(Deny it by all means, even if there should have been a change of twenty degrees that very day.)
Then comes the praise of the American “falls,” in which any one may join conscientiously; an American landscape in the month of October being, on account of the infinite variety in the colour of the woods, and the extreme serenity of the sky, the most beautiful thing in the world.
National vanity—a feeling which is totally distinct from patriotism—exists in no part of the United States to such an extent as in New England, and especially in Boston, whose inhabitants think themselves not only vastly superior to any people in Europe, but also infinitely more enlightened, especially as regards politics, than the rest of their countrymen. Thus the question has been seriously proposed to me, whether I had not been struck with the superior intelligence of the Bostonians, compared with the inhabitants of other cities in the United States and in Europe? and whether, on the whole, I had found any people in the world superior to those of New England?
These faults apart, I found the Bostonians quite an entertaining, I could not conscientiously say an hospitable people, because one does not feel at home amongst them, even after a residence of many years. The fact is, that though they boast of an unusual degree of “common sense” in their common transactions of life, very little of it is seen in their society. Society is the only sea with the navigation of which the New-Englanders are as yet unacquainted, in spite of the English, French, and Italian charts they study for that purpose. The moment their ladies and gentlemen sit in state, they are affected and awkward; et quand le bon ton parait, le bon sens se retire.
What the wealthy Bostonians generally understand by common sense, and the influence which the latter exercises on society, I soon had an opportunity of learning, at the house of a fashionable gentleman, a president of a bank, with whom I had the pleasure of dining a few days after my arrival in the city.
The individual in question was between forty-five and fifty years of age; apparently of a high bilious temper, with a livid complexion, grey piercing eyes, straight hair, compressed lips, thin nose and chin,—in short, a figure which in any part of the world I should have at once recognised as belonging to a matter-of-fact man from New England. There were but two more gentlemen to dine with us, and no ladies besides the wife and daughters of our entertainer; so that conversation soon began to flag, until, the dessert being put on the table, the restraint was taken off from the gentlemen by the good-natured retiring of the ladies.
Mine host was the first person who broke in upon the monotony of the entertainment, by introducing a topic which at once commanded the attention of his friends.
“Common sense,” he said, after having drunk the first glass of madeira and passed the bottle, “is the genius, or, as I do not like that word, the essence of society and good government; and I think,” added he with a self-complacent smile, “no people in the world have inherited a larger share of this most invaluable commodity than our cool, calm, calculating, money-making Yankees. Did you” (addressing himself to me) “ever see a more intelligent people than our Bostonians? Did you ever see a city more quiet, more prosperous, more orderly than Boston?”
“The appearance of Boston,” responded I, “certainly warrants all you say of it.”
“Yes, sir,” he rejoined; “and I can point out to you at least one hundred persons in that city worth upwards of a hundred thousand dollars.”