Читать книгу Journal of a Residence in America - Fanny Kemble - Страница 28

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Rose at eight. After breakfast, began writing to my brother; while doing so they brought up Captain——'s and Mr. ——'s cards. I was delighted to see our dear Captain again, who, in spite of his glorious slip-slop, is a glorious fellow. They sat some time. Colonel—— called—he walks my father off his legs. When they were all gone, finished letter and wrote journal. Unpacked and sorted things. Opened with a trembling heart my bonnet-box, and found my precious Dévy squeezed to a crush—I pulled it out, rebowed, and reblonded, and reflowered it, and now it looks good enough "pour les thauvages, mamthelle Fannie." Worked at my muslin gown; in short, did a deal. A cheating German woman came here this morning with some bewitching canezous and pelerines: I chose two that I wanted, and one very pretty one that I didn't; but as she asked a heathen price for 'em, I took only the former;—dear good little me![1] We dined at five. After dinner, sang and played to my father, "all by the light of the moon." The evening was, as the day had been, lovely; and as I stood by his side near the open window, and saw him inhaling the pure fresh air, which he said invigorated and revived him, and heard him exclaim upon the beauty of our surroundings, half of my regret for this exile melted away.

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He said to me, "Is there not reason to be grateful to God, when we look at these fair things?"—and indeed, indeed, there is: yet these things are not to me what they were. He told me that he had begun a song on board ship for the last Saturday night, but that, not feeling well, he had given it up, but the very same ideas I had made use of had occurred to him.

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This is not surprising; the ideas were so obvious that there was no escaping them. My father is ten years younger since he came here, already.

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Colonel—— came in after tea, and took my father off to the Bowery theatre. I remained with D——, singing and stitching, and gossiping till twelve o'clock. My father has been introduced to half the town, and tells me that far from the democratic Mister, which he expected to be every man's title here, he had made the acquaintance of a score of municipal dignitaries, and some sixty colonels and major generals—of militia. Their omnibuses are vehicles of rank, and the Ladies Washington, Clinton, and Van Rensalear,[2] rattle their crazy bones along the pavement for all the world like any other old women of quality.

These democrats are as title-sick as a banker's wife in England. My father told me to-day, that Mr. ——, talking about the state of the country, spoke of the lower orders finding their level: now this enchants me, because a republic is a natural anomaly; there is nothing republican in the construction of the material universe; there be highlands and lowlands, lordly mountains as barren as any aristocracy, and lowly valleys as productive as any labouring classes. The feeling of rank, of inequality, is inherent in us, a part of the veneration of our natures; and like most of our properties seldom finds its right channels—in place of which it has created artificial ones suited to the frame of society into which the civilised world has formed itself. I believe in my heart that a republic is the noblest, highest, and purest form of government; but I believe that, according to the present disposition of human creatures, 'tis a mere beau ideal, totally incapable of realisation. What the world may be fit for six hundred years hence, I cannot exactly perceive; but in the mean time, 'tis my conviction that America will be a monarchy before I am a skeleton.

One of the curses of living at an inn in this unceremonious land:—Dr. ——walked in this evening accompanied by a gentleman, whom he forthwith introduced to us. I behaved very ill, as I always do on these occasions; but 'tis an impertinence, and I shall take good care to certify such to be my opinion of these free-and-easy proceedings. The man had a silly manner, but he may be a genius for all that. He abused General Jackson, and said the cholera was owing to his presidency; for that Clay had predicted that when he came into power, battle, pestilence, and famine, would come upon the land: which prophecy finds its accomplishment thus: they have had a war with the Indians, the cholera has raged, and the people, flying from the infected cities to the country, have eaten half the farmers out of house and home. This hotel reminds me most extremely of our "iligant" and untidy apartments in dear nasty Dublin, at the Shelbourne. The paper in our bed-room is half peeling from the walls, our beds are without curtains: then to be sure there are pier looking-glasses, and one or two pieces of showy French furniture in it. 'Tis customary, too, here, I find, for men to sleep three or four in a room: conceive an Englishman shown into a dormitory for half-a-dozen! I can't think how they endure it; but, however, I have a fever at all those things. My father asked me, this evening, to write a sonnet about the wild pigeons welcoming us to America; I had thought of it with scribbling intent before, but he wants me to get it up here, and that sickened me.