Francis J. Grund

“ As a finish then to the education of father, mother, and children, and perhaps, also, to drown in oblivion the tedious particulars of their rise and progress, our highest and best families emigrate for a short time to Europe, in order, in the society of noblemen, to attain that peculiar high polish and suavity of manners which it is impossible to acquire amidst the bustle of business and the vulgar turmoil of elections. ”

“ Our society takes it upon itself to punish political, moral, and religious dissenters; but most of its wrath is spent upon the champions of democracy. That society is the means of seducing our unsophisticated country members, making them believe that republicanism is only fit for backwoodsmen, is a fact too notorious to be mentioned. It destroys our independence in words and actions, and makes our duties of citizens subordinate to the exactions of a coterie. What man is there in this city that dares to be independent, at the risk of being considered bad company? ”

“ If their pretensions were recognised by the people at large, there would be no happier set of men in the world. There is no species of perfection which they do not attribute to one another: so that one is constantly reminded of the fable of the two asses, one of which found the other an excellent singer, while the latter discovered in the first a great talent for public speaking; the rest of the animals seeing neither the singer nor the orator in either of them. I am at once for an aristocracy like the English, with some lasting, real distinctions. ”

“ We have ‘lots’ of aristocracy in our country, cheap, and plenty as bank-bills and credit, and equally subject to fluctuation. To-day it is worth so much,—to-morrow more or less,—and, in a month, no one will take it on any terms. We have, in fact, at all times, a vast deal of aristocracy; the only difficulty consists in retaining it. Neither is the position of our aristocrats much to be envied. Amidst the general happiness and prosperity of our people, their incessant cravings after artificial distinctions are never satisfied ”

“ Be careful how you repeat what I have said about parsons; they have more power in the United States than in any other country. They have the power of breaking any man they please; for they possess the most complete control over the women. I have, in this respect, always been of Jean Paul Richter’s opinion, who despised ‘the pater-noster globule of piety,’ as much as ‘the empty bubbles of worldly prudence.’ But you know my religious sentiments, and are best able to judge whether I deserve the name of a Christian. ”

“ The worst objection to democracy is, that, except taverns and coffee-houses, both of which are in exceeding bad repute in the United States, its followers have no regular rendezvous, no réunions, no petits comités amongst themselves, where its zealots might mutually inspire one another with patriotic sentiments, after the example of the Whigs, who, from time to time, refresh their dying love of liberty with the best West India madeira, furnished by their own cellars. ”

“ I do not think that the institutions of Europe would answer for this country. We are a young people. Our wants are few, and easily satisfied; and, as we had in the outset no other interests to protect but those of the masses, I do not see of what use hereditary privileges could be to us, except to make the proud prouder, and the rich more influential, than they already are, much to the dissatisfaction of our party; and, as for manners and refinement, I think we are doing very well, considering that our fashionable people have to import them from Europe. ”

“ But there is one point in which the New-Yorkers have an immeasurable advantage over the Philadelphians,—an advantage which proves their city as much superior to Philadelphia as Paris is to a country town of France, or London to a rotten borough; viz. the New York oyster-cellars remain open until three or four in the morning, whereas the Philadelphians close theirs very soon after one: a custom which is vulgar and provincial in the extreme; and prevents many a gentleman, who has made but an indifferent supper at a party, from procuring himself the gratification of the nightmare. ”

“ I know not what the duke’s literary pretensions are; but, if Walter Scott had written a book on America, it could not have made a greater sensation than the duke’s.”
“You ought to make an allowance for the novelty of the thing,” said I. “As yet, but few dukes have visited the United States.”
“If their wonderment and toad-eating were confined to dukes and earls,” replied he, “I would willingly pardon them; but they worship everything in the shape of a nobleman, until, by continually talking about nobility, they imagine themselves to belong to it. ”

“ How should such an order of beings agree amongst themselves? How should they be able to make themselves, or those around them, comfortable? There is more courtesy in the apparent rudeness of the Western settler than in the assumed politeness of the city stockholder,—more true hospitality in the log-house of the backwoodsman, than in any of the mansions of the presidents and directors of banks with whom it has been my good fortune to become acquainted. ”

“ The building was very spacious; but its wings were a little too long, and the small garden in front almost entirely destitute of trees,—a fault from which no public, and hardly any private, mansion in the United States, can be said to be entirely exempted.
The Americans have, indeed, a singular aversion to trees and shrubs of every description: their highest idea of perfection in a landscape being an extended plain sown with grass. They consider trees as a mark of barbarism, and are, in their zeal for civilization, extirpating them wherever they find them. ”

“ Political liberty is, after all, but an abstract and general good, never felt by individuals, unless it be joined to freedom of intercourse, and that degree of independence which leaves a man in all matters relating to himself sole arbiter of his actions. Intolerance and persecution in private and social intercourse are far more odious, and, perhaps, more destructive to the higher faculties of the mind, than the most systematic political despotism [Pg 122] acting from above. And yet I would pardon our society all its faults, if it did not act perniciously on the women. ”

“ Thus the terms ‘patron’ and ‘client’ are in New York, for instance, synonymous with ‘creditor’ and ‘debtor;’ and as the banks, according to the prevalent system of credit, must inevitably be the creditors of nine-tenths of the community, every person connected with them—and, above all, a stockholder, cashier, or president—must necessarily be a patrician. The whole composition of our society is arithmetical; each gentleman ranking according to the numerical index of his property. ”

“ Fortunes might have been lost or won, merchants established or ruined, politicians raised or undone. Many an enterprising pioneer might have formed a plan for a new settlement; while hundreds of others were probably employed in transporting the produce of the fertilized West to the seaports of the Atlantic. Wealth and misery had perhaps been expected by thousands with the arrival of the mail or packet. Fathers might have been separated from their children,—husbands from their wives,—in the eager and universal quest of fortune, and many a heart left bleeding with the loss of all it held dear ”

“ Robespierre is not more detested in France, than Jefferson and Jackson are among the higher classes of Americans. I have seen fashionable women in Boston and Philadelphia almost thrown into convulsions at the very mention of their names. And what appears most strange is, that this hatred is hereditary; for it is a fact, no less interesting than instructive, that the higher classes in the United States have no political conviction at all. Their professions that way are the result of mere bias, produced by the opinions and sentiments of their early friends and associates. ”

“ If we had as many distinct and established orders of society as in England, there would not be that everlasting attempt to go beyond one another which particularly characterises our women, and, joined to the credit system, is the cause of so many failures; a circumstance which, in whatever light merchants and bankers may view it, is nevertheless one of the greatest moral evils with which an honest community can be afflicted. ”

“ Fortunately for the business habits of our people, they cannot make proselytes among our industrious male population: but our fashionable women, one-half of whom live in boarding-houses, and the other half in houses kept by their servants, are wondrously taken by such accounts of the ‘success of the Americans abroad;’ and exhibit by their unnatural, affected, forced manners, and by the total abjuration of everything American, their solicitude to be governed by the same elevated standard of refinement. ”

“ But I trust that the good sense of the people, the intelligence pervading the masses, and, above all, the high degree of morality and virtue which distinguishes the American above [Pg 318] all other nations in the world, will be proof against the temptations of a handful of political sceptics; and that the country, blessed with Nature’s richest gifts, and selected by Providence for the noblest experiment tried by man, will fulfil its mission,—which is not only the civilization of a new world, but the practical establishment of principles which heretofore have only had an ideal existence. ”

“ I have seen one of the most distinguished old [Pg 86] gentlemen in the United States,—one who held the highest rank in the gift of the American people, and whose learning and knowledge on most subjects rendered him a most pleasing and entertaining companion of men,—betray as little self-possession in the presence of women as if he had been making his début in society, and this too in the house of one of his most intimate friends. ”

“ In America, on the contrary, there are but few branches of industry, and almost none of learning, which are sure of meeting with an adequate remuneration in money; so that, if men are merely judged by their wealth, the meanest bank or counting-house clerk, or a common shopkeeper, has a better chance of arriving at respectability than the most successful scholar in the most difficult branches of human learning. ”

“ These continual exigencies cannot but render the society of women often irksome to men who are daily engaged from ten to twelve hours in active business, before they dress to do the agreeable at a party; and hence the retiring of the ladies is but too frequently hailed as the signal for throwing off restraint, or, as I once heard it called, “for letting off the steam,” and being again natural and easy. If in any of these matters the men were allowed to use their own discretion in bestowing attention on those only whom they like, all would be well enough. ”

“ But even granting that the American credit system, which is said to act favourably with regard to the merchants, proves also a benefit to the small trader, the mechanic, and the farmer, would not the prosperity of the latter entirely depend on the former? and would not the extension or restriction of credit, which, with such a system, can always be effected by the rich capitalists, affect the demand and supply, and place the whole community at the mercy of a few individuals? ”

“ It is for such and similar reasons that they take every opportunity of railing against the increased patronage of the government; as if the government of the United States were something apart from the people,—a power which the people have to contend with, and against which, therefore, they must direct their concentrated efforts! ”

“ A good many unsuspecting ‘members of the assembly’ are spoiled by our fashionable women; for the spirit of gallantry is stronger in our yeomanry than among our aristocratic gentlemen of the town. Our country representatives can argue for years, and argue well, against the attempted usurpations of certain coteries of gentlemen; but they cannot take up the cudgel against the ladies. It is in the best society where our members learn to listen to the grossest abuse of the institutions of their country without glowing with indignation or resentment ”

“ The public in America is always courted, even by the mushroom aristocracy of New York. Stephen Gerard, who by the moneyed men of the United States was considered as the quintessence of science and virtue, so that a salutation ‘Go and do as Stephen Gerard!’ would at any time have been equivalent to the ‘Vaya Usted con Dios!’ of the Spaniards,—Stephen Gerard himself, I say, was obliged to give away money to the poor, even during his lifetime! ”

“ The fashionable people of the Atlantic cities, who give dinner and evening parties either for the purpose of maintaining or acquiring a high rank in society, have themselves little or no disposition for company. With them society does not offer an agreeable and necessary respite from toil; but is merely a means of acquiring influence, &c. For this purpose it is not necessary to treat all persons with equal sincerity and politeness. “La politesse nous tient lieu du cœur,” say the French; but the fashionable people of the United States manage to get on without either. ”

“ The same artificial distinctions exist at the South: but then in the Southern States the distinctions are real, not imaginary; they date from the time of the colonies, and, being in part based on the possession of real estate, do not change with every fluctuation of trade. A man may there visit ten years in the same circle without seeing a single new face, except that of a stranger; while in New York every new quotation of exchange excludes a dozen families from the pale of fashion, and creates a dozen new candidates for its imaginary honours. ”

“ This is the advantage a shopkeeper has who marries an English girl. He gets, at least, a wife that wears well,—a substantial housekeeper, that administers to his comfort, and assists him in laying up a penny for rainy days. If her husband dies, she is, for the most part, capable of continuing his business, and making an honest living for her children. With all the morality, virtue, and beauty of our women, they are but helpless creatures. The wife of one of our young ‘merchants of respectability’ requires more waiting than, in proportion to her rank, an English peeress ”