“The same ridiculous folly,” interrupted I, “you will find in England, and especially in Scotland, among the gentlefolks.”
“But then,” interrupted my friend, “the English do not pretend to be republicans; they never formally banished nobility and royalty from their country in order to rake them up again from the rubbish of another world; and the particular genius of their institutions is not opposed to any real distinction in the way of family. Our people, on the contrary, are obliged publicly to repudiate what they are most anxiously striving to assert in private; and thus to add hypocrisy to pretensions for which there is not the least apology in the history of their country. But I must direct your attention to that portly-looking gentleman in blue pantaloons, who, in my opinion, is by far the most remarkable personage of the whole company. He wears boots; and his hat and gloves, neither of which can be said to be entirely new, are carefully deposited in the entry. Thus unencumbered, he will play one of the best knives and forks at supper; although the lady of the house herself will take his arm, and put him to his utmost good breeding. She completely monopolises his conversation, and distinguishes him from the crowd by the most studied politeness.”
“But what can be the cause of her attention?” demanded I; “is he so very rich?”
“Not exactly,” replied he; “he is barely respectable.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, in the language of New York, he is a man of moderate property.”
“Then I do not see the object of her civility to him.”
“She has indeed a different object from what you or any other stranger would suspect. The gentleman is a country representative of considerable talent; of whom the lady, who, like most of the nice women in this city, is in the opposition, wishes to make a convert. A good many unsuspecting ‘members of the assembly’ are spoiled by our fashionable women; for the spirit of gallantry is stronger in our yeomanry than among our aristocratic gentlemen of the town. Our country representatives can argue for years, and argue well, against the attempted usurpations of certain coteries of gentlemen; but they cannot take up the cudgel against the ladies. It is in the best society where our members learn to listen to the grossest abuse of the institutions of their country without glowing with indignation or resentment; it is there where they study patience in hearing the people’s favourites traduced as ‘scoundrels,’ ‘villains,’ ‘pickpockets,’ ‘idiots,’ ‘fools,’ &c.; and it is in company of fashionable ladies that they learn to consider patriotism as unbecoming a gentleman,—as a vice which ought never to infect but the lowest orders of society.
“And it is principally because their patriotism cannot be translated into an attachment to some ‘great and glorious personage’ that these poor devils of representatives, who would have remained honest if they had not been admitted into good society, become, by degrees, ashamed of everything which is their own, from their heads down to the very soles of their feet. At first they are made aware that they are not so refined as some of the New York people, especially those who have been in Europe; and that, in order to get rid of some of their boorish manners, they must needs try to get into good society. Some neutral friend procures them an introduction, and the women do the rest.
“One of the principal things they learn in good society is, to consider politics as wholly uninteresting except to tavern-keepers on election days; as a subject unworthy of the pursuit of a gentleman, and a thing banished from people of fashion and good taste. When they speak of it, or allude to it, accidentally in conversation, the good-natured condescending smiles of the company convince them, without argument, that they have been guilty of some impropriety. When they grow warm at the mention of their country, the calmness of all around them teaches them the absurdity of betraying emotion on so ordinary an occasion; and, if they should ever by chance make use of the words ‘liberty,’ ‘right,’ ‘independence,’ or forget themselves so far as to introduce ‘the people,’ they are left alone to enjoy these things by themselves.