CHAPTER I.
Arrival in Boston.—The Tremont House.—The Boston Common.—Aristocratic Exclusiveness of the Higher Classes.—The Massachusetts State-House.—Pathetic Elegy of a Boston Lawyer.—An Independent Gentleman, not a Speculator.—American Aristocracy contrasted with that of England.—The Aristocracy of America continually in contact with the Lower Orders.—Anecdote illustrating the opposition of the Lower Classes to Aristocracy.—An Aristocratic Patron.—Economy of the American Aristocracy.—Northern and Southern Aristocracy contrasted.
“If there’s a hole in a’ your coats,
I rede you tent it;
A chiel’s amang ye takin’ notes,
And faith he’ll prent it.”
Burns.
The city of Boston, as may be known to many of my readers, is only approachable by water and a long narrow isthmus, called “the neck.” For this reason it is said to be “the head of New England;” but the people in the country, who are extremely jealous of the prerogatives of “the townsfolks,” merely call it “the great metropolis.” When it was first settled, which is more than two hundred years ago,—for which reason it is termed “an ancient and honourable city,” and the families descended from those settlers “ancient and honourable families,”—it contained, somewhere in the neighbourhood of what is now called “Beacon-street,” three large promising bumps, which however, entirely disappeared as the baby grew older, and are now smoothed down almost to a flat.
The neck forms a large well-paved causeway, lined chiefly with wooden houses, (in the principal streets the buildings are of stone or brick,) and connects the city with the borough of Roxbury, which contains alone above ten thousand inhabitants. Coming from New York, this is the regular entrance to the town; and through it therefore I arrived, driving straight up to the Tremont House. This is a large, massive building with a granite front and a brick back, situated in the most eligible part of the city, and considered as the crack house of the place.
I found the interior very comfortable, and could have procured a parlour and chamber for the modicum of thirty-six dollars (about seven guineas) a week, if an acquaintance of mine, whom I accidentally met at the bar, had not advised me to content myself with a bedchamber, and dine at the ordinary; which, he said, would reduce my expenses to about one-third, without diminishing very materially my respectability. “Our first people,” said he, “are satisfied with similar accommodations: they little care how and where they sleep, provided they live in a fashionable quarter; and prefer dining at an ordinary, because at a public table they get more to eat for less money. We are republicans,” added he, “especially in this city, which is called the cradle of liberty.”
Not knowing whether he meant this as a satire, I proposed to take a walk with him before dinner, in order that I might have a cicerone to direct my first impressions of so classical a place; and accordingly we sallied forth, taking the direction down Tremont-street towards the Common.
“You see here at once the finest place in the whole city,” said my cicerone; “one which might be enjoyed by all classes, if we had not already outgrown the cradle. The people who live in these houses, and who, with very few exceptions, have all been to England, do not like to be seen in public. They hate the arrogance of our grocers and mechanics, who would be apt to stare them out of countenance if they were to show themselves at a public walk. ‘Humility,’ they say, ‘is not the besetting sin of the American people: on the contrary, the lower classes think themselves just as good as we are; and, what is worse, they know that they are our political masters.’ This, they argue, is absolute madness, as a man may learn by a single trip to Europe. ‘There must be a heaven’s aristocracy of talent and knowledge, ‘as one of our great men[1] used to say,’ and consequently also a h—ll’s democracy of ignorance and prejudice. The latter must not be encouraged in any way, and, least of all, by suffering ourselves to be confounded with it in private or public.’
“It was with the greatest difficulty,” continued he, “that our aristocratic inhabitants of Beacon and Park streets[2] could be prevailed upon to suffer benches to be placed in the Mall. They had two reasons for opposing this popular measure: first, because it encouraged idleness, inducing people who ought to be at work or at home to come here and bask themselves in the sun; and, secondly, because it was possible from those benches either to see the people at the windows of the houses, which would be inconvenient,—or from the windows of those houses to see the people on the benches, which, as the sight of poverty and idleness does not particularly enhance the beauty of a landscape, would be ‘shocking.’ Malicious persons say that there are yet other reasons for opposing the benches; but I could never bring myself to believe them.”
As we were ascending the little eminence on which stands the State-house, we were met by a lawyer, who, learning that I was a stranger come on purpose to see the capital of New England,—the ideal capital, namely, because New England is divided into six States, each of which has its own metropolis,—accompanied us, in order probably to become acquainted with my opinions, and in the evening report them to his friends.
For the information of my readers I must observe, that the Boston State-house is a heavy, clumsy piece of architecture, the style and arrangement of which are neither striking nor convenient. I was told that the building was originally intended to be erected on a much larger scale; but that, from motives of republican economy, its wings were afterwards clipped to their present dimensions,—the main body, for which there were sufficient funds on hand, remaining full as large as in the first design. The whole is crowned by a wooden cupola, of such enormous height as not even to leave the possibility of an illusion of its being made of stone, as in this case the walls would not be strong enough to support it. These are confessions which, in Boston, would not only render me unpopular, but actually expose me to being mobbed; but, at a distance of two hundred miles, (I write this in the city of New York,) one does feel less afraid of expressing one’s opinions and sentiments. The interior of the house contains a statue of Washington, by Chantrey; a broad staircase; a large hall of representatives; and a number of smaller rooms for committees, and the several offices of the departments of state.
“This house,” said the lawyer, after heaving a deep sigh, “once the receptacle of a noble body of men, is now open to every gingerbread man from the country; or you would see it built in a different style, worthy of the legislative assembly hall of a powerful republic, like that of Massachusetts! But the fact is, instead of great men, our house of representatives is now composed of members who advocate ‘mackerel inspection,’ cider-presses, fences, raising potatoes, and brewing small beer. Having no general ticket, each town or village must send its quota of advocates of its own particular industry; who, moreover, come here for no other purpose than to oppose the more elevated measures proposed by the more enlightened members for Boston.”
“That is a fact,” observed my cicerone; “our city representatives wish them all to ‘where they don’t rake up fire o’ nights.’ They have so far degraded their station, that it is now a disgrace, and not an honour, to be delegated by the people.”
“And what have they done to disgrace themselves?” demanded I.
“That is soon told,” replied the lawyer; “every country member comes here with the determined purpose of opposing us, and, above all things, to let the Bostonians contribute largely to the expenses of the State. We pay nearly one-third of all the taxes; and yet we call this a republican government!”
“One of equal justice, you ought to have said,” interrupted the cicerone.
“As if justice could co-exist with universal suffrage!” ejaculated the lawyer.
“I would pardon all,” resumed the cicerone, with a sarcastic smile, “if our country members were to spend the money, which we pay them for lounging about town, in a liberal and gentlemanly manner: but, instead of that, they select the worst boarding-houses, from which they expel our journeymen mechanics, in order to live cheap; and, instead of wine and other liquors, which our merchants and grocers could make a profit of, consume immense quantities of that dreadful stuff which, under the name of ‘New England cider,’ is sometimes placed on our tables, and for which even our sharpest landlords dare not make a charge.”
“The positive fact is,” exclaimed the lawyer, “that few of our representatives are gentlemen.”
“And that very few gentlemen will now-a-days consent to become representatives,” added my cicerone, “except it be for Congress; and even that will not last long, if things go on much longer in the way they have for the last seven or eight years.”
As the disposition of the higher classes of Bostonians to ridicule the institutions of their country were known to me, I paid no particular attention to their remarks, which were made as we were gazing on the statue “of the hero of the revolution.” I only remember that the lawyer went on in a strain of uninterrupted eloquence, abusing the trial by jury, the vote by ballot, and, à fortiori, universal suffrage. “We just wanted that,” he said, “to complete our misery! As if our mob had not enough power without it! Our democracy is of the worst kind; it does not strive for equality, but for supremacy. It becomes at once our jury, judge, legislator, and governor. You dare not act as you please in your own house; you dare not educate your children in your own way; you dare not express a wish of your own but what you have to dread to be exposed in public, and have your name paraded in the newspapers. Every man in this city is a spy on his neighbour, a voluntary, unpaid police-agent of the rabble, that pries into all your actions and motives, and is always ready to attribute them to the worst source. And yet we talk of personal liberty, as if such a thing could exist in a republic!”
“But is the description you give of your townsmen not applicable to all classes?” demanded I; “is it only the labouring classes, or ‘the mob,’ as you call them, which act as spies to the community?”
“We are all naturally a curious, inquisitive people,” replied he; “and a cunning one too, because we hardly ever answer one question except by asking another; but all these faults are increased by the tendencies of our institutions.”
“Have you been less curious or inquisitive before the revolution?”
“Not exactly that; but the inquisitiveness of the lower classes was less troublesome. Our gentlemen were not obliged to notice it; they were not directly responsible to the people; in short, we were in every respect more independent than we now are.”
I thought it best not to continue this sort of conversation; so, quitting the house, and walking down Beacon-street, I pointed to a new building which struck me as remarkably tasteful. “Here,” said I, “is quite a stylish mansion! I did not expect to find so much neatness and comfort in this city!”
“It is the mansion of Mr. ***,” replied my cicerone. “Don’t you think it a fine building? And in the Italian style, too! The owner is one of our richest men,—the son of Mr. ***, who came to Boston in the year ——. He made all his money in the —— business, and must now be worth upwards of a million of dollars. He has a very nice family too. His wife was a Miss ***, daughter to Mr. ***, one of our most respectable merchants; quite an intellectual girl, with plenty of money. I believe she brought him three hundred thousand dollars. Her sister married a Mr. ***, one of the most influential men in this city. They have been a good deal abroad, and furnished their house in the best style——”
Fearing that I should be condemned to listen to a long description of the various articles of furniture brought home from London or Paris, and at last to the statistics of the gentleman’s property,—a thing which is by no means unfrequent in Boston,—I abruptly changed the conversation by directing my cicerone’s attention to an unfinished building, whose enormous height was entirely disproportionate to the small surface it covered on the ground.
“This house,” I said, “seems to be perfectly new; how did it happen that so eligible a site for building remained so long a time unimproved?”
“It was a fine garden,” replied my cicerone, “belonging to Mr. ***, living in the house adjoining it; but he sold it as a house-lot for the neat little sum of twelve thousand dollars. It’s only a small piece of ground, just large enough for two parlours on a floor; but our houses are all three or four stories high, none of us wishing to be overlooked by his neighbour.”
“Did he keep the ground on speculation?” demanded I.
“Bless your soul, sir!” exclaimed he; “do you think Mr. *** is a speculator? He is a rich man, sir! he does not care for the money; ‘it’s only for the conven’ance of it,’ as the New Hampshire farmer said, when he dunned the gentleman for a bushel of potatoes. Who the deuce would not take twelve thousand dollars for a little garden, scarcely large enough to raise cabbage for the family?”
“Especially in a town where no man possesses anything he would not sell, provided a proper price be offered him,” added the lawyer.
While we were thus talking, we had reached the mill-dam which leads over to Brooklyne, and from which we enjoyed a truly magnificent view of the panorama of Boston. I observed to my companions that their city was one of the finest in the Union; and that, as far as I might be allowed to judge, it could be made a most delightful residence.
“It was a delightful place,” replied the lawyer; “but our old families are gradually losing their influence. Most of the fine houses you see here are inhabited by roturiers; our society is getting worse and worse every day; and, while we expend thousands for our public schools, we lose our manners.”
“That is a fact,” exclaimed my cicerone; “our young men are not half so polite as the old ones; and, what is worse, the influence of family is entirely lost. Our young ladies, for instance, do not value birth and good breeding half so much as money. They would rather marry a woodcutter, if he had shown himself ‘clever’ in making money, than the son of our oldest gentleman.”
“But pray, gentlemen,” interrupted I, half impatiently, “why cannot you enjoy the many blessings Heaven has bestowed on you, without being continually afraid of losing your dignity? I have heard more talk about aristocracy and family in the United States than during my whole previous life in Europe. You embitter your enjoyments and pleasures by endeavouring to exclude from them all that come after you; and, in doing so, wound the feelings of many an honest man, who, but for a little more urbanity on your part, would be your friend instead of your enemy. A question of interest which is now agitating the country[3] may for a moment unite you; but the union is an unnatural one, and on that account cannot last. Your state of society is such, that, in the ordinary intercourse with your fellow-citizens, you must necessarily offend more than you can gratify; and the mortifications which two-thirds of the whole population are constantly suffering from the small portion distinguished from the rest by nothing but success in business, must add to the natural jealousies felt by the labouring classes of all countries with regard to the rich. The distinction between the different orders of society may be more apparent in England,—as they are, from historical reasons, with all people of Saxon origin; but they are, nevertheless, far less offensive than yours.
“In all countries in which there exists an hereditary, wealthy nobility, there exists a sort of good-will towards the inferior classes which leads to the relation of patron and client, and through which many an apparent injustice is smoothed over by liberality and kindness; but the mere moneyed aristocracy which is establishing itself in this country, however you may disguise the fact by cunning and soft speeches, or an hyperbolical affectation of republicanism, hates the industrious masses over whom it strives to elevate itself.
“The exclusiveness of your wealthy brokers, that hoard money without spending it, offends the people without benefiting the artisan or the tradesman; and the meanness with which your first people bargain for every trifle to save a penny, renders their custom scarcely desirable to respectable tradespeople. You are extravagantly fond of splendour, and yet are afraid of displaying it. You must understand me right: I speak of the rich, calculating Bostonians, who really live on their property; not of your wealthy men in New York, who live on nine months’ credit. Besides, you yourself will allow that your aristocracy is far from being generally well educated, and I do not see how this fault is to be remedied as long as wealth constitutes the chief title to good society.
“Your aristocracy, therefore, has not the power of dazzling the lower classes with that air of self-possession and dignity by which gentlemen of rank are at once recognised in Europe. On the contrary, the manners of your rich people in their intercourse with less successful aspirants to fortune are markedly coarse and vulgar, in order, I believe, to give the latter to understand that they are sufficiently independent—that, I think, is the word,—not to care for their opinion.”
Here the lawyer pleaded a pressing engagement; and left us, without shaking of hands, or expressing a desire of seeing me again.
“You have made an enemy of that man,” observed my cicerone, “who will make you a hundred more enemies if you should ever think of settling in this city.”
“He did not seem to be offended,” replied I; “or I should have checked my tongue before he left us.”
“You can never tell when these people are offended,” he rejoined; “but you may rely upon one thing,—they will never forgive you. They lock their wrath up, until a favourable opportunity presents itself for taking summary vengeance. If I were in your place, I would make myself scarce.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, I would not show myself too much in public, or in society; or perhaps engage my passage to New York.”
“And you call this a free country!” exclaimed I, “and the manners of your people those of high-minded gentlemen! Good manners in other countries consist in putting every one at ease, which may be done without being in the least degree familiar; but here the higher classes seem to be determined upon making every one that is poorer than themselves feel his inferiority, in order to make him as uncomfortable as possible. And all this is done with an affectation of republican simplicity, which makes every species of arrogance only the more offensive as coming from an equal. The Southern people, whom you pronounce much more aristocratic, and who perhaps are so in the English sense of the word, are infinitely more amiable in their manners, merely because their exclusiveness relates to family and education, and because they are not continually in contact with the labouring classes.
“In order to make any kind of aristocracy tolerable, it is necessary that it should, in some shape or other, either protect the lower classes, or never come in contact with them. The aristocracy of the Atlantic cities is unfortunately neither a protector of the lower orders, with whom it is continually wrestling for power; nor is it, from its political position and mode of life, capable of avoiding incessant contact with them. Hence arises a continual jarring: the rich claiming a rank which the poor are unwilling to grant; and the poor provoked by the unprofitable arrogance of the rich, opposing to them a species of insolence which a labouring man in Europe would hardly dare to offer his equals.
“I recollect some time ago having travelled on board of a canal-boat from Harrisburg to Pittsburg. The accommodations on board of these boats, the most bigoted American—and I know I address myself to none such—could not but call miserable; and yet, the majority being satisfied, none dared to murmur. Our meals were shocking; cooked in the worst manner, and served as no man in England would place a piece of bread before a day labourer. During the night we were put on shelves, of which three were placed one above the other at a distance of not more than from sixteen to twenty inches, and so close together that the feet of one person touched the head of his neighbour, and vice versâ. To complete our misery, the cabin was not ventilated, the door being kept closed in order to prevent those who lay next to it from taking cold; and we slept without sheets, the same unwashed and uncleaned blankets having perhaps served in turn to a hundred different pedlars and emigrants. But the ne plus ultra was one of the captains,[4] a New-Englander by birth; a puny, pale, consumptive fellow with sharp grey eyes, thin pointed nose, long deeply-indented chin, and a dash across his face marking the opening of the mouth in the absence of lips. His voice, something between a growl and a grunt, seemed to proceed from a subterraneous cavern; while his hands, carefully concealed in his pockets, indicated, by their position, the usual current of his thoughts.
“This fellow, whom no man of correct judgment would have made keeper of a pack of hounds, used to look upon the whole company with an air of conscious superiority; strutting the deck as if he were commander of a frigate, and scarcely deigning to address a word to any of the passengers. You will excuse me for this digression, which you will readily forgive when you reflect that I but agree with you in the opinion that, much as the New-Englanders are to be esteemed at home,—and there is none more ready to pay homage to their public and private virtue than myself,—they are nevertheless among the dullest, driest, and most disagreeable adventurers one meets abroad. This man had the impudence to serve the same meat three times to his passengers: first, with tea and coffee in the morning; then, with pure water at noon; and lastly, though there was scarcely enough left to feed a dog, the remainder of the dinner was once more brought upon the table in the shape of a supper. Previous to that, we had been kept, as they call it, by a fat round-faced German, who gave us at least plenty to eat, and a friendly face in the bargain; but our Yankee captain seemed to be determined to make the most of our cash, without contracting the irregular polygon of his face into anything approaching a smile.
“Under these circumstances, a German gentleman, who, to judge from his merry voice, and two large bumps of alimentiveness gracing his circular forehead, was fond of humour and good cheer, was amusing the company in tolerable good English with a few unequivocal innuendoes in reference to their English comforts; which were no sooner uttered than the captain, probably thinking that the foreigner was an aristocrat not admiring the institutions of the country, told him that his conversation was ‘most perfectly disgusting,’ and that, if he did not ‘hold his tongue,’ he should be obliged to put him ashore. These, as far as I can recollect, were the very words of the ill-humoured blackguard; and such an effect did they produce on the company that none dared to demonstrate against his insulting conduct, though they whispered to one another that it was not altogether gentlemanly or just.
“Now, this man would not have been half so insolent if the gentleman whom he reprobated had not been decently dressed, so as to lead him to suppose that he wanted to play the aristocrat. It was a species of revenge against what he imagined to be the taunts and sneers of ‘a vulgar upstart,’ who, in spite of his money, resorted to this mode of travelling for the sake of saving expenses.
“If the higher classes claim superior respect, it is but just they should pay for it, as the higher classes do in Europe, where a man is charged according to his rank; but how few of your fashionable people are willing to lay out an additional groat for the distinction they so ardently covet. They want to be esteemed merely because they are rich, though their wealth does not benefit any of their fellow-citizens.”
“I remember a young Bostonian,” observed my cicerone, “who employed a second-rate barber to cut his hair. The task not being performed to his satisfaction, he indignantly rose from the chair, placed a piece of twelve and a half cents (the usual price being twenty-five) on the table, and, opening the door with great fury, told the affrighted little Frenchman that he should never patronise him again.
“Such instances of the liberality of our first people,” he continued, “occur every day; as you may yourself witness by frequenting our market. Every one of our gentlemen purchases his own provisions, so as to render the collusion of the servants with the tradespeople, which you know exists to a lamentable extent in England, wholly impossible. Our aristocracy, I can assure you, are a shrewd people; but unfortunately for the comforts of domestic life, their servants are equally shrewd, and stay with their calculating masters no longer than they can help it.
“This state of things,” added he, after a pause, “does not exist at the South. There the veriest fault of the people is generosity. The slaves, who enable them to be aristocratic without being mean, stand to them in the relation of vassals to their lords; and the planters, not fearing the power and political influence of their slaves, but, on the contrary, having an interest in their physical well-being, treat them generally with humanity and kindness. There never was a great moral evil, without producing also some good; and thus it is that the very relation between master and slave engenders ties and affections which no one can understand without having witnessed their effect. I have seen the wives of planters watch at the sick-bed of their slaves, and perform acts of charity which the misconstrued self-esteem of our Northern people would have deemed menial, merely because the feelings of kindness and gratitude, which are strongest in the Southern States, are, with us, construed into obligation and payment; two things which effectually destroy all poetry of life, even in the relation of parents to their children. I am not here disposed to underrate the miseries of slavery, as they will always appear to the mind of an European; but I cannot entirely overlook some of the advantages which result from it to the moral and social relations of the country.”
And I could not but agree with my cicerone. If the tendency of wealth in the Northern States is towards an aristocracy of money, the aristocracy of the Southern States, founded on birth and education, is a sort of offset to it,—a means of preventing the degeneration of the high-minded democracy which once swayed the country, into a vulgar oligarchy of calculating machines without poetry, without arts, and without generosity.
“After all, the greatest benefactors of the American people were Southerners, from the great father of the country, down to its last chivalrous defender. Southern orators are yet the most eloquent; Southern statesmen the most disinterested in their views of national politics. Genius requires a heart as well as a head, or the seed lacks the warmth necessary for its germination. Give me the man whose blood flows quickly through his veins, with his ready perception and his high sense of honour! If aristocracy, the original sin of society, must be entailed upon man in every climate, then let me at once have that of the South. Give me an aristocracy above the cares and toils of ordinary life, which has the means and the leisure to devote itself to higher pursuits than mere pecuniary gain and profit,—an aristocracy to whom national honour and glory are not words without meaning, and whose estimation of a people’s happiness is not deduced merely from its statistics of commerce and manufactures!
“I have always hoped, and still hope, that the democratic principle will, in America, prevail over all the others: but if this hope should prove delusive; if, in the phraseology of one of the ablest senators in the United States, ‘the multiplied wants of the country’ should beget an universal worship of Mammon as the means of satisfying them; then I would rather live surrounded by negroes, and, in the society of their aristocratic but high-minded and generous masters, seek some feeble consolation in the reflection that Rome and Greece were likewise cursed with slavery. I would prefer the aristocracy of the Southern States to that of the North, for precisely the same reason that I prefer, generally, a nobleman to a roturier.”
“You are not very singular in your notions,” observed my cicerone. “I do not remember a single European that came here but what expressed the same opinion; but this singular coincidence has not in the least changed the opinion of our people, who are perfectly satisfied that their city stands unrivalled in the world for virtue, wisdom, and patriotism.”
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Edward Everett, the present governor of Massachusetts.
[2] The two streets which face the Common.
[3] The United States Bank and the Sub-treasury system.
[4] These change at the different stopping-places of the boat.