PS 1669 .F2 H3 Copy 1 —p^cfFW^^S^^:^^^' — " i>g:y^^^^ir)i<:i^^:^\5M" HIBMRY OF CONGRESS, ,lrap. '■ft. ,optt l«J' ■^^^^ ^-^^^ ^ I UNITED .s^^^' HAP-HAZARD. BY KATE FIELD. ■^jIB ^ 'J) jUND It CO. (^ BOSTON: ^ JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osyood, & Co. 1873. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, BY JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co., Cambridge. pebicatet) ALL YOUNG WOMEN IN SEARCH OP CAREERS OR TITLED HUSBANDS. ;^ ^rc^' PREFACE. EPRODUCED (with revisions) from Every Saturday, The New York Trib- ^ line, and The American Register of Paris, the contents of this vohime lay no claim to profundity. If their perusal entertains the Ameri- can at home, and leads the American abroad to commit one folly the less, my highest ambition will be realized. THE AUTHOR. New York, May, 1873. COJN^TENTS PART I. LEAVES FROM A LECTURER'S NOTE- BOOK. A Night in a Rocking-Chair Travelling Companions In the Dark .... John Brown's Friends True Stories . . . . Concerning Audiences Going up the Ohio Ruminating Animals . A Rival Entertainment A Lecture on Masks . Pagr . 11 21 . 30 34 . 39 47 . 5.5 65 . 71 82 PART U. AMERICANS ABROAD. At Sea 93 A Martyr to Free Speech . . , . . 101 The Divine Right of Kings, and Kingsley . 105 Opening of Parliament 115 Republicanism in England 125 VUl CONTENTS. The Thanksgiving Service Second TnorGHTs about the Thanksgiving Eepublicanism in Parliament . An After-Dinner Speech .... Specimen Americans . . . . . Heat and Impudence Sour Grapes and Snobbery The Glorious Fourth and so forth . Royalty en D:£shabille .... Theatre Royal, Berlin .... American Folly A Train of Thought ..... London and the English European versus American "Women . 136 149 156 166 171 179 188 198 207 215 223 229 237 245 PART I. LEAVES FROM A LECTUREIl'S NOTE-BOOK. 1* LEAVES FROM A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. A NIGHT IN A ROCKING-CHAIR. T may be true that America is going to perdition ; that all Americans are ras- cals ; that there are no American gentle- men; that culture, refinement, and social manners can only be found in the Old World : but if it be true, what an extraordinary anomaly it is that women, old and 3^oung, ugly and handsome, can travel alone from one end of this great country to the other, receiving only such attention as is ac- ceptable. Having journeyed up and down the land to the extent of twenty thousand miles, I am per- suaded that a woman can go anywhere and do any- thing, provided she conducts herself properly. Of course it would be absurd to deny that it is not infiniteh^ more agreeable to be accompanied by the "tyrant" called "man"; but when there is 12 A LECTURER'S NOTE BOOK. no tyrant to come to lovely woman's rescue, it is astonishing how well lovely woman can rescue herself, if she exerts the brain and muscle, given her thousands of years ago, and not entirely an- nihilated by long disuse. I have been nowhere that I have not been treated with greater consid- eration than if I had belonged to the other sex. There is not a country in Europe of which this can be said ; and if a nation's civilization is gauged — as the wise declare — by its treatment of wo- men, then America, rough as it may be, badly dressed as it is, tobacco-chewing as it often is, stands head, shoulders, and Jieart above all the rest of the world. The Frenchwoman was right in declaring America to be le paradis des dames, and those Avomen who exalt European gallantry above American honesty are as blind to their own interests as an owl at high noon. There is no royal railroad to lecturing. At best it is hard work, but lecture committees " do their possible," as the Italians say, to lessen the weight, and that " possible " is heartily appreciated by such of us as inwardly long for a natural bridge between stations and hotels. A woman is never so forlorn as when getting out of a car or entering a strange hotel. However, there never w^as a rule without its ex- A NIGHT IN A ROCKING-CHAIR. 13 ception, and though courtesy has marked the ma- jority of lecture committees for its own, a lecturer may occasionally find himself stranded upon a desert of indifference, and languish for the com- forts of a home not twenty miles distant. Thus it happened that once upon arriving at my des- tination when the shades of evening were falling fast, and glancing about for the customary smil- ino- 2-entlemen who smooth out the rough places by carrying bags, superintending the transporta- tion of luggage, and driving you to your abiding- place in the best carriage of the period, I found no gentlemen, smiling or otherwise, to deliver me from my own ignorance. "Carriage, ma'am]" screamed a Jehu in top- boots ornamented with a grotesque tracery of mud. Well, yes, I would take a carriage; so up I clambered and sat down upon what in the dark- ness I supposed was a seat, but what gave such palpable evidences of animation in howls and at- tempts at assault and battery, as to prove its right to be called a boy. "An' sure the lady didn't mane to hurt ye, Jimmy," -expostulated something that turned out to be the boy's mother, whereupon a baby and a small sister of the small boy sent forth their voices in unison with that of their extinguished brother. 14 A LEC TUBER'S NOTE-BOOK. " Driver, let me get out," I said pathetically. "Certainly, ma'am, but where will you go to'? There ain't no other carriage left." True ; and I remained, and when I was asked where I wanted to stop, I really did not know. Was there a hotel 1 Yes. Was there more than one hotel ] No. I breathed more freely, and said I would go to the hotel. The driver evidently entertained a poor opinion of my mental capacity, for he mumbled to him- self that " people who did n't know w^here they was agoin' had nuff sight better stay at home," and deposited me at the hotel with a caution against pickpockets. This was sufficiently humil- iating, yet were there low^er depths. Entering the parlor, I found it monopolized by a young- lady in green silk and red ribbons, and a pink young man with his hair parted in the middle and his shirt-bosom resplendent with brilliants of the last water. They were at the piano, singing " Days of Absence " in a manner calculated to depress the most buoyant spirits. I rang the bell, and the green young lady and pink young man began on the second verse. No answer. Again I rang the bell, and the songsters began on the third verse. No answer. Once more I rang the bell, and the green young lady and pink young A NWIIT IN A ROCKINa-CJIAIR.. 10 man piped uj^oii the touching la}^ of " No one to love." Little cared those "two souls with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one," for the third heart and soul, victim of misplaced con- fidence. Ring ! I rang that bell until I ached to be a man for one brief moment. Does a man ever endure such torture 1 No. He puts on his hat, walks into the hotel office, gives somebody a piece of his mind, and demands the satisfaction of a gentleman. But a woman can go to no office. She must remain up stairs and cultivate patience on hunger and thirst and a general mortification of the senses. "Victory, or destruction to the bell ! " I said at last, and pulled the rope with the desperation of a maniac. " Did you ring 1 " asked a mild clerk, enter- ing on the tips of his toes as if there were not enough of him to warrant so extravagant an ex- penditure as the use of his whole sole. Did I ring 1 I who had been doing nothing else for half an hour ! I who had but forty-five minutes in which to eat my supper and dress for the lecture I Presenting my card, I desired the mild clerk to show me to my room. The mild clerk was exceed- ingly sorry, but the committee had left no order, and there was not a vacant room in the house ! " What am I to do 1 " I asked in agony of spirit. "I must have a room." 16 . A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. . Must is an overpowering word. Only say must with all the emphasis of which it is capable, and longings are hkely to be realized. Well, the mild clerk did n't know but as how he might turn out and let me have his room. Blessed man ! Had I been pope, he should have been canonized on the spot. Following him up several steep flights of stairs, lighted by a kerosene lamp that perfumed the air as only kerosene can, I was at last ushered into a room where sat a yoimg girl knitting. She seemed to be no more astonished at my appearance than were the chairs and table, merely remarking, when we were left alone, " That 's my father. I suppose you won't have any objections to my staying here as long as I please." How could I, an interloper, say " no " to the rightful proprietor of that room % I smiled feebly, and the damsel pursued her knitting with her fingers and me w4th her eyes, until everything in the room seemed to turn into eyes. The fright- ful thought came o'er me that perhaps my com- panion was "our own correspondent" for the " Daily Slasher ! " — a thought that sent my supper down the wrong way, deprived me of appetite, and made me thankful that my back hair did not come off ! The damsel sat and sat, knitted and knitted, until she had superintended A NIGHT JN A HOCKING -CHAIR. 17 every preparation, and then, like an Arab, silently stole away. What nextl Why, the committee called for me at the appointed hour, seemed blandly igno- rant of the fact that they had not done their whole duty to woman, and maintained that walking was much better than driving. The wind blew, dust sought shelter within the recesses of eyes and ears and nose, but patient Griselda could not have behaved better than I. In fact, a W'Omau who lectures must endure quietly what a singer or actress would stoutly protest against, for the reason that lecturing brings down upon her the taunt of being " strong-minded," and any assertion of rights or exhibition of temper is sure to be misconstrued into violent hatred of men and an insane desire to be President of the United States. This can hardly be called logic, but it is truth. Logic is an unknown qiTantity in the ordinary public estimation of women lecturers. Inwardly cross and outwardly cold, I delivered my lecture, and went back to that much-populated room, thinking that at least I should obtain a few hours' sleep before starting off at " five o'clock in the morning," — a nice hour to sing about, but a horrible one at which to get up. I approached the bed. Shade of that virtue which is next to 18 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. godliness ! the linen was — was — yes, it was — second-hand ! and calmly reposing on a pillow of doubtful color, my startled vision beheld an " . . . . iigly, creepin', blastit wonner, Detested, shnnn'd, by saunt an' sinner." That I should come to this ! I sought for a bell. i\.las, there was none ! Should I scream 1 No, that might bring out the fire-engines. Should I go in search of the housekeeper 1 How to find her at that hour of the night 1 No ; rather than wander about a strange house in a strange place, I would sit up. Of course there was a rocking- chair ; in that I took refuge, and there I sat with a quaint old-fashioned clock for company, with such stout lungs as to render sleep an impossibil- ity. No fairy godmother came in at the keyhole to transform my chair into a couch and that talk- ative clock into a handmaiden. No ghosts be- guiled the weary hours. Eleven, twelve, one, two, three, four ! As the clock struck this last hour, a porter pounded on the door, and, not long after, I was being driven through the cold, dark morning to a railroad station. My Jehu was he of the previous day, and a very nice fellow he turned out to be. "I did n't know it was you yesterday, you see, miss, or I would n't have said nothing A NIGHT IX A ROCKING-CHAIR. 19 about pickpockets. You dou't look like a lecturer, you see, and that 's what 's the matter." " Indeed, and how ought a lecturer to look 1 " " Well, I don't exactly know, but I always sup- posed they did n't look like you. Reckon you don't enjoy staying around here in the dark, so I '11 just wait here till the train comes," and there that good creature remained until the belated train snatched me up and whisked off to the city. When the express agent passed through the car to take the baggage-checks, it was as good as a play to see the different ways in which people woke up. Some turned over and would n't wake up at all ; others sat bolt upright and blinked ; some were very cross, and wondered why they could not be let alone ; others, again, rubbed their eyes, scratched their heads, said " All right," and would have gone to sleep again had not the agent shaken them into consciousness. " Where do you go ^" asked the agent of a quiet old gentleman sitting before me, who had previously given up his checks. '^Yes, exactly; that's my name," replied the old gentleman. " Where do 3'ou go ] " again asked the agent in a somewhat louder tone. " Exactly, I told you so." And the old gentleman 20 A LEC TUBER'S NOTE-BOOK. put a pocket handkerchief over his face as ii pre- liminary to sleep. ^'Well, I never," exclaimed the agent, who re- turned to the charge. " I asked you where you wanted to go 1 " " Precisely ; that 's my name." " Confound your name ! " muttered the agent. " You're either deaf or insane, and I guess you 're deaf." So putting his mouth to the old gentle- man's ear, he shouted, " Where — do — you — want — to — go '? " " 0, really, the House," was the mild an- swer to a question that so startled everybody else as to cause one man to jump up and cry, '' Fire ! " very much to the gratification of his fellow-passen- gers. There is nothing more pleasing to human beings than to see somebody else make himself ridiculous, and the amusement extracted from the contemplation of that car-load of men and women almost compensated me for the previous expe- rience. I have since travelled in the far West, but have never looked upon the counterpart of that New England hotel. TRAVELLING COMPANIONS. AVING taken leave of a friend who had referred to my lecture of the previous nifi'ht in a somewhat louder voice than harmonized with my feelings, a severe woman in spectacles, occupying a seat in front of me, ex- claimed, ^^ Be yoM a lecturer'?" in so stentorian a tone as to startle the passengers into acute hear- ing, and make me long for a convenient trap-door by which to disappear after the comfortable man- ner of stage ghosts. Yes, I was a lecturer, and not at all ashamed of it ; but had that amiable and considerate woman asked me whether I had murdered my grandfather and disposed of the remains to enterprising medical students, she could not have given greater offence to taste. I envied the Avasherwoman who sat be- side me nursing her baby and her basket, regard- less of, and disregarded by, inquisitive eyes. '•I say, he you a lecturer]" again demanded !^2 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. this awful person. " That 's twice I 've asked you the same question." Dumb with amazement, wondering where that "womanly tact" was about which we hear so much and see so little, I bowed a "yea" that would have done no discredit to the Commenda- tore in Don Giovanni. " Well, why did n't you say so in the first place ? Might I w^quire your name % " Give my name ? No ; I would have gone " a Martha to the stakes" first. How every neigh- boring ear elongated and grew into an interroga- tion-mark ! Even the cars as they sped along- seemed to echo, " What 's your name % what 's your name '? what 's your name 1 " " Might I iQiqiiire your name 1 " " No, madam, you may not." "Well, that beats all. I didn't mean no harm. I thought you might write for " The Revolution." What 's your opinion about matters and things in general 1 " Good Americans who read Dickens's " American Notes " and " Martin Chuzzlewit," virtuously brand immortal Boz as — as — well, as a liar. Eather was he the lyre played upon, making such music as the players invoked. Here before me sat one of Dickens's characters, drawn to the life. TRAVELLING COMPANIONS. 23 Matters and things in general ! What was I to say 1 Where should I begin 1 With the creation of the world ] " Madam," I at last answered in an undertone, looking like a rock and feeling like a disembodied gooseberry, " I have no opinions." "No opinioDS ! " exclaimed the awful person with severity in her eye and contempt sharply playing about the corners of her mouth. "If you 've no opinions, how on airth can you lecture % " Had I been a worm, the awful person would have crushed me beneath her foot. Being nothing more than human, she turned her back upon me as upon a creature lost to all sense of her mission on earth. "You done just right," whispered the good- hearted washerwoman, while her baby expressed its sympathy by putting a dear, dirty little finger in my eye and crowing triumphantly. "J/y opinion is that this world would n't be so hard to live in if folks would mind their own business." Ah, even the poor washerwoman had had her measure of interference ! Perhaps some rival laun- dress had deprived her of custom by innuendoes regarding her starch. The worst thing after being interviewed is being swindled by hackmen. If a woman ever looks like Mrs. Gummidge, if she ever feels likq 24 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. "a lone, lorn creetur," helf)lessly conscious that everything tmcst go " contrairey," it is in the august presence of a hackman. Talk not of the equality of the sexes so long as any woman in the land can be bullied out of twenty-five cents by "a free and independent voter " spelling his name with an X. Of what avail is mind in the pres- ence of muscle 1 If a ma,n can knock you down, are you not in his power ^ Unless his reason con- trol his biceps, are you not his slave 1 I 'd rather criticise Shakespeare to his face, I 'd rather go up in a balloon, I 'd rather speak disrespectfully of Boston Common, than indulge in an altercation with the common variety of North American hackman. He is the modern vampyre, and women are his prey. He grows fat on swindling, and proves that virtue is not its own reward. I do not- expect much from Albany. The New York Legislature convenes there, which is enough to demoralize even hackmen j but there is a driver in Albany, and one out West, that are as great a trial to my feelings as Job Trotter was to Sam Weller's. Indeed I may say greater, for Sam finally got the better of Job, and I never can be even with those hackmen. It is a physical impos- sibility. Ages hence they may come to me with apologies, but by that time I shall have become an TRAVELLING COMPANIONS. 25 angel and shall take no carnal satisfaction in their humiliation. Yes, and there is a woman whom I expect to meet in another and a better world, and to for- give. She is a vixen now. How long it will take her to soften into something else I cannot say, but as she has all eternity before her, she must come to it eventually. It was between one and two o'clock in the morning, and having just arrived from Somewhere, with no possibility of going Else- where for six hours, it was rather necessary to ob- tain a lodging at the hotel adjoining the railroad station. "Very sorry, ma'am," said the landlord, "but there is not a spare bed in the house. Never was so crowded." " Surely you can find a lounge in the parlor." The landlord scratched his head, — why is it that men generally scratch their heads when they are in difficulty] — and replied, finally, "Well, yes, there is a sofa in the parlor. It's pretty hard to sit on, so I can't recommend it to sleep on, but it's the best I can do." It was one of those slippery horsehair sofas, chronic throughout the country, that are much better adapted to "coasting" purposes than to pei'manent investment. 26 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. I was conducted up stairs, and, after surveying the aforesaid sofa, was about to say ''good night" to the landlord, who seemed to be laboring under great nervous excitement, wben a door opened op- posite, and there appeared a vision of loveliness in the shape of a thin female head done up in frilled nightcap and yellow curl-papers. " Tom," exclaimed the head, — " Tom, did n't I tell you that you were never to give up the parlor without consulting me 1 How dare you *? The parlor sha' n't be turned into a hospital if I can help it, and I will help it, that's more. You thought I was asleep, did you 1 Well, I '11 just give you to understand that I 'm never asleep when I oughtn't to be. You've no business to take in people at this hour of the night ; and when j)eople ivill travel nights, they must take the consequences. I suppose it's a circus, and of all iniquities that 's the worst ! If you dare, Tom, I '11 — " The head disappeared with a slam, leaving the last sentence as much of an hy- pothesis as the body to which that extraordi- nary head belonged. Never before had I seen a henpecked husband. May I never behold an- other ! It is almost as horrible a spectacle as seeing a man beat his wife — when she does n't deserve it; for I believe that some wives do de- TRAVELLING COMPANIONS. 27 serve beating, — this one, for example. But the "vvorld is upside down. The angelic men and wo- men insist upon marrying their opposites, — de- mons; consequently the angels suffer and the demons carry matters with a high hand. If like would only mate like, the elect might gaze upon a grand moral spectacle suggestive of the mem- orable encounter of Kilkenny cats, but alas ! jus- tice, like love and fortune, goes it Mind ; hence " Tom ! " He said never a word, but looked un- utterable things, and I relieved him from a most embarrassing position by declaring my intention of passing the remainder of the night in the rail- road station. "Tom" heaved a deep sigh, escorted me to this charming retreat, stirred up the fire, and left me to my reflections. As the room boasted of a horsehair sofa, own cousin to the one too good for me at the hotel, I might have given myself quite a "surprise party" by sleep- ing, had not my neighbors prevented any such consummation. They were a family of Irish emi- grants. The father lay in one corner snoring as I did not suppose it possible for any human being to snore. He never could have accomplished as much without great natural ability combined with constant practice. The mother sat in a rocking- chair, nursing a baby that, like seraphim and clieru- 28 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. bim, continually did cry. The effect produced by father and child was not unlike a duet between a locomotive and a shrill steam-whistle. Two larger children — boys of course of active tem- peraments — added greatly to the hilarity of the occasion by playing horse with the poker and tongs, occasionally stirring up their father with both instruments until he growled and consigned his offspring to a place not mentioned in polite circles. When the dawn came, as it did at last, that father got up, shook himself, saluted his wife with an oath, bade her come along " with the brats," and shuffled out of the room. As uncom- plaining as " Tom," and more badly used, the poor wife rose, and with the baby in her arms and the two boys clinging to her skirts followed her lord and master into the cold, gray morning. Is ma- ternity divine when it entails such treatment and perpetuates drunkenness and vice ? Virago and brute rendered my breakfast even more unpalatable than it was originally. A coun- try steak suggests fried leather rather than beef, and is graphically described by John G. Saxe as an infringement on Goodyear's patent ! There never was a lecture as hard to swallow as the beefsteak of the period. As I stepped into the cars that morning, " Tom " TRAVELLING COMPANIONS. 29 came to me, hat in hand, saying, " Please don't hold me responsible for what happened last niglit. I feel worse than 3'ou do about it, but I can't help it." I wonder what " Tom " and that poor Irish wo- man think about the holy state of matrimony. IN THE DARK. HE first time I lectured in a church, and was asked to occupy the pulpit, I re- fused. There is an eternal fitness in things, and jokes, however mild, when launched from a high box pulpit, become thoroughly de- moralized. They lose their spirits, and you feel as if you were assisting at the funeral of your own thoughts. Ascend a pulpit *? sooner a scaffold ! So I delivered my lecture on one side of the pulpit, in consequence of which I succeeded in displeasing a larger number of persons in a shorter amount of time than ever before or since. Like Bottom, one third of the audience saw a voice, and noth- ing else, the huge pulpit obstructing any other view^ That well-intentioned action led to such disastrous results as to persuade me that the majority of people hear with their eyes. Con- sequently, wdien I next lectured in a church, I screwed my courage to the sticking-place, other- JX THE DARK. 31 wise the pulpit. It was an overawing structure, and I felt that I ought to apologize for not bring- ing my sermon. Previous to the lecture the choir sang " I want to be an Angel" ; and if, as Raphael hints in certain paintings, angels finish behind the ears, I certainly bore a family likeness to them in the eyes of the audience, to whom nothing but my head was visible. I endeavored to be more imposing by standing on a stool ; but after walking off the stool once or twice, a catastrophe that caused my entire momentary disappearance, discre- tion obliged me to abandon the attempt. Misfor- tunes never yet came singly. This was an excel- lent opportmiity to give a lesson in discipline, and Fate seized it. I had read about two thirds through my manuscript, when the gas went out suddenly and left us in total darkness ! Laughing is better than crying, so I laughed, and ever^^body laughed. Finding the stool better to sit than to stand upon, I turned to it for consolation until something should " turn up," and listened to the murmurings of hundreds of voices that sounded like distant waves breaking upou the shore. All attempts to light the gas were useless. It had re- tired for the night, and in the course of eight long minutes one feeble kerosene lamp made darkness visible. 32 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. " That 's the best we can do," said a voice ac- companying the lamp. " The gas has gin out all over town, and tallow is riz." " But how is the lamp to be steadied % The cushion of the pulpit is round ! " This new development somewhat perplexed the voice, that finally replied with a sigh, "• Well, I suppose we must have up the Bible " I and up the good book came. Balancing the book on the cushion enabled us to balance the lamp on the book, and by that sickly light T addressed the in- visible, keeping one eye fixed on the lamp lest it should slide off the Bible and commit us to kero- sene flames. By some queer coincidence, the first words I uttered were. Now try again I Of course the audience believed it to be an interpolation, and again we all laughed. Before the conclusion of the lecture, however, no less than three kerosene lamps shed their refulgent rays upon the multi- tude, and we retired in good order. And what happened next day % Owing to the urbanity of grand and lofty magnates, an express train was good-naturedly stopped at a way station where I w^as engaged for that evening. I had no sooner alighted than a number of persons sur- rounded me with mouths agape and interrogatory eyes. IN TUB DARK. 33 " Who 's dead % Where 's the body 1 " asked a small, thin man, breathless with running and ex- citement. "'Dead'? 'Body'? What do you mean 1 No- body is dead that I am aware of." " Well, we all thought somebody must be dead, for that afternoon express never stops unless there 's a corpse aboard, and I looked out for it the fust thing. If nobody 's dead," continued my interrogator in an injured and disappointed tone, " you must be somebody.-'' " Reckon I can guess who it is," piped up a precocious young gentleman of twelve. " It 's her ! " pointing from me to a very big bill of the evening's lecture. " Should n't wonder," muttered the original in- terlocutor, at which discovery the promiscuous assembly dispersed, evidently feeling I was not all their fancy painted. Who is all anybody's fancy paints % My fancy has had so many shocks, that now I am thankful when my gods and god- desses are not very wicked as to morals and very frightful as to appearance. 9* JOHN BROWN'S FRIENDS. LACES where, upon entering, I have left all hope behind, some incident will ever after associate with pleasant memories. " Not a person in this audience," thought I to myself one night, "has the least sympathy with old John Brown." A moment later and there stood before me a fine-looking man saying, " I am the clergyman you spoke of this evening in refer- rino; to the burial of John Brown." "And I," remarked another man, "was the only person in this town that closed his store and draped it in mourning the day John Brown was executed. They threatened to raise a riot ; but they took it out in swearing and hating me." Such a quiet little man as he was ! And it is just such quiet little men that are the bravest. An- other like him came to me elsewhere, when T was doubting the audience, saying, " I am your debtor to-night. When John Brown was hung, I was JOHN BROWN'S FRIENDS. 35 the first to call an indignation meeting, and hot work we had. The very people that have listened to you to-night called us cut-throats and trai- tors." The only hiss I ever heard was drowned by the musical voice of a young colored girl, who, with tears in her eyes, exclaimed, " God bless you for telling the truth about John Brown ! " The hero of Harper's Ferry has not as many friends to-day as he will have fifty years hence, but the man who fought a lifetime for one idea can wait a century for immortal justice. When, before leaving the North Woods, I made a pil- grimage to John Brown's farm, I saw his name carved on the face of the huge boulder lying at the head of his grave, as if cast for the purpose from God Almighty's foundry. Plucking roses and buttercups that sprang from the giant's heart, I turned. What ! that humble, unpainted farm-house John Brown's home ! I stood upon the threshold and knocked in vain. Trying the door, it opened, and, venturing to enter, I saw signs of habitation, but none of comfort. There seemed to be no angel in the house. A portrait of John Brown, a few memorial wreaths, snatched from some recent grave, were the only visible remains of sentiment. Several men w^ere pitching hay in a field near by, and when I hailed them, one sad man came for- 36 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. ward to bid me return. He was the owner of the form, for John Brown's homestead was no longer the property of his famil}^, although it had been his wish that there they should remain. " I am Alexis Hinckley," said the thin, sad man. ''My sister married John Brown's son Salmon, who went West and is now in California. Mrs. Brown was very lonely without any of her chil- dren, and, in order to join Salmon, sold the farm in 1863 for eight h mid red dollars. She did not w^ant it to go out of the family, and so I bought it. But I do not feel like staying here any longer. I buried my wife last wdnter. The place is not what it used to be, and, in fact, I must sell it. I have spent money upon it, and I have offered it for two thousand dollars." " Does that plat of land go with the farm 1 " I asked, looking from the window to the spot where "John Brown's body lay mouldering in the grave." "0 no ! That is reserved by Mrs. Brown. There are two hundred and forty-four acres, and one thousand dollars' w^orth of timber." So John Brown's farm was for sale ! One month later I told this story in Boston ; it was heard in New York, and forty-eight hours after the echo reached Gold Street every share in the stock was taken. It is fitting, therefore, JOHN BROWN'S FRIENDS. 37 that the names of those New York men should be made public : — Isaac H. Bailey .... . $100 John E. Williams . 100 William H. Lee 100 George A. Robbins . 100 George Cabot Ward . 100 Henry Clews . 100 D. Randolph Martin . 100 Le Grand B. Cannon . 100 Charles S. Smith 100 S. B. Chittenden . . 100 Isaac Sherman .... 100 Jackson S. Schultz . 100 Elliott C. Cowdin . 100 Thomas Murphy . . 100 Charles G. Judson 100 Salem H. Wales . . 100 Sinclair Tousey 100 Horace -B. Claflin . . 100 A Boston Woman 100 Kate Field .... . 100 Henceforth and forevermore the farm will be held as historic ground, and as proof that even in the nineteenth century there is such a thing as poetic justice. " You will ruin yourself as a lecturer if you insist upon eulogizing John Brown," exclaimed a 38 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. clever friend, who had often. felt the public pulse and feared its fluctuations. "Then let me be ruined." Was the prophet right 1 Did I not make friends worth all those who hated me for praising " the gamest man " GoYernor Wise " ever saw " 1 I am grateful. and content ! I shall be more con- tent when John Brown's farm becomes the centre of New York's greatest park. The Adirondacks were intended by Nature to be the Eastern pleas- ure-ground of the United States. TRUE STORIES. i|MONG the pleasing features of lecturing, as of every other public profession, is ac- cidentally *' assisting " at criticisms of one's self To see ourselves as others see us is the ardent desire of all human beings ; but as cool- ing one's eyes and ears at keyholes is " more hon- ored in the breach than in the observance," honest people are not likely to assist at an exposition of unvarnished truth, unless it be by chance. A strange sensation comes over you in hearing it. You feel as if you were out of your own skin and were contemplating a jury sitting in judgment on your other self, — holding a species of ante-mortem inquest. '' Well, I declare ! " said a woman behind whom I stood while waiting for the crowd to disperse. " Call that lecturing ! Why, she talked just as she would any time, just like people in conversa- tion : that is n't lecturino:." 40 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. " I thought the lecture was good enough," re- plied her companion, " but did you ever see such affected manners'?" It was quite cheering after this dialogue to over- hear one committee-man say to another, — I was wrapped in furs and quite unknown in conse- quence, — "I expected we 'd been sold on this lecture, but I declare it was a great deal better than I believed it would be," " How did you like the lecture 1 " asked a woman of a man sitting before me in the cars. " 0, pretty well ! " ' " What was it about 1 " "Dickens." "What did she say]" " Well, she said a good many things. She cracked him up a lot, but for my part I don't see that he writes any better than other folks." " How she does dress ! " exclaimed a woman elsewhere. " She wears a train and looks like a fashion-plate ! That is n't the way to reform the world. No woman has any business to lecture who does not wear a short dress. Curls too ! " "What do the papers say of last night's lec- ture 1 " inquired a gentleman of a lady opposite me in a Western car. " The Democratic paper speaks very highly of TRUE STORIES. 41 it, but the Eepublican paper finds fault with her pronunciation and says she is stage}^" " I never knew a Democratic paper to tell the truth about anything," answered the gentleman. " Lies are their daily bread. What the " G " says is always about right. I 'm glad I did n't go." " Who is she any way 1 " asked one woman of another, both being my neighbors in travelling. " Why, she 's the daughter of that rich pub- lisher, you know. She is n't obliged to lecture. She does it for excitement. When she 's at home she never can keep still, always going to theatres and reporting the plays, which / think is very uu- feminine ; and she drives fast horses, and some- body told me the other day that she smoked. I dare say it 's true, for any woman that will report such low things as theatres is quite likely to smoke. It 's sad, — is n't it % " Yes, it is sad that men and women cannot es- cape calumny. Shakespeare never conceived a truer line than when he wrote, " It is as easy as lying." If people only talked about what they knew, a profound silence would settle upon society, and a large reward would be offered for an answer to the conundrum originally propounded by Pon- tius Pilate: "What is truth 1" The onlv con- 42 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. solation — poor indeed — is that everybody falls a victim to slander. On one occasion a woman came up to me after my lecture, saying, "My name is . I came here expecting to hear an account of Mr. Dickens's domestic relations. He was a bad man, a very bad man, and I am ver^/ sorry that you, a woman, praise him." " And how about Dickens's drinking 1" asked a sharp-visaged man. "You know he was a confirmed drunkard." It was useless to assert that I did not know any- thing of the sort. Poor human nature likes to believe the worst of its kind, and there are those who feel personally injured at praise of others. One touch of scandal makes the whole world kin. Only exhibit the weaknesses of the great, and a glow of satisfaction suffuses the faces of the little. It is proof positive of the noble democratic dogma that " one man is as good as another, — and better too." In one city Dickens was so impopular on ac- count of having told the truth about it thirty years ago, that I was desired to change my sub- ject ; but overcoming prejudice by promising to give a second lecture if at the conclusion of "Dickens" the audience remained dissatisfied, I was allowed to carry out the original programme. The second lecture was not called for by the TRUE STORIES. 43 audience. Whether it was because of a change of heart or. of complete exhaustion, and conse- quent inability to endure the strain of another hour, I cannot state with certainty. It being a fiict in natural history that all creatures hunt in couples, I felt morally certain that sooner or later I should find a man in the West to match the Yankee who had never heard of Dickens. Find him I did in a negro of suave manners who waited upon me at a large hotel in Ohio. Deep in the contemplation of an advertise- ment of the lecture at the bottom of the bill of fare, which I regarded with less relish than the announcement of " beef, veal, and pork," my pro- found studies were interrupted by the unexpected appearance of the waiter, who seemed to be de- sirous of indulging in conversation. Looking up for further enlightenment. Sambo made bold to say, " Excuse me, miss, but are you the lady that is to lecture to-night % " "Yes." " I 've read a great deal about you in the papers." *' Indeed ? The papers, you know, do not always tell the truth." At this my colored brother grinned, and with a gallantry that would have done credit to a courtier 44 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. replied, " I am quite sure they have told the truth in this instance." Ah, I knew what this meant. The flattery was not disinterested. My friend wanted passes. " Would you like to hear the lecture % " Sambo rubbed his hands with satisfaction, de- clared he would, and went off to communicate with the other waiters, who stood in a corner watching the interview. Soon Sambo returned, and, scratching his head, said, " Excuse me, miss, but I 'd like to have a pass for me and my girl. She reads better than I do." " Very well. You shall have a pass for two." Sambo thanked me profusely, again retired, and again returned, scratching his head with greater vigor than before. " Beg pardon, miss ; but who is this Dickson % Is he the 7nan that makes paper collars 1 I 've read a great deal about him." " Not Dickso?i at all ! V>\Qkens, the great novelist." Sambo . w\as perplexed; Sambo ruminated; Sambo rubbed his right hand up and down his riffht leg", and then exclaimed with considerable animation, " 0, 1 know ! I suppose he 's the feller that writes the Dime Novels ! " I gave Sambo a small amount of currency on TRUE STORIES. 45 condition that he would buy Pickwick and read it. Alas ! I fear Sambo was a fraud. Two very white people presented that pass ; and as Sambo did not wait upon me the next morning, I suspect he sold the pass at half price and invested in whiskey rather than in Pickwick. Mrs. Gamp would call him " a twining sarpiant." I forgive him. It is perhaps singular that the only ser- vants who ever asked for tickets were colored, — one old man amusing an audience more than I did, I thought, by occasionally rising and exclaiming, " Glory ! " But if Ohio harbors that deceitful man and brother, it is likewise the home of a woman who more than makes amends for his depravity. This good woman absolutely worships Dickens, burning a candle under his portrait as Catholics burn candles at the household shrines of the Virgin. She reads nothing but Dickens, and when the great man came to America she wrote" to him re- questing to know whether he intended to visit the West. Receiving a reply in Dickens's own hand- writing, her joy knew no bounds, and as her hero could not leave the East, she declared her inten- tion of going to New York. Jones, her husband, demurred ; but upon being waked up one night and told that, if he did not give her the money to 46 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. travel like a Christian, she would walk, Jones succumbed. Mrs. Jones went to New York, had a private interview with Dickens, attended several of his readings, and returned home more rabid than ever. When the telegraph brought the news of Dickens's sudden decease, she mourned for her dearest friend. Not manj^ months after, Mrs. Jones's sister died. Owing to the illness of this sister's husband, whom she was obliged to nnrse, Mrs. Jones could not attend the funeral, and on the return of the other members of the family, they found her reading in a tearful voice to the sick and bereaved man. Was it the Bible ] No, Pichioich! and as a relative approached the bed Mrs. Jones burst into tears, exclaiming, " The saddest part of it all is to think that dear Sarah died before I had finished reading ' Martin Chuz- zlewit ' to her ; and now she '11 never, never, never know how it ends ! 0, it is too bad ! " CONCERNING AUDIENCES. HE public is a monster more dreadful to face than lion, mastodon, or behemoth, for what other monsters will do to you is always a dead certainty, but this extraordinary creature is as inscrutable as fate itself, and can no more be calculated upon than the winds of heaven or the New York stock market. It has more heads than the hydra could multiply in a lifetime. There is a different head for every com- munity, a different expression for every head ; and though you may entertain no very exalted opinion of this monster's individual members, yet when those members are united in one body, you quail before them as before no other potentate. United they brand, divided they pall. The lecturer's position is exceptional. Actor, singer, and reader generally remain sufficiently long in one place to establish a certain raioport between themselves and their audiences, but the LX 48 - A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. lecturer is a creature of mushroom growth, com- ing up in a night and disappearing the next morn- ing. His career is a constant series of first appear- ances, than which there can be nothing more trying to the nerves. Changing Hke a human kaleidoscope, he can never judge of the future by the past. History may repeat itself, but lecturing experi- ences never do. Though towns be but a dozen miles apart, they have their idiosyncrasies. One will receive you -with the warmth of the tropics, whereas its neighbor, believing that silence is golden, enforces the maxim rigidly, and not until the committee or the next day's paper pronounces a verdict do you know^ the state of public opinion. To command profound attention is supposed to be the speaker's greatest triumph ; nevertheless, there is no such inspiration as applause, and if lyceum audiences fully realized this fact, they woiild be more likely to cultivate audible recognition of pleasure received. The delight of Continental au- diences is their quick response to the artist's touch. The Italian " Bravo ! " following instantly upon a thought well expressed or deed well done, is a perpetual stimulant that cannot fail to pro- duce the best results of which the artist is capa- ble. In America, the finest orator receives less CONCERNING AUDIENCES. 49 applause than the ordhiary actor or singer. To recall them at the conclusion of their peroration is rare, even Dickens being no exception. Yet the lecturer really needs more extraneous support than the dramatic artist. He stands in his own person, on a cold, barren platform, un- aided by scenic effects or costume, and for an hour or more is expected to speak uninterruptedly and in such a manner as to constantly entertain. It is a tremendous ordeal, and whoever succeeds in passing it deserves hearty applause during per- formance as well as hearty praise after it. The same people who grow boisterous over a me- diocre rendering of an English ballad will receive new ideas without the changing of a muscle. Political references, personal attacks, or broad humor, will bring down the house when neat anec- dote, wit, and delicate satire fail to extort more than a smile. If a lecturer were his own audience, how marvellous would be the appreciation ! I think it is Mr. Parton who classifies audiences into "the still-attentives," "the hard-to-lifts," "the quick-responsives," "the won't-applauds," and "the get-up-and-go-outs." The higher the order of in- telligence, the less applause, but with this class there is something in the atmosphere that makes the speaker feel at ease. " Still-attentives " are in 3 D 60 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. the majority, while " quick-responsives " form a charming minority. University towns are the lecturer's boon. Culture combined with young blood is prone to enthusiasm. Next in sympathy are capitals. Abuse politicians as we may, it is no less a fact that audiences containing a large percentage of legislators are more intelligently alive than almost any others. Combine univer- sity with legislature, as in the case of Madison, the beautiful capital of Wisconsin, and the lec- turer attains the acme of his desires. This refer- ence to Madison reminds me of a treasure its His- torical Society possesses in the fac-simile of an epitaph taken from a tombstone in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and which is too unique to remain in obscurity. It touchingly describes the death of a youth, killed by a Coifs revolver. The illus- tration is worthy of the artist of the period. CONCERNING AUDIENCES. 51 SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF HENRY HARRIS, Born June 27, 1821 of Henry Harris and Jane his wife, Died on the 4th of May 1837 by the kick of a colt in his bowels. Peaceable and qniet, a friend to his father and mother and respected by all who knew him, and went to the world where horses don't kick, wliere sorrows and weeping is no more. But a truce to colts; cb nos moutons! It is a mistake to suppose that demonstratiou increases in the ratio of distance from the Atlantic coast. Warmth of manner is not in the least a matter of latitude or longitude. Like the good city of Bos- ton, the West produces the coldest as well as the most responsive of audiences ; but whoever im- agines small New England towns to be intellectual- ly superior to those in the West that have been built up by Yankee energy and enterprise, is laboring under a lamentable delusion. Many por- tions of the new territory are New England with all the modern improvements of generous hos- pitality, toleration, frankness, and taking a man for what he is, rather than for what, his ancestry ivas. " Well, you see," said an Eastern man to a 52 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. Chicago merchant, in sounding the praises of a recent importation from Philadelphia-, " he comes of a very good family. His grandfather was a very distinguished man." " Was he ? " replied the incorrigible Westerner. " That won't wash in these regions. There 's less Daddyism here than in any other part of the United States. What 's he himself ? " Daddyism is an in- spiration. Let it be recorded in the coming Dic- tionary of Americanisms. Without wishing to believe Buckle's theory, that in every age just so many people go to the bad, by committing murder, arson, etc., etc., the statistics of observation lead me to solemnly as- severate that even in the best of audiences one person must go to sleep and one person must get up and go out. In every instance this one person is of the masculine gender. The sleeper is middle-aged, frequently gray- headed, often given to spectacles. His head wags slowly like a reversed pendulum, keeping time to the measure of his dreams. As a rule, he dozes quietly ; occasionally he snores, and, waking up at the sound of his own voice, becomes deliciously absurd in his endeavor to look thoroughl}?^ inno- cent of the indiscretion. If he can distract at- tention from himself by applauding the lecturer. CONCERNING AUDIENCES. 53 he does it with a cordiaUty worthy of imitation, and in five minutes more — is wrapped in a child- hke slumber. To some constitutions there is no narcotic hke a lecture. I wonder that it is not prescribed by the regular faculty. The dose is generally allopathic, and far less serious in its re- sults than " chloral." I am not of those who be- lieve that it permanently affects the brain. Uhomme qui dort is at least quiet, but the get- up-and-go-outer is an unmitigated nuisance for whose suppression a law should be passed. He waits until the lecturer is reciting a pathetic poem or is endeavoring to produce his best effect, and then, starting from the point farthest from the door, drags his slow length along. Like the old woman at Banbury Cross, he makes music wher- ever he goes, for there is music in his soles. Creak, creak, creak, until every head is turned and every eye watches the progress of those boots with extraordinary interest and attention. There is " nothing like leather " in the lecture-room ; and if any profound student in hides and human na- ture will tell me why country boots totally eclipse city boots in noise, and why sane men and women, almost without exception and under every circum- stance of church, theatre, and lyceum, ivill turn round to watch the progress of get-up-and-go-out- 54 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. ers, he will confer a lasting favor. Concentration of mind is the rarest of all acquirements. Good talkers are far more numerous than good listeners, and I pity the angel Gabriel if he expects to ob- tain undivided attention on the Day of Judgment. The only possibility of preserving order will be by confiscating all the boots before looking after any of the souls. Once, if not oftener, in a lecturer's career, he will undergo the humiliation of seeing a trium- phant rival in a newspaper. I shall never for- get a young woman in a yellow bonnet and green shawl, who one evening sat before me reading the '' New York Ledger." I do not believe she heard one w^ord I said. She did not once raise her eyes ; she never moved, except to turn a page, and I was so much more interested in her than she was in me, as on several occasions to almost forget myself in my intense desire to know the title of the absorbing story. As it was very long, and was adorned with very black and white wood- cuts, I fancy it must have been written by Syl- vanus Cobb, Jr. Gabriel will have a difficult sub- ject in this young wonian, if the " Ledger " be continued in another world. GOING UP THE OHIO. T is quite possible to travel on an Ohio steamboat and not come to an untimely end. I have tried it and still live ; but the tortures endured that first expeiimental night "lambs cannot forgive, nor worms forget." and " All boats has their day on the Mississip," With " Jim Bludso" in my pocket, I expected while in bed To go up like any rocket, And come down as good as dead. It was a black night, and the red-hot cinders as they shot past the window looked like the fiery eyes of devouring monsters. "Capital things to set fire to a boat," I thought. " Nice inflammable material down below, too, that I saw going aboard. A few cinders properly disposed are all that is ne- cessary to make ghosts of us ' Afore the smokestacks fall.' " 56 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. What a creature a high-pressure engine is ! It snorts and puffs and blows like a whale with the asthma ! It shivers its timbers like an ele- phant with the ague ! It careens and cracks as though an earthquake were at hand. It has greater capacity for doing more uncomfortable things than any inanimate creature that ever breathed. 'Whenever an exposition of sleep came upon me, we made a landing, and then the thun- ders of heaven were as nothing to the rumbling and grumbling of discharging freight. Whenever I thought of becoming reconciled to the situation, a terrific yell, unequalled by the most fiendish war-whoop, signalled the approach of a " down " steamer, and the possibilities of a lively collision were added to other pleasures of the imagination. Nothing happened, however, and the surprise at being alive the next morning, with such favorable opportunities for an impromptu and inexpensive funeral, gave me a confidence in Western steam- boats from which I shall never recover. Daylight brought with it a novel phase of life, for he who has never passed a day in a Western pilot- house knows nothing of one of the most interest- ing modes of travelling. It may snow and blow, but there, in your tight little glass house high in the air, you can put your feet on a red-hot stove. GOING UP THE OHIO. 57 and bid defiance to the elements, while vour eye embraces the landscape far and near. And a beautiful landscape it often is on the sinuous Ohio, well christened years ago " la belle riviere." But why called " Ohio " ? Nobody seems to know, although there are two popular answers to this question ; the first being that when three Indians (three people, generally three brothers, always dis- cover everything) first beheld this river, one ex- claimed, "01" the second " Hi ! " and the third " ! " which rapturous exclamations become, by a short sum in addition, Ohio ! The second answer, drawing less upon the credulity, maintains that 0, hi, 0, were the syllables sung by the Indians in keeping time with their oars as they rowed up and dow^n the river. Whatever its origin, the word is as rich and round in sound as the great State is in fact. Sight is not the only faculty gratified in this glass house where one may throw stones to the top of one's bent without fear of the retort courteous. The pilot-house is the steamboat exchange where the favored few seek refuge when they would escape from the cabin's terrible silence and all-per- vading melancholy. There, when off duty, the captain ■" loafs and invites his soul," there the pilot may be interviewed, there all the stories are told, 3* 58 A LECTUEER'S NOTE-BOOK. and there all the laughmg is done. I have rarely felt more at home than in that Ohio pilot-house, for every man present was a thoroughly natural, manly character, with the instincts of a gentleman. The captain's clothes had not been cut by a fashion- able tailor, but, strange as it may seem, this did not render him the less chivalrous. There was something absolutely touching in the gentleness and courtesy of that great, strong, externally rough, internally big-hearted man. And the esti- mate he had of women m.ade me feel that I for one ought to go to work to deserve it. '^ Why, there 's no doubt about it, women are a great deal better than men. I think they 're superior to us all round. I don't take to woman suffrage, be- cause it seems to me that women have more to do now than they can attend to. They are worked to death. I don't think the Lord ever intended they should have so much put upon them ; men are stronger, and ought to take care of them." " That 's all right enough," replied a male pas- senger, "but what has work got to do with suffrage 1 Tell me that. It is n't going to increase women's cares. It 's going to make them think more, but thinking does n't hurt people ; it 's good for them. Women are not obliged to hold office if they don't want to. And how much time does voting re- GOING UP THE OHIO. 59 quire 1 Not half as much as making a call and serving up a dish of gossip. I tell you what it is, this woman's suffrage has got to come, and it 's going to give w^omen the same rights ive have, and it is n't going to make them less women either. That 's what you 're all afraid of." " Well," said the captain, " I can't quite see it; but if women want to vote, I '11 never oppose them. They generally want to do what 's about the thing, and I don't think men have any right to tell them what they shall and what they sha' n't do." " That 's it," answered the passenger. " Try the thing on yourself, and see how you like it." " I believe in letting women have their own waj^" said the pilot, who until then had preserved an unbroken silence. "Guess they can't make matters worse than they are," *' That 's so," echoed a voice ; and for an hour the pros and co)is of woman suffrage were dis- cussed in a spirit that might be imitated by Beacon Street and Fifth Avenue with great profit. Every man kept his temper. Nobody called any- body " unwomanly," or " scoundrel," or " fool," or " shrieking sisterhood," which last is the most recent pet name of derision ; and the final verdict rendered was " to do the right thing by woman, and make her man's equal before the law." 60 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. Naturally enough the conversation turned upon the " New York Tribune," the one subject about ■which every human being in the United States has an opinion. Then spake a wonderfully preserved old man, who looked young enough to be Mr. Greelev's son. " Why, I 'm as old as Horace Greeley, and I re- member when he started the ' New-Yorker.' I was a New-Yorker myself at that time. Good gracious, how that city has changed ! I remember I owned a large lot on the corner of Broadway and Canal Street. Bless you, I sold it one day at what I considered a bargain ! If I 'd only held on, I 'd have been worth a sight of money. And Horace, — well, he 's fought it out on one line all these years, and I must say he 's done first-rate on the whole. He 's got the queerest lot of kinks in his head of any sensible man I ever knew, but, after all, he 's on the right side. He 's honest, and that 's more than you can say for the rest of 'em. I get as mad — why, I get as mad as — well, no matter what — with the " Tribune " sometimes, and I tell my wife I '11 stop it, but she brings me to my senses by asking me how I 'm to better myself. So I hang on, and, take it all round, get my money's worth. But we were talking about lecturing," he continued. " Well, now, there 's Western Virginia ; why don't GOING UP THE OHIO. 61 yon make us a visit, and tell the people of the United States what a great country it is, and what undeveloped resources it has % There is n't a man in Washington knows anything about it. Every- body goes tearing off to California, and here 's something under their very noses they won't look at. Wh}^ even Horace Greeley pretends to visit Virginia, but he hangs round Norfolk, and goes home as ignorant of the western part of the old State as when he went. We never took to slav- ery. We were always on the other side of the fence, and none of you writers come near us. All we require is to be written up. Why don't the Yankee girls come down and give us a few lessons in matters and things % I know we 're all pretty rough, but I tell you we 've got 'grit,' and every one of those girls would find a first-rate husband. Instead of which they stay there in Massachusetts and live and die old maids. I tell you it is n't right. They ought to leave home. The country needs them, and if they knew what 's good for them as well as I do, they would. There 's no more reason why women should stick in one place than men. I believe in work for everybody. These dolls of girls that do nothing, what do they amount to % They ain't worth their feed. They 're just about as much use in the world as poodles, and I 'd 62 . A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. enough sight rather board a poodle, for he costs less. I tell you society is all wrong, and we 've got to have a revolution if we want republican institutions to last. We 've got rid of slavery, and now we must get rid of all these confounded notions about what makes ladies and gentlemen. I want to see full-length men and. women, / do." By all means let us have them, instead of these quarter-views. "How do these people communicate with the world "? " I asked, pointing to isolated shanties on the banks of the river. " Where do they go for letters and papers 1 " " They don't communicate. They never go any- where for letters and papers. Most of 'em can't read," answered the pilot. " Whom do they vote for % " '* General Jackson ! " " Well, you may laugh, but it 's true," said a gentleman. " I happened into one of these shan- ties shortly after the war, and the man asked me my name. ' Grant,' I replied." " Seems to me I 've heard that name before. He fit in the war, did n't he ] " " Yes." " I thought so, hut I don't remember which side he Jit o/i." GOING UP THE OHIO. 63 And this is enlightened, newspaper-reading, pa- triotic America ! Conversation flagging, I took " Jim Bludso " from my pocket, and, handing it to my friend the captain, asked him what he thought of it. The captain, who had been poking the fire, sat down and read the poem through once, twice, thrice. " Well," said he at last, " I ain't no great hand at poetry, but this is sort of in my line. He 's got some terms a little out of the perpendicular, and he 's got engineer and pilot a little mixed ; other- wise he 's hit it pretty well. About the truest thing he says is ' One wife in Natchez-under-the-Hill, And another one here in Pike.' Here, Jim, you read it." And the captain stood at the wheel while "Jim " read the poem with an in- terested expression of face. " Yes, he 's played Hail Columbia with a few things, but it ain't bad." " Let me study that poetry. Let me keep it till I stop for you going down day after to-morrow, and then I '11 tell you just what I think about it," said the captain, carefully folding up " Jim Blud- so " and putting it in his vest-pocket. • Alas ! " day after to-morrow " never came. The 64 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. captain was detained up the river by freight, tele- graphed his regrets, I was obhged to descend to the ignominy of car travelUDg, and Colonel Hay will never know the final judgment upon "Jim Bludso." RUMINATING ANIMALS. " In the fourth century a powerful but perverse sectary im- bibed the idea that the air was filled with unholy legions, and that it inhaled devils at every breath. Brooding over this fantasy, it gradually became to him the most important and reasonable of truths, and he started a new heresy, — that of the Messalians, — which made spitting a religious exercise, in the hope of casting out the devils thus breathed in. In traA^elling in our steamboats and railroad cars, one sometimes suspects that this belief has numerous American disciples, as it is the only religion whose rites are there scrupulously observed, and as the constant invocation of its worshippers appears to be, ' Expectoration, heavenly maid, descend ! ' " E. P. Whipple. T must be so, otherwise what does it mean 1 Or is it with men as with horned cattle that always keep a cud in their mouths'? "If the creature happens to lose its cud," says Dr. Holmes on the authority of his bucohc friends, "it must have an artificial one given it, or it will pine, and perhaps die." Is the quid as necessary to man as the cud to horned cattle ] Can he discover no qiiid pro quo for his E l^-y^l^ ^^m 66 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. present disgusting habit 1 How much more of a beast is he in his quid-ddtiQS than horned cattle in their cud-ditiQ^ ! Who ever saw four-legged animals expectorate] They ruminate without detriment to the green carpet beneath their feet, while two-legged man carries ruin in his trail. Better a slimy hippopotamus or a A^entilated kerosene tank for a travelling neighbor than a great American spitter ! In steamboats you can escape the rain of ter- ror. Ruminating animals have a cabin to them- selves, where, planting their feet on the stove, they can in mute conclave "spit round sociable." But the hair-breadth 'scapes by flood in cars are of a nature to try the patience of Job himself. Like the coui'se of empire, Westward Expectoration takes its way, and the farther you leave the Atlantic Ocean behind you, the nearer you are to an ocean of another color, that is by no means favorable to navigation. To champion chewers the floor of a car is one vast spittoon, and he is the best fellow who covers the greatest amount of surface. What their aim will be it is impossible to calculate, for they fire as wildly as did our friend Winkle when he aimed at rooks and brought down Tupman's RUMINATING ANIMALS. 67 arm. There are chewers who do " a neat thine: " in expectoration, hitting a stove at ten paces, but they are rare. The common variety pursue an irregular method of warfare, and are as indifferent to pubUc opinion as though pubhc opinion did not exist. They do not seem to know that they are not models of deportment. "Sometimes I feel just like pitching those tobacco-chewing fellows out of the window," said a conductor of a "through" sleeping-car, not long ago. "We go to an awful sight of expense getting up these cars, and just to head off these fellows we put a big spittoon in every section, but it don't do one par- ticle of good. Whenever they can choose between a new velvet carpet and a spittoon, darned if they don't make for the carpet ! I was tickled enough the other day. One of those chewers was at it, and, getting tired of his own side of the car, he took to firing in the aisle, and the lady in the opposite seat began to gather up her skirts. Finally he got so near that she could n't stand it any longer. " ' Mister,' said she, ' where do you live when you are at home ? ' '' ' With my wife.' " ' Do you keep house '? ' "'Yes.' " ' What sort of a house is it ] ' 68 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. " ' Very nice house.' " ' Do you spit about it as you are spitting about this car % ' " ' Yes, madam ; I do as I please in my own house.' " ' Then, sir, I advise 3^ou to stay at home, for people who don't please to be decent ought never to be permitted to travel.' " Well, I never saw a fellow so taken down. At first he did n't see what was coming, but that last hit was an eye-opener. He looked mad, but did n't dare to say anything, and after that he fired out of the window." I am persuaded that women are to blame for the continuance of a vile habit peculiar to this country, for if they protested against it the remedy might be found. Many men who chew are as good and generous and gentlemanly (at heart) as the best in the land ; and if the girls whom they love did their duty, American society would be a much pleasanter spectacle than it is at present. y^/^A woman "weakly and amiably in the right is no match for " a man " tenaciously and pugnaciously in the wrong." The majority of women are mere figure-heads, for the reason that they possess neither sufiicient character nor courage to protest against anything. They are neuter verbs, and RUMINATING ANIMALS. 69 whatever is, is to he. If women are better than men, it is time they gave some evidence of it by improving the tone of society. I shall never for- get a recent scene in a hotel parlor, of which 1 was a curious and astounded spectator. Two very young men w^ere "keeping company" with two young girls. The two couples occupied two sofas in two corners of the room, a huge stove acting as a species of barricade between them. One young man wore his hat, and sat with his feet elevated at an obtuse angle. He held his sweetheart's hand, and she smiled upon him blandly. The other young man lay upon the other sofa diversifying the entertainment by uninterrupted expectoration, selecting the stove for a target. Being energeti- cally devoted to this romantic action, the latter was not equal to any outward demonstration of affec- tion, so he put both of his hands in his pockets. Inamorata Number Two seemed to be perfectly satisfied ; at least she looked so. My first glimpse of these charming groups was at two o'clock in the afternoon. Upon returning at four o'clock, their positions were the same. At seven in the even- ing, the bulletin of observation announced " no change." For aught I know, these lovers may have become rooted to the spot. Now a few words of kindlv remonstrance to Lover Number 70 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. One would have put his hat and boots where thoy belonged. The case of Lover Number Two re- quired more heroic treatment, for women have but one more powerful and defiant rival than tobacco, and that is alcohol ; nevertheless, 1 have known men to renounce tobacco quids for the women they loved, and the man who will not sacrifice a vice to gain affection is not worth having. Both young fellows looked thoroughly good-natured, and might have been made better had their sweethearts realized the situation ; but when women are as callous as men, where is the hope of improvement 1 If such swains marry, their children will be as uncouth as themselves. What a pity it is that public schools do not teach manners as well as reading, writing, and arith- metic ! Fancy a man talking sentiment with two yellow rivulets flowing from the corners of his mouth ! But what is the use of expostulating 1 As a great English writer once said privately, " People nowa- days can be tickled into anything, frightened into most things, beaten into all but common-sense, kicked anywhere but into heaven, — but talked into nothing ! " So long as " Neptune chewing to- bacco" (how significant the name !) is advertised, the ocean of Expectoration will flow on. A RIVAL ENTERTAINMENT. ONCE heard a bright child declare that if circuses were prohibited in heaven, she did not wish to go there. She had been baptized, was under Christian influences, and, previous to this heterodoxy, had never given her good parents a moment's anxiety. Her naive ut- terance touched a responsive chord within my own breast, for well did I remember how gloriously the circus shone by the light of other days ; how the ring-master, in a wrinkled dress-coat, seemed the most enviable of mortals, being on speaking terms with all the celestial creatures who jumped over flags and through balloons ; how the clown was the dearest, funniest of men : how the young ath- letes in tights and spangles were my heau-ideah of masculinity ; and how La Belle Rose, with one foot upon her native heath, otherwise a well-padded saddle, and the other pointed in the direction of the sweet little cherubs that sat up aloft, was the 72 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. most fascinating of her sex. I am persuaded that circuses fill an aching void in the universe. What children did before their invention I shudder to think, for circuses are to childhood what butter is to bread; and what the world did before the birth of Barnum is an almost equally frightful problem. fSome are born to shows, others attain shows, and yet again others have shows thrust upon them. Barnum is a born showman. If ever a man ful- filled his destiny, it is the discoverer of Tom Thumb. With the majority of men and women life is a failure. Not until one leg dangles in the gTave is their rccison d'etre disclosed. The round people always find themselves sticking in the square holes, and vice versa; but with Barnum we need not deplore a vie manquee. We can smile at his reverses, for even the phoenix has cause to blush in his presence. Though pursued by tongues of fire, Barnum remains invincible when iron, stone, and mortar crumble around him ; and while yet the smoke is telling volumes of destruction, the cheery voice of the showman exclaims, "Here you are, gentlemen ; admission fifty cents, children half price." Aproj)os of Barnum, once in my life I gave my- self up to unmitigated joy. Weary of lecturing, singing the song " I would I were a boy again," I A RIVAL ENTERTAINMENT. 73 went to see the elephant. To speak truly, I saw not one elephant, but half a dozen. I had a feast of roaring and a flow of circns. In fact I indulged in the wildest dissipation. I visited Barnum's cir- cus and sucked peppermint candy in a way most childlike and bland. The reason seems obscure, but circuses and peppermint candy are as insepa- rable as peanuts and the Bowery. Appreciating this solemn fact, Barnum provides bigger sticks adorned with bigger red stripes than ever Romans sucked in the palmy days of the Coliseum. In the dim distance I mistook them for barbers' poles, but upon direct application I recognized them for my long lost own. However, let me, like the Germans, begin with the creation. '' Here, ladies and gentlemen, is for sale Mr. Barnum's Autobiography, full of interest and anecdote, one of the most charming produc- tions ever issued from the press, 900 pages, 32 full- page engravings, reduced from $ 3.50 to $ 1.50, Every purchaser enters free." How ordinary mortals can resist buying Bar- num's Autobiography for one dollar — such a bar- gain as never was — is incomprehensible. I believe they cannot. I believe they do their duty lilve men. As one man I resisted, because I'belong to the press, and therefore am not mortal. Who ever 4 74 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. heard of a journalist getting a bargain 1 With Spartan firmness I turned a deaf ear to the per- suasive music of the propagandist, and entered where hope is all before. I was not staggered by a welcome from all the Presidents of the United States, Fitz-Greene Halleck, General Hooker, and Gratz Brown. These personages are rather wood- eny and red about the face, as though flushed with victories of the platform or the table, but I recognized their fitness in a menagerie. What athlete has turned more somersaults than some of these representative men 1 What lion has roared more gently than a few of these sucking doves 1 Barnum's tact in appropriately grouping curiosi- ties, living and dead, is too well known to require comment. Passing what Sam Weller would call " a reg'lar knock-down of intellect," I took my seat high in the air amid a dense throng of my fellow- creatures, and realized how many people it takes to make up the world. What did I see '? I saw double. I beheld not one' ring but two, in each of which the uncommon variety of man was dis- porting in an entertaining manner. I felt for these uncommon men. Think what immortal hates must arise from these dual performances ! We all like to receive the reward of merit, but when two performances are going on simulta- A RIVAL ENTERTAINMENT. 75 iieously, how are the artists to know for whom it is intended % Applause is the sweet compensation for which all strive privately or publicly, and to be cheated out of it, or left in doubt as to its destination, is a refined form of the Inquisition. Fancy the sensations of the man balancing plates on the little end of nothing, — a feat to which he has consecrated his life, — at thought of his neigh- bor's performance of impossible feats in the air ! It would be more than human in both not to wish the other in Jericho, or in some equally remote quarter of the globe. I sympathized with them. I became bewildered in my endeavors to keep one eye on each. If human beings were constructed on the same principles as Janus, and had two faces, a fore-and-aft circus would be convenient ; but as nowadays double-faced people only wear . two eyes in their heads, the Barnumian conc^- tion muddles the intellect. I pray jo\x, great and glorious showman, take pity on your artists and your audiences. Don't drive the former mad and the latter distracted. Remember that insanity is on the increase, and that accommodations in asy- lums are limited. Take warning before you under- mine the reason of an entire continent. Beware ! Beware ! I hear much and see more of the physical weak- 76 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. ness of woman. Michelet tells the sentimental world that woman is an exquisite invalid^ with a perennial headache and nerves perpetually on the .rack. It is a mistake. When I gaze upon Ger- man and French peasant-women, I ask Michelet which is right, he or Nature % And since my in- troduction to Barnum's female gymnast, — a good- looking, well-formed mother of a family, who walks about unflinchingly with men and boys on her shoulders, and carries a 300-pound gun as easily as the ordinary woman carries a clothes- basket, — I have been persuaded that " the com- ing woman," like Brother Jonathan, will " lick all creation." In that good time, woman will have her rights because she will have her muscle. Then, if there are murders and playful beatings between husbands and wives, the wives will enjoy all the glory of crime. What an outlook ! And what a sublime consolation to the present en- feebled race of wives that are having their throats cut and their eyes carved out merely because their biceps have not gone into training ! Bar- num's female gymnast is an example to her sex. What woman has done woman may do again. Mothers, train up your daughters in the way they should fight, and when they are married they will not depart this life. God is on the side of the A RIVAL ENTERTAINMENT. 77 stoutest muscle as well as of the heaviest battal- ions. It is perfectly useless to talk about the equality of the sexes as long as a man can strangle his own mother-in-law. I was exceedingly thrilled by the appearance of the two young gentlemen from the Cannibal Islands, who are beautifully embossed in green and red, and compassionated them for the sacrifices they make in putting on blankets and civilization. Is it right to deprive them of their daily bread, — I mean their daily baby % Think what self-restraint they must exercise while gazing upon the toothsome infants that congregate at the circus ! That they do gaze and smack their overhanging lips I know, because, after going through their cannibalistic dance, they sat behind me and howled in a sub- dued manner. The North American Indian who occupied an adjoining seat, favored me with a translation of their charming conversation, by which I learned many important facts concerning man as an article of diet. It appears that babies, after all, do not make the daintiest morsels. Ten- der they are, of course, but, being immature, they have not the rich flavor of a youthful adult. This seems reasonable. Veal is tender, but can it be favorably compared with beefl The cases are parallel. The embossed young men con- 78 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. sider babies excellent for entrees, but for roasts there is nothing like plump maidens in their teens. Men of twenty are not bad eating. When older, they are invariably boiled. Commenting upon the audience, the critics did not consider it appetizing; and, strange as it may appear, I felt somewhat hurt by the remark, for who is not vain enough to wish to look good enough to eat % Fancy being shipwrecked off the Fiji Islands, and dis- carded by cannibals as a tough subject, while your companions are literally killed with attention ! Can you not imagine, that, under such circum- stances, a peculiar jealousy of the superior ten- derness of your friends would be a thorn in the flesh, rendering existence a temporary burden % If we lived among people who adored squinting, should we not all take to it, and cherish it as the apple of our eye ? And if we fell among anthro- pophagi, would not our love of approbation make us long to be as succulent as young pigs % What glory to escape from the jaws of death, if the jaws repudiate us % So long as memory holds a seat in this distracted brain, I shall entertain un- pleasant feelings toward the embossed young gen- tlemen who did not sigh to fasten their affections — otherwise their teeth — on me. It was worse than a crime : it was bad taste. A RIVAL ENTERTAINMENT. 79 Roaming among the wild animals, I made the acquaintance of the cassowary, in which I have been deeply interested since childhood's sunny hours, for then 't was oft I sang a touching hymn running thus : — " If I were a cassowary Far away in Timbuctoo, I should eat a missionary, Hat, and boots, and hymn-book too." From that hour the cassowary occupied a large niche in my heart. The desire to gaze upon a bird capable of digesting food to which even the ostrich never aspired, pursued me by day and tinctured my dreams by night. " What you seek for all your life you will come upon suddenly when the whole family is at dinner," says Thoreau. I met the cassowary at dinner. He was dining alone, having left his family in Africa, and I must say that I never met with a greater disappointment. Were it not for the touching intimation of the hymn, I should believe it impossible for him to eat a missionary. A quieter, more amiable bird never stood on two legs. A polite attendant stirred him up for me, yet his temper and his feathers remained unruffled. Perhaps if our geo- graphical position had changed to Timbuctoo, and I had been a missionary with hymn-book in hand, 80 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. the cassowary might have reahzed my expecta- tions. As it was, one more illusion vanished. In order to regain my spirits, I shook hands with the handsome giant in brass buttons ; and speaking of giants leads me to the subject of all lusus naturce, particularly the Circassian young- lady, the dwarf, the living skeleton, the Albinos, and What-is-it. I have dropped more than one tear at the fate of these unfortunate beings; for what is more horribly solitary than to live in a strange crowd, with "No one to love, None to caress" '? Noah was human. When he retired to the ark, he selected two of a kind from all the animal kingdom for the sake of sociabilit}'- as well as for more practical purposes. Showmen should be equally considerate. To think of those Albino sisters with never an Albino beau, of the Cir- cassian beauty with never a Circassian sweet- heart, of the living skeleton with never an- other skeleton in his closet (how he can look so good-natured would be most mysterious, were not his digestion pronounced perfect), to think of the wretched What-is-it with never a Mrs. What-is-it, produces unspeakable anguish. May they meet their affinities in another and a more A RIVAL ENTERTAINMENT. 81 sympathetic world, where monstrosities are impos- sible for the reason that we leave our bones on earth. Since gazing at the What-is-it, I have be- come a convert to Darwin. It is too true. Our ancestors stood on their hind legs, and the less we talk about pedigree the better. The noble demo- crat in search of a coat-of-arms and a grandfather should visit a grand moral circus. Let us assume a virtue, though we have it not ; let our pride cqje humility. Were I asked which I thought the greater ne- cessity of civilization, lectures or circuses, I should lay my right hand upon my left heart, and exclaim, " Circuses ! " 4* A LECTURE ON MASKS. " Foolery, Sir, does walk about the orb, like the sun ; it shines everywhere. " HOUGH Mrs. General shake her proper head, though she insist upon a steady diet of "potatoes, prunes, and prism,'' the fact cannot be denied that masked balls fill a vacuum abhorred by human nature, — referring, of course, to human nature in a state of ex- treme culture. The aborigines required no such expansion, for the very good reason that they followed the bent of their inclinations on all oc- casions. They were never held in check by a rigorous public opinion. Mrs. Grundy, Monsieiir On Bit, Chroniq^ies Scandaleuses, came into power when feathers and vermilion went out. A mas- querade would have been a pale and sickly amuse- ment after the whoops and gymnastics of a war- dance, nor would the modern method of taking scalps have been favorably entertained by the A LECTURE ON MASKS. 83 unrefi-enerate child of the forest. The native American's hfe Avas what the Itahans call one per- petual sfogo (burst), but we poor victims of con- ventionalit}^, who walk Broadway with measured tread ; who, attired in the latest panier, wear society's smirk and utter platitudes in a subdued tone of voice ; who stand up in crowds and allow fellow-sufferers to walk up the back breadth of the only part of us that systematically goes on a train; who attempt to dance within the circumference of a soup-plate, or who remain at home and, in the sublime character of Christian martyrs, do our allotted W'Ork until brain and body cry aloud for relaxation ; — to us miserable victims of a glorious civilization, I claim that masked balls are a healthy tonic. The impossibility of making public masquerades reputable only holds good where, as in Paris, no attempt at respectability is dreamed of. Pande- monium let loose would be a quiet, proper tea- party compared with these maddest of orgies. Absence of character is the surest passport, but the absence of a dress-coat leaves all hope behind. Morals are of no consequence, but a paternal gov- ernment insists upon an irreproachable toilet. "The soul of this man is in his clothes.'' Spirit of Thackeray, do not your shadowy fingers long to tear one more mockery to tatters 1 84 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. Perhaps 3^011 are shocked at what may be called a plea for Old World follies. Softly. There be folly and there be vice ; mark the difference and make the distinction. Folly may lead to vice as one glass of wine may lead to delirium tremens, but neither is inevitable. Riding may doom one to a broken neck, and swimming to a watery grave ; but because of possible evil, shall there be no more cakes and ale % If some souls find vice in what to others is nothing worse than healthy pleasure, let them prescribe total abstinence for — themselves. The good, old-fashioned clergyman assures his flock that the play-house is the centre of Satan's kingdom, and no doubt the reverend gentleman is right, so far as he is individually concerned ; but does it follow that every one who frequents theatres is on the road to perdition % Does not the world clamor for theatres % As they cannot be exterminated, would it not be wiser to devote one's eloquence to their much-needed reform % If you are honest, you will confess, sotto voce, that a streak of outlawry runs through humanity, which, if it cannot find harmless outlets, will seek those known by another name. The bow cannot always be strung ; there must be a reverse to every medal. If there be sense, must there not be nonsense *? Is not creation made up of contrasts % He who does A LECTURE ON MASKS. 85 not unbend suffers mentally, morally, and phys- ically. " It takes a wise man to be a fool," says the old saw, and the old saw is a concentration of centuries of philosophy. According a certain amount of folly to the human constitution, the demand for food becomes a fore- gone conclusion. Americans do not know how to enjoy themselves. Business and dissipation are equally well understood, but recreations that need not lead to unfortunate results are not compre- ^ hended. Unnatural excitement in business beo-ets o unnatural excitement in pleasure, and when men seek relaxation — I refer to the majority — they conceive the glory of getting gloriously drunk. Morals and family laid aside, nothing is more aesthetically offensive than this national pastime, and by our own showing, we (including the Eng- lish) are the most vulgar, the most dissipated, and, at the same time, the most serious, people in the civilized world. Our folly is all vice ; our idea of fun is as doleful as the Dance of Death. Women, being neither gamblers nor drunkards, indulge in weaknesses ; having no distraction but servants, they subside into invalids. Thanks, then, to Jew, Gentile, or German, who grafts carnival fruit on our tree of liberty. There was a vast deal of wisdom in the old Ro- 86 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. man institution of the Saturnalia. It allowed the existence of animal spirits and acknowledged their right to expression. Fetters might be worn all the year round, provided liberty became license he first seven days in January. Slaves had privileges which masters w^ere bound to respect. Patrician, ple- beian, and bondmen met upon the common ground of foolery, and, losing all thought of dignity or sor- row, remembered only to be merry. Though the manacles of that era have melted in the fire of justice, a great social tyrant still rules with an iron hand, and there is as much need of a Satur- nalia now as then. Appreciating this fact, Italy clings to a modified form of the ancient custom, and no foreigners do more to keep alive the absurd- ities of its Carnival season than the Americans. This proves that, given a favorable opportunity, we are quite capable of making fools of ourselves. Anything more utterly senseless than the Carnival Corso at Rome is inconceivable. To pelt people wdth flour and confetti; to hurl flowers at the heads of passers-by ; to converse with any mask off'ering the right hand of fellowship ; to drive up and down, on the last night of the Carnival, with a lighted taper in one hand and a wet towel in the other, striving to put out every approaching taper while endeavoring to rescue your own from a simi- A LECTURE ON MASKS. 87 lar fate, accompanying the effort with screams of " Senza moccolo " ; to go home at midnight singing Rossini's Buona Sera, — are freaks purely idiotic in themselves, yet thoroughly in harmony with a phase of human nature that rarely receives just treatment. The Italians are able to enjoy this extreme of liberty because their instincts rarely permit them to overstep bounds of propriety. Drunkenness and vulgarity of language and man- ner are sj^ecialties of such nations as lay claim to superior virtue. What champagne is to supper, masked balls are to carnivals. They are the keystone to the arch of folly, and the person who has never worn a mask in the spirit of a mask has failed to experi- ence one of the most novel and most exhilarating of sensations. There is not its equivalent in the known world. To woman the mask is the first taste of paradise. Behind it she is exempted from all rules of etiquette, and for the only time in her life has an advantage over men. Old and young enjoy equal privileges, all may go and come with- out the intervention of pantaloons, and for once the burden of " waitino- to be asked " is shifted to manly shoulders. Woman can actually roam at discretion among a wilderness of swallow-tails, without recognition and without reproach. Put 88 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. on a mask and she may be herself; take it off and she must be somebody else. How much more honest is the mask ! To completely lose one's self-consciousness and to pass unknown among unmasked friends and foes is as refreshing as to be dropped into a foreign country in full possession of a clairvoyant knowledge of its inhabitants. It is the nearest possible approach to wearing an invisible cap. Students of human nature may gaze into eyes with impunity, and read a deal of truth that would otherwise remain undisclosed. A clever masker can discover more real character in a few minutes than would be developed in years of casual ac- quaintance, and conversation may be sentimental or piquant without fear of a construction au pied de la lettre. What an intense satisfaction ! Who does not at times long to insist that the moon is made of green cheese, that the world is filled with sawdust, that "All friendship is feigning, All loving mere folly ; Then heigh, ho ! the holly ! This life is most jolly," and on these themes compose variations as endless as any dreamed of by Henri Herz '? Where else but at a masked ball can these variations be exe- A LECTUni-: ON MASKS. 89 cuted'? In this country the genius of masked balls is not understood. Men and women, when addressed by maskers, 'draw themselves up to the full height of their dignity, and look unutterable don't-approach-me-ism. This is taking masked balls in vain. We Americans entertain the idea that, intrinsically wrong, they must be solemnly attended under protest. There is no Jicste milieu of deportment. One sees the extremes of decorum and '' loudness," but seldom that half- way-bet ween- ity which is the charm of Southern nations. We have not yet learned the art of properly misbe- having ourselves, an art only acquired by ladies and gentlemen. It is strange, too, how the ma- jority of Americans lose their natural intelligence the moment they enter the magic circles of masks. There is a monosyllabic spell upon them, and "yes" and "no," followed by a wretched smile, coustitute their stock of mother-wit. Any one has brains enough to go to a " German," but every one cannot attend masked balls with impunity. Esprit and grace of manner are indispensable to the carrying out of this amusement. Few of us are " Wi.se enough to play the fool " ; For, "to do that Avell, craves a kind of wit " ; You "must observe their mood on whom " you "jest, The quality of person and the time ; 90 A LECTURER'S NOTE-BOOK. And, like the haggard, check at every feather That comes before your eye. This is a practice As full of labor as a wise maa's art." Who, then, can afford to despise the machinery of a mask % Whoever masters its intricacies, who- ever wears it with entertainment to himself and others, is equal to any emergency in life. Do 3^011 doubt if? Go to the next masked ball, and if some impertinently truthful domino does not whisper in your ear that you are an unmitigated bore, then you shall receive the honors due only to a fool. PART II. AMEEICAK'S ABROAD. AMERICANS ABEOAD. AT SEA. Atlantic Ocean, Latitude 50, Longitude 12. AVET sheet and a flowing sea may be in- spiring, but I fail to appreciate either. It sounds well to sing about *'alife on the ocean wave and a home on the rolling deep," but i-ather than lead such a life in such a home, I 'd be governess in an English family, which is the worst fate falling to the lot of woman. Viewed from very dry land, the sea is charming. It adds immensely to a landscape, and, in connection with it, makes beautiful pictures. In fine weather it is fascinating for rowing and yachting, provided land be in sight ; but the ocean as ocean is an un- mitigated nuisance, and no poet need try to delude me into liking it. I don't say this because I am a bad sailor, for after two days ad nauseam I go about on excellent sea-legs and take my four 94 AMERICANS ABROAD. " square " meals with the appetite of a veteran. I say it because the sea insults more than my stom- ach. It insults me physically, morally, and men- tally. Emerson never touched the truth more nearly than when he wrote : "I find the sea-life an acquired taste, like that for tomatoes and olives Nobody likes to be treated ignomini- ously, upset, shoved against the side of the house, rolled over, suffocated with bilge, mephitic and stewing oil." If anybody does like it, let the finger of scorn be pointed at him until he goes down to a watery grave. The sickly smell and bad air of a steamer are in themselves enough to disgust genteel noses and healthy lungs; a gen- eral dampness and stickiness offend the touch ; the sight of wretchedly ^^ellow women done up after the manner of mummies, and of men in flannel shirts and unkempt beards, looking like very dirty and very bloodthirsty pirates, is not calculated to enhance one's belief in the dignity of humanity ; protesting stomachs, shivering timbers, groaning machinery, whistling wind, breaking china, crying- babies, and roaring waves are not music to the ear. Four senses out of five are systematically outraged, and, in nine cases out of ten, the fifth is rendered worse than useless by the upward ten- dency of every article of food. AT SEA. 95 There is no such thing as comfort at sea. You are first put into a cage called a state-room, the sight of which demoralizes mind and body. There is no place for anything; and as, if there were, a heavy sea would send everything off in a tangent, you conclude to abstain from those attentions to the toilet which on land are considered indispensable. You lose every atom of ambition and energy, and find your- self doubting the utility of washing your face and combing your hair. How can you, Avhen it requires skilful gymnastic efforts to pour out water and ob- tain a glimpse of your wretched self in a looking- glass 1 Anybody at sea who tries to hold the mir- ror up to nature will have enough to do. I wish him joy of the undertaking. You go to bed in what 1 In a box, out of which you are frequently hurled, thus piling a Pelion of injury upon an Ossa of insult. If you protest against being throw^n out of bed, you are boarded up like pigs in a pen, or chickens in a coop ! You hate to " turn in," and still more do you hate to " turn out." You lie contemplating your shoes and stockings with dismay. You wonder whether the stewardess will rescue you from the horrors of the situation by putting them on for you, while, with the most provokingly placid voice, a storm that turns everything upside-do w^n and everybody in- 96 AMERICANS ABROAD. side-out, causing you to lead the life of a fly without a fly's natural advantage in standing on his head, she calls nothing but a stiff breeze ! Well, you finally get dressed in a limp and frowzy manner. You sit down to breakfast. Your butter lands in your lap, and your tea goes down your throat via your eyes and neck. There are ominous gaps at the table. The interesting wo- men are all sick ; men with unbounded stomachs drive you to the verge of madness by ordering all sorts of horrid, indigestible dishes, which they de- vour in gloomy silence, and then pace the deck with caps over their eyes, cigars in their mouths, and hands in their pockets, as if by so doing the chief end of man were accomplished. In the early morning the deck is wet with washing, and later it is as likely to be wet with fog or rain as dry with sunshine. If it he dry, nine times out of ten the wind blows so that you seek shelter in order to keep your hair on your head, — the hair that is yours by divine right. You curl yourself up like a dormouse and think you '11 keep a jour- nal. Life is so sensational as to warrant a daily record, but the wretched steamer makes your hand tremble like that of a man with delirium tremens. I never got further in my journal than the first day, the most lively bit of intelligence being that A 2' SEA. 97 at noon we descried a school of porpoises off the port side. Fancy the mental condition of two hundred human beings who frantically rush up the companion-way to gaze upon a few stupid sea- pigs playing in the water ! The standard joke is to assure some weak-minded woman that they are whales, and then laugh at her credulity. Writing being a failure, you decide to read ; and here let me remark that Emerson must have been undergoing temporary aberration of the mind when he declared that "classics which at home are drowsily read have a strange charm in a country inn, or in the transom of a merchant brig." There may be something in the nature of a brig to inspire an enthusiasm for Homer and Virgil, but the only classics I observe on a steamer are "Aurora Floj^d," " Guy Livingstone,'' " The Dead Secret," and works of a similarly pro- found nature. I have been ten days worrying- through a book that on land would have been fin- ished in one, and am regarded by the more friv- olously inclined passengers as half strong-minded and half mad for having attempted it at all. Now, if it takes but ten days to so dementalize humanity, what would be the consequences if all the world went to sea for a yearl Drivel- ling idiotcy, I am quite sure. Of course, ex- 5 G 98 AMERICANS ABROAD. ceptionable people can even rise superior to salt- water. There is Anthony Trollope who writes novels at sea, and Emerson who reads classics, and the consumptive gentleman wlio never was so well and never wants to see land, and the officers who feel themselves monarchs of all they survey, and the wonderful woman who never appears until noon, and makes every other woman wretched by being dressed in the height of fashion. She paints and powders, and wears her veil down at meals ; bat is handsome, if you do not object to artifice, and is a great favorite with the gentlemen. At least, she always manages to be surrounded by them, so I suppose they are enthusiastic students of art in its highest form. yes, and there are the energetic few who edit newspapers. I have heard of two newspapers being issued on one steamer, and so hating and vilifying one another as to be suspended lest murder should ensue ; so you see what effect the ocean has upon the temper. The reason of English " spleen " is because Bri- tannia is entirely surrounded by salt-water. If this island were towed to America, and annexed to Cape Cod, there would be an immediate trans- formation. The next worst fate to living on a ship is living on a small island. I once passed three weeks on an island three miles long; and half a AT SUA. 90 mile wide, and nearly died of it. Human beings do not improve by such close acquaintance. Arc 3^ou not told that if you wish to find out people you must go to sea with them 1 Of course you must. I never knew any one made better by con- tact with an unnatural element ; yet you are also told of the charming society to be met on board ships ! It may be ; nothing is impossible ; people do meet their affinities at sea, but I never did ; or, if I did, they were so diluted in water as for me not to know them for my own. No, the sea is a necessary evil ; I suppose it is necessary because it was created. (Salt, I know, is vital ; but why we can't have salt without water is a mystery.) Mos- quitoes, fleas, and rattlesnakes are also mysteries. The world would be a great deal better and vastly more comfortable without them ; but my opinion is of no consequence to the universe, or I should have been consulted some time ago. I believe the Atlantic Ocean was placed between Europe and America, made stormy and generally detestable, in order to keep the Old World from the New as long as possible, and, once crossed, to keep the New World from the Old. If it succeeded in separating us from European vices and follies it would indeed be a blessing, but it does nothing of the kind. They are borne on every wind that 100 AMERICANS ABROAD. wafts a vessel to our shores ; and cholera, small- pox, yellow fever, and the plague are nourish- ed on the oceanic bosom to spread devastation throughout our virgin land. Perhaps the ocean is intended as discipline. Like other medicine, it is to be shaken before taken, and, if it does not agree with us, so much the better for our souls. If the old saints, who, with heavenly promotion in view, enjoyed sitting on pins and needles, walking with peas in their shoes, etc., had only known as much as we do, going to sea would have been the favorite martyrdom. It would have been just the element for Saint Catherine of Sienna, as she never washed herself. Can you imagine anything more horrible than, like a sweet little cherub, to sit up aloft and contemplate a storm at sea 1 Saint Simeon never dreamed of this, or his pillar would have been deserted. The fact is, that at sea you feel like a ''dem, damp, moist, unpleasant body," and I feel how completely I illustrate Mantalini's graphic description. A MARTYR TO FREE SPEECH. London, December 10, 1871. HE first necessity of a great cause is the possession of a martyr. Though we are assured by the copy-books of our youth that truth is mighty and must prevail, there is no commodity requiring such liberal advertising to bring it into general circulation. Money will buy vice, but, since the world began, the price paid for truth has been blood. When John Brown went forth to the scaffold bravely ex- claiming, " I am persuaded that I am worth inconceivably more to hang than for any other purpose," he foretold the knell of slavery. When the government of M. Thiers condemned Rossel to be shot, it gave to Communism a hero whose fame bids fair to extinguish that of the President him- self. Republicanism in England is young. Born ob- scurely, not knowing who were its parents, the poor 102 AMERICANS ABROAD. thing has languished for want of proper care. Adopted recently by Sir Charles Dilke, it has gained in strength and stature, only needing a baptism in blood to attain a riper development. That baptism has come. It is not the martyrdom of a John Brown or of a Rossel that I now record ; but William Schofield, age fifty-six, is no less a martyr to free speech because of his being a la- borer. On December 7, William Schofield, of Bol- ton, died from injuries received in the Temperance Hall, while peaceably listening to Dilke's very sen- sible and by no means revolutionary address on the distribution of political power. Elsewhere, Dilke's arguments in favor of a republic, of a truer Parliamentary representation, of reforming, or, better, abolishing the House of Lords, have been answered by howls, by cheers for a Queen whom the young M. P. has never attacked, by spasmodic singing, and showers of red pepper. Burning to resent the right of independent criticism, scorning weak retorts, inflamed by lying- placards, p)rimed with drink and armed with stones, bricks, bludgeons, hammers, and other weapons, the rough-and-ready royalists of Bolton proved that Britons were not meant for slaves by a con- tinual attack upon the windows and doors of the hall in which the Dilke meeting was assembled, A MARTYR TO FREE SPEECH. 103 until one side of the building became a complete wreck. Had this high carnival been held in America, where, according to the " London Tele- graph," "rowdyism is a religion," Europe would have been told to gaze upon the license of democ- racy ; had the assailants been partisans of Dilke, England would have been shown the fearful con- sequences of republican doctrines ; but the rioters were loyal subjects of the crown, which makes a difference. Certain rules do not work both ways ; therefore the police did not interfere. Temperance Hall was sacked, William Schofield was killed, a wife became a widow, and three children were made fatherless. Well done, ye good and faithful servants ! Enter ye into the United (I) Kingdom of Great Britain. If Dilke had not had the courage publicly to avow what many other Englishmen aclinowledge privately, that the best form of government is re- publican, William Schofield would now be alive. Having made this declaration, supposing England's vaunted right of free speech to be far less mythi- cal than it turns out, his opponents are determined that he shall not be heard on any subject, no mat- ter how vital it may be to the people's interests. This tyranny reminds me of the good old days be- fore the war, when iVbolitionists were pelted with 104 AMERICANS ABROAD. rotten eggs, Garrison was threatened with deatli, and the press was muzzled lest it should attack the "peculiar institution." But republicans tell Eno-land now what Abolitionists told America then, that free speech is as inalienable a right as free thought, and no amount of bullying, bricks, or bludgeons can stifle honest conviction. Men who aire brave enough to avow their principles are brave enough to endure slander, bricks, and worse, for the sake of them. Persecution will only make them greater heroes and increase the number of their adherents. William Schofield has lost his life for daring to sympathize, though never so re- motely, with the opinions of Sir Charles Dilkc. His is the first blood shed in behalf of the people. The Anti-Republican Association, composed of "noblemen and gentlemen," banded together for the purpose of putting down "democrats, infidels, and atheistical spirits," " morally and physically,'' — "physically" being italicized in their circular, — will do well to remember that English repub- licanism has now its martyr. THE DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS, AND KINGSLEY. London, January 3, 1872. ODGERS, which is the nearest way to the Chapel Royal 1 " Bodgers is the but- ler, and a very good butler he is too ; knowing his business thoroughly, and not being above it. " You surely are not thinking of going there to-day, miss." "Yes, I am." "But you can't, miss. It 's the chapel for the royal family, you see, miss, and for peers and peeresses ; and, unless you have a border from the Lord Chamber- lain, you won't be admitted. I could have got you a border if you 'd only let me know in time." " I 'm sorry for that. Charles Kingsley preaches to-day, and, as I have read his novels, I am anxious to hear him." " Well, if you want to go very bad, miss," replies Bodgers, who is nothing if not sympathetic, " I think I can get you in. I know the verger very well. Him and me used to lOG AMERICANS ABROAD. be together at the Harchbishop of 's. First he was lady's footman, then butler, and then he got to be steward ; and when the other verger died, the Harchbishop put him in, and a snug place it is, miss. Three hundred [pounds] a year for life, a house adjoining, and all he has to do is to hopen the pews and carry papers to the Lord Chamberlain." I assure Bodgers that I wish to go "very bad." Of course I do when obstacles pre- vent. "Then I think, miss, if I give you a card, you won't have any trouble." So Bodgers takes one of my cards, writes a few lines, signs his name, and I go on my way re- joicing, if one can rejoice when there is fog above, mud beneath, and a settled and conse- quently highly respectable gloom everywhere. I rejoice because I am going to the Chapel Royal in a thoroughly democratic manner. I am indorsed by Bodgers. If I lived one thousand years in a re- public, I could not obtain sucb a recommendation. It delights me to know that there are ways of getting the better of red tape. Down Piccadilly I go to St. James Street, down St. James Street to St. James Palace, where Charles II. and George IV. were born, and where Charles I. took leave of his children the day before his execution. It is well to remember, in these days, that England did DIVJNE RIGHT OF KINGS, AND KJNGSLEY. 107 behead a king. Through an archwa^^ I pass into a court-yard, where I see a knot of men and women around a very commonplace door, which a guard tells me is the door I seek. I knock ; a benevo- lent-looking old man in a long black gown appears, reads the card, desires me to step in at the same time that he desires everybody else clamoring for an entrance to stay out. " You have n't tickets," persists the black gown. Neither have I, but am I not introduced by a Bodgers and a brother *? And to such a verger ! That such a tall, imposing person should ever have been a footman ! I know he must have been a gorgeous footman ; I know by instinct that he owes his promotion to his calves. I know they are real. I know that, were it not for the long black gown, I should melt into an ecstasy worthy of Fanny Squeers, and exclaim, " I never saw such legs in the whole course of my life ! " The verger reads, pockets the card, looks at me, and says, " This is one of the most partickerlerest days in the whole year ; but if you '11 sit down and wait till all the tickets is in, I '11 give you a seat, if there is any." I sit down among choir-boys, who, in black stockings, red and gilt coats, red knee- breeches, and white gowns, are preparing them- selves for the services by making dolls and rabbits 108 AMERICANS ABROAD. of their by no means immaculate pocket-handker- chiefs, and by chaffing the noble lords and ladies as they enter the chapel. One peeress has an absurd waddle, and the choir-boys burst into an immoder- ate fit of laughter, but they all stand up and bow as somebody passes who does not take the least notice of them. " Who was that chap ] " asks one boy of the other ; and when I hear the name I ask myself whether the rising generation possesses that reverence for rank about which the papers tell us so much. " That young cad 's a peer," whispers one of the youths to his neighbor. " I say, ain't he a peer "? " The question is addressed to the verger, who rubs his hands with intense satisfaction. The majority of the women are homely and badly dressed ; the men are in no way conspicuous; and w^hen Gladstone, a man of the people, appears, he brings with him a little of the bracing air of intellect. The clock strikes twelve ; clergy and choir take their seats ; the organ peals forth, and I am ush- ered into a vacant pew, adjoining that of the Prime Minister. It is so like the opera that I gaze at the audience to see whether they have n't brought their opera-glasses ; for, look you, although I can "see a church by daylight," it is very diffi- cult to consider this a chapel. Imagine a long, DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS, AND KINGSLEY. 109 narrow hall, with the entrance at one end, and the chancel, with stained-glass window above it, at the other ; an aisle down the middle, j ast wide enough for two persons to walk abreast ; and two rows of pews on each side, raised one above the other, looking for all the world like the open boxes at the New York Academy of Music. Up stairs, opposite the chancel, is the royal box, — I mean pew ; and on the sides are several other stage- boxes, — I mean pews. The chancel, being adorned with a table on which are two great candlesticks, several gold dishes on end, with two great tank- ards above, resembles the sideboard of an old Ger- man baron. To the left of the chancel is the pul- pit : and when an officiating clergyman intones the service in a mellow barytone, and the choir-boys chant " Amen " ; when another officiating clergy- man continues the service in a mild tenor, and the audience sings " x\men " ; when the barytone exe- cutes a florid morceau, — not in the organ-loft, re- member, but on the floor and arrayed in clerical robes, — and the clergyman, standing in the chan- cel, beats time with his fingers, and noble ladies nod their heads in unison ; when the barytone con- cludes, and the gentlemen tenors opposite smile upon the soloist approvingly, as much as to say, " You did that well, old fellow," — I seem to be 110 AMERICANS ABROAD. at a show. This feehng is increased when, on the delivery of the prayer for the recovery of Albert Edward, everybody turns the leaf of the folio upon which the prayer has been printed, and the rustle reminds me of books at the opera. But now Charles Kingsley, the man who has written such charming books, ascends the pulpit ; and I listen, expecting to hear manly words from one who has done so much for muscular Christian- ity. I see a sharp-featured, iron-gray-headed man, with hard lines about the mouth ', I hear one of the harshest of voices and worst of speakers ; but, as we are neither responsible for features nor voices, I wait to be moved by the matter of his discourse. '' And he bowed the heart of the men of Judah as the heart of one man." That is the text for just such remarks, apropos of the Prince of Wales, as would make a leader in any of the daily papers. If the reverend canon says "as one man " once, he repeats it six or eight times. The heart of the nation is bowed as one man. Loyalty is contagious. Does the canon mean that it is a disease] Business men have given way to it. " No shame to them if they live by business," declares Kingsley, which is very good of him. " They may not speak eloquently," — how can they, being business men 1 We in America know DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS, AND KINGSLEY. Ill how incompatible are business and eloquence. But the canon is quite sure of the earnestness of business men; and he makes an apt quotation from Shakespeare, quite fashionable of late, about one touch of nature making the whole world kin, — the touch of nature being, of course, the Prince of Wales. And the cause of all this emotion is loyalty, pure and simple, — one of those old hereditary instincts by which the his- tories of whole nations, whole races, are guided ; an attachment to some royal race whom the peo- ple conceive to be set over them by God ; an attachment transmitted by their forefathers, and which they must transmit to their children as a national inheritance. Their sovereign is to them the divinely appointed symbol of the unity of their country. "Royalty is indeed God's ordi- nance, and a king they must have, not merely for the sake of the nation's security and peace, but for the sake of their own self-respect. A free man never felt himself so free as when obeying those whom the laws of his country had set over him " ; from which statement we see what idiots our Puritan fathers were to leave England, and how base have been the careers of Garrison, John Brown, and others of their ilk. '' An able man never felt him- self so able as when he was following the lead of 112 AMERICANS ABB OAD. an abler man than himself," declares the canon ; and so say all of us, only I don't happen to sedp the connection between kings and ability. Then, added to loyalty there is chivalry, — the chivalry that regards "the widowed Qneen and infant Prince as a precious jewel, — an heirloom for which the people are responsible to God. It helped to make our forefathers, and " (here the canon shakes his finger at the congregation, and speaks as with Divine authority) " I beg you to remember it helps to make us If any cynic sneer" (we had been told, a few minutes before, that there were no cynics in England) ''at this sudden burst of loyalty, and speak of it as un- reasoning and childish, answer him not Give not that which is holy to the dogs, and cast not your pearls before swine." The dogs and swine, in this instance, are John Stuart Mill, Sir Charles Dilke, P. A. Taylor, all Englishmen who doubt the divinity that doth hedge a king, and all Americans who have not sent flunky telegrams to England, with the assurance that a great Re- public exhibits, "as one man," the most intense anxiety with regard to the Prince of Wales. " More than one foreign nation," continues Kings- ley, " is now looking on, with ivonder and envfj, at the sight which England, for the last two weeks, DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS, AND KINGSLEY. 113 has presented." America, having sent telegrams, must be one of them. " God grant that they may understand how wide and how deep an application is the great law, * Except ye be converted, changed, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven ' " ; which means, if it means anything, that if Americans do not embrace monarchy they will go to hell. It must mean this, for a moment later the divinely ap- pointed canon refers to these foreign nations — one of them being France, of course — as " pulling to pieces at their own irreverent fancy the most ancient institutions, to build up fresh baby-houses out of the fragments, as a child does with its broken toys." Canon Kingsley is quite sure that, in visiting the Prince of Wales with typhoid fever, " God meant to bow our hearts as the heart of one man, and he has, I trust, I hope, I pray, done that which he meant to do." It is very kind of the canon to hope that God has carried out his plans. "God grant that it" — the typhoid fever — " may fill us with some of that charity which .... makes us thrust aside henceforth, in digni- fied disgust, those who sit in the seat of the scornful, the cynic and the slanderer, the ribald and the rebel." The charity which pervades the canon at this particular moment is j)eculiar. If u 114 AMERICANS ABROAD. you did not know that he could not be in a passion, you would declare him to be about as angry as is possible for a gentleman. Then I am struck by this second reference to the cynic, the rebel, etc. If England is bowed ''as one man," how can there be rebels and cynics % I actually begin to doubt whether Kingsley believes his own protestations. And so it goes on, as wretched a piece of literary work as I ever listened to ; illogical as I show ; unmanly, unworthy of an Englishman, basely snobbish. I watch Glad- stone's face, — he looks like Webster shaved down and diluted, — but the fixed, anxious expression tells no tales. I look at the rest of the congrega- tion, and see no change from the stolidity which marked their faces upon entering the chapel. I believe with Kingsle}^ that " they have gone back — for a moment at least — to England's child- hood, to the mood of England when she was still young." I do not believe it is second childhood, for again I believe with Kingsley that the " old British oak is sound at the root," and that the peojDle will repudiate the blasphemy of Divine right which has been preached and written since a good-natured but by no means clever or exemplary young man has fallen a victim to a fever from which he is likely to recover, and which has stricken down many nobler and better. OPENING OF PARLIAMENT. London, February 6, 1872. HEN the historical young gentleman was bullied into learning the alphabet, he ex- pressed very great doubt as to whether it was worth while 2:oino: throuQ;h so much to arrive at so little. For "alphabet" read "open- ing of the British Parliament," and you will know the state of my feelings. Like Emerson's Brahma, " I am the doubter and the doubt." But the in- quiring American mind must wreak itself upon novelty ; and though novelty be as unpalatable as a dose of medicine, the undegenerate republican whose " bright home is in the settin' sun " will not shrink from the responsibilities of his birth. There- fore I said to myself, " I will assist at the opening of Parliament." Do you think it as easily done as said ] Americans who visit Washington, taking posses- sion of the Capitol as though they owned it, and expressing great disgust if the galleries are not 116 AMERICANS ABROAD. large enough to seat every free and independent voter, — Americans, I repeat, little appreciate the amount of strategy or diplomacy or grand and lofty influences required to obtain passports to the Houses of Parliament. If, unfortunately, you hap- pen to be an ordinary Englishman, with no ances- tors worth speaking of, your case is hopeless, unless you know an M. P. who wants your vote, and is therefore desirous of being civil. And even then the M. P. is required to give at least a week's notice if the admission be for the Ladies' Gallery in the House of Commons ; so that the free-born Briton is really a beggar in the house which depends upon him for existence. If you are an American, your chances are better than that of the best of Britons. Lords and Commons are readier to oblige, and the American Legation exerts itself with effect upon the mighty poten- tate by whose sovereign pleasure a select few ai'e permitted to be tolerated within the holy of holies. Yet when only three tickets are doled out to our Legation, it requires the art of a veteran to cap- ture one of them. The Queen does not open Parliament, therefore everybody is allowed to go in morning dress. As I drive up to the peers' entrance in a cab, I do not expect to be regarded with any other feeling OPENING OF PARLIAMENT. 117 than that of contempt ; but as one spectator says to another in a stage whisper, '' I should n't wonder if she was a peeress," I feel that repub- licans may attain their true stature, even upon emerging from that most ignoble of vehicles, a London '' four-wheeler." Then a porter, in un- limited scarlet and gold-lace, tears off a portion of my ticket and asks me to turn to my right. An- other gilded gentleman opens a door and bids me pursue my winding way. Treading soft carpets, through a long passageway, I mount steps. An- other imposing scarlet and gold-laced gentleman directs me to the left. More passageways, more gold-lace, more stairs, until I begin to feel like a corkscrew, and wonder whether I shall ever be able to straighten myself. At the top of the steepest stairs I am requested to halt, and an old man takes the remains of my ticket. As he does so, an official says to him, " I say, where 's the sherry 1 " I think, ''Well, if am a corkscrew, I might volunteer my services in opening a fresh bottle " ; but on second thoughts I recall Sir Wilfred Lawson and his Permissive bill, and de- termine to turn evidence. If the honorable baro- net takes the " Tribune," and reads it as carefully as every M. P. should, he will learn that even the House of Lords has, in common with other houses 118 AMERICANS ABROAD. of entertainment for man and beast, its " bottle and jug department." At last I reach the goal of my desires. I am seated in the Strangers' or North Gallery. Oppo- site, far below on the floor, is the throne. Adjoin- ing the Strangers' Gallery, but on a lower tier, is the Reporters' Gallery. East and west runs a narrow gallery with one row of seats, gener- ally reserved for peeresses, but on this occasion devoted to the diplomatic corps, who are con- spicuous by their absence, the United States and India excepted. In parallel rows, east and west, are the red morocco benches of the Lords, partially filled on the conservative side by sombrely dressed women who are supposed to be peeresses, but who for the most part are friends admitted to the floor by courtesy. No woman, peeress or other- wise, will care to be present at more than one opening of Parliament, unless the Queen and gor- geous array are the order of the day. The best- clressed and most stylish looking woman on the floor is an American. The only portion of the hall that is filled is the Strangers' Gallery. Every one around me is English, and the silence and decorum are oppressive. My eyes go in search of the two other Americans to whom tickets have been given. There they are. I know them at a OPENING OF PARIJAMENT. 119 glance. A man and a woman, actually laughing and talking, actually interested in everything, so bent upon knowing who 's who that an amiable Englishman in front of them undertakes the part of cicerone. In the distance looms a fourth American. How did he gain admission 1 Of course he is a journalist ; of course a man stops him in the street, tells him he has a ticket for sale ; the American buys it for two shillings and sixpence, and, without having made the slightest effort, he finds himself master of the situation. Americans are the cats of humanity. They have nine lives, and always alight on their feet. The North Gallery does not accommodate more than a hundred people, and is not fair to gaze upon. An elderly lady whispers to her neighbor that a third lady, who is very corpulent and very red in the face, resembles the Queen. Then the corpulent and red-faced lady is stared at. Then an Indian appears swathed in exquisite silks that I long to cut up into jackets and Dolly Vardens. He wears white kid gloves and a great diamond ring outside, and his head is done up in what, at a distance, looks like crash towelling, but is n't. This nabob sits erect, moves not a muscle, nurses a great cane, and seems to be even less in harmony with the nineteenth century than the House of Lords 120 AMERICANS ABROAD. itself. Having calculated the number of yards of silk in his attire, I turn to the fine stained-glass windows, through which a dim light peers into the House, as though rather afraid of entering without the Lord Chamberlain's permission. It is a stately hall, but in no way adequate to the re- quirements of either legislators or public. It will serve as a fine committee-room for the coming republic. These fine stained windows represent the kings and queens of England ; but Henry VIII., my nearest neighbor, is shorn of his fair proportions, being represented with but two wives, Katherine of Arragon and Ann Boleyn. Whether there was not glass enough to go round, or whether it was thought necessary to draw the line some- where, is a profound question which my inner consciousness is incapable of answering. While I am contemplating this much-married king, General Schenck, William M. Evarts, George H. Boker, our new Minister at Constantinople, and General Woodhull, enter the diplomatic gallery. Four more strongly marked types of America it would be difficult to bring together. Wiry, thin, acute, incisive New England, with features as sharp as the intellect ; the shrewd, robust com- mon-sense and hearty good-nature of the West; and the tall figure and well-rounded features of OPENING OF PARLIAMENT. .121 Pennsylvania's elect. Then Mr. Slingsby Bethell, the reading clerk, in white wig, black gown, and muddy boots, appears upon the floor. A few peers shake hands with a few ladies ; nobody seems inclined to occnpy the empty benches ; Sir Augustus Clifford, the usher of the Black Rod, walks about in a gilded uniform, and the Bishop of Hereford makes bold to take his seat. He is followed by four other bishops, who, in their black gowns and white sleeves, look, when seated, as though they had got as far as their waistcoats, and, from absence of mind, had left their coats at home. Those who love lords have little oppor- tunity of feeding their noble passion. The Lords will not appear, but at two o'clock we have the exquisite satisfaction of gazing upon the Royal Commissioners, the Lord Chancellor (Lord Hath- erly), the Marquis of Ripon, Lord Halifax, Lord Sydney, and Lord Bessborough. Not Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these. They appear clothed in scarlet robes that, on the right side, are slashed with white, so that you think a very little of barbers' poles and a good deal of clowns in morning-gowns. The Lord Chancellor wears a wig; the others do not. The Lord Chancellor wears a black cocked hat ; the others wear cha- peaux. They all seat themselves on a red bench 6 122 AMERICANS ABROAD. before the throne, the Lord Chancellor in the mid- dle. " How would you feel in such clothes 1 " asks one distinguished American of another. " Like a confounded fool " is his prompt reply. Somebody puts a red and gold satchel of unknown significance on the table before the Commissioners, Somebody else carries the mace about. It seems very heavy and a great burtlen. The bearer does not know what to do with it, so he puts it away in a corner, — a very good place for it. The Black Rod bows before the Commissioners, then goes in search of the House of Commons. You hear a roar, as of waves dashing against breakers ; nearer and nearer, until you know that the Commoners have obeyed the summons. You do not see them, as they stand directly under the North Gallery. Then the reading clerk mumbles something that you cannot hear, but which you know to be the Royal Commission authorizing the noble gentle- men on the bench and " our well-beloved son, the Prince of Wales," to act on behalf of her Majesty. As each Commissioner is named, he removes his hat, and all the hats are raised on the entrance of the Commons. This reading over, the Lord Chan- cellor proceeds with the Queen's Speech, so called because the Queen has nothing in the world to do with it. The Lord Chancellor may be the cleverest OPENING OF PARLIAMENT. 123 of men, — I dare say he is, — but if a school-boy in America were to make such work of a reading- losson as the Lord Chancellor does of the Speech, he would be sent to the foot of his class. " Never, perhaps, were royal words so misread, so stumbled over, so jumbled together, or so hopelessly con- fused," says the " Standard." For the first time in my life I find myself agreeing with a conservative journal. The Lord Chancellor is near-sighted, loses his jilace, can't see out of his glasses, and, if it were not for the prompting of Lord Ripon, I don't know what would become of him. How- ever, he gets through, and when he comes to the Alabama clause General Schenck's e^-es grow keener, and Mr. Evarts pays close attention. " Her Majesty's speech appears to me as full of bad grammar as is usually found in documents of this kind," declares the Duke of Richmond ;" and it is something to say that in this respect the speech does not f\\ll below the level of any of its predecessors." But, with all its bad grammar, Latin words, and Johnsonian sentences, it is soon over ; the Commoners depart as they came ; the Commissioners again remove their hats ; we put on our shawls, like the Arabs, and quietly steal away. " For the love of God, good lady, sweet lady, 124 AMERICANS ABROAD. help a poor woman who is starvmg ! Buy a few flowers; do, dear lady." This is the cry that meets me as I leave the Houses of Parhament. I think of the men in gold-lace paid to do nothing ; I think of the House of Lords; I think of the Seven Dials ; I wonder how long it will be before the good time coming arrives, and I thank God for America. REPUBLICANISM IN ENGLAND. London, February 20, 1S72. DRIVE to the House of Commons to hear Gladstone defend his course in the translation of Sir Robert Collier, a trans- lation which requires more explanation than if Collier had remained in the original. The confu- sion of tongues in consequence is almost equal to that of Babel. It is early, — by which I mean that it is three p. m., — few members have ar- rived ; and while one genial M. P. tells me how well his son has been treated in America, another invites me to take the Speaker's chair, which, though rather hard to sit on, is very becoming. Dignity and authority steal o'er me, and I feel that, in "the coming race," Dame Britannia will preside with far more grace, though hardly with more ability, than the Brand-new Speaker. She will not spoil her good looks by donning a black gown and a dreadful big wig, whereby hangs a tail. 126 AMERICANS ABROAD. Through mazy windings I attain the ladies' gal- lery. The door is locked, and a dozen women stand up for half an hour, when, after comparing our names with those on the list, the usher per- mits us to enter. Tired at the beginning, exasperation is soon added to fatigue, for the Ladies' Gallery of the House of Commons is nothing more nor less than a box capable of holding about thirty women, only a dozen of whom can occupy front seats and see and hear with the least comfort. In front of this coop is a heavy iron grille, so that I soon feel as if I were shut up in prison for some un- known crime. I can flatten my nose against the bars and see without being seen, — by which ar- rangement the intellect of mighty man is not dis- tracted by the presence of lovely woman ; though why the gallery in the House of- Lords should be open, and this of the Commons shut, puzzles the understanding. Are strangers to conclude that the Lords can bear the feminine ordeal, because they have no brains to be distracted 1 Did I say that I could see without being seen *? At best, I see with difficulty, first, because the gallery is perched high in the air, — in very bad air, let mo add, — and, secondly, because M. P.'s will wear their hats. To distinguish one man from another REPUBLICANISM IN ENGLAND. 127 requii'es far-sighted vision, and the effect of sev- eral hundred hats walking about or sitting is not more imposing than an equal number of portable stove-pipes. Gladstone is almost the only man whose head is regularly uncovered. From the contemplation of hats you may proceed to the study of boots, the next object of overpowering- prominence. The majority of the members look as though they had good cooks, good tailors, and were good fellows. At 3.45 o'clock the Usher of the Black Rod bows in the Speaker, prayers are delivered by the Chaplain, but, of course, w'e in the gallery hear nothing. The Chaplain probably thinks that the Creator has heard prayers often enough to have committed them to memory. Having gone through this laborious exercise, the Chaplain backs out of the House, and the mem- bers proceed to business. There is private business and there are peti- tions ; members jump up and say things to them- selves, apparently, for not one word do we women hear. Finally, in walk the Ministry, and in walk the Opposition, the author of "Lothair" at their head. With each particular hair smootli to tli' end, Like flax upon the yielding sticking- wax. Then the bullying and badgering begin. Dis- 128 AMERICANS ABROAD. raeli sticks pins into Gladstone by asking about the time when the " American Case " (was there ever such a hard easel) was first brought before the government. Mr. Bouverie (Opposition) wants to know if the Premier really did w^rite a letter to the correspondent of the '' New York World," and a howl of derision goes up from the Tories at thought of Gladstone's condescending to write to a journalist. When the Badgered One declares that his letter was in answer to a desire for an interview, the idea is considered such a wonderful joke as to excite shouts of laughter. Gladstone, however, gives everybody to understand that he sees no compromise of dignity in writing to repre- sentatives of great American journals, and informs the House that he is called upon daily to address persons of far less consequence, which explanation silences the opposition, and is not fully reported in ' the papers, perhaps from fear of its effect upon Great American Interviewers. At last Mr. Cross, a little man with blond hair and mutton-chop whiskers, rises to censure the government for Sir Robert Collier's translation. When he rises I rise, for now I know that Gladstone will not reply before midnight, and there is something infinitely more exciting to be done than to hear the Ministry Cross-questioned on a subject that has little in- terest for foreigners. REPUBLICANISM IN ENGLAND. 12D I leave, and, fortified by dinner, my next ap- pearance is in the vestry hall of Chelsea, where Sir Charles Dilke and Sir Henry Hoare are to address their constituents. The prediction is that I shall return home in small pieces. The game is worth the small pieces, and I go. The meeting ought to have taken place on the 17th of Jan- uary, but was not then permitted on account of the Princely Typhoid. Indeed, it was with great difficulty that the hall was obtained at all, a ma- jority of one only being in fiivor of allowing the arch-fiend Dilke to have a hearino; in his own borough. And it is not a little curious to know that this one vestryman who decided in Dilke's favor is a music-teacher who, while sharing the young M. P.'s opinions, did not dare to support him several years ago on account of the great pecuniary injury a liberal vote would have in- volved. His pupils would have deserted him. " I should like to punch your head ! " exclaims a tall man in a long coat, going up to Dilke as he leaves his house for the meeting. " Two can play at that game ; perhaps I should like to punch yours," replies Dilke. The man turns like a cow- ard, and though Sir Charles follows him for a short distance, he shows no fight, and the republican enters the vestry-hall none the worse for a threat. 6* I 1 30 ^ MERICANS ABE OA D. And such a meeting as it is ! The hall ordinarily seats fifteen hundred, but to-night the benches have been so arranged as to accommodate eighteen hundred, while two hundred more than the hall can hold have by some means contrived to gain a footing. One youth, climbing on the shoulders of the crowd, swings himself up to the outside iron railing of the gallery, and, not allowed to climb over, clings to the railing, sitting, apparently, on nothing for the entire evening. Others have ob- tained a footing on a slight projection of the wall; others, still, look as though they were standing on people's heads, but in reality have mounted a barricade near the door. Two thousand v/ithin, there are quite as many without who clamor to be let in, and, pushing, cause hundreds near the door to sm'ge like the sea in a storm. As we appear on the narrow platform, the cheer- ing and applause for Dilke is almost deafening. It is no mob that applauds. If these men be the " roughs of London," as they are called in society, then I can truthfully say that I have rarely seen in England a more intelligent body of men. The heads of the majority are good, many are more than good, several are evideutly gentlemen, and unwashed faces are few. Four women have been brave enough to venture into the body of the hall ; REPUBLICANISM IN ENGLAND. 131- and four women, including Lady Diike, on the platform, do their best to represent advanced Avomen's opinions. It is useless for the genial chairman to try to be heard. The audience is perfectly good-natured, but it is uproarious and will listen to nobody but Dilke, who, upon rising, is received with hats, lungs, hands, feet, and pocket-handkerchiefs. Then the dense mass set- tles itself to hear one of the fairest and most enlightened speeches ever delivered on this side of the Atlantic. Without prelude, without any attempt at rhetoric, Dilke plunges at once into the middle of the American Case, treating the matter with an intelligence as creditable to him as it is rare in Parliament. Ah, if all Americans who believe we have no friends in England could see the hearty good-will to us beaming in every face in this audience, could hear the applause with which Dilke's opinions are re- ceived, and could feel the sympathetic magnetism, they would draw a very wide distinction between the people and press of England ! Speaking of the advantages of a republican form of government, and stating that he shall also introduce in the House of Commons a bill to provide for the public management of lands already public, that he shall move his last year's amendments to the Ballot Bill, 132 AMERICANS ABROAD. by which the poll, instead of closing at four, will be kept open to eight o'clock, and that he shall move for the redistribution of seats in Parliament, Dilke concludes by saying : — " The details, then, of all my statements, I shall reserve for the House of Commons, and one only other word will I Titter at present on this question. I Avould beg you that when men, from interested motives, or from ignorance, accuse those of us who say these things of saying them by w^ay of personal attack upon the Queen, to answer only, that were wx to bring into account the character of the present occupant of the throne, we should — I should — state it as an argument telling in favor of monarchy in England, that it has produced a sovereign who, beside being a model wife and mother, has so just a perception of the true position of a con- stitutional ruler as her Majesty. [A^jplause.] But, happily for the future of English republicanism, it rests not at present upon, and I hope may never come to be supported by, any personal arguments at all." [Cheers.] 0, the cheers that go up as Charles Dilke sits down ! A red banner, bearing the inscription in gold letters, " Honor to Dilke," is hung from the gallery. It is greeted with three times three cheers, and three times three again. It is worth while being abused to be so loved ; and, for my part, I feel more at home among these honest REPUBLICANISM IN ENGLAND. 133 Republicans than I have felt since I left America. But now matters begin to look serious. Sir Henry Hoare rises, and every sound of which the human throat is capable is hurled at him. I hear every note in almost every octave, flats and sharps, groans in every vowel. Men rise and shake their fists at the honorable baronet, who never flinches, although he knows he is hated for having repudiated the Republican tendencies of his colleague. In vain the chairman calls the meeting to order. At last Dilke rises, and in deference to him the audience subsides until Sir Henry tells them that England is more of a republic than America, when the roar- ing, and surging begin again. " Who among you are fit to be republicans % " shrieks Sir Henry ; whereupon everybody laughs contemptuously, and one fellow jumps up, exclaiming, with a broad grin on his face, " Look at me. I am ! " Sir Henry is in bad odor, and though he is occasionally ap- plauded, there is no sympathy between him and his hearers. Sir Henry shows pluck to the end, and sits down amid great confusion. When the resolution of confidence in both members is put to the meeting, the wildest dissent follows. " Put them separately " screams everybod3\ Somebody suggests a compromise, that after passing the resolution a special vote of confidence shall be 134 AMERICANS ABROAD. accorded to Sir Charles Dilke. No, indeed. The people will listen to nothing of the sort, and it is not until Sir Charles begs them as a special favor to himself to accept the resolution, that they acquiesce. When it and the rider are put and the vote is taken, four thousand hands fly into the air, looking like skeleton birds on the wing. It is an exciting moment, a complete victory for Sir Charles Dilke ; and, when he drives away, the cheers of five thousand Republicans make finer music than the Coldstream Band. Do you think that the typhoid fever has killed the British re- public 1 It is a quarter past eleven, not too late for Gladstone, so back I drive to the House of Com- mons in time to hear Mr. Denham and Mr. Hardy attack the government, and hear Gladstone's response. The Premier is fluent, but he is not eloquent. How can he be, when his cry is " Misericordia " 1 A speaker who begs the ques- tion cannot fire one with burning oratory. I hear Gladstone, but it is Gladstone at the ebb ; and when he sits down I feel that the victory he is to gain will be almost equal to a defeat. The division is taken, Fawcett, the Republican, walks off" with the Tories, seven other Liberals follow in his wake, several prominent Radicals have remained REPUBLICANISM IN ENGLAND. 135 away altogether, while others have departed but a short time ; and Avhen Cl-lyn, the Liberal whip, de- clares the government to have beaten by twenty- seven votes, a faint cheer goes up that is in strange contrast with the huzzas I have heard earlier in the evening. When I leave, Gladstone and Glyn are hobnobbing and smiling ; but the Premier's smile is forced, and I wonder whether he has heard the echo of those Repubhcan voices in Chelsea. THE THANKSGIVING SERVICE. London, February 28, 1872. PURPOSE that on Tuesday, the 27th instant, conformably to the good and becoming usage of former days, the bless- ing thus received shall be acknov/ledged on be- half of the nation by a Thanksgiving in the metropolitan cathedral. At this celebration, it is my desire and hope to be present." Who pur- poses'? Queen Victoria. What blessing 1 Is it necessary to answer'? Is not "blessing" synony- mous "with the Prince of Wales's restoration to health 1 Such a naive question comes of liv- ing under republican institutions. As soon as the Queen decided to visit St. Paul's in state, everybody else wanted to go. From loyalty, do you suppose *? Arthur Helps, who ought to know, declares that Londoners are singularly full of curiosity. When it becomes impossible for every- body to attend a celebration, of course everybody wants to go. Four hundred Americans besieged THE THANKSGIVING SERVICE. 137 the Legation for tickets, and ont of the fonr hun- dred, eig'ht obtained the desired entree. The Lord Chamberlain is mighty. He wields his sceptre with becoming despotism, and does unto everybody as he would not have anybody do unto him. Not only was it a great favor to have any ticket at all, but the Great Chamberlain decreed that on your tickets should be written your name by the United States Minister, and by nobody else, and that no ticket should be transferable ! People dared not accept tickets from friends who were detained at home by illness, for fear of being forced to perjure themselves at the doors of St. Paul's. 1 fully expected to be challenged, to take my oath that I was myself, and that General Schenck had, with his own right hand, written my name on the entrance card, which was big enough to admit Brigham Young and his entire family. Unnecessary fear ! The tickets were not examined, were not even taken from us, and several that I picked up after the ceremony indi- cated no name whatever. So much for absurd edicts of the Lord Chamberlain, who would have prevented unmarried members of Parliament from taking ladies had not Montague Guest struck for his " sisters " and his fires. Having caught my ticket, kind friends who had 138 AMERICANS ABROAD. none advised me not to go ; first, because I 'd prob- ably never reach St. Paul's, as there were to be twelve miles of carriages, and how could I be in- side of Temple Bar before eleven 1 Or, if I did get there, how could I find my carriage after the per- formance, — I mean ceremony 1 and then what would prevent my being crushed to death by the crowd I " But if you persist in your resolution," said the last adviser, " go early." The " Times " de- voted columns to the same refrain, so that thirteen thousand men and women passed one of the most wretchedly sleepless nights of their lives in a feverish desire to obey the mandate of The Thun- derer. In London, gaslight is so infinitely superior to daylight as to tempt one never to go to bed — and never to get up. Picture, then, thirteen thou- sand yawning human beings, snatched from an ear- ly nightmare, bolting their breakfasts as fast as jug- glers bolt swords, . cramming luncheons into their pockets, rushing into carriages, and being driven off to see what a republican weekly here calls the "■ Great Raree Show." Over-anxious ticket-holders left their homes as early as 6.30, the very thought of which hour plunges a Londoner in suicidal gloom. Half past eight sees us on our winding way, and the first flag we drive under is the Star-Spangled Banner, displayed in Piccadilly by the Christy THE THANKSGIVING SERVICE. 139 minstrels. " An eager and a nipping air " does not add to the hilarity of the hour, and if this be " Queen's weather," the less we have of it the bet- ter. Through Leicester Square, sullen and undec- orated, through narrow streets, in which loyalty has not broken out, we at last reach the Strand, and find ourselves one of an immense cortege. Everybody seems to be good-natured, every- body that is not in the street is looking out of windows ; and when I see these faces, so thankful to be let loose from w^ork for outdoor celebration, I wonder England does not invent a few" holidays to save her populace from the deadening effect of everlasting grind. " Scott, the champion bill- poster," " ' The Daily News,' — world-wide circu- lation," " ' The Daily Telegraph,' — largest circula- tion in the world," and " The Echo " do an im- mense business in advertising. They burst forth in every direction. As decorations they are danger- ous rivals to "God bless the Prince of Wales ! " " The Echo," dressed in dark blue, absolutely serv- ing as a neat trimming to St. Martin's Le Grand. A few people wear the national colors, but other- wise there is no attempt at personal adornment, except in a man seated over the suggestive sign of C. Sharj?, who wears an enormous worsted sun- flower in his buttonhole. 140 AMERICANS ABROAD. On one side we read Scriptural mottoes, "We praise thee, Lord," "My Son was dead, and is alive again" ; on the other we see gayly dressed women sittinoj in the windows of qtoo;- shops, with gin-bottles and " the Prince of Wales's ale, recommended by the faculty," above their heads. Carlo Gatti, pastry-cook, has attempted to trim the fa9ades of his shop as he would a wed- ding-cake. He succeeds. Children in Highland dress stand upon the platform of a church, and the crowd playfully ask us to show our tickets. Figaro hangs out a banner, addressed to the Prince of Wales, which strikes me as peculiar. ''Wel- come, and many happy returns," says Figaro. Keturns of what 1 Typhoid fever 1 I doubt whether the Deity ever was so patronized as on this occasion. "We give thanks. Lord Jesus, King of kings, for the recovery," etc. Then, as being particularly appropriate to this recovery, we are told to " Put your trust in God, boys, and keep your powder dry." "God save us all " is about the only generous motto I discover, every other being determined that nobody shall be saved but the royal ftimily. Then come elegant extracts from the national hymn. " Confound their poli- tics, frustrate their knavish tricks," is a great favorite, undoubtedly selected with a view to cov- THE THANKSGIVING SERVICE. Ul eriiig Republicans with confusion. Should they rally irom this, they are sure to be frightened out of their heresy if they stand before the " Fun" office and see Dilke tossed on high by the British lion. In Fleet Street the scene is really picturesque, in spite of poverty of ingenuity in decoration. The flags and gay colors give it an almost Venetian look ; and London proves that, with more thought, more time, and united enthusiasm, she can retrieve her reputation for ugliness and want of color. But the people are most interesting to contemplate. Boys dance breakdowns; men on the tops of houses are to take care of themselves. " There goes Roger ! " screams the crowd, as a very fat cab-driver, not unlike the Tichbome claimant, passes along. A man with a bouquet of violets enacts the iwima donna. *' God bless your pretty face ! " says a woman with flowers, addressing a gray-haired New-Yorker in our carriage. Is it necessary to add that the flattery produces the desired effect ? Programmes of the day's proceed- ings are for sale by everybody, and we buy, and buy, and buy, the last seller assuring us that his is the best because it has the prettiest cover. When we arrive at St. Paul's, we are presented with gorgeous official programmes, and discover the others to be worthless. 142 AMERICANS ABROAD. We pass Temple Bar, which is transformed from a grim old warrior into a Columbine. There, in a window, sit two Bostonians who have paid eighteen guineas for their seats. We drive over a sanded floor ; we are chaffed as everybody must be chaffed by a London crowd ; we are desired to remember them to Wales, and say they '11 call to-morrow. " There are no two ways about us ! " shouts a man who is forced to go in one direction when he would go in another. Policemen are bullied and badgered in a manner that passeth all understanding. But never mind them. England expects every man to do his duty ; and here we are at St. Paul's, enter- ing by the southwest door. Without difficulty we reach the corner devoted to " distinguished for- eigners," and find that, although it is but ten o'clock, the cathedral is rapidly filling. Ushers in dress-coats politely show us to our seats, and then we proceed to survey the scene. Remember that the structure is not Gothic, that we are in the southwest corner of the dome, with a gallery above us devoted to the Queen's household, with both naves cut off from view, and with nothing in sight but the royal pew, which is in front of us. There are rows of chairs in front of the pew, in- tended for peers and commoners, and distant gal- leries opposite are trimmed with red bunting. We THE THANKSGIVING SERVICE. 143 know that the Diplomatic Corps is in the north corner, corresponding to ours, but we see nothing of their gay plumage. They ought to have been placed in the body of the building, where their uniforms would have produced effect, — but then I 'm not Lord Chamberlain. We contemplate a few uniforms, red bunting, and an empty royal pew for some time. One "distinguished foreigner," a lady, in front of me, reads the '^ Times." My left-hand neighbor reads '' My Wife and I." A gentleman near by is ab- sorbed in " Ginx's Baby." He won't look at any- thing. He calls it a "show"; has come to please his wife, and not even royalty distracts his atten- tion. And he is an Englishman! Opera-glasses abound, and everybody is discussing who every- body else is. Soon our corner is filled to over- flowing, and late arrivals are forced to go into a dark hole where they can see nothing and do noth- ing but catch cold. General Badeau appears in full uniform, and he, too, is poked into the hole ; but there are a few seats reserved in front, and at last he is permitted to occupy one. This excites the indignation of "distinguished foreigners" in the rear, who mutter imprecations on the ushers. Then come the Nawab Nazim and his son, the former looking like the typical Bluebeard, and the 144 AMERICANS ABROAD. latter arrayed in emeralds that almost tempt one to commit robbery. Emerald drops, emerald but- tons, emerald everything, and all for " one little In- dian boy " ! What a mistake circumstances are ! More " distinguished foreig-ners " appear, looking very English and not at all distinguished. A prominent writer on the " Times " is seen in a gorgeous uniform, as representative of Paraguay. More Indians are ushered to the front seats, — one a solemn man in picturesque garb; and the other, a youthful woman done up in gold cloth. Ah, that cloth ! how well it would look converted into an opera-cloak ! Some declare that the man is the Maharajah Duleep Singh, the mediatized prince, who hates the Queen, and who once had the pleasure of seeing her Majesty arrayed in his jewels, — but this I disbelieve. They are great and solemn people. This is enough. Peers and peeresses flutter about, and com- moners begin to arrive. Lord Ripon, in court dress, the picture of good-nature, looks as though the Alabama rested lightly on his shoulders. Mr. Lowe smiles as blandly as though he had not met his match in the people v\^ho hissed him in his. pro- gress to the cathedral. Ah ! here come Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone ] she in black velvet and white lace, he in court imiform. Mrs. Gladstone kneels THE THANKSGIVING SERVICE. U5 for one moment, and people nudge one another with surprise. '' Well," whispers one grande dame^ " 3^ou know she 's the Minister's wife, and thinks something is expected of her." Gladstone puts on his white kid gloves, and bows to his friends ; but his is the most worn and tired face I see. Hun- gry 1 how hungry we are ! So we pull out our luncheons, and munch, and munch, and munch. The grande dame in front lays aside her opera- glass in order to sip sherry ; and we conclude, w^hen we see both Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone, peers, peeresses, and commoners using their opera-glasses and deporting themselves as if they were at the theatre, that this truly is a religious gathering, and that we are all deeply impressed by the gravity of the occasion. A sensation ! everybody rises. Opera-glasses to the front ! I see the top of a gold mace, and know that the Speaker of the House has arrived. General suspense ensues ; a man in the organ-loft, who really has the best position, waves a hand- kerchief; "God save the Queen" is played; a choir of two hundred men in white robes rise ; the distinguished but tall women in front of me stand on their chairs, and I see nothing. This is too much, so I stand on my chair, all other women following the example. Had the royal pew been 7 J 146 AMERICANS ABROAD. raised four feet instead of two, every one could have seen with perfect ease ; but no Yankee was consulted. By dint of much gymnastic exercise, I behold the royal family, and am not impressed by the spectacle. I think of "the cost of royalty," and gaze upon the pensioners all in a row. The Queen is exceedingly plain ; her sons are not in the least good-looking ; the Prince of Wales ap- pears to better advantage than he has for some time, for the reason that he is thinner and his face has lost its redness. He is by no means pale, however, seeming to have been tanned by outdoor life, and appears less affected by the scene than any other member of his family, his eldest-born excepted, who, being a child, is as rest- less as a child ought to be. The Queen and the Princess Alexandra, who is really pretty and lady- like, bow their heads from the beginning to the end of the service, which, fortunately, is but three quarters of an hour long. Opera-glasses are brought to a focus on the Prince of Wales. A Te Deum is sung, which should be spelled tedium, for, composed by Mr. Goss, organist of St. Paul's, it is as poor a composition as one might expect, but is sung better than it deserves. There are prayers, and there is a collect. There is a prayer for the Queen's Majesty, and then is said the gen- * THE THANKSGIVING SERVICE. 147 eral thanksgiving, with these inserted words : " Particularly to Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, who desires now to offer up his praises and thanks- giving for thy late mercies vouchsafed to him." " With the last words," says to-day's "Times," " the leader's voice stopped, and the perfect pause of a few moments, almost aivful in its intensity^ was the point at which the sublimity of the service cul- minated and reached its highest and intensest ex- pression." I feel nothing awful, nothing intense ; nothing culminates ; opera-glasses go on as before ; a commonplace anthem is sung, but nobody listens, for everybody's ears are eyes. Nor is there any change when the Archbishop of Canterbury begins his sermon, taking for his text, " Members one of another." It is the old story over again, what we have read in the newspapers ; how we are all more united than ever before. But the sermon is as brief as though it were the soul of wit, which is some- thing. A commonplace hymn follows, and then the Queen and her children bow and depart, fol- lowed by the Gold Stick in Waiting, the Mistress of the Robes, the First Lady of the Bedchamber, the Second Woman of the Bedchamber, etc., etc., all of whom look just like other people, only they are not as well dressed as our women at home. 148 , AMERICANS ABROAD. The Thanksgiving is over. The organist is chary of his music. None was allowed before the Queen's arrival. An occasional spasm caused a lady to exclaim, " I wish that horrid organ would do something besides grunt." No music is per- mitted afterward. We leave the cathedral in good order and with the driest of eyes, although a pamphlet prophesied that we should be bathed in tears. Lords and ladies drive away in gorgeous carriages, aldermen walk about in gowns and cigars; I tread on the gown of a very great bigwig, but do no mischief; we are driven away as Lord Gran- ville's carriage is announced ; and when I am asked how I like it, I say that the Boston Peace Jubilee of 18G9 was so magnificently superior to it in real- ity, in decoration, in massing of people, in color, in music, and in enthusiasm, as to blot the Thanks- giving out of my memory. I am not impressed, and it is useless to assume a virtue (T) when I have it not. And there is a reverse to the medal of this Thanksgiving, which you shall see and then draw your moral ; for what is a Thanksgiving with- out a moral ? SECOND THOUGHTS ABOUT THE THANKSGIVING. "The Queen, as well as her son and dear daughter-in-law, felt that the whole nation joined with them in thanking God for sparing the beloved Prince of Wales's life." — Queen's Let- ter. London, March, 1872. N leaving St. Paul's, and passing through Farringdon Street, the crowd lining both sides of the carriageway was in poor clothes, and by no means meek in spirit. There was a settled hardness and bitterness upon the faces, especially upon those of the w^omen, that impressed me profoundly ; and as our carriage approached a particularly squalid group, a w^oman exclaimed, with a malignity that made me shud- der, " Here come the gems of the Court ! " We w^ere in a fine carriage ; we were well dressed ; we possessed what they could never attain to : therefore we were their natural enemies, and be- longed to the Court. Again, in Oxford Street, the 150 AMERICANS ABROAD. lan^Tiage excited by the appearance of a pret- tily dressed boy on the box of a carriage was so awful as to cause the terrified mother to drive into a by-street. These are the people who, to quote the " Saturday Review," harbor no envy. No envy in England ! No envy in a land of castes and of extremes ! The idea is preposterous. And if there be no envy, if the Seven Dials rejoice in the wealth of Mayfair and Belgravia, why should this same "Saturday Review" declare that poor and rich should be separated outdoors as well as indoors ; that, " instead of attracting the turbulent East- Enders to the more civilized parts of London, they should be entertained with fireworks in Victoria Park and illuminations of conspicuous buildings in their own neighborhood % " You have heard how much the royal cortege was cheered, as if cheers on the 27th were founded on the one grand feeling of loyalty. The crowd cheered everybody but Lowe and Gladstone. They gave our carriage a reception as it passed Temple Bar, for no reason but that noise helped to be- guile the waiting hours. Probably every other carriage received the same attention. The people cheered Disraeli ; they gave an ovation to a milk- woman ; a postman driving a pony-cart made a sensation in Pall Mall. Louis Napoleon was re- SECOND THOUGHTS ABOUT THANKSGIVING, li)! ceived with acclamation ; and Sanger's Circns, which followed the royal procession, was mucli more enthusiastically welcomed than the House of Hanover. Then it is perfectly true that banners bearing the inscription, " God save the starving- poor ! " were held up along the royal route ; that they were undisturbed by the populace ; and that they w^ere torn down by the police, as if the prayer were an insult to the Queen, and the Prince of Wales enjoyed a monopoly of God. It is perfectly true that the Duke of Cambridge was received with disapprobation, and that the royal family were hissed at several points, especially in H^^de Park, where those who hissed were attacked by the police, but untouched by the people ! An omnibus-driver exclaimed that he " had always till now been down on that 'ere Dilke, but that he was blowed if arter this kind of thing he did not turn a red-hot Republican." The extreme loyalty of at least some of the Oxford shopkeepers may be judged by one of them, who remarked apropos of those who had purchased seats in front of his shop, that '^ they might tumble through and break their d — d necks. He had sold out at a guinea a head, and that was all he cared for." Let us make his- tory truthfully, or die. The illuminations were poor, and confined almost 152 AMERICANS ABROAD. exclusively to shopkeepers. When one remembers that the Queen alone has .£173,000 to spend among them, a little of this loyalty may be accounted for. " We are aware " — again I quote the " Saturday Review " — " that some tradesmen may regard illu- mination not as a costly burden, but as a profita- ble advertisement, and in this point of view the present system is particularly objectionable. Per- haps the strongest impression which remains after one of these displays is that of its general mean- ness and poverty of invention, and the palpably commercial motive of some of the most successful efforts that were made. As was said on a rriem- orable occasion, ' We cannot all be tailors.' " This final remark refers to Poole, tailor to the Prince of Wales, w^hose shop in Saville Row is always brilliantly illuminated. But this is not aTl. Determined to probe the Thanksgiving to its core, I went that Tuesday night from the glitter of Poole's tailor-shop to the Hall of Science in the far eastern part of London, to hear Charles Bradlaugh denounce the working- men who had accepted invitations to St. Paul's. Be it known that the Queen expressed a desire to have the workingmen represented at this cere- mony ; that fifty-eight tickets were given to Mr. Applegarth for distribution among this body, with SECOND THOUGHTS ABOUT THANKSGIVING.lbS instructions from her Majesty that no ticket should be given to Odger, or to " that wicked man Bradlaugh." I went to hear what this " wicked man," otherwise "Beast Bradlaugh," otherwise " Brawling Bradlaugh " had to say in his defence, and against the historic fifty-eight workingmen who stultified themselves by going to St. Paul's. Without now entering into a criticism of Brad- laugh the man, I am ready to declare that he is a born orator, and that if he succeeds in getting into Parliament at the next general election, he will stir the House of Commons as it is not in the habit of being stirred. He swayed his crowded audience of workingmen as I have seen no audi- ence swayed in England. His prayer was povertj^'s prayer. He and his audience did not stand alone in their protest. Many towns and villages were holding meetings,— r Arlington, Hull, Sheflfield, and others. When the Prince of Wales was ill, Brad- laugh held his tongue. Now he would be the rankest of all cowards to keep quiet, esjjecially as he had been told that he dared not denounce the Thanksgiving, that no one would listen to him. The last Thanksgiving had been for what 1 For George the Third's recovery from lunacy, and God so blessed him that he drove him mad ! Did people realize what they were doing? If prayers 7* 154 AMERICANS ABROAD. had restored the Prince of Wales, why had not prayers restored Blogg, his groom'? What of many thousands who die in spite of prayers'? And what becomes of doctors and surgeons'? Why employ them at all, if prayers are so effica- cious '? And what is it of which we should be so thankful ? Is this man great in science ? Is he a statesman'? Is he orator, poet, thinker, author, hero-warrior % Bradlaugh did not speak of his last autumn manoeuvre, or of his shooting at San- dringham. " What has the House of Hanover done for us, but make our taxes fifteen times heavier than they were 1 God l.Iess the Prince of Wales ! What has he done ? We won't lie even by acqui- escence. But to-day teaches us a lesson. It teaches us that much work must be accomplished before the coming of the republic. It makes us realize the necessity of unending struggle. You cheer, you applaud, but I say that most of us Pvepublicans are only in quarantine, and I would n't give all of you — even you — a clean bill of health." When Bradlaugh sat down, he was greeted with round after round of applause. When he rose to deny the newspaper statement that Sir Charles Dilke had been present at St. Paul's, the cheering broke out anew; and this reminds me that when the boat bearing the mem- SECOND THOUGHTS ABOUT THANKSGIVING. 155 ^)ers of Parliament to St. Paul's left Westminster Palace, three cheers were given for the absent Sir Charles. Judge then of the marvellous unanimity of this people. Judge of a church ceremony, attended by thirteen thousand j)ersons, costing £13,000, — <£ 1 per head, — and for which the people who were not admitted are to be taxed. And what do the Queen and her son in commemoration of thi^ recovery? Her Majesty gives £ 1,000 toward the embellishment of St. Paul's; the Prince gives £ 500. The poor are forgotten, in spite of those protestations of press and pulpit some weeks ago, and everybody is asked to follow the royal ex- ample. '' God save the starving poor ! " So much for the most monstrous advertisement of the nineteenth century. REPUBLICANISM IN PARLIAMENT. UPROAR IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. London, March 20, 1872. :0 you mean to say that you are going Dilke'? I am astonished. Why, he is a traitor ! He has assailed the Queen, and is doing more harm than any man in England ! If he wants to attack abuses, why does n't he attack real ones, instead of bringing up a motion to in- vestigate the Civil List 1 " Thus spake a lady of high degree, but without effect. Not only did I go to hear the " dreadful man," but upon arriving at the House of Commons yesterday, at four o'clock, I found the ladies' gallery filled, and the Speak- er's gallery, likewise devoted to women, was not long empty. Ever since his speech at Newcastle, Sir Charles Dilke has been an object of curiosity, if not of interest, to women. To be a Republican in England is to be very brutal, very ugly, very REPUBLICANISM IN PARLIAMENT, 157 dirty, and very poor. At least, this is the opinion prevalent in high circles ; so that the idea of a baronet proclaiming himself anything so exceed- ingly outrageous and vulgar sends society into spasms. Nevertheless, as society has nothing in the world to do, society is curious, and from the opening of Parliament Sir Charles has been the lion of the House of Commons. He is the mem- ber who must be exhibited ; and one lady has en- joyed no little notoriety in being able to point out the monster, and to state that she actually knows him ! Such was the temper of the ladies' galleries yesterday, with honorable exceptions ; and the fair dames had every opportunity of grat- ifying their curiosity, as Sir Charles was early in his seat on the front row below the gangway, evi- dently absorbed in the speech he was to deliver. Petition after petition was presented ; notices Avere given ; Disraeli, persistent in his nagging, was cheered for stating that after Easter he should bring under the consideration of the House, Eng- land's relations with the United States ; Mr. Bail- lie Cochrane (Tory) wanted to know something about the International Society, and, as usual, Mr. Gladstone "could not answer the question without notice " ; Lord C. J. Hamilton (Tor}^) in- dulged in a personal explanation ; lords came in 158 AMERICANS ABROAD. and took their customary seats ; the Strangers' Gallery was filled, to overflowing ; among the di- plomatists I descried General WoodhuU and Mr. Moran, our good-natured and most efficient Secre- tary of Legation. I knew that General Schenck was somewhere in the House, ready to listen most intently. As the hour wore on, Sir Charles took the upper corner seat of his bench, which was occupied by James White, Auberon Herbert, W. M. Torrens, Sir Henry Hoare, Henry Fawcett, and one or two others. After the last question had been put, Sir Charles removed his hat, and rose to bring forward his motion on the Civil List. Then began the reign of pandemonium. Viscount Bury, a tall, florid man occupying a commanding seat, intro- duced an unexpected dramatic efl"ect by holding aloft a copy of the oath of allegiance, and wanting to know whether the honorable baronet, having declared himself a Eepublican, was not guilty of an infringement of a solemn vow. Auberon Her- bert rose to order, and cheers, followed by counter- cheers, rang through the House. The Speaker said Lord Bury was in possession of the House ; whereupon the irate lord wanted to know whether, before hearing the honorable member for Chelsea, he might not be called upon to repudiate or REPUBLICANISM IN PARLIAMENT. 159 acknowledge his republican professions. As the Speaker understands his business, the noble lord was told that it is no part of the Speaker's duty to say what is or what is not consistent with the oath ', at which information the melodramatic lord sat down, and Sir Charles once more stood up, cheered at first by his friends, but those cheers w^ere soon drowned in a Niagara of groans pro- ceed ino- from the Conservative side. Such howl- ing I never heard out of a menagerie. I thought I was in a den of wild beasts ; it seemed as if the inhabitants of the Zodlogical Gardens had suddenly been let loose in the House of Commons. The victim for whose blood these wdld animals ap- peared to thirst, did not once expostulate nor even alter his position. He stood with his hands behind him and his body bent forward, — an atti- tude that seems to be characteristic, and, if so, is susceptible of improvement ; for a speaker is never so commanding as when his shoulders are thrown back and he makes use of every inch of his stature. As even Homer has been known to nod, and the " Zoo " to be hushed in silence, so the bullies finally ceased from howling, and Sir Charles was allowed to speak to a slow, rumbling accompaniment of voices that did not prevent his being heard. Sir Charles has a 160 AMERICANS ABROAD. good voice and a distinct utterance, and when he has acquired the art of being colloquial — an art which is known to Mr. Gladstone, but which is generally ignored in this country — he will make a good speaker. The speech was nearly two hours long; it was statistical from beginning to end ; it was intended to be nothing else. The object Avas to crowd as many facts as possible into a certain amount of time. Not one irrelevant word, not one word about a republic. The Tories were sadly disappointed at the prosaic nature of the speech, and Sir Charles sat down, cheered by a minority of friends, howled at by the representatives of the "Zoo." All through his speech Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Lowe had been taking notes; and from the attack made upon Sir Charles by Mr. Lowe out of Parliament, and his intimation that he would dispose of the Chelsea member when brought face to face with him in the House, everybody supposed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be as good as his word; but he failed to realize fond expectations. Mr. Lowe kept his seat, and Mr. Gladstone rose to reply. Now, everybody here knows how tenderly Mr. Gladstone treated Sir Charles in his Greenwich address, delivered shortly after the Newcastle REPUBLICAMUM IN PARLIAMENT. 1^1 bombshell. But Mr. Gladstone is an intellectual flea. You never know where to have him ; conse- quently it never surprises the initiated to see the Prime Minister indulge in somersaults. It was a singular spectacle to behold a Liberal Minister re- ceived by his own party with silence, and by the opposition with uproarious approbation. He had it all his own waj^, and took advantage of the hos- tility to Dilke. It is easy for a man like Gladstone to be sarcastic, to make telling hits, to denounce. It is for easier to be brilliant than to disprove facts; consequently, Mr. Gladstone indulged in the rhetoric of abuse. He tried to wither Sir Charles by calling him an " instructor of the peo- ple," which appellation excited derisive laughter from the Tory benches. In one instance, replying to a statement made by Sir Charles, he declared it to be "one of the most wanton errors into which a member of Parliament ever fell." But, apart from this insulting denial of a single charge, Mr. Gladstone in no sense answered Sir Charles Dilke. He parried with "glittering generalities." He paid a warm eulogy to the Queen, thus insinuating that Sir Charles's motion was a personal attack upon her Majesty. He declared that the motion was inseparably connected with the speech at New- castle, therefore should be opposed, and he sat down 162 AMERICANS ABROAD. after earnestly trusting that the House would meet the motion with a negative voice. Of course, the House was only too ready to heed Mr. Glad- stone's invitation ; and when Auberon Herbert rose to second the motion, the wild animals roared more frightfully than ever. Standing like patience on a monument, the radical brother of the Earl of Carnarvon showed an amount of pluck that, com- bined with his well-merited popularity as a thor- ough gentleman and genial opponent, should have eiven him the ear of the House ; but Engiand is a free country, and therefore will not tolerate free speech. Having waited in vain for a cessation of hostilities, Mr. Herbert, much to the " Zoo's " dis- gust, hit upon a staccato delivery of his speech which rendered every word an interjection that was heard distinctly by the reporters. 1 ! (roar) shall ! (bellowing) remain ! (roar) on ! (divide) my ! (roar) feet ! (bellowing) until ! (divide) the ! (roar) honorable ! (roar) members ! (bellowing) go ! (roar) to ! (roar) dinner ! (divide) or ! (roar) go ! (roar) to ! (roar) bed ! (bellowing.) The Tower of Babel was repeated, confusion was worse confounded ; but through it all Herbert stood manfully to his guns, defending his friend against false accusa- tions. What could be done with such an oppo- nent 1 Suddenly the opposition, almost to a man, REPUBLICANISM IN PARLIAMENT. 1G3 rose, and left tlie House, in the hope that their example would cause the House to be reduced to less than forty members, in which case there would not be a quorum. Those who remained continued to howl, and when Herbert declared himself to be in favor of a republican form of government, the "Zoo" howded furiously. One member said he did not think there were forty members present, and moved that the House be counted. Roars of laughter succeeded this sally of wit. Herbert sat down imtil the House was counted. There being more than forty present, he resumed; but only to be again and again subjected to the same inter- ruption. AVhen this stratagem ceased to be novel, Lord Cecil Hamilton, thinking to prevent Herbert's speech from being reported, suddenly called atten- tion to the fiict that there were strangers in the House, — which meant that all the galleries, even that of the reporters', were to be cleared. It is a fiction that nobody assists at Parliamentary de- bates ; but if any one member chooses to see spectators, they are ordered out without a vote. We women, being behind a grating, were not dis- turbed, and for the first time I saw an advantage in the coop devoted to our sex. Sitting down un- til the last stranger had turned his reluctant back upon the House, Herbert once more returned to 164 AMERICANS ABROAD. the charge, interrupted, however, with calls to " Divide," cries of " Question," screams of '' Go to bed," " Put on your nightcap," cat-calls and cock- crowings. Had sounds from the dunghill been supplemented by the brayings of the ass, the con- cert would have been perfect. I saw little attempt by the Speaker to keep order. When Mr. Dodson rose and asked whether crowing was in order, the Speaker made bold to say that never had he wit- nessed a scene that had given him such pain. Mr. Dillwyn moved an adjournment, on the ground that reporters were not present. This led to a division, twenty-three being in favor of adjourn- ment and two hundred and thirty-eight against ; but the motion had the effect of readmitting both strangers and reporters. Sir Charles replied to certain statements made by Mr. Gladstone, main- tained that no portion of the statement on which he rested his case had been disproved by the Prime Minister, adhered to that statement, and proposed to go to a division, however few members might vote for him. The yeas and nays were taken. " The nays have it," said the Speaker. "The yeas have it," said Sir Charles. "The nays have it," repeated the Speaker. " The yeas have it," replied Sir Charles; and thus the division was forced. No one was surprised when the House returned and the vote was read : — REPUBLICANISM IN PARLIAMENT. 165 For Sir C. Dilke's motion . . .2 Against 276 Majority 274 But it was an overthrow worth many victories. The charges made by Sir Charles were not dis- proved ; the right of free speech was denied by Parliament ; investigation w^as voted down. Mr. Liddell hoped that the scene might be forgotten. The people will not forget the slightest incident. They will remember the 19th of March longer than will suit the convenience of ministerial memories, and Republicans will have reason to believe that " whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad." AN AFTER-DINNER SPEECH. TOAST : "THE LADIES." HEN one of England's most distinguished phj^sicians first urged me to return thanks for the toast last given, I declined. I never had done such a thing, and thought that I never could. Then I remembered that to the skillful treatment of this same physician I owed the restoration of that "most excellent thing in woman," a voice, which, if not " low " at present, will be shortly ; and it seemed ungrateful not to make some slight return for so signal a service. The claim was none the less valid for being in- direct ; and as this is the age of revolution, as humanity is stronger than caste or sex, as Royalty shakes hands with Democracy by acknowledging allegiance to the republic of letters, I asked my- self why, after all, women should not be heard as well as seen at public dinners. It is true that an august body of men — of course I can mean none AN AFTER-DINNER SPEECH. 167 other than the House of Commons — quote St. Paul as though saints were their perennial guides, philosophers, and friends ; and declare that women should keep silence, conveniently forgetting that St. Paul is addressing the women of Corinth, ac- cording to the law of A. D. 59 ; that elsewhere he contradicts himself ; and that the proper reading is, '' Let your women keep silence in the churches." If honorable M. P.'s persist in proving their inti- mate acquaintance with Scripture by misquoting it when they desire to keep lovely woman in her proper sphere, they should first descry strangers in the ladies' gallery, and order their summary ejection. But now, although at this post-prandial hour we are all supposed to be incapable of reason- ing, let us try to be logical. Women sing in public, act in public, read in public; why, then, should they not speak ? Why should it be considered feminine for a woman to interpret Shakespeare's ideas, and unfeminine to interpret her own, — provided she has any 1 It seems to me that if pubhc speaking be tolerated at all, — which is doubtful, especially at dinners, — it should be from the lips of women, and for this reason. Ever since the subsidence of chaos, men have been talking. For six thousand years, at least, they have, to use an Americanism, '' stumped " creation, and impressed the world with 168 AMERICANS ABROAD. their views on all subjects ; but as there is as much sex in mind as there is in matter, we have seen everything in profile. Now, an artist will tell you that no two sides of the same face are exactly alike. I pray you, therefore, let us have the other profile, whereby w^e may see the entire face, gaze into telltale eyes, and thus get at the soul of all things. Taking for granted all that is known and said about women, they ought to make more attractive speakers than men. I do not think they are, so far ; but they ought to be, and these are my data. Women are born more grace- ful ; they have the great gift of beauty and the great privilege of dress. Hence, they are a greater gratification to the eye, and the majority of people hear with their eyes. Women are more impulsive, more sympathetic, more persuasive ; therefore are they more likely to touch the heart ; and when you have made an audience feel, half the battle is won. Pray, who does the greater part of speaking in private, — Mr, or Mrs. Caudle 1 Were I a man, I should hail public speaking as a blessing in dis- guise. When Vesuvius is in a state of eruption, ^tna is quiet. Fluency of diction is a desideratum in speaking. If tradition be correct, w^omen are not lacking in this requirement. Indeed, it has been seriously questioned whether women partake AiV AFTER-DINNER SPEECH. 169 of celestial joys, for the reason that once upon a time there was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour. Then, if precedent be required, women can trace back their rights in this respect much further than men, for Eve was the original orator. It is to her persuasive pleading that we owe all knowledge. Miriam was among the first to prophesy ; Deborah was elevated to the dignity of judge of Israel; Greek oracles proceeded from the lips of women ; and the greatest orators of Hellas did not scorn to be taught their art by the sex they regarded wdth contempt. Socrates learned rhetoric from Aspnsia ; and it w\as to their mother, Cornelia, that the Gracchi owed their elo- quence. And, if modern examples are asked for, I can only reply, that not many evenings since I heard six Englishwomen — the majority of them young, and two of them very pretty — speak at Hanover Square Rooms in a manner that might be imitated w^ith advantage by the gentlemen in the House of Commons, who recently referred to them as creatures of sentiment. If it be allowed, then, that women ma^^ speak in public, it seems to me no more than just that one of my sex should re- turn hearty thanks to the managing committee of this dinner, for treating them as though they were not too good for human nature's daily food. It ^ 170 AMERICANS ABROAD. is useless to talk of the equality of the sexes, so long as men sit down to turtle soup in one room, and women stand up to tea and sandwiches in an- other, waiting with becoming humility for admis- sion to a Barmecide feast of reason and flow of soul. I never knew a woman who did not protest against a senseless custom which deprives public dinners of half their utility as well as all their bril- liancy ; for, as the object of these dinners is the raising of money, their managers show little dis- cernment in ignoring sisters of charity, who, in my country, are as effective in opening the purses as they are in touching the hearts of their lay brothers. In conclusion, therefore, and in the name of the ladies, I thank you for the cordial manner in which the toast has been proposed and received, and trust that the managing committee may never regret having recognized women as creatures with appetites. Festival of the London Hospital for Throat Diseases, Willis's Rooms, May, 1872. SPECIMEN AMERICANS. Ems, June 17, 1872. AM asked to do what is an intolerable bore. I am asked to sketch my European experiences at a season of the year when the very word " experiences " sends one's mental thermometer to fever heat, and from the hottest place in Germany, where writing is not only im- possible, but strictly prohibited by the medical faculty. Is this Christian^ Is this doing unto others as one would wish to be done by ] Were I not a little lower than the angels, I should answer as briefly and as obstinately as his Holiness the Pope, — Non possumus ; but being not only an angel but a woman (''and therefore incapable of saying 'no,'" asserts public opinion), I promise, while attempting to gratify an inhuman request, to be as inconsequent as Mrs. Nickleby, as stupid as Mrs. Raddles's girl Betsy, as sleepy as the fat boy Joe, and as unintelligible as Flora in " Little Dorrit." Like the once famous President of the 172 AMERICANS ABROAD. once Confederate States, "all I ask is to be let alone " ; and if a hapless being is roused in her sleepy lair at Ems, the consequences of an act unparalleled in its rashness must be assumed. No one is capable of an idea in this sleepy hollow. Had Eip Yan Winkle gone to sleep here, he never would have waked. If in the dim past you ever had an idea, you forget it on arriving, and help- lessly turn your brain out to grass as of no fur- ther use. I I am requested to say something about Amer- ' icans abroad. Well, I -am sorry to make the con- fession, but either there are a great many fools in America, or all the fools in America visit Europe. I have not yet arrived at a definite conclusion on the subject, for truth is said to lie in a well, and a great deal of rope is required to get at it ; but judging from the fact that I never met such pecu- liar specimens at home as I meet or hear of abroad, I am inclined to believe that a large pro- portion of our idiots seek an asylum on this side of the Atlantic. Perhaps this is the retort cour- teous we make to Europe for sending us her ad- venturers, thieves, and burglars. If this be so, Europe has a decided advantage, for whereas her exports steal our property and tarnish our good name, the American exports give an impetus to SPECIMEN AMERICANS. 173 trade by throwing away their own money in a manner that would astonish Croesus. Travelling on the Continent is rendered wellnigh insufferable on account of a folly that has thoroughly cor- rupted innkeepers, servants, and tradesmen. The mischief, begun years ago by the English, has been aggravated to a pitch beyond w^hich human en- durance, to say nothing of mortal pockets, can no farther go. Strangely enough, petroleum and our terrible civil war are the principal causes of this growing evil. All the " shoddy," all the nouveaux riches, rush to Europe for the purpose of spending their rapidly acquired and frequently ill-gotten fortunes, and, stupidly imagining that fine feathers make fine birds, indulge in the wildest extravagance, to the intense satisfaction of trade and the disgTist of disinterested common-sense. Speak English upon entering a sho]D on the Continent, and prices are increased one third. Let it be known that you are American, and they are doubled. Not long since I priced a trinket, and, speaking French, was supposed by the illiterate shopkeeper to be a European. Returning the next day with the de- termination of purchasing the bawble on account of its cheapness, I found a Frenchman examining it, evidently with intent to buy. Observing that I was about to withdraw, the Frenchman raised 174 AMERICANS ABROAD. his hat, and, making a profound bow, declared that he did not intend to purchase, adding, " Madame est Americaine. C'est le pays des richesses et des jolies femmes " ; after which gen- teel impertinence he retired, and the shopkeeper, forgetting that he had seen me before, doubled the price of the desired article ! " The people of the Continent are very fond of you Americans, be- cause, you see, you are all rich," said an English- woman to me in a railway carriage. It was useless to deny the soft impeachment, as, not unlike some of her countrymen and women, she had arrived at certain conclusions, and no mortal argument could induce her to depart from them. This opinion is not without foundation ; for what think you of a man who, upon having bills presented to him, no matter by whom, extends a handful of gold and requests his creditors to help themselves? This is done over and over again. The folly of a few is the curse of many. Fancy an American girl with one hundred dresses, an allowance of two hundred francs a month for bonbons, and bills for gloves amounting to hundreds of francs ! So con- vinced are Europeans of our inexhaustible wealth, that noblemen see in American girls heiresses from whom to obtain the means of repairing for- tunes shattered by dissipation or gradual decay. SPECIMEN AMERICANS. 175 They offer titles for gold, believing that no repub- lican woman can resist a coronet. It would be funny, were it not disgusting, to note how, in a garrison town like Vienna, aristocratic officers in search of large incomes flock about Americans, as bees buzz about flowers from which they hope to extract honey. That certain girls have sold them- selves for titles is not strange when their previous lives are scrutinized, as, in most instances, they have been educated in French convents, and are no more American than the Parisians themselves. Nevertheless, it is sad that such things should be. From these examples the cynic turns upon you, saying, *' Look at your republican virtue ! Look at your contempt for rank ! " forgetting the mil- lions of real Americans in the backslidings of a minority. According to my theory — and prac- tice — no American should seek introduction to European courts. If he be a true republican he must disbelieve in the principle of caste, and, therefore, should not go where he is not received upon terms of equality. If Americans are pre- sented at court and do exhibit a weakness for rank, they are hypocrites, and deserve to be de- spised by Europeans as the worst of flunkies. A people who do not live up to their professions of faith merit the contempt of the world. 176 AMERICANS ABROAD. The great mistake made by Europeans is judg- ing Americans by themselves. Here "wealth is confined for the most part to tlie aristocracy, con- sequently those who travel represent a much higher average of social culture than is likely to be found among a corresponding number of Americans. The vulgar and illiterate of other nations — unless a percentage of well-to-do Eng- lish be excepted — are poor, and remain at home. The same class of people among us are often the richest, and are therefore much more largely represented abroad than our aristocracy of intel- lect and breeding. In fact, the best Americans can rarely afford to make a journey which is yearly becoming more and more expensive, and which demands an amount of time that workers are not able to give. When I tell English people that the most brilliant women I know never leave their quiet New England homes, they exclaim, " Why, I thought all Americans travelled ! " As a nation we do travel more than any other, but the proportion of culture is less than among European travellers. Foreigners make no such nice distinctions. A hotel on the Continent will shelter, at one time during the season, a dozen Americans, six English, three Kussians, two French, and one Prussian. The Russians, Prus- SPECfMEN AMERICANS. 177 sians, and FroDcli almost invariably belong to the nobility, and generally inherit good breeding, if they do not brains. Most of the English belong to the aristocracy or gentry ; while probably nine out of the dozen Americans are persons of no distinction whatever. The European observer, especially if he be English, picks out the least attractive of our people, and then and there con- cludes that Americans arc the vulgarest and most ostentatious of people. There never was a more i unjust criticism. Take the same class in any I other country, — exclusive of France and Italy, 1 where good breeding is as common to the servant /as to the master, — and the Americans will be immeasurably superior, for the reason that we L— ^re more versatile, have seen more of the world, can more readily adapt ourselves to surroundings, — either good or bad, — and, owing to universal education, have a far higher average of intelli- gence. After all, the marvel is, not that there are so many uncouth Americans, but that there are so few. The greatest proof of our superiority is that the roughest man will not be lacking in the greatest essential of civilization, — respect for women. The breeding of the Latin races is, as a rule, skin deep. "Your men must be very chivalrous," said a clever Englishman, the other 8* L 178 AMERICANS ABROAD. day. " I happened to be walking recently in a German town during a heavy rain, when a gentle- man and lady, without an umbrella, approached an omnibus that was about to start. Seeing every seat occupied, the gentleman, who spoke German perfectly and who was undoubtedly of Teutonic origin, asked whether any one would kindly give up his seat to a lady. No one re- plied, no one moved. ' Well,' exclaimed the Ger- man, walking off indignantly, 'it is very evident that there is no American among you.' He has either travelled or lived in America," said the Englishman. " Or married an American woman," I sue-grested. That American men should extend civilities in public conveyances and elsewhere to unknown women strikes Europeans either as the height of gallantry or the height of absurdity. It depends upon the individual's estimate of women. HEAT AND IMPUDENCE. Ems, June 20, 1872. N my previous letter I spoke of being sleepy ; at this present moment I am both sleepy and warm, and long for a return to the original costume worn before that fall which has resulted unpleasantly in so many ways, obliging us to know something, for example, whether it agrees with us or not, and forcing us Avomen quite out of our wits, at least twice a year, in our search for clothes. What bliss Heaven will be ! There, according to painters, fashions are as everlasting as eternity ; and if we are among the select few, who, like Raphael's angels, finish be- hind the ears, we shall be bothered with nothing but a pair of wings. However, on the whole, I 'd rather there were a little more of me. I 've a w^eakness for drapery ; and it would be a great bore to wrap one's self up in one's dignity, with noth- ing but intellect to fall back upon. Then I 'm fond of singing ; and how horrible to have an ear 180 AMERICANS ABROAD. for music with no possible means of cultivating it ! with so much spare time, I mean spare eter- nity, too ! I. remarked that I was warm. I am, and all the mind I possess, that • has not become gelatinous, dwells fondly upon one of Sydney Smith's clever sayings. By the way, now^ that he and Tom Hood and Douglas Jerrold are dead, nobody in England says anything witty. " Yery high and low tem- perature," declares Sydney Smith, " extinguishes all human sympathy and relations. It is impos- sible to feel affection beyond seventy-eight degrees or below twenty degrees of Fahrenheit ; human nature is too solid or too liquid beyond these limits. Man only lives to shiver or perspire." At present I am too liquid to feel. My only sympa- thy is with the brilliant Englishman, w^ho, writing from the House of Commons, in an atmosphere scorchingly hot and laden with the shattered remains of a murdered Ballot Bill says, " I am so sick of the links and fetters of civilized life that it would be unsafe to trust myself to the chalybeate pools of a German Sylvan. It would be dangerous to — disrobe, for I should simply take to the wooded mountains, and reassert the original dig- nity and freedom of savage life ! " What must be the temperature of London, when a sober English- HEAT AND IMPUDENCE. 181 man waxes desperate 1 Misfortunes never come singly. I 've added to the horrors of my situation by upsetting a full bottle of ink on an immaculate floor! What this means in the bill I shudder — no, I can't shudder — I perspire to think. I 've washed it up with my best handkerchief, but the " damned spot " will not " out," and, like the stain on Bluebeard's key, must a fearful tale unfold. "But about Americans abroad." Well, in preaching a sermon it is useless to praise the saints. One must abuse the sinners in order to draw a moral. This is what sinners were made for, and by the same token, sinners must be the burden of my letter. " Plus on aime moins on juge,^^ declares Balzac ; and though Balzac has told many fearful truths, it seems to me that this is but a half-truth, many lovers and all critics judg- ing most severely where they are most interested. If I did not sincerely love America, the actions of its people would be as indifferent to me as those of other countries ; it is because I desire to see our Republic as much respected abroad as it de- serves, that I am keenly alive to all shortcomings. When a Frenchman glares impudently at a woman, Ljor a German swallows both knife and fork in the process of eating, or an Englishman bullies his infe- riors, and is " umble " in the presence of those 182 AMERICANS ABE AD. above him in rank, I am disgusted, but not per- sonally concerned. Let an American give offence, and I feel in a measure responsible for his conduct ; for remember that our nation is a child, in fact is but just born, and in European opinion is on trial. As the prevailing governments of the Old World are more or less despotic and thoroughly aristocratic, they look with no love upon a repub- lic whose success is a menace to divine right and the degrading spirit of caste. Singularly ignorant of all that concerns us, not thinking it worth while to study either people or institutions, all their tra- ditions and prejudices are against ns, and they are only too happy when individual examples confirm previous conclusions. Therefore it is important that Americans abroad should honorably represent their country. Each man and woman is a bit of the Republic, is scanned and discussed as such, condemned or praised as such. European radicals, anxious for the coming of the universal republic, look to us for practical evidence of what they so earnestly and unselfishly preach. They grow faint-hearted upon finding folly and vice combined with a total indifference to the propagation of the form of government which the most advanced minds believe to be best for humanity. If Americans abroad fully realized their influence, HEAT AND IMPUDENCE. 183 either for good or evil, there would be much less cause for adverse criticism than there is at present. Many come over for the purpose of what is ele- gantly termed " a spree." Out-Frenchifying fast- Parisians, they do everything that public opinion restrains them from doing at home, and, returning to America accomplished in little but vice, graft French manners on republican principles, with bad results to the tree of liberty. Bear in mind that I am dealing with our sinners, not our many saints. The men go all lengths ; the women go as far as they dare, sometimes farther. Paris is the chosen rendezvous, not because of a bright sun and many works of art, but because vice and folly need not be sought. They come without bidding, and stay by you as long as there is a franc left in your pocket. And the flattery one is obliged to endure in Paris ! It must avail, otherwise it would not be universal. When I think that Americans receive it not only with toleration but pleasure, I wonder what has come over the people since the landing of the Pilgrims. If a Frenchwoman smiles, and compliments Monsieur on the shape of his hand, Monsieur is so charmed with her bright eyes and pretty lies as to pay any amount she chooses to ask for the gloves. The amount of whipped sylla- 184 AMERICANS ABROAD. bub administered to us women is positively ap- palling ! If you try on boots you are overpowered with eulogies over your 2^^^^^ pied. The more 3^ou don't like the boot, and the more the shop- keeper wants to get rid of it, the smaller and more beautiful is your jjetit pied. Listen to the following dialogue between myself and a boot- maker : — " I do not like the boot. It does not fit." " Mais, pardon, madame, it exactly suits your little foot." " It does nothing of the sort. It is too long and narrow." " On the contrary, madame, I assure you that nothing could be better. Perhaps it is a trifle long, but your foot is so little that — " " I repeat that the boot is too long and narrow%" "Pardon, madame, but if you observe closely yon will see that your little foot — " " Let me hear no more nonsense about my little foot, which is n't little. You know perfectly well that the boot does not fit ; and unless you show me another pair I shall go without any." " Bieiij madame, on the whole you are right. I think that the only way to fit you properly is to take your measure." And this change of base is made, without a HEAT AND IMPUDENCE. 185 blush, in the coolest possible manner ! The man lied as long as he could, and, when he found it impossible to get rid of the ready-made boots, told the truth. This is my experience in everything. Send for a woman who deals in lingerie, and before showing you what 3'ou desire, she will exhibit Valenciennes dresses for one thousand francs, you knowing that, if beaten down with infi- nite labor, she will take six hundred. " But the collars," you say, impatiently. " In one moment, madame. Here is a lovely fichu." '' Not to-day. The collars." " Will madame please cast her eye over this exquisite bit of lace % " " The collars," " Pardon, madame ; but gaze upon these beauti- fully embroidered handkerchiefs," And so you will be politely bullied into examining everything that you do not want or ought not to buy. Find- ing it useless to display her wares, the woman at last produces the collars, which are not ]3retty and are not w^hat you want. She employs much rhetoric to make you believe that never were there such beautiful collars, nor collars so becoming. Remain obdurate, and the wretched creature at last says, " There are moments when my selection of collars is not very good ; this is one of them. When madame returns I promise to suit her exactly, for now I see what she requires ! " Again 186 AMERICANS ABROAD. not a blush, and the woman leaves with a smile and a bland honjour. There are people who, if not fooled into buying, receive the lies with per- fect equanimity. It may be unamiable, but I cannot ; and I believe that fewer Americans would be cheated if more resented the attempts in this direction. Then when it comes to dressmakers, no words can describe the acting that takes place. If you possess good points, they are descanted upon in all their length, breadth, and thickness. If you possess none, they are invented. You are a model for a sculptor ; you are distinguee beyond princesses ; you have eyes beaming with intelligence 3 you are so spirituelle as, from sympathy, to furnish wit to all with whom you come in contact ; you are, you are, you are — until you feel like presenting a pistol at their long heads, and exclaiming, " Dead silence or your dead bodies ! " But, as I remarked before, it answers admirably as a rule. I 've seen women accept this adulation with delight, and as a consequence order dresses they did not want and at which their hus- bands growled. Human nature is excessively frail, particularly when it comes to Paris. There all 3^our weaknesses break out, and, like the measles, come to the surface. Many saints would be full- HEAT AND IMPUDENCE. 187 grown sinners if they only had the opportunity that Paris affords for the development of latent cajmcities. To return to dressmakers. Americans ruin them by paying fabulous amounts. Because clothes at the highest prices are not, on acount of the tariff, as expensive as at home, American women rarely dispute a bill, and iire laughed at by the very per- sons who realize enormous profits from their folly. For six perfectly plain underwaists, worth at the most six francs apiece, and for two similar waists trimmed with lace, worth fifteen francs apiece, I was recently charged by a fashionable modiste one hundred and forty francs ! On looking at the bill I murmured, then counted out the money, and was about to pay it when I concluded to express my indignation, and note the result. It was received with perfect composure, as though in no way surprising. " I shall not pay this outrageous bill," I declared. " Very well," quietly rejoined the enemy ; " when madame returns she will make some arrangement." Is not this dishonesty enough to spoil Anglo-Saxon tempers 1 It is quite time for me to return to America. I can't make mat- ters better, and they make me much worse. But fancy fighting my battles o'er again in the present state of the thermometer ! Into what apoplec- tic dangers have I rushed ! SOUR GRAPES AND SNOBBERY. Ems, June 25, 1872. DO not know what is the matter with the seasons, but they seem to be about as undecided in their action as the Demo- cratic party with regard to a Presidential choice. Three days ago we were simmering in the heat of a midsummer sun ; now we are going about in thick boots, winter clothing, and waterproofs, with an umbrella in one hand and a glass of lukewarm water in the other, contemplating perpetual show- ers, feeling quite as damp outside as we are inside, and listening to dejected strains of music, that, under the circumstances, may be called liquid. Is not such a condition of things unpardonable *? We come to the warmest springs in Germany, making up our minds to be broiled on St. Law- rence's gridiron if necessary, when, lo ! Nature gives us the cold shoulder, and throws a wet blanket over us ! Talk of the fickleness and in- SOUR GRAPES AND SNOBBERY. 189 consistency of man ! Talk of our going to the book of Nature for inspiration ! Wliat do we read there but the most glaring inaccuracies, made, apparently, from sheer love of mischief? Having set down laws for the ruling of the world, she deliberately breaks them, and leaves us poor mor- tals in a mental chaos. She tells the grain and the grapes that at this season of the year the sun shall shine its brightest ; then, covering' his round face with a thick veil, she betakes herself to weep- ing and wailing, like the coquettish siren that she is. There is no such thing as climate. Countries have a good deal of weather, such as it is, but climate exists nowhere except by flashes; and if ever you leave home in the fond hope of attaining the unattainable, you will get — what you de- serve. The only contented people stalking about are the English, one of whom was heard to observe that the constant rain reminded him of home. He carries his umbrella with the air of one having au- thority, as if to say, "What I do not know about rain is not worth knowing." " And you, are you conventional ? " asks Mrs. Campion's adorer in " Lothair." " I live only for climate and the affections," replies the lady. Was there ever a more horrible sarcasm than this of Disraeli's % To live onl}^ for the two things one never realizes ! 190 AMERICANS ABROAD. " Never," do you say 1 Yes, never ; and to prove the statement, take the report of those who best know this favored region of the Rhine. They will tell you that out of every ten years two only are expected to produce fine vintages. Wines have increased in value, and the poor drink what by any other name would be more sour. When it comes to the affections, are they not a failure quite as often as Rhine wines % There are vintages of sour grapes unrecorded in the annals of the wine trade. The world is made up of three sorts of people : those who are disappointed in climate, those who are disappointed in love, and those who are disappointed in both, — a mild form of the last being an epidemic. Rain reminds rae of England ; England recalls snobs ; and snobs bring me back to our old subject of Americans abroad j for in this letter I shall deal with snobs. But before I forget, let me tell you of four j^oung men whom I never saw, but, as they occupied rooms adjoining mine in a hotel, and as the door between was an excellent con- ductor of sound, I could not avoid overhearing their remarks. I assume that they were young, because the vapid conversation suggested veal. For two weeks this 'parti carree played euchre every night till the small hours, and very fre- SOUR GRAPES AND SNOBBERY. 191 queiitlv daring the day. The gambling was mild, and the wildest imagination could not conceive where lay the fascination of the game when Paris with its myriad attractions stood outside ; bnt as it takes all sorts of people to make up the world, I suppose these young men nobly fulfil their mis- sion. On the last night of their stay they awaked to the fact that they had seen nothing of Paris. "What shall we say when we get home]" asked one. " Well, I 've seen the Louvre," replied No. 2. " So have I," said No. 3. " I 've seen the Triumphal Arch, " said No. 4. "So have I, " chimed in No. 1. "You two can swell on the Louvre, and we two can blow on the Arch." Of course, this is incredible, but it is true. What a charming spectacle it will be for the friends of these intelligent young men to assist at the novel performance of swelling and blowing ! Why they came to Europe I cannot imagine, unless they were clerks sent over to make purchases for their employers. The only snobs in the world are English and American. The word is purely English, and has been adopted by us to supply a limited demand. That such monstrosities as snobs should arise in a republic is the penalty we pay for being Anglo- Saxon. W^ith Anglo-Saxon virtues we inherit 192 AMERICANS ABROAD. Anglo-Saxon vices, that break out in degenerate specimens of the American race. Where there is an oligarchy, as in England, and where trade is despised as the mipardonable sin, — unless it be rich enough to retire and marry into the nobil- ity, — of course there must be snobs as long as human nature is weak enough to desire to be grander than it is. But with us, snobbery is sub- limely ridiculous. When I see men and women who never had any grandfathers, — at least none worth speaking of, — who rose from nothing, and whose elevation is due to the institutions of our country, — when, I repeat, I see such people going about Europe abusing the generous hand that has uplifted them, declaring that there is too much liberty in America, that the people (pray who are they but the people'?) should be taught their place, that we need a strong government (like Napoleon's), and that America will not be a fit residence for ladies and gentlemen until we have it, I think of serpents warmed into life only to sting their benefactor. Treachery more foul is not conceivable ; yet there are quite a number of such traitors, — so many as to have often been quoted by foreigners in proof of the rottenness of democ- racy; so many as to have caused Sir Cherries Dilke, in his admirable book of travels called SOUR GRAPES AND SNOBBERY. 103 "Greater Britain,"' to make them the subject of an excoriating paragraph. " Many American men and women," he saj's, " who have too httle nobihty of soul to be patriots, and too little understanding to see that theirs is already, in many points, the master country of the globe, come to you and be- wail the fate which has caused them to be born citizens of a republic, and dwellers in a country where men call vices by their names. The least educated of their countrymen, the only grossly vulgar class that America brings forth, they fly to Europe 'to escape democracy' and pass their lives in Paris, Pau, or Nice, living libels on the country they are believed to represent." These are the Americans wdio were Louis Napoleon's warmest partisans. An adventurer himself, Na- poleon received all Americans who could open his court doors with a golden key. Whether they spoke good English or bad, whether they were knaves or fools, made little difference to the hero of Sedan, so long as they spent money in Paris, and displayed beauty and toilets at the Tuil- eries. " I would give half my fortune to see Louis back on the throne of France," said an American woman, not long ago, calling the ex- Emperor " Louis " in order to prove her intimacy. This style of American is so frequently found 9 M 194 AMERICANS ABROAD. living abroad, that I was more grieved than sur- prised when a French repubhcan said to me recently, "You are the only American rejDublican I ever met." " How many Americans have you met?" "A dozen." These libels cannot exist in America because they are libels ; and certainly wo are well rid of them and their offspring, who are apt to possess the vices of both hemispheres and the virtues of neither. " European Americans are a bad lot," exclaimed an Oxford professor not long since. " They do neither you nor me any credit.'' " When an American comes to us from the United States," said a Cambridge man shortly after, " he is likely to be a good fellow and clever ; but when he comes from Europe he is a poor creature and generally a snob ; he tries to pass for an English- man ; and one man was awfully cut up the other day when I told him that I knew him to be an American by his accent. He was trying to talk cockney ! " If these Transatlantic snobs only knew how they are despised by all whose opinion is worth having ! They are despised by the very persons who repeat their remarks derogatory to the United States ; for Europeans know the difference between gold and pinchbeck, and England has no toleration for republican flunkies. " I wish you 'd write SOUR GRAPES AND SNOBBERY. 195 about a certain set of your country people who come to England and court our aristocracy," said a clever Englishman last winter. " They make them- selves very contemptible, never deigning to men- tion any one who has not a handle to his name, always informing you of the grand houses to which they are invited, and taking good care to display cards upon which there are coronets. They im- mediately put their servants in livery, and get up coats of arms with mottoes in Latin, — a language that half of them do not understand. There have been American Ministers here Avho were snobs of the first quality." Think of being told this, not by one person, but by many ! Elsewhere I have heard similar complaints of the snobbish- ness of American officials abroad. This is intol- erable and not to be endured. No citizen should receive an appointment abroad who is not a radical democrat and proof against rank, the slightest evidence of snobbishness being sufficient cause for removal from office. What private indi- viduals do concerns themselves, but what officials do concerns the nation. On the whole, the women are greater fools than the men in this worship of rank, which is rank worship, for the reason, perhaps, that women are more given to kneeling. Prudhomme, I believe, 196 AMERICANS ABROAD. has said, ^^ Les grands ne nous 2^cLraissent grands que iKirceque nous sommes a genouxP " I became quite disgusted with the girls on our steamer," confessed a young American who crossed the Atlantic in a month that shall be nameless. "There happened to be on board the son of an English baronet ; and though he was an ordinary fellow, not half as nice as some of us, the girls vied with one another in attracting his attention, leaving us out in the cold." This is a fine return for the respect and devotion of American men ; always excepting advanced, liberal Englishmen, there are no men in the world for whom our women should entertain such regard as for Ameri- cans. Here, on the Continent, women are con- sidered inferiors and regard themselves in that light ; in Germany, they are domestic animals and drudges ; among the Latin races they are in- tended to minister to man's pleasure, nothing more. It is only the exceptional Frenchman or Italian who believes in the virtue of woman ; yet there are American girls who prefer foreign men to our own, and, knowing, if they choose to thiuk, that no Frenchman and few Englishmen would marry a poor American girl, actually tie them- selves for life to men whose views in regard to women ought to be thoroughly a^evolting. And SOUR GRAPES AND SNOBBERY. 197 by marrying foreigners, they actually give up American citizenship ! It is outrageous, and the law ought to be changed. Still, if an American woman will be insane enough to marry a Euro- pean, perhaps it is well that she should take the consequences. There is another class of our people as rabidly pro-American as the other is anti-American. Everything is wrong on this side of the water. We are altogether perfect ; the rest of creation has nothing to teach us. No people but ourselves are fit for a republic. The French are all mad, and Louis Napoleon was good enough for them ; they are thoroughly corrupt and ought to be exter- minated. The art of Europe is unattractive. No scenery is equal to our own. Of the two ex- tremes, the latter is preferable, because it is com- patible with manliness ; but both are bad enough. Europe can teach us much if we are sufficiently intelligent to learn ; but neither the snob nor the spread-eagle American is likely to benefit his country by the observations he makes on the in- stitutions of the Old World. The sooner both types are educated off the surface of the earth, the better for the Republic. Of the many hundreds of thoughtful' men and women I say nothing, because saints, like good wine, need no bush. THE GLORIOUS FOURTH AND SO FORTH. Ems, July 6, 1872. N my last letter I pictured to a syrnpa-^ thetic imagination the prospect of per- petual rain. Well, I had -ordered a life- preserver, and, holding a banner aloft bearing the strange device, Apre^ moi le Deluge I was about to take to the river in a row-boat (the Lahn being less moist than the land), when that distinguished foreigner, the Sun, suddenly appeared and turned the tide of afl&iirs. That this change should have come o'er the spirit of our nightmare on the Fourth of July was a compliment to the Ameri- can colony which we duly appreciated ; and when sixteen of us, men and women, sat down to dinner in a pavilion of the Hotel dAngleterre, the Amer- ican flag floating over us, we concluded that our lines might have fallen in less pleasant places. Our dinner was pleasant, and though our speeches, recitations, and songs were impromptu, they were quite as bad as though we had passed THE GLORIOUS FOURTH AND SO FORTH. 199 sleepless nights in their spontaneous preparation. The bill of fare savored of American soil. MENU DU 4 JUILLET. Potage r^publicain. Poissox. Samiion, *' sauce for goose and gander." Releves. Filet de boeuf garni de truffes a Tadministration. Legumes. Choux de Pliiladelpliie. Entrees. Salmi de canards a la Renter. — Haricots de Chnppaqua. ROTIS. _ Jennes poulets a la Conference de la Cinquieme Avenue. Salade de Baltimore. Compotes d'Horace Greeley. Entremets. Ponding Monitor, sauce piquante. Glaces au Grant. Dessert. Mr. W. J. Florence, our genial chairman, made fitting remarks upon " The Day we celebrate," and read regrets from high and mighty potentates, that were received with applause. As these let- ters are very characteristic, I have taken the trouble to copy them. They give a better idea of their writers than can be obtained from any other source. The first is from Kaiser Wilhelm, who is 200 AMERICANS ABROAD. now visiting Ems, and drinking mineral water with as much pertinacity as though subject to all the ills that flesh is heir to : — KuRHAUs, July 2, 1872. Herr Florence, — I regret exceedingly that I can- not he present to-day at your festival, hut as I am buried in the San Juan or British North American boundary question (a matter which concerns you nearly), I must necessarily decline the honor. Being umpire in the boundary affair, you will at once perceive how imperative it is that I should give my whole time and attention to it. I am, with assur- ances of my most distinguished consideration, WiLHELM VON HOHENZOLLERN. No. 2. is no less polite, and, owing to Mr. Flor- ence's marvellous knowledge of German, the senti- ment was rendered with bewildering effect : — Vienna, July 2, 1872. Herzog^ Florence, — The invitation to attend your Fourth of July dinner at Ems has this moment been handed to me by cler Hof- Marshal Von Lynderkypop- schafferhausen. Deeply as I am impressed with your kindness, I regret exceedingly that aflPairs of a most urgent nature demand my presence at the capital. I " would that I could be with thee in fact," " would that I could be with thee every day and hour," as your com- patriot the poet — Brigham Young — so touchingly re- marks when writing an encyclical to the heads of his household. THE GLORIOUS FOURTH AND SO FORTH 201 I send the follo^vmg sentiment, which I am sure will find a response in every American breast. An gaspiel shielpost lagei'bier, New Yorker stfiats zietung verhoftish, Verkoftstetic hiern schaffausen, Von der Rheinprovinciems badwasser, Eisenbahn surgroschen ein thalerof, Der Wach am Rhelm." Or, as you would say in your own noble language, " Lives thei'e a man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, *This is my own, my native land ' '? " Franz Josef Hapsburger. Then followed this friendly note from the hero of Sedan, over which we wept as one man : — CiiiSLEHUEST, ]\Ionday, July 1, 1872. Cher Ami, — Present my compliments to your as- sembly and say that I hoped to meet the American colony in Paris, but circumstances over which I have no control prevented the consummation of my wishes. It rains in England, and the star of my destiny is no longer visible. The courtesy of yoiu' iuAT^tation moves me to tears, and bitterly do I lament the impossibility of visiting Germany at present. Some of the happiest hours of my life have been passed there. Hoping to assist at your festivities next year in Paris, and waiting for something to " turn up," I am, tout d vous, Napoleon III. A Monsieur W. J. Flokexce, Bad-Ems. 9* 202 AMERICANS ABROAD. Beiiedetti's letter of regret arrived too late to be read, but he assured us all that during his last visit to Ems his "cure" had been so 'complete as to render a return unadvisable. Bismarck's tele- gram was received with the soup, and read thus : " Not well. Sworn to attend no more dinners. Bothered by the Jesuits. Either they '11 be the death of me or I '11 be the death of them. Look out for them in America. Breakers ahead." We had reached the entrees {canards) when two notes were placed in my hands, — one from Arthur Helps, and the other from Earl Russell. I ab- stained from then making them public, as I did not wish to destroy the harmony of the dinner. Osborne House, Isle of Wight, July 1, 1872. By order of her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, I present her Most Gracious Majesty's comphments to the American colony at Ems, and state that her Most Gracious Majesty never attends any thanksgivings saving such as are held in her honor or that of the royal f amity. As the entire American continent was convulsed with sorrow during the almost fatal illness of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, her Most Gracious Majesty instructs me to say that so complete is the recovery of his Royal Highness as to warrant a return to all those sports which become the first gentle- man in England. Thus, while visiting Paris, his Royal Highness showed all of his accustomed public spirit by THE GLORIOUS FOURTH AND SO FORTH. 203 visiting the Jardiii Mal>ille and doing tliat homage to Mademoiselle Schneider which she so well merits, thereby verifying the prediction of the Dean of West- minster, that the recovery of his Eoyal Highness would be a blessing to Great Britain. Arthur Helps. House of Lokds, Westminster, July 2, 1872. Ladies axd Gentlemen, — Accept my thanks for your invitation to be present at the dinner given in honor of a victory over England gained many years ago ; but as I am very busy celebrating England's much more recent ^dctory over America, you will, if you pos- sess that Yankee acumen for which the House of Lords gives you credit, appreciate the motive that detains me in London. I am a blunt man ; permit me, therefore, to recall the fact that your Secretary of State, Mr. Fish, declared that "the indirect claims" should be settled by the Geneva arbitration, and not in advance by England. Again, permit me to recall the fact of England's determination not to be present at the Geneva arbitration if payment for these "indirect claims " were not disallowed. My persistence in keep- ing this determination before our vacillating Ministry actually obtained an official note from the United States Minister at the Court of St. James, in which we were assured that the United States Avould waive these preposterous demands. With this understanding Eng- land goes before the board of arbitration at Geneva ; and though you delude your souls into thinking that because the arbitrators ruled out the " indirect claims " 204 AMERICANS ABROAD. America has triumphed, be good enougli to remember the previous drama in the House of Lords, without which the farce at Geneva could not be enacted. What sort of a figure you present to the eyes of Europe I know, if you do not ; and were I unfortunate enough to occupy your ignoble position, instead of indulging in buncombe over the past, I should be engaged in the more appropriate occupation of eating " umble pie " in the present. Wishing you all the joy you can extract from the day you celebrate, I am your obedient servant, EUSSELL. P. S. — It will not be my fault if the Lords do not kill that beastly Ballot Bill. The less England imi- tates Yankee notions the better. I make no comment on these letters. They speak for themselves, and so did the ladies, Mr. Florence calling upon Miss K F to re- spond to the toast drunk in our honor. By the way, why does this toast always conclude festivities 1 Because women will have the last word % Miss F said she did not understand why she should have been called upon when there was present the flower of American comedy (Mrs. Florence,) one who had faced many more audiences than herself, unless it were that the gallant chairman had mag- nanimously determined to take the Field against the favorite. In concluding, and to show our THE GLORIOUS FOURTH AND SO FORTH 205 good-will to a nation whose defeat we were that day celebrating, Miss F proposed the toast of *' England and America. May there be no division but the Atlantic between them." Then a 3'oung and good-looking Southerner, Mr. H ■ S , Jr., recited a poem to every- body's satisfaction, and we sang patriotic songs, adjourning late in the afternoon to witness a boat- race, over w^hich I draw the American flag and pre- serve a discreet silence. As many of us wore the national colors, the Germans glared somewhat fero- ciously at first, mistaking us for French ; but the Anglo-American language soon undeceived them, and they examined our flag hanging over the river with as much curiosity as Agassiz would examine a new fish. Thus wore the day away, and every- body retired in his sober senses, though all drank deep of — Kraenchen. Not a drum was heard, not a cannon roared, No horses ran away ; Bui we did our " level best " abroad, To celebrate the day. From more than one source T have heard how numbers of our patriotic countrymen rushed from Paris a few days before the Fourth in order to avoid paying fifty francs for the dinner and asso- ciating with those whom they were pleased to con- 206 AMERICANS ABROAD. sider plebeian ! It is really delightful to hear that Americans are capable of economizing; but had the motive been nobler, one might be inclined to hail this " new departure " with greater enthusiasm. What an unpleasant place heaven will be to these superior beings ! But then, if, as we are assiu'ed, humility be the passport, they will never get there. I wonder what Thomas Jefferson would say to an American who thought himself too good to associate with a countryman, no matter of what degree, in rejoicing over the Declaration of Inde- pendence. The man or woman whose social posi- tion and character are jeopardized, or whose taste is offended, by accidental and temporary association with such ungodly creatures as patriotic American citizens ought to have been born a flunky in Eng- land. ROYALTY EN DESHABILLE. Ems, July 12, 1872. DON'T know whether it be the effect of beer or victory, but certainly I never saw such a satisfied-looking people as these Germans. Their complacency is absolutely exas- perating, and I do not wonder that sanguine Frenchmen are driven almost wild by the sight of a Prussian helmet. A settled, rock-of-ages expres- sion about their faces suggests eternity rather than time, and to associate death with such imperturba- ble life seems impossible. The Emperor carries out this idea of everlasting life by being as active at seventy-five as many men are at fifty-five. He is sun, moon, and stars to every German man, wo- man, and child at Ems. I have given great offence to one woman by saying that he looks very much like other men, which is true (a Scotchman here resembling him so closely as to be called " the Em- peror "), and have excited indignation in the breast 208 AMERICANS ABROAD. of a patriot by meekly inquiring about the Imperial income, and expressing surprise at his ignorance of the amount. " It makes no difference what the Kaiser's income is," replied the irate Prussian, re- senting the innocent question as though I had accused the royal family of highway robbery. "A few milhons more or less, and what odds'?" A new broom sweeps clean. In England there are free-born Britons sufficiently mean in spirit to dwell upon "the cost of royalty," and even to write pamphlets thereon ; but Prussians are so sat- isfied wdth the brand-new Empire as to view^ all questions in the light of insults. Before 1866, Germany hated Prussia for what was called " Ber- lin pride." Now she has gone over to the enemy, sweetly oblivious of the past. If you ever experi- enced the wrath of a boy for doubting the un- equalled beauty of his first pair of boots, you will have an accurate idea of the state of mind into which a German throws himself w^hen any one dares to criticise the Vaterland or the Hohenzollerns. Austrians, however, though they are scrupulously polite to their victorious neighbors, do not hesitate to unbosom themselves before disinterested for- eigners. "Bah! you can't speak to a Prussian officer nowadays ! " exclaimed a Viennese noble- man the other day. " They w^eigh twice as many ROYALTY EN DESHABILLE. 209 pounds as they weighed before they whipped the French. They go about with an insulting air of superiority, as though they were invincible. ]}i^ous verrons.^' Half of this hatred is due to jealousy ; for Austria is doomed, and not many years hence her German-speaking peoples will be absorbed by the great and advancing Empire. The sooner the better, for the Hapsburghs can teach nothing but what is retrograde, and the complete union of Germany is the first step towards the Teutonic republic. " When we have unity of peoples, unity of currency, unity of laws, and unity of education, we shall be ready for a republic. This will be in about fifty years. Meanwhile we are content with the Empire. It is doing our work slowly but surely." So recently spoke a most enlightened German republican. He is right; but perhaps the end may be nearer than he dreams. The world moves more rapidly than when Galileo made his revolutionary discovery. I am quite ready to pre- dict that, whenever this good time comes, the Ho- henzollerns will yield to the logic of events with the utmost honhommie, retire to their private estates, taking nothing with them but personal property, and, like good patriots, offer themselves as candi- dates to a democratic congTess. Common-sense seems to be the ruling characteristic of this best N 210 AMERICANS ABROAD. of royal families. No one accuses Wilhelm of pos- sessing great ability ; but surely the man who dis- covered Bismarck, and who follows his suggestions, must appreciate ability in others. That his mind is eminently practical shows itself constantly, and that he dislikes ostentation is proved by his life at Ems. Dressed quietly in a suit of "pepper and salt," he appears among the people accompanied by a single member of the Court, drinks his water at the spring like everybody else, shakes hands with his friends, bows to all, and discourages ceremony. When the Kaiser first went to Ems, he sent for all the physicians, receiving them most cordially, and sitting on the end of a table during the entire in- terview. Upon taking leave of them, he said, "Remember, gentlemen, that when you meet me you are not to know me, for I am a poor man and cannot afford to buy many hats." This was a polite way of informing the gentlemen that it was a great bore for him to return salutations, and that he had rather not be recognized. No phy- sician of Ems will be found removing his hat to the Emperor. His reference to poverty is not un- frequent. Upon the birth of one of the Crown Princess's children, a courtier with whom he chanced to be walking drew the Imperial attention to a trinket, remarking that it would be a suitable ROYALTY EN DESHABILLE. 211 present for the happy mother. " Ah ! no," replied the cautious Wilhelm, " that would be a bad pre- cedent ; for if my daughter goes on adding to her family as she has begun, I should eventually bo ruined. I am too poor for such extravagance." Not long ago he received a beautiful gold and silver escritoire as a token of gratitude from a wealthy banker whom he had ennobled for largely endowing a hospital. Gazing at the superb gift, Wilhelm remarked, " My subjects are better off than I am. I cannot afford to make my friends such costly presents ! " Whether the Kaiser is frugal unto closeness, I do not know, but that he does not believe himself hedged in by divinity is certain. " I dined with his Majesty yesterday," said a German, whose position is not higher than that of a hotel treasurer ; " he is very frank and friendly." Fancy Queen Victoria doing this sort of thing ! Why, she lectures the Prince and Princess of Wales on their want of exclusiveness, and tells them that if they are not more careful they will be ''as common as her cousins, the Camb ridges." The Kaiser frequently gives dinners to the officers stationed near or visiting here, and, in fact, any person in government employ, either civil or military, is eligible to this distinction, which is considered ample compensation for ex- 212 AMERICANS ABROAD. ceedingly meagre salaries. How these people can afford to live at all is a mystery. The Kaiser is very like his photograph, only he is not quite as good looking. Erect and soldierly in his carriage, portly but not obese in figure, he resembles an English country gentleman, or a solid, shrewd man of Boston. What his chin lacks in force his head makes up in obstinacy, while there is an extreme thickness of neck and breadth of cerebellum that indicate unusual fight- ing proclivities and a bull-dog tenacity. I should say that it would be difficult to pouod a new idea into his head or an old one out. I have no doubt that Monsieur On Dit is right in asserting that Bismarck has much difficulty in obtaining the Im- perial consent to many necessary changes, that reforms are retarded in consequence, and that the great coup against the Jesuits has been the w^ork of much time and endless argument. When a man does not become king until he is sixty years of age, nor emperor until he is sixty -nine, he is likely to be less open to conviction than one born in the purple or inheriting a crown at an earlier period. This same Monsieur On Dit declares that the Crown Prince is more liberal than his father, while it is well known that the Empress Augusta is politically far in advance of her husband. She ROYALTY EN DESHABILLE. 213 it was who, when the Imperial crown was offered to her brother-in-law in 1818, begged him to ac- cept it, her dream of a great Geinnan Empire even then being most vivid. " Do not heed her ! " cried the Queen on her knees before the King. " Your acceptance will be my death." " Then die ! " ex- claimed the indignant Augusta. "Of what value is your life to Prussia, — you, who have never given birth to an heirl" Augusta has lived to realize her ambition, and it speaks well for her to know that she is interesting herself in female edu- cation, acknowledging that the present system is by no means adequate to the requirements of Ger- man girls. Her last enterprise is the establish- ment at Charlottenburg of the Empress Augusta Boarding School for the orphan daughters of cler- gymen and officers who died in the last wars. The best teachers are provided, and the education is to be gratuitous ; but in order to secure a suffi- cient revenue (here comes in the Hohenzollern shrewdness), the Empress proposes to receive into the institution a certain number of American and English girls on payment of sixty-six guineas an- nually. It is quite possible that there may be American families residing abroad who will be glad to know of it, although, for my part, I 'd as soon think of sendino- a o-irl to the Cannibal Islands as 214 AMERICANS ABROAD. educating her in Europe. No amount of French and German compensates for the absence of such an EngUsh education as can only be obtained at home. Female mental discipline is unknown in Europe. However, that the Empress should inau- gurate a new era in Germany is one of the signs of the times, and we women should wish her God- speed. The Empress's interest seems to be uni- versal. When visiting Queen Victoria at Windsor last spring, she declared that her first day in Lon- don should be devoted to the German hospital. Her examination of every department and her knowledge of details made a great impression on the physician who escorted her through the wards, and who gave me an account of the reception. I am not so rabid a republican but I can say a good word for royalty when deserving, and it is a satis- faction to know that the German Empire owes much to w^omen. It was the intelligent influence of his mother, a Prussian princess, that induced the King of Bavaria to be first in proclaiming Wilhelm Kai- ser, — an example that had very great weight with other kingdoms and principalities. So, if a silly woman, a fashion-plate, plunged France into a war with Prussia, as many who were behind the scenes assert, two sensible women did much to found a great empire ; and even the fashion-plate was the cause of a republic ! THEATRE ROYAL, BERLIN. Ems, Jul}' 15. i]S I am a spectator in the Theatre Royal, it will be expected of me to tell all I hear concerning the prominent dramatis personam. I have not much faith in gossip, for I know how fond little people are of maligning big- people ; only become famous, and you will be credited with murder, arson, and a general indif- ference to all laws, human or divine ; but it really seems as though there were much truth in the report, universal throughout Germany, that Mr. and Mrs. Kaiser heartily indorse the poet's creed of distance lending enchantment to the view. The old dogma of matrimonial unity is a fallacy among crowned heads, it being the privilege of royalty to join cats and dogs, and fight through life or sepa- rate in private, provided the convenances of their station are preserved. Considering that nobody on the Continent, except such as enjoy abject squalor, 216 AMERICANS ABROAD. is permitted to marry for love, I wonder that well- to-do babies are not born without hearts, as, under the present regime, they are legally unnecessary, and illegally cause no end of mischief. There is a high premium paid on vice in these grand old countries to which American savages come for im- provement. " Love whatever woman you please," says society to men, " provided you do not commit the unpardonable crime of marrying below your station or your income." " Love nobody at all,' says society to girls, "until your parents have married you to the proper person ; then if you are very discreet and make no scandal, you may satisfy your sentiment sub rosa.'' Between the two, moralit}^ goes to the wall. In the upper classes the young men are roues, the married men are unfaithful, the young girls are nonentities, the married women are unhappy, or untrue, or both. This is the rule ; of course there are many excep- tions, more, perhaps, than ought to be expected when one bears in mind that the hero and heroine of the domestic drama are not consulted with re- gard to the very difficult parts they are required to play. American girls, who have been free all their lives, enjoying the society of young men, and proving that friendship between the sexes is not a myth, as these acute Europeans assjert, because a THJ^ATRE ROYAL, BERLIN. 217 base education readers them incapable of it, rebel at European manners. A young girl dare not speak to a man ; and as for walking with one, wh}^, her reputation would be gone immediately, even though that man were '' a lean and slippered pan- taloon " in the respectable guise of an uncle. She does the naive until the day of her marriage ; the day after she appears as a woman of the world, thorough mistress of herself, — a transformation so miraculous as to prove beyond doubt that the young girl is as much an actress as ^he iiigemie of the French stage. With all their conventional proprieties, these girls are far more knowing than the independent Americans, and are as little to be trusted as their brothers. Deprive people of lib- erty, and they will take license. " I hate Europe," said an American girl the other day. " I can't breathe here. Everything is improper. When I am left in the house without my married sister, I can't receive any gentleman for fear of scandal ; for if the least suspicion is hinted, you are regarded with as little respect as the most degraded. Fancy my not being able to see a dear old friend this morning because I was alone ! He had important intelligence to communicate, but did not dare to come up. The servants would have been the first to pull me to pieces had I received him ; yet were 10 218 AMERICANS ABROAD. I a married woman I might entertain every man of my acquaintance, and flirt with other women's husbands without comment. I 'm sick of it and want to go home." In walking, the young girl must always be accompanied by a petticoat of some description. It may be attached to the most worthless of hirelings, as many of the maids prove themselves to be ; but with this society does not concern itself. The only point insisted upon is, that girls shall not appear alone in public. Don't you see what great advantages are gained by constant association with ignorant, supersti- tious, and frequently immoral servants'? If you do not, Europe does. But a nos Kaisers. They say that the Emperor when j^oung was deeply enamored of one quite worthy of him in station, but that his father insisted upon his mar- rying the present Empress, between whom and himself there was little sympathy, and with whom he has had nothing more than a speaking acquaint- ance for twenty-five years! They say that Au- gusta is very proud, domineering, and rigid in matters of etiquette, whereas the Emperor hates form of every kind ; but, then, again, I heard one of the Empress's former ladies of honor declare her to be most amiable and kind. The w^oman always receives the most abuse; but I believe that in matri- THEATRE ROYAL, BERLIN. 219 moiiial disagreements both parties are to blame. I have always felt convinced that if the shade of the typical virago, Xantippe, could only rap out her experience with her husband, Socrates the married man would not be as faultless as Socrates the philosopher. Philosophers are unpleasant to have in the house. They always forget to market, never take their meals regularly, never comb their hair, never buy a new suit of clothes, always wear shocking bad hats, never button their gloves, and are so engrossed in improving the human race as never to pay any attention to the individual speci- mens about them. Last, but worst sin of all, they never notice what a woman has on ! If this is not enough to ruin the female temper, what is 1 Do you suppose that Socrates would appreciate one of Fanet and Beer's exquisite dresses'? No, indeed. I dare say he was constantly offending Xantippe's taste. But once more to take up the thread of the Hohenzollerns. They say that the Emperor's greatest grievance against the Empress is her desire to meddle with politics, and this on dit is probably true. The last person from whom an obstinate man will receive advice is his wife ; and if it be difficult for Bismarck to impress the Imperial mind, — Bismarck, the maker of an Em- pire, — how thoroughly unpalatable must be any 220 AMERICANS ABROAD. attempt of the Empress to rule, especially when she is more radically inclined than the Kaiser. From cursory observation of the Empress's face, I should say that she had will and little tact; that she went direct to whatever point she wished to gain. This is n't the way to accomplish your end with obstinate men ; and I fancy that if Augusta were French, she would be a power behind the throne. I have no doubt that fascinating women have obtained, and can still obtain, great sway over the Emperor ; for though he possesses a solid foundation of sense, he is thoroughly German, and a German has no respect for a woman's head. For a woman to make a direct attack upon his reason is suicide. Let her appeal to his heart and eye, and he yields without knowing it. I confess that I feel sorry for the Empress. It certainly is not her business to usurp the authority of her husband, but perpetual suppression must be fear- fully tantalizing to a person in her position. A woman without tact should die. The only female diplomacy now tolerated is that of consummate acting. Did the Empress Augusta depend upon acting for a living, I fear that she would starve in a week. The other day there passed through the street a man bearing upon his head plaster busts of the TRf^ATRE ROYAL, BERLIN. 221 Emperor and Empress, the Crown Prince and Crown Princess. In order to keep the first two face to face, one rope was tied around both necks. Fritz and his wife seemed to require no such pre- caution, and I thought this somewhat significant. Busts may be tied together with impunity, not people ; so, w^hen the Emperor visits one watering- place, the Empress visits another. While Monsieur takes the " cure " here, Madame resides at Coblentz in an exceedingly comfortable palace on the Rhine, the windows of which command a fine view of the picturesque fortress of Ehrenbreitstein. It was to this palace that she once retired for six months. But all the proprieties of state are maintained. Now it is the Emperor who drives to Coblentz for the purpose of dining with his royal spouse, and then it is the Empress who comes to Ems to dine at the Kurhaus. Only a few minutes ago I saw the Empress drive off in a quiet cov2:)e drawn by a pair of fine black horses. The footman was over- powering in his rigidity. As he stood by the door to receive orders, you knew without being told that royalty sat within. You sniffed a superior being in the air; everybody stopped and gazed; men and women at the spring forgot to sip their water ; the Emperor's chamberlain fluttered about in white pantaloons, dress-coat, and no end of 222 AMERICANS ABROAD. orders, — a queer dress for an Imperial dinner, was it nof? — the Empress shrank hack in her carriage, bowing, yet trying to escape observation ; and not until she drove off did the phlegmatic Germans return to their normal condition. Augusta is a dark-haired, dark-eyed, well-pre- served woman, of erect carriage, who seems to be much younger than her husband. I did not envy her as she passed. A woman accompanied to her carriage by a loving husband is a much pleasanter spectacle than an empress escorted by a fawning courtier. A stupid populace gape at the latter, and consider the former unworthy of notice ; yet, among European aristocracy, one sight is as rare as the other. It is their inestimable privilege to pay servants for such attentions as with us are rendered by love or friendship. AMERICAN FOLLY. Hotel Chathaim, Paris, August 1, 1872. OW that I am where Americans most do congregate, the echo of howls of disgust assails my ears. Any one who dares to tell the truth must, as Mrs. Gamp remarks, "take the consequences of the situation." That I have told the truth concerning Americans abroad is shown by these demonstrations of disapprobation ; for when caps do not fit, and shoes do not pinch, howls and shrieks are conspicuous by their ab- sence. Nothing convinced me of the basis of fact upon which Mrs. Trollope and Dickens founded their American books so much as the rage excited by them. It is the guilty who are always most blatant in the assumption of virtue. Innocence rarely acts on the defensive. Judging by the way I am attacked, one would suppose that I hated Americans, and considered all of them snobs ! Because you convict a thief 224: AMERICANS ABROAD. of stealing spoons, all the world steals spoons. The deduction is logical. But since the outcry, I am still more persuaded of the necessity of those mirrors which, held up to nature, cause us to see ourselves as others see us. Unless one be a downright fool, no medicine is more beneficial in its results. Why, I have been mild in my cen- sure, and feeble in illustration, considering the countless facts to draw from. Paris alone would furnish sufficient material for a sensational book. People talk about the delights of society here ; but I fail to appreciate them, as I fail to appreciate the delights of the winter colony at Nice. All colonies within foreign towns savor more or less of Little Peddlington. Of course, there are some charming people, but as a rule society is cut up into cliques. Everybody is so uncertain of his own position as to be extremely suspicious of everj^body else. Shoddy does its best to make wealth the standard ; and because money buys flunkies and the first floors of hotels, it frequently succeeds. Life is made a burden to you by the perpetual exhibition of such jealousy, envy, malice, and all uncharitableness as only idle men and women can afford to indulge in. Besides small cliques, these model colonies are generally divided into two parties arrayed against each other, in AMERICAN FOLLY. 225 comparison with which the wars of the Bianchi and Neri, the Guelphs and Ghibelines, the Colonna and Orsini, hide their diminished heads. On your advent you are seized upon by partisans of both houses, who pour into your ears tales that would not only cause the quills of the fretful porcupine to stand on end, but would aggravate his fretful- ness to the verge of manslaughter. You are bullied and badgered into giving an opinion, and enrolled upon whichever side you least disapprove. Woe be unto jow if you preserve an armed neu- trality ! Then you are cordially detested by both armies. And woe be unto you if, after giving in your adhesion to the Colonna, you are found hob- nobbing with the Orsini ! This is the unpardon- able sin. Can you conceive of anything more ridiculously childish than such a condition of things ] It seems incredible until you have assisted at the spectacle, after which you are plunged in melancholy at the littleness of certain men and women. We laugh when we read in "The Corsican Brothers" of many lives being lost between two factions, because one side wrings the neck of a chicken belonging to the other. We think that we are not as Corsicans are, and stroke ourselves with satisfaction and becoming humility. Our colonies do not wring the necks of chick- 10* o 226 AMERICANS ABROAD. ens, but I have yet to be told that their wars are insph^ed by motives more exalted. One colony was convulsed to its centre last winter because a lady, while dancing a quadrille, refused to give her hand to another lady in the same set. Of course, the slight was exceedingly ill-bred ; but humanity has very little to do when it converts into a gen- eral feud what is really beneath contempt. In many instances, living in Europe renders Ameri- cans very narrow, very selfish, and very unpatri- otic. Existence consists of a perpetual round of pleasure-seeking. To be in certain capitals and watering-places during the season, to dress or attempt to dress better than any one else, are the chief ends of men and women. What befalls America is of no consequence as long as they re- ceive their dividends. The folly of some of the women absolutely passes all understanding, and the last instance I have heard of makes me blush for my country. Fancy a mother who thinks it a greater " catch " for her daughter to marry a Prus- sian officer than to marry an American. " Well, you see, he is a nobleman," argues the mother to an indignant friend. " Suppose he is noble, what then '? Is he not ]30or and a foreigner *? Would he marry your daughter if she were not rich "? " " No, it is asfainst the law. All Prussian officers AMERICAN FOLLY. 227 must marry women with money." " And you en- courage your daughter to give up her country, to leave her home, for the purpose of marrying a man for whom, were she penniless, she would have no attraction ! She will settle down in a wretched provincial town, while her husband goes wherever he is ordered. For society she will have the inane gossip of German women, who are good house- keepers, but are very narrow-minded, and are fear- ful scandal-mongers. This will be varied occasion- ally by a trip to Berlin, and a presentation at Court. And you call this a brilliant marriage ! Do you realize that woman in Germany is an infe- rior animal, and that your daughter is accustomed to such attention as she will never receive from Teutons V "I never looked at the matter in that light," replies the foolish mother. " After all, it doesn't seem as eligible as I thought, and perhaps my daughter will change her mind." With such a mother has she any mind to change] These German officers are fine partis. They are all more or less noble ; that is, they be- long to noble families, and, being in the army, are attached to the Court. The majority of them are genteel paupers, but are not permitted to marry rich German women whose families are mercan- tile, as such would be mesalliances ; yet they will 228 AMERICANS ABROAD. marry any American girl with money, though every dollar be made in trade ! Distance lends enchantment to the shop. One would suppose that self-respect and decent pride would prevent our women from so stultifying themselves ; but the longer one lives the more one becomes per- suaded that nothing is rarer than common-sense. A TRAIN OF THOUGHT. Paris, August 2, 1872. EVER go to Cologne from Paris by the night train, unless you wish to know what misery means. We barbaric Americans have an absurd idea that the horrors of night-trav- elling ought to be mitigated by art ; that com- forts which induce sleep should be administered at reasonable rates : and that to change cars in the dead of night is to fly in the face of an injured public. On the Continent of Europe no such superstitions prevail. Besides paying much more for railroad travelling than at home, you are ren- dered proportionably uncomfortable. Instead of luxurious, airy palace-cars, with retiring-rooms in which you can move, be served with meals or refreshments, sold the latest newspaper or the last new novel, you are shut up in the compartment of a short carriage, with three persons on your side and four persons opposite, with nothing on 230 AMERICANS ABROAD. which to rest your feet, and with a back to jonv seat which is so charmingly constructed as to throw your weary head forward and render life a burden. There is no ventilation, saving such as comes from the windows and from small gratings above them. If the weather be warm, both win- dows are left open, everybody is in danger of catching cold from the draught, and the four unhappy wTetches facing the engine are covered with dust. Even then the air is bad. Should the weather be cold, both windows are closed, your feet are warmed by pans of hot water, and you breathe an atmosphere foul with poison thrown off by human lungs. Then, though perhaps all the roads in England and some roads on the Continent are better built and consequently smoother than ours, reading is quite as injurious to sight, on ac- count of the jolting of the small, light carriages. Cooped up in such a pen with seven strangers, four of whom glare at you, your vis-a-vis generally being hideous and given to such, unlimited staring as to become a frightful fascination, with never a glass of water, and rarely an opportunity to stretch your cramped legs, you pursue your uneasy way, and curse inventive genius for not having discovered the means of properly navigating balloons. How I have lonajed for balloons this summer ! Had T A TRAIN OF THOUGHT. 231 been as sure of coming down as of going up, I should have confided in them two months ago. And this reminds me of a capital idea, which may have originated in the fertile brain of Joe Miller, but which I heard last winter at the Christy Min- strels in St. James's Hall. It is the first time I ever heard anything /or the first time from the lips of a negTo minstrel. Said Bones to Banjo, " How long does it take to go to America % " "About ten days," rephed Banjo. " pshaw ! I could do it in twelve hours." '' How so ] " inquired the inquisitive Banjo. " The earth revolves on its axle-tree every twenty-four hours ; does n't it '? " " Yes." " Well, now, you see I 'd just take a balloon in Hyde Park, I 'd go up a little w^ay, and there I 'd anchor. I 'd wait twelve hours until America came round, and then down I 'd drop." The suggestion is brilliant, the only difficulty being how to anchor. This slight impediment re- moved, and what stomach will be rash enough to brave the ao:onizinoj swells of the Atlantic Ocean 1 Given a trustw^orthy helm, and who will insult his humanity by taking a railroad train] We have been brought into the world before our time. We 232 AMERICANS ABROAD. live in dark ages. We ought to be born one hun- dred years hence. Then Science will have an- swered the questions she is now asking ; civiliza- tion will not be in its present frowzy condition ; everybody will eat with his fork ; cooking, even in England, in our Western States, and the Cannibal Islands, will be reduced to a fine art ; coal will be abolished, and we shall draw heat directly from the sun ; nothing will end in smoke, not even ci- gars ; women will have equal rights and education with men, aud society will not be the bore it is at present ; everybody will thoroughly know the bus- iness he professes, which almost nobody does at present ; newspapers will tell the truth ; Ameri- can editors will cease to call one another pet names ; all Europe will be republican ; Africa will be populated with Livingstones and Stanleys ; there will be no more relations in office, and no more Presidents in America to drive people mad every four years, and misrule them the rest of the time ; and, to return to our starting-point, rail- roads will only be used for the transportation of cattle and freight. Bad as day travelling is, it becomes luxurious when compared with that of the night. Europe sneers at sleeping-cars, so you sit bolt upright, or, by paying a very high price for a coupe, you may be a A TRAIN OF THOUGHT. 233 little less wretched ; but as a coupe holds four per- sons, and you are no better off in it than elsewhere should there be more than two occupants, you can imagine the length of purse required to as- suage misery. In going to Cologne there were three of us, — all women, — so we concluded to secure a co2cpe, which we did after much struggling and paying the conductor a big fee to keep vacant the fourth seat. This he promised, assured us that the coupe went through, and that we should not be disturbed until our arrival in that town of thirty-nine smells. Congratulating ourselves upon the comparative comfort of our situation, one of us took the floor, and the seats were divided be- tween and myself. Had I been three feet long, this arrangement might have answered ; but as m}^ space ended where my knees began, I passed most of the time in inventing impossible positions wherein to dispose of superfluous me. Suddenly, and at all hours, conductors darted their heads in at the window, and demanded, " Billets, s'il vous plait." European conductors never let you alone. They are always boring holes in or tearing off" your tickets with never a word of information ; or if they give any, you may stake your letter of credit that it is wrong. They hang on to the outside of the carriages, rain or 234 AMERICANS ABROAD. shine, hot or cold (the object of travelhng being to render everybody as wretched as is compatible with existence), and, locking you up in your pen, leave you to die of fits or fire unmolested. We had no sooner grown somewhat drowsy, than we were aroused by the intelligence that we had arrived at the custom-house, and our luggage was to be examined. Now our luggage had been regis- tered to Cologne, and I faintly suggested as much ; but the conductor seemed so corpulently wise as. to defy argument, and we sleepily betook ourselves to the douane. There we waited and waited for the trunks de ir to our souls, but in vain. Finally we made bold to ask the cause of delay, and were told what we knew before, — that through-luggage was examined at Cologne. At- tempting to return to our coupe, we were stopped, turned into the waiting-room, and forced to remain standing until the door was opened, which was not before all the way-luggage had been examined. On the Continent you are always locked up and treated like a flock of sheep. Do you marvel that the people do not know what to do with liberty when they get it % The next pleasing incident was being routed up at two o'clock in the morning, told that the coupe went no farther, and forced to descend, bags, bundles, and umbrellas. When we A TMAJ.X OF Til OUGHT. 235 remonstrated and claimed the coupe as ours, the conductor became deaf, and said it went no farther. Out we got, walked about a dreary station for half an hour, paid more porters more money, and finally secured a compartment for Co- logne, where we arrived at five, a. m. Fourteen hours en route, one unjustifiable disturbance at a custom-house, which in no way concerned us, and a fraudident letting of a coupe, which we were turned out of before reaching our destination : if these pleasantries occurred in America they would be attributed to republican institutions. The charm of the whole thing is, that there is no change of carriages in the day trains over the same route. Now, it really seems to me that Americans, w^ho are probably more numerous than any other first-class passengers, have a right to protest against such outrages as those to which we were subjected, and are justified in demanding the adoption of the American system of drawing-room and palace cars. The change must be made eventually ; for the world moves, however much red tape may maintain the divine right of stag- nation ; and unless travelling in Europe be made easier than it is at present, Americans, after the novelty of a foreign trip wears off, will prefer to remain at home. 236 AMERICANS ABROAD. Then the fearful charges for luggage are enough to exasperate even so meek a man as Moses. Al- though I have never journeyed any great distance with more than two ordinary trunks, the price of my luggage has frequently equalled the price of my ticket. In several instances on short routes the former has been in excess. This ought not to be tolerated ; and if American journals published in Europe combine in an attack upon the present idiotic railway management of the Old World, there may be a chance of speedier reform than can be brought about by any other means. Dare to attack established customs, and it is astounding how soon established customs give way. They only endure from the cowardly policy of letting them alone. No one, for example, denies the ad- vantage of the American system of checking lug- gage, and yet these old fossils hesitate to trans- form bad into good 1 It really is the duty of Americans to make Europe a region fit to travel in. LONDON AND THE ENGLISH. London, August 4, 1872. HY is it that Americans so cordially dis- like London 1 Probably because they know nothing about it, which is the best of all reasons, as it is founded entirely on prejudice, and prejudice rules the world. It was the habit of some Roman dignitary, upon giving audience to strangers who took leave of him after a fortnight's visit to the imperial city, to dismiss them with a "farewell," while to those who bade him " good by" after a residence of three months, he cheerfully said, Au revoir. His theory, evolved from observation, was that travellers who remained a few days left either in disgust or indifference, while those who lingered several months became enamoured, and always returned. It seems to me that the Roman's rule will apply equally well to London. Leave here at the end of a week, and the English vocabulary is not rich 238 AMERICANS ABROAD. enough to express your discontent. Be here six months, and you desire to rempan six mouths longer. Keside here a year, and you leave reluc- tantly, with every intention of returning in the dim future, that you may once more embrace old friends. This is not the ordinary verdict, because most travellers come under the category of fort- nightlies ; ]:)ut it is certainly mine, because I be- long to the yearlings ; and it was certainly Haw"- thorne's, to whose book on England I have just turned, and who, oddly enough, associates London with Rome as I did a moment since, when inno- cent of his opinion. " There is nothing else in life," writes Hawthorne, " comparable " (in its way, of course, he means) " to the thick, heavy, oppres- sive, sombre delight which an American is sensible of, hardly knowing whether to call it a pleasure or a pain, in the atmosphere of London. The result was that I acquired a home feeling there, as nowhere else in the world, though afterwards I came to have a somewhat similar sentiment in regard to Rome ; and as long as either of those two great cities shall exist, the cities of the Past and of the Present, a man's native soil may crum- ble beneath his feet without leaving him altogether homeless upon epa'th." I have nothing to say in defence of London LONDOX AND THE ENGLISH. 239 weather. November is steeped in a profound gloom of yellow fog ; December and January are not much better ; February, March, and April are brighter, but subject to east winds ; May and June are frequently raw and cold ; and the only months upon which any tolerable dependence can be placed are July, August, and September. Octo- ber ouQ:ht to be fine, but the worst fosrs of the season frequently take place in this most beautiful of autumn months. Fog or no fog, there is al- ways an atmosphere heavy with smoke ; you breathe as through a chimney darkly ; " blacks," totally regardless of complexion, settle upon your alabaster brow and lily-white nose, making dirty streaks wherever they go. Then it rains peren- nially ; or if it does not rain, it threatens, so you rarely move without an umbrella. For pedes- trians to wear good clothing is impossible. While india-rubbers are seldom required, the streets, eight months out of twelve, are in such a filthy condition as to render finery an outrage on the eternal fitness of thin^j^s. There are no crossino:s, as with us ; nobodj^ in business streets, and few elsewhere, dream of sweeping the pavements ; so that, although you are never up to your ankles in mud, you are perpetually wading through the stickiest of slush. The weather is never " hor- 240 AMERICANS ABROAD. rid" and "awful," as in Amsrica. ' It is always "nasty" and "beastly." A diamond edition of the deluge is going on perpetually. But as the Devil should ever have his due, it must be remem- bered that England is free from extremes. Though, owing to the dampness, you wear as heavy clothes here in winter as at home, the weather is never as cold, snow is a rare visitor, and intense heat almost unknown. There is not a day in the year that you cannot go out and row, ride, or walk to your heart's content. This is something, ay, it is a great deal ; but nothing in the world can compen- sate me for the absence of a bright sun and dry atmosphere. I like London, in spite of its climate. I like it best in the winter months, when the weather is worst. I like it because of the people. " What ! out of the season ! " Yes, precisely for this reason. During May, June, and July, which are called the season because extreme fashion comes up from the country to go to the opera, inspect the Royal Academy, and visit one another, everything is topsy-turvy. Life is a suc- cession of balls and receptions, four and five deep nightly. You see nobody except for five minutes in the glare of gas-light, for you no sooner arrive at one pa.rty than it is time to go to another. As the majority of London houses are very small, and LONDON AND THE ENGLISH. 241 the success of a party depends upon its size, as the rule is to invite three times as many people as can be accommodated, there is a possibility of not being able to get up stairs, in which dilemma you hail your host and hostess, as ships hail one another at sea, by means of signals. Under these circumstances, I do not call society satisfactory. It is a delusion, a snare, a madness, an idiotic in- vention of a barbaric civilization, an unmitigated bore. This is London during the season. London out of season tells a different tale ; and, mark the in- solence of Fashion ! three and a half millions of people reside in London from January until De- cember, only taking vacations during August and September; but because a few thousand butter- flies appear with the early summer, this big, bustling Babel is out of season so long as the butterflies do not flutter in Hyde Park ! London out of season, I repeat, is most interesting. How can it be otherwise when it is not only the centre of Great Britain and Ireland, attracting to it the brains and energy of the United Kingdom, but the centre of the world, luring, if only for a moment, everybody from everywhere] If, there- fore, as I sincerely believe, the proper study of mankind is man, where else can the observer so 11 p 242 AMERICANS ABROAD, readily whet his curiosity, and revel in variety of culture and intelligence'? " The cream of external life is there," again writes Hawthorne ; " and what- ever merely intellectual or natural good we fail to find perfect in London, we may as well content ourselves to seek the unattainable thing no further on this earth." Almost all the clever literary, artistic, scientific, and critical English men and women reside per- manently in London or its vicinity. They must of necessitjT^ be near the great market which de- mands what they can supply. These in them- selves are one of the most magnetic features of society ; for what can be more attractive to a cul- tivated person than a dinner with Robert Brown- ing, whose conversation is as entertaining and varied as the museum at South Kensington ; a visit to George Miot and George Lewes, — she, perhaps, the cleverest woman living, and he a really brilliant man ; a walk along the Thames with that great, contradictory, inconceivable, in- tellectual despot, Thomas Carlyle ; a matinee musicale at a charming house, with Prince Ponia- towski and Miss Virginia Gabriel at the piano, and perhaps Joachim at the violin; and recep- tions where you are sure to meet Tyndall, Huxley, Herbert Spencer, Miss Thackeray, and others LONDON AND THE ENGLISH. 243 equally interesting though unknown to fame ? All this one may obtain before the Christmas holi- days, and in February the assembling of Parlia- ment brings together whatever there is of political eminence ; and to my way of thinking, — although I cordially detest the form of government, which is that of a pure aristocracy ; although the House of Commons more or less muddles every reform it attempts, — many of its members are the most delightful companions. The very men whose public careers are utterly opposed — from my point of view be it understood — to every principle of justice, are charming socially ; and while we fight the moment politics becomes the subject of con- versation, we never cease to be good-natured. We find so many topics upon which to sympathize as to tolerate each other's failings (for of course I am thought as mad as I consider them wrong- headed and obstinate), and the acquaintances of an hour become the stanch friends of a lifetime. Then, when I meet an advanced English liberal, I embrace him (metaphorically) on the spot, seeing no difference between him and a fine American, saving that often he is more cultivated, and there- fore more after my own heart. Of course these specimens are rare, but when found tliey should be treasured ; for I really know nothing nobler in 244 AMERICANS ABROAD. humanity than an unprejudiced, radical, first-class English gentleman. His respect for woman is not outdone by the most chivalrous American, al- though he may be less demonstrative in those little attentions to which we are accustomed ; his belief in women's capacity is not exceeded by that of George William Curtis ; and his friendl}?" feeling toward America is so frank and so opti- mistic as to make you tremble lest he may decide to cross the Atlantic and discover that we, too, have our plague-spots. The world does not often hear of this type of Englishman ; but he exists : other- wise, how could I know him 1 EUROPEAN VERSUS AMERICAN WOMEN. London, August 5. NE day more, and my stay in Europe will be over. One day more, and I shall be ^1 pacing the singularly unstable deck of that most untrustworthy and restless of animals, an Atlantic steamer. I am glad and sorry : glad to be going home, glad to once more take up the thread of an active existence ; sorry to leave friends that I may never meet again. Europe is very interesting. In fact, if you have money, it •is, in some respects, fascinating. If you possess nice tastes, it is delightful to be in the focus of culture, realizing that you ai'e obtaining the best that the world affords. If you love art, it is a comfort and a perpetual study to be within seeing distance of fixmous galleries. If you love music, it refreshes the soul to hear the greatest masters, not occasionally, as in America, but daily, should you desire it. If you love society, your money 246 AMERICANS ABROAD. will enable you to obtain it. Your appointments will be comme il faut ; entertaining will be easier than at home, in consequence of trained servants ; your groom will know his business ; saddle-horses will be thoroughly broken ; the roads over which you ride and drive will have the smoothness of a thousand years of travel. Be a cultivated Amer- ican, with plenty of money, and Europe affords luxuries that a young country cannot furnish, although in the material comforts of housekeeping the Old World can in no way compare with the New. Be a cultivated, rich American, with no regard for aught but self, with a contempt for the people and a disbelief in republican institutions, and of course you '11 prefer this side of the Atlan- tic to the other. Be a cultivated American, loving your country, not so much because it is your country as because you realize that it is, after all, the most enlightened of countries, offering the greatest good to the greatest number, allowing a freedom of thought and action quite foreign to the genius of older nations, and you will never call Europe "home." Europe is the place to visit: America is the place to live and work in. There is the widest field for activity and for intelligence, there you breathe the purest air, there you are least trammelled with conventionalities, there you EUROPEAN VERSUS AMERICAN WOMEN, 247 have the fairest chance of being a whole man, and, yet more, a whole woman. As a woman, I cannot be too grateful to those stern Puritans who, in the Mayflower, braved the dangers of an almost un- known sea. The more I think of their courage, the more I respect them ; the more I think of their effect upon civilization, the more I rejoice at being born after their advent. If you are a duchess, or, what is almost the equivalent, an American woman of wealth and position, Europe will give you so much as to cause the unthinking to ask, " What more would you have % " Go below the highest classes, and the reverse of the medal is soon seen. Say what they please, woman as woman is not respected here. Be a gr ancle dame, and you are courted, admired, treated with defer- ence, because you are a grande dame. You go about with carriage and footmen, which para- phernalia denote position or power. Go about on your two feet, and you will soon discover that to be a woman is, on the Continent, outside of Ger- many, to be an object of insulting interest, a crea- ture whom no man is bound to respect. In Ger- many men do not insult women : they simply regard them as inferiors. Women carrying the heaviest loads while husbands are comparatively free from burdens, or women yoked with dogs or 248 AMERICANS ABROAD. COWS, is no uncommon spectacle. In France, though women are the more industrious half of the population, though they, as a rule, are cleverer than the men, though they show the greater ap- titude in managing business, men speak of them lightly, and" see in them probable or possible filles dejoie. I have a very great regard for French- women ; I don't believe them to be naturally cor- rupt ; and regenerated France will mean a proper appreciation of women, according to them that equality which is their due. Of Frenchmen, the less said the better. There are noble exceptions who prove that corruption is more a fashion than a necessity ; and when women are strong enough to dictate terms, Americans will readily sympa- thize with this same abused France. I don't mean shop-keeping or Imperial France, mind you. Both are beyond redemption. The great comfort of America is that a woman is not always made to feel her sex. She really is allowed to exist as a human being, not, unfortu- nately, with all the liberty of a man, but still with so much more than elsewhere as by comparison to be free. In Europe, I never lose the sense of sex. You will be told that it is highly improper for a young lady to walk alone in London ; that she thereby subjects herself to insult. This is non- EUROPEAN VERSUS AMERICAN WOMEN 249 sense. For eight months I have walked about London daily, sometimes going through the Seven\ Dials, and have never met with anything disagree- able ; but then I have always dressed plainly, and have always assumed a severe cast of countenance, as though bound on affairs of state. I can't say that I have ever enjoyed these walks, on account of doing what no Englishwoman of position would dare to do for fear of shocking that amiable person, Mrs. Grundy. There is little pleasure, either, in walking about a town if you may not saunter and gaze ; but my experience teaches me that, outside of Paris, which is incorrigible, it is generally a wo- man's own fault if she is spoken to in the street by strange men ; and I heartily wish that, instead of immediately adopting European customs, American women would persist in preserving their own, and thus set a good example to the rest of creation. Unmarried women in Europe are suppressed to an intolerable extent. To me, they and their dread- ful maids are the most forlorn as well as the absurdest of sights. German and English girls have often come to me complaining of their fate, saying that it was wellnigh maddening, and that they envied me my liberty. " But why not strike out for yourselves 1 " I have asked. "It is all very well to say ' Strike out ' ; but suppose your parents 11 * 250 AMERICANS ABROAD. won't let yoiil Or suppose, if they do, all your acquaintance talk about you and take away your character'? What is there left but submission'? Thank your stars that you are American ! " What can one say in reply % I feel sorry for them, de- plore with them, and remain silent ; for it takes more than ordinary courage to brave public opin- ion, however idiotic it may be, and from ordinary persons you cannot expect extraordinary deeds. I think that I should break chains, even were I European ; still, I might be too cowardly. But the absurdity of the whole thing is, that the morals of these people are so elastic as to rather like in strangers what they condemn in their own young- women ! To receive, to entertain, seem to them comme il faut in me. They come — men and wo- men — quickly enough when asked, and exclaim, " How nice ! " Young men say, " Why cannot there be the same freedom and friendliness of in- tercourse between unmarried English men and wo- men as in America 1 You cannot imagine how re- freshing it is to enjoy a woman's acquaintance without fear and without reproach. The repres- sion system renders English girls, if not stupid, at least self-conscious and uninteresting, and they are simply intolerable as companions until after mar- riage, when, if there be anything clever in them. EUROPEAN VERSUS AMERICAN WOMEN. 251 an assured position and contact with the world briners it out." This is what liberal En2;lishmen say, because they are Anglo-Saxon and believe in women. Of course, Continental men think the freedom of American women either immoral or indelicate, and assert that if no evil arises it is because of the absence of passion in the American race ; that such a condition of society is absolutely impossible in France. I know of no more hot- blooded people than the Southerners of our own country. I deny that Americans, North or South, are cold. The great difference is, not one of race, but of custom and education. I do not think that American men are naturally better than other men ; Heaven knows the majority of those who visit Paris are not. They happened to be born in a more enlightened hemisphere and are surrounded by purer influences ; that is all. While the learned professors of Harvard University are shaking their wise heads, and denying the possibility of admit- ting girls to their classes, predicting all sorts of hor- rible results from the association of the sexes, Ober- lin and Antioch Colleges in Ohio, and Michigan University, demonstrate by practical experience how utterly foolish are these mediaeval nightmares. What Cambridge is to the West, Europe is to Cambridge. The East seems to be a synonyme for 252 AMERICANS ABROAD. whatever is retrograde. Wyoming Territory sets an example to States founded before it was dreamed of. Education being what it is, therefore, I am not attracted to Enghshwomen, married or unmar- ried, Enghsh women generally will not compare favorably with American, but there are excep- tions greatly to the advantage of England. We have had no poet equal to Mrs. Browning, no novelist approaching George Eliot, no scientist the peer of Mrs. Sonierville, no actress like Mrs. Siddons. There are a few women in society far more cultivated than any leading women of fashion in America; but when this is said, all is said. Englishwomen as a class are dead to vivacity, tact, taste in dress, the art of pleasing, everything approaching fascination and general intelligence. In these qualities American women outshine all others, and in beauty their superiority is universally acknowledged. Bat the exceptional Englishwomen are very interesting, and I have found friends here among my own sex that I leave with deep regret, knowing that I shall ne'er look upon their like again. Englishwomen are some- times beautiful ; then they are extremely so ; but the beauty is much more frequently statuesque than picturesque. There is an absence of mobility EUROPEAN VERSUS A}ri:RlCAN WOMF.N. 253 of feature and vai'iety of expression that renders them less attractive than they otherwise woidd be. Indifference and listlessness of manner are consid- ered high style, when with us they would be rei^arded as a defect in breeding. To try to please everybody, is democratic ; to be indifferent to everybody is aristocratic: consequently, Amer- icans, men and women, are the best bred people in the world. I say this thoroughly aware of the extraordinary specimens who often visit Europe, in some instances making it their home, and of the absence in the majority of that extreme polish inherited by a percentage of the upper classes of England. Unpolished, the Enghshman is a boor, and the Englishwoman a boor. Take us for all in all, we have the best of it, and to that best I return with grateful delight. With all its faults, our Republic is the hope of the world. Cambridge : Printed hv Welch, Bigelow, & Co.