to the person praised, it must be injurious? If he be modest, it is torture: if not, it is poison. Or, if there be a third case, and it is indifferent, such indifference to the praise is very nearly allied to contempt for the praiser. When once the decencies of friendship are violated, and the modesty of mutual estimate is gone, the holiness of friendship is gone too; and there is every danger that selfish, conscious passion will overbear unconscious, disinterested affection.
Enough. I would only put it to any person whether the friendship he values most is not that which is least coarsened by praise; and in which he and his friend are led the least frequently to think of their opinion of each other. I would put it to the intimates of such a man as Dr.
Channing, for instance, whether their warmest affections do not spring towards and repose upon him in the delicious certainty, that while he is sympathising with every pure and true emotion, he will refrain from disturbing its flow by introducing a consciousness, a self and mutual reference, from which it is the highest privilege in life to escape.
Praise may help some common-minded persons over the difficulties of a new and superficial intercourse: at least, so I am told: but intimate communion and permanent friendship require a purity and repose with which the interchange of expressed admiration is absolutely incompatible.
With regard to the spirit of intercourse, nothing more remains to be said here, but that the frankness practised in private life, within the doors of home, is as remarkable as the caution and reserve which prevail elsewhere. Nothing can be more delightful than the familiarity and confidence with which I was invariably treated; and to which I saw few exceptions in the cases of other persons. Everything was discussed in every house I staid in: religion, philosophy, literature; and, with quite as much freedom, character, public and private, national and individual. The language being the same as my own, I was apt to forget that I was on my travels, till some visitor dropped in whose inquiries how I liked the country reminded me that I was a foreigner. Even now, having performed the voyage home, and having all manner of evidence that I have left the country three thousand miles behind me, I find it difficult to bring in my personal friends as elements of the society whose condition I am pondering. They are too like brothers and sisters to be subjects for analysis: and I perpetually feel the want of them at hand, to assist me by their controverting or corroborating judgments.
They and I know what their homes are, and how happy we have been in them: and this is all that in my affection for them I can say of their domestic life, without putting a force upon their feelings and my own.
If I am not much mistaken, society in the new world is wakening up, under the stimulus of the slave-question, to a sense of its want of practical freedom, owing to its too great regard to opinion. The examples of those who can and do assert and maintain their liberty in these times of fiery trial, are venerable and beautiful in the eyes of the young. Those in the cities who have grown old in the practice of mistrust are unconscious of the extent of their privations: but the free yeomanry, and the youth of the towns, have an eye for the right, and a heart for the true, amid the mists and subtleties in which truth and liberty have been of late involved. The young men of Boston, especially, seem to be roused: and it is all-important that they should be. Boston is looked to throughout the Union, as the superior city she believes herself to be: and nowhere is the entrance upon life more perilous to the honesty and consistency of young aspirants after the public service.
Massachusetts is the head-quarters of federalism. Federalism is receding before democracy, even there; but that State has still a federal majority. A Massachusetts man has little chance of success in public life, unless he starts a federalist: and he has no chance of rising above a certain low point, unless, when he reaches that point, he makes a transition into democracy. The trial is too great for the moral independence of most ambitious men: and it fixes the eyes of the world on the youth of Boston. They are watched, that it may be seen whether they who now burn with ardour for complete freedom will hereafter "reverence the dreams of their youth," or sink down into cowardice, apathy, and intolerance, as they reach the middle of life.
If they will only try, they will find how great are the ease and peace attendant on the full exercise of rights, even though it should shut the career of politics, and possibly of wealth, against them for a time. If they will look in the faces of the few who dare to live in the midst of Boston as freely as if they were in the centre of the prairies, they will see in those countenances a brightness and serenity which a sense of mere safety could never impart. The pursuit of safety,--safety from outward detriment,--is of all in this world the most hopeless. The only attainable safety is that which usually bears another name,--repose in absolute truth. Where there is a transparency of character which defies misrepresentation, a faith in men which disarms suspicion, an intrepidity which overawes malice, and a spirit of love which wins confidence, there is safety; and in nothing short of all these. If any of them are deficient, in the same proportion does safety give place to danger; and no substitution of prudence will be of more than temporary avail. Prudence is now reigning supreme over the elderly classes of Boston generally, and too many of the young. Independence is animating the rest. It remains to be seen which will have succumbed when the present youth of the city shall have become her legislators, magistrates, and social representatives.
As a specimen of the thoughts and feelings of some on the spot, I give the following.
"Liberty of thought and opinion is strenuously maintained: in this proud land it has become almost a wearisome cant: our speeches and journals, religious and political, are made nauseous by the vapid and vain-glorious reiteration. But does it, after all, _characterise any community among us_? Is there any one to which a qualified observer shall point, and say, _There_ opinion is free? On the contrary, is it not a fact, a sad and deplorable fact, that in no land on this earth is the mind more fettered than it is here? that here what we call public opinion has set up a despotism, such as exists nowhere else? Public opinion,--a tyrant, sitting in the dark, wrapt up in mystification and vague terrors of obscurity; deriving power no one knows from whom; like an Asian monarch, unapproachable, unimpeachable, undethronable, perhaps illegitimate,--but irresistible in its power to quell thought, to repress action, to silence conviction,--and bringing the timid perpetually under an unworthy bondage of mean fear to some impostor opinion, some noisy judgment, which gets astride on the popular breath for a day, and controls, through the lips of impudent folly, the speech and actions of the wise. From this influence and rule, from this bondage to opinion, no community, as such, is free; though doubtless individuals are. But your community, brethren, based on the principles which you profess, is bound to be so."[22] So much for the spirit of intercourse. As for the modes in which the spirit is manifested, their agreeableness, or the contrary, is a matter of taste. No nation can pretend to judge another's manners; for the plain reason that there is no standard to judge by: and if an individual attempts to pronounce upon them, his sentence amounts to nothing more than a declaration of his own particular taste. If such a declaration from an individual is of any consequence, I am ready to acknowledge that the American manners please me, on the whole, better than any that I have seen.
The circumstances which strike a stranger unpleasantly are the apparent coldness and indifference of persons in hotels and shops; the use of tobacco, and consequent spitting; the tone of voice, especially among the New England ladies; and at first, but not afterwards, the style of conversation. The great charm is the exquisite mutual respect and kindliness.
Of the tobacco and its consequences, I will say nothing but that the practice is at too bad a pass to leave hope that anything that could be said in books would work a cure. If the floors of boarding-houses, and the decks of steam-boats, and the carpets of the Capitol, do not sicken the Americans into a reform; if the warnings of physicians are of no avail, what remains to be said? I dismiss the nauseous subject.
A great unknown pleasure remains to be experienced by the Americans in the well-modulated, gentle, healthy, cheerful voices of women. It is incredible that there should not, in all time to come, be any other alternative than that which now exists, between a whine and a twang.
When the health of the American women improves, their voices will improve. In the meantime, they are unconscious how the effect of their remarkable and almost universal beauty is injured by their mode of speech.
The peculiarity is less remarkable in manly conversation. The conversation of the gentlemen strikes one at first as being dull and prosy. They converse with much evenness of tone, slowly and at great length: so as to leave the observer without any surprise that the Americans think English conversation hasty, sharp, and rough. I found also a prevalent idea that conversation is studied as an art in England: and many of my friends were so positive on this point as to make me doubt the correctness of my own conviction that it is not so. If there be any such study, I can only say that I have detected no instances of it; nor did the idea ever enter my mind except in reading of Lady Angelica Headingham, in 'Patronage.' In the whole course of my life, perhaps, I never met with so many particular instances of an artificial mode of conversing as during the two years that I was in America: but I could see the reason in every case; and that all were exceptions to the rule of natural though peculiar communication. The conversation of the great public men was generally more instructive than pleasing, till they forgot that they were public men, and talked on other things than public affairs. One could never conceal that he designed to effect a particular persuasion in your mind: a design against which all the listener's faculties are sure to rise up in instant rebellion. Another did not intend you should see that he was speaking from a map of the subject in his brain; bringing contrasts and comparisons to bear, as it might seem accidentally, upon your imagination. Two or three or more, willing to conceal from themselves, I really believe, as well as from the stranger, that logic is not their forte, dart off after every will-o'-the-wisp of an analogy; and talk almost wholly in figures. This is bad policy; for some of the figures were so beautiful and apparently illustrative, as to fix the attention, instead of passing over the ear, and give one time to discover that they were not satisfactory. The most remarkable instances of this were in the south, where I had the pleasure of hearing more of every thing than of logic. Perhaps the most singular style of all was one which struck me so much that I wrote down pages of it for subsequent study:--a slow, impressive style, a succession of clever figures, a somewhat pompous humour, and a wrapping round of inconvenient considerations with an impenetrable cloud of the plainest-seeming words.
The gushing talk of Judge Story, the brimmings of a full head and heart, natural, lively, fresh, issuing from the supposition that you can understand, and wish to understand everything that is interesting to him, and from a simple psychological curiosity, is perfectly delightful after the measured communications of some other public men.
I may here mention Dr. Channing's conversation. I do so because it has been the occasion of his being much misunderstood and consequently misrepresented. I never knew a case where the conversation of an individual did him so much injustice at first, and such eminent service in the affections of his hearers at last. Unfortunately, those who report him generally see him only once or twice; and then they are pretty sure to leave him with less real knowledge of him than they probably had three thousand miles off. This circumstance may justify my speaking here of one whom I revere and regard too much to feel it easy to say anything of him publicly beyond the mere testimony which it is an honour to bear to such men. Dr. Channing has an unfortunate habit of suiting his conversation to the supposed state of mind of the person he is conversing with, or to that person's supposed knowledge on a subject on which he wants information. The adaptation, not being natural, cannot be true, and something is thus given out which is the reflection of nobody's mind; and the conversation is fruitless or worse. This is merely a habit of _drawing out_. If the visitor goes away upon this, he reports the things which are reported of Dr. Channing's opinions; which are no more like his than they are like Aristotle's. If the visitor stays long enough, or comes again often enough to catch some of his thoughts as they issue from his heart, he finds a strange power in them to move and kindle. His words become deeds when they proceed from impulse. Not a tone nor a syllable can be ever forgotten. The reason is that unseen things are to him realities; and material things are but shadows. After continued and open communication with him, it becomes an inexplicable wonder that anything but truth, justice, and charity should be made objects of serious pursuit in the world.
Mr. Madison's conversation has been already mentioned as being full of graces. The sprightliness, rapidity, and variety were remarkable in a man of eighty-four, confined to two rooms, and subject to various infirmities. He was a highly favourable specimen of the accomplished gentleman of the revolutionary times.
There are persons whom it seems to myself strange to name in this connexion, when there are things in them which I value much more highly than their eloquence. But as eloquent beyond all others, they must be mentioned here. I refer to Dr. and Mrs. Follen, late of Boston.--Dr.
Follen is a German: well known in Germany for his patriotism; as troublesome to its princes as animating to their subjects. He has been thirteen years in America, and seven years a citizen of Massachusetts.
His mastery of the language has been perfect for some years: but, as he brought a rich and matured mind to the first employment of it, he uses it differently from any to whom it is the mother tongue. It is an instrument of extraordinary power in his hands, as a mere instrument.
But he is a man of learning which I do not pretend to estimate in any department. The great mass of his knowledge is vivified by a spirit which seems to have passed through all human experiences, appropriating whatever is true and pure, and leaving behind all else. With not only a religious love of liberty, but an unerring perception of the true principle of liberty in every case as it arises, with an intrepidity which excites rage where his gentleness is not known, and a gentleness which disarms those who fear his intrepidity, he is the most valuable acquisition that the United States, in their present condition, can well be conceived to have appropriated from the Old World, in the person of an individual citizen. I certainly think him the most remarkable, and the greatest man I saw in the country. Dr. Follen has pledged himself to the anti-slavery cause; and declared himself in other ways in favour of freedom of thought, action, and speech, so as to make himself feared,--(or rather his opinions, for no one can fear himself,)--by some of the society of his State in whom the idea of honour most wants rectifying: but, as he becomes more known to the true-hearted among his fellow-citizens, he will be regarded by them all with the pride and admiration, mixed with tender affection, which he inspires in those who have the honour and blessing of being his friends. He has married a Boston lady; a woman of genius, and of those large and kindly affections which are its natural element. What the intercourses of their home are, their guests can never forget; nor ever describe.
The most common mode of conversation in America I should distinguish as prosy, but withal rich and droll. For some weeks, I found it difficult to keep awake during the entire reply to any question I happened to ask.
The person questioned seemed to feel himself put upon his conscience to give a full, true, and particular reply; and so he went back as near to the Deluge as the subject would admit, and forward to the millennium, taking care to omit nothing of consequence in the interval. There was, of course, one here and there, as there is everywhere, to tell me precisely what I knew before, and omit what I most wanted: but this did not happen often: and I presently found the information I obtained in conversation so full, impartial, and accurate, and the shrewdness and drollery with which it was conveyed so amusing, that I became a great admirer of the American way of talking before six months were over.
Previous to that time, a gentleman in the same house with me expressed pleasantly his surprise at my asking so few questions: saying that if he came to England, he should be asking questions all day long. I told him that there was no need of my seeking information as long as more was given me in the course of the day than my head would carry. I did not tell him that I had not power of attention sufficient for such information as came in answer to my own desire. I can scarcely believe now that I ever felt such a difficulty.
They themselves are, however, aware of their tendency to length, and also to something of the literal dulness which Charles Lamb complains of in relation to the Scotch. They have stories of American travellers which exceed all I ever heard of them anywhere else: such as that an American gentleman, returned from Europe, was asked how he liked Rome: to which he replied that Rome was a fine city; but that he must acknowledge he thought the public buildings were very much out of repair. Again, it is told against a lady that she made some undeniably true remarks on a sermon she heard. A preacher, discoursing on the blindness of men to the future, remarked "how few men, in building a house, consider that a coffin is to go down the stairs!" The lady observed with much emphasis, on coming out, that ministers had got into the strangest way of choosing subjects for the pulpit! It was true that wide staircases _are_ a great convenience: but she did think Christian ministers might find better subjects to preach upon than narrow staircases. And so forth. An eminent Senator told me that he was too often on the one horn or the other of a dilemma: sometimes a gentleman getting up in the Senate, and talking as if he would never sit down: and sometimes a gentleman sitting down in his study, and talking as if he would never get up.
Yet there is an epigrammatic turn in the talk of those who have never heard of "the art of conversation" which is supposed to be studied by the English. A reverend divine,--no other than Dr. Channing,--was one day paying toll, when he perceived a notice of gin, rum, tobacco, &c., on a board which bore a strong resemblance to a grave-stone. "I am glad to see," said the Dr. to the girl who received the toll, "that you have been burying those things."--"And if we had," said the girl, "I don't doubt you would have gone chief mourner."
Some young men, travelling on horseback among the White Mountains, became inordinately thirsty, and stopped for milk at a house by the road-side. They emptied every basin that was offered, and still wanted more. The woman of the house at length brought an enormous bowl of milk, and set it down on the table, saying, "One would think, gentlemen, you had never been weaned."
Of the same kind was the reply made by a gentleman of Virginia to a silly question by a lady. "Who made the Natural Bridge?"--"God knows, madam."
I was struck with repeated instances of new versions, generally much improved, of old fables. I think the following an improvement upon Sour Grapes. Noah warned his neighbours of what was coming, and why he was building his ark; but nobody minded him. When people on the high grounds were up to their chins, an old acquaintance of Noah's was very eager to be taken into the ark: but Noah refused again and again. "Well," said the man, when he found it was in vain, "go, get along, you and your old ark! I don't believe we are going to have much of a shower." I tried to ascertain whether this story was American. I could trace it no further off than Plymouth, Massachusetts.
There cannot be a stronger contrast than between the fun and simplicity of the usual domestic talk of the United States, and the solemn pedantry of which the extremest examples are to be found there; exciting as much ridicule at home as they possibly can elsewhere. I was solemnly assured by a gentleman that I was quite wrong on some point, because I differed from him. Everybody laughed: when he went on, with the utmost gravity, to inform us that there had been a time when he believed, like other people, that he might be mistaken; but that experience had convinced him that he never was; and he had in consequence cast behind him the fear of error. I told him I was afraid the place he lived in must be terribly dull,--having an oracle in it to settle everything. He replied that the worst of it was, other people were not so convinced of his being always in the right as he was himself. There was no joke here. He is a literal and serious-minded man. Another gentleman solemnly remarked upon the weather of late having been "uncommonly mucilaginous." Another pointed out to me a gentleman on board a steam-boat as "a blue stocking of the first class." A lady asked me many questions about my emotions at Niagara, to which I gave only one answer of which she could make anything. "Did you not," was her last inquiry, "long to throw yourself down, and mingle with your mother earth?"--"No."--Another asked me whether I did not think the sea might inspire vast and singular ideas.--Another, an instructress of youth, in examining my ear-trumpet, wanted to know whether its length made any difference in its efficiency.
On my answering, "None at all"--"O certainly not," said she, very deliberately; "for, sound being a material substance, can only be overcome by a superior force." The mistakes of unconscious ignorance should be passed over with a silent smile: but affectation should be exposed, as a service to a young society.
I rarely, if ever, met with instances of this pedantry among the yeomanry or mechanic classes; or among the young. The most numerous and the worst pedants were middle-aged ladies. One instance struck me as being unlike anything that could happen in England. A literary and very meritorious village mantua-maker declared that it was very hard if her gowns did not fit the ladies of the neighbourhood. She had got the exact proportions of the Venus de Medici, to make them by: and what more could she do? Again. A sempstress was anxious that her employer should request me to write something about Mount Auburn: (the beautiful cemetery near Boston.) Upon her being questioned as to what kind of composition she had in her fancy, she said she would have Mount Auburn considered under three points of view:--as it was on the day of creation,--as it is now,--as it will be on the day of resurrection. I liked the idea so well that I got her to write it for me, instead of my doing it for her.
As for the peculiarities of language of which so much has been made,--I am a bad judge: but the fact is, I should have passed through the country almost without observing any, if my attention had not been previously directed to them. Next to the well-known use of the word "sick," instead of "ill," (in which they are undoubtedly right,) none struck me so much as the few following. They use the word "handsome" much more extensively than we do: saying that Webster made a handsome speech in the Senate: that a lady talks handsomely, (eloquently:) that a book sells handsomely. A gentleman asked me on the Catskill Mountain, whether I thought the sun handsomer there than at New York. When they speak of a fine woman, they refer to mental or moral, not at all to physical superiority. The effect was strange, after being told, here and there, that I was about to see a very fine woman, to meet in such cases almost the only plain women I saw in the country. Another curious circumstance is, that this is almost the only connexion in which the word woman is used. This noble word, spirit-stirring as it passes over English ears, is in America banished, and "ladies" and "females" substituted: the one to English taste mawkish and vulgar; the other indistinctive and gross. So much for difference of taste. The effect is odd. After leaving the men's wards of the prison at Nashville, Tennessee, I asked the warden whether he would not let me see the women.
"We have no ladies here, at present, madam. We have never had but two ladies, who were convicted for stealing a steak; but, as it appeared that they were deserted by their husbands, and in want, they were pardoned." A lecturer, discoursing on the characteristics of women, is said to have expressed himself thus. "Who were last at the cross?
Ladies. Who were first at the sepulchre? Ladies."
A few other ludicrous expressions took me by surprise occasionally. A gentleman in the west, who had been discussing monarchy and republicanism in a somewhat original way, asked me if I would "swap" my king for his. We were often told that it was "a dreadful fine day;" and a girl at a hotel pronounced my trumpet to be "terrible handy."[23] In the back of Virginia these superlative expressions are the most rife. A man who was extremely ill, in agonizing pain, sent for a friend to come to him. Before the friend arrived, the pain was relieved, but the patient felt much reduced by it. "How do you find yourself?" inquired the friend. "I'm powerful weak; but cruel easy."
The Kentucky bragging is well known. It is so ingenious as to be very amusing sometimes: but too absurd in the mouth of a dull person. One such was not satisfied with pointing out to me how fine the woods were, but informed me that the intimate texture of the individual leaves was finer and richer in Kentucky than anywhere else. I much prefer the off-hand air with which a dashing Kentuckian intimates to you the richness of the soil; saying "if you plant a nail at night, 'twill come up a spike next morning."
However much may be the fault of strangers, in regard to the coldness of manners which is complained of in those who serve travellers in America, and however soon it may be dissipated by a genial address on the part of the stranger, it certainly is very disagreeable at the first moment. We invariably found ourselves well-treated; and in no instance that I remember failed to dissipate the chill by showing that we were ready to help ourselves, and to be sociable. The instant we attacked the reserve, it gave way. But I do not wonder that strangers who are not prepared to make the concession, and especially gentlemen travelling from hotel to hotel, find the constraint extremely irksome. It should never be forgotten that it is usually a matter of necessity or of favour, seldom of choice, (except in the towns,) that the wife and daughters of American citizens render service to travellers. Such a breaking in upon their domestic quiet, such an exposure to the society of casual travellers, must be so distasteful to them generally as to excuse any apparent want of cordiality. Some American travellers, won by the _empressement_ of European waiters, declare themselves as willing to pay for civility as for their dinner. I acknowledge a different taste. I had rather have indifference than civility which bears a reference to the bill: but I prefer to either the cordiality which brightens up at your offer to make your own bed, mend your own fire, &c.--the cordiality which brings your hostess into your parlour, to draw her chair, and be sociable, not only by asking where you are going, but by telling you all that interests her in her neighbourhood. A girl at a Meadville hotel, in Pennsylvania, urged us to change our route, that we might visit some friends of hers,--"a beautiful bachelor that had lately lost his wife, and his fine son"--to whom she would give us a letter of introduction.
At Maysville, Kentucky, the landlady sent repeated apologies for not being able to wait on us herself, her attendance being necessary at the bedside of her sick child. On our expressing our concern that, in such circumstances, she should trouble herself about us, her substitute said we were very unlike the generality of travellers who came. The ladies were usually offended if the landlady did not wait upon them herself, and would not open or shut the window with their own hands; but rang to have the landlady to do it for them. Such persons have probably been accustomed to be waited on by slaves; or, perhaps, not at all; so that they like to make the most of the opportunity. Our landlady at Nashville, Tennessee, treated us extremely well; and on parting kissed the ladies of the party all round.
I had an early lesson in the art of distinguishing coldness from inhospitality. Our party of six was traversing the State of New York. We left Syracuse at dawn one morning, intending to breakfast at Skaneatles.
By the time we reached Elbridge, however, having been delayed on the road, we were too hungry to think of going further without food. An impetuous young Carolinian, who was of the party, got out first, and returned to say we had better proceed; for the house and the people looked so cold, we should never be able to achieve a comfortable meal.
Caring less, however, for comfort than for any sort of meal, we persisted in stopping.--The first room we were shown into was wet, and had no fire; and we were already shivering with cold. I could discern that the family were clearing out of the next room. It was offered to us, and logs were piled upon the fire. Two of the young women, in cotton gowns and braided and bowed hair, followed their mother into the cooking apartment, sailing about with quiet movements and solemn faces. Two more staid in the room; and, after putting up their hair before the glass in our presence, began to arrange the table, knitting between times. One or another was almost all the while sitting with us, knitting, and replying with grave simplicity to our conversation. Presently, one of the best breakfasts we had in America was ready: a pie-dish full of buttered toast; hot biscuits and coffee; beef-steak, applesauce, hot potatoes, cheese, butter, and two large dishes of eggs. We were attentively waited upon by the four knitting young ladies and their knitting mother, and kindly dismissed with a charge of only two dollars and a quarter for the whole party. "Did you ever see such girls?" cried the young Carolinian, just landed from Europe: "stepping about like four captive princesses!"
We all called out that we would not hear a word against the young ladies. They had treated us with all kindness; and no one could tell whether their reserve was any greater than their situation and circumstances require.
So much more has naturally been observed by travellers of American manners in stages and steam-boats than in private-houses, that all has been said, over and over again, that the subject deserves. I need only testify that I do not think the Americans eat faster than other people, on the whole. The celerity at hotel-tables is remarkable; but so it is in stage-coach travellers in England, who are allowed ten minutes or a quarter of an hour for dining. In private houses, I was never aware of being hurried. The cheerful, unintermitting civility of all gentlemen travellers, throughout the country, is very striking to a stranger. The degree of consideration shown to women is, in my opinion, greater than is rational, or good for either party; but the manners of an American stage-coach might afford a valuable lesson and example to many classes of Europeans who have a high opinion of their own civilisation. I do not think it rational or fair that every gentleman, whether old or young, sick or well, weary or untired, should, as a matter of course, yield up the best places in the stage to any lady passenger. I do not think it rational or fair that five gentlemen should ride on the top of the coach, (where there is no accommodation for holding on, and no resting-place for the feet,) for some hours of a July day in Virginia, that a young lady, who was slightly delicate, might have room to lay up her feet, and change her posture as she pleased. It is obvious that, if she was not strong enough to travel on common terms in the stage, her family should have travelled in an extra; or staid behind; or done anything rather than allow five persons to risk their health, and sacrifice their comfort, for the sake of one. Whatever may be the good moral effects of such self-renunciation on the tempers of the gentlemen, the custom is very injurious to ladies. Their travelling manners are anything but amiable. While on a journey, women who appear well enough in their homes, present all the characteristics of spoiled children.
Screaming and trembling at the apprehension of danger are not uncommon: but there is something far worse in the cool selfishness with which they accept the best of everything, at any sacrifice to others, and usually, in the south and west, without a word or look of acknowledgment. They are as like spoiled children when the gentlemen are not present to be sacrificed to them;--in the inn parlour, while waiting for meals or the stage; and in the cabin of a steam-boat. I never saw any manner so repulsive as that of many American ladies on board steam-boats. They look as if they supposed you mean to injure them, till you show to the contrary. The suspicious side-glance, or the full stare; the cold, immovable observation; the bristling self-defence the moment you come near; the cool pushing to get the best places,--everything said and done without the least trace of trust or cheerfulness,--these are the disagreeable consequences of the ladies being petted and humoured as they are. The New England ladies, who are compelled by their superior numbers to depend less upon the care of others, are far happier and pleasanter companions in a journey than those of the rest of the