, as man with man, you can hardly fail to be instructed. If he
+has been long deprived of equal conversation, his heart will be full;
+his disposition will be to trust you; his impulse will be to confide to
+you his offence, and all the details connected with it. By thus
+conversing with a variety of offenders, you will be put in possession of
+the causes of crime, of the views of society upon the relative gravity
+of offences, and of the condition of hope or despair in which those are
+left who have broken the laws, and are delivered over to shame.
+
+Much light will also be thrown upon the seat of the disorders of
+society. Putting political offences aside, as varying in number in
+proportion to the nature of the government, almost all the rest are
+offences against property. Nine out of ten convicts, perhaps, are
+punished for taking the money or money's worth of another. Here is a
+hint as to the respects in which society is most mistaken in its
+principles, and weakest in its organization. Of the offences against the
+person, some are occasioned by the bad habits which attend the practice
+of depredation on property; thieves are drunkards, and drunkards are
+brawlers:--but the greater number arise out of domestic miseries. Where
+there are fewest assaults occasioned by conjugal injuries and domestic
+troubles, the state of morals is the purest. Where they abound, it is
+clear that the course of love does not run smooth; and that, from the
+workings of some bad principles, domestic morals are in a low state. In
+Austria and Prussia, state criminals abound; while in America such a
+thing is rarely heard of. In America, a youthful and thriving country,
+offences against property for the most part arise out of bad personal
+habits, which again are occasioned by domestic misery of some kind; this
+domestic misery, however, being itself less common than in an older
+state of society. In England almost all the offences are against
+property, and are so multitudinous as to warrant a stranger's conclusion
+that the distribution of property among us must be extremely faulty, the
+oppression of certain classes by others very severe, and our political
+morals very low; in short, that the aristocratic spirit rules in
+England. From the tales of convicts,--how they were reared, what was the
+nature of the snares into which they fell, what opportunity of
+retrieving themselves remained, and what was the character of the
+influences which sank them into misery,--much cannot but be learned of
+the moral atmosphere in which they were reared. From their present state
+of mind,--whether they revert in affection to their homes, or to the
+society from which they have been snatched,--whether they look forward
+with hope or fear, or are incapable of looking forward at all,--it will
+appear whether the justice and benevolence of the community have secured
+the commonest blessings of moral life to these its lowest members, or
+whether they have been utterly crushed by the selfishness of the society
+into which they were born. To have criminals at all may in time come to
+be a disgrace to a community; meantime, their number and quality are an
+evidence as to its prevalent moral notions, which the intelligent
+observer will not disregard.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[H]"The SONGS of every nation must always be the most familiar and truly
+popular part of its poetry. They are uniformly the first fruits of the
+fancy and feeling of rude societies; and, even in the most civilized
+times, are _the only_ poetry of the great body of the people. Their
+influence, therefore, upon the character of a country has been
+universally felt and acknowledged. Among rude tribes, it is evident that
+their songs must, at first, take their tone from the prevailing
+character of the people. But, even among them, it is to be observed
+that, though generally expressive of the fiercest passions, they yet
+represent them with some tincture of generosity and good feeling, and
+may be regarded as the first lessons and memorials of savage virtue. An
+Indian warrior, at the stake of torture, exults, in wild numbers, over
+the enemies who have fallen by his tomahawk, and rejoices in the
+anticipated vengeance of his tribe. But it is chiefly by giving
+expression to the loftiest sentiments of invincible courage and
+fortitude, that he seeks to support himself in the midst of his
+torments. 'I am brave and intrepid!' he exclaims,--'I do not fear death
+nor any kind of torture! He who fears them is a coward--he is less than
+a woman. Death is nothing to him who has courage!' As it is thus the
+very best parts of their actual character that are dwelt upon even in
+the barbarous songs of savages, these songs must contribute essentially
+to the progress of refinement, by fostering and cherishing every germ of
+good feeling that is successively developed during the advancement of
+society. When selfishness begins to give way to generosity,--when mere
+animal courage is in some degree ennobled by feelings of patriotic
+self-devotion,--and, above all, when sensual appetite begins to be
+purified into love,--it is then that the popular songs, by acquiring a
+higher character themselves, come to produce a still more powerful
+reaction upon the character of the people. These songs, produced by the
+most highly-gifted of the tribe,--by those who feel most strongly, and
+express their feelings most happily,--convey ideas of greater elevation
+and refinement than are as yet familiar; but not so far removed from the
+ordinary habits of thinking as to be unintelligible. The hero who
+devotes himself to death for the safety of his country, with a firmness
+as yet almost without example in the actual history of the race,--and
+the lover, who follows his mistress through every danger, and perhaps
+dies for her sake,--become objects on which every one delights to dwell,
+and models which the braver and nobler spirits are thus incited to
+emulate. The songs of rude nations, accordingly, and those in which they
+take most pleasure, are filled with the most romantic instances of
+courage, fidelity, and generosity; and it cannot be supposed that such
+delightful and elevating pictures of human nature can be constantly
+before the eyes of any people, without producing a great effect on their
+character. The same considerations are applicable to the effects of
+popular ballads upon the most numerous classes of society, even in
+civilized nations."
+
+It appears that popular songs are both the cause and effect of general
+morals: that they are first formed, and then react. In both points of
+view they serve as an index of popular morals. The ballads of a people
+present us, not only with vivid pictures of the common objects which are
+before their eyes,--given with more familiarity than would suit any
+other style of composition,--but they present also the most prevalent
+feelings on subjects of the highest popular interest. If it were not so,
+they would not have been popular songs. The traveller cannot be wrong in
+concluding that he sees a faithful reflection of the mind of a people in
+their ballads. When he possesses the popular songs of former centuries,
+he holds the means of transporting himself back to the scenes of the
+ancient world, and finds himself a spectator of its most active
+proceedings. Wars are waged beneath his eye, and the events of the chase
+grow to a grandeur which is not dreamed of now. Love, the passion of all
+times, and the staple of all songs, varies in its expression among
+every people and in every age, and appears still another and yet the
+same. The lady of ballads is always worthy of love and song; but there
+are instructive differences in the treatment she receives. Sometimes she
+is oppressed by a harsh parent; sometimes wrongfully accused by a wicked
+servant, or a false knight; sometimes her soft nature is exasperated
+into revenge; sometimes she is represented as fallen, but always, in
+that case, as enduring retribution. Upon the whole, the testimony is
+strong in favour of bravery in men, and purity in women, and constancy
+in both;--and this in the whole range of popular poetry, from ancient
+Arabic effusions, through centuries of European song, up to the Indian
+chants which may yet be heard on the shores of the wide western lakes.
+The distinguishing attributes of great men bear a strong resemblance,
+from the days when all Greece rang with the musical celebration of
+Harmodius and Aristogiton, through the age of Charlemagne, up to the
+triumphs of Bolivar: and women have been adored for the same qualities,
+however variously set forth, from the virgin with gazelle eyes of three
+thousand years ago, to the dames who witnessed the conflicts of the Holy
+Land, and onwards to the squaw who calls upon her husband not to forget
+her in the world of spirits, and to our Burns' Highland Mary.
+
+What the traveller has to look to is, that he does not take one aspect
+of the popular mind for the whole, or a temporary state of the popular
+mind for a permanent one,--though, from the powerful action of national
+song, this temporary state is likely to become a permanent one by its
+means. As an instance of the first, the observer would be mistaken in
+judging of more than a class of English from some of the best songs they
+have,--Dibdin's sea songs. They are too fair a representation of the
+single class to which they pertain, though they have done much to foster
+and extend the spirit of generosity, simplicity, activity, gaiety, and
+constant love, which they breathe. They have undoubtedly raised the
+character of the British navy, and are to a great degree indicative of
+the naval spirit with us: but they present only one aspect of the
+national mind. In Spain, again, the songs with which the mountains are
+ringing, and whose origin is too remote to be traced, are no picture of
+the conventional mind of the aristocratic classes. As an instance of the
+false conclusions which might be drawn from the popular songs of a brief
+period, we may look to the revolutionary poetry of France. It would be
+unfair to judge of the French people by their _ça ira_ or the
+_Carmagnole_, however true an expression such songs may be of the spirit
+of the hour. The nation had lived before under "une monarchie absolue
+tempérée par des chansons;" the absolutism grew too galling; and then
+the songs took the tone of fury which protracted oppression had bred. It
+was not long before the tone was again changed. Napoleon was harassed on
+his imperial throne by tokens of a secret understanding, unfriendly to
+his interests: those tokens were songs ambiguously worded, or set to
+airs which were used as signs; and treason, which he could not reach,
+was perpetually spoken and acted within ear-shot and before his eyes.
+When the royal family returned, the songs of De Béranger passed in like
+manner from lip to lip, and the restored throne trembled to the echo. In
+France, morals have for many years found their chief expression in
+politics; and from the songs of Paris may the traveller learn the
+political feelings of the time. Under representative governments, where
+politics are the chief expression of morals, the songs of the people
+cannot but be an instructive study to the observer; and scarcely less so
+in countries where, politics being forbidden, the domestic and friendly
+relations must be the topics through which the most general ideas and
+feelings will flow out.
+
+The rudest and the most advanced nations abound in songs. They are heard
+under the plantain throughout Africa, as in the streets of Paris. The
+boatmen on the Nile, and the children of Cairo on their way to school,
+cheer the time with chants; as do the Germans in their vineyards, and in
+the leisure hours of the university. The Negro sings of what he sees and
+feels,--the storm coming over the woods, the smile of his wife, and the
+coolness of the drink she gives him. The Frenchman sings the woes of the
+state prisoner, and the shrewd self-cautionings of the citizen. The
+songs of the Egyptian are amatory, and of the German varied as the
+accomplishments of the nation,--but in their moral tone earnest and
+pure. The more this mode of expression is looked into, the more
+serviceable it will be found to the traveller's purposes of observation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The subject of the Literature of nations, as a means of becoming
+familiar with their moral ideas, is too vast to be enlarged on here. The
+considerations connected with it are so obvious, too, that the traveller
+to whom they would not occur can be but little qualified for the work
+of observing.
+
+It is clear that we cannot know the mind of a nation, any more than of
+an individual, by merely looking at it, without hearing any speech.
+National literature is national speech. By this are its prevalent ideas
+and feelings uttered. It is necessarily so; for books which do not meet
+sympathy from numbers die immediately, and books which strike upon the
+sympathies of all never die. Between the two extremes, of books which
+command the sympathies of a class, and those which are the delight of
+all, there is an extensive gradation, from which the careful observer
+may almost frame for himself a scale of popular morals and manners. I
+mean, of course, in countries where there is a copious classical, or a
+growing modern literature. A people which happens to be without a
+literature,--the Americans, for instance,--must be judged of, as
+cautiously as may be, by such other means of utterance as they may
+have,--the political institutions which the present generation has
+formed or assented to,--their preferences in selection from the
+literature of other countries; and so on. But there is a far greater
+danger of their being misunderstood than there can ever be with regard
+to a nation which speaks for itself through books. "A country which has
+no national literature," writes a student of man, "or a literature too
+insignificant to force its way abroad, must always be to its neighbours,
+at least in every important spiritual respect, an unknown and
+misestimated country. Its towns may figure on our maps; its revenues,
+population, manufactures, political connexions, may be recorded in
+statistical books: but the character of the people has no symbol and no
+voice; we cannot know them by speech and discourse, but only by mere
+sight and outward observation of their habits and procedure."[I]
+
+The very fact of there being no literature in a nation may, however,
+yield inferences as to its mental and moral state. There is a very
+limited set of reasons why a people is without speech. They are
+barbarous, or they are politically oppressed; or the nation is young,
+and busy in providing and securing the means of national existence; or
+it has the same language with another people, and therefore the full
+advantage of its literature, as if it were not foreign. These seem to be
+nearly all the reasons for national silence; and any one of them affords
+some means of insight into the morals and manners of the dumb people.
+
+As for those which have utterance, they either speak freshly from day to
+day, or they show their principles and temper by the choice they make
+from among their own classics. Whatever is most accordant with their
+sympathies, they dwell upon; so that the selection is a sure indication
+of what the popular sympathies are. The same may be said of the
+comparative popularity of modern books; but they may reveal only a
+temporary state of feeling, and the traveller has to separate this
+species of evidence from the more important kind which testifies to the
+permanent affections and convictions of a people. The revelling of the
+French in Voltaire, of the Germans in Werter, and of the English in
+Byron, was, in each case, a highly important revelation of popular
+feeling; but it is not a circumstance from which to judge of the fixed
+national character of any of the three. It was a sign of the times, and
+not signs of nations. Voltaire pulled down certain erections which could
+not stand any longer, and was worshipped as a denier of untruths,--the
+popular mind being then ripe for the exploding of errors. But here ended
+the vocation of Voltaire. The French are now busy, to the extent of
+their energy, in doing what ought to follow upon the exposure of
+errors;--they are searching after truth. Pretences having been
+destroyed, they are now propounding and trying principles; and works
+which propose new and sounder erections find favour in preference to
+such as only expose and ridicule old sins and mistakes.--Werter was
+popular because it expressed the universal restlessness and discontent
+under which not only Germany, but Europe was suffering. Multitudes found
+their uncomfortable feelings uttered for them; and Werter was, in fact,
+the groan of a continent. Old superstitions, tyrannies, and ignorance
+were becoming intolerable, and no way was seen out of them; and the
+voice of complaint was hailed with universal sympathy. So it was with
+the poetry of Byron, adopted and echoed as it was, and will for some
+time continue to be, by the sufferers under an aristocratic constitution
+of society, whether they be oppressed by force from without, or by
+weariness, satiety, and disgust from within. The permanent state of the
+English mind is not represented in Byron, and could not be guessed at
+from his writings, except by inference from the woes of a particular
+order of minds: but his popularity was an admirable sign of the times,
+for such observers as were capable of interpreting it. Probably, in all
+ages since the pen and the press began their work, literature has been
+the expression of the popular mind; but it seems to have become
+peculiarly forcible, as a general utterance, of late. Whatever truth
+there may be in speculations about the growing infrequency of "immortal
+works,"--about the age being past for the production of books which
+shall become classics,--it appears that literature is assuming more and
+more the character of letters written to those whom their subjects may
+concern, and becoming more and more a familiar utterance of the general
+mind of the day. In the popular modern works of Germany there is deep
+and warm religious sentiment, while the most unflinching examination
+into the philosophy and fact of revelation is widely encouraged. In
+England, there is a growing taste for works which exhibit the life of
+the lower orders of society, though all aristocratic prepossessions
+appear in practice as strong as ever. This seems to indicate that our
+philosophy has a democratic tendency under which a general opinion will
+be formed, which will, in time, be expressed in practice. The French,
+again, are devouring, at the rate of two new volumes every three days,
+novels which are, in fact, letters to those whom they may concern on the
+condition and prospects of men and women in society. The pictures are
+something more than mere delineations. They carry with them principles
+by which the position of the members of the community is to be tested.
+The social position of Woman is a prominent topic. The first principles
+of social organization are involved in the groundwork of the simplest
+stories: and the universal reception of this product of literature shows
+that those whom it concerns are all. What an enormous loss of knowledge
+must the traveller sustain who omits to observe and reflect upon the
+spirit of the fresh literature of a people, or of its preferences among
+the literature of the past!
+
+He must note whether a people has recent dramatic productions: if not,
+whether and why the times are unfavourable to that kind of literature;
+and if there is dramatic production, what are the pictures of life that
+it presents.
+
+He must obtain at least some general idea of what the mental philosophy
+of the society is,--not so much because mental philosophy affects the
+national mind, as because it emanates from it. Is it a gross material,
+or a refined analytical, or a massy mystical philosophy? The first is
+usually found in the sceptical stage of the mind of a nation; the last
+in its healthy infancy; while the other is rarely to be found at all,
+except as the product of an individual mind of a high order. Few
+travellers will have occasion to give much attention to this part of
+their task of observation; as, among all the nations of the earth, there
+is not one in ten that has any mental philosophy at all.
+
+All have Fiction (other than dramatic); and this must be one of the
+observer's high points of view. There is no need to spend words upon
+this proposition. It requires no proof that the popular fictions of a
+people, representing them in their daily doings and common feelings,
+must be a mirror of their moral sentiments and convictions, and of their
+social habits and manners. The saying this is almost like offering an
+identical proposition. The traveller should stock his carriage with the
+most popular fictions, whether of the present day, or of a recent or
+ancient time. He should fill up his leisure with them. He should
+separate what they have that is congenial with his own habit of mind,
+from that with which he can least sympathize, and search into the origin
+of the latter. This will be something of a guide to him as to what is
+permanent and universal in the sentiments and convictions of the people,
+and what is to be regarded as a distinctive feature of the particular
+society or time.
+
+It is impossible but that, by the diligent use of these means, the
+observer must learn much of the general moral notions of the people he
+studies,--of what they approve and disapprove,--what they eschew and
+what they seek,--what they love and hate, desire and fear;--of what, in
+short, yields them most internal trouble or peace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+DOMESTIC STATE.
+
+    "How lived, how loved, how died they?"
+                                      BYRON.
+
+
+Geologists tell us that they can answer for the modes of life of the
+people of any extensive district by looking at the geological map of the
+region. Put a geological map of England before one who understands it,
+and he will tell you that the inhabitants of the western parts, from
+Cornwall, through Wales, and up through Cumberland into Scotland, are
+miners and mountaineers; here living in clusters round the shaft of a
+mine, and there sprinkled over the hills, and secluded in the valleys.
+He will tell you that, on the middle portion of the surface, from
+Devonshire, up through Leicestershire, to the Yorkshire coast, the wide
+pastures are covered with flocks, while the people are collected into
+large manufacturing towns; an ordinary map showing, at the same time,
+that Kidderminster, Birmingham, Coventry, Leicester, and Nottingham,
+Sheffield, Huddersfield, and Leeds, with many others, lie in this
+district. He will tell you that the third range, comprehending the
+eastern part of the island, is studded with farms, and that tillage is
+the great occupation and interest of the inhabitants.
+
+The moralist might follow up the observations of the geologist with an
+account of the general characteristics of societies engaged in these
+occupations. He knows that a distinct intellectual and moral character
+belongs to miners, to artisans, and to agriculturists; he knows that
+miners are prone to superstition, and to speculation in business, from
+the incalculable nature of their pursuits, the hap-hazard character of
+their enterprises; he knows that an artisan population is active-minded,
+communicative, capable and fond of concert; that among them is found the
+greatest proportion of religious dissent and political sagacity, of
+knowledge and its results in action. He knows that an agricultural
+people are less of a society than the others; that they are as mentally
+sluggish in comparison with operatives, as they are physically superior
+to them; that they make far less use of speech; are more attached to
+what is habitual and ancient, and have less enterprise and desire of
+change. They are, in fact, the representatives of the past,--of feudal
+times; while an artisan population is a prophecy of the future, and the
+beginning of the fulfilment. The ideas of equal rights, of
+representation of person as well as property, and all other democratic
+notions, originate in towns, and chiefly in manufacturing towns. Loyalty
+to the person rather than the function of rulers, pride in land and love
+of it as the blessing of blessings, and jealousy of every other
+interest, are found wherever corn springs up in the furrows, and there
+are farm-houses to be miniature representations of the old feudal
+establishments.
+
+Such are the general tendencies, modified according to circumstances.
+There are influences which make certain artisans in England tories, and
+certain landlords and tenants liberals; and there may be times and
+places where whole societies may have their characteristics modified;
+but there is rarely or never a complete departure from the general rule.
+Landlords and their posse of tenants, called liberal, soon find a point
+beyond which they cannot go, and from which they tend back into the
+politics of their order; and there is often but a single step for tory
+artisans into ultra-radicalism; it turns out to be a spurious toryism.
+So it is possible that there might have been here and there a democrat
+in La Vendée in 1793, and a sprinkling of royalists in Lyons in 1817.
+Yet La Vendée and Linois may be taken as representatives of the two
+kinds of society. The weaving population of Lyons are, like that of
+manufacturing towns generally, disposed to irritability by physical
+uneasiness, nourishing their ideas and feelings by communication,
+suffering from the consequences of partial knowledge, having glimpses of
+a better social state, and laying the blame of their adversities on a
+deficiency of protection by the government; enterprising and nicely
+skilled in the improvement of their articles of manufacture, and ever
+full of aspiration. The inhabitants of La Vendée are so diametrically
+opposite in their social circumstances and characteristics, that their
+bias in politics is a matter of course. Here is a description of the
+face of the district at the time that Lyons was as intensely republican
+as La Vendée was royalist:--
+
+"Only two great roads traversed this sequestered region, running nearly
+parallel, at a distance of more than seventy miles from each other. The
+country, though rather thickly peopled, contained, as may be supposed,
+few large towns; and the inhabitants, devoted almost entirely to rural
+occupations, enjoyed a great deal of leisure. The noblesse or gentry of
+the country were very generally resident on their estates, where they
+lived in a style of simplicity and homeliness which had long disappeared
+from every other part of the kingdom. No grand parks, fine gardens, or
+ornamented villas; but spacious clumsy chateaux, surrounded with farm
+offices, and cottages for the labourers. Their manners and way of life,
+too, partook of the same primitive rusticity. There was great
+cordiality, and even much familiarity, in the intercourse of the
+seigneurs with their dependants: they were followed by large trains of
+them in their hunting expeditions, which occupied so great a part of
+their time. Every man had his fowling-piece, and was a marksman of fame
+or pretensions. The peasants resorted familiarly to their landlords for
+advice, both legal and medical; and they repaid the visits in their
+daily rambles, and entered with interest into all the details of their
+agricultural operations. From all this there resulted a certain
+innocence and kindliness of character, joined with great hardihood and
+gaiety. Though not very well educated, the population were exceedingly
+devout; though theirs was a kind of superstitious and traditional
+devotion, it must be owned, rather than an enlightened or rational
+faith. They had the greatest veneration for crucifixes and images of
+their saints, and had no idea of any duty more imperious than that of
+attending on all the solemnities of religion. They were singularly
+attached also to their curés, who were almost all born and bred in the
+country, spoke their _patois_, and shared in all their pastimes and
+occupations. When a hunting-match was to take place, the clergyman
+announced it from the pulpit after prayers, and then took his
+fowling-piece and accompanied his congregation to the thicket."[J]
+
+The chief contrasting features of these two kinds of society may be
+recognized in all parts of the civilized world. The most intensely loyal
+of the loyal Chinese will be found irrigating the terraces of the
+mountains, or busy in the ploughing-matches of the plains; and the least
+contented will be found at the loom. Spain is removed from a capacity
+for social freedom just in proportion to the discouragement of
+manufactures. The vine-growing districts of Germany are the most, and
+the commercial towns the least, acquiescent in the rule under which they
+are living. Russia will be despotically governed as long as she has no
+manufactures; and England and the United States are rescued, by the full
+establishment of their manufactures, from all danger of a retrogradation
+towards feudalism.
+
+The way in which these considerations concern us in this place is, that
+public and private morals, no less than manners, depend on the degree of
+feudalism which is left in the community. We have spoken before of the
+morals of the feudal and democratic states of society; and what we are
+now pointing out is, that these states, with their attendant morals and
+manners, may be discerned from the face of the country, and the
+consequent occupations of its inhabitants.
+
+It appears as if a geological map might be a useful guide to the
+researches of the moralist,--an idea which would have appeared insanely
+ridiculous half a century ago, but now reasonable enough. If the
+traveller be no geologist, so that he cannot, by his own observation,
+determine the nature of the soil, and thence infer, for his general
+guidance, the employments and mental and moral state of the people, he
+must observe the face of the country along the road he travels. He will
+do better still by mounting any eminences which may be within reach,
+whether they be churches, pillars, pyramids, pagodas, baronial castles
+on rocks, or peaks of mountains; thence he should look abroad, from
+point to point, through the whole region, and mark out what he sees
+spread beneath him. Are there pastures extended to the horizon, with
+herdsmen and flocks sprinkled over them, and in the midst a cloud of
+smoke overhanging a town, from which roads part off in many directions?
+Or is it a scene of shadowy mountains, with streams leaping from their
+fissures, and no signs of human habitation but the machinery of a mine,
+with rows of dwellings near heaps of piled rubbish? Or is the whole
+intersected with fences, and here dark with fallows, there yellow with
+corn, while farmsteads terminate the lanes, and the dwellings and
+grounds of rich proprietors are seen at intervals, with each a hamlet
+resting against its boundaries? Is this the kind of scene, whether the
+great house be called mansion, or chateau, or villa, or schloss; whether
+the produce be corn, or grapes, or tea, or cotton? A person gifted with
+a precocity of science in the twelfth century might have prophesied what
+is now happening from the picture stretched beneath him as he gazed
+from an eminence on the banks of the Don or the Calder. He might see,
+with the bodily eye, only
+
+    "Meadows trim with daisies pied,
+     Shallow brooks and rivers wide,"
+
+with clusters of houses in the far distance, and Robin Hood with his
+merry men lurking in the thickets of the forest, or basking under the
+oaks: but with the prophetic eye of science he might discern the
+multitudes that were, in course of time, to be living in Sheffield or
+Huddersfield; the stimulus that would be given to enterprise, the
+thronging of merchants to this region, the physical sufferings, the
+moral pressure, that must come; the awakening of intelligence, and the
+arousing of ambition. In the real scene, a cloud-shadow might be passing
+over a meadow; in the ideal, a smoke-cloud would be resting upon a
+hundred thousand human beings. In the real scene, a warbling lark might
+be springing from the grass; in the ideal, a singer[K] of a higher order
+might appear remonstrating with feudalism from amidst the roar of the
+furnace-blast and the din of the anvil; and then, when his complaint of
+social oppression is done, starting forwards to the end of all, and
+singing the requiem of the world itself.
+
+      "Whose trade is poaching. Honest Jem works not,
+    Begs not; but thrives by plundering beggars here.
+    Wise as a lord, and quite as good a shot,
+    He, like his betters, lives in hate and fear,
+    And feeds on partridge because bread is dear.
+    Sire of six sons apprenticed to the jail,
+    He prowls in arms, the Tory of the night;
+    With them he shares his battles and his ale;
+    With him they feel the majesty of might."
+    "He reads not, writes not, thinks not; scarcely feels:
+    Steals all he gets; serves Hell with all he steals."
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Yes, and the sail-less worlds which navigate
+    Th' unutterable deep that hath no shore,
+    Will lose their starry splendour soon or late,
+    Like tapers quenched by Him whose will is fate!
+    Yes, and the angel of Eternity,
+    Who numbers worlds and writes their names in light,
+    One day, O Earth, will look in vain for thee,
+    And start, and stop in his unerring flight;
+    And with his wings of sorrow and affright
+    Veil his impassioned brow and heavenly tears!"
+
+Somewhat in the same way as such a supposed philosophic observer might
+be imagined to foresee that democratic strains of remonstrance would
+here succeed to foresters' and freebooters' songs, may a well-qualified
+observer of the present day discern the interior mechanism and the
+remote issues of what lies beneath his eyes. While surveying the vast
+prairies on the banks of the deep rivers of the Western world, he may
+safely anticipate the time when self-governing communities will swarm
+where now a settler's log-house and enclosure are the only break in the
+wide surface of verdure. While looking down upon the harvests of
+Volhynia, or watching the processions of wagons laden with corn, and
+slowly wending their way down to Odessa, he may securely conclude that
+no vivacious artisan population will enliven this region for a long time
+to come; that the inhabitants will continue attached to the despotism
+under which they live; and that the morals of a despotism--the morals
+which coexist with gross ignorance and social subservience--may be
+looked for and found for at least an age.
+
+Some preparation may thus be made by a glance over the face of the
+country. Much depends on whether it is flat or mountainous, pasture or
+arable land. It appears from fact, too, that much depends on minor
+circumstances,--even on whether it is damp or dry. It is amusing to the
+traveller in Holland to observe how new points of morals spring up out
+of its swamps, as in the East from the dryness of the deserts. To injure
+the piles on which the city is built, is at Amsterdam a capital offence;
+and no inhabitant could outgrow the shame of tampering with the
+vegetation by which the soil of the dykes is held together. While Irish
+children are meritoriously employed in gathering rushes to make candles,
+and sedges for thatch, "the veriest child in Holland would resent as an
+injury any suspicion that she had rooted up a sedge or a rush, which had
+been planted to strengthen the embankments."[L] Such are certain points
+of morals in a country where water is the great enemy. In the East,
+where drought is the chief foe, it is a crime to defile or stop up a
+well, and the greatest of social glories is to have made water flow
+where all before was dry. In Holland, a malignant enemy cuts the dyke,
+as the last act of malice: in Arabia, he fills up the wells. In Holland,
+a distinct sort of moral feeling seems to have grown up about
+intemperance in drink. The humidity of the climate, and the scarcity of
+clear, wholesome water, obliges the inhabitants to drink much of other
+liquids. If moderation in them were not made a point of conscience of
+the first importance, the consequences of their prevalent use would be
+dreadful. The success of this particular moral effort is great.
+Drunkenness is almost as rare in Holland as carelessness in keeping
+accounts, and tampering with the dykes. There is no country in the world
+whose morals have more clearly grown out of its circumstances than
+Holland. On the theory of an infallible Moral Sense, it would be as
+difficult to account for a Dutchman's tenderness of conscience on any of
+the above three heads, as for a soldier's agony at the imputation of
+sleeping upon guard, or an Alabama planter's resentment at being charged
+with putting the alphabet in the way of a mulatto.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Having noted the aspect of the country, the observer's next business is
+to ascertain the condition of the inhabitants as to the supply of the
+Necessaries of life. He knows that nothing remains to be learned of the
+domestic morals of people who are plunged in hopeless poverty. There is
+no foundation for good morals among such. They herd together, desperate
+or depressed; they have no prospect; their self-respect is prostrated;
+they have nothing to lose, there is nothing for them to gain by any
+effort that they can make.--But it is needless to speak of this. When we
+treat of the domestic morals of any class, it is always presupposed that
+they are not in circumstances which render total immorality almost
+inevitable.
+
+In agricultural districts, the condition of the inhabitants may be
+learned by observation of the markets. An observing traveller has said,
+"To judge at once of a nation, we have only to throw our eyes on the
+markets and the fields. If the markets are well supplied, the fields
+well cultivated, all is right. If otherwise, we may say, and say truly,
+these people are barbarous and oppressed."[M] This, though a rather
+sweeping judgment, is founded in truth, and is well worthy of being
+borne in mind in travelling. It so happens that the negroes of Hayti are
+abundantly supplied with the necessaries, and with many of the comforts
+of life; that they are by no means barbarous, and far from being
+oppressed; and yet they have few roads, and scarcely any markets. They
+grow up in the midst of plenty; but, when a countryman is about to kill
+a hog, he sends his son round among his neighbours on horseback, to give
+notice to any who wish for pork, to send for it on a certain day. Their
+wretched, barbarous, oppressed countrymen in South Carolina, meanwhile,
+have excellent markets. The Saturday night's market at Charleston might
+beguile a careless foreigner into the belief that those who throng it
+are a free and prosperous people. Thus the rule above quoted does not
+always hold. Yet it is true that the existence and good quality of
+markets testify to the existence and good quality of other desirable
+things.
+
+Where markets are abundantly and variously supplied, it is clear that
+there must be a large demand for the comforts of life, and a diversity
+of domestic wants. It is clear that there must be industry to meet this
+demand, and competence to justify it. There must be social security, or
+the industry and competence would not be put to so hazardous a use. It
+_may_ happen, as at Charleston, that the capital is the masters' (whose
+the profits may also be, at any moment); that the industry is called
+forth by a delusive hope; and that the briskness of the transactions at
+market is ascribable to the pleasure slaves have in social meetings; but
+better things may usually be inferred from a well-supplied and
+well-conducted market.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The traveller's other researches in agricultural regions will be into
+the Tenure of lands,--whether they are held in small separate
+properties;--whether such properties are held by individuals, or shared
+with any kind of partners;--whether portions are rented from landlords;
+and, if so, whether any order of middlemen are concerned in the
+business;--whether the land is chiefly held by large owners; and, if so,
+whether the labourers are attached to the soil under feudal
+arrangements, or whether they are free labourers working for wages.
+
+The homes of the agricultural population will be found to vary in aspect
+as any one of these systems prevails. In young and prosperous countries,
+the system of small separate properties is found to conduce to
+independence and the virtues which result from it, though it is not
+favourable to knowledge and enlightenment. Families live much to
+themselves; and thus, while forming strong domestic attachments, they
+lose sight of what is going on in the world. They become unused to the
+light of society, and get to dislike and fear it. The labourers, in such
+case, usually live with the family, whether they be brothers, as often
+happens in Switzerland; sons, as in many a farm-house of the United
+States; or hired servants, as in former times in England,--and still in
+some retired parts. In each case the picture is easily filled in by the
+imagination. All are engaged, throughout the year, in the business of
+living. The work is never ending, still beginning; or, if it has
+intervals, they are dull and weary, from the absence of interests
+wherewith to occupy them. The employments of life are innocent, and the
+principle of association is harmless; but if there be ignorance and
+prejudice in the region, in these farm-houses will they be found; and in
+company with them morals of a high order are not to be looked for.
+
+If small properties are held in partnership, poverty is present or
+threatening. The condition of affairs cannot be lasting; and this may be
+well; for narrow means and partnership in a property which requires to
+be managed by skill are more favourable to discontent and disagreement
+than to a kindly social state.
+
+The middleman system is favourable or unfavourable to morals, just in
+proportion as it is so to prosperity. Every one knows the wretchedness
+of it in Ireland, and that there are numerous instances in Italy of the
+complete success of the métayer plan.
+
+Where the land is the property of large owners, and is tilled by
+labourers, there must be more or less of the feudal temper and manners
+remaining. Where the labourers are attached to the soil, there must
+necessarily exist whatever good arises from the certainty of the means
+of subsistence, coupled with the evils of subservience to the will of
+the lord, mental sluggishness, and ignorance. Where they are not
+irremovably attached to the soil, habit and helplessness have usually
+much of the same effect. The son hedges, ditches, or ploughs where his
+father hedged, ditched, or ploughed; he takes his beer, or cider, or
+thin wine, (according to the country he lives in,) at the same house of
+entertainment, and gossips about the doings of the lord and his family,
+much as labourers were wont to gossip two hundred years ago.
+
+It is the business of the traveller to note which mode of agricultural
+life prevails, and how the morals which pertain to it are modified by
+particular circumstances.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He must make the same kind of observations on the Manufacturing and
+Commercial Classes of the country he visits. Here again the chief
+differences in morals and manners arise out of the comparative
+prosperity or adversity of the class. Take the cotton manufacture.
+Passing by the Chinese operative plying his shuttle as he sits under his
+bamboo shed, and the Hindoo drawing out his fine thread under the shade
+of the palm, what differences there are among artisans of the same
+race,--Europeans and of European extraction! In Massachusetts there are
+villages of artisans, where whole streets of houses are their property;
+the church on the green in the midst is theirs; the Lyceum, with its
+library and apparatus, is theirs. There are rows of neat
+frame-dwellings, painted white or yellow, with piazzas before and
+behind, and Venetian blinds to every window,--all growing up out of the
+earnings of girls, who bring their widowed mothers to preside over their
+establishments. Others are paying off the mortgages on their fathers'
+farms. Others are procuring for their brothers a learned education in a
+college. In the cotton settlements of Europe what a contrast! At the
+best, operatives can only provide for their wants, and the placing out
+of their children, by a life of strenuous toil. At the worst, they herd
+together, many families in one house,--often in one room; decency is
+discarded; recklessness succeeds, to such a degree that, in certain
+sections of the society, there is scarcely a man of thirty-five who is
+not a grandfather. Among such there is a barbarism as savage as among
+the most vicious aristocracy of the worst feudal times. The lowest
+artisan population of the present day may vie in corruption with the
+noblesse of France on the eve of the first revolution. It is for the
+traveller to observe what grade in the wide interval between the
+operatives of Massachusetts, and those of Lyons and Stockport, is
+occupied by the artisans of the places he visits.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Upon the extent of the Commerce of a country depends much of the
+character of its morals. Old virtues and vices dwindle away, and new
+ones appear. The old members of a rising commercial society complain of
+the loss of simplicity of manners, of the introduction of new wants, of
+the relaxation of morals, of the prevalence of new habits. The young
+members of the same society rejoice that prudery is going out of
+fashion, that gossip is likely to be replaced by the higher kind of
+intercourse which is introduced by strangers, and by an extension of
+knowledge and interests: they even decide that domestic morals are purer
+from the general enlargement and occupation of mind which has succeeded
+to the _ennui_ and selfishness in which licentiousness often originates.
+A highly remarkable picture of the two conditions of the same place may
+be obtained by comparing Mrs. Grant's account of the town of Albany, New
+York, in her young days,[N] with the present state of the city. She
+tells us of the plays of the children on the green slope which is now
+State Street; of the tea-drinkings and working parties, of the gossip,
+bickerings, and virulent petty enmities of the young society, with its
+general regularity and occasional back-sliding; with the gentle
+despotism of its opulent members, and the more or less restive or
+servile obedience of the subordinate personages. In place of all this,
+the stranger now sees a city with magnificent public buildings, and
+private houses filled with the products of all the countries of the
+world. The inhabitants are too busy to be given to gossip, too
+unrestrained in their intercourse with numbers to retain much prudery:
+social despotism and subservience have become impossible: there is a
+generous spirit of enterprise, an enlargement of knowledge, an
+amelioration of opinion. There is, on the other hand, perhaps a decrease
+of kindly neighbourly regard, and certainly a great increase of the low
+vices which are the plague of commercial cities. Such is the
+transformation wrought by commerce. An observer who can also
+speculate,--one who looks before and after,--will conclude that, amidst
+some evil, the change is advantageous; and that good must, on the whole,
+arise from enlarged intercourses between men and societies. Seeing in
+commerce the instrument by which all the inhabitants of the earth are in
+time to be brought into common possession of all true ideas, and
+sympathy in all good feelings, he will mark the progress made by the
+society he visits towards this end. He will mark whether its merchants
+as a body have a spirit of generous enterprise or of sordid
+self-interest; whether they entertain a respect for learning and a taste
+for art,--bringing the one from abroad, and cherishing the other at
+home;--whether, in short, the merchants are the princes or the
+money-grubbers of the community. The spirit of this class will determine
+that of their subordinates. If the masters of commerce are liberal and
+enlightened, their servants will be thriving, and will have the virtues
+which wait upon self-respect: if the contrary, they will be debased. A
+Jewish money-lender is no more like a merchant of Salem or Bourdeaux
+than Malay porters at Macao are like the clerk class of Amsterdam. In
+the mercantile orders of society may be found the extremes of honour,
+generosity, diligence, and accuracy,--and of treachery, meanness, and
+selfish carelessness. It is the traveller's business to note the
+tendencies to the one or the other,--from the vexatious hog and yam
+traffic of the islands of the South Sea, to the magnificent transactions
+of the traders of Hamburgh.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Health of a community is an almost unfailing index of its morals. No
+one can wonder at this who considers how physical suffering irritates
+the temper, depresses energy, deadens hope, induces recklessness, and,
+in short, poisons life. The domestic affections, too, are apt to
+languish through disappointment in countries where the average of death
+is very high. There is least marriage in unhealthy countries, and most
+in healthy ones,--other circumstances being equal. The same kind of
+spirit (however largely diluted) prevails in sickly regions as in
+societies which are visited by a pestilence. Study the tempers of the
+people who are subject to goîtres, of those who live in marshes, of
+those who encounter an annual tropical fever; and contrast it with that
+of dwellers on mountains, and in dry prairies, and in well-ventilated
+towns. What selfishness, apathy, and discontent in the one class! and
+what kindliness, briskness, and cheerfulness in the other! In the United
+States, wide spreading as the country is, and comprehending every
+variety of people, and almost of climate, the common deficiency of
+health produces moral effects which must strike the most careless
+traveller. The epicurean temper of the south, and the puritanic mood of
+the north, are alike stimulated by this. In the south, the overseers,
+whose business it is to encounter the fever, seem to be always
+practically saying, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." There
+is a recklessness among the trading classes there, a heathen levity and
+grossness, which are doubtless in a great degree owing to the presence
+of slavery, but also in part to the certainty of a very large annual
+mortality. Not the purest Christianity itself could preserve a people so
+placed from a more or less modified fatalism. The richer members of
+society leave their homes for some months of every year, and go
+northwards; and this perpetual unsettling of their families has a bad
+effect upon the habits of the young people and the comfort of their
+parents. It operates against domestic diligence, tranquillity, and
+satisfaction with home pleasures. In the north, there is a perpetual
+preaching about death, enforced by the never-ceasing recurrence of it;
+but it has not the effect of making people less worldly-minded than
+others. It serves only to shade life with apprehension, uncertainty, and
+bereavement; and, it is to be feared, to give to the vanity of many
+minds the direction of false heroism about meeting death. This seems too
+serious a subject for the exercise of human vanity; yet that purpose it
+has served, perhaps, in all societies; and in none more than in New
+England. The greater number of very young people, everywhere, who cannot
+be aware of the importance of life, and of the simplicity of death as
+its close, have romantic thoughts about dying early; and, in a country
+where an unusual proportion do die early, this species of vain-glory is
+likely to flourish. The pain felt everywhere by really enlarged and
+religious minds on seeing a false resignation exhibited, and hearing
+shallow sentimentalities given out on the brink of the grave, is
+peculiarly felt in a region where mourning mothers may be seen who have
+lost eight, twelve, or fifteen children, and where scarcely an
+enterprise of any extent can be undertaken which is not almost sure to
+be interrupted or baffled by sickness or death.--When these
+considerations are dwelt upon, and when it is remembered what the
+consequences of a low state of health must be to each future generation,
+it seems scarcely extravagant to say that the best influence upon the
+morals of the American nation would be such as might improve their
+health.
+
+Good and bad health are both cause and effect of good and bad morals. No
+proof of this is needed, nor any further dwelling upon the proposition.
+The fact, however, points out to the observer the duty of obtaining a
+correct general estimate of the health of the community he visits.
+
+There are two principal methods by which he may obtain the knowledge he
+wants,--by examining civic registers, and by visiting burial-grounds.
+
+A faithful register of births, marriages, and deaths, is wished for by
+enlightened philanthropists of all advanced countries, far more as a
+test of national morals and the national welfare, than as a matter of
+the highest social convenience. For this the physiologist waits as the
+means of determining the physical condition of the nation; as a guide to
+him in suggesting and prescribing the methods by which the national
+health may be improved, and the average of life prolonged.--For this the
+legislator waits as the means of determining the comparative proneness
+of the people to certain kinds of social offences, and the causes of
+that proneness; that the law may be framed so as to include (as all wise
+laws should include) the largest preventive influence with the greatest
+certainty of retribution.--For this the philanthropist waits as a guide
+to him in forming his scheme of universal education; and without
+this,--without knowing how many need education altogether,--how many
+under one set of circumstances, and how many under another,--he can
+proceed only in darkness, or amidst the delusions of false lights. He is
+only perplexed by the partial knowledge, which is all that his utmost
+efforts enable him to obtain. If he goes into every house of every town
+and village in his district, he is no nearer to an understanding of the
+intellectual and moral condition of the nation than he was before: for
+other districts have a different soil and different occupations; the
+employments of the people, their diseases and their resources, are
+unlike; and, under these diverse influences, their physical, and
+therefore moral and intellectual condition, must vary. The reports of
+Philanthropic Societies do little more for him, drawn up as they are
+with partial objects and under exclusive influences: parliamentary
+disclosures are of little more use. Vague statements about the increase
+of drunkenness, resistance to one kind of law or another, alarm and
+distress him; but such statements again are partial, and so often
+brought forward for a particular object, that they afford no safe guide
+to him who would form a general preventive or remedy. Thus it is under
+all partial methods of observation; but when the philanthropist shall
+gain access to a register of the national births, marriages, and deaths,
+he will have under his hand all the materials he requires, as completely
+as if he were hovering over the kingdom, comprehending all its districts
+in one view, and glancing at will into all its habitations.
+
+The comparative ages of the dead will indicate to him not only the
+amount of health, but the comparative force of various species of
+disease; and from the character of its diseases, and the amount of its
+health, much of the moral state of a people may be safely pronounced
+upon. The proportion of marriages to births and deaths is always an
+indication of the degree of comfort enjoyed, and of the consequent
+purity of morals; and, therefore, of the degree in which education is
+present or needed. A large number of children, and a large proportion of
+marriages, indicate physical and moral welfare, and therefore a
+comparative prevalence of education. A large number of births, and a
+small proportion of marriages, indicate the reverse. When these
+circumstances are taken in connexion with the prevailing occupations of
+the district to which they relate, the philanthropist has arrived at a
+sufficient certainty as to the means of education required, and the
+method in which they are to be applied.
+
+There is, unfortunately, in all countries, an insufficiency of records
+framed for the purpose of induction, and subsequent practical use. The
+chief of a tribe, proud in proportion to his barbarian insignificance,
+may from time to time indulge himself by numbering the people whom he
+considers as his property; and an ambitious and warlike emperor may
+organize a conscription; and these records may remain to fulfil
+hereafter far more exalted purposes than those for which they were
+designed: but these instances are few; and in the art of constructing
+tables, and ascertaining averages, the most civilized people are still,
+for want of practice, in a state of unskilfulness. But, in the absence
+of that which would spare observers the task of ascertaining results for
+themselves, they must take the best they can get. A traveller must
+inquire for any public registers which may exist in all districts, and
+note and reflect upon the facts he finds there. In case of there being
+none such, it is possible that the physicians of the district may be
+able to afford information from private documents of the same nature. If
+not, there remain the cemeteries.
+
+The calculators of longevity believe that they may now, by taking down
+the dates from the first thirty tombstones in the cemeteries of the
+districts they pass through, learn the comparative healthiness and
+length of life of the inhabitants of the country. However this may be,
+there is no doubt that a large variety and extent of information may be
+thus obtained. The observer can ascertain where the fatal diseases of
+infancy most prevail,--which is the same thing as knowing that the
+physical and moral condition of the people is low; as a large proportion
+(not mere number) of deaths in infancy is a most unfavourable symptom of
+society. He can ascertain where consumption prevails, where fever, and
+where the largest proportion attains to length of days. It is much to
+know what character disease and death wear in any district. One
+character of Morals and Manners prevails where the greater number die
+young, and another where they die old; one where they are cut off by
+hardship; another where they waste away under a lingering disease; and
+yet another where they abide their full time, and then come to their
+graves like a shock of corn in its season. The grave-yards on the
+heights of the Alleghanies will tell a different tale of Morals and
+Manners from the New Orleans' cemetery, glaring in the midst of the
+swamp; and so would the burial-places in the suburbs of Irish cities,
+if their contents were known, from those of the hardy Waldenses, or of
+the decent and thriving colonists of Frederick's-oord.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Marriage compact is the most important feature of the domestic state
+on which the observer can fix his attention. If he be a thinker, he will
+not be surprised at finding much imperfection in the marriage state
+wherever he goes. By no arrangements yet attempted have purity of
+morals, constancy of affection, and domestic peace been secured to any
+extensive degree in society. Almost every variety of method is still in
+use, in one part of the world or another. The primitive custom of
+brothers marrying sisters still subsists in some Eastern regions.
+Polygamy is very common there, as every one knows. In countries which
+are too far advanced for this, every restraint of law, all sanction of
+opinion, has been tried to render the natural method,--the restriction
+of one husband to one wife,--successful, and therefore universal and
+permanent. Law and opinion have, however, never availed to anything like
+complete success. Even in thriving young countries, where no
+considerations of want, and few of ambition, can interfere with domestic
+peace,--where the numbers are equal, where love has the promise of a
+free and even course, and where religious sentiment is directed full
+upon the sanctity of the marriage state,--it is found to be far from
+pure. In almost all countries, the corruption of society in this
+department is so deep and wide-spreading, as to vitiate both moral
+sentiment and practice in an almost hopeless degree. It neutralizes
+almost all attempts to ameliorate and elevate the condition of the
+race.--There must be something fearfully wrong where the general result
+is so unfortunate as this. As in most other cases of social suffering,
+the wrong will be found to lie less in the methods ordained and put in
+practice, than in the prevalent sentiment of society, out of which all
+methods arise.
+
+It is necessary to make mention (however briefly) of the kinds of false
+sentiment from which the evil of conjugal unhappiness appears to
+spring.--The sentiment by which courage is made the chief ground of
+honour in men, and chastity in women, coupled with the inferiority in
+which women have ever been sunk, was sure to induce profligacy. As long
+as men were brave nothing more was required to make them honourable in
+the eyes of society: while the inferior condition of women has ever
+exposed those of them who were not protected by birth and wealth to the
+profligacy of men.--The shallowness of the sentiment of honour is
+another great evil. In its origin, honour includes self-respect and the
+respect of others. In time, "from its intimate connexion with what is
+personal in interest and feeling, it is greatly exposed to degenerate
+into a false and misguiding sentiment. Connecting itself with the
+notions of character which prevail by chance in the community, rather
+than with the rule of right and of God, it has erected a false standard
+of estimate." The requisitions of honour come to be viewed as regarding
+only equals, or those who are hedged about with honour, and they are
+neglected with regard to the helpless. Men of honour use treachery with
+women,--with those to whom they promise marriage, and with those to
+whom, in marrying, they promised fidelity, love, and care; and yet their
+honour is, in the eyes of society, unstained.--Feudal ambition is
+another sentiment fraught with evil to marriage. In a society where
+pride and ostentation prevail, where rank and wealth are regarded as
+prime objects of pursuit, marriage comes to be regarded as a means of
+obtaining these. Wives are selected for their connexions and their
+fortune, and the love is placed elsewhere.--Any one of these corrupt
+species of sentiment, and of some others which exist, must ruin domestic
+peace, if the laws of each country were as wise as they are now, for the
+most part, faulty, and as powerful as they are now ineffectual.--If the
+traveller will bear these things in mind, he will gain light upon the
+moral sentiment of the society by the condition of domestic life in it;
+and again, what he knows of the prevalent moral sentiment of the society
+will cast light upon the domestic condition of its members.
+
+Another thing to be carefully remembered is, that asceticism and
+licentiousness universally coexist. All experience proves this; and
+every principle of human nature might prophesy the proof. Passions and
+emotions cannot be extinguished by general rules. Self-mortification can
+spring only out of a home-felt principle, and not from the will of
+another, or of any number of others. The exhibition only can be
+restrained, and the visible conduct ordered by rule. In consequence, it
+is found that no greater impurity of mind exists than among associated
+ascetics; and nowhere are crimes of the licentious class so gross, other
+circumstances being equal, as in communities which have the puritanic
+spirit. Any one well-informed on the subject is aware that there is much
+coarseness in the manners of the Quakers; and their regard for the
+pleasures of the table is open to the observation of all. Nowhere are
+drunkenness and infanticide more disgusting and horrible, when they do
+occur, than in Calvinistic Scotland. The bottomless corruption of Vienna
+is notorious; and much of it is traceable to a species of political
+asceticism,--to artificial restrictions other than religious, but
+producing similar effects. Politics are a forbidden topic of
+conversation. Under this rule, literature is a forbidden topic too; for
+literary and philosophical necessarily induces political communication.
+In Vienna may be seen the singular spectacle of an assembled multitude
+who read, not one of whom opens his lips upon books, or their subject
+matter. What then remains? Gallantry. The intellect being silenced, the
+passions run riot; and the excessive corruption of the society,--a
+corruption which is notorious over the civilized world,--is the natural
+consequence. It may safely be assumed that wherever artificial
+restraints are imposed on the passions, or on the intellects and
+pursuits of men, there must be licentiousness, precisely proportioned to
+the severity of the restraint.
+
+Celibacy of the clergy, or of any other class of men, involves
+polygamy, virtual if not avowed, in some other class. To this the
+relaxation of domestic morals in the higher orders of all Catholic
+societies bears testimony as strongly as the existence of allowed
+polygamy in India. It is everywhere professed that Christianity puts
+an end to polygamy; and so it does, as Christianity is understood in
+Protestant countries; but a glance at the state of morals in countries
+where celibacy is the religion of the clergy,--among the higher ranks
+in Italy, in France, in Spain,--shows that, while the name of polygamy
+is disclaimed, the thing is held in no great abhorrence. This is
+mentioned here simply as matter of fact, necessary to our inquiry as to
+how to observe morals and manners. It is notorious that, wherever
+celibacy is extensively professed, there is not only, as a consequence,
+a frequent breach of profession, but a much larger indulgence extended
+to other classes, in consequence of the restrictions on one. The methods
+of marriage in Italy and France,--the disposing of the woman at an early
+age, and before she is capable of giving an enlightened consent,--often
+even without the form of asking her consent,--on the understanding,
+tacit or avowed, that she may hereafter place her affections
+elsewhere,--these proceedings could have been adopted, could now be
+persevered in, only in countries where partial asceticism had induced a
+corresponding licentiousness.--The same fact,--the invariable proportion
+of asceticism and licentiousness,--exists where by some it would be
+least looked for,--in societies which have the reputation of being
+eminently pure; and this consideration is sufficient to extinguish all
+boasting, all assumption of unquestionable moral superiority in one
+people over another. It is not only that each nation likes its own
+notions of morals better than those of its neighbours; but that the
+very same things which are avowed among those who are called the
+grossest, happen with that which considers itself the most pure. Such
+superiority as there is is owing, perhaps, in no case to severity of
+religious sentiment and discipline, but rather to the worldly ease which
+blesses a young and thinly peopled country, and to the high cultivation
+of a society which furnishes its members with an extraordinary diversity
+of interests and pursuits.
+
+Marriage exists everywhere, to be studied by the moral observer. He must
+watch the character of courtships wherever he goes;--whether the young
+lady is negociated for and promised by her guardians, without having
+seen her intended; like the poor girl who, when she asked her mother to
+point out her future husband from among a number of gentlemen, was
+silenced with the rebuke, "What is that to you?"--or whether they are
+left free to exchange their faith "by flowing stream, through wood, or
+craggy wild," as in the United States;--or whether there is a medium
+between these two extremes, as in England. He must observe how fate is
+defied by lovers in various countries. We have seen what was the
+acquiescence of Philip and Hannah in their eternal separation. None but
+Moravians, perhaps, would have so parted for ever. Scotch lovers agree
+to come together after so many years spent in providing the
+"plenishing." Irish lovers conclude the business, in case of difficulty,
+by appearing before the priest the next morning. There is recourse to a
+balcony and rope-ladder in one country; a steam-boat and back-settlement
+in another; trust and patience in a third; and intermediate
+flirtations, to pass the time, in a fourth. He must note the degree of
+worldly ambition which attends marriages, and which may therefore be
+supposed to stimulate them,--how much space the house with two rooms in
+humble life, and the country-seat and carriages in higher life, occupy
+in the mind of bride or bridegroom.--He must observe whether conjugal
+infidelity excites horror and rage, or whether it is so much a matter of
+course as that no jealousy interferes to mar the arrangements of mutual
+convenience.--He must mark whether women are made absolutely the
+property of their husbands, in mind and in estate; or whether the wife
+is treated more or less professedly as an equal party in the
+agreement.--He must observe whether there is an excluded class, victims
+to their own superstition or to a false social obligation, wandering
+about to disturb by their jealousy or licentiousness those whose lot is
+happier.--He must observe whether there are domestic arrangements for
+home enjoyments, or whether all is planned on the supposition of
+pleasure lying abroad; whether the reliance is on books, gardens, and
+play with children, or on the opera, parties, the ale-house, or dances
+on the green.--He must mark whether the ladies are occupied with their
+household cares in the morning, and the society of their husbands in the
+evening, or with embroidery and looking out of balconies; with receiving
+company all day, or gadding abroad; with the library or the nursery;
+with lovers or with children.--In each country, called civilized, he
+will meet with almost all these varieties: but in each there is such a
+prevailing character in the aspect of domestic life, that intelligent
+observation will enable him to decide, without much danger of mistake,
+as to whether marriage is merely an arrangement of convenience, in
+accordance with low morals, or a sacred institution, commanding the
+reverence and affection of a virtuous people. No high degree of this
+sanctity can be looked for till that moderation is attained which,
+during the prevalence of asceticism and its opposite, is reached only by
+a few. That it yet exists nowhere as the characteristic of any
+society,--that all the blessings of domestic life are not yet open to
+all, so as to preclude the danger of any one encroaching on his
+neighbour,--is but too evident to the travelled observer. He can only
+mark the degree of approximation to this state of high morals wherever
+he goes.
+
+The traveller everywhere finds woman treated as the inferior party in a
+compact in which both parties have an equal interest. Any agreement thus
+formed is imperfect, and is liable to disturbance; and the danger is
+great in proportion to the degradation of the supposed weaker party. The
+degree of the degradation of woman is as good a test as the moralist can
+adopt for ascertaining the state of domestic morals in any country.
+
+The Indian squaw carries the household burdens, trudging in the dust,
+while her husband on horseback paces before her, unencumbered but by his
+own gay trappings. She carries the wallet with food, the matting for the
+lodge, the merchandize (if they possess any), and her infant. There is
+no exemption from labour for the squaw of the most vaunted chief. In
+other countries the wife may be found drawing the plough, hewing wood
+and carrying water; the men of the family standing idle to witness her
+toils. Here the observer may feel pretty sure of his case. From a
+condition of slavery like this, women are found rising to the highest
+condition in which they are at present seen, in France, England, and the
+United States,--where they are less than half-educated, precluded from
+earning a subsistence, except in a very few ill-paid employments, and
+prohibited from giving or withholding their assent to laws which they
+are yet bound by penalties to obey. In France, owing to the great
+destruction of men in the wars of Napoleon, women are engaged, and
+successfully engaged, in a variety of occupations which have been
+elsewhere supposed unsuitable to the sex. Yet there remains so large a
+number who cannot, by the most strenuous labour in feminine employments,
+command the necessaries of life, while its luxuries may be earned by
+infamy, that the morals of the society are naturally bad. Great
+attention has of late been given to this subject in France: the social
+condition of women is matter of thought and discussion to a degree which
+promises some considerable amelioration. Already, women can do more in
+France than anywhere else; they can attempt more without ridicule or
+arbitrary hinderance: and the women of France are probably destined to
+lead the way in the advance which the sex must hereafter make. At
+present, society is undergoing a transition from a feudal state to one
+of mutual government; and women, gaining in some ways, suffer in others
+during the process. They have, happily for themselves, lost much of the
+peculiar kind of observance which was the most remarkable feature of the
+chivalrous age; and it has been impossible to prevent their sharing in
+the benefits of the improvement and diffusion of knowledge. All
+cultivation of their powers has secured to them the use of new power; so
+that their condition is far superior to what it was in any former age.
+But new difficulties about securing a maintenance have arisen. Marriage
+is less general; and the husbands of the greater number of women are not
+secure of a maintenance from the lords of the soil, any more than women
+are from being married. The charge of their own maintenance is thrown
+upon large numbers of women, without the requisite variety of
+employments having been opened to them, or the needful education
+imparted. A natural consequence of this is, that women are educated to
+consider marriage the one object in life, and therefore to be extremely
+impatient to secure it. The unfavourable influence of these results upon
+the happiness of domestic life may be seen at a glance.
+
+This may be considered the sum and substance of female education in
+England; and the case is scarcely better in France, though the
+independence and practical efficiency of women there are greater than in
+any other country. The women in the United States are in a lower
+condition than either, though there is less striving after marriage,
+from its greater frequency, and little restriction is imposed upon the
+book-learning which women may obtain. But the old feudal notions about
+the sex flourish there, while they are going out in the more advanced
+countries of Europe; and these notions, in reality, regulate the
+condition of women. American women generally are treated in no degree as
+equals, but with a kind of superstitious outward observance, which, as
+they have done nothing to earn it, is false and hurtful. Coexisting
+with this, there is an extreme difficulty in a woman's obtaining a
+maintenance, except by the exercise of some rare powers. In a country
+where women are brought up to be indulged wives, there is no hope, help,
+or prospect for such as have not money and are not married.
+
+In America, women can earn a maintenance only by teaching, sewing,
+employment in factories, keeping boarding-houses, and domestic service.
+Some governesses are tolerably well paid,--comparing their earnings with
+those of men. Employment in factories, and domestic service, are well
+paid. Sewing is so wretched an occupation everywhere, that it is to be
+hoped that machinery will soon supersede the use of human fingers in a
+labour so unprofitable. In Boston, Massachusetts, a woman is paid
+ninepence (sixpence English) for making a shirt.--In England, besides
+these occupations, others are opening; and, what is of yet greater
+consequence, the public mind is awakening to the necessity of enlarging
+the sphere of female industry. Some of the inferior branches of the fine
+arts have lately offered profitable employment to many women. The
+commercial adversity to which the country has been exposed from time to
+time, has been of service to the sex, by throwing hundreds and thousands
+of them upon their own resources, and thus impelling them to urge claims
+and show powers which are more respected every day.--In France this is
+yet more conspicuously the case. There, women are shopkeepers,
+merchants, professional accountants, editors of newspapers, and employed
+in many other ways, unexampled elsewhere, but natural and respectable
+enough on the spot.
+
+Domestic morals are affected in two principal respects by these
+differences. Where feminine occupations of a profitable nature are few,
+and therefore overstocked, and therefore yielding a scanty maintenance
+with difficulty, there is the strongest temptation to prefer luxury with
+infamy to hardship with unrecognized honour. Hence arises much of the
+corruption of cities,--less in the United States than in Europe, from
+the prevalence of marriage,--but awful in extent everywhere. Where vice
+is made to appear the interest of large classes of women, the observer
+may be quite sure that domestic morals will be found impure. If he can
+meet with any society where the objects of life are as various and as
+freely open to women as to men, there he may be sure of finding the
+greatest amount of domestic purity and peace; for, if women were not
+helpless, men would find it far less easy to be vicious.
+
+The other way in which domestic morals are affected by the scope which
+is allowed to the powers of women, is through the views of marriage
+which are induced. Marriage is debased by being considered the one
+worldly object in life,--that on which maintenance, consequence, and
+power depend. Where the husband marries for connexion, fortune, or an
+heir to his estate, and the wife for an establishment, for consequence,
+or influence, there is no foundation for high domestic morals and
+lasting peace; and in a country where marriage is made the single aim of
+all women, there is no security against the influence of some of these
+motives even in the simplest and purest cases of attachment. The
+sordidness is infused from the earliest years; the taint is in the mind
+before the attachment begins, before the objects meet; and the evil
+effects upon the marriage state are incalculable.
+
+All this--the sentiment of society with regard to Woman and to Marriage,
+the social condition of Woman, and the consequent tendency and aim of
+her education,--the traveller must carefully observe. Each civilized
+society claims for itself the superiority in its treatment of woman. In
+one, she is indulged with religious shows, and with masquerades, or
+Punch, as an occasional variety. In another, she is left in honourable
+and undisputed possession of the housekeeping department. In a third,
+she is allowed to meddle, behind the scenes, with the business which is
+confided to her husband's management. In a fourth, she is satisfied in
+being the cherished domestic companion, unaware of the injury of being
+doomed to the narrowness of mind which is the portion of those who are
+always confined to the domestic circle. In a fifth, she is flattered at
+being guarded and indulged as a being requiring incessant fostering, and
+too feeble to take care of herself. In a sixth society, there may be
+found expanding means of independent occupation, of responsible
+employment for women; and here, other circumstances being equal, is the
+best promise of domestic fidelity and enjoyment.
+
+It is a matter of course that women who are furnished with but one
+object,--marriage,--must be as unfit for anything when their aim is
+accomplished as if they had never had any object at all. They are no
+more equal to the task of education than to that of governing the state;
+and, if any unexpected turn of adversity befals them, they have no
+resource but a convent, or some other charitable provision. Where, on
+the other hand, women are brought up capable of maintaining an
+independent existence, other objects remain when the grand one is
+accomplished. Their independence of mind places them beyond the reach of
+the spoiler; and their cultivated faculty of reason renders them worthy
+guardians of the rational beings whose weal or woe is lodged in their
+hands. There is yet, as may be seen by a mere glance over society, only
+a very imperfect provision made anywhere for doing justice to the next
+generation by qualifying their mothers; but the observer of morals may
+profit by marking the degrees in which this imperfection approaches to
+barbarism. Where he finds that girls are committed to convents for
+education, and have no alternative in life but marriage, in which their
+will has no share, and a return to their convent, he may safely conclude
+that there a plurality of lovers is a matter of course, and domestic
+enjoyments of the highest kind undesired and unknown. He may conclude
+that as are the parents, so will be the children; and that, for one more
+generation at least, there will be little or no improvement. But where
+he finds a variety of occupations open to women; where he perceives them
+not only pursuing the lighter mechanic arts, dispensing charity and
+organizing schools for the poor, but occupied in education, and in the
+study of science and the practice of the fine arts, he may conclude that
+here resides the highest domestic enjoyment which has yet been attained,
+and the strongest hope of a further advance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Children in all countries are, as Mrs. Grant of Laggan says, first
+vegetables, and then they are animals, and then they come to be people;
+but their way of growing out of one stage into another is as different,
+in different societies, as their states of mind when they are grown up.
+They all have limbs, senses, and intellects; but their growth of heart
+and mind depends incalculably upon the spirit of the society amidst
+which they are reared. The traveller must study them wherever he meets
+them. In one country, multitudes of them lie about in the streets,
+basking in the sun, and killing vermin; while the children of the very
+poorest persons of another country are decently clothed, and either
+busily occupied with such domestic employments as they are capable of,
+or at school, or playing among the rocks, or climbing trees, or crawling
+about the wooden bridges, without fear or danger. From this one symptom,
+the observer might learn the poverty and idleness of the lower classes
+of Spain, and the comfort and industry of those of the United States. As
+to the children of the richer classes, there is the widest difference in
+the world between those who are the idols of their mothers, (as in
+societies where the heart's love is lavished on the children which has
+not been engaged by the husband,) and those who are early steeped in
+corruption, (as in slave countries,) and those who are reared
+philosophers and saints, and those to whom home is a sunny paradise
+hedged round with love and care, and those who are little men and women
+of the world from the time they can walk alone. All these kinds of
+children exist,--sure breathings of the moral atmosphere of their homes.
+The traveller must watch them, talk with them, and learn from their
+bearing towards their parents, and the bent of their affections, what is
+the spirit of the families of the land.
+
+From observation on these classes of facts,--the Occupation of the
+people, the respective Characters of the occupied classes, the Health of
+the population, the state of Marriage and of Women, and the character of
+Childhood,--the moralist may learn more of the private life of a
+community than from the conversation of any number of the individuals
+who compose it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+IDEA OF LIBERTY.
+
+      "He who taught man to vanquish whatsoever
+        Can be between the cradle and the grave,
+      Crowned him the King of Life. O vain endeavour,
+        If on his own high will, a willing slave,
+    He has enthroned the oppression and the oppressor!
+        What if earth can clothe and feed
+        Amplest millions at their need,
+    And power in thought be as the tree within the seed?
+      Or what if Art, an ardent intercessor,
+        Diving on fiery wings to Nature's throne,
+      Checks the great mother stooping to caress her,
+        And cries, Give me, thy child, dominion
+    Over all height and depth? If Life can breed
+      New wants, and wealth from those who toil and groan
+      Rend of thy gifts and her's a thousandfold for one."
+                                                    _Shelley._
+
+
+The same rule--of observing Things in preference to relying upon the
+Discourse of persons--holds good in the task of ascertaining the Idea of
+Liberty entertained and realized by any society. The Things to be
+observed for this purpose are those which follow.
+
+The most obvious consideration of all is the amount of feudal
+arrangements which remain,--so obvious as to require only a bare
+mention. If people are satisfied to obey the will of a lord of the soil,
+to go out to hunt or to fight at his bidding, to require his consent to
+marriages among his dependants, and to hold whatever they have at his
+permission, their case is clear. They are destitute of any idea of
+liberty, and can be considered at best only half-civilized.--It matters
+little whether all this subservience is yielded to the owner of an
+estate, or the sovereign of the country, represented by his police or
+soldiery. Blind, ignorant obedience to any ruling power which the
+subjects had no hand in constituting, on the one part, and the
+enforcement of that obedience on the other, is the feudal temper.
+
+A sleek Austrian of the middle ranks stood, of late, smoking at his
+door. A practical joker, who had a mind to see how far the man's
+deference for the police would carry him, drew towards him, and
+whispered in his ear, "You must dance." The Austrian stared. "Dance, I
+say!" repeated the stranger, with an air of authority. "Why must I
+dance?" asked the Austrian, when he had removed the pipe from his mouth.
+"Because I, an agent of the police, insist upon it." The Austrian
+instantly began capering, and continued his exercise till desired to
+stand still, assured that he had satisfied the police.--In the United
+States, the contrast is amusing. On occasions of public assembly, the
+appeal is made to the democratic sentiment of the people to preserve
+order. If an orator is to hold forth on an anniversary, the soldiers
+(most citizen-like militia) may be seen putting their arms round the
+necks of newly arrived listeners, in supplication that they will leave
+seats vacant for the band. If a piece of plate is to be presented to a
+statesman, and twice as many people throng to the theatre as the
+building will hold, harangues may be heard from the neighbouring
+balconies,--appeals to the gallantry and kindliness of the crowd,--which
+are found quite as effectual in controlling the movements of the
+assemblage as any number of bayonets or constables' staves could be.
+
+This leads to the mention of the Police of a country as a sure sign of
+the idea of liberty existing within it. Where the soldiery are the
+guards of social order, it makes all the difference whether they are
+royal troops,--a destructive machinery organized against the people,--or
+a National Guard, springing up when needed from among the people, for
+the people's sake,--or a militia, like the American, mentioned
+above,--virtually stewards of the meeting, and nothing more. Whatever
+may be thought of the comparative ease of proceeding, on any given
+occasion, between a police like that of Paris, and a constabulary like
+that of the American cities, (a mockery to European rulers,) it is a
+striking fact that order has been generally preserved for half a
+century, in a country where public meetings are a hundred times as
+numerous as in any kingdom in Europe, by means which would in Europe be
+no means at all. It is clear that the idea of liberty must be elevated,
+and the love of social order intelligent and strong, where the peace has
+been kept through unanimity of will. With the exception of outrages
+growing out of the institution of slavery, (which require a deeper
+treatment than any species of constabulary can practise,) the United
+States, with opportunities of disturbance which have been as a hundred
+to one, have exhibited fewer instances of a breach of public order than
+any other country in the same space of time; and this order has been
+preserved by the popular will, in the full knowledge on all hands that
+no power existed to control this will. This is a fact which speaks
+volumes in favour of the principles, if not the policy, of the American
+people.
+
+In the United States, the traveller may proceed a thousand miles in any
+direction, or live ten years in one place, without the idea of control,
+beyond that of social convenience, being once presented to his mind.
+Paul Louis Courier gives us the experience of an acquaintance of his.
+"Un homme que j'ai vu arrive d'Amérique. Il y est resté trois ans sans
+entendre parler de ce que nous appelons ici l'autorité. Il a vécu trois
+ans sans être gouverné, s'ennuyant à périr."--In France, he cannot go in
+search of the site of the Bastille without finding himself surrounded by
+watchers before he has stood five minutes.--In Italy, his trunks are
+opened to examine the books he carries, and compare them with the list
+of proscribed works.--In Spain, he can say nothing in public that is not
+likely to be known to the authorities before the day is out; or in
+private that is not in possession of some priest after the next period
+of confession.--In Switzerland, he finds that he is free to do any thing
+but make inquiries about the condition of the country. If he asks, as
+the Emperor Joseph did before him, "Quels sont les revenues de votre
+république?" he may receive the same answer, "Ils excedent nos
+dépenses."--In Germany, his case is like that of the inhabitants of the
+cities;--his course is open and agreeable as long as he pursues inferior
+objects, but it is made extremely inconvenient to him to gratify his
+interest in politics.--In Poland, evidences of authority will meet his
+observation in every direction, while he will rarely hear the name of
+its head.--In Russia, he will find the people speaking of their despot
+as their father, and will perceive that it is more offensive to allude
+to the mortality of emperors than to talk lightly to children of the
+death of their parents. A gentleman in the suite of an English
+ambassador inquired, after having been conducted over the imperial
+palace at St. Petersburgh, which of the rooms he had seen was that in
+which the Emperor Paul was killed. No answer was returned to his
+question, nor to his repetition of it. He imprudently persisted till
+some reply was necessary. His guide whispered, with white lips, "Paul
+was not killed. Emperors do not die; they transpire out of life."
+
+Such are some of the relations of the people to authority which will
+strike the observation of the traveller in the most civilized of foreign
+countries. These will be further illustrated by the smallest
+circumstances which meet his eye that can in any way indicate what are
+the functions of the police, and where it has most or least authority.
+The Emperor Paul issued an ukase about shoestrings, which it was highly
+penal to disobey. His son has lately ordained the precise measurement of
+whiskers, and cut of the hair behind, to be observed by the officers of
+the army. In some regions, all men go armed: in others, it is penal to
+wear arms: in others, people may do as they please. In some countries,
+there are costumes of classes enforced by law: in others, by opinion:
+while fashion is the only dictator in a third. In some societies
+citizens must obtain leave from the authorities to move from place to
+place: in others, strangers alone are plagued with passports: in
+others, there is perfect freedom of locomotion for all.--In his
+observation of the workings of authority, as embodied in a police, his
+own experience of restraint or liberty will afford him ample material
+for thought, and ground of inference.
+
+Such restraint as exists derives its character chiefly from its origin.
+It makes a wide difference whether the police are the creatures of a
+despotic sovereign who treats his subjects as property; or whether they
+are the agents of a representative government, appointed by responsible
+rulers for the public good; or whether they are the servants of a
+self-governing people, chosen by those among whom their work lies. It
+makes a wide difference whether they are in the secret pay of an
+irresponsible individual, or appointed by command of a parliament, or
+elected by a concourse of citizens. In any case, their existence and
+their function testify to the absence or presence of a general idea of
+liberty among the people; and to its nature, if present.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is taken for granted that the traveller is informed, before he sets
+out, respecting the form of Government and general course of Legislation
+of the nation he studies. He will watch both, attending upon the
+administration as well as the formation of laws,--visiting, where it is
+allowed, the courts of justice as well as the halls of parliament. But
+he must remember that neither the composition of the government, nor the
+body of the laws, nor the administration of them, is an evidence of
+what the idea of liberty at present is among the people, except in a
+democratic republic, where the acts of the government are the result of
+the last expression of the national will. Every other representative
+system is too partial for its legislative acts to be more than the
+expression of the will of a party; and the great body of laws is
+everywhere, except in America, the work of preceding ages. Though,
+therefore, the observer will allow no great legislative and
+administrative acts to pass without his notice, he will apply himself to
+other sets of circumstances to ascertain what is the existing idea of
+liberty prevalent among the people. He will observe, from certain facts
+of their position, what this idea must be; and, from certain classes of
+their own deeds, what it actually is.
+
+One of the most important circumstances is, whether the population is
+thinly sprinkled over the face of the country, or whether it is
+collected into neighbourly societies. This all-important condition has
+been alluded to so often already that it is only necessary to remind the
+observer never to lose sight of it. "Plus un peuple nombreux se
+rapproche," says Rousseau, "moins le gouvernement peut usurper sur le
+souverain. L'avantage d'un gouvernement tyrannique est donc en ceci,
+d'agir à grandes distances. A l'aide des points d'appui qu'il se donne,
+sa force augmente au loin, comme celle des léviers. Celle du peuple, au
+contraire, n'agit que concentrée: elle s'évapore et se perd en
+s'étendant, comme l'effet de la poudre éparse à terre, et qui ne prend
+feu que grain à grain. Les pays les moins peuplés sont ainsi les plus
+propres à la tyrannie. Les bêtes féroces ne règnent que dans les
+déserts."
+
+It is obvious enough that the Idea of Liberty, which can originate only
+in the intercourse of many minds, as the liberty itself can be wrought
+out only by the labours of many united hands, is not to be looked for
+where the people live apart, and are destitute of any knowledge of the
+interests and desires of the community at large.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whether the society is divided into Two Classes, or whether there is a
+Gradation, is another important consideration. Where there are only two,
+proprietors and labourers, the Idea of Liberty is deficient or absent.
+The proprietory class can have no other desires on the subject than to
+repress the encroachments of the sovereign above them, or of the servile
+class below them: and in the servile class the conception of liberty is
+yet unformed. Only in barbarous countries, in countries where slavery
+subsists, and in some few strongholds of feudalism, is this decided
+division of society into two classes now to be found. Everywhere else
+there is more or less gradation; and in the most advanced countries the
+classes are least distinguishable. Below those members who, in European
+societies, are distinguished by birth, there is class beneath class of
+capitalists, though it is usual to comprehend them all, for convenience
+of speech, under the name of the middle class. Thus society in Great
+Britain, France, and Germany is commonly spoken of as consisting of
+three classes; while the divisions of the middle class are, in fact,
+very numerous. The small shopkeeper is not of the same class with the
+landowner, or wealthy banker, or professional man; while their views of
+life, their political principles, and their social aspirations, are as
+different as those of the peer and the mechanic.
+
+There are two pledges of the advancement of the idea of liberty in a
+community:--the one is the mingling of the functions of proprietor and
+labourer throughout the whole of a society ruled by a representative
+government; the other is the graduation of ranks by some other principle
+than hereditary succession.
+
+In ancient times most men were proprietors and labourers too; but under
+despotic rule. Societies which have once come under the representative
+principle are not likely to retrograde to this state; while there are
+influences ever at work to exalt the function of labour, and to extend
+that of proprietorship. Wherever this mixture of functions has gone the
+furthest,--wherever the mechanic classes are becoming capitalists, and
+proprietors are liable to sink down from their ancient honour, unless
+they can secure respect by personal qualifications, the idea of liberty
+is, to a considerable degree, confirmed and elevated. In such a case, it
+is clear that both the power and the desire of encroachment on the part
+of the upper class must be lessened, and that of resistance on the part
+of the lower increased.--The other improvement follows upon this.
+Proprietorship, with its feudal influences, having lost caste (though it
+has gained in true dignity), some other ground of distinction must
+succeed. If we may judge by what is before our eyes in the Western
+world, talent is likely to be the next successor. It is to be hoped that
+talent will, in its turn, give way to moral worth,--the higher degrees
+of which imply, however, superiority of mental power. The preference of
+personal qualifications to those of external endowment has already begun
+in the world, and is fast making its way. Such distinction of ranks as
+there is in America originates in mental qualifications. Statesmen, who
+rise by their own power, rank highest; and then authors. The wealthiest
+capitalist gives place, in the estimation of all, to a popular orator, a
+successful author, or an eminent clergyman.--In France, the honours of
+the peerage and the offices of the state are given to men of science,
+philosophy, and literature. The same is the case in some parts of
+Germany: and, even in aristocratic England, the younger members of her
+Upper House are unsatisfied with being merely peers, and are anxious to
+push their way in literature, as well as in politics.--The traveller
+must give earnest heed to symptoms like these, knowing that as the
+barriers of ranks are thrown down, and personal obtain the ascendant
+over hereditary qualifications, social coercion must be relaxed, and the
+sentiment of liberty exalted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In close connexion with this, he must observe the condition of Servants.
+The treatment and conduct of domestics depend on causes which lie far
+deeper than the principles and tempers of particular servants and
+masters, as may be seen by a glance at domestic service in England,
+Scotland, and Ireland. In England, the old Saxon and Norman feud
+smoulders, (however unconscious the parties may be of the fact,) in the
+relation of master and servant. Domestics who never heard of either
+Norman or Saxon entertain a deep-rooted conviction of their masters'
+interests and their own being directly opposed, and are subject to a
+strong sense of injury. Masters who never bestow a thought on the
+transactions of the twelfth century, complain of a doggedness,
+selfishness, and case-hardened indifference in the class of domestics,
+which kindness cannot penetrate, or penetrates only to pervert. The
+relation is therefore a painful one in England. There is little
+satisfaction to be obtained between the extremes of servility and
+defiance, by which the conduct of servants is almost as distinctly
+marked now as when the nation was younger by seven centuries. The
+English housewives complain that confidence only makes their maid
+servants conceited, and that indulgence spoils them.--In Ireland, the
+case is of the same nature, but much aggravated. The injury of having an
+aristocracy of foreigners forced on the country, to whom the natives are
+to render service, is more recent, and the impression more consciously
+retained. The servants are ill-treated, and they yield bad service in
+return. It is mournful to see the arrangement of Dublin houses. The
+drawing-rooms are palace-like, while the servants' apartments are dark
+and damp dungeons. It is wearisome to hear the complaints of the dirt,
+falsehood, and faithlessness of Irish servants,--complaints which their
+mistresses have ever ready for the ear of the stranger; and it is
+disgusting to witness the effects in the household. It is equally sad
+and ludicrous to see the mistress of some families enter the breakfast
+room, with a loaf of bread under her arm, the butter-plate in one hand,
+and a bunch of keys in the other;--to see her cut from the loaf the
+number of slices required, and send them down to be toasted,--explaining
+that she is obliged to lock up the very bread from the thievery of her
+servants, and informing against them as if she expected them to be
+worthy of trust, while she daily insults them with the refusal of all
+trust,--even to the care of the bread-pan. In Scotland, the case is
+widely different. Servitude and clanship are there connected, instead of
+servitude and conquest. The service is willing in proportion; and the
+faults of domestics are not those common to the oppressed, but rather
+those proceeding from pride and self-will. The Scotch domestic has still
+the pride in the chief of the name which cherishes the self-respect of
+every member of a clan; and in the service of the chief there is
+scarcely any exertion which the humblest of his name would not make. The
+results are obvious. There is a better understanding between the two
+classes than in the other divisions of the kingdom: and Scotch masters
+and mistresses obtain a satisfaction from their domestics which no
+degree of justice and kindness in English and Irish housekeepers can
+secure. The dregs of an oppression of centuries cannot be purged away by
+the action of individual tempers, be they of the best. The causes of
+misunderstanding, as we have said, lie deep.
+
+The principles which regulate the condition of domestic servants in
+every country form thus a deep and wide subject for the traveller's
+inquiries. In America, he will hear frequent complaints from the ladies
+of the pride of their maid servants, and of the difficulty of settling
+them, while he sees that some are the most intimate friends of the
+families they serve; and that not a few collect books, and attend
+courses of scientific lectures. The fact is that, in America, a conflict
+is going on between opposite principles, and the consequences of the
+struggle show themselves chiefly in the relation between master and
+servant. The old European notions of the degradation of servitude
+survive in the minds of their American descendants, and are nourished by
+the presence of slavery on the same continent, and by the importation of
+labourers from Europe which is perpetually going on. In conflict with
+these notions are the democratic ideas of the honourableness of
+voluntary service by contract. It is found difficult, at first, to
+settle the bounds of the contract; and masters are liable to sin, from
+long habit, on the side of imperiousness, and the servants on that of
+captiousness and jealousy of their own rights. Such are the
+inconveniences of a transition state;--a state, however, upon which it
+should be remembered that other societies have yet to enter. In an Irish
+country-house, the guest sometimes finds himself desired to keep his
+wardrobe locked up.--In England, he perceives a restraint in the address
+of each class to the class above it.--In France, a washerwoman speaks
+with as much ease to a duchess as a duchess to a washerwoman.--In
+Holland, the domestics have chambers as scrupulously neat as their
+masters'.--In Ireland, they sleep in underground closets.--In New York,
+they can command their own accommodation.--In Cuba they sleep, like
+dogs, in the passages of the family dwellings. These are some of the
+facts from which the observer is to draw his inferences, rather than
+from the manners of some individuals of the class whom he may meet. In
+his conclusions from such facts he can hardly be wrong, though he may
+chance to become acquainted with a footman of the true heroic order in
+Dublin, and a master in Cuba who respects his own servants, and a
+cringing lackey in New York.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A point of some importance is whether the provincial inhabitants depend
+upon the management and imitate the modes of life of the metropolis, or
+have principles and manners of their own. Where there is least freedom
+and the least desire of it, everything centres in the metropolis. Where
+there is most freedom, each "city, town, and vill," thinks and acts for
+itself. In despotic countries, the principle of centralization actuates
+everything. Orders are issued from the central authorities, and the
+minds of the provinces are saved all trouble of thinking for themselves.
+Where self-government is permitted to each assemblage of citizens, they
+are stimulated to improve their idea and practice of liberty, and are
+almost independent of metropolitan usages. The traveller will find that
+"Paris is France," as everybody has heard, and that the government of
+France is carried on in half-a-dozen apartments in the capital, with
+little reference to the unrepresented thousands who are living some
+hundreds of miles off: while, if he casts a glance over Norway, he may
+see the people on the shores of the fiords, or in the valleys between
+the pine-steeps, quietly making their arrangements for controlling the
+central authority, even abolishing the institution of hereditary
+nobility in opposition to the will of the king; but legally, peaceably,
+and in all the simplicity of determined independence,--the result of a
+matured idea of liberty. The observer will note whether the pursuits and
+amusements of the provincial inhabitants originate in the circumstances
+of the locality, or whether they are copies from those of the
+metropolis; whether the great city be spoken of with reverence, scorn,
+or indifference, or not spoken of at all: whether, as in a Pennsylvanian
+village, the society could go on if the capital were swallowed up by an
+earthquake; or whether, as in Prussia, the favour of the central power
+is as the breath of the nostrils of the people.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Newspapers are a strong evidence of the political ideas of a
+people;--not individual newspapers; for no two, perhaps, fully agree in
+principles and sentiment, and it is to be feared that none are
+positively honest. Not by individual newspapers must the traveller form
+his judgment, but by the freedom of discussion which he may find to be
+permitted, or the restraints upon discussion imposed. The idea of
+liberty must be low and feeble among a people who permit the government
+to maintain a severe censorship; and it must be powerful and effectual
+in a society which can make all its complaints through a newspaper,--be
+the reports of the newspapers upon the state of social affairs as dismal
+as they may. Whatever revilings of a tyrannical president, or of a
+servile congress, a traveller may meet with in any number of American
+journals, he may fairly conclude that both the one and the other must
+be nearly harmless if they are discussed in a newspaper. The very
+existence of the newspapers he sees testifies to the prevalence of a
+habit of reading, and consequently of education--to the wide diffusion
+of political power--and to the probable safety and permanence of a
+government which is founded on so broad a basis, and can afford to
+indulge so large a licence. Whatever he may be told of the patriotism of
+a sovereign, let him give it to the winds if he finds a space in a
+newspaper made blank by the pen of a censor. The tameness of the
+Austrian journals tells as plain a tale as if no censor had ever
+suppressed a syllable;--as much so as the small size of a New Orleans
+paper compared with one of New York, or as the fiercest bluster of a
+Cincinnati Daily or Weekly, on the eve of the election of a president.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In countries where there is any Free Education, the traveller must
+observe its nature; and especially whether the subjects of it are
+distinguished by any sort of badge. The practice of badging, otherwise
+than by mutual consent, is usually bad: it is always suspicious. The
+traveller will note whether free education is conferred by charitable
+bequest, (a practice originating in times when the doctrine of expiation
+was prevalent, and continued to this day by its union with charity,) or
+whether it is framed at the will of the sovereign, that his young
+subjects may be trained to his own purposes,--as in the case of the
+Emperor of Russia and his young Polish victims; or whether it arises
+from the union of such a desire with a more enlightened object,--as may
+be witnessed in Prussia; or whether it is provided by the sovereign
+people,--by universal consent, as the right of every individual born
+into the community, and as the necessary qualification for the enjoyment
+of social privileges,--as in the United States. The English Christ
+Hospital boys are badged: Napoleon's Polytechnic pupils were badged; so
+are the Czar's orphan charge. Wherever the meddling or ostentatious
+charity of antique times is in existence,--times when the idea of
+liberty was low and confined,--this badging is to be looked for; and
+also wherever it is necessary to the purposes of the potentate to keep a
+register of the young subjects who may become his instruments or his
+foes:--but where education is absolutely universal, where any citizen
+has a right to put every child, not otherwise educated, into the
+school-house of his township, and where the rising generation are
+destined to take care of themselves, and legislate after their own will,
+no badging will be found. This apparently trifling fact is worth the
+attention of the observer.
+
+The extent of popular education is a fact of the deepest significance.
+Under despotisms there will be the smallest amount of it; and in
+proportion to the national idea of the dignity and importance of
+man,--idea of liberty, in short,--will be its extent, both in regard to
+the number it comprehends, and to the enlargement of their studies. The
+universality of education is inseparably connected with a lofty idea of
+liberty; and till the idea is realized in a constantly expanding system
+of national education, the observer may profitably note for reflection
+the facts whether he is surrounded on a frontier by a crowd of whining
+young beggars, or whether he sees a parade of charity scholars,--these
+all in blue caps and yellow stockings, and those all in white tippets
+and green aprons; or whether he falls in with an annual or quarterly
+assembly of teachers, met to confer on the best principles and methods
+of carrying on an education which is itself a matter of course.
+
+In countries where there is any popular Idea of Liberty, the
+universities are considered its stronghold, from their being the places
+where the young, active, hopeful, and aspiring meet,--the youths who are
+soon to be citizens, and who have here the means of daily communication
+of their ideas, for many years together. It would be an interesting
+inquiry how many revolutions, warlike or bloodless, have issued from
+seats of learning; and yet more, how many have been planned for which
+the existing powers, or the habits of society, have been too strong. If
+the universities are not so constituted as to admit of this fostering of
+free principles, they are pretty sure to retain the antique notions in
+accordance with which they were instituted, and to fall into the rear of
+society in morals and manners. It is the traveller's business to observe
+the characteristics of these institutions, and to reflect whether they
+are likely to aid or to retard the progress of the nation in which they
+stand.
+
+There are universities in almost every country; but they are as little
+like one another as the costumes that are found in Switzerland and
+India; and the one speak as plainly of morals and manners as the other
+of climate. It is needless to point out that countries which contain
+only aristocratic halls of learning, or schools otherwise devoid of an
+elastic principle, must be in a state of comparative barbarism; because,
+in such a case, learning (so called there) must be confined to a few,
+and probably to the few who can make the least practical use of it.
+Where the universities are on such a plan as that, preserving their
+primary form, they can admit increasing numbers, the state of intellect
+is likely to be a more advanced one. But a more favourable symptom is
+where seats of learning are multiplied as society enlarges, modified in
+their principles as new departments of knowledge open, and as new
+classes arise who wish to learn. That country is in a state of
+transition--of progression--where the ancient universities are honoured
+for as much as they can give, while new schools arise to supply their
+deficiencies, and Mechanics' Institutes, or some kindred establishments,
+flourish by the side of both. This state of things, this variety in the
+pursuit of knowledge, can exist only where there is a freedom of
+thought, and consequent diversity of opinion, which argues a vigorous
+idea of liberty.
+
+The observer must not, however, rest satisfied with ascertaining the
+proportion of the means of education to the people who have to be
+educated. He must mark the objects for which learning is pursued. The
+two most strongly contrasted cases which can be found are probably those
+of Germany and (once more) the United States. In the United States, it
+is well known, a provision of university education is made as ample as
+that of schools for an earlier stage; yet no one pretends that a highly
+finished education is to be looked for in that country. The cause is
+obvious. In a young nation, the great common objects of life are entered
+upon earlier, and every preparatory process is gone through in a more
+superficial manner. Seats of learning are numerous and fully attended,
+both in Germany and America, and they testify in each to a pervading
+desire of knowledge. Here the agreement ends. The German student may,
+without being singular, remain within the walls of his college till time
+silvers his hairs; or he has even been known to pass eighteen years
+among his books, without once crossing the threshold of his study. The
+young American, meanwhile, satisfied at the end of three years that he
+knows as much as his neighbours, settles in a home, engages in farming
+or commerce, and plunges into what alone he considers the business of
+life. Each of these pursues his appropriate objects: each is right in
+his own way: but the difference of pursuit indicates a wider difference
+of sentiment between the two countries than the abundance of the means
+of learning in each indicates a resemblance. The observer must therefore
+mark, not only what and how many are the seats of learning, but who
+frequent them; whether there are many, past the season of youth, who
+make study the business of their lives; or whether all are of that class
+who regard study merely as a part of the preparation which they are
+ordained to make for the accomplishment of the commonest aims of life.
+He can scarcely take his evening walk in the precincts of a university
+without observing a difference so wide as this.
+
+The great importance of the fact lies in this,--that increase of
+knowledge is necessary to the secure enlargement of freedom. Germany may
+not, it is true, require learning in her youth for political purposes,
+but because learning has become the taste, the characteristic honour of
+the nation; but this knowledge will infallibly work out, sooner or
+later, her political regeneration. America requires knowledge in her
+sons because her political existence itself depends upon their mental
+competency. The two countries will probably approximate gradually
+towards a sympathy which is at present out of the question. As America
+becomes more fully peopled, a literature will grow up within her, and
+study will assume its place among the chief objects of life. The great
+ideas which are the employment of the best minds of Germany must work
+their way out into action; and new and immediately practical kinds of
+knowledge will mingle themselves, more and more largely, with those to
+which she has been, in times past, devoted. The two countries may thus
+fall into a sympathetic correspondence on the mighty subjects of human
+government and human learning, and the grand idea of liberty may be made
+more manifest in the one, and disciplined and enriched in the other.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One great subject of observation and speculation remains--the objects
+and form of Persecution for Opinion in each country. Persecution for
+opinion is always going on among a people enlightened enough to
+entertain any opinions at all. There must always be, in such a nation,
+some who have gone further in research than others, and who, in making
+such an advance, have overstepped the boundaries of popular sympathy.
+The existence and sufferings of such are not to be denied because there
+are no fires at the stake, and no organized and authorized Inquisition,
+and because formal excommunication is gone out of fashion. Persecution
+puts on other forms as ages elapse; but it is not extinct. It can be
+inflicted out of the province of law, as well as through it; by a
+neighbourhood as well as from the Vatican. A wise and honest man may be
+wounded through his social affections, and in his domestic relations, as
+effectually as by flames, fetters, and public ignominy. There are wise
+and good persons in every civilized country, who are undergoing
+persecution in one form or another every day.
+
+Is it for precocity in science? or for certain opinions in politics? or
+for a peculiar mode of belief in the Christian religion, or unbelief of
+it? or for championship of an oppressed class? or for new views in
+morals? or, for fresh inventions in the arts, apparently interfering
+with old-established interests? or for bold philosophical speculation?
+Who suffers arbitrary infliction, in short, and how, for any mode of
+thinking, and of faithful action upon thought? An observer would reject
+whatever he might be told of the paternal government of a prince, if he
+saw upon a height a fortress in which men were suffering _carcere duro_
+for political opinions. In like manner, whatever a nation may tell him
+of its love of liberty should go for little if he sees a virtuous man's
+children taken from him on the ground of his holding an unusual
+religious belief; or citizens mobbed for asserting the rights of
+negroes; or moralists treated with public scorn for carrying out allowed
+principles to their ultimate issues; or scholars oppressed for throwing
+new light into the sacred text; or philosophers denounced for bringing
+fresh facts to the surface of human knowledge, whether they seem to
+agree or not with long-established suppositions.
+
+The kind and degree of infliction for opinion which is possible, and is
+practised in the time and place, will indicate to the observer the
+degree of imperfection in the popular idea of liberty. This is a kind of
+fact easy to ascertain, and worthy of all attention.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+PROGRESS.
+
+                      "'Tis the sublime of man,
+    Our noontide majesty, to know ourselves
+    Parts and proportions of one wondrous whole!
+    This fraternizes man, this constitutes
+    Our charities and bearings."
+                                                COLERIDGE.
+
+    "Then let us pray that come it may,
+      As come it will for a' that,
+    That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth,
+      May bear the gree, and a' that.
+    For a' that, and a' that,
+      It's coming yet, for a' that,
+    That man to man, the warld o'er,
+      Shall brothers be for a' that."
+                                                BURNS.
+
+
+However widely men may differ as to the way to social perfection, all
+whose minds have turned in that direction agree as to the end. All agree
+that if the whole race could live as brethren, society would be in the
+most advanced state that can be conceived of. It is also agreed that the
+spirit of fraternity is to be attained, if at all, by men discerning
+their mutual relation, as "parts and proportions of one wondrous whole."
+The disputes which arise are about how these proportions are to be
+arranged, and what those qualifications should be by which some shall
+have an ascendancy over others.
+
+This cluster of questions is not yet settled with regard to the
+inhabitants of any one country. The most advanced nations are now in a
+condition of internal conflict upon them. As for the larger idea,--that
+nations as well as individuals are "parts and proportions of one
+wondrous whole," it has hardly yet passed the lips or pen of any but
+religious men and poets. Its time will come when men have made greater
+progress, and are more at ease about the domestic arrangements of
+nations. As long as there are, in every country of the world, multitudes
+who cannot by any exertion of their own redeem themselves from hardship,
+and their children from ignorance, there is quite enough for justice and
+charity to do at home. While this is doing,--while the English are
+striving to raise the indigent classes of their society, the French
+speculating to elevate the condition of woman, and to open the career of
+life to all rational beings, the Germans waiting to throw off the
+despotism of absolute rulers, and the Americans struggling to free the
+negroes,--the fraternal sentiment will be growing, in preparation for
+yet higher results. The principle, acted upon at home, will be gaining
+strength for exercise abroad; and the more any society becomes like a
+band of brothers, the more powerful must be the sympathy which it will
+have to offer to other such bands.
+
+Far off as may be the realization of such a prospect, it is a prospect.
+For many ages poets and philosophers have entertained the idea of a
+general spirit of fraternity among men. It is the one great principle of
+the greatest religion which has ever nourished the morals of mankind.
+It is the loftiest hope on which the wisest speculators have lived.
+Poets are the prophets, and philosophers the analysers of the fate of
+men, and religion is the promise and pledge of unseen powers to those
+who believe in them. That cannot be unworthy of attention, of hope, of
+expectation, which the poets and the analysers of the race, have reposed
+upon, and on which the best religion of the world (and that which
+comprehends all others) is based. That which has never, for all its
+splendour, been deemed absurd by the wisest of the race is now beginning
+to be realized. We have now something more to show for our hope than
+what was before enough for the highest minds. The fraternal spirit has
+begun to manifest itself by its workings in society. The helpless are
+now aided expressly on the ground of their helplessness,--not from the
+emotions of compassion excited by the spectacle of suffering in
+particular cases, but in a nobler and more abstract way. Classes,
+crowds, nations of sufferers are aided and protected by strangers,
+powerful and at ease, who never saw an individual of the suffering
+thousands, and who have none but a spiritual interest in their welfare.
+Since missions to barbarous countries, action against slavery, and the
+care of the blind, deaf and dumb, and paupers, have become labours of
+society, the fraternity of men has ceased to be a mere aspiration, or
+even prophecy and promise. It is not only that the high-placed watchmen
+of the world have announced that the day is coming,--it has dawned; and
+there is every reason to expect that it will brighten into noon.
+
+The traveller must be strangely careless who, in observing upon the
+morals of a people, omits to mark the manifestations of this
+principle;--to learn what is its present strength, and what the promise
+of its growth. By fixing his observation on this he may learn, and no
+otherwise can he learn, whether the country he studies is advancing in
+wisdom and happiness, or whether it is stationary, or whether it is
+going back. The probabilities of its progress are wholly dependent upon
+this.--It will not take long to point out what are the signs of
+progression which he must study.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is of great consequence whether the nation is insular or continental,
+independent or colonial. Though the time seems to be come when the sea
+is to be made a highway, as easy of passage as the land, such has not
+been the case till now. Even in the case of Great Britain,--the most
+accessible of islands, and the most tempting to access,--before the last
+series of wars, a much smaller number of strangers visited her than
+could have been supposed to come if they had only to pass land
+frontiers. During the wars, she was almost excluded from continental
+society. The progress that her people have made in liberality and
+humanity since communication has been rendered easy, is so striking that
+it is impossible to avoid supposing the enlarged commerce of mind which
+has taken place to be one of the chief causes of the improvement. It is
+probable that the advancement of the nation would have been still
+greater if the old geological state of junction with the continent had
+been restored for the last twenty years. She would then have been
+almost such a centre of influx as France has been, and by which France
+has so far profited that the French are now, it is believed, the most
+active-minded and morally progressive nation in the world. Much of the
+vigour and progression of France is doubtless owing to other causes; but
+much also to her rapid and extensive intercourse with the minds of many
+nations. The condition of the inhabitants of other islands is likely to
+be less favourable to progression than that of the British, in
+proportion as they have less intercourse. They are likely to have even
+more than the English proportion of self-satisfaction, dislike of
+foreigners, and reserve. Generally speaking, the inhabitants of islands
+are found to be to those of continental countries as villagers to
+citizens: they have good qualities of their own, but are behind the
+world. Malta has not the chance that she would have if we could annex
+her to the South of France; nor will the West India islands advance as
+they would do if we could throw them all into one, and intersect the
+whole with roads leading on either side from the great European and
+American cities.
+
+Malta and the West India islands have, however, the additional
+disadvantage of being colonies. The moral progression of a people can
+scarcely begin till they are independent. Their morals are overruled by
+the mother-country,--by the government and legislation she imposes, by
+the rulers she sends out, by the nature of the advantages she grants and
+the tribute she requires, by the population she pours in from home, and
+by her own example. Accordingly, the colonies of a powerful country
+exhibit an exaggeration of the national faults, with only infant
+virtues of their own, which wait for freedom to grow to maturity, and
+among which an enlarged sympathy with the race is seldom found. This is
+a temper uncongenial with a confined, dependent, and imitative society;
+and the first strong symptoms of it are usually found in the persons of
+those whose mission it is to lead the colony out of its minority into
+independence.
+
+These are conditions of a people which may guide the traveller's
+observations by showing him what to expect. Remembering these
+conditions, he will mark the greater or less enlargement and generosity
+of the spirit of society, and learn from these the fact or promise of
+progression, or whether it is too soon to look for either.
+
+There is another important condition which can hardly escape his notice:
+whether the people are homogeneous or composed of various races. The
+inhabitants of New England are a remarkable specimen of the first, as
+the inhabitants of the middle states of America will be of the last, two
+or three generations hence. Almost all the nations of Europe are
+mongrel; and those which can trace their descent from the greatest
+variety of ancestors have, other circumstances remaining the same, the
+best chance of progression. Among a homogeneous people, ancestral
+virtues flourish; but these carry with them ancestral faults as their
+shadow; and there is a liability of a new fault being added,--resistance
+to the spirit of improvement. If the chances of severity of ancient
+virtue are lessened in the case of a mongrel people, there is a
+counterbalancing advantage in the greater diversity of interests,
+enlargement of sympathy, and vigour of enterprise introduced by the
+close union of the descendants of different races. The people of New
+England, almost to a man descended from the pilgrim fathers, have the
+strong religious principle and feeling, the uprightness, the domestic
+attachment, and the principled worldly prudence of their ancestors, with
+much of their asceticism (and necessarily attendant cant) and bigotry.
+Their neighbours in the middle states are composed of contributions from
+all countries of the civilized world, and have, as yet, no distinctive
+character; but it is probable that a very valuable one will be formed,
+in course of time, from such elements as the genial gaiety of the
+cavaliers, the patient industry of the Germans and Dutch, the vivacity
+of the French, the sobriety of the Scotch, the enterprise of the Irish,
+and the domestic tastes of the Swiss,--all of which, with their
+attendant drawbacks, go to compose the future American character. The
+chief pride of the New Englanders is in their unmixed descent;--a
+virtuous pride, but not the most favourable to a progression which must
+antiquate some of the qualities to which they are most attached. The
+European components of the other population cherish some of the feudal
+prejudices and the territorial pride which they imported with them, and
+this is their peculiar drawback: but it appears that the enlarged
+liberality which they enjoy from being intermingled more than
+countervails the religious spirit of New England in opening the general
+heart and mind to the interests of the race at large. The progression of
+the middle states seems likely to be more rapid than that of New
+England, though the inhabitants of the northern states have hitherto
+taken and kept the lead.
+
+It is the traveller's business to enter upon this course of observation
+wherever he goes. When he has ascertained the conditions under which the
+national character is forming,--whether its situation is insular or
+continental, colonial or independent, and whether it is descended from
+one race or more, he will proceed to observe the facts which indicate
+progress or the reverse.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The most obvious of these facts is the character of charity. Charity is
+everywhere. The human heart is always tender, always touched by visible
+suffering, under one form or another. The form which this charity takes
+is the great question.
+
+In young and rude countries, an open-handed charity pervades the land.
+Everyone who comes in want to a dwelling has his immediate want
+relieved. The Arab gives from his mess to the hungerer who appears at
+the entrance of his tent. The negro brings rice and milk to the
+traveller who lies fainting under the palm. The poor are fed round
+convent-doors, morning and evening, where there are convents. In
+Ireland, it is a common practice to beg, in order to rise in the
+world,--a clear testimony to the practice of charity there. In all
+societies, the poor help the poorer; the depressed class aids the
+destitute. The existence of the charity may be considered a certainty.
+The inquiry is about its direction.
+
+The lowest order of charity is that which is satisfied with relieving
+the immediate pressure of distress in individual cases. A higher is that
+which makes provision on a large scale for the relief of such distress;
+as when a nation passes on from common alms-giving to a general
+provision for the destitute. A higher still is when such provision is
+made in the way of anticipation, or for distant objects; as when the
+civilization of savages, the freeing of slaves, the treatment of the
+insane, or the education of the blind and deaf mutes is undertaken. The
+highest charity of all is that which aims at the prevention rather than
+the alleviation of evil. When any considerable number of a society are
+engaged in this work, the spirit of fraternity is busy there, and the
+progression of the society is ascertained. In such a community, it is
+allowed that though it is good to relieve the hungry, it is better to
+take care that all who work shall eat, as a matter of right: that though
+it is good to provide for the comfort and reformation of the guilty, it
+is better to obviate guilt: that though it is good to teach the ignorant
+who come in one's way, it is better to provide the means of knowledge,
+as of food, for all. In short, it is a nobler charity to prevent
+destitution, crime, and ignorance, than to relieve individuals who never
+ought to have been made destitute, criminal, and ignorant.
+
+This war against the evils themselves, in preference to, but accompanied
+by, relief of the victims, has begun in many countries; and those which
+are the most busily occupied in the work must be considered the most
+advanced, and the most certain to advance. The observer must note the
+state of the work everywhere. In one country he will see the poor fed
+and clothed by charity, without any effort being made to relieve them
+from the pressure by which they are sunk in destitution. The spirit of
+brotherhood is not there; and such charity has nothing of the spirit of
+hope and progress in it. In another country, he will see the independent
+insisting on the right of the destitute to relief, and providing by law
+or custom for such relief. This is a great step, inasmuch as the
+interests of the helpless are taken up by the powerful,--a movement
+which must have something of the fraternal spirit for its impulse. In a
+third, he hears of prison discipline societies, missionary societies,
+temperance societies, and societies for the abolition of slavery. This
+is better still. It is looking wide,--so wide as that the spirit of
+charity acts as seeing the invisible,--the pagan trembling under the
+tabu, the negro outraged in his best affections, and the criminal hidden
+in the foul retreat of the common jail. It is also a training for
+looking deep; for these methods of charity all go to prevent the woes of
+future heathen generations, future slaves, drunkards, and criminals, as
+well as to soften the lot of those who exist. If, in a fourth society,
+the observer finds that the charity has gone deep as well as spread
+wide, and that the benevolent are tugging at the roots of indigence and
+crime, he may place this society above all the rest as to the brightness
+of its prospects. Such a movement can proceed only from the spirit of
+fraternity,--from the movers feeling it their own concern that any are
+depressed and endangered as they would themselves refuse to be. The
+elevation of the depressed classes in such a society, and the consequent
+progression of the whole, may be considered certain; for "sooner will
+the mother forget her sucking child" than the friends of their race
+forsake those for whom they have cared and laboured with disinterested
+love and toil. Criminals will never be plunged back into their former
+state in America, nor women in France, nor negroes in the colonies of
+England. The spirit of justice (which is ultimately one with charity)
+has gone forth, not only conquering, but still to conquer.
+
+To the prospects of the sufferers of society let the observer look; and
+he will discern the prospects of the society itself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Useful arts and inventions spread so rapidly in these days of improving
+communication, that they are no longer the decisive marks of
+enlightenment in a people that they were when each nation had the
+benefit of its own discoveries, and little more. Yet it is worthy of
+remark what kinds of improvement are the most generally adopted; whether
+those which enhance the luxury of the rich, or such as benefit the whole
+society. It is worthy of remark whether the newest delight is in
+splendid club-houses, where gentlemen may command the rarest luxuries at
+a smaller expense than would have been possible without the aid of the
+principle of economy of association, or in the groups of mechanics'
+dwellings, where the same principle is applied in France to furnishing
+numbers with advantages of warmth, light, cookery, and cleanliness,
+which they could no otherwise have enjoyed. It is worth observing
+whether there are most mechanical inventions dedicated to the
+selfishness of the rich, or committed to the custom of the working
+classes. If the rich compose the great body of purchasers who are to be
+considered by inventors, the working classes are probably depressed. If
+there are most purchasers among the most numerous classes, the working
+order is rising, and the state of things is hopeful.--How speed the
+great discoveries and achievements which cannot, by any management, be
+confined to the few? How prospers the steam-engine, the
+rail-road,--strong hands which cannot be held back, by which a multitude
+of the comforts of life are extended to the poor, who could not reach up
+to them before? Do men glory most in the activity of these, or in the
+invention of a new pleasure for the satiated?
+
+In the finer arts, for whom are heads and hands employed? The study of
+the ruins of all old countries tells the antiquary of the lives of the
+rich alone. There are churches which record the living piety or the
+dying penitence of the rich; priories and convents which speak of
+monkish idleness, and the gross luxuries which have cloaked themselves
+in asceticism; there are palaces of kings, castles of nobles, and villas
+of opulent commoners; but nowhere, except in countries recently
+desolated by war, are the relics of the abodes of the poor the study of
+the traveller. If he now finds skill bestowed on the buildings which are
+the exclusive resort of the labouring classes, and taste employed in
+their embellishment, it is clear that the order is rising. The record of
+each upward heave will remain for the observation of the future
+traveller, in the buildings to which they resort;--a record as
+indisputable as a mountain fissure presents to the geologist.
+
+Time was when the dwellings of the opulent were ornamented with costly
+and beautiful works of art, while the eye of the peasant and the artisan
+found no other beauty to rest on than the face of his beloved, and the
+forms of his children. At this day, there are countries in Europe where
+the working man aspires to nothing more than to stick up an image of the
+Virgin, gay with coloured paper, in a corner of his dwelling. But there
+are other lands where a higher taste for beauty is gratified. There are
+good prints provided cheap, to hang in the place of the ancient sampler
+or daub. Casts from all the finest works of the statuary, ancient and
+modern, are hawked about the streets, and may be seen in the windows
+where green parrots and brown cats in plaster used to annoy the eye. In
+societies where the working class is thus worked for, in the
+gratification of its finer tastes, the class must be rising. It is
+rising into the region of intellectual luxury, and must have been borne
+up thither by the expansion of the fraternal spirit.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The great means of progress, for individuals, for nations, and for the
+race at large, is the multiplication of Objects of interest. The
+indulgence of the passions is the characteristic of men and societies
+who have but one occupation and a single interest; while the passions
+cause comparatively little trouble where the intellect is active, and
+the life diversified with objects. Pride takes a safe direction,
+jealousy is diverted from its purposes of revenge, and anger combats
+with circumstances, instead of with human foes. The need of mutual aid,
+the habit of co-operation caused by interest in social objects, has a
+good effect upon men's feelings and manners towards each other; and out
+of this grows the mutual regard which naturally strengthens into the
+fraternal spirit. The Russian boor, imprisoned in his serfhood, cannot
+comprehend what it is to care for any but the few individuals who are
+before his eyes, and the Grand Lama has probably no great sympathy with
+the race; but in a town within whose compass almost all occupations are
+going forward, and where each feels more or less interest in what
+engages his neighbour, nothing of importance to the race can become
+known without producing more or less emotion. A famine in India, an
+earthquake in Syria, causes sorrow. The inhabitants meet to petition
+against the wrongs inflicted on people whom they have never seen, and
+give of the fruits of their labour to sufferers who have never heard of
+them, and from whom they can receive no return of acknowledgment. It is
+found that the more pursuits and aims are multiplied, the more does the
+appreciation of human happiness expand, till it becomes the interest
+which predominates over all the rest. This is an interest which works
+out its own gratification, more surely than any other. Wherever,
+therefore, the greatest variety of pursuits is met with, it is fair to
+conclude that the fraternal spirit of society is the most vigorous, and
+the society itself the most progressive.
+
+This is as far as any nation has as yet attained,--to a warmer than
+common sympathy among its own members, and compassion for distant
+sufferers. When the time comes for nations to care for one another, and
+co-operate as individuals, such a people will be the first to hold out
+the right hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Manners have not been treated of separately from Morals in any of the
+preceding divisions of the objects of the traveller's observation. The
+reason is, that manners are inseparable from morals, or, at least, cease
+to have meaning when separated. Except as manifestations of morals, they
+have no interest, and can have no permanent existence. A traveller who
+should report of them exclusively is not only no philosopher, but does
+not merit the name of an observer; for he can have no insight into the
+matter which he professes to convey an account of. His interpretation of
+what is before his eyes is more likely to be wrong than correct, like
+that of the primitive star-gazers, who reported that the planets went
+backwards and forwards in the sky. To him, and to him only, who has
+studied the principles of morals, and thus possessed himself of a key to
+the mysteries of all social weal and woe, will manners be an index
+answering as faithfully to the internal movements, harmonious or
+discordant, of society, as the human countenance to the workings of the
+human heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+DISCOURSE.
+
+    "He that questioneth much shall learn much, and content much;
+    but especially if he apply his questions to the skill of the
+    persons whom he asketh; for he shall give them occasion to
+    please themselves in speaking, and himself shall continually
+    gather knowledge."
+                                                _Bacon._
+
+
+The Discourse of individuals is an indispensable commentary upon the
+classes of national facts which the traveller has observed. To begin the
+work of observation with registering this private discourse, is, as has
+been said, useless, from the diversity that there is in men's minds, and
+from the narrowness of the mental vision of each as he stands in a
+crowd. The testimony of no two would be found to agree; and, if the
+traveller depended upon them for his general facts, he could never
+furnish a record which could be trusted. But, the facts being once
+obtained by stronger evidence than individual testimony,--certain fixed
+points being provided round which testimony may gather,--the discourse
+of individuals assumes its proper value, and becomes illustrative where
+before it would have been only bewildering. The traveller must obtain
+all that he can of it. He must seek intercourse with all classes of the
+society he visits,--not only the rich and the poor, but those who may be
+classed by profession, pursuit, habits of mind, and turn of manners. He
+must converse with young men and maidens, old men and children, beggars
+and savans, postillions and potentates. He must study little ones at
+their mothers' knees, and flirtations in ball-rooms, and dealings in the
+market-place. He must overhear the mirth of revellers, and the grief of
+mourners. Wherever there is speech, he must devote himself to hear.
+
+One way in which discourse serves as a commentary upon the things he has
+observed is in the exhibition of certain general characters of its own,
+which are accordant with the general facts he has registered. The
+conversation of almost every nation has its characteristics, like that
+of smaller societies. The style of discourse in an English village is
+unlike that of a populous town; and the people of a town which is no
+thoroughfare talk differently from the inhabitants of one which is. In
+the same way is the general discourse of a whole people modified. In one
+country less regard is paid to truth in particulars, to circumstantial
+accuracy, than in another. One nation has more sincerity; another more
+kindliness in speech. One proses; another is light and sportive. One is
+frank; another reserved. One flatters the stranger; another is careless
+of him: and the discourse of the one is designed to produce a certain
+effect upon him; while that of the other flows out spontaneously, or is
+restrained, according to the traveller's own apparent humour. Such
+characteristics of the general discourse may be noted as a
+corroboration of suppositions drawn from other facts. They may be taken
+as evidence of the respective societies being catholic or puritanic in
+spirit; crude or accomplished; free and simple, or restrained and
+cautious; self-satisfied, or deficient in self-respect. The observer
+must be very careful not to generalize too hastily upon the discourse
+addressed to him; but there are everywhere large conclusions which he
+cannot help making. However wide the variety of individuals with whom he
+may converse, it is scarcely likely that he will meet in Spain with any
+number who will prose like the Americans; or in Germany with many who
+will treat him with the light jests of the French. Such general
+tendencies of any society as he may have been informed of by the study
+of things, he will find evidenced also by the general character of its
+discourse.
+
+Another way in which discourse serves as a commentary, is by showing
+what interests the people most. If the observer goes with a free mind
+and an open heart, not full of notions and feelings of his own, but
+ready to resign himself to those of the people he visits,--if he commits
+himself to his sympathies, and makes himself one with those about him,
+he cannot but presently discover and appreciate what interests them
+most.
+
+A high Tory in America will be more misled than enlightened by what is
+said to him, and so will a bigoted Republican in England. A prim Quaker
+will not understand the French from half a year of Parisian
+conversation, any more than a mere dandy would feel at home at Jena or
+Heidelberg. But a traveller free from gross prejudice and selfishness
+can hardly be many days in a new society without learning what are its
+chief interests. Even savages would speak to him of the figure-head of
+their canoe; and others would go through, in time, each its own range of
+topics, till the German had poured out to him his philosophical views,
+and the Frenchman his solicitudes for the amelioration of society, and
+the American his patriotic aspirations, and the Swiss his domestic
+sentiment. Whatever may be the restrictions imposed by rulers upon
+discourse, whatever may be the penalties imposed upon particular kinds
+of communication, all are unavailing in the presence of sympathy. At its
+touch the abundance of the heart will gush out at the lips. Men are so
+made that they cannot but speak of what interests them most to those who
+most share the interest. This is a decree of nature by which the decrees
+of despots are annulled. The power of a ruler may avail to keep an
+observer on his own side the frontier; but, if he has once passed it, it
+is his own fault if he does not become as well acquainted with the
+prevailing sentiment of the inhabitants, amidst the deadest public
+silence, as if it were shouted out to the four winds. If he carries a
+simple mind and an open heart, there is no mine in Siberia so deep but
+the voice of complaint will come up to him from it, and no home so
+watched by priests but that he will know what is concealed from the
+confessor. All this would do little more than mislead him by means of
+his sympathies, if such confidence were his only means of knowledge;
+but, coming in corroboration of what he has learned in the large
+elsewhere, it becomes unquestionable evidence of what it is that
+interests the people most.
+
+He must bear in mind that there are a few universal interests which
+everywhere stand first, and that it is the modification of these by
+local influences which he has to observe; and also what comes next in
+order to these. For instance, the domestic are the primary interests
+among all human beings. It is so where the New England father dismisses
+his sons to the West,--and where the Hindoo mother deserts her infants
+to seek the shade of her husband through the fire,--and where the
+Spanish parent consigns her youngest to the convent,--as truly as where
+the Norwegian peasant enlarges his roof to admit another and another
+family of his descendants. It is for the traveller to trust the words
+and tones of parental love which meet his ear in every home of every
+land; and to mark by what it is that this prime and universal interest
+is modified, so as to produce such sacrifice of itself. Taking the
+affection for granted, which the private discourse of parents and
+children compels him to do, what light does he find cast upon the
+influence of the priests here, and pride of territory there;--upon the
+superstition which is the weakness of one people, and the social
+ambition in the midst of poverty which is the curse of another!
+
+He must also find out from the conversation of the people he visits what
+is their particular interest, from observing what ranks next to those
+which are universal. In one country, parents love their families first,
+and wealth next; in another, their families first, and glory next; in a
+third, their families first, and liberty next; and so on, through the
+whole range of objects of human desire. Once having discerned the mode,
+he will find it easy to take the suffrage without much danger of
+mistake.
+
+The chief reason why the discourse of individuals, apart from the
+observation of classes of facts, is almost purely deceptive as to
+morals, is that the traveller can see no more than one in fifty thousand
+of the people, and has no security that those he meets are a sample of
+the whole. This difficulty does not interfere with one very important
+advantage which he may obtain from conversation,--knowledge of and light
+upon particular questions. A stranger might wish to learn the state of
+Christianity in England. If he came to London, and began with
+conversation, he might meet a Church-of-England-man one day, a Catholic
+the next, a Presbyterian the third, a Quaker the fourth, a Methodist the
+fifth, and so on, till the result was pure bewilderment. But if he
+conversed with intelligent persons, he would find that questions were
+pending respecting the church and dissent,--involving the very
+principles of the administration of religion. The opinions he hears upon
+these questions may be as various as the persons he converses with. He
+may be unable to learn the true characters of the statesmen and
+religious leaders concerned in their management: but he gains something
+of more value. Light is thrown upon the state of things from which alone
+these questions could have arisen. From free newspapers he might have
+learned the nature of the controversy; but in social intercourse much
+more is presented to him. He sees the array of opinions marshalled on
+each side, or on all the sides of the question; and receives an
+infinite number of suggestions and illustrations which could never have
+reached him but from the conflict of intellects, and the diversity of
+views and statements with which he is entertained in discourse. The
+traveller in every country should thus welcome the discussion of
+questions in which the inhabitants are interested, taking strenuous care
+to hear the statements of every party. From the intimate connexion of
+certain modes of opinion with all great questions, he will gain light
+upon the whole condition of opinion from its exhibition in one case. New
+subjects of research will be brought within his reach; new paths of
+inquiry will be opened; new trains of ideas will be awakened, and fresh
+minds brought into communication with his own. If he can secure the good
+fortune of conversing with the leaders on both sides of great
+questions,--with the men who have made it a pursuit to collect all the
+facts of the case, and to follow out its principles,--there is no
+estimating his advantage. There is, perhaps, scarcely one great subject
+of national controversy which, thus opened to him, would not afford him
+glimpses into all the other general affairs of the day; and each time
+that his mind grasps a definite opposition of popular opinion, he has
+accomplished a stage in his pilgrimage of inquiry into the tendencies of
+a national mind. He will therefore be anxious to engage all he meets in
+full and free conversation on prevailing topics, leaving it to them to
+open their minds in their own way, and only taking care of his
+own,--that he preserves his impartiality, and does no injustice to
+question or persons by bias of his own.
+
+In arranging his plans for conversing with all kinds of people, the
+observer will not omit to cultivate especially the acquaintance of
+persons who themselves see the most of society. The value of their
+testimony on particular points must depend much on that of their minds
+and characters; but, from the very fact of their having transactions
+with a large portion of society, they cannot avoid affording many lights
+to a stranger which he could obtain by no other means. The conversation
+of lawyers in a free country, of physicians, of merchants and
+manufacturers in central trading situations, of innkeepers and of
+barbers everywhere, must yield him much which he could not have
+collected for himself. The minds of a great variety of people are daily
+acting upon the thoughts of such, and the facts of a great variety of
+lives upon their experience; and whether they be more or less wise in
+the use of their opportunities, they must be unlike what they would have
+been in a state of seclusion. If the stranger listens to what they are
+most willing to tell, he may learn much of popular modes of thinking and
+feeling, of modes of living, acting, and transacting, which will confirm
+and illustrate impressions and ideas which he had previously gained from
+other sources.
+
+The result of the whole of what he hears will probably be to the
+traveller of the same kind with that which the journey of life yields to
+the wisest of its pilgrims. As he proceeds, he will learn to condemn
+less, and to admire, not less, but differently. He will find no
+intellect infallible, no judgment free from prejudice, and therefore no
+affections without their bias; but, on the other hand, he will find no
+error which does not branch out of some truth; no wrath which has not
+some reason in it; nothing wrong which is not the perversion of
+something right; no wickedness that is not weakness. If he is compelled
+to give up the adoration of individuals, the man-worship which is the
+religion of young days, he surrenders with it the spirit of contempt
+which ought also to be proper to youth. To a healthy mind it is
+impossible to mix largely with men, under a variety of circumstances,
+and wholly to despise either societies or individuals; so magnificent is
+the intellect of men in combination, so universal are their most
+privately nourished affections. He must deny himself the repose of
+implicit faith in the intellect of any one; but he cannot refuse the
+luxury of trust in the moral power of the whole. Instead of the complete
+set of dogmas with which he was perhaps once furnished, on the authority
+of a few individuals, he brings home a store of learning on the great
+subject of human prejudices: but he cannot have watched the vast effects
+of a community of sentiment,--he cannot have observed multitudes
+tranquillized into social order, stimulated to social duty, and even
+impelled to philanthropic self-sacrifice, without being convinced that
+men were made to live in a bond of brotherhood. He cannot have sat in
+conversation under the village elm, or in sunny vineyards, or by the
+embers of the midnight fire, without knowing how spirit is formed to
+unfold itself to spirit; and how, when the solitary is set in families,
+his sympathies bind him to them by such a chain as selfish interest
+never yet wove. He cannot have travelled wisely and well without being
+convinced that moral power is the force which lifts man to be not only
+lord of the earth, but scarcely below the angels; and that the higher
+species of moral power, which are likely to come more and more into
+use, clothe him in a kind of divinity to which angels themselves might
+bow.--No one will doubt this who has been admitted into that range of
+sanctuaries, the homes of nations; and who has witnessed the godlike
+achievements of the servants, sages, and martyrs, who have existed
+wherever man has been.
+
+
+
+
+PART III.
+
+MECHANICAL METHODS.
+
+    "In sea-voyages, where there is nothing to be seen but sky and
+    sea, men make diaries; but in land-travel, wherein so much is to
+    be observed, they omit it."--BACON.
+
+    "Stick to your journal course; the breach of custom
+    Is breach of all."--_Cymbeline._
+
+
+Travellers cannot be always on the alert, any more than other men. Their
+hours of weariness and of capricious idleness come, as at home; and
+there is no security against their occurring at inconvenient
+times,--just when some characteristic spectacle is to be witnessed, or
+some long-desired information is in waiting. By a little forethought,
+the observer may guard against some of the effects of seizures of
+apathy. If he would rather sleep in the carriage than get out to see a
+waterfall, he can only feel ashamed, and rouse himself to do his duty:
+but, by precaution, he may guard himself from passing by some things
+less beautiful than waterfalls, and to have seen which is less necessary
+to his reputation as a traveller; but which yet he will be more sorry
+eventually to have lost.
+
+To keep himself up to his business, and stimulate his flagging
+attention, he should provide himself, before setting out, with a set of
+queries, so prepared as to include every great class of facts connected
+with the condition of a people, and so divided and arranged as that he
+can turn to the right set at the fitting moment.--These queries are not
+designed to be thrust into the hand of any one who may have information
+to give. They should not even be allowed to catch his eye. The traveller
+who has the air of taking notes in the midst of conversation, is in
+danger of bringing away information imperfect as far as it goes, and
+much restricted in quantity in comparison with what it would be if he
+allowed it to be forgotten that he was a foreigner seeking information.
+If he permits the conversation to flow on naturally, without checking it
+by the production of the pencil and tablets, he will, even if his memory
+be not of the best, have more to set down at night than if he noted on
+the spot, as evidence, what a companion might be saying to him. But a
+glance in the morning at his list of queries may suggest inquiries which
+he might not otherwise remember to make; and they will help him
+afterwards to arrange the knowledge he has gained. He can be constantly
+adding to them as he goes along, and as new subjects arise, till he is
+in possession of a catechism on the facts which indicate morals and
+manners; which must prevent his researches being so capricious, and his
+information so vague as his moods and his idleness would otherwise
+occasionally make them.
+
+The character of these queries must, of course, depend much on where the
+traveller means to go. A set which would suit one nation would not
+completely apply to any other. The observer will do wisely to employ
+his utmost skill in framing them. His cares will be better bestowed on
+this than even on his travelling appointments, important as these are to
+his comfort. When he has done his best in the preparation of his lists,
+he must still keep on the watch to enlarge them, as occasion arises.
+
+Some travellers unite in one the functions of the query list and the
+journal: having the diary headed and arranged for the reception of
+classified information. But this seems to be debasing the function of a
+journal, whose object ought to be to reflect the mind of a traveller,
+and give back to him hereafter the image of what he thought and felt day
+by day. This is its primary function;--a most useful one, as every
+traveller knows who has kept one during a year's wandering in a foreign
+country. On his return, he laughs at the crudity of the information, and
+the childishness of the impressions, set down in the opening pages; and
+traces, with as much wonder as interest, the gradual expansion of his
+knowledge, education of his perceptions, and maturing of his judgments
+as to what is before him, as week succeeds to week, and each month
+mellows the experience of the last.
+
+The subordinate purpose of the journal is to record facts; and the way
+in which this is done ought not to depend on the stationer's rule, but
+on the nature of the traveller's mind. No man can write down daily all
+that he learns in a day's travel. It ought to be a matter of serious
+consideration with him what he will insert, and what trust to his
+memory. The simplest method seems to be to set down what is most likely
+to be let slip, and to trust to the memory what the affections and
+tastes of the traveller will not allow him to forget. One who especially
+enjoys intimate domestic intercourse will write, not fireside
+conversations, but the opinions of statesmen, and the doctrine of
+parties on great social questions. One whose tastes are religious will
+note less on the subject of public worship and private religious
+discourse, than dates, numbers, and facts on subjects of subordinate
+interest. All should record anecdotes and sayings which illustrate
+character. These are disjointed, and will escape almost any memory, if
+not secured in writing. Those who do not draw should also note scenery.
+A very few descriptive touches will bring back a landscape, with all its
+human interest, after a lapse of years: while perhaps there is no memory
+in the world which will present unaided the distinctive character of a
+succession of scenes. The returned traveller is ashamed to see the
+extent of his record of his personal feelings. His changes of mood, his
+sufferings from heat or cold, from hunger or weariness, are the most
+interesting things to him at the moment; and down they go, in the place
+of things much better worth recording, and he pays the penalty in many a
+blush hereafter. His best method will be to record as little as possible
+about himself; and, of other things, most of what he is pretty sure to
+forget, and least of what he can hardly help remembering.
+
+Generally speaking, he will find it desirable to defer the work of
+generalization till he gets home. In the earlier stages of his journey,
+at least, he will restrict his pen to the record of facts and
+impressions; or, if his mind should have an unconquerable theorizing
+tendency, he will be so far cautious as to put down his inferences
+conjecturally. It is easy to do this; and it may make an eternal
+difference to the observer's love of truth, and attainment of it,
+whether he preserves his philosophic thoughts in the form of dogmas or
+of queries.
+
+Though it is commonly spoken of as a settled thing that the journal
+should be written at night, there are many who do not agree to this.
+There are some whose memory fails when the body is tired, and who find
+themselves clear-headed about many things in the morning which were but
+imperfectly remembered before they had the refreshment of sleep. The
+early morning is probably the best time for the greater number; but it
+is a safe general rule that the journal should be written in the
+interval when the task is pleasantest. Whether the regularity be
+pleasant or not, (and to the most conscientious travellers it is the
+most agreeable,) the entries ought to be made daily, if possible. The
+loss incurred by delay is manifest to any one who has tried. The
+shortest entries are always those which have been deferred. The delay of
+a single day is found to reduce the matter unaccountably. In the midst
+of his weariness and unwillingness to take out his pen, the traveller
+may comfort himself by remembering that he will reap the reward of
+diligence in satisfaction when he gets home. He may assure himself that
+no lines that he can write can ever be more valuable than those in which
+he hives his treasures of travel. If he turns away from the task, he
+will have uneasy feelings connected with his journey as often as he
+looks back upon it;--feelings of remorse for his idleness, and of regret
+for irretrievable loss. If, on the other hand, he perseveres in the
+daily duty, he will go forward each morning with a disburthened mind,
+and will find, in future years, that he loves the very blots and
+weather-stains on the pages which are so many remembrancers of his
+satisfactory labours and profitable pleasures.
+
+Besides the journal, the traveller should have a note-book,--always at
+hand,--not to be pulled out before people's eyes, for the entry of facts
+related, but to be used for securing the transient appearances which,
+though revealing so much to an observing mind, cannot be recalled with
+entire precision. In all the countries of the world, groups by the
+wayside are the most eloquent of pictures. The traveller who lets
+himself be whirled past them, unobservant or unrecording, loses more
+than any devices of inquiry at his inn can repair. If he can sketch, he
+should rarely allow a characteristic group of persons, or nook of
+scenery, to escape his pencil. If he cannot use the pencil, a few
+written words will do. Two lines may preserve for him an exemplification
+which may be of great future value.--The farmers' wives of New England,
+talking over the snake-fence at sunset, are in themselves an
+illustration of many things: so is the stern Indian in his
+blanket-cloak, standing on a mound on the prairie; so is the chamois
+hunter on his pinnacle, and the pedestrian student in the valleys of the
+Hartz, and the pine-cutters on the steeps of Norway, and the travelling
+merchant on the dyke in Holland, and the vine-dressers in Alsace, and
+the beggars in the streets of Spanish cities, and all the children of
+all countries at their play. The traveller does not dream of passing
+unnoticed the cross in the wilderness, beneath which some brother
+pilgrim lies murdered; or the group of brigands seen in the shadow of
+the wood; or a company of Sisters of Charity, going forth to their deeds
+of mercy; or a pair of inquisitors, busy on the errands of the Holy
+Office; or anything else which strongly appeals to his imagination or
+his personal feelings. These pictures, thus engraved in his memory, he
+may safely leave to be entered in his journal, night or morning: but
+groups and scenes which ought to be quite as interesting, because they
+reveal the thoughts and ways of men, (the more familiarly the more
+faithfully,) should be as earnestly observed; and, to give them a chance
+of equal preservation, they should be noted on the instant. If a
+foreigner opens his eyes after a nap in travelling an Irish road, would
+it not be wise to note at once what he sees that he could not see
+elsewhere? He perceives that the green lanes which branch off from the
+road are more crowded with foliage, and less definite in their windings,
+than any other green lanes he has seen near high roads. The road itself
+is _sui generis_, with its border of rank grass, with tufts of
+straggling briers, and its rough stone walls, fringed with weeds, and
+gay with wild flowers. A beggarly wretch is astride on the top, singing
+the Doxology to the tune of Paudeen O'Rafferty, and keeping time with
+his heels: and, some way off, an old man crouches in the grass, playing
+cards,--the right hand against the left,--reviling the winner, and
+tenderly consoling the loser. Presently the stranger passes a roofless
+hut, where he sees, either a party of boys and girls throwing turf for a
+handful of meal, or a beggar-woman and her children resting in the shade
+of the walls to eat their cold potatoes. Such scenes could be beheld
+nowhere but in Ireland: but there is no country in the world where
+groups and pictures as characteristic do not present themselves to the
+observing eye, and in such quick succession that they are liable to be
+confused and lost, if not secured at the moment by brief touches of
+pencil or pen. The note-book should be the repository of such.
+
+Mechanical methods are nothing but in proportion to the power which uses
+them; as the intellectual accomplishments of the traveller avail him
+little, and may even bring him back less wise than he went out,--a
+wanderer from truth, as well as from home,--unless he sees by a light
+from his heart shining through the eyes of his mind. He may see, and
+hear, and record, and infer, and conclude for ever; and he will still
+not understand if his heart be idle,--if he have not sympathy. Sympathy
+by itself may do much: with fit intellectual and mechanical aids, it
+cannot but make the traveller a wise man. His journey may be but for a
+brief year, or even month; but if, by his own sympathy, he grasps and
+brings home to himself the life of a fresh portion of his race, he gains
+a wisdom for which he will be the better for ever.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[A] Penny Magazine, vol. ii. p. 309.
+
+[B] Volney's Survey of the Revolutions of Empires, pp. 25, 26.
+
+[C] Mme. D'Aunoy.
+
+[D] Adam Smith, "Wealth of Nations."
+
+[E] Jacob, "Travels in the South of Spain."
+
+[F] HOME, by Miss Sedgwick, pp. 37, 39.
+
+[G] An exception to this may meet the eye of a traveller once in a
+lifetime. There is a village church-yard in England where the following
+inscription is to be seen. After the name and date occurs the following:
+
+               He was a Bad Son,
+                 A Bad Husband,
+                 A Bad Father.
+    "The wicked shall be turned into Hell."
+
+[H] Edinburgh Review, vol. xxxix. p. 67.
+
+[I] Edinburgh Review, vol. xlvi. p. 309.
+
+[J] Edinburgh Review, vol. xxvi. pp. 7, 8.
+
+[K] Corn Law Rhymer. Elliott of Sheffield.
+
+[L] Travels of Minna and Godfrey in Many Lands, p. 53.
+
+[M] Rogers's Italy, p. 172.
+
+[N] Memoirs of an American Lady.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+    LONDON:
+    PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY,
+    Dorset Street, Fleet Street.
+
+
+
+
+INDUSTRIAL LIBRARY,
+
+FOR SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES.
+
+
+RESULTS OF MACHINERY. 1_s._ sewed, 1_s._ 3_d._ cloth.
+
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+1_s._ sewed, 1_s._ 3_d._ cloth.
+
+COTTAGE EVENINGS. 1_s._ sewed, 1_s._ 3_d._ cloth.
+
+The PHYSICIAN. 1_s._ sewed, 1_s._ 3_d._ cloth.
+
+WORKING MAN'S COMPANION, FOR 1835, 6, 7, and 8, 9_d._ each.
+
+HOUSEHOLD YEAR-BOOK, FOR 1835, 6, and 7. 1_s._ each.
+
+*.* The above works are under the superintendence of the Society for the
+Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
+
+SKETCHES OF POPULAR TUMULTS; illustrative of the Evils of Social
+Ignorance. Second Edition. 5_s._ cloth.
+
+
+=INDUSTRIAL GUIDE-BOOKS.=
+
+To supply a manifest deficiency in the books already published for the
+education of the industrial classes, the Publishers have undertaken a
+series of works, (which will be brought out at the cheapest rate,) whose
+chief object is to prepare young persons for the choice of an
+occupation, by instructing them in the peculiar duties, and, as far as
+requisite, in the technical details of the various departments of
+SERVICE OR TRADE in which they are likely to be engaged as they advance
+in life. It is, of course, not contemplated herein to teach every thing
+that should be known in a Trade, or to point out the whole details of a
+Service,--but to give such a general knowledge of the occupations which
+the mass of the people are called upon to follow, as may prepare the
+young for the proper discharge of their duties, and systematize much
+of the practical information which the adult has now in most cases, to
+learn without a Guide. These works will, collectively, contain a mass of
+authentic and amusing information on the various departments of industry
+in this country, which will be useful and interesting to all readers.
+They will be illustrated with numerous explanatory wood cuts. The
+subjects to be embraced will, for the most part, be as follows:--
+
+I--THE GUIDE TO SERVICE.
+
+1. _Farm Service._
+
+    Labourer
+    Cowherd
+    Shepherd
+    Carter
+    Ploughman
+    Bailiff
+    Dairywoman.
+
+2. _House Service_
+
+    Gardener
+    Groom
+    Coachman
+    Footman
+    Butler
+    Servant of all Work
+    Kitchen Maid
+    Cook
+    House Maid
+    Nurse Maid
+    Lady's Maid.
+
+3. _Commercial Service._
+
+    Errand Boy
+    Apprentice
+    Porter and Carman
+    Warehouseman
+    Shopman
+    Clerk
+    Servants of Public Conveyances.
+
+4. _Public Service._
+
+    Soldier
+    Sailor
+    Excise Officer
+    Custom-house Officer
+    Post-office Servants and Turnpikemen
+    Officers of Local Administration.
+
+
+II--THE GUIDE TO TRADE.
+
+1. _Producers of Food and Raw Materials._
+
+    Farmer and Grazier
+    Market-Gardener
+    Fisherman
+    Miner.
+
+2. _Manufacturers._
+
+    Iron Founder
+    Lead Founder, or Worker
+    Brass Founder
+    Coppersmith
+    Cutler
+    Machine Maker
+    Brick Maker
+    Potter
+    Glass Worker
+    Spinners and Weavers
+        Cotton
+        Linen
+        Woollen
+        Silk
+    Bleacher, Dyer, and Calico Printer
+    Tanner and Currier
+    Rope Maker
+    Miller and Baker
+    Soap Boiler and Tallow Chandler
+    Sugar Refiner
+    Brewer and Distiller
+    Hatter
+    Paper Maker.
+
+3. _Handicraftsmen._
+
+    Shipwright
+    Bricklayer
+    Mason
+    Carpenter
+    Plumber, Painter, and Glazier
+    Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer
+    Smith
+    Cooper, Brush Maker, Basket Maker
+    Brazier and Tinman
+    Carver and Gilder
+    Wheelwright and Coachmaker
+    Watchmaker
+    Goldsmith and Jeweller
+    Printer
+    Bookbinder
+    Engraver
+    Tailor
+    Milliner
+    Shoemaker
+    Saddler
+    Hairdresser.
+
+4. _Retailers._
+
+    Butcher
+    Grocer, Cheesemonger, Oilman, Tobacconist
+    Fishmonger and Poulterer
+    Pastrycook and Confectioner
+    Greengrocer and Seedsman
+    Victualler
+    Coal and Corn Dealer
+    Ironmonger and Hardwareman
+    Stationer and Bookseller
+    Chemist and Druggist
+    Hawker and Pedlar
+    Broker.
+
+*.* The Series will not be published at stated periods, but it will be
+endeavoured to bring out one Tract in each Class monthly.
+
+In July will be published
+
+"THE MAID OF ALL WORK," Price Eightpence.
+
+"THE PRINTER," Price One Shilling.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Archaic and unexpected spelling and hyphenation have been retained as
+they appear in the original publication, including recompence,
+negociated, hinderance, befals, proprietory, tabu and savans. The
+following changes to the original publication have been made:
+
+    Page 43
+    will not pour out their stores _changed to_
+    will not pour out their stories
+
+    Page 239
+    the occupations which the mass o
+    the occupations which the mass of
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 33944 ***