“As extravagant as this story appears, I can assure you that there are at any time in Washington hundreds of persons seeking employment of some sort or other; nine-tenths of whom return home disappointed, cursing the ingratitude of those whom they have elevated by their suffrages, and who are now so monstrously ungrateful as to suffer them to gain a livelihood by common labour. All these men finish by joining the opposition, expecting to be treated with more consideration by the next administration.”
Scarcely had he finished, before the bell, or rather the tocsin, sounded for dinner. In an instant the whole company, consisting of more than a hundred persons, were seated at table,—the dinner, including soups and desserts, being served at once,—and in less than ten minutes the greater portion of them began already to disperse. I had seen much fast eating in the United States, especially on board of steam-boats; but nothing to compare to the rapidity with which meals are despatched in Washington. What astonished me most was, that most of the gentlemen, very unlike those of Boston, New York, or Philadelphia, did not leave table in order immediately to attend to business; but merely to walk or stand on the piazza, smoke, read the papers, or talk politics.
Washington, as I observed before, is the only city of idlers in the whole Union; and, for a man that is not a manufacturer or a merchant, quite an agreeable residence. Despite of its ridiculous extent, and the miserable and scattered situation of the dwelling-houses, it is a focus of intellect, and contains more resources for a man of education than any other Transatlantic city. It is in Washington where the national mind is formed; where local prejudices vanish under the influence of more enlarged political views; where, if I may use the expression, the totality of the American people absorbs the provincialism of the different sections of the country. It is the only city in the United States, north of the Potomac, where a man is not bored with the everlasting talk of business,—where the markets are not considered the most important topic of conversation.
Literary and professional men, though they are tolerated in other American cities, and, from vanity and ostentation, occasionally shown up, or, as a clever writer on diplomacy has it, “used by the ladies as a pepper-box,” find their level only in Washington. Even statesmen like Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Wright, &c. are at home only listened to from complacency, unless they touch upon a subject immediately affecting the interest of their particular State; but, arrived in Washington, they find themselves at once drawn into a circle of attraction, which not only furnishes food for their minds, but, from the nature of its composition, acts as a stimulus on their energies. Washington, in fine, is the only place in America where talent is esteemed on account of itself,—not because it enables the person endowed with it “to get handsome things.”
To call a man “visionary,” or to consider his talents useless to society, because he cannot immediately reduce them into “shoes and stockings for paupers,” marks a low estimate of humanity; and, in spite of the greatest political progress, a backward state of civilization. I have heard gentlemen in the Northern States boast of having worked sixteen hours a day in a manufactory, or in a store, as if they had actually benefited the world with their manual labour. The thought never struck them that they might have been more useful to society by employing poor men to do the same work for them, and reserving their faculties, if such they had, for some occupation that had some relish of intellect in it. As long as the rich men in America think it more creditable to themselves to compete with the wages of the poor by assuming a part of their labour, than by cultivating the higher branches of knowledge to increase the floating intellect, American society may abound in common sense, but it will prove the grave of talent and genius. All this, fortunately, does not apply to Washington, in which the mass of property is really so small in proportion to the intellect that governs it, as to leave a large balance in favour of the latter.
It cannot be doubted but that the vastness of material interests in the Northern States crushes the loftier aspirings of the mind, though it may be favourable to a certain degree of elementary instruction and general information very well compatible with a total neglect of the higher branches of knowledge, and the absence of taste. It is certainly a matter of rejoicing, not only for the Americans, but for every philanthropist, that there should exist at least one country in the world emphatically to be termed “the land of beef and pudding, clean shirts, and whole stockings for all;” but in these things does not yet consist the ultimate happiness of a people, or its capacity for great and generous actions.
That the great mass of the American people are further advanced, not only in politics, but in general civilization, than any nation of Europe, the English themselves not excepted, no one acquainted with the state of society in the United States will venture to deny: the question only is, whether that advanced position contains also the germ of further progress; and whether the direction civilization is taking in America is sure of leading to the developement of the higher faculties. A nation may, like the Germans, be too exclusively engaged in learned and literary pursuits, and thereby neglect to provide for those physical comforts which, after all, contribute so much to men’s happiness; but it is also possible to give to the latter more than their full share of attention, to the total neglect of every noble and disinterested pursuit.
The apology one continually hears in the United States, “We are a young people,”—“you cannot expect us to be as far advanced as other nations,”—“we have not yet the means,” &c.—are, as regards the Eastern and Atlantic States, nothing but idle cant. The West may excuse itself for the want of refinement by the prodigious amount of labour and personal exertion incidental to the settlement of a wilderness; but the Northern and Eastern people have no such excuse for being altogether absorbed in money-making. There is more property accumulated in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia than in any German town of the same extent; the intercourse with Europe is constant; the treasures of science and literature as much unlocked to the Americans as to any other people; and if, notwithstanding all this, these departments remain still neglected, it can only be because there is no real taste for them, and because other pursuits are more sure of securing the respect of society. As long as the salary of a head-clerk in a respectable counting-room surpasses that of a professor of mathematics and astronomy in the first and oldest American university, and as long as the company of the latter is hardly considered good enough for a wholesale dealer in dry goods or an auctioneer, it is useless to talk of being “a young people,” “of having no time for literary pursuits,” &c. The age of the nation has nothing to do with it; it is the taste of the higher classes, who rather imitate the follies of fashionable European life, than the European student in his closet or the munificence of his patron.
“What a boor that fellow is!” exclaimed a Boston lawyer, half audibly, at a fashionable party in that city, pointing to a young man wearing boots.—“But, sir, they are dress boots,” said I; “I have seen them worn by English gentlemen.”—“Oh, then I have no objection to them!” The young man who wore them had just returned from England, and was showing off his new fashion. Why do the hundreds and thousands of young Americans that overrun Europe, and put ministers and consuls in requisition to be presented at the different courts, not visit the more humble dwellings of men of letters, or the ateliers of artists, and on their return show off something else than their heels?—Answer. “Because the heels are most likely to be observed; and a man more easily pardoned for ignorance or stupidity than for unacquaintance with the usages of Europe.” The Americans in Europe just float on the surface of society, and it is consequently only the froth of it which they afterwards transplant to their own country.
Washington, as I have said before, is a city to which people come to spend money, not to make it. The hum and bustle of business nowhere obtrude themselves on one’s ears, men’s minds are occupied with more enlarged views of society; and conversation, instead of being confined to a narrow circle of common-place observations, spreads over topics of political and historical interest. In addition to these advantages, one can already notice in Washington Southern manners and Southern hospitality. Nothing, indeed, is easier than to be introduced into the best society; a single letter of introduction answering all the purpose. Some of the habitués seem to make it their business to procure invitations to parties for strangers. “What party is there to-night?” you hear a gentleman ask in the morning.—“It is Mrs. ***’s. Are you invited?”—“I have not the honour of being introduced.”—“Will you give me your card?”—“With pleasure;” and in an hour or so your invitation is left at the bar of your hotel. Many of these parties are indeed supperless, a circumstance much complained of by the dancers: but then the general tone is agreeable; the people having far less pretensions, and being much more natural in their manners, than either the New-Yorkers or the Philadelphians.