The American lady, who was the subject of one of Prince Hohenlohe’s celebrated miracles, was pointed out to us at Washington. All the world declare that her recovery was marvellous.
There appeared to be a great many foreigners at Washington, particularly French. In Paris I have often observed that it was a sort of fashion to speak of America as a new Utopia, especially among the young liberals, who, before the happy accession of Philip, fancied that a country without a king, was the land of promise; but I sometimes thought that, like many other fine things, it lost part of its brilliance when examined too nearly; I overheard the following question and answer pass between two young Frenchmen, who appeared to have met for the first time.
“Eh bien. Monsieur, comment trouvez-vous la liberté et l’égalité mises en action?”
“Mais, Monsieur, je vous avoue que le beau idéal que nous autres, nous avons conçu de tout cela à Paris, avait quelque chose de plus poétique que ce que nous trouvons ici!”
On another occasion I was excessively amused by the tone in which one of these young men replied to a question put to him by another Frenchman. A pretty looking woman, but exceedingly deficient in tournure, was standing alone at a little distance from them and close at their elbows stood a very awkward looking gentleman. “Qui est cette dame?” said the enquirer. “Monsieur,” said my young fat, with an indescribable grimace, “c’est la femelle de ce male, “ indicating his neighbour by an expressive curl of his upper lip.
The theatre was not open while we were in Washington, but we afterwards took advantage of our vicinity to the city, to visit it. The house is very small, and most astonishingly dirty and void of decoration, considering that it is the only place of public amusement that the city affords. I have before mentioned the want of decorum at the Cincinnati theatre, but certainly that of the capital at least rivalled it in the freedom of action and attitude; a freedom which seems to disdain the restraints of civilized manners. One man in the pit was seized with a violent fit of vomiting, which appeared not in the least to annoy or surprise his neighbours; and the happy coincidence of a physician being at that moment personated on the stage, was hailed by many of the audience as an excellent joke, of which the actor took advantage, and elicited shouts of applause by saying, “I expect my services are wanted elsewhere.”
The spitting was incessant; and not one in ten of the male part of the illustrious legislative audiences sat according to the usual custom of human beings; the legs were thrown sometimes over the front of the box, sometimes over the side of it; here and there a senator stretched his entire length along a bench, and in many instances the front rail was preferred as a seat.
I remarked one young man, whose handsome person, and most elaborate toilet, led me to conclude he was a first-rate personage, and so I doubt not he was; nevertheless, I saw him take from the pocket of his silk waistcoat a lump of tobacco, and daintily deposit it within his cheek.
I am inclined to think this most vile and universal habit of chewing tobacco is the cause of a remarkable peculiarity in the male physiognomy of Americans; their lips are almost uniformly thin and compressed. At first I accounted for this upon Lavater’s theory, and attributed it to the arid temperament of the people; but it is too universal to be explained; whereas the habit above mentioned, which pervades all classes (excepting the literary) well accounts for it, as the act of expressing the juices of this loathsome herb, enforces exactly that position of the lips, which gives this remarkable peculiarity to the American countenance.
A member of Congress died while we were at Washington, and I was surprised by the ceremony and dignity of his funeral. It seems that whenever a senator or member of Congress dies during the session, he is buried at the expense of the government, (the ceremony not coming under the head of internal improvement), and the arrangements for the funeral are not interfered with by his friends, but become matters of State. I transcribed the order of the procession as being rather grand and stately.