"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 own land, society as well as government is not organised upon a new foundation."

Miss Sedgwick.

It is true that it is better to live for honour than for wealth: but how much better, depends upon the idea of honour. Where truth and justice are more than hollow words, the idea of honour is such as to exclude all fear, except of wrong-doing. Where the honour is to be derived from present human opinion, there must be fear, ever present, and perpetually exciting to or withholding from action. In such a case, as painful a bondage is incurred as in the pursuit of wealth. If riches take to themselves wings, and fly away, so does popularity. If rich freights are in danger afar off from storms, and harvests at home from blights, so is reputation, from differences of opinion, and varieties of views and tempers. If all that moralists have written, and wise men have testified, about the vanity and misery of depending on human applause be true, there can be no true freedom in communities, any more than for individuals, who live to opinion. The time will come when the Americans also will testify to this, as a nation, as many individual members of their society have done already. The time will come when they will be astonished to discover how they mar their own privileges by allowing themselves less liberty of speech and action than is enjoyed by the inhabitants of countries whose political servitude the Americans justly compassionate and despise.

This regard to opinion shows itself under various forms in different parts of the country, and under dissimilar social arrangements. In the south, where the labour itself is capital, and labour cannot therefore be regarded with due respect, there is much vanity of retinue, much extravagance, from fear of the imputation of poverty which would follow upon retrenchment; and great recklessness of life, from fear of the imputation of cowardice which might follow upon forgiveness of injuries. Fear of imputation is here the panic, under which men relinquish their freedom of action and speech. In the north, society has been enabled, chiefly by the religious influence which has descended from the fathers, to surmount, in some degree, this low kind of fear, so far as it shows itself in recklessness of life: but not altogether. I was amazed to hear a gentleman of New England declare, while complaining of the insolence of the southern members of Congress to the northern, under shelter of the northern men not being duellists, that, if he went to Congress, he would give out that he would fight. I do not believe that he would actually have proved himself so far behind the society to which he belonged as to have adopted a bad practice which it had outgrown,—adopted it from that very fear of imputation which he despised in the south; but the impulse under which he spoke testified to the danger of a fear of opinion taking any form, however low, when it exists under any other.

When I was at Philadelphia, a shocking incident happened in a family with which I was acquainted. The only son, a fine youth of nineteen, was insulted by a fellow-student. His father and uncle consulted what must be done; and actually sent the young man out to fight the person who had insulted him: the mother being aware of it, and praying that if either fell, it might be her son. She no doubt felt in her true heart, that it would be better to die than to murder another from the selfish fear of imputation. The first aggressor lost a finger; and there, it was said, the matter ended. But the matter has not ended yet, nor will end; for the young man has had a lesson of low selfishness, of moral cowardice impressed upon him by the guardians of his youth, with a force which he is not likely to surmount: and the society in which he lives has seen the strongest testimony to false principles borne by two of its most respected members.

Not by any means as a fair specimen of society, but as an example of what kind of honour may be enjoyed where the fear of imputation is at its height, I give the description, as it was given me by a resident, of what a man may do in an eminently duelling portion of the southern country. "A man may kill another, and be no worse. He may be shabby in his money transactions, but may not steal. He may game, but not keep a gaming-house." It will not do for the duellists of the south to drop in conversation, as they do, that good manners can exist only where vengeance is the penalty of bad. The fear of imputation and the dread of vengeance are at least as contemptible as bad manners; and unquestionably lower than the fear of opinion prevalent in the north.

In the north there can be little vanity of retinue, as retinue is not to be had: but there is, instead of it, much ostentation of wealth, in the commercial cities. It is here that the aristocracy form and collect; and, as has been before said, the aristocratic is universally the fearing, while the democratic is the hoping, party. The fear of opinion takes many forms. There is fear of vulgarity, fear of responsibility; and above all, fear of singularity. There is something more displeasing, at the first view, in the caution of the Yankees than in the recklessness of the cavalier race of the south. Till the individual exceptions come out from the mass; till the domestic frankness and generosity of the whole people are apparent, there is something little short of disgusting to the stranger who has been unused to witness such want of social confidence, in the caution which presents probably the strongest aspect of selfishness that he has ever seen.

The Americans of the northern States are, from education and habit, so accustomed to the caution of which I speak, as to be unaware of its extent and singularity. They think themselves injured by the remarks which strangers make upon it, and by the ridicule with which it is treated by their own countrymen who have travelled abroad. But the singularity is in themselves. They may travel over the world, and find no society but their own which will submit to the restraint of perpetual caution, and reference to the opinions of others. They may travel over the whole world, and find no country but their own where the very children beware of getting into scrapes, and talk of the effect of actions upon people's minds; where the youth of society determine in silence what opinions they shall bring forward, and what avow only in the family circle; where women write miserable letters, almost universally, because it is a settled matter that it is unsafe to commit oneself on paper; and where elderly people seem to lack almost universally that faith in principles which inspires a free expression of them at any time, and under all circumstances.

"Mrs. B.," said a child of eleven to a friend of mine, "what church do you go to?"—"To Mr. ——'s." "O, Mrs. B. are you a Unitarian?"—"No." "Then why do you go to that church?"—"Because I can worship best there." "O, but Mrs. B., think of the example,—the example, Mrs. B.!"

When I had been in the country some time, I remarked to one who knew well the society in which he lived, that I had not seen a good lady's letter since I landed; though the conversation of some of the writers was of a very superior kind. The letters were uniformly poor and guarded in expression, confined to common-places, and overloaded with flattery. "There are," replied he, "no good letters written in America. The force of public opinion is so strong, and the danger of publicity so great, that men do not write what they think, for fear of getting into bad hands: and this acts again upon the women, and makes their style artificial." It is not quite true that there are no good letters written in America: among my own circle of correspondents there, there are ladies and gentlemen whose letters would stand a comparison with any for frankness, grace, and epistolary beauty of every kind. But I am not aware of any medium between this excellence and the boarding-school insignificance which characterises the rest.

When the stranger has recovered a little from the first disagreeable impression of all this caution, he naturally asks what there can be to render it worth while. To this question, I never could discover a satisfactory answer. What harm the "force of public opinion," or "publicity," can do to any individual; what injury "bad hands" can inflict upon a good man or woman, which can be compared with the evil of living in perpetual caution, I cannot imagine. If men and women cannot bear blame, they had better hew out a space for themselves in the forest, and live there, as the only safe place. If they are afraid of observation and comment, they should withdraw from society altogether: for the interest which human beings take in each other is so deep and universal, that observation and comment are unavoidable wherever there are eyes to see, and hearts and minds to yearn and speculate. An honest man will not naturally fear this investigation. If he is not sure of his opinions on any matter, he will say so, and endeavour to gain light. If he is sure, he will speak them, and be ready to avow the grounds of them, as occasion arises. That there should be some who think his opinions false and dangerous is not pleasant; but it is an evil too trifling to be mentioned in comparison with the bondage of concealment, and the torment of fear. This bondage, this torment is worse than the worst that the "force of public opinion" can inflict, even if such force should close the prospect of political advancement, of professional eminence, and of the best of social privileges. There are some members of society in America who have found persecution, excommunication, and violence, more endurable than the concealment of their convictions.

Few persons really doubt this when the plain case is set down before them. They agree to it in church on Sundays, and in conversation by the fireside: and the reason why they are so backward as they are to act upon it in the world, is that habit and education are too strong for them. They have worn their chains so long that they feel them less than might be supposed. I doubt whether they can even conceive of a state of society, of its ease and comfort, where no man fears his neighbour, and it is no evil to be responsible for one's opinions: where men, knowing how undiscernible consequences are, and how harmless they must be to the upright, abide them without fear, and do not perplex themselves with calculating what is incalculable. Whenever the time shall come for the Americans to discover all this, to perceive how miserable a restraint they have imposed upon themselves by this servitude to opinion, they will see how it is that, while outwardly blessed beyond all parallel, they have been no happier than the rest of the world. I doubt whether, among the large "uneasy classes" of the Old World, there is so much heart-eating care, so much nervous anxiety, as among the dwellers in the towns of the northern States of America, from this cause alone. If I had to choose, I would rather endure the involuntary uneasiness of the Old World sufferers, than the self-imposed anxiety of those of the New: except that the self-imposed suffering may be shaken off at any moment. There are instances, few, but striking, of strong-minded persons who have discovered and are practising the true philosophy of ease; who have openly taken their stand upon principles, and are prepared for all consequences, meekly and cheerfully defying all possible inflictions of opinion. Though it does not enter into their calculations, such may possibly find that they are enjoying more, and suffering less from opinion, than those who most daintily court it.

There would be something amusing in observing the operation of this habit of caution, if it were not too serious a misfortune. When Dr. Channing's work on Slavery came out, the following conversation passed between a lady of Boston and myself. She began it with—

"Have you seen Dr. Channing's book?"

"Yes. Have you?"

"O no. Do not you think it very ill-timed?"

"No; I think it well-timed; as it did not come out sooner."

"But is it not wrong to increase the public excitement at such a time?"

"That depends upon the nature of the excitement. But this book seems to have a tranquillising effect: as the exhibition of true principles generally has."

"But Dr. Channing is not a practical man. He is only a retired student. He has no real interest in the matter."

"No worldly interest; and this, and his seclusion, enable him to see more clearly than others, in a case where principles enlighten men, and practice seems only to blind them."

"Well: I shall certainly read the book, as you like it so much."

"Pray don't, if that is your reason."

A reply to Dr. Channing's book soon appeared;—a pamphlet which savoured only of fear, dollars, and, consequently, insult. A gentleman of Boston, who had, on some important occasions, shown that he could exercise a high moral courage, made no mention of this reply for some time after it appeared. At length, on hearing another person speak of it as it deserved, he said, "Now people are so openly speaking of that reply, I have no objection to say what I think of it. I have held my tongue about it hitherto; but yesterday I heard —— speak of it as you do; and I no longer hesitate to declare that I think it an infamous production."

It may be said that such are remarkable cases. Be it so: they still testify to the habit of society, by the direction which the caution takes. Elsewhere, the parties might be quite as much afraid of something else; but they would not dream of refraining from a good book, or holding their tongues about the badness of a vicious pamphlet, till supported by the opinions of others.

How strong a contrast to all this the domestic life of the Americans presents will appear when I come to speak of the spirit of intercourse. It is an individual, though prevalent, selfishness that I have now been lamenting.

The traveller should go into the west when he desires to see universal freedom of manners. The people of the west have a comfortable self-complacency, equally different from the arrogance of the south, and the timidity of the north. They seem to unite with this the hospitality which distinguishes the whole country: so that they are, on the whole, a very bewitching people. Their self-confidence probably arises from their being really remarkably energetic, and having testified this by the conquests over nature which their mere settlement in the west evinces. They are the freest people I saw in America: and accordingly one enjoys among them a delightful exemption from the sorrow and indignation which worldly caution always inspires; and from flattery. If the stranger finds himself flattered in the west, he may pretty safely conclude that the person he is talking with comes from New England. "We are apt to think," said a westerner to me, "that however great and good another person may be, we are just as great and good." Accordingly, intercourse goes on without any reference whatever to the merits of the respective parties. In the sunshine of complacency, their free thoughts ripen into free deeds, and the world gains largely. There are, naturally, instances of extreme conceit, here and there: but I do not hesitate to avow that, prevalent as mock-modesty and moral cowardice are in the present condition of society, that degree of self-confidence which is commonly called conceit grows in favour with me perpetually. An over-estimate of self appears to me a far less hurtful and disagreeable mistake than the idolatry of opinion. It is a mistake which is sure to be rectified, sooner or later; and very often, it proves to be no mistake where small critics feel the most confident that they may safely ridicule it. The event decides this matter of self-estimate, beyond all question; and while the event remains undisclosed, it is easy and pleasant to give men credit for as much as they believe themselves to be capable of:—more easy and pleasant than to see men restricting their own powers by such calculation of consequences as implies an equal want of faith in others and in themselves. If John Milton were now here to avow his hope that he should produce that which "the world would not willingly let die," what a shout there would be of "the conceited fellow!" while, the declaration having been made venerable by the event, it is now cited as an instance of the noble self-confidence of genius.

The people of the west have a right to so much self-confidence as arises from an ascertainment of what they can actually achieve. They come from afar, with some qualities which have force enough to guide them into a new region. They subdue this region to their own purposes; and, if they do often forget that the world elsewhere is progressing; if they do suppose themselves as relatively great in present society as they were formerly in the wilderness, it should be remembered, on their behalf, that they have effectually asserted their manhood in the conquest of circumstances.

If we are not yet to see, except in individual instances, the exquisite union of fearlessness with modesty, of self-confidence with meekness;—if there must be either the love of being grand in one's own eyes, or the fear of being little in other people's,—the friends of the Americans would wish that their error should be that which is allied to too much, rather than too little freedom.

As for the anxiety about foreign opinions of America, I found it less striking than I expected. In the south, there is the keenest sensibility to the opinion of the world about slavery; and in New England, the veneration for England is greater than I think any one people ought to feel for any other. The love of the mother country, the filial pride in her ancient sages, are natural and honourable: and so, perhaps, is a somewhat exalted degree of deference for the existing dwellers upon the soil of that mother country, and on the spot where those sages lived and thought and spoke. But, as long as no civilised nation is, or can be ascertained to be, far superior or inferior to any other; as the human heart and human life are generally alike and equal, on this side barbarism, the excessive reverence with which England is regarded by the Americans seems to imply a deficiency of self-respect. This is an immeasurably higher and more healthy state of feeling than that which has been exhibited by a small portion of the English towards the Americans;—the contempt which, again, a sprinkling of Americans have striven to reciprocate. But the despisers in each nation, though so noisy as to produce some effect, are so few as to need no more than a passing allusion. If any English person can really see and know the Americans on their own ground, and fail to honour them as a nation, and love them as personal friends, he is no fair sample of the people whose name he bears; and is probably incapable of unperverted reverence: and if any American, having really seen and known the English on their own ground, does not reverence his own home exactly in proportion as he loves what is best in the English, he is unworthy of his home.

When I was on my voyage out, the Americans on board amused themselves with describing to me how incessantly I should be met by the question how I liked America. When we arrived within a few miles of New York, a steam-boat met us, bringing the friends of some of the passengers. On board this steam-boat, the passengers went up to the city. It happened to be the smallest, dirtiest, and most clumsy steamer belonging to the port. A splashing rain drove us down into the cabin, where there was barely standing room for our company. We saw each other's faces by the dim light of a single shabby lamp. "Now, Miss M." said some of the American passengers, "how do you like America?" This was the first time of my being asked the question which I have had to answer almost daily since. Yet I do not believe that many of my interrogators seriously cared any more for my answer than those who first put the question in the dirty cabin; or than my little friend Charley, who soon caught the joke, and with grave face, asked me, every now and then, "How do you like this country?" I learned to regard it as a method of beginning conversation, like our meteorological observations in England; which are equally amusing to foreigners. My own impression is, that while the Americans have too exalted a notion of England, and too little self-respect as a nation, they are far less anxious about foreign opinions of themselves than the behaviour of American travellers in England would lead the English to suppose. The anxiety arises on English ground. At home, the generality of Americans seem to see clearly enough that it is yet truer with regard to nations than individuals that, though it is very pleasant to have the favourable opinion of one's neighbours, yet, if one is good and happy within oneself, the rest does not much matter. I met with a few who spoke with a disgusting affectation of candour, (some, as if they expected to please me thereby, and others under the influence of sectional prejudice,) of what they called the fairness of the gross slanders with which they have been insulted through the English press: but I was thankful to meet with more who did not acknowledge the jurisdiction of observers disqualified by prejudice, or by something worse, for passing judgment on a nation. The irritability of their vanity has been much exaggerated, partly to serve paltry purposes of authorship; and yet more from the ridiculous exhibitions of some Americans in England, who are no more to be taken as specimens of the nation to which they belong than a young Englishman who, when I was at New York, went up the Hudson in a drizzling rain, pronounced that West Point was not so pretty as Richmond; descended the river in the dark, and declared on his return that the Americans were wonderfully proud of scenery that was nothing particular in any way.

It will be well for the Americans, particularly those of the east and south, when their idea of honour becomes as exalted as that which inspired their revolutionary ancestors. Whenever they possess themselves of the idea of their democracy, as it was possessed by their statesmen of 1801, they will moderate their homage of human opinion, and enhance their worship of humanity. Not till then will they live up to their institutions, and enjoy that internal freedom and peace to which the external are but a part of the means. In such improvement, they will be much assisted by the increasing intercourse between Britain and America; for, however fascinating to Americans may be the luxury, conversational freedom, and high intellectual cultivation of some portions of English society, they cannot fail to be disgusted with the aristocratic insolence which is the vice of the whole. The puerile and barbaric spirit of contempt is scarcely known in America: the English insolence of class to class, of individuals towards each other, is not even conceived of, except in the one highly disgraceful instance of the treatment of the people of colour. Nothing in American civilisation struck me so forcibly and so pleasurably as the invariable respect paid to man, as man. Nothing since my return to England has given me so much pain as the contrast there. Perhaps no Englishman can become fully aware, without going to America, of the atmosphere of insolence in which he dwells; of the taint of contempt which infects all the intercourses of his world. He cannot imagine how all that he can say that is truest and best about the treatment of people of colour in America is neutralised on the spot, by its being understood how the same contempt is spread over the whole of society here, which is there concentrated upon the blacks.

SECTION I.
CASTE.

This word, at least its meaning, is no more likely to become obsolete in a republic than among the Hindoos themselves. The distinctive characteristics may vary; but there will be rank, and tenacity of rank, wherever there is society. As this is natural, inevitable, it is of course right. The question must be what is to entitle to rank.

As the feudal qualifications for rank are absolutely non-existent in America, (except in the slave States, where there are two classes, without any minor distinctions,) it seems absurd that the feudal remains of rank in Europe should be imitated in America. Wherever the appearance of a conventional aristocracy exists in America, it must arise from wealth, as it cannot from birth. An aristocracy of mere wealth is vulgar everywhere. In a republic, it is vulgar in the extreme.

This is the only kind of vulgarity I saw in the United States. I imagine that the English who have complained the most copiously of the vulgarity of American manners, have done so from two causes: from using their own conventional notions as a standard of manners, (which is a vulgarism in themselves;) and also from their intercourses with the Americans having been confined to those who consider themselves the aristocracy of the United States; the wealthy and showy citizens of the Atlantic ports. Foreign travellers are most hospitably received by this class of society; introduced to "the first people in Boston,"—"in New York,"—"in Philadelphia;" and taught to view the country with the eyes of their hosts. No harm is intended here: it is very natural: but it is not the way for strangers to obtain an understanding of the country and the people. The traveller who chooses industriously to see for himself, not with European or aristocratic merely, but with human eyes, will find the real aristocracy of the country, not only in ball-rooms and bank-parlours, but also in fishing-boats, in stores, in college chambers, and behind the plough. Till he has seen all this, and studied the natural manners of the natural aristocracy, he is no more justified in applying the word "vulgar" to more than a class, than an American would be who should call all the English vulgar, when he had seen only the London alderman class.

I had the opportunity of perceiving what errors might arise from this cause. I was told a great deal about "the first people in Boston:" which is perhaps as aristocratic, vain, and vulgar a city, as described by its own "first people," as any in the world. Happily, however, Boston has merits which these people know not of. I am far from thinking it, as they do, the most religious, the most enlightened, and the most virtuous city in the world. There are other cities in the United States which, on the whole, I think more virtuous and more enlightened: but I certainly am not aware of so large a number of peculiarly interesting and valuable persons living in near neighbourhood, anywhere else but in London. But it happens that these persons belong chiefly to the natural, very few to the conventional, aristocracy. They have little perceptible influence. Society does not seem to be much the better for them. They save their own souls; but, as regards society, the salt appears to have lost its savour. It is so sprinkled as not to season the body. With men and women enough on the spot to redeem society from false morals, and empty religious profession, Boston is the head-quarters of Cant. Notwithstanding its superior intelligence, its large provision of benevolent institutions, and its liberal hospitality, there is an extraordinary and most pernicious union, in more than a few scattered instances, of profligacy and the worst kind of infidelity, with a strict religious profession, and an outward demeanour of remarkable propriety. The profligacy and infidelity might, I fear, be found in all other cities, on both sides the water; but nowhere, probably, in absolute co-existence with ostensible piety. This is not the connexion in which to speak of the religious aspect of the matter; but, as regards the cant, I believe that it proceeds chiefly from the spirit of caste which flourishes in a society which on Sundays and holidays professes to have abjured it. It is true that the people of New England have put away duelling; but the feelings which used to vent themselves by the practice of duelling are cherished by the members of the conventional aristocracy. This is revealed, not only by the presence of cant, but by the confessions of some who are bold enough not to pretend to be either republicans or christians. There are some few who openly desire a monarchy; and a few more who constantly insinuate the advantages of a monarchy, and the distastefulness of a republic. It is observable that such always argue on the supposition that if there were a monarchy, they should be the aristocracy: a point in which I imagine they would find themselves mistaken, if so impossible an event could happen at all. This class, or coterie, is a very small one, and not influential; though a gentleman of the kind once ventured to give utterance to his aspirations after monarchy in a fourth of July oration; and afterwards to print them. There is something venerable in his intrepidity, at least. The reproach of cant does not attach to him.

The children are such faithful reflectors of this spirit as to leave no doubt of its existence, even amidst the nicest operations of cant. Gentlemen may disguise their aristocratic aspirations under sighs for the depressed state of literature and science; supposing that wealth and leisure are the constituents of literature; and station the proximate cause of science; and committing the slight mistake of assuming that the natural aristocracy of England, her philosophers and poets, have been identical with, or originated by, her conventional aristocracy. The ladies may conceal their selfish pride of caste, even from themselves, under pretensions to superior delicacy and refinement. But the children use no such disguises. Out they come with what they learn at home. A school-girl told me what a delightful "set" she belonged to at her school: how comfortable they all were once, without any sets, till several grocers' daughters began to come in, as their fathers grew rich; and it became necessary for the higher girls to consider what they should do, and to form themselves into sets. She told me how the daughter of a lottery office-keeper came to the school; and no set would receive her; how unkindly she was treated, and how difficult it was for any individual to help her, because she had not spirit or temper enough to help herself. My informant went on to mention how anxious she and her set, of about sixty young people, were to visit exclusively among themselves, how "delightful" it would be to have no grocers' daughters among them; but that it was found to be impossible.

Here is an education to be going on in the middle of a republic! Much solace, however, lies in the last clause of the information above quoted. The Exclusives do find their aims 'impossible.' They will neither have a monarchy, nor be able to complete and close their 'sets:' least of all will any republican functions be discharged by those who are brought up to have any respect of occupations,—to regard a grocer as beneath a banker. The chief effect of the aristocratic spirit in a democracy is to make those who are possessed by it exclusives in a double sense; in being excluded yet more than in excluding. The republic suffers no further than by having within it a small class acting upon anti-republican morals, and becoming thereby its perverse children, instead of its wise and useful friends and servants.

In Philadelphia, I was much in society. Some of my hospitable acquaintances lived in Chesnut Street, some in Arch Street, and many in other places. When I had been a few weeks in the city, I found to my surprise that some of the ladies who were my admiration had not only never seen or heard of other beautiful young ladies whom I admired quite as much, but never would see or hear of them. I inquired again and again for a solution of this mystery. One person told me that a stranger could not see into the usages of their society. This was just what I was feeling to be true; but it gave me no satisfaction. Another said that the mutual ignorance was from the fathers of the Arch Street ladies having made their fortunes, while the Chesnut Street ladies owed theirs to their grandfathers. Another, who was amused with a new fashion of curtseying, just introduced, declared it was from the Arch Street ladies rising twice on their toes before curtseying, while the Chesnut Street ladies rose thrice. I was sure of only one thing in the matter; that it was a pity that the parties should lose the pleasure of admiring each other, for no better reasons than these: and none better were apparent.

It is not to be supposed that the mere circumstance of living in a republic will ever eradicate that kind of self-love which takes the form of family pride. It is a stage in the transit from selfishness to benevolence; and therefore natural and useful in its proper time and place. As every child thinks his father the wisest man in the world, the loving member of a family thinks his relations the greatest, best and happiest of people, till he gets an intimate knowledge of some others. This species of exclusiveness exists wherever there are families. An eminent public man, travelling in a somewhat retired part of his State, told us how he had been amused with an odd instance of family pride which had just come under his notice. Some plain farmers, brothers, had claimed to be his cousins; and he found they were so. They introduced each other to him; and one brought his son,—a hideous little Flibbertigibbet, with a shock of carroty hair. His father complacently stroked his hair, and declared he was exactly like his uncle Richard: his uncle Richard over again; 'twas wonderful how like his uncle Richard he was in all respects: the hair was the very same; and his uncle Richard was dumb till very late, and then stammered: "and this little fellow," said the father, with a complacent smile,—"this little fellow is six years old, and he can't speak a word."

No one will find fault with the pride of connexion in this stage. Supposing it to remain in its present state, it is harmless from its extreme smallness. In a city, under the stimulus of society, the same pride may be either perverted into the spirit of caste, or exalted into the affection of pure republican brotherhood. The alternative is significant as to the state of the republic, and all-important to the individual.

The extent and influence of the conventional aristocracy in the United States are significant of the state of the republic so far as that they afford an accurate measure of the anti-republican spirit which exists. Such an aristocracy must remain otherwise too insignificant to be dangerous. It cannot choose its own members, restrict its own numbers, or keep its gentility from contamination; for it must be perpetuated, not by hereditary transmission, but by accessions from below. Grocers grow rich, and mechanics become governors of States; and happily there is no law, nor reason, nor desire that it should be otherwise. This little cloud will always overhang the republic, like the perpetual vapour which hovers above Niagara, thrown up by the force and regularity of the movement below. Some observers may be sorry that the heaven is never to be quite clear: but none will dread the little cloud. It would be about as reasonable to fear that the white vapour should drown the cataract from whence it issues as that the conventional aristocracy of America should swamp the republic.

SECTION II.
PROPERTY.

I found it an admitted truth, throughout the United States, that enormous private wealth is inconsistent with the spirit of republicanism. Wealth is power; and large amounts of power ought not to rest in the hands of individuals.

Admitted truths are not complained of as hardships. I never met with any one who quarrelled with public opinion for its enmity to large fortunes: on the contrary, every one who spoke with me on the subject was of the same mind with everybody else. Amidst the prevalent desire of gain, against which divines are preaching, and moralists are writing in vain, there seems to be no desire to go beyond what public opinion approves. The desire of riches merges in a regard to opinion. There is more of the spirit of competition and of ostentation in it, than desire of accumulation. It has been mentioned that there are not more than four or five hundred affluent men,—worth 100,000 dollars and upwards,—in all the six States of New England; in a population of above two millions.

The popular feeling is so strong against transmitting large estates, and favouring one child, that nobody attempts to do it. The rare endeavours made by persons of feudal prepossessions to perpetuate this vicious custom, have been all happily frustrated. Much ridicule was occasioned by the manoeuvres of one such testator, who provided for the portions of a large estate reverting periodically; forgetting that the reversions were as saleable as anything else; and that, under a democracy, there can be no settling the private, any more than the public, affairs of future generations. The present Patroon of Albany, the story of whose hereditary wealth is universally known, intends to divide his property among his children,—in number, I believe, thirteen. Under him has probably expired the practice of favouring one child for the preservation of a large estate.

This remote approach to an equalisation of property is, as far as it goes, an improvement upon the state of affairs in the Old World, where the accumulation of wealth into masses, the consequent destitution of large portions of society, and the divisions which thus are established between class and class, between man and man, constitute a system too absurd and too barbarous to endure. The remote approach made by the Americans to an equalisation of wealth is yet more important as indicating the method by which society is to be eventually redeemed from its absurdity and barbarism in respect of property. This method is as yet perceived by only a few: but the many who imitate as far as they can the modes of the Old World, and cherish to the utmost its feudal prepossessions, will only for a time be able to resist the convictions which the working of republican principles will force upon them, that there is no way of securing perfect social liberty on democratic principles but by community of property.

There is, as there ought to be, as great a horror in America as everywhere else of the despotism that would equalise property arbitrarily. Such a despotism can never become more than the ghost of a fancy. The approach to equalisation now required by public opinion is that required by justice; it is required that no man should encroach on his neighbours for the sake of enriching himself; that no man should encroach on his younger children for the sake of enriching the eldest; that no man should encroach on the present generation for the sake of enriching a future one. All this is allowed and required. But by the same rule, and for the sake of the same principle, no one will ever be allowed to take from the industrious man the riches won by his industry, and give them to the idle: to take from the strong to give to the weak: to take from the wise to give to the foolish. Such aggression upon property can never take place, or be seriously apprehended in a republic where all, except drunkards and slaves, are proprietors, and where the Declaration of Independence claims for every one, with life and liberty, the pursuit of happiness in his own way. There will be no attacks on property in the United States.

But it appears to me inevitable that there will be a general agreement, sooner or later, on a better principle of property than that under which all are restless; under which the wisdom and peace of the community fall far below what their other circumstances would lead themselves and their well-wishers to anticipate.

Their moralists are dissatisfied. "Our present civilisation," says Dr. Channing, "is characterised and tainted by a devouring greediness of wealth; and a cause which asserts right against wealth, must stir up bitter opposition, especially in cities where this divinity is most adored." ... "The passion for gain is everywhere sapping pure and generous feeling, and everywhere raises up bitter foes against any reform which may threaten to turn aside a stream of wealth. I sometimes feel as if a great social revolution were necessary to break up our present mercenary civilisation, in order that Christianity, now repelled by the almost universal worldliness, may come into new contact with the soul, and may reconstruct society after its own pure and disinterested principles."[20] This is a prophecy. Men to whom truth and justice are not "hollow words" are the prophets of the times to come.

The scholars of America are dissatisfied. They complain of the superficial character of scholarship; of the depression, or rather of the non-existence, of literature. Some hope that matters will be better hereafter, merely from the nation having grown older. The greater number ascribe the mischief to men having to work at their employments; and some few of these believe that America would have a literature if only she had a hereditary aristocracy; this being supposed the only method of leaving to individuals the leisure and freedom of spirit necessary for literary pursuits. It has been pointed out that this is a mistake. Nature and social economy do not so agree as that genius is usually given to those who have hereditary wealth. The capability has so much more frequently shown itself among the busy and poor than among the rich who have leisure, as to mock the human presumption which would dictate from whose lips the oracles of Heaven should issue. One needs but to glance over the array of geniuses, of philosophers, of scientific men, and even of the far lower order of scholars, to see how few of the best benefactors of mankind have issued from "classic shades," "learned leisure," "scientific retreats," &c., and how many more have sent up their axioms, their song, their prophecy, their hallelujah, from the very press of the toiling multitude. What tale is commoner than the poverty of poets; the need that philosophers have usually had of philosophy; the embarrassments and destitution of inventors; the straits of scholars? The history of society shows that the highest intellect is no more to be looked for especially amidst opulent leisure, than the highest devotion in the cloister. The divine breath of genius bloweth where it listeth. Men may hold out empty bags for it for ages, and not catch it; while it fans the temples of some maimed soldier, toiling in chains as an Algerine slave, or some rustic, treading

It is clearly a mistake that hereditary property, opportunity, leisure, and such things, will make a literature, or secure scholarship: as great a, mistake as that of the American newspaper editor who triumphantly anticipated an age of statuary from there being an arrival at New York of a statue by Canova, at the same time with a discovery of marble quarries. It is true that the statue lies in the marble quarry: but it is also true that it lies sepulchred in the far deeper recesses of some one unfathomable human intellect: and to bring the one right intellect to the quarry is the problem which is not given to be solved by mortal skill,—by devices of hereditary ease and scientific retreats. This kind of guidance is just that which the supreme Artist does not confide to created hands.

It is true, however, that though opportunity and leisure are not everything; that without union with useful toil, they are nothing,—yet, with this union they are something,—much. The first attempt to advocate leisure as the birthright of every human being was made now some half-century ago.[21] The plea then advanced is a sound one on behalf of other things besides philosophy, literature and scholarship. Leisure, some degree of it, is necessary to the health of every man's spirit. Not only intellectual production, but peace of mind cannot flourish without it. It may be had under the present system, but it is not. With community of property, it would be secured to every one. The requisite amount of work would bear a very small proportion to that of disposable time. It would then be fairly seen how much literature may owe to leisure.

The professional men of America are dissatisfied. The best of them complain that professions rank lower than in Europe; and the reasons they assign for this are, that less education is required; and that every man who desires to get on must make himself a party man, in theology, science, or law. Professional service is not well paid in the United States, compared with other countries, and with other occupations on the spot. Very severe toil is necessary to maintain a respectable appearance, except to those who have climbed the heights of their profession; and to them it has been necessary. One of these last, a man whom the world supposes to be blessed in all conceivable respects, told me that he had followed a mistaken plan of life; and that if he could begin again, he would spend his life differently. He had chosen his occupation rightly enough, and been wholly satisfied with his domestic lot: but his life had been one of toil and care in the pursuit of what he now found would have done all it could for him in half the quantity. If he could set himself back twenty years, he would seek far less diligently for money and eminence, stipulate for leisure, and cultivate mirth. Though this gentleman cares for money only that he may have it to give away; though his generosity of spirit is the most remarkable feature of his character, he would gladly exchange the means of gratifying his liberal affections, for more capacity for mirth, more repose of spirit. The present mercenary and competitive system does not suit him.

I know of one professional man who has found this repose of spirit by retiring from the competitive system, and devoting himself to an object in which there was, when he entered upon it, but too little competition. He had, some time ago, earned a competence for himself and his family. A friend who visited him on his estate made some inquiries about investments in the region where his host lived. "I am the worst person you could ask," replied the host: "I know nothing about investments here. We are very happy with the money we have; and we do not know that we should be so happy if we had more: so I do not put myself in the way of hearing about profitable investments." He has most profitably invested his time and energy in the anti-slavery cause. He has been perhaps the most eminent defender of the liberty of speech and of the press in the United States; and is setting an example, not only to his own children, but to the whole country, of what it is to follow after life itself, instead of the mere means of living.

The merchants are dissatisfied. If money, if success, apart from the object, could give happiness, who would be so happy as the merchants of America? In comparison with merchants generally, they are happy: but in comparison with what men are made to be, they are shackled, careworn, and weary as the slave. I obtained many a glimpse into the condition of mind of this class; and, far superior as it is to what the state of large classes is in the Old World, it is yet full of toil and trouble. In New York, some friends, wishing to impress me with a conviction of the enviable lives of American ladies, told me how the rich merchants take handsome houses in the upper part of the city, and furnish them splendidly for their wives: how these gentlemen rise early, snatch their breakfasts, hurry off two or three miles to their counting-houses, bustle about in the heat and dust, noise and traffic of Pearl Street all the long summer's day, and come home in the evening, almost too wearied to eat or speak; while their wives, for whose sake they have thus been toiling after riches, have had the whole day to water their flowers, read the last English novel, visit their acquaintance, and amuse themselves at the milliner's; paying, perhaps, 100 dollars for the newest Paris bonnet. The representation had a different effect from what was expected. It appeared to me that if the ladies prefer their husbands' society to that of morning visitors and milliners, they are quite as much to be pitied as their husbands, that such a way of consuming life is considered necessary or honourable. If they would prefer to wear bonnets costing a dollar a-piece, and having some enjoyment of domestic life, their fate is mournful; if they prefer hundred dollar bonnets to the enjoyment of domestic life, their lot is the most mournful of all. In either case, they and their husbands cannot but be restless and dissatisfied.

I was at a ball in New York, the splendour of which equalled that of any entertainment I ever witnessed. A few days after, the lady who gave the ball asked me whether I did not disapprove of the show and luxury of their society. I replied, that of whatever was done for mere show, I did disapprove; but that I liked luxury, and approved of it, as long as the pleasures of some did not encroach on the rights of others.

"But," said she, "our husbands have to pay for it all. They work very hard."

"I suppose it is their own choice to do so. I should make a different choice, perhaps; but if they prefer hard work and plenty of money to indulge their families with, to moderate work and less money, I do not see how you can expect me to blame them."

"O, but we all live beyond our incomes."

"In that case, your pleasures encroach on the rights of others, and I have no more to say."

If this be true, how should this class be otherwise than restless and dissatisfied?

Are the mechanic and farming classes satisfied? No: not even they: outwardly blessed as they are beyond any class that society has ever contained. They, too, are aware that life must be meant to be passed far otherwise than in providing the outward means of living. They must be aware that though, by great industry, they can obtain some portion of time for occupations which are not money-getting, there must be something wrong in the system which compels men to devote almost the whole of their waking hours to procure that which, under a different combination of labour, might be obtained at a saving of three-fourths of the time. Whether their thoughts have been expressly turned to this subject or not, almost all the members of society are conscious that care for their external wants is so engrossing as to absorb almost all other cares; and that they would most thankfully agree to work in their vocation for the community for a short portion of every day, on condition of being spared all future anxiety about their physical necessities. They who best know the blessings inseparable from toil; who are aware that the inner life is nourished by the activity of the outer, yet perceive of what infinite consequence it is to their progress that this activity should be varied in its objects, and separated as far as possible from association with physical necessities, and selfish possession. The poor man is rightly instructed, in the present state of things, when he is told that it is his first duty to provide for his own wants. The lesson is at present true, because the only alternative is encroachment on the rights of others: but it is a very low lesson in comparison with that which will be taught in the days when mutual and self-perfection will be the prevalent idea which the civilisation of the time will express. No thinking man or woman, who reflects on the amount of time, thought, and energy, which would be set free by the pressure of competition and money-getting being removed,—time, thought, and energy now spent in wearing out the body, and in partially stimulating and partially wasting the mind, can be satisfied under the present system.

In England, the prevalent dissatisfaction must subsist a long time before anything effectual can be done to relieve it. The English are hampered with institutions in which the rights of individual property are involved in almost hopeless intricacy. Though clear-sighted persons perceive that property is the great harbourage of crime and misery, the adversary of knowledge, the corrupter of peace, the extinguisher of faith and charity; though they perceive that institutions for the regulation of outward affairs all follow the same course, being first necessary, then useful, then useless, pernicious, and finally intolerable,—that property is thus following the same course as slavery, which was once necessary, and is now intolerable,—as monarchy, which was once necessary, and is now useless, if not pernicious: though all this is clearly perceived by many far-seeing persons in England, they can do nothing but wait till the rest of society sees it too. They must be and are well content to wait; since no changes are desirable but those which proceed from the ripened mind and enlightened will of society. Thus it is in England. In America the process will be more rapid. The democratic principles of their social arrangements, operating already to such an equalisation of property as has never before been witnessed, are favourable to changes which are indeed necessary to the full carrying out of the principles adopted. When the people become tired of their universal servitude to worldly anxiety,—when they have fully meditated and discussed the fact that ninety-nine hundredths of social offences arise directly out of property; that the largest proportion of human faults bear a relation to selfish possession; that the most formidable classes of diseases are caused by over or under toil, and by anxiety of mind; they will be ready for the inquiry whether this tremendous incubus be indeed irremovable; and whether any difficulties attending its removal can be comparable to the evils it inflicts. In England, the people have not only to rectify the false principles of barbarous policy, but to surmount the accumulation of abuses which they have given out: a work, perhaps, of ages. In America, the people have not much more to do (the will being once ripe) than to retrace the false steps which their imitation of the old world has led them to take. Their accumulation of abuses is too small to be a serious obstacle in the way of the united will of a nation.

It is objected that the majority of society in America would have a horror of any great change like that contemplated: and that, though in bondage to worldly anxiety, they are unconscious of their servitude, or reconciled to it. Well: as long as this is the case, they have no change to dread; for all such alteration must proceed from their own will. There is no power upon earth from which they have any compulsion to fear. Yet it may be allowed to their friends to speculate upon the better condition which is believed to await them. When we look at a caterpillar, we like to anticipate the bright day when it will be a butterfly. If we could talk about it with the caterpillar, it would probably be terrified at the idea, and plead the exceeding danger of being high up in the air. We do not desire or endeavour to force or hasten the process: yet the caterpillar becomes a butterfly, without any final objection on its own part.

The principal fear, expressed or concealed, of those who dislike the mere mention of the outgrowth of individual property is lest they should be deprived of their occupations, objects, and interests. But no such deprivation can take place till they will have arrived at preferring other interests than money, and at pursuing their favourite occupation with other views than of obtaining wealth. "O, what shall I ever do without my currant leaves?" might the caterpillar exclaim. "How shall I ever get rid of the day, if I must not crawl along the twigs any more?" By the time it has done with crawling, it finds a pair of wings unfolding, which make crawling appear despicable in comparison. It is conscious, also, of a taste for nectar, which is better than currant-leaves, be they of the juiciest. Men may safely dismiss all care about the future gratification of their tastes under new circumstances, as long as it happens to be the change of tastes which brings about the change of circumstances, the incompatibility between the two being lessened at every transition.

As for the details of the future economy indicated, it will be time enough for them when the idea which now burns like a taper in scattered minds shall have caught, and spread, and lighted up all into an illumination sufficient to do the work by. Whenever a healthy hunger enables the popular mind to assimilate a great principle, there are always strong and skilful hands enough to do the requisite work.

SECTION III.
INTERCOURSE.

The manners of the Americans (in America) are the best I ever saw: and these are seen to the greatest advantage in their homes, and as to the gentlemen, in travelling. But for the drawback of inferior health, I know of no such earthly paradise as some of the homes in which I have had the honour and blessing of spending portions of the two years of my absence. The hospitality of the country is celebrated; but I speak now of more than usually meets the eye of a stranger; of the family manners, which travellers have rarely leisure or opportunity to observe. If I am asked what is the peculiar charm, I reply with some hesitation: there are so many. But I believe it is not so much the outward plenty, or the mutual freedom, or the simplicity of manners, or the incessant play of humour, which characterise the whole people, as the sweet temper which is diffused like sunshine over the land. They have been called the most good-tempered people in the world: and I think they must be so. The effect of general example is here most remarkable. I met, of course, with persons of irritable temperament; with hot-tempered, and with fidgetty people; with some who were disposed to despotism, and others to contradiction: but it was delightful to see how persons thus afflicted were enabled to keep themselves in order; were so wrought upon by the general example of cheerful helpfulness as to be restrained from clouding their homes by their moods. I have often wondered what the Americans make of European works of fiction in which ailing tempers are exhibited. European fiction does not represent such in half the extent and variety in which they might be truly and profitably exhibited: but I have often wondered what the Americans make of them, such as they are. They possess the initiatory truth, in the variety of temperaments which exists among themselves, as everywhere else; and in the moods of children: but the expansion of deformed tempers in grown people must strike them as monstrous caricatures.

Of course, there must be some general influence which sweetens or restrains the temper of a whole nation, of the same Saxon race which is not everywhere so amiable. I imagine that the practice of forbearance requisite in a republic is answerable for this pleasant peculiarity. In a republic, no man can in theory overbear his neighbour; nor, as he values his own rights, can he do it much or long in practice. If the moral independence of some, of many, sinks under this equal pressure from all sides, it is no little set-off against such an evil that the outbreaks of domestic tyranny are thereby restrained; and that the respect for mutual rights which citizens have perpetually enforced upon them abroad, comes thence to be observed towards the weak and unresisting in the privacy of home.

Some may find it difficult to reconcile this prevalence of good temper with the amount of duelling in the United States; with the recklessness of life which is not confined to the semi-barbarous parts of the country. When it is understood that in New Orleans there were fought, in 1834, more duels than there are days in the year, fifteen on one Sunday morning; that in 1835, there were 102 duels fought in that city between the 1st of January and the end of April; and that no notice is taken of shooting in a quarrel; when the world remembers the duel between Clay and Randolph; that Hamilton fell in a duel; and several more such instances, there may be some wonder that a nation where such things happen, should be remarkably good-tempered. But New Orleans is no rule for any place but itself. The spirit of caste, and the fear of imputation, rage in that abode of heathen licentiousness. The duels there are, almost without exception, between boys for frivolous causes. All but one of the 102 were so. And even on the spot, there is some feeling of disgust and shame at the extent of the practice. A Court of Honour was instituted for the restraint of the practice; of course, without effectual result. Its function degenerated into choosing weapons for the combatants, so that it ended by sanctioning, instead of repressing, duelling. Those who fight the most frequently and fatally are the French creoles, who use small swords.

The extreme cases which afford the clearest reading of the folly and wickedness of the practice,—of the meanness of the fear which lies at the bottom of it,—are producing their effect. The young men who go into the west to be the founders of new societies are in some instances taking their responsibility to heart, and resolving to use well their great opportunity for substituting a true for a false, a moral for a physical courage. The dreadful affair at Philadelphia, never to be forgotten there, when a quiet, inoffensive young man, the only child of a widowed mother, was forced out into the field, against his strongest remonstrances, made to stand up, and shot through the heart, could not but produce its effect. One of the principal agents was degraded in the American navy, (but has been since reinstated,) and none of the parties concerned has ever stood as well with society as other men since. Hamilton's fall, again, has opened men's eyes to the philosophy of duelling, and is working to that purpose, more and more. At the time, it was pretty generally agreed that he could not help fighting; now, there are few who think so. His correspondence with his murderer, previous to the duel, is remarkable. Having been told, on my entrance into the country, that Hamilton had been its "greatest man," I was interested in seeing what a greater than Washington could say in excuse for risking his life in so paltry a way. I read his correspondence with Colonel Burr with pain. There is fear in every line of it; a complicated, disgraceful fear. He was obviously perishing between two fears—of losing his life, and of not being able to guard his own honour against the attacks of a ruffian. Between these two fears he fell. I was talking over the correspondence with a duelling gentleman, "O," said he, "Hamilton went out like a capuchin." So the "greatest man" did not obtain even that for which he threw away what he knew was considered the most valuable life in the country. This is as it should be. When contempt becomes the wages of slavery to a false idea of honour, it will cease to stand in the way of the true; and "greatest men" will not end their lives in littleness.

Certain extreme cases which occur on the semi-barbarous confines of the country come occasionally in aid of such lessons as those I have cited. A passenger on board the "Henry Clay," in which I ascended the Mississippi, showed in perfection the results of a false idea of honour. He belonged to one of the first families in Kentucky, had married well, and settled at Natchez, Mississippi. His wife was slandered by a resident of Natchez, who, refusing to retreat, was shot dead by the husband, who fled to Texas. The wife gathered their property together, followed her husband, was shipwrecked below New Orleans, and lost all. Her wants were supplied by kind persons at New Orleans, and she was forwarded by them to her destination, but soon died of cholera. Her husband went up into Missouri, and settled in a remote part of it to practise law; but with a suspicion that he was dogged by the relations of the man he had shot. One day he met a man muffled in a cloak, who engaged with him, shot him in both sides, and stabbed him with an Arkansas knife. The victim held off the knife from wounding him mortally till help came, and his foe fled. The wounded man slowly recovered; but his right arm was so disabled as to compel him to postpone his schemes of revenge. He ascertained that his enemy had fled to Texas; followed him there; at length met him, one fine evening, riding, with his double-barrelled gun before him. They knew each other instantly: the double-barrelled gun was raised and pointed; but before it could be fired, its owner fell from the saddle, shot dead like the brother he had sought to avenge. The murderer was flying up the river once more when I saw him, not doubting that he should again be dogged by some relation of the brothers he had shot. Some of the gentlemen on board believed that if he surrendered himself at Natchez, he would be let off with little or no punishment, and allowed to settle again in civilised society; but he was afraid of the gallows, and intended to join some fur company in the north-west, if he could; and if he failed in this, to make himself a chief of a tribe of wandering Indians.

This story may be useful to those (if such there be) for whom the catastrophe of Hamilton is not strong enough. The two cases differ in degree, not in kind.

That such hubbub as this is occasioned by a false idea of honour, and not by fault of temper, is made clear by the amiability shown by Americans, in all cases where their idea of honour is not concerned. In circumstances of failure and disappointment, delay, difficulty, and other provocation, they show great self-command. In all cases that I witnessed, from the New York fire, and baffled legislation, down to the being "mired" in bad roads, they appeared to be proof against irritation. Sometimes this went further than I could quite understand.

While travelling in Virginia, we were anxious one day to push on, and waste no time. Our "exclusive extra" drew up before a single house, where we were to breakfast. We told the landlady that we were excessively hungry, and in some hurry, and that we should be obliged by her giving us anything she happened to have cooked, without waiting for the best she could do for us. The woman was the picture of laziness, of the most formal kind. She kept us waiting till we thought of going on without eating. When summoned to table, at length, we asked the driver to sit down with us, to save time. Never did I see a more ludicrous scene than that breakfast. The lady at the tea-tray, tossing the great bunch of peacocks' feathers, to keep off the flies, and as solemn as Rhadamanthus. So was our whole party, for fear of laughter from which we should not be able to recover. Everything on the table was sour; it seemed as if studiously so. The conflict between our appetites and the disgust of the food was ridiculous. We all presently gave up but the ravenous driver. He tried the bread, the coffee, the butter, and all were too sour for a second mouthful; so were the eggs, and the ham, and the steak. No one ate anything, and the charge was as preposterous as the delay; yet our paymaster made no objection to the way we were treated. When we were off again, I asked him why he had been so gracious as to appear satisfied.

"This is a newly-opened road," he replied; "the people do not know yet how the world lives. They have probably no idea that there is better food than they set before us."

"But do not you think it would be a kindness to inform them?"

"They did their best for us, and I should be sorry to hurt their feelings."

"Then you would have them go through life on bad food, and inflicting it on other people, lest their feelings should be hurt at their being told how to provide better. Do you suppose that all the travellers who come this way will be as tender of the lady's feelings?"

"Yes, I do. You see the driver took it very quietly."

When we were yet worse treated, however, just after, when spending a night at Woodstock, our paymaster did remonstrate, (though very tenderly,) and his remonstrance was received with great candour by the master of the house; his wife being the one most to blame.

With this forbearance is united the most cheerful and generous helpfulness. If a farmer is burned out, his neighbours collect, and never leave him till he is placed in a better house than the one he has lost. His barns, in like case, are filled with contributions from their crops. Though there is nothing that men prize there so much as time, there is nothing that they are more ready to give to the service of others. Their prevalent generosity in the giving of money is known, and sufficiently estimated, considering how plentiful wealth is in the country. The expenditure of time, thought, and ingenuity, is a far better test of the temper from which the helpfulness proceeds. I am sorry that it is impossible to describe what this temper is in America; its manifestations being too incessant and minute for description. If this great virtue could be exhibited as clearly as it is possible to exhibit their faults, the heart of society would warm towards the Americans more readily than it has ever been alienated from them by their own faults, or the ill-offices of strangers.

It seems to me that the Americans are generally unaware how one bad habit of their own, springing out of this very temper, goes to aggravate the evil offices of strangers. It is to me the most prominent of their bad habits; but one so likely to be cured by their being made aware of it, that I cannot but wish that some of the English vituperation which has been expended upon tobacco and its effects had been directed upon the far more serious fault of flattery. It will be seen at once how the practice of flattery is almost a necessary result of the combination of a false idea of honour with kindliness of temper. Its prevalence is so great as to tempt one to call it a necessary result. There is no getting out of the way of it. A gentleman, who was a depraved school-boy, a fiendish husband, father, and slave-owner, whose reputation for brutality was as extensive as the country, was eulogised in the newspapers at his death. Every book that comes out is exalted to the skies. The public orators flatter the people; the people flatter the orators. Clergymen praise their flocks; and the flocks stand amazed at the excellence of their clergymen. Sunday-school teachers admire their pupils; and the scholars magnify their teachers. As to guests, especially from abroad, hospitality requires that some dark corner should be provided in every room where they may look when their own praises are being told to their own faces. Even in families, where, if anywhere, it must be understood that love cannot be sweetened by praise, there is a deficiency of that modesty, "simplicity and godly sincerity," in regard to mutual estimate, which the highest fidelity of affection inspires.

Passing over the puerility and vulgarity of the practice,—I think, if the Americans were convinced of its selfishness,—of its being actually a breach of benevolence, they would exercise the same command over their tongues that they do over their tempers, and suppress painful praises, as they rise to the lips. It was pleaded to me that the admiration is real, the praise sincere. Be it so: but why are they to be expressed, more than any other real thoughts whose expression would give pain? Let the admiration by all means be enjoyed: but what a pity to destroy sympathy with the person admired, by talking on the very subject at which sympathy must cease! Is it not clear that if praise be not painful to the person praised, it must be injurious? If he be modest, it is torture: if not, it is poison. Or, if there be a third case, and it is indifferent, such indifference to the praise is very nearly allied to contempt for the praiser. When once the decencies of friendship are violated, and the modesty of mutual estimate is gone, the holiness of friendship is gone too; and there is every danger that selfish, conscious passion will overbear unconscious, disinterested affection. Enough. I would only put it to any person whether the friendship he values most is not that which is least coarsened by praise; and in which he and his friend are led the least frequently to think of their opinion of each other. I would put it to the intimates of such a man as Dr. Channing, for instance, whether their warmest affections do not spring towards and repose upon him in the delicious certainty, that while he is sympathising with every pure and true emotion, he will refrain from disturbing its flow by introducing a consciousness, a self and mutual reference, from which it is the highest privilege in life to escape. Praise may help some common-minded persons over the difficulties of a new and superficial intercourse: at least, so I am told: but intimate communion and permanent friendship require a purity and repose with which the interchange of expressed admiration is absolutely incompatible.

With regard to the spirit of intercourse, nothing more remains to be said here, but that the frankness practised in private life, within the doors of home, is as remarkable as the caution and reserve which prevail elsewhere. Nothing can be more delightful than the familiarity and confidence with which I was invariably treated; and to which I saw few exceptions in the cases of other persons. Everything was discussed in every house I staid in: religion, philosophy, literature; and, with quite as much freedom, character, public and private, national and individual. The language being the same as my own, I was apt to forget that I was on my travels, till some visitor dropped in whose inquiries how I liked the country reminded me that I was a foreigner. Even now, having performed the voyage home, and having all manner of evidence that I have left the country three thousand miles behind me, I find it difficult to bring in my personal friends as elements of the society whose condition I am pondering. They are too like brothers and sisters to be subjects for analysis: and I perpetually feel the want of them at hand, to assist me by their controverting or corroborating judgments. They and I know what their homes are, and how happy we have been in them: and this is all that in my affection for them I can say of their domestic life, without putting a force upon their feelings and my own.

If I am not much mistaken, society in the new world is wakening up, under the stimulus of the slave-question, to a sense of its want of practical freedom, owing to its too great regard to opinion. The examples of those who can and do assert and maintain their liberty in these times of fiery trial, are venerable and beautiful in the eyes of the young. Those in the cities who have grown old in the practice of mistrust are unconscious of the extent of their privations: but the free yeomanry, and the youth of the towns, have an eye for the right, and a heart for the true, amid the mists and subtleties in which truth and liberty have been of late involved. The young men of Boston, especially, seem to be roused: and it is all-important that they should be. Boston is looked to throughout the Union, as the superior city she believes herself to be: and nowhere is the entrance upon life more perilous to the honesty and consistency of young aspirants after the public service. Massachusetts is the head-quarters of federalism. Federalism is receding before democracy, even there; but that State has still a federal majority. A Massachusetts man has little chance of success in public life, unless he starts a federalist: and he has no chance of rising above a certain low point, unless, when he reaches that point, he makes a transition into democracy. The trial is too great for the moral independence of most ambitious men: and it fixes the eyes of the world on the youth of Boston. They are watched, that it may be seen whether they who now burn with ardour for complete freedom will hereafter "reverence the dreams of their youth," or sink down into cowardice, apathy, and intolerance, as they reach the middle of life.

If they will only try, they will find how great are the ease and peace attendant on the full exercise of rights, even though it should shut the career of politics, and possibly of wealth, against them for a time. If they will look in the faces of the few who dare to live in the midst of Boston as freely as if they were in the centre of the prairies, they will see in those countenances a brightness and serenity which a sense of mere safety could never impart. The pursuit of safety,—safety from outward detriment,—is of all in this world the most hopeless. The only attainable safety is that which usually bears another name,—repose in absolute truth. Where there is a transparency of character which defies misrepresentation, a faith in men which disarms suspicion, an intrepidity which overawes malice, and a spirit of love which wins confidence, there is safety; and in nothing short of all these. If any of them are deficient, in the same proportion does safety give place to danger; and no substitution of prudence will be of more than temporary avail. Prudence is now reigning supreme over the elderly classes of Boston generally, and too many of the young. Independence is animating the rest. It remains to be seen which will have succumbed when the present youth of the city shall have become her legislators, magistrates, and social representatives.

As a specimen of the thoughts and feelings of some on the spot, I give the following.

"Liberty of thought and opinion is strenuously maintained: in this proud land it has become almost a wearisome cant: our speeches and journals, religious and political, are made nauseous by the vapid and vain-glorious reiteration. But does it, after all, characterise any community among us? Is there any one to which a qualified observer shall point, and say, There opinion is free? On the contrary, is it not a fact, a sad and deplorable fact, that in no land on this earth is the mind more fettered than it is here? that here what we call public opinion has set up a despotism, such as exists nowhere else? Public opinion,—a tyrant, sitting in the dark, wrapt up in mystification and vague terrors of obscurity; deriving power no one knows from whom; like an Asian monarch, unapproachable, unimpeachable, undethronable, perhaps illegitimate,—but irresistible in its power to quell thought, to repress action, to silence conviction,—and bringing the timid perpetually under an unworthy bondage of mean fear to some impostor opinion, some noisy judgment, which gets astride on the popular breath for a day, and controls, through the lips of impudent folly, the speech and actions of the wise. From this influence and rule, from this bondage to opinion, no community, as such, is free; though doubtless individuals are. But your community, brethren, based on the principles which you profess, is bound to be so."[22]

So much for the spirit of intercourse. As for the modes in which the spirit is manifested, their agreeableness, or the contrary, is a matter of taste. No nation can pretend to judge another's manners; for the plain reason that there is no standard to judge by: and if an individual attempts to pronounce upon them, his sentence amounts to nothing more than a declaration of his own particular taste. If such a declaration from an individual is of any consequence, I am ready to acknowledge that the American manners please me, on the whole, better than any that I have seen.

The circumstances which strike a stranger unpleasantly are the apparent coldness and indifference of persons in hotels and shops; the use of tobacco, and consequent spitting; the tone of voice, especially among the New England ladies; and at first, but not afterwards, the style of conversation. The great charm is the exquisite mutual respect and kindliness.

Of the tobacco and its consequences, I will say nothing but that the practice is at too bad a pass to leave hope that anything that could be said in books would work a cure. If the floors of boarding-houses, and the decks of steam-boats, and the carpets of the Capitol, do not sicken the Americans into a reform; if the warnings of physicians are of no avail, what remains to be said? I dismiss the nauseous subject.

A great unknown pleasure remains to be experienced by the Americans in the well-modulated, gentle, healthy, cheerful voices of women. It is incredible that there should not, in all time to come, be any other alternative than that which now exists, between a whine and a twang. When the health of the American women improves, their voices will improve. In the meantime, they are unconscious how the effect of their remarkable and almost universal beauty is injured by their mode of speech.

The peculiarity is less remarkable in manly conversation. The conversation of the gentlemen strikes one at first as being dull and prosy. They converse with much evenness of tone, slowly and at great length: so as to leave the observer without any surprise that the Americans think English conversation hasty, sharp, and rough. I found also a prevalent idea that conversation is studied as an art in England: and many of my friends were so positive on this point as to make me doubt the correctness of my own conviction that it is not so. If there be any such study, I can only say that I have detected no instances of it; nor did the idea ever enter my mind except in reading of Lady Angelica Headingham, in 'Patronage.' In the whole course of my life, perhaps, I never met with so many particular instances of an artificial mode of conversing as during the two years that I was in America: but I could see the reason in every case; and that all were exceptions to the rule of natural though peculiar communication. The conversation of the great public men was generally more instructive than pleasing, till they forgot that they were public men, and talked on other things than public affairs. One could never conceal that he designed to effect a particular persuasion in your mind: a design against which all the listener's faculties are sure to rise up in instant rebellion. Another did not intend you should see that he was speaking from a map of the subject in his brain; bringing contrasts and comparisons to bear, as it might seem accidentally, upon your imagination. Two or three or more, willing to conceal from themselves, I really believe, as well as from the stranger, that logic is not their forte, dart off after every will-o'-the-wisp of an analogy; and talk almost wholly in figures. This is bad policy; for some of the figures were so beautiful and apparently illustrative, as to fix the attention, instead of passing over the ear, and give one time to discover that they were not satisfactory. The most remarkable instances of this were in the south, where I had the pleasure of hearing more of every thing than of logic. Perhaps the most singular style of all was one which struck me so much that I wrote down pages of it for subsequent study:—a slow, impressive style, a succession of clever figures, a somewhat pompous humour, and a wrapping round of inconvenient considerations with an impenetrable cloud of the plainest-seeming words. The gushing talk of Judge Story, the brimmings of a full head and heart, natural, lively, fresh, issuing from the supposition that you can understand, and wish to understand everything that is interesting to him, and from a simple psychological curiosity, is perfectly delightful after the measured communications of some other public men.

I may here mention Dr. Channing's conversation. I do so because it has been the occasion of his being much misunderstood and consequently misrepresented. I never knew a case where the conversation of an individual did him so much injustice at first, and such eminent service in the affections of his hearers at last. Unfortunately, those who report him generally see him only once or twice; and then they are pretty sure to leave him with less real knowledge of him than they probably had three thousand miles off. This circumstance may justify my speaking here of one whom I revere and regard too much to feel it easy to say anything of him publicly beyond the mere testimony which it is an honour to bear to such men. Dr. Channing has an unfortunate habit of suiting his conversation to the supposed state of mind of the person he is conversing with, or to that person's supposed knowledge on a subject on which he wants information. The adaptation, not being natural, cannot be true, and something is thus given out which is the reflection of nobody's mind; and the conversation is fruitless or worse. This is merely a habit of drawing out. If the visitor goes away upon this, he reports the things which are reported of Dr. Channing's opinions; which are no more like his than they are like Aristotle's. If the visitor stays long enough, or comes again often enough to catch some of his thoughts as they issue from his heart, he finds a strange power in them to move and kindle. His words become deeds when they proceed from impulse. Not a tone nor a syllable can be ever forgotten. The reason is that unseen things are to him realities; and material things are but shadows. After continued and open communication with him, it becomes an inexplicable wonder that anything but truth, justice, and charity should be made objects of serious pursuit in the world.

Mr. Madison's conversation has been already mentioned as being full of graces. The sprightliness, rapidity, and variety were remarkable in a man of eighty-four, confined to two rooms, and subject to various infirmities. He was a highly favourable specimen of the accomplished gentleman of the revolutionary times.

There are persons whom it seems to myself strange to name in this connexion, when there are things in them which I value much more highly than their eloquence. But as eloquent beyond all others, they must be mentioned here. I refer to Dr. and Mrs. Follen, late of Boston.—Dr. Follen is a German: well known in Germany for his patriotism; as troublesome to its princes as animating to their subjects. He has been thirteen years in America, and seven years a citizen of Massachusetts. His mastery of the language has been perfect for some years: but, as he brought a rich and matured mind to the first employment of it, he uses it differently from any to whom it is the mother tongue. It is an instrument of extraordinary power in his hands, as a mere instrument. But he is a man of learning which I do not pretend to estimate in any department. The great mass of his knowledge is vivified by a spirit which seems to have passed through all human experiences, appropriating whatever is true and pure, and leaving behind all else. With not only a religious love of liberty, but an unerring perception of the true principle of liberty in every case as it arises, with an intrepidity which excites rage where his gentleness is not known, and a gentleness which disarms those who fear his intrepidity, he is the most valuable acquisition that the United States, in their present condition, can well be conceived to have appropriated from the Old World, in the person of an individual citizen. I certainly think him the most remarkable, and the greatest man I saw in the country. Dr. Follen has pledged himself to the anti-slavery cause; and declared himself in other ways in favour of freedom of thought, action, and speech, so as to make himself feared,—(or rather his opinions, for no one can fear himself,)—by some of the society of his State in whom the idea of honour most wants rectifying: but, as he becomes more known to the true-hearted among his fellow-citizens, he will be regarded by them all with the pride and admiration, mixed with tender affection, which he inspires in those who have the honour and blessing of being his friends. He has married a Boston lady; a woman of genius, and of those large and kindly affections which are its natural element. What the intercourses of their home are, their guests can never forget; nor ever describe.

The most common mode of conversation in America I should distinguish as prosy, but withal rich and droll. For some weeks, I found it difficult to keep awake during the entire reply to any question I happened to ask. The person questioned seemed to feel himself put upon his conscience to give a full, true, and particular reply; and so he went back as near to the Deluge as the subject would admit, and forward to the millennium, taking care to omit nothing of consequence in the interval. There was, of course, one here and there, as there is everywhere, to tell me precisely what I knew before, and omit what I most wanted: but this did not happen often: and I presently found the information I obtained in conversation so full, impartial, and accurate, and the shrewdness and drollery with which it was conveyed so amusing, that I became a great admirer of the American way of talking before six months were over. Previous to that time, a gentleman in the same house with me expressed pleasantly his surprise at my asking so few questions: saying that if he came to England, he should be asking questions all day long. I told him that there was no need of my seeking information as long as more was given me in the course of the day than my head would carry. I did not tell him that I had not power of attention sufficient for such information as came in answer to my own desire. I can scarcely believe now that I ever felt such a difficulty.

They themselves are, however, aware of their tendency to length, and also to something of the literal dulness which Charles Lamb complains of in relation to the Scotch. They have stories of American travellers which exceed all I ever heard of them anywhere else: such as that an American gentleman, returned from Europe, was asked how he liked Rome: to which he replied that Rome was a fine city; but that he must acknowledge he thought the public buildings were very much out of repair. Again, it is told against a lady that she made some undeniably true remarks on a sermon she heard. A preacher, discoursing on the blindness of men to the future, remarked "how few men, in building a house, consider that a coffin is to go down the stairs!" The lady observed with much emphasis, on coming out, that ministers had got into the strangest way of choosing subjects for the pulpit! It was true that wide staircases are a great convenience: but she did think Christian ministers might find better subjects to preach upon than narrow staircases. And so forth. An eminent Senator told me that he was too often on the one horn or the other of a dilemma: sometimes a gentleman getting up in the Senate, and talking as if he would never sit down: and sometimes a gentleman sitting down in his study, and talking as if he would never get up.

Yet there is an epigrammatic turn in the talk of those who have never heard of "the art of conversation" which is supposed to be studied by the English. A reverend divine,—no other than Dr. Channing,—was one day paying toll, when he perceived a notice of gin, rum, tobacco, &c., on a board which bore a strong resemblance to a grave-stone. "I am glad to see," said the Dr. to the girl who received the toll, "that you have been burying those things."—"And if we had," said the girl, "I don't doubt you would have gone chief mourner."

Some young men, travelling on horseback among the White Mountains, became inordinately thirsty, and stopped for milk at a house by the road-side. They emptied every basin that was offered, and still wanted more. The woman of the house at length brought an enormous bowl of milk, and set it down on the table, saying, "One would think, gentlemen, you had never been weaned."

Of the same kind was the reply made by a gentleman of Virginia to a silly question by a lady. "Who made the Natural Bridge?"—"God knows, madam."

I was struck with repeated instances of new versions, generally much improved, of old fables. I think the following an improvement upon Sour Grapes. Noah warned his neighbours of what was coming, and why he was building his ark; but nobody minded him. When people on the high grounds were up to their chins, an old acquaintance of Noah's was very eager to be taken into the ark: but Noah refused again and again. "Well," said the man, when he found it was in vain, "go, get along, you and your old ark! I don't believe we are going to have much of a shower." I tried to ascertain whether this story was American. I could trace it no further off than Plymouth, Massachusetts.

There cannot be a stronger contrast than between the fun and simplicity of the usual domestic talk of the United States, and the solemn pedantry of which the extremest examples are to be found there; exciting as much ridicule at home as they possibly can elsewhere. I was solemnly assured by a gentleman that I was quite wrong on some point, because I differed from him. Everybody laughed: when he went on, with the utmost gravity, to inform us that there had been a time when he believed, like other people, that he might be mistaken; but that experience had convinced him that he never was; and he had in consequence cast behind him the fear of error. I told him I was afraid the place he lived in must be terribly dull,—having an oracle in it to settle everything. He replied that the worst of it was, other people were not so convinced of his being always in the right as he was himself. There was no joke here. He is a literal and serious-minded man. Another gentleman solemnly remarked upon the weather of late having been "uncommonly mucilaginous." Another pointed out to me a gentleman on board a steam-boat as "a blue stocking of the first class." A lady asked me many questions about my emotions at Niagara, to which I gave only one answer of which she could make anything. "Did you not," was her last inquiry, "long to throw yourself down, and mingle with your mother earth?"—"No."—Another asked me whether I did not think the sea might inspire vast and singular ideas.—Another, an instructress of youth, in examining my ear-trumpet, wanted to know whether its length made any difference in its efficiency. On my answering, "None at all"—"O certainly not," said she, very deliberately; "for, sound being a material substance, can only be overcome by a superior force." The mistakes of unconscious ignorance should be passed over with a silent smile: but affectation should be exposed, as a service to a young society.

I rarely, if ever, met with instances of this pedantry among the yeomanry or mechanic classes; or among the young. The most numerous and the worst pedants were middle-aged ladies. One instance struck me as being unlike anything that could happen in England. A literary and very meritorious village mantua-maker declared that it was very hard if her gowns did not fit the ladies of the neighbourhood. She had got the exact proportions of the Venus de Medici, to make them by: and what more could she do? Again. A sempstress was anxious that her employer should request me to write something about Mount Auburn: (the beautiful cemetery near Boston.) Upon her being questioned as to what kind of composition she had in her fancy, she said she would have Mount Auburn considered under three points of view:—as it was on the day of creation,—as it is now,—as it will be on the day of resurrection. I liked the idea so well that I got her to write it for me, instead of my doing it for her.

As for the peculiarities of language of which so much has been made,—I am a bad judge: but the fact is, I should have passed through the country almost without observing any, if my attention had not been previously directed to them. Next to the well-known use of the word "sick," instead of "ill," (in which they are undoubtedly right,) none struck me so much as the few following. They use the word "handsome" much more extensively than we do: saying that Webster made a handsome speech in the Senate: that a lady talks handsomely, (eloquently:) that a book sells handsomely. A gentleman asked me on the Catskill Mountain, whether I thought the sun handsomer there than at New York. When they speak of a fine woman, they refer to mental or moral, not at all to physical superiority. The effect was strange, after being told, here and there, that I was about to see a very fine woman, to meet in such cases almost the only plain women I saw in the country. Another curious circumstance is, that this is almost the only connexion in which the word woman is used. This noble word, spirit-stirring as it passes over English ears, is in America banished, and "ladies" and "females" substituted: the one to English taste mawkish and vulgar; the other indistinctive and gross. So much for difference of taste. The effect is odd. After leaving the men's wards of the prison at Nashville, Tennessee, I asked the warden whether he would not let me see the women. "We have no ladies here, at present, madam. We have never had but two ladies, who were convicted for stealing a steak; but, as it appeared that they were deserted by their husbands, and in want, they were pardoned." A lecturer, discoursing on the characteristics of women, is said to have expressed himself thus. "Who were last at the cross? Ladies. Who were first at the sepulchre? Ladies."

A few other ludicrous expressions took me by surprise occasionally. A gentleman in the west, who had been discussing monarchy and republicanism in a somewhat original way, asked me if I would "swap" my king for his. We were often told that it was "a dreadful fine day;" and a girl at a hotel pronounced my trumpet to be "terrible handy."[23] In the back of Virginia these superlative expressions are the most rife. A man who was extremely ill, in agonizing pain, sent for a friend to come to him. Before the friend arrived, the pain was relieved, but the patient felt much reduced by it. "How do you find yourself?" inquired the friend. "I'm powerful weak; but cruel easy."

The Kentucky bragging is well known. It is so ingenious as to be very amusing sometimes: but too absurd in the mouth of a dull person. One such was not satisfied with pointing out to me how fine the woods were, but informed me that the intimate texture of the individual leaves was finer and richer in Kentucky than anywhere else. I much prefer the off-hand air with which a dashing Kentuckian intimates to you the richness of the soil; saying "if you plant a nail at night, 'twill come up a spike next morning."

However much may be the fault of strangers, in regard to the coldness of manners which is complained of in those who serve travellers in America, and however soon it may be dissipated by a genial address on the part of the stranger, it certainly is very disagreeable at the first moment. We invariably found ourselves well-treated; and in no instance that I remember failed to dissipate the chill by showing that we were ready to help ourselves, and to be sociable. The instant we attacked the reserve, it gave way. But I do not wonder that strangers who are not prepared to make the concession, and especially gentlemen travelling from hotel to hotel, find the constraint extremely irksome. It should never be forgotten that it is usually a matter of necessity or of favour, seldom of choice, (except in the towns,) that the wife and daughters of American citizens render service to travellers. Such a breaking in upon their domestic quiet, such an exposure to the society of casual travellers, must be so distasteful to them generally as to excuse any apparent want of cordiality. Some American travellers, won by the empressement of European waiters, declare themselves as willing to pay for civility as for their dinner. I acknowledge a different taste. I had rather have indifference than civility which bears a reference to the bill: but I prefer to either the cordiality which brightens up at your offer to make your own bed, mend your own fire, &c.—the cordiality which brings your hostess into your parlour, to draw her chair, and be sociable, not only by asking where you are going, but by telling you all that interests her in her neighbourhood. A girl at a Meadville hotel, in Pennsylvania, urged us to change our route, that we might visit some friends of hers,—"a beautiful bachelor that had lately lost his wife, and his fine son"—to whom she would give us a letter of introduction. At Maysville, Kentucky, the landlady sent repeated apologies for not being able to wait on us herself, her attendance being necessary at the bedside of her sick child. On our expressing our concern that, in such circumstances, she should trouble herself about us, her substitute said we were very unlike the generality of travellers who came. The ladies were usually offended if the landlady did not wait upon them herself, and would not open or shut the window with their own hands; but rang to have the landlady to do it for them. Such persons have probably been accustomed to be waited on by slaves; or, perhaps, not at all; so that they like to make the most of the opportunity. Our landlady at Nashville, Tennessee, treated us extremely well; and on parting kissed the ladies of the party all round.

I had an early lesson in the art of distinguishing coldness from inhospitality. Our party of six was traversing the State of New York. We left Syracuse at dawn one morning, intending to breakfast at Skaneatles. By the time we reached Elbridge, however, having been delayed on the road, we were too hungry to think of going further without food. An impetuous young Carolinian, who was of the party, got out first, and returned to say we had better proceed; for the house and the people looked so cold, we should never be able to achieve a comfortable meal. Caring less, however, for comfort than for any sort of meal, we persisted in stopping.—The first room we were shown into was wet, and had no fire; and we were already shivering with cold. I could discern that the family were clearing out of the next room. It was offered to us, and logs were piled upon the fire. Two of the young women, in cotton gowns and braided and bowed hair, followed their mother into the cooking apartment, sailing about with quiet movements and solemn faces. Two more staid in the room; and, after putting up their hair before the glass in our presence, began to arrange the table, knitting between times. One or another was almost all the while sitting with us, knitting, and replying with grave simplicity to our conversation. Presently, one of the best breakfasts we had in America was ready: a pie-dish full of buttered toast; hot biscuits and coffee; beef-steak, applesauce, hot potatoes, cheese, butter, and two large dishes of eggs. We were attentively waited upon by the four knitting young ladies and their knitting mother, and kindly dismissed with a charge of only two dollars and a quarter for the whole party. "Did you ever see such girls?" cried the young Carolinian, just landed from Europe: "stepping about like four captive princesses!" We all called out that we would not hear a word against the young ladies. They had treated us with all kindness; and no one could tell whether their reserve was any greater than their situation and circumstances require.

So much more has naturally been observed by travellers of American manners in stages and steam-boats than in private-houses, that all has been said, over and over again, that the subject deserves. I need only testify that I do not think the Americans eat faster than other people, on the whole. The celerity at hotel-tables is remarkable; but so it is in stage-coach travellers in England, who are allowed ten minutes or a quarter of an hour for dining. In private houses, I was never aware of being hurried. The cheerful, unintermitting civility of all gentlemen travellers, throughout the country, is very striking to a stranger. The degree of consideration shown to women is, in my opinion, greater than is rational, or good for either party; but the manners of an American stage-coach might afford a valuable lesson and example to many classes of Europeans who have a high opinion of their own civilisation. I do not think it rational or fair that every gentleman, whether old or young, sick or well, weary or untired, should, as a matter of course, yield up the best places in the stage to any lady passenger. I do not think it rational or fair that five gentlemen should ride on the top of the coach, (where there is no accommodation for holding on, and no resting-place for the feet,) for some hours of a July day in Virginia, that a young lady, who was slightly delicate, might have room to lay up her feet, and change her posture as she pleased. It is obvious that, if she was not strong enough to travel on common terms in the stage, her family should have travelled in an extra; or staid behind; or done anything rather than allow five persons to risk their health, and sacrifice their comfort, for the sake of one. Whatever may be the good moral effects of such self-renunciation on the tempers of the gentlemen, the custom is very injurious to ladies. Their travelling manners are anything but amiable. While on a journey, women who appear well enough in their homes, present all the characteristics of spoiled children. Screaming and trembling at the apprehension of danger are not uncommon: but there is something far worse in the cool selfishness with which they accept the best of everything, at any sacrifice to others, and usually, in the south and west, without a word or look of acknowledgment. They are as like spoiled children when the gentlemen are not present to be sacrificed to them;—in the inn parlour, while waiting for meals or the stage; and in the cabin of a steam-boat. I never saw any manner so repulsive as that of many American ladies on board steam-boats. They look as if they supposed you mean to injure them, till you show to the contrary. The suspicious side-glance, or the full stare; the cold, immovable observation; the bristling self-defence the moment you come near; the cool pushing to get the best places,—everything said and done without the least trace of trust or cheerfulness,—these are the disagreeable consequences of the ladies being petted and humoured as they are. The New England ladies, who are compelled by their superior numbers to depend less upon the care of others, are far happier and pleasanter companions in a journey than those of the rest of the country. This shows the evil to be altogether superinduced: and I always found that if I could keep down my spirit, and show that I meant no harm, the apathy began to melt, the pretty ladies forgot their self-defence, and appeared somewhat like what I conclude they are at home, when managing their affairs, in the midst of familiar circumstances. If these ladies would but inquire of themselves what it is that they are afraid of, and whether there is any reason why people should be less cheerful, less obliging, and less agreeable, when casually brought into the society of fifty people, whose comfort depends mainly on their mutual good offices, than among half-a-dozen neighbours at home, they might remove an unpleasant feature of the national manners, and add another to the many charms of their country.

Much might be said of village manners in America: but Miss Sedgwick's pictures of them in her two best works, "Home," and "The Rich Poor Man, and the Poor Rich Man," are so true and so beautiful, and so sure of being well-known where they have not already reached, that no more is necessary than to mention them as some of the best and sweetest pictures of manners in existence. To the English reader they are full as interesting as to Americans, from the purity and fidelity of the democratic spirit which they breathe throughout. The woman who so appreciates the blessing of living in such a society as she describes, deserves the honour of being the first to commend it to the affections of humanity.

The manners of the wealthy classes depend, of course, upon the character of their objects and interests: but they are not, on the whole, so agreeable as those of their less opulent neighbours. The restless ostentation of such as live for grandeur and show is vulgar;—as I have said, the only vulgarity to be seen in the country. Nothing can exceed the display of it at watering-places. At Rockaway, on Long Island, I saw in one large room, while the company was waiting for dinner, a number of groups which would have made a good year's income for a clever caricaturist. If any lady, with an eye and a pencil adequate to the occasion, would sketch the phenomena of affectation that might be seen in one day in the piazza and drawing-room at Rockaway, she might be a useful censor of manners. But the task would be too full of sorrow and shame for any one with the true republican spirit. For my own part, I felt bewildered in such company. It was as if I had been set down on a kind of debatable land between the wholly imaginary society of the so-called fashionable novels of late years, and the broad sketches of citizen-life given by Madame D'Arblay. It was like nothing real. When I saw the young ladies tricked out in the most expensive finery, flirting over the backgammon-board, tripping affectedly across the room, languishing with a seventy-dollar cambric handkerchief, starting up in ecstasy at the entrance of a baby; the mothers as busy with affectations of another kind; and the brothers sidling hither and thither, now with assiduity, and now with nonchalance; and no one imparting the refreshment of a natural countenance, movement, or tone, I almost doubted whether I was awake. The village scenes that I had witnessed rose up in strong contrast;—the mirthful wedding, the wagon-drives, the offerings of wild-flowers to the stranger; the unintermitting, simple courtesy of each to all;—and it was scarcely credible that these contrasting scenes could both be existing in the same republic.

Such watering-place manners as I saw at Rockaway are considered and called vulgar on the spot:—of course, for the majority are far superior to them. They deserve notice no further than as they are absolutely anti-republican in their whole principle and spirit: and no deviation from the republican principle in any class should be passed over by the moralist without notice. The brand of contempt should be fixed upon any unprincipled or false-principled style of manners, in a community based upon avowed principles. The contempt thus inflicted upon the mode may possibly save the persons who would otherwise render themselves liable to it. The practice of ostentation may be lessened in America, as that of suicide was in France, by ridicule and contempt. It is desirable for all parties that this should be the method. The weak and vain had better be deterred from entering upon the race of vanity, than exposed when it is too late: and, for those of clearer and stronger minds, it is safer to despise things than persons: for, however necessary and virtuous the contempt of abstract vice and folly may be, there is no mind clear and strong enough to entertain with safety contempt of persons.

The best sort of rich persons, those whose principles and spirit are democratic, their desires moderate, their pursuits rational, drop out of sight of the mind's eye in considering the manners of the rich. Their wealth becomes only a comparatively unimportant circumstance connected with them. They support more beneficent objects than others, and perhaps have houses and libraries that it is a luxury to go to: but these things are not associated with themselves in the minds of their friends, as long as they are not so in their own. They fall into the ranks of the honourable, independent, thorough-bred classes of the country, (its true glory,) just as if they were not rich. The next best order of rich people,—those who put their time and money to good uses, but who are not blessed with the true democratic spirit of faith, have manners,—infinitely better than the Rockaway style,—but not so good as those of more faithful republicans. They are above the vanity of show and the struggle for fashion: but they dread the ascendency of ignorance, and distrust the classes whom they do not know. They are readers: their imaginations live in the Old World; and they have insensibly adopted the old-world prejudice, that "the people" must be ignorant, passionate, and rapacious. The conversation of such gives utterance to an assumption, and their bearing betrays an uneasiness, which are highly unfavourable to good manners. This small class are so respectable in the main, and for some great objects so useful, that it is much to be desired that they could be referred back perpetually to the democratic principles which would relieve their anxiety, and give to their manners that cheerfulness which should belong to honest republicans who have everything to hope, and little to fear.

One of the most remarkable sights in the country is the President's levee. Nothing is easier than to laugh at it. There is probably no mode in which a number of human beings can assemble which may not be laughable from one point of view or another. The President's levee presents many facilities for ridicule. Men go there in plain cloaks and leather belts, with all manner of wigs, and offer a large variety of obeisance to the chief magistrate. Women go in bonnets and shawls, talk about the company, stand upon chairs to look over people's heads, and stare at the large rooms. There was a story of two girls, thus dressed, being lifted up by their escorting gentlemen, and seated on the two ends of the mantel-piece, like lustres, where they could obtain a view of the company as they entered. To see such people mixed in with foreign ambassadors and their suites, to observe the small mutual knowledge of classes and persons who thus meet on terms of equality, is amusing enough. But, amidst much that was laughable, I certainly felt that I was seeing a fine spectacle. If the gentry of Washington desire to do away with the custom, they must be unaware of the dignity which resides in it, and which is apparent to the eye of a stranger, through any inconveniences which it may have. I am sorry that its recurrence is no longer annual. I am sorry that the practice of distributing refreshments is relinquished: though this is a matter of less importance and of more inconvenience. If the custom itself should ever be given up, the bad taste of such a surrender will be unquestionable. There should be some time and place where the chief magistrate and the people may meet to exchange their respects, all other business being out of the question: and I should like to see the occasion made annual again.

I saw no bad manners at the President's levee, except on the part of a silly, swaggering Englishman. All was quiet and orderly; and there was an air of gaiety which rather surprised me. The great people were amused at the aspect of the assembly: and the humbler at the novelties that were going on before their eyes. Our party went at eight o'clock. As we alighted from the carriage, I saw a number of women, well attended, going up the steps in the commonest morning walking-dress. In the hall, were parties of young men, exhibiting their graces in a walk from end to end: and ladies throwing off their shawls, and displaying the most splendid dresses. The President, with some members of his cabinet on either hand, stood in the middle of the first room, ready to bow to all the ladies, and shake hands with all the gentlemen who presented themselves. The company then passed on to the fire-place, where stood the ladies of the President's family, attended by the Vice-president, and the Secretary of the Treasury. From this point, the visitors dispersed themselves through the rooms, chatting in groups in the Blue-room, or joining the immense promenade in the great East room. After two circuits there, I went back to the reception-room; by far the most interesting to an observer. I saw one ambassador after another enter with his suite; the Judges of the Supreme Court; the majority of the members of both Houses of Congress; and intermingled with these, the plainest farmers, storekeepers, and mechanics, with their primitive wives and simple daughters. Some looked merry; some looked busy; but none bashful. I believe there were three thousand persons present. There was one deficiency,—one drawback, as I felt at the time. There were no persons of colour. Whatever individuals or classes may choose to do about selecting their society according to rules of their own making, here there should be no distinction. I know the pleas that would be urged,—the levee being held in a slave district; the presence of slave-holders from the south; and many others; but such pleas will not stand before the plain fact that this levee is the appointed means by which citizens of the United States of all degrees may, once in a time, meet together, to pay their equal respects to their chief magistrate. Every man of colour who is a citizen of the United States has a right to as free an admission as any other man; and it would be a dignity added to the White House if such were seen there. It is not to its credit that there is any place in the country where its people are more free to meet on equal terms. There is such a place. In the Catholic cathedral in New Orleans, I saw persons of every shade of colour kneeling on the pavement, without separation or distinction. I would fain have seen also some one secular house where, by general consent, all kinds of men might meet as brethren. But not even in republican America is there yet such an one.

The Americans possess an advantage in regard to the teaching of manners which they do not yet appreciate. They have before their eyes, in the manners of the coloured race, a perpetual caricature of their own follies; a mirror of conventionalism from which they can never escape. The negroes are the most imitative set of people living. While they are in a degraded condition, with little principle, little knowledge, little independence, they copy the most successfully those things in their superiors which involve the least principle, knowledge, and independence; viz. their conventionalisms. They carry their mimicry far beyond any which is seen among the menials of the rich in Europe. The black footmen of the United States have tiptoe graces, stiff cravats, and eye-catching flourishes, like the footmen in London: but the imitation extends into more important matters. As the slaves of the south assume their masters' names and military titles, they assume their methods of conducting the courtesies and gaieties of life. I have in my possession a note of invitation to a ball, written on pink paper with gilt edges.[24] When the lady invited came to her mistress for the ticket which was necessary to authorise her being out after nine at night, she was dressed in satin with muslin over it, satin shoes, and white kid gloves:—but, the satin was faded, the muslin torn: the shoes were tied upon the extremities of her splay feet, and the white gloves dropping in tatters from her dark fingers. She was a caricature, instead of a fine lady. A friend of mine walked a mile or two in the dusk behind two black men and a woman whom they were courting. He told me that nothing could be more admirable than the coyness of the lady, and the compliments of the gallant and his friend. It could not be very amusing to those who reflect that holy and constant love, free preference, and all that makes marriage a blessing instead of a curse, were here out of the question: but the resemblance in the mode of courtship to that adopted by whites, when meditating marriage of a not dissimilar virtue,—a marriage of barter,—could not be overlooked.

Even in their ultimate, funereal courtesies, the coloured race imitate the whites. An epitaph on a negro baby at Savannah begins, "Sweet blighted lily!"—They have few customs which are absolutely peculiar. One of these is refusing to eat before whites. When we went long expeditions, carrying luncheon, or procuring it by the road-side, the slaves always retired with their share behind trees or large stones, or other hiding-places.

The Americans may be considered secure of good manners generally while intellect is so reverenced among them as it is, above all other claims to honour. Whatever follies and frivolities the would-be fashionable classes may perpetrate, they will never be able to degrade the national manners, or to make themselves the first people in the republic. Intellect carries all before it in social intercourse, and will continue to do so. I was struck by the fact that, in country villages, the most enlightened members of a family may be cultivated as acquaintance, without the rest. They may be invited to a superior party, and the others left for an inferior one. As for the cities, Washington, with its motley population in time of Session, is an exception to all rules; and I certainly saw some uncommonly foolish people treated with more attention, of a temporary kind, than some very wise ones. But in other cities I am not aware of having seen any great influence possessed by persons who had not sufficient intellectual desert. A Washington belle related to me the sad story of the death of a young man who fell from a small boat into the Potomac in the night,—it is supposed in his sleep. She told where and how his body was found; and what relations he had left; and finished with "he will be much missed at parties." Washington is a place where a young man may be thus mourned: but elsewhere there would have been a better reason given, or none at all. In the capitals of States, men rank according to their supposed intellect. Many mistakes are made in the estimate; and (far worse) many pernicious allowances are made for bad morals, for the sake of the superior intellect: but still the taste is a higher one, the gradation a more rational one, than is to be found elsewhere: and, where such a taste and a gradation subsist, the essentials of good manners can never be wanting. It is refreshing to witness the village homage paid to the author and the statesman, as to the highest of human beings. Whatever the author and the statesman may be, the homage is honourable to those who offer it. It is no less refreshing in the cities to see how the vainest fops and the most solid capitalists readily succumb before men and women who are distinguished for nothing but their minds. The worst of manners,—those which fly off the furthest from nature, and do the most violence to the affections—are such as arise from a surpassing regard to things outward and shadowy: the best are those which manifest a pursuit of things invisible and real. The Americans are better mannered than others, in as far as they reverence intellect more than wealth and fashion. It remains for them to enlarge their notions, and exalt their tests of intellect, till it shall identify itself with morals. National manners, national observances of rank graduated on such a principle would be no subject of controversy, but would command the admiration, and gradually form the taste, of the world. I cannot but think that a beginning of this change is visible in the intercourses of those Americans who have rejected the prevalent false idea of honour, and in the spirit of love borne witness to unpopular truths. The freedom, gentleness, and earnestness of the manners of such offer a realisation of grace which no conventional training can secure. A southern gentleman was on board a steam-boat, proceeding from New York to Philadelphia. He engaged in conversation with two unknown gentlemen; and soon plunged into the subject of slavery. He was a slave-holder, and they were abolitionists. With one of them, he was peculiarly pleased; and they discussed their subject for a great length of time. He at last addressed the other abolitionist thus: "How easy and pleasant it is to argue this matter with such a man as your friend! If all you abolitionists were like him, how soon we and you might come to an understanding! But you are generally so coarse and violent! You are all so like Garrison! Pray give me your friend's name."

"You have just spoken it. It is Mr. Garrison."

"Impossible! This gentleman is so mild, so gentlemanly."

"Ask the captain if it be not Mr. Garrison."

It was an important point. The captain was asked. This mild, courteous, simple, sprightly, gentlemanly person was Garrison.