the piano-forte, and begin to mutter a little to the half-grown pretty things, who are comparing with one another "how many quarters' music they have had." Where the mansion is of sufficient dignity to have two drawing-rooms, the piano, the little ladies, and the slender gentlemen are left to themselves, and on such occasions the sound of laughter is often heard to issue from among them. But the fate of the more dignified personages, who are left in the other room, is extremely dismal. The gentlemen spit, talk of elections and the price of produce, and spit again. The ladies look at each other's dresses till they know every pin by heart; talk of Parson Somebody's last sermon on the day of judgment, on Dr. T'otherbody's new pills for dyspepsia, till the "tea" is announced, when they all console themselves together for whatever they may have suffered in keeping awake, by taking more tea, coffee, hot cake and custard, hoe cake, johny cake, waffle cake, and dodger cake, pickled peaches, and preserved cucumbers, ham, turkey, hung beef, apple sauce, and pickled oysters, than ever were prepared in any other country of the known world. After this massive meal is over, they return to the drawing-room, and it always appeared to me that they remained together as long as they could bear it, and then they rise en masse, cloak, bonnet, shawl, and exit. . . The theatre was really not a bad one, though the very poor receipts rendered it impossible to keep it in high order; but an annoyance infinitely greater than decorations indifferently clean, was the style and manner of the audience. Men came into the lower tier of boxes without their coats; and I have seen shirt sleeves tucked up to the shoulder; the spitting was incessant, and the mixed smell of onions and whiskey was enough to make one feel even the Drakes' acting dearly bought by the obligation of enduring its accompaniments. The bearing and attitudes of the men are perfectly indescribable; the heels thrown higher than the head, the entire rear of the person presented to the audience, the whole length supported on the benches, are among the varieties that these exquisite posture-masters exhibit. The noises, too, were perpetual, and of the most unpleasant kind; the applause is expressed by cries and thumping with the feet, instead of clapping; and when a patriotic fit seized them, and "Yankee Doodle" was called for, every man seemed to think his reputation as a citizen depended on the noise he made. Mrs. [Frances Milton] Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans (second edition, London, 1832), I, 48-188 passim. Tocqueville's great work on American life and affairs as viewed by a foreigner has never been rivalled except by Bryce's American Commonwealth, a much more recent production. For Tocqueville and his book, see Edinburgh Review, LXXII, 1–25; North American Review, XLIII, 178–206, and XCV, 138–163. — Bibliography as in No. 151 above. A MONGST a democratic people, where there is no hereditary wealth, every man works to earn a living, or has worked, or is born of parents who have worked. The notion of labour is therefore presented to the mind on every side as the necessary, natural, and honest condition of human existence. Not only is labour not dishonourable amongst such a people, but it is held in honour: the prejudice is not against it, but in its favour. In the United States a wealthy man thinks that he owes it to public opinion to devote his leisure to some kind of industrial or commercial pursuit, or to public business. He would think himself in bad repute if he employed his life solely in living. It is for the purpose of escaping this obligation to work, that so many rich Americans come to Europe, where they find some scattered remains of aristocratic society, amongst which idleness is still held in honour. Equality of conditions not only ennobles the notion of labour in men's estimation, but it raises the notion of labour as a source of profit. . . . ... No profession exists in which men do not work for money; and the remuneration which is common to them all gives them all an air of resemblance. This serves to explain the opinions which the Americans entertain with respect to different callings. In America no one is degraded because he works, for everyone about him works also; nor is anyone humiliated by the notion of receiving pay, for the President of the United States also works for pay. He is paid for commanding, other men for obeying orders. In the United States professions are more or less laborious, more or less profitable; but they are never either high or low every honest calling is honourable. . . . The United States of America have only been emancipated for half a century from the state of colonial dependence in which they stood to Great Britain: the number of large fortunes there is small, and capital is still scarce. Yet no people in the world has made such rapid progress in trade and manufactures as the Americans: they constitute at the present day the second maritime nation in the world; and although their manufactures have to struggle with almost insurmountable natural impediments, they are not prevented from making great and daily advances. In the United States the greatest undertakings and speculations are executed without difficulty, because the whole population is engaged in productive industry, and because the poorest as well as the most opulent members of the commonwealth are ready to combine their efforts for these purposes. The consequence is, that a stranger is constantly amazed by the immense public works executed by a nation which contains, so to speak, no rich men. The Americans arrived but as yesterday on the territory which they inhabit, and they have already changed the whole order of nature for their own advantage. They have joined the Hudson to the Mississippi, and made the Atlantic Ocean communicate with the Gulf of Mexico, across a continent of more than five hundred leagues in extent which separates the two seas. The longest railroads which have been constructed up to the present time are in America. But what most astonishes me in the United States, is not so much the marvellous grandeur of some undertakings, as the innumerable multitude of small ones. Almost all the farmers of the United States combine some trade with agriculture; most of them make agriculture itself a trade. It seldom happens that an American farmer settles for good upon the land which he occupies: especially in the districts of the far West he brings land into tillage in order to sell it again, and not to farm it: he builds a farmhouse on the speculation that, as the state of the country will soon be changed by the increase of population, a good price will be gotten for it. Every year a swarm of the inhabitants of the North arrive in the Southern States, and settle in the parts where the cotton-plant and the sugar-cane grow. These men cultivate the soil in order to make it produce in a few years enough to enrich them; and they already look forward to the time when they may return home to enjoy the competency thus acquired. Thus the Americans carry their business-like qualities into agriculture; and their trading passions are displayed in that as in their other pursuits. The Americans make immense progress in productive industry, because they all devote themselves to it at once; and for this same reason they are exposed to very unexpected and formidable embarrassments. As they are all engaged in commerce, their commercial affairs are affected by such various and complex causes that it is impossible to foresee what difficulties may arise. As they are all more or less engaged in productive industry, at the least shock given to business all private fortunes are put in jeopardy at the same time, and the State is shaken. I believe that the return of these commercial panics is an endemic disease of the democratic nations of our age. It may be rendered less dangerous, but it cannot be cured; because it does not originate in accidental circumstances, but in the temperament of these nations. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (“new edition," London, 1875), II, 137-143 passim. 157. American Society (1844) BY PROFESSOR FRIEDRICH VON RAUMER (TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM W. TURNER, 1845) His Raumer was a famous German historian who twice visited the United States. account of America has been criticised as being the result of reading rather than of observation. — Bibliography as in No. 151 above. T is not only true that many of their customs and usages differ mate punyeans, but they are naturally so separate parts of the great confederacy, that any general description or judgment must of necessity be erroneous. On the other hand, these diversities are compensated by much that is homogeneous, allpervading, and promotive of union; much that reconciles sectional peculiarities, moderates the opposition of religious sects, and brings nearer the gradations in the social scale. There is particularly in their public life and the universal love for the republican form of government, a strong bond of union in thought and action; so that neither what is peculiar nor what is general can exclusively prevail, while unity amidst variety is most happily preserved. Equality and distinction, or the gradations of society in the United States, are very different from what they are in Europe. Now that political equality has been won and acknowledged for all, the social circles naturally separate from each other, and wealth and education exercise their inevitable influence. But it makes an immense difference whether this political equality exists or is wanting; whether it has a soothing effect, or whether the social separations are accompanied by political prerogatives conferred on hereditary ranks, which are then. regarded as doubly odious monopolies. . . . As in steamboats, on railroads, in hotels and stage coaches, there exists no distinction or separation into classes, European travellers are brought into contact with all sorts of persons; and many of their habits appear strange and repulsive, such as spitting about, cocking their legs. up on the chair-backs, tables, window-sills, &c. In polite society no one takes these unbecoming liberties, and no one would set up the principle, in opposition to Athens and Florence, that a true republican must not sacrifice to the graces. There is a certain refinement, elegance, and pleasing polish of manner, equally remote from coarseness and from the affected airs of a dancing master's saloon; this is found in the best society of America; and will continually have more to appreciate and practise it, without detriment to the graver virtues. Only a few, however, of the more highly cultivated, have a taste for humanity without gloss or meretricious ornament. Jefferson hit the true medium in this, as in many other things. He says: "With respect to what are termed polite manners, I would wish my countrymen to adopt just so much of European politeness, as to be ready to make all those little sacrifices of self, which really render European manners amiable, and relieve society from the disagreeable scenes to which rudeness often subjects it." It was observed by an American lady, "Our best society is aristocratic in principle and feeling." True, and so it is every where; in all grades of society, every one strives to rise higher, and emulates those who are his superiors in education or position. Only in America this has nothing at all to do with the political system, and does not originate from it. There the highest and lowest grades of English society are wanting. The want of the former class may be esteemed a gain or a loss according to the point from which the subject is viewed; but the absence of the latter is certainly a gain. Because there is no court ton in America it does not follow that there is no good ton; and it is better that personal qualities should be allowed to manifest themselves, than that they should be ground down to a dead level by considerations of social diplomacy, so that all we come in contact with has neither character nor physiognomy of its own. From natural reasons already often mentioned, the lower classes of America, taken altogether, are more cultivated and more rational than in other countries. Even the backwoodsmen read the newspapers, and show considerable information on many subjects. We |