"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.