When we re-entered Broadway, the moon had spread her mantle over the house-tops; a delicious breeze, which during the heat of day had been sleeping on the breast of the ocean, whispered comfort to the weary citizens; the dim noise of the multitude had wholly subsided; and the rattle of carriages, growing fainter and fainter, gradually died away at a distance. On approaching the neighbourhood of the Park, however, new traces of life appeared, until at last the brilliant façade of the theatre, surrounded by a host of liquor-shops, eating-houses, and oyster-cellars, presented itself through the dark-green foliage with the magic light of an enchanted castle.
“This part of the town,” observed my friend, “is never quiet; it is the perpetuum mobile of America.”
Accordingly, as we came near the corner, everything appeared to be animated: hackney-coaches stood in readiness to convey those who either did not feel disposed or were no longer able to walk, to any part of the city; and the doors of the eating-houses, tap-rooms, and oyster-cellars were thrown open for the reception of company.
My friend, who happened to be somewhat acquainted in New York, selected the establishment in the corner; which we entered, by descending six or seven steps into a capacious bar-room, furnished in very good style, and lit with gas as brilliantly as any saloon in London. This was a sort of reception hall, intended for those who drank without stopping; the real supper-rooms, with something like eighteen or twenty boxes to preserve the incognito of the visiters, being lodged in another part of the building.
The first thing which struck our attention was a large black board, on which there were printed, in the shape of a bill of fare, the nice little items of “wild duck,” “wild turkey with oyster sauce,” “roast chicken,” “chicken salad,” “roast oysters,” “fried oysters,” “stewed oysters,” “scolloped oysters,” &c. &c. &c.
We naturally took this as a favourable omen, and were about to betake ourselves to the only empty box that was yet left, when my friend recognised, in a gentleman that was entering the room, one of his former classmates, who had just returned from Paris, where he had devoted himself for several years to the study of medicine.
After the usual manifestations of joy, shaking of hands, and asking of questions, which neither of them pretended to answer but by asking fresh ones,—for my friend and his schoolfellow were both Southerners, and not in the habit of finishing a thing of that sort by a laconic “How d’ye do? I am very glad to see you,”—my friend at last succeeded in getting the companion of his youth seated by his side, and eliciting from him, as far as I am able to remember, the following honest confession of his experience in foreign parts, and the state of things he found on his return to his native country.
“I must freely confess to you,” said he, “that what I saw of my countrymen abroad did not materially contribute to increase my respect for them; neither did I think it calculated to enhance the respect with which Europeans are wont to look upon the untried institutions of our country. They hunt men of hereditary titles and privileges just as much, and even more, than the English; the highest ambition which I ever knew them guilty of being the desire of associating with a count or a prince. And so different are their notions of rank and titles, of superiority and inferiority, from those of Europeans in general, that they make themselves not only hated by the admirers of republican principles, but also ridiculous in the eyes of every sensible Tory.
“If one of our business men were to-day invited to a prince’s, and to-morrow to a count’s or a baron’s, you might be sure of his playing the aristocrat at the baron’s house, merely because he was before asked to a prince’s; and if, by accident, he had the day following met with one of his countrymen ‘not yet as high up in society as himself,’ he would have deemed it a duty due to his new standing ‘to cut him dead,’ though he might have known him from his infancy.
“The petty jealousies among the Americans have equally disgusted me in every part of Europe; and appeared to me the more ludicrous, as the being admitted into society depended frequently on circumstances altogether beyond their control. In one instance it was owing to a letter of introduction, for which they were indebted to the politeness of a friend, or the kind interference of a third person, to whom they were entirely unknown; in the other, to a high regard for the country of which they were, nominally at least, the representatives; and, in not a few cases, I can assure you, to mere curiosity. And yet you ought to have heard those people, who were thus by mere chance brought in contact with persons enjoying hereditary distinctions, talk ‘of the different orders of society,’ with the same degree of earnestness as if, by associating with the higher classes, they had actually partaken of their qualities!”