CHAPTER II.
Cross-examination of Foreigners in the United States.—Definition of Common Sense—Its high value in America.—Aversion to Genius.—Sensible reply of a Boston Aristocrat with regard to a Parvenu from the country.—Ladies buying themselves a Professor.—Boys at school learning for Money.—A Boston fashionable Concert—Description of the Musicians and the Audience.—High value of Morality in a Cantatrice.—Dangers of differing in matters of taste from the leading Coteries.—Secret Police in Boston.—Reflections.
Cross-examination of Foreigners in the United States.—Definition of Common Sense—Its high value in America.—Aversion to Genius.—Sensible reply of a Boston Aristocrat with regard to a Parvenu from the country.—Ladies buying themselves a Professor.—Boys at school learning for Money.—A Boston fashionable Concert—Description of the Musicians and the Audience.—High value of Morality in a Cantatrice.—Dangers of differing in matters of taste from the leading Coteries.—Secret Police in Boston.—Reflections.
“Unhappy he, who from the first of joys—Society—cut off, is left aloneAmid this world of death. Day after daySad on the jetting eminence he sits,And views the main that ever toils below.”
Thomson’sSeasons.
The day after my arrival in Boston I delivered my letters of introduction. Some I merely sent with my card; others I carried in person, according to the custom of the country. My reception could not, of course, be equal to that of a well-recommended Englishman; the word “de” having, by my request, been suppressed in all myletters, and it not being known at that time that I was about to commit my impressions to paper. Yet was I received with politeness; subject, however, to a sort of cross-examination, of which, for the benefit of travellers, I will here furnish a short extract.
Question.—“How do you like this country?”
Answer(of course).—“Extremely well.” (It will do no harm to show a little enthusiasm; the Bostonians, having little of that article themselves, like to see it in others.)
Question.—“How does this country appear to you compared with England?”
(This is a question never asked by the labouring class, who seem to care little or nothing about it; and proves at once your being in good society. You must answer it with great circumspection; as, if you give America the preference, they either think you a hypocrite, or a person not used to society and the world; and, if you show yourself too great a partisan for England, their vanity will never forgive you.)
Question.—“Do you intend to settle here?”
(This question is best answered in the negative.)
Question.—“Are you married or single.”
(If the stranger be a man of moderate fortune,it will be best for him to call himself a married man; the fashionable society of Boston having a great dread of poor bachelors.)
Question.—“Do you not think weenjoya very bad climate?”
(This they really believe; but it is prudent in Europeans stoutly to deny it. The fact is, it is really not half so bad as generally represented; there being more sunny days in America than, perhaps with the exception of Italy or Spain, in any part of Europe.)
Question.—“Don’t you think the transition from heat to cold very sudden?”
(Deny it by all means, even if there should have been a change of twenty degrees that very day.)
Then comes the praise of the American “falls,” in which any one may join conscientiously; an American landscape in the month of October being, on account of the infinite variety in the colour of the woods, and the extreme serenity of the sky, the most beautiful thing in the world.
National vanity—a feeling which is totally distinct from patriotism—exists in no part of the United States to such an extent as in New England, and especially in Boston, whose inhabitants think themselves not only vastly superior to anypeople in Europe, but also infinitely more enlightened, especially as regards politics, than the rest of their countrymen. Thus the question has been seriously proposed to me, whether I had not been struck with the superior intelligence of the Bostonians, compared with the inhabitants of other cities in the United States and in Europe? and whether, on the whole, I had found any people in the world superior to those of New England?
These faults apart, I found the Bostonians quite anentertaining, I could not conscientiously say anhospitablepeople, because one does not feel at home amongst them, even after a residence of many years. The fact is, that though they boast of an unusual degree of “common sense” in their common transactions of life, very little of it is seen in their society. Society is the only sea with the navigation of which the New-Englanders are as yet unacquainted, in spite of the English, French, and Italian charts they study for that purpose. The moment their ladies and gentlemen sit in state, they are affected and awkward;et quand le bon ton parait, le bon sens se retire.
What the wealthy Bostonians generally understand by common sense, and the influence which the latter exercises on society, I soon had an opportunityof learning, at the house of a fashionable gentleman, a president of a bank, with whom I had the pleasure of dining a few days after my arrival in the city.
The individual in question was between forty-five and fifty years of age; apparently of a high bilious temper, with a livid complexion, grey piercing eyes, straight hair, compressed lips, thin nose and chin,—in short, a figure which in any part of the world I should have at once recognised as belonging to a matter-of-fact man from New England. There were but two more gentlemen to dine with us, and no ladies besides the wife and daughters of our entertainer; so that conversation soon began to flag, until, the dessert being put on the table, the restraint was taken off from the gentlemen by the good-natured retiring of the ladies.
Mine host was the first person who broke in upon the monotony of the entertainment, by introducing a topic which at once commanded the attention of his friends.
“Common sense,” he said, after having drunk the first glass of madeira and passed the bottle, “is thegenius, or, as I do not like that word, theessenceof society and good government; and I think,” added he with a self-complacent smile,“no people in the world have inherited a larger share of this most invaluable commodity than ourcool, calm, calculating, money-makingYankees. Did you” (addressing himself to me) “ever see a more intelligent people than our Bostonians? Did you ever see a city more quiet, more prosperous, more orderly than Boston?”
“The appearance of Boston,” responded I, “certainly warrants all you say of it.”
“Yes, sir,” he rejoined; “and I can point out to you at least one hundred persons in that city worth upwards of a hundred thousand dollars.”
“That certainly argues in favour of the industry and perseverance of its inhabitants.”
“Say rather it argues in favour of theircommonsense,” said he, “in which industry and perseverance are necessarily included. We are a common sense, matter-of-fact people,” added he exultingly; “we leave genius and enthusiasm to Europeans.”
“Thank Heaven!” exclaimed his neighbour on the left, “I have no genius inmyfamily; my children are all brought up to be industrious.”
“You may thank the Lord for that,” replied our entertainer; “I never saw a genius yet whowas either himself happy or capable of making others so. I have brought up my sons to become merchants and manufacturers; only Sam, the poor boy who is a little hard of hearing, and rather slow of comprehension, shall go to college. Our merchants, sir, are the most respectable part of the community.”
“What college do you mean to send him to?” demanded I, in order to ascertain whether he had been serious.
“I shall send him to Harvard University,” he replied; “the oldest literary institution in the country. Have you not yet been to see it?”
I told him that I had been but a few days in Boston, but that I should certainly take an early opportunity of visiting the institution.
“Do so,” he said; “you will find it well worth your while; it will convince you that, while we have been making money, we have not altogether neglected arts and sciences.”
“Which are your cleverest men in the various departments of science?” demanded I.
“Why, they are none of them very clever inoursense of the word. We consider professors as secondary men. Our practice is to give the different professorships away to young men, in order to induce them to devote themselves to the branchthey are to teach. Our country is as yet too young for old professors; and, besides, they are too poorly paid to induce first-rate men to devote themselves to the business of lecturing.”
“In this manner,” rejoined I, “you will never have eminent men in the higher departments of philosophy.”
“We have as yet no time to devote to abstract learning,” he observed; “we are too young for that. Our principal acquirement consists in common sense; all the rest we consider as moonshine. You must know,” he said, with a countenance in which superiority of knowledge was mingled with condescension of manners, “that a young man learns as much in six months in a counting-room as in four years at college. My friends do not entirely agree with me; but I often told them that our colleges only made poor gentlemen, and spoiled clever tradesmen.”
He then counted over the names of most of the rich men in Boston, who, he said, were all self-taught country boys, possessed of no other learning than the art of making dollars in a neat, handsome, clean manner. “This,” he added, “has given them a higher standing in society than they could have acquired by all the philosophy in the world, and enabled them to marryinto the oldest and most aristocratic families of the place.
“Take, for instance, the case of our friend ***. What does he know except making money? What has he ever learned except negociating, or rathershavingnotes? What college did he ever go to, except that of our brokers in State-street? And has he not married the daughter of one of our richest men? Has he not got one of the largest fortunes with her? And is he not now connected with some of our first people—with the real back-bone of our Boston aristocracy? And do you know the answer his father-in-law gave to one of his old friends, who remonstrated with him for giving his daughter away to aparvenufrom the country? ‘I give my daughter to any man,’ said he, ‘who will come to Boston and have wit enough to make a hundred thousand dollars in six years.’ There’s common sense for you, I trust: that’s what we call practical philosophy.”
“It is certainly a melancholy fact,” sighed the gentleman next to me, who now for the first time opened his lips, “that a great number of our young men, who have gone to college, have afterwards been unsuccessful in business. Ithink our education is not sufficiently practical;—we are still attached to the European system.”
“Not only that,” replied our entertainer, “but most of our students contract habits of idleness, which will never answer in this country. They want to imitate your English gentleman, when their patrimony—I mean theirsharein their father’s fortune—is scarcely sufficient to keep them alive. Do you rememberMr.***’s reply to a young gentleman who had asked him his advice as to what he ought to do in order to succeed in business? ‘Take off your kid gloves,’ said he, ‘and go to work.’ There’s philosophy for you, equal to your Kants and Leibnitz!Mr.***, you know, is a plain-spoken man, who came to Boston without a cent in his pocket, and is now one of our most respectable citizens.”
“But if this be the prevailing taste of your townsmen,” said I, “why do you call Boston the Athens of the United States?”
“That appellation,” replied he, “refers to our women, not to our gentlemen. Our ladies read a great deal. And why should they not? What else have they to do? And we have, besides, a lot of literary twaddles, manufactured by the wholesale at Cambridge, who attempt to turnthe heads of our young girls with the nonsense they call ‘poetry,’ which fills nearly all our papers, instead of clever editorials. If we have one poet among us, we have at least fifty, the joint earnings of whom would not be sufficient to keep a dog. But then poets don’t turnourheads, you see; we are too much occupied with business.”
“But how do your literary men manage to get on?” demanded I: “I know several of them quite in easy circumstances.”
“They marry rich women, who can afford paying for being entertained. They show their common sense in that. It’s quite the fashion for our rich girls tobuy themselves a professor, previous to taking a trip to Europe.”
“And then,” added my neighbour on the right, “literary reputations are in this city not acquired, as in other places, through the medium of public opinion; but by the aid of a small coterie, composed of a few ‘leading citizens,’ who have the power of setting a man up, or putting him down, just as they please;[5]the process being this.Mr.A. orMr.B., wealthy gentlemen in Beacon-street,declareMr.Smith a fine scholar; and immediately half a dozen of their clique will repeat the same assertion. The individual in question is thus made fashionable, so that any one speaking against him is considered unacquainted with the usages of society. Those, therefore, whose opinion—if they dare to have one—is different fromMr.A.’s andMr.B.’s, are most likely to keep it to themselves; while every person aspiring to rank and fashion publicly swears to his scholarship: for our people, you must know, are accustomed to do everything from fear; nothing from love. If you want to succeed in anything,—if you want to carry any particular measure,—enlist half a dozen influential citizens in your behalf, and the rest will not dareto back out. That’s the way things are done in this city.
“And the worst of it is,” he continued, “that our coteries are small, and, for the most part, led by one or twoprominent members of society, who, on all similar occasions, act as dictators. Add to this, that our fashionable men have not the advantages of education and leisure enjoyed by the higher classes in Europe, and that their manners are generally stiff, uncouth, and overbearing; and you will easily understand why our society, so far from resembling that of Athens, must necessarilycounteract the independent developement of mind and character.
“This habit of conforming to each other’s opinion, and the penalty set upon every transgression of that kind, are sufficient to prevent a man from wearing a coat cut in a different fashion, or a shirt-collar no longerà la mode, or, in fact, to do, say, or appear anything which could render him unpopular among a certain set. In no other place, I believe, is there such a stress laid upon ‘saving appearances.’ I once asked a relation of mine for what sum of money he might be prevailed upon to suffer his mustachoes to grow? He demanded twenty-four hours ‘to figure it out,’ and then told me the next day that he could not do it for one cent less than ten thousand dollars. He reasoned thus: ‘I am a man of moderate property, the interest of my patrimony being barely sufficient to pay for my board, I am therefore obliged to work, in part, for my living; but, my wants being few, an additional six hundred dollars would cover all my expenses. These I hope to earn by practising law, to which profession I was bred, and, for which I feel a natural predilection. Now, if I wear mustachoes, I must resign my practice as a lawyer; for with mustachoes I can neither goto court, nor obtain a respectable chamber practice. Six hundred dollars are the interest, at six per cent. per annum, of ten thousand dollars, which, therefore, would be sufficient to make up for my loss; for I can manage to live without society.”
“A few singularities of that sort may be charged to every people,” observed the gentleman of the house; “and, besides, I really do not see what business a young man has to wear mustachoes: I would certainly not employ him in a counting-room. We are a young people; and, as such, must endeavour to get on by hard work, not by dandyism. Some of our instructors have the good sense to inculcate this doctrine even into our children; and I do not see why grown persons should be permitted to set up a different rule for themselves.”
“And pray, sir,” demanded I, “in what manner do your instructors teach children the necessity of working?”
“In the best manner,” replied he, “common sense could dictate.They make them study for money.They distribute annually a certain sum,—say, from eighty to a hundred dollars,—in the shape of prize-money, among those who obtain the highest marks at the different recitations, forwhich the pupils are numbered as high asplusseven, and as low asminusseven; a certain number of positive marks entitling the child to one cent prize-money. At the end of the school-term accounts are made out, when each child receives a check on a bookseller or stationer for the amount due to him; for which he may now select a book, a pen-knife, or some other trifling article, according to his own pleasure; on which, moreover, the instructor himself enjoys a liberal discount.”
“But does not this practice,” I said, “introduce sordid habits at an age in which the mind is most susceptible of receiving impressions, and in which it is of the greatest importance to instil into children more elevated notions of honour and justice?”
“You are entirely mistaken,” replied he; “and one can at once see from your remarks that you are a little dyed in the speculative philosophy of your country. No stimulus to learning can be half as great as when a boy can figure it out on his slate how many dollars and cents his geography, grammar, spelling, reading, and good conduct come toper annum.”
Thiscommon senseof the Bostonians, thought I, as I was walking home, is, after all, very narrowlycircumscribed; referring in most cases merely to immediate wants, and the means of satisfying them. But it is in referring actions to ultimate principles that men rise above common-place, in proportion, perhaps, as they render themselves liable to error. Common sense is a sort of instinct sufficient to guide men through the lower spheres of life; but of itself incapable of raising them to a high moral elevation. Common sense, in fact, is the genius of mediocrity. It does not expand or liberalize the mind, or communicate to it any great and generous impulse. It refers to a sort ofintérêt bien entendu; and is, on that account, not in very high repute among a large portion of the Southern people. I remember what a Southern Jacksonian once told me with regard to the politics of Massachusetts. “We do not want that State,” he said, “to come over to our side, because it would prejudice the rest of the Union. People would immediately ask what concession has Government made to the particularinterestsof that State?” This is the idea which the Americans themselves entertain of the common sense of the leading citizens of Boston.—Point d’argent, point de Suisses!
In the evening I saw again my cicerone, who proposed going to the concert, which he promisedme would be one of the most fashionable ones of the season. We accordingly shaped our course towards Masonic Hall,—a building in style slightly approaching the Gothic, but in size not much larger than an ordinary dwelling-house,—which, ever since freemasonry became unpopular in Boston, has been changed into a temple of the Muses.
On looking over the bill, I found that the performers had a peculiar way of recommending themselves to the notice of the higher classes of Americans. In the first place, all of them were professors, members of different philharmonic societies in Europe, whose favourite airs, duettos, concerts, &c. had met with universal applause in London, Paris, andSt.Petersburg. Then they were all composers; the bill expressly announcing a favourite air from “La Gazza Ladra,” arranged by Professor ***; duetto from “Gli Italiani in Algieri,” with variations byMr.***, Professor of the Royal Conservatory of ***; &c. A Spaniard even went so far as to give notice that a grand rondo, originally composed for the violin by Mayseder, would be performed with variations by Professor ***, late first flute-player to his Majesty the ex-Emperor of Brazil.
I communicated to my friend my astonishmentat the fashionable people of America being so easily duped by high-sounding titles, which in Europe would at once stamp a man as a charlatan or a village performer; but was assured that this was the regular way of proceeding in all the Atlantic cities, the judgment of the higher classes in matters of taste confirming, without a single exception, the verdict pronounced by the connoisseurs of Europe.
“You will,” he said, “to-night hear the voice of a woman who in England would at best be considered a tolerable good ballad-singer for a provincial theatre, but you will witness the storm of applause with which she will be receivedhere. It is such a fine opportunity for all who have taste, to show their superiority over those who have not had an opportunity of improving themselves in Europe. This songstress, moreover, is introduced to some of our first people, who will collect here to-night, and by their significant nods and half-subdued ‘bravos’ induce the multitude to the clapping of hands. Ourleading citizensthink themselves bound by hospitality to applaud an Englishcantatrice: for which reason the second, third, and fourth rows of benches are occupied bytout ce qu’il y a de mieux,—that is bytout ce qui a de cent à cinq cents mille écus;the first benches being declined by all, either from modesty, or from fear of making themselves too conspicuous before the public.
“An American aristocrat, you must know,” continued my cicerone, “is a gentleman of very nice feelings, who, while he is most anxious to avoid notoriety amongthe people, in order to avoid public censure, is at the same time particularly solicitous to push himself forward in his coterie, in order by his social standing to make up for the injustice of politics.”
“I presume,” said I, “most of the gentlemen on the forward benches are merchants?”
“Let me see,” he said, standing on tiptoe. “They are mostly merchants; but I also discover two lawyers, and a fashionable clergyman. There is, however, not a man amongst them worth less than one hundred thousand dollars.”
“Pray, is a rich man here supposed to understand something about music?” demanded I.
“Most assuredly he is,” replied he. “You will always find the richest men give the first sign of approbation, after which the minor fortunes venture to signalize theirs. Our society is so small that every man in it is known; so that no individual can be guilty of a breach of etiquette without having at once the whole cliqueagainst him. There is more social tyranny in this place than you could find anywhere in Europe. Every principle of morals, politics, or religion is set up as an article of faith; our infallible moneyed men proclaiming in their counting-rooms, and on ’change, the Popish doctrineNulla salus extra ecclesiam Catholicam.”
While we were thus discussingla haute sociétéof Boston, Mrs. ***, from London, made her appearance, and—her morality being endorsed by three responsible merchants—was received with thundering applause; theHonourableMr.*** giving, as drum-major, the signal with a beautiful cane, which was immediately answered by “the middling interests” in the centre, and at last echoed by the mechanics, perched up in the rear. Mrs. *** courtesied. Renewed applause; during which she, at last, opened her cherub lips, and, with a great deal of common sense,—that is, without any of the coquetry of a French actress, or theagaceriesof an Italianprima donna,—sang off two or three verses of one of those English ballads which sound so prettily in a private parlour, and so badly in a large concert-room. The worst of it was, that instead of the simple melody, which in most English or German compositions is exceedingly touching, she endeavoured to showher school, and the scope of her voice, by introducing variations, which were duly acknowledged by the people to whom she had been recommended. Theladies, especially, seemed not so much to admire her voice, as her modesty in not looking once from the music on the fashionable young men whose eyes were fastened upon her.
English women, being fine and tall, charm sufficiently by their placid beauty, and a certainlaisser allerwhich they carry off admirably. French and Italian women, on the contrary, are, as a race, far less handsome, but considerably morepiquantes.Ces sont des femmes caressantes.An English woman is made to be wooed; a French one enticesyouby a thousand little trifles, which it is the study of her life to practise with success. One is, perhaps, truly amiable; the otherinterestsyou by her very peevishness. The fair songstress seemed to be amiable in the English fashion, for she was all good nature—the usual concomitant of a certainembonpointand smiled continually—on her music-book.
“But how is it possible,” said I to my cicerone, “to applaud such singing as this? There is neither simplicity nor taste, neither feeling nor execution in her performance, and yet the storm of applause is not abating.”
“For the Lord’s sake!” exclaimed he, “do not say that loud enough for other people to hear you. It would deprive you of many an innocent pleasure you would perhaps otherwise enjoy during your stay in this city. Ourélitenever forgive such a difference of opinion to one of their own clique; how much more, then, must a foreigner be on his guard! And in this case, too, whereMr.and Mrs. *** have taken the songstress under their protection! It would be sufficient to exclude you at once from society. This isfreecountry, sir! every man may do or think what he pleases, only he must not let other people know it. You might just as well attack one of our fashionable preachers as Mrs. ***.”
“If this is what you call freedom in Boston,” said I, “I will not go to another concert, if Paganini himself were to perform here.”
“And yet, if you heard an oratorio performed by our ‘Handel and Haydn Society’, you would, perhaps, change your opinion. That society is almost wholly composed of mechanics, who cultivate music from taste, and pay their German leader, a good scientific musician, a very handsome salary.”
“Singular city this!” exclaimed I, “in which the labouring classes cultivate music from taste,and in which the rich people listen to it from obligation. I shall be obliged to leave the room. Will you not accompany me?”
“I should like to do so,” whispered he; “but it would be observed. I am obliged to live with these people; and you know the proverb, ‘Among Romans do as Romans do.’A propos; if any one should ask you about the concert, and especially about Mrs. ***, say you were ‘delighted;’ that’s the word now. There is no use in making yourself enemies;delighted, sir! Don’t forget your cue.”
What an extraordinary phenomenon, thought I as I went home, this state of society must be to an European! And is it a wonder if, under such circumstances, the most paltry scribbler thinks himself justified in caricaturing it? Here is a free people voluntarily reducing itself to a state of the most odious social bondage, for no other object but to maintain an imaginary superiority over those classes in whom, according to the constitution of their country, all real power is vested; and here are the labouring classes, probably for the first time permitted to legislate for themselves, worshipping wealth in its most hideous colours! Here, then, is a society formed as nearly as possible on the abstract theory of equality; and this isthe state to which it has become reduced by the aspirings of a few wealthy families in less than a century! If such is the tendency towards decay in all human institutions, how jealous ought the people to be of the most trifling privileges, arrogated exclusively by certain classes.
And what species of tyranny is worse than that which attempts to control a man’s private actions, his worship, his domestic arrangements, and his pleasures? What can be more absurd than for a certain class, for the most part not a whit better educated than the rest, to assume the dictatorship in all matters relating to politics, religion, or the arts? And how can it be reconciled with the spirit of independence, manifested more or less by every American, to see so large a portion of their countrymen governed by the tinsel logic of such a coterie? Nothing can excite the contempt of an educated European more than the continual fears and apprehensions in which even the “most enlightened citizens” of the United States seem to live with regard to their next neighbours, lest their actions, principles, opinions, and beliefs should be condemned by their fellow creatures!
I have heard it seriously asserted in America, that there are no better policemen than the ordinary run of Bostonians; and that, as long astheir natural inquisitiveness remained, there was no need of a secret tribunal; every citizen taking upon himself the several offices of spy, juryman, justice, and—videLynch law—executioner. This is by some called the wholesome restraint of public opinion: but, in order that public opinion may be just, it must not be biased by the particular faith of a coterie; and there are transactions in private life of which the public ought never to be made the judge.
There is scarcely a degree of political freedom which can compensate a man for the loss of independence in his private transactions, and the want of a generous liberality in the community at large. There are individuals whose tastes and dispositions are not likely to involve them in any political or religious controversy, and who therefore can be comparatively free, even under a despotic government; but, in a community like Boston, no abstract rule of conduct can be laid down, capable of protecting a man against censure and retaliation. This peculiarity in the composition of its society I do not, however, like so many others, ascribe to the political institutions of the country, which, on the contrary, are constantly counteracting its effects; but to the aristocracy of money, unmitigated as it is by superior education, and unlimitedin its influence either by the existence of a real nobility or a powerful sovereign.
Themoveable,moneyedaristocracy of our times I consider as the greatest enemy of mankind, in comparison to which all the terrors of the feudal system are as nothing. The nobility of the middle ages offered to the people protection for vassalage, and set them the example of chivalry and valour. A mere moneyed aristocracy, on the contrary, enslaves the people without giving them an equivalent, introducing everywhere the most sordid principles of selfishness, to the exclusion of every noble and disinterested sentiment. A mere moneyed preponderance of one class of citizens over the other, does not form an historical link between the present and the past; neither does it, like the masses, represent the interests of mankind in general. All its tendencies are downwards, reducing a people gradually to a degree of moral degradation, from which perhaps they might have been saved by the presence of a powerful nobility of family.
FOOTNOTES:[5]Public opinion sways the country in all respects except in matters of taste, which are entirely settled by the higher orders.
[5]Public opinion sways the country in all respects except in matters of taste, which are entirely settled by the higher orders.
[5]Public opinion sways the country in all respects except in matters of taste, which are entirely settled by the higher orders.