Jack Allyn

“ The American journalist must be spicy, lively, bright. He must know how to, not report, but relate an accident, a trial, a conflagration, and, at a push, make up an article of one or two columns in length upon the most insignificant incident. He must be interesting, readable, as the English call it with reason. His eyes and ears must be always open, every sense on the alert; for, before all and above all, he must keep ahead in this race for news; if he should once let himself be outdone by a confrère, his reputation would be blasted. ”

“ To the American woman the diamond is not an object of luxury, it is an object of prime necessity. An English old maid would do without her tea before an American woman would go without diamonds.
Oh, those diamonds in America! You see them wherever you go! Not one woman in a hundred will you see without a pair of them in her ears. It is an obsession.
Diamonds, at night with evening dress and artificial light, are things of beauty: but diamonds in the street with morning dress, at early breakfast in company with morning wrappers ”

“ When a railway servant has succeeded in insulting you, he is quite proud, and plumes himself on his smartness; he looks at his mates and seems to say, "Did you hear how I spoke up to him?" He would be afraid of lowering himself by being polite. In his eyes, politeness is a form of servility; and he imagines that, by being rude to well-bred people, he puts himself on a footing with them, and carries out the greatest principle of democracy—equality. Just so agreeable, obliging, and considerate as is the cultivated American; just so rude, rough, and inconsiderate is the lower-class one. ”

“ The Presidential election, which takes place every fourth year, is the most feverish phase of the feverish American life. The whole nation becomes delirious. Several months before the day fixed, every mind is preoccupied with but one thing, the election. The newspapers are full of it; conversation has no other subject. Passions are let loose; intrigues are on foot; the most odious calumnies are circulated; men stop at nothing that may give the victory to their party. ”

“ When Jonathan covers his wife with diamonds, he says to himself: "If I win, I can indulge my wife without inconveniencing myself; if I lose, it is so much saved from the fray."
This is not all.
If the American thirsts after money, it is not for the love of money as a rule, but for the love of that which money can buy. In other words, avarice is a vice almost unknown in America. Jonathan does not amass gold for the pleasure of adding pile to pile and counting it. He pursues wealth to improve his position in life and to surround those dependent upon him with advantages and luxuries. ”

“ It is the most scholarly city of the United States—one of the greatest centres of erudition in the world.
Boston Society is less showy than that of New York, the women have, perhaps, less chic, but they have more colour in their faces and more repose in their manner.
Nothing is more diverting than to hear the dwellers in each great American town criticise the dwellers in the others. All these societies, each almost in its infancy as yet, are jealous one of another. At Boston, for instance, you will be told that the Chicago people are all pig-stickers and pork-packers. ”

“ He looks at everything he sees with a patronising air; with the arrogant calm that makes him, amiable as he is at home, so unbearable when he travels abroad. He expresses cavalierly, criticises freely. He goes over with the firm intention of admiring nothing American. If he finds nothing else to disparage, he will complain of the want of ruins and old cathedrals. He occasionally presents himself at Jonathan's dinner-parties in a tweed suit, fearing to do him too much honour by putting on evening dress. His little talent of making himself disagreeable abroad comes out more strongly in America ”

“ Nothing is more simple than an American court of justice. Four walls innocent of decoration of any kind, a few plain chairs or benches. No uniforms, no robes, no wigs, no trumpets, no liveried ushers. The judge and the barristers are in black frock-coats. The ushers are not quite so well dressed as the barristers, and that is all.
As in England, the accused is not allowed speech. If he has questions to put, his counsel is at his side, and speaks for him. It is the counsel who examine and cross-examine the witnesses, and plead before the jury. The judge presides, and does nothing more. ”

“ There exists, in a certain New England city, a fashionable man-milliner, who has a room reserved ostensibly for fitting, but really for ladies who do not disdain to imbibe privately, through a straw, certain American drinks which they would not dare touch in public. In this dissimulated bar, under cover of silks and satins, they delight to chat on fashion and frivolities, while absorbing pretty tipples invented for their lords. ”

“ All I clearly understood was that the aristocracy of birth exists in America, not only in the brains of those who form part of it, but in the eyes of their compatriots.
The desire to establish an aristocracy of some sort was bound to haunt the breast of the Americans; it was the only thing that their dollars seemed unable to procure them.
The second aristocracy is the aristocracy of money—plutocracy. To belong to this it is not sufficient to be a millionaire; you must, I am told, belong to a third generation of millionaires. ”

“ The Americans are delightful raconteurs; they are past-masters in the art of making those light, graceful, witty little speeches, which give to their dinners such a unique charm. Then the humour is delicate, the wit of the brightest. Irony and elegance combine to make these discourses veritable little literary gems. The Americans have their heads full of anecdotes and reminiscences; and it little matters in honour of whom or of what the dinner is given, they are sure to be ready with anecdotes and reminiscences that are suitable to the occasion. ”

“ In February, 1888, I went to see the Americans taking their pleasure in Florida. During the months of January, February, and March, flocks of society people from the great towns in the north go to Florida, where the sun is warm, and the orange trees are in full beauty of fruit and flower. Jacksonville and St. Augustine are in winter what Saratoga, Newport, and Long Branch are in summer: the rendezvous of all who have any pretension to a place in the fashionable world. ”

“ Like Professor Teufelsdröckh, the ordinary American judges men with an impartiality and coolness really charming. He admires talent, because it is a paying commodity. A literary or artistic success is only a success, in his eyes, on condition that it is a monetary one as well. He looks upon every man as possessing a certain commercial value. He is worth so much. Such and such a celebrity does not inspire his respect and admiration because he or she has produced a work of genius, but because the work of genius has produced a fortune. ”

“ The women of every country are unanimous—in pronouncing the American men handsome; and as there are few men who do not think the American women lovely, there can be but one opinion on the subject: the American race is a good-looking one. But that which makes the charm of the men's faces is not regularity of feature; it is, as I have already said, the intelligence written on them, the wonderful, the amazing activity that animates them. ”

“ I, too, would like to see the Irish in possession of Ireland, but for other reasons. First and chiefly, because they are good patriots, and, though in a foreign land, even naturalized Americans, they do not forget their beloved country. Americans though they be in their new home, they yet remain Irish. They give their allegiance to America; but their hearts remain true to Ireland.
What a contrast to the Germans whom you find in the United States! These forget their mother-tongue, and their children do not speak it. They abuse their country. ”

“ Carnegie, having gone from Scotland to America with the traditional half-crown in his pocket, and, by his talents and industry, become one of the richest men in the United States, it was quite natural to see him standing up for the American institutions, and waxing eloquent over the superiority of America to the rest of the world.
Thanks to their vivacity of mind, the Americans have a special talent for making the most arid subjects interesting. All these debates are enlivened with humorous remarks, anecdotes, flashes of wit, and clever repartees. ”

“ This activity you find in all stations of society, in the financial world, the literary world, the world of politics, everywhere. It is a fever with which the whole nation is smitten.
In the eyes of the worthy, peaceful Frenchman who has not travelled, an American is a lunatic who does nothing like other people. After all, eccentricity is but an exaggerated form of activity; but for certain people with narrow ideas, eccentricity and madness are but one and the same thing. ”

“ Three fine squares alone break the monotony of all these parallelograms of streets: Washington Square, Union Square, and Madison Square.
On the north, Central Park, with its fine avenues, its hillocks, its valleys, its lakes, and its magnificent terrace over the Hudson, is a very lovely pleasure ground. It is the only place where one can see trees, turf, and flowers. New York does not possess a single garden, public or private, if one excepts the three squares I named just now.
That which strikes the visitor to New York is not the city itself, but the feverish activity that reigns there. ”

“ Cleveland has filled the position of mistress of the White House was constantly being spoken of with glowing praise, in newspapers and in private circles, during my stay in America. In truth, it is no small thing for a young woman of twenty-two, with no special education or training for such a position, to be able, from the first day she stands, if not "in the fierce light that beats about a throne," yet in a glare of publicity, to display such tact and charm as to win praise from every tongue. ”

“ You rush on at express speed, in your chase after the dollar, and you have not time to look at Happiness, standing with open arms at your door. Your very evenings are not your own. Hardly have you taken upon your knees one of your lovely little ones to kiss and caress, hardly have you begun a little love-scene with your pretty wife, when, ding, ding, ding, there is the telephone going. ”

“ I said just now that America possessed no great political orator or statesman, and that what went on at Washington scarcely awoke any interest in the people; but are not great political orators generally evoked by great public wrongs? Are not also sometimes great public wrongs evoked by great political orators? And when a nation lives in happiness and complete security, must not its politics necessarily be uninteresting? Happy the nation whose politics do not furnish the foreign press with sensational news! ”

“ I saw nothing more striking during my stay in America—nothing which appeared to me more hopeful for the future of the country—than the sight of these crowds of four or five hundred people—old men and young, young girls and matrons, all in fashionable evening dress—met together to learn something, and to keep themselves posted up in all the new ideas of the day. ”

“ The third aristocracy is the aristocracy of talent, literary and artistic society. This third aristocracy is incontestably the first, if you will excuse the Hibernianism.
I do not think that one could find anywhere, or even imagine, a society more cultivated, more affable, more hospitable, more witty, or more brilliant. I should like just here to indulge in a string of adjectives à la Mme. de Sévigné.
One of the consequences of the position which woman takes in the United States is that, in good American drawing-rooms, conversation is never dull. ”

“ The American sky is bright. It is never clouded for more than two or three days together. You live in a clear, smiling atmosphere, which sheds joy in the heart. It is not wonderful that the Americans are so bright and lively. Man, everywhere, is influenced by the climate in which he lives.
Stimulants are not needed, water suffices; and few Americans drink anything but water at meal-time on ordinary occasions. Alcoholic drinks are almost forbidden by the climate. A bottle of wine goes to the head sooner in America than half a dozen would in England or France. ”