“To be sure it is,” replied he; “but another, much more arrogant in its nature, is taking the place of it. ‘The old Federalists,’ as you are pleased to call them, who, if not attached to England, at least openly avowed their admiration of the British constitution, were, in spite of their predilection in favour of English manners, infinitely less exclusive and intolerant, and much less addicted to the spirit of castes, than our ‘aristocratic Whigs’ of the present day, who would rather shut themselves up in hermetically sealed houses than share the light of heaven with a mechanic. The former acknowledged at least some power at home or abroad, to which they considered themselves responsible; the latter aim at the absolute government of the country.
“‘England,’ say our first people, ‘is the freest country in the world,’ (which I, for one, am not disposed to deny, inasmuch as a man may speak his opinion there, without setting the whole nation against him, and running the risk of being tarred and feathered,) ‘and yet in England,’ they say, ‘there exists the least equality of conditions. Do we wish to be wiser than the English? Shall we shake hands with every one? associate with every one, and treat every one as our equal, because, forsooth, his vote is as good as ours?’
“Some years ago,” continued my friend, “I remember being told very seriously by a red-nosed friend of mine,—who, by the by, was a great advocate of te-totalism, but had lived rather freely in his youth,—that most Europeans, but especially the vulgar English, have a notion that in America there is no rank or distinction of castes. ‘Here,’ said he, ‘is a letter I just received from an English music-master, to whom I was obliged to send a note in consequence of his want of punctuality in paying his rent. The note, of course, was written in a plain business style, reminding him merely of the fact that the money would fall due on the 15th instant. Now what do you think the fellow did? He wrote me back a note couched in precisely the same terms, and, if possible, more cavalierly than my own; as if the whole were a transaction between two individuals of the same standing.’ Here he read me the note, which, as far as I am able to recollect, ran thus:
“‘Mr. *** has received Mr. ***’s note of this morning, and, in reply to it, assures Mr. *** that his rent will be ready when due, and that it would equally have been so without Mr. *** reminding him of it.’
“‘Such,’ said he, ‘are the notions of the low English that come to this country!”
“‘Did you take any further steps in the matter?” demanded I.
“‘Oh, no, sir; I thought it best to take no notice of him.”
“Now, where was the impudence of the man, who was dunned before he became a debtor? and what English landlord would have been more shocked with the insolence of his tenant, under similar circumstances?
“Another species of tyranny,” continued my friend, “exercised by the higher classes of Americans consists in the proscription of all people belonging, or rather attempting to belong, to different sets. If you belong to the first society, you must not by any chance accept an invitation to the second, or shake hands in a friendly manner with people who are supposed to be of an inferior standing, except it be on election day for a political purpose. If you belong to the second, you may, of course, try with all your might ‘to push for the first;’ but, if you are once seen with the third, you have done even with the second: and so on.
“The French had, even under Charles X, too much democracy in their composition to be taken for safe models by the enlightened Americans; and, now, even the English are becoming too far liberalised to serve as a proper standard for our aristocracy.