Читать книгу Jonathan and His Continent: Rambles Through American Society - O'Rell Max - Страница 5

Table of Contents

Characteristic Traits.—A Gentleman and a Cad.—Different Ways of Discussing the Merits of a Sermon.—Contradictions and Contrasts.—Sacred and Profane.—Players of Poker on Board Ship.—A Meek and Humble Follower of Jesus.—The Open Sesame of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia.—The Childish Side of American Character.—The Three Questions Jonathan puts to every Foreigner who lands in America.—Preconceived Notions.—Request of an American Journalist.—Why the English and the French do not put Questions on their Countries to the Foreigner who visits them.

nation, scarcely more than a hundred years old, and composed of many widely different elements, cannot, in the nature of things, possess very marked characteristic traits.

There are Americans in plenty, but the American does not yet exist.

The inhabitant of the North-east States, the Yankee,[2] differs as much from the Western man and the Southerner, as the Englishman differs from the German or the Spaniard.

For example, call a Yankee "a cad," and he will get out of the room, remarking, "You say so, sir, but that proves nothing." Call a Pennsylvania man "a cad," and he will get out of temper, and knock you down. Call a real Westerner "a cad," and he will get out his revolver, and shoot you dead on the spot.

On leaving a New York theatre one night, I jumped into a tramcar in Broadway. We were quite sixty persons packed upon the vehicle—sitting, standing, holding on to the rail on the platform, trying to keep our equilibrium as well as we could. A gentleman, well-dressed and looking well-bred, signed to the conductor to stop, and tried to make his way through the crowd. By dint of using his elbows as propellers, he reached the door, and was preparing to alight, when a man, indignant at having been pushed (there are people who, for twopence-halfpenny, expect to travel as comfortably as in a barouche), cried:

"You are a cad, sir—a howling cad!"

The gentleman jumped off the car.

"You are a cad, I say," bellowed the individual after him; "a cad, do you hear?"

The gentleman—for he was one—turned, lifted his hat, and replied:

"Yes; I hear. And you, sir, are a perfect gentleman."

The perfect gentleman looked very silly for a few moments. A hundred yards further on, he stopped the car and made off.

Should a minister indulge in unorthodox theories in the pulpit, the Eastern man will content himself with shaking his head, and going to another church to perform his devotions the Sunday after. The Pennsylvanian will open a violent polemic in the newspaper of the locality; he will not be satisfied with shaking his head, he will shake his fist. The Kansas man will wait for the minister at the church-door, and gave him a sound thrashing.[3]

The character of the American is English from the point of view of its contrasts and contradictions, which are still more accentuated in him than in the Englishman.

Is there anything more sublime than the way in which Jonathan can combine the sacred and profane? He is a greater adept at it than John Bull, and that is saying not a little.

On board the steamer, we had five Americans who passed eight days of the voyage in playing poker. The smoking-room rang from morning to night with the oaths that they uttered every time they laid a card on the table. They were so fluent with them that they hardly used the same twice in an hour. Their stock seemed inexhaustible. On Sunday, after breakfast, a young lady sat down to the piano, and began playing hymns. What happened then? Our five poker-players gathered round the lady, and for two hours sang psalms and holy tunes to the edification of the other occupants of the saloon.

I was dumbfounded.

In France, we have men who swear and men who sing hymns. The Anglo-Saxon race alone furnishes men who do both with equal gusto.

In what other country than America could such an anecdote as the following be told? It is the most typical anecdote I heard in the United States. It came from Mr. Chauncey Depew, it is said. But, for that matter, when a good story goes the round of the States, it is always put down to Mr. Depew, Mark Twain, or the late Artemus Ward.

A new minister had been appointed in a little Kentucky town. No sooner had he taken possession of his cure, than he set about ornamenting the church with stained-glass windows of gorgeous hues. This proceeding aroused the suspicions of several parishioners, who imagined that their new pastor was inclined to lead them to Rome. A meeting was called, and it was decided to send a deputation to the minister to ask him to explain his conduct, and beg him to have the offending windows removed.

The head of the deputation was an old Presbyterian, whose austerity was well known in the town. He opened fire by addressing the reverend gentleman thus:

"We have waited upon you, sir, to beg that you will remove those painted windows from our church as soon as possible. We are simple folks. God's daylight is good enough for us, and we don't care to have it shut out by all those images——"

The worthy fellow had prepared a fine harangue, and was going to give the minister the benefit of it all; but the latter, losing patience, thus interrupted him:

"Excuse me, you seem to be taking high ground. Who are you, may I ask?"

"Who I am?" repeated the Presbyterian spokesman. "I'm a meek and humble follower of Jesus, and—d—n you, who are you?"

Without travelling very far, without even quitting the eastern coast of America, you will see a complete difference in the spirit of towns that are almost neighbours.

In New York, for instance—I am not speaking now of the literary world, of which I shall speak later—in New York it is your money that will open all doors to you; in Boston, it is your learning; in Philadelphia and Virginia, it is your genealogy. Therefore, if you wish to be a success, parade your dollars in New York, your talents in Boston, and your ancestors in Philadelphia and Richmond.

There is a pronounced childish side to the character of all the Americans. In less than a century they have stridden ahead of the nations of the Old World; they are astonished at their own handiwork, and, like children with a splendid toy of their own manufacture in their hands, they say to you, "Look! just look, is it not a beauty?" And, indeed, the fact is that, for him who will look at it with unprejudiced eyes, the achievement is simply marvellous.

The Americans like compliments, and are very sensitive to criticism. They have not yet got over Charles Dickens' American Notes, nor the still older criticisms of Mrs. Trollope. Scarcely has a foreigner set foot in the United States before they ask him what he thinks of the country. Nine persons out of every ten you speak to put these three questions to you:

"Is this your first visit to America?"

"How long have you been over?"

"How do you like our country?"

There are even some who push curiosity farther, and do not wait until you have arrived to ask you for your opinion on their country.

I had only just embarked on board the Germanic at Liverpool, when the purser handed me a letter from America. I opened it, and read:

"Dear Sir—Could you, during your voyage, write me an article on the United States? I should be happy to have your preconceived notions of America and the Americans, so as to publish them in my journal as soon as you arrive."

I do not think I am committing any indiscretion in saying that the letter was signed by the amiable and talented editor of The Critic, the first literary journal in the United States.

I had heard that the cabman who drove you to your hotel from the docks asked you, as he opened the door of his vehicle, "Well, sir, and what are your impressions of America?" But to ask me in Liverpool my preconceived notions of America and the Americans, that outdid anything of the kind I had heard on the subject.

An Englishman or a Frenchman will never ask you what you think of England or France. The fact is, they both care little or nothing for the foreigner's opinion. The Frenchman does not doubt that his country is beyond competition. If he enter into the subject at all, it is to congratulate the stranger upon coming to visit it.

The Englishman makes less noise over it. In his provokingly calm manner, he is perfectly persuaded that England is the first country in the world, and that everybody admits it, and the idea of asking an outsider for his opinion of it would never enter his head. He would think it so ridiculous, so amusing, so grotesque, that anyone should tell him England was not at the head of all nations, that he would not take the trouble to resent it. He would pity the person, and there the matter would end.