“Then you missed a great deal. You ought to have seen the cringing and fawning of these people, and how prodigal they were of the title of ‘Serene Highness,’ which, as a younger son, was hardly ever given him in Europe.”
“I know,” said I, “that he was actually worshipped in the Atlantic cities; and that Mr. W*** and Mr. D*** of Philadelphia were very angry at him for introducing their names and professions in his book, without mentioning that they were gentlemen.”
“The same, perhaps, that presided at the dinner given him by the élite of the German population?”
“The same, if I mistake not,” said I. “I yet remember the witty remark of a German emigrant who was present at the banquet. ‘These Germans,’ said he, ‘behave like so many dogs who do not know what to do for joy at having found their lost master.’”
“And what do you think was the cause of his triumphal entry into every one of our large cities? Nothing in the world but the desire of our exclusives to see a duke,—to shake hands with a duke,—to talk with a duke,—to have a duke to dine with them,—and, above all things, to have a claim on the duke’s reciprocal favours in case they should meet him in Europe. I know not what the duke’s literary pretensions are; but, if Walter Scott had written a book on America, it could not have made a greater sensation than the duke’s.”
“You ought to make an allowance for the novelty of the thing,” said I. “As yet, but few dukes have visited the United States.”
“If their wonderment and toad-eating were confined to dukes and earls,” replied he, “I would willingly pardon them; but they worship everything in the shape of a nobleman, until, by continually talking about nobility, they imagine themselves to belong to it. I wish all the poor nobles of the Continent of Europe would come here to get married, and to improve their estates. But they would have to play a difficult part in order to conceal their poverty. A knight without a castle does not excite the imagination of an American damsel.”
“I yet remember,” observed my other companion, “how they pestered old Lafayette with the title of ‘marquis,’ as if his birth could enhance the sublimity of his character.”
“You ought to have been in ***,” remarked the first, “when, a year or two ago, a rumour was spread that Prince Puckler Muskau had arrived in the country. A mustachoed Russian actually had the good fortune to be mistaken for him, it being understood that the prince wished to preserve the strictest incognito. There was no end to the attention bestowed on him by ladies and gentlemen, and to the particular manœuvres that were made in order to obtain an honourable mention in his book, until the poor fellow, tired of the obsequiousness of his admirers, resolved to inform them that they had been humbugged. There is but one offset to this species of toad-eating, and that is the somewhat too sturdy independence of our lower classes.”
“That I willingly grant,” said the first. “I know that the Duke of Saxe Weimar narrowly escaped a beating in the western country for presuming to hire a whole stage-coach for himself and his valet. Our country has not been settled long enough, and the conditions of men are too rapidly changing, for any one class to tolerate the peculiar manners and customs of the others.”