society, these gentlemen came to a dinner party with unwashen hands, uncombed locks, and in morning attire.
I shall never forget the entrée of two of them in a house where they were personally unknown. No. 1, marching up to the mistress of the house, said:
“Madam, let me introduce Mr. Taylor, a distinguished citizen of Alabama.”
Then No. 2 took up the flattering tale, and taking his friend by the button-hole, presented him in turn.
“Madam, let me present my friend, Mr. Brown, the most distinguished citizen of New York.”
The first attempts at conversation met with no other response than, “Yes, madam,” “No, sir, sir-ree,” until Catawba, or something more potent, unloosed their tongues. Much intellectual acquirement is rarely met with in this class, unless the representative happens to have been a schoolmaster or lawyer, when his prolixity, and slow deliberation of speech, with its odd accentuations, so strange to the British ear, try the patience almost beyond endurance.
Money-making, which is the American business of life, attracts the youth of the nation very early from the colleges, where they have been waging war with their masters, and learning more insubordination than Greek or Latin. To coining the “almighty dollar,” they devote themselves with all the restless energy of their natures, not disdaining means we should designate as dishonest; but which even sensible men laugh at there as “right smart.” For example: One merchant in New York made an immense fortune by importing lead, at a time when a heavy import duty had to be paid on it. His “dodge” was this: the lead was run into coarse moulds of figures, and imported free of duty as “Works of Art.” To commemorate his “smartness,” he built a magnificent house, and adorned the porch with two of these splendid statues.
Manly exercises and sports are altogether despised, the keen sportsman is looked on with contempt as a “low fellow,” and an American youth guesses he has “locomoted” enough for the day, by driving his spanking mare at the rate of ten miles an hour, along the fashionable promenade. There is certainly a sad degeneration in mind as well as body, since the days of General Washington. You often find in one family a grandfather courteous after the fashion of Sir Charles Grandison, while the grandson is bitter, rough, and bearish, or a servile imitator of a Parisian “fât.”
They are, however, very kind husbands, and devoted fathers, though they by no means adhere to the precepts of King Solomon. So careful are they of the liberty of the young citizen, that frequently the rite of baptism is delayed, that the infant may not have his opinions, as it were, pledged to “Hard-shells,” or “Soft-shells,” without a right of judgment. Children really tyrannise over their parents, everything is in abeyance to their wills and wishes; the result is, that the American is never anything but a spoiled child. He never learns self-denial or self-control; he beats his black nurse as a baby, fights the young “rowdies” and “plug-uglies” in the street, as a schoolboy, and, as a man, kills his dearest friend with his bowie-knife, on some trivial difference of opinion, out of which a fierce war of words has arisen. Duels are every-day occurrences, a mere refusal to “liquor up at the bar,” will give rise to one; indeed, a common formula is, “You liquor, or—I shoot.” For life they have not the least concern, they are reckless as fatalists.
Among the military, those educated at West Point are the most accomplished and well-bred, though from recent events it may be questioned how far the college has produced a sufficiency of military talent. There never was in any war greater lack of good generals. How different might the annals of the struggle have been had General Scott been a younger man. In person he is the beau ideal of a great general, his stature is that of the sons of Anak, his fine handsome face, his calm, penetrating glance, and the dignity of his manner, made him the most distinguished person wherever he went. His prophetic letter to Mr. Seward, and his constant exertions to arrest the rage of factions, prove not only the vigour of his green old age, but the folly of the nation who could prefer as Presidents a Taylor and a Pierce.
As to church architecture the Americans are sadly wanting in taste and knowledge. The churches are frightful, either in the style of the fashionable chapels of Mayfair, or else exhibiting such wild ornamentation as would have maddened the soul of Pugin. The chancel of the church of the “Holy Trinity,” the largest church at Washington, has a fresco painting on the blank wall behind the altar representing, with doubtful perspective, a long vista of Gothic arches, the building being itself Grecian if anything; while to add still more to the beauty of the edifice, the bells are suspended in a campanile, so heavy and so badly constructed that shortly after its completion it fell down with a great crash. It was a very curious sight to see the Saturday baptisms there. Saturday was reserved for adults, and generally fifteen or twenty middle-aged heathens might be seen standing round the font, the ladies having their minds evidently considerably distracted between their attention to the ceremony and their concern lest the holy water of baptism should injure their gorgeous apparel.
The Americans have wisely curtailed many of the services, especially that of marriage, which now rivals in curtness a Scotch wedding ceremony. The social customs attendant on a wedding in America have been for more than a century abandoned in England; therefore, though originally British, they have the charm of novelty to the English visitor in the States. The happy pair, on their return from church, must prepare for an influx, not only of friends and relations, but of every casual acquaintance, come by way of congratulating them, but in reality to criticise their appearance, to gossip, and to discuss cake, ice, and wine. This ordeal lasts not only the whole of the wedding-day, but generally extends over the two subsequent days, and would I think exhaust the
