“Such scenes as these are not worth relating,” observed my friend. “They occur every day in every capital of Europe infested by our Yankee exquisites. What I most regret is, that our women are the principal actors that flourish in them. I would rather marry a young Tartar girl, than a fashionable American belle after she has made the tour of Europe. If she was heartless before she left America, she is sure to return marble-ised to her own country. And as for our striplings, who are actually worshipping the feudal institutions of Europe, they come home with signets and coats of arms, and a lordly loathing of republican equality.”
“And this is not only the case with your inexperienced boys and girls,” observed the doctor, sipping his glass; “but applies also to your men of letters, your distinguished orators and philosophers. However fiercely they may extol republican institutions in their writings, they all sink the republican in company with lords and ladies. ‘They know nothing of Berkeley-square, though they fancy it to be inhabited by respectable people;’ but give a long account of the routs in the neighbourhood of Grosvenor-square, and are particularly happy in remembering the country seats of the most distinguished peers of the empire.”
“I grant you all this,” replied my friend; “and yet I would pardon Cooper all his sins that way for the love he once cherished for his country. He has suffered severely for the democracy of his earlier days; for the meanest scribbler for a penny paper in the United States thought himself justified in pouring out his venom on the author of ‘The Pilot.’ He is, after all, the only American that ever poetised American history; the nice, gentlemanly, English-looking Washington Irving has, in his ‘Knickerbocker’s History of New York,’ only raised a laugh at the expense of his country.”
“And yet,” observed the Bostonian, “he might have written the history of every American town, from the famous city of Boston down to the creole habitation of New Orleans, without rising into notice in America, had his works not been endorsed by the British public. No people in the world know better than our first society that they have no taste of their own; and it is for this reason that our poets must first seek a reputation in England, before they can expect one in their own country. Washington Irving had more credit as a merchant than as an author, and succeeded in his writings only after he had failed in business. Without the latter circumstance, which may really be called fortunate, his talents would perhaps never have been developed. But let the Carolinian go on with his aristocracy; he has already kept us over an hour, and, if you continue to interrupt him, he will never finish.”
“I have very little more to say,” said the Southerner; “because the tour of Europe finishes an American aristocrat. He has now been in England, France, and Italy;—he has, with his own eyes, seen the great and mighty upon earth;—he has exchanged visits with some of them, and has perhaps been asked to partake of their hospitality. It is now the business of the women to collect and carefully to preserve the many testimonials of respect which they may have received in the shape of cards, invitations, and letters; in order, on their return to the United States, to prove to the incredulous that they have actually been the fashion in Europe, and that in consequence they have a right to be it in America. They are now advanced to the rank of ‘leading people,’ and an invitation to their houses is as much sought after as a letter of introduction to an European nobleman. ‘They know Lord So-and-so!’ ‘She was quite intimate with Lady So-and-so!’ ‘He stayed a week at the country seat of the Marquis of ***!” ‘She was presented at the Queen’s!’ ‘Both their names were in Galignani’s Messenger!’ ‘She is corresponding with the wife of the Honourable Mr. ***!’ ‘The Duke of *** was quite attentive to her!’ The Prince Royal of *** accompanied her on horseback!’ And a hundred other fine and flattering things are told of them in our fashionable salons; until Mr. and Mrs. *** are not only the fashion, but the envy of every family in Broadway.
“Fortunately for the business habits of our people, they cannot make proselytes among our industrious male population: but our fashionable women, one-half of whom live in boarding-houses, and the other half in houses kept by their servants, are wondrously taken by such accounts of the ‘success of the Americans abroad;’ and exhibit by their unnatural, affected, forced manners, and by the total abjuration of everything American, their solicitude to be governed by the same elevated standard of refinement. On this account many of our women think themselves vastly superior to their husbands; and a certain portion of them actually have a higher standing in society. Hence the thousand incongruities and absurdities you meet with in our fashionable circles; all proving that our people do not act from habit and conviction, but from imitation and precept, and that, consequently, they are always at a loss how to act when they come to a part not contained in their lesson. They will send out invitations to dinner at eight o’clock, merely because this is a good hour in London, deranging thereby not only their own business, but the business of everybody they ask; commence balls and parties at eleven or twelve o’clock, and end them at four in the morning, though at eight they have to be again at their counting-rooms; and visit at an hour when the majority of the people are at dinner. Fashions which are worn in London and Paris in the month of October, are introduced immediately after their arrival here in the beginning of winter. They must have musical soirées without music; thés littéraires without literature; and they must crowd their stair-cases with statues, to show that they have a taste for sculpture. One finds in our fashionable society some feeble, and, for the most part, unsuccessful imitation of everything that exists in Europe, but scarcely one original object as a proof of our national existence: so that, if it were possible to transfer a person directly from some fashionable French or English party to one of our stockholders’ balls in New York, Boston, or Philadelphia, he would scarcely perceive any visible change; though he might consider himself transported from the West-end to the City, or from the Faubourg St. Germain to the neighbourhood of La Bourse.”
“Pass the bottle!” cried the doctor; “I believe he has finished his long speech.”
“I have a word to say now,” interposed the Bostonian; “I must wind up my argument with regard to our women as compared to the English.”
“Is he a ‘hard’ speaker?” inquired the New-Yorker.
“He isn’t quite equal to the member from Massachusetts,” replied my Southern friend, “who spoke seven hours in succession against time; but, before he continues, I must ask him whether he has seen Mrs. ***’s tableaux vivants. I believe she had some highly classical representations the other evening.”