James Fenimore Cooper

“ Westminster is a large town, entirely filled with the affluent of the greatest empire of modern times, and their dependants. Although comparatively few strangers circulate in the drawing-rooms of London, the gay and idle of the whole kingdom assemble in them periodically. Under the incessant fire of invitations that is let off on these occasions, it is not to be wondered at, if a few random shots should hit even a rambling American, like myself; for while we are not absolutely loved in the “British Isles,” they do not churlishly withhold from us the necessaries of life. ”

“ Nothing can be more apparent, in a healthful and natural state of the public mind, that a lie told to influence an election, or to mislead on a matter of general policy, ought to be just so much the more reprobated than a lie that affects an individual merely, as the concerns of a nation are more engrossing and important than the concerns of a private citizen. In America, an election ought to be, and in the main it is, an expression of the popular will for great national objects; in England, it is merely a struggle for personal power, between the owners of property. ”

“ In nothing is the American government more wanting, than in tone in all its foreign relations. What American, out of his own country, feels any dependance on its protection? No one, who has any knowledge of its real action. Such an accumulation of wrongs may be made, as to touch the community, and then it is ready enough to fight; but the individual, who should urge his own injuries on the nation, as a case that called for interference, would be crushed by the antagonist interests of commerce, which is now the only collected and concentrated interest of the nation. ”

“ Nothing can be safer than to write [192] or to talk in praise of America, and all it contains, more especially of its things, but few men have yet nerve enough to tell an unpalatable truth. We have a one sided liberty of speech and of the press, that renders every one right valorous in eulogies, but even the pulpit shrinks from its sacred duties, on many of the most besetting, the most palpable and the most common of our vices. It is bold enough, as to vague generalities, and sometimes as to personalities, but who ever sees the caustic applied to the public? ”

“ When I was here in 1826, I saw no essential difference between Regent street and Broadway, as regards the crowd, but now, that we have passed the Easter holidays, every one appears to be at his post, and so far from having ever seen, any where else, the crowds of people, the display of rich equipages, the incessant and grand movement that adorn and bewilder the streets of London, I had never even pictured such a sight in my imagination. They who have not been here at this season of the year, know nothing of the place. ”

“ Passons au deluge:—Speaking of the music of England, you are not to understand that there is no good music here. The gold of the country attracts the first artists of Europe, as a matter of course; but even the cultivated English have, quite obviously, not much more feeling for the art than we have ourselves. As a greater portion travel, their tastes are a little more cultivated than those of our people, but nothing strikes one sooner, than the obvious difference in feeling between an English audience, at the opera, and one on the continent of Europe. ”

“ A novel, of no great merit, will bring its author four or five hundred pounds in England, especially if it be at all supposed to bring the reader in contact with the feelings and sentiments of the “nobility and gentry.” So profound is the deference of those who live in shadow, for those who are beneath the sun’s rays, in this country, that the price of a lord’s pen, is considerably higher, than that of a commoner’s! I dare say, it will be a new idea to you, to measure literary merit by a pedigree, but it is a mode much practised here. ”

“ These are the people who talk about eating cheese, and drinking beer and port, and lay stress on things insignificant in themselves, as if manners, and taste, and elegance were not far more violated in their fussy pretensions, than they would be in emptying one of Barclay’s big butts. In other words, this is the silver-fork school, of whom one has heard a good deal in America, the gentry who come among us, in common, having little other claims to a knowledge of the world than that they have thus obtained at second hand, as the traditions of fashion, or perhaps in the pages of a novel. ”

“ God forbid! that any one should indulge in the low calumnies that mark equally ignorance and vulgarity; but it is painful to see the truckling manner in which flattery and homage are interwoven in so many of our works, with a manifest design to secure the favour of a people, who do not care to conceal their contempt. In my own case, how often have I had occasion to see the influence of this spirit, by having it tauntingly thrown into my teeth that such and such abuse has appeared in some English journal—perhaps such and such a puff, by way of flattery! ”

“ It would be a master-stroke of policy to bring in all the wealth of the country again, as a loyal ally of the government, by destroying the borough system entirely, equalising representation by numbers, establishing a reasonably high rate of qualification, and, by preserving the open vote, leave money to its influence. I take it, a money-government, that is fairly in action, in an industrious and intelligent nation, is only equalled in strength by one based on popular rights, in a community accustomed to the exercise of political privileges. ”

“ Real beauty is an exception every where, and it must be remembered how much easier it is to find exceptions in a crowded population, than in one scattered over a surface as large as a third of Europe. Of one thing I am certain; disagreeable features are less frequently met, among the native females of America, than among any other people I have visited. I must hesitate as to the points of beauty and prettiness, for, judging merely by what one would see in London and New York, I think there is truth in the distinction. ”

“ To be less figurative—it is a known fact that our exertions are proportioned to our wants. In nothing is this truth more manifest, than in the difference which exists between the foreign policies of England and America. That of this country has all the vigilance, decision, energy, and system that are necessary to an empire so factitious and of interests so diversified, while our own is marked by the carelessness and neglect, not to say ignorance, with which a vigorous youth, in the pride of his years and strength, enters upon the hazards and dangers of life. ”

“ Losing sight entirely of the primary changes that are dependent on a settlement, and which perhaps seem to be more than they really are, we have actually done as much in the same time as England, in canals, rail-roads, bridges, steam-boats, and all those higher modes of improvement, that mark an advanced state of society. These are the things of which we may justly be proud, and they are allied to the great principle on which the future power and glory of the nation are to be based. They are strictly the offspring of the institutions. ”

“ If England were opposed in either her prejudices, or interests, he would as a matter of course, be vituperated; for whom did the English press ever spare, under such circumstances? No doubt, a thousand honest and generous pens would be ready to be their countrymen’s vindicator; no doubt the government would throw its broad mantle around its friend, and manifest to the world its sense of its own dignity and interests? No such thing; the abuse of the English press would produce even more effect in America than in England ”

“ In travelling through Europe, one is occasionally startled by meeting the name of Erasmus, or Galileo, or Dante, or of some other immortalised by his genius; but these monuments are scattered not only in different countries and cities, but often in the different churches of the same place. There is moreover a homely air and a rustic simplicity, here, in the quiet, unpretending stones, that line the walls and flagging of the Poet’s Corner, and which almost induce one to believe that he is actually treading the familiar haunts of the illustrious dead. ”

“ Wherever civilization exists, society will be separated by castes, for it is not desirable to reduce all to the same level of deportment, tastes, and intelligence, nor possible without making a sacrifice of that which is most estimable. All that liberty assures us, is an entire equality of rights, and there would be little of this in a community, in which the cultivated and elegant were compelled to sacrifice their feelings by an unlimited association with the ignorant and coarse. ”

“ I know no subject, no feeling, nothing, on which an Englishman, as a rule, so completely loses sight of all the better points of his character, on which he is so uniformly bigotted and unjust, so ready to listen to misrepresentation and caricature, and so unwilling to receive truth, on which, in short, he is so little like himself in general, as on those connected with America. ”

“ It would be next to impossible for an Englishman, on a short acquaintance, to like the state of society that exists in America. I never knew one that did, nor do I believe that it is agreeable to any European, let him come from what part of Europe he will. It is necessary that habit should smooth down many asperities, before this can be the case; nor do I think that many Americans like England, if they go beyond the outside, until time has done a similar office in its favour. I am not disposed to quarrel with any Englishman, who says frankly, your society is not to my liking ”

“ The voter with us, is one of a body which controls the results; in England, he is one of a body controlled by direct personal influence. No greater, ordinary crime, against good morals and the public safety, can be committed, than to mislead the public in matters of facts connected with an election; and yet an “electioneering lie,” is almost deemed a venial offence in America, because they are so deemed here, where, as a rule, every thing is settled by direct personal influence and bribery.
Some very false notions exist in America, on the subject of the liberty of the press. ”

“ Still it is the eternal movement, the wealth, the endless lines of streets, the squares and parks, and not its scenery, that characterize London. There is another peculiarity that, for most of the year, one cannot help feeling here. I mean the chilling dreariness of the weather, without, as it is contrasted to the comfort of an English home, within. There is not more of the latter than with us, perhaps, but there is so much more of the former, as to bring the warmth, coal-fires, carpets, and internal arrangements of the dwellings, into what may be truly termed a high relief. ”

“ No power on earth can resist the assaults of reason, if constantly exposed to them, since it is the language of natural truth. Liberty of the press is incompatible with exclusion in politics, or at least, with an exclusion that proscribes a majority. Neither throne, nor senate, can withstand the constant attacks of arguments that address themselves equally to the sense of right and to the passions of men. The alternatives are to submit, or to repress.
Now, while the aristocracy has been silently and steadily extending its net over England, it has always been with the professions of a monarchy. ”

“ Every thing wears out, even to the rock, and time is the parent of changes. Even they who maintain that our system is but a single step removed from despotism, know that our system must, in principle at least, be the next great change of England, and they search eagerly for testimony against its merits, from those who, having lived under it, are supposed to be acquainted with its action. Thus an American, who betrays the smallest leaning to their side of the argument, is eagerly quoted, and used as authority in their favour. ”

“ Perhaps no other people praise themselves so openly, offensively and industriously as those of England and America, and I have no doubt the newspapers are a principal cause that this failing is so coarsely exhibited, for, as to its mere existence, I fancy there is no great difference in the amount of vanity, as between nations, or as between individuals.
I have been much surprised, however, at observing that, while all America appears to be up in arms against Captain Hall, on account of his hits at our manners, no one seems disposed to take up the gauntlet in defence of the institutions! ”

“ I know no writer who is more vulnerable in his facts, or in his reasoning on politics, than this gentleman, and yet, while so much ink is shed in behalf of a gentility and civilization that it would become us rather to improve and refine, than to defend, the glorious political facts of the country, are treated as if unworthy of attention. Can all this proceed from the circumstance that we are conscious the latter can take care of themselves, while we secretly distrust the claims of the former. No violence would be done to human nature if this should actually be the case. ”

“ These men, of whom I may have made the acquaintance of a dozen, remind me of the lasting influence which the ghost stories of the nursery produce on the human mind. We drink in these tales eagerly in childhood, and, in after life, though reason and reflection teach us their absurdity, few of us go through a church-yard in a dark night, without fancying that its sheeted tenants may rise from their graves. ”

“ It would not be in nature for a large class of men to become rich without wishing to participate in power. It is a necessity in money to league itself with authority. Were it not for the natural antipathy between trade and democracy, the mercantile and manufacturing classes of England would make common cause with the people and change the government at once; but the affluent dread revolutions; the debt of England is a mortgage on the rich; and, most of all, commerce detests popular [238] rights. It is, in itself, an aristocracy of wealth. ”

“ I question if the inbred and overweening notion of personal superiority ascends as high in the social scale, or is as general among people of education, in any other community, as in England. In this [154] respect, we are deficient rather than exaggerated; for while all America (I now speak of the upper classes, you will remember) can be thrown into a fever, by an intimation that our things are not as good as those of other nations, there is a secret and general distrust of our equality on the points that alone can give dignity and character to man. ”

“ Instead of recognising certain great and governing rules for deportment, that are obviously founded in reason and propriety, and trusting to nature for the rest, having heard that simplicity is a test of breeding, they are even elaborate and studied in its display. The mass of the people conduct in society like children who have had their hair combed and faces washed, to be exhibited in the drawing-room, or with a staid simplicity that reminds you always how little they are at their ease, and of the lectures of the nurse. ”

“ A shameless, ill-concealed, national cupidity, then, I take to be the predominant quality of the English press. I do not mean that the man of England is a whit more selfish than the man of America, or the man of France, but that he lives in a condition of high pecuniary prosperity, (always a condition of peril) and under circumstances of constant and peculiar jeopardy, that keep the evil passions and evil practices of wealth in incessant excitement. ”

“ The American who comes to this country, and, forgetful of self-respect, of national pride, of the usages of society even, becomes the toad-eater of the great, is represented as a gentleman, as a man of sentiment, and of delicate feelings! ”

“ I have long thought that the regularity, silence, order, cleanliness, and decencies of an English inn, added to the beds, elegance, table, and liquors of a French inn, would form the ne plus ultra of inn-ism; and the house at Calais, which has, in some measure, become Anglicised by its position, goes to prove that the notion is not much out of the way. It quite puts its English competitor at Dover into the shade. We missed the mirrors, the service for the table, and the manner, but we got in their places a good deal of solid unpretending comfort. ”

“ They may despise the traitors, but they love the treason. The whole code of prejudices and false political maxims which pervade society here, is the offspring of a system of which they are the head. They have differed from the other nations of Europe, in which power is exclusive, in the circumstance of the franchises of the nation. A franchise is not power of itself, but it is an exemption from the abuses of power. ”

“ Both the government and the people, appear to me, to trust implicitly to Providence for their future safety, abandoning even opinion to the control of their most active enemies, and shamelessly deserting those who would serve them, unless they happen to be linked with the monster, party. The chief of a political faction may do almost any thing with impunity, but he who defends his country, unconnected with party, is abandoned to the tender mercies of the common enemy. ”