In our Casinos, ‘Ressources,’ and so on, a man who wishes to play must first laboriously seek out a party; and if the tables are full, may have to wait hours till one is vacant. Here it is a law that every one who comes may take his seat at any table at which a rubber has just ended, when he who has played two consecutive rubbers must give up his place. It is pleasant, too, to a man who has lost, and fancies that the luck goes with the place, to quit it and seek better fortune in another.
In the centre of the room stands a ‘bureau’ at which is posted a clerk, who rings whenever a waiter is wanted; brings the bill;[21] and, if any contested point occur, fetches the classical authorities on whist; for never is the slightest offence against the rules of the game suffered to pass without the infliction of the annexed punishment. This is rather annoying to a man who plays only for amusement; but yet it is a wise plan, and forms good players. The same clerk distributes the markers to the players to obviate the great annoyance of meeting with a bad payer, the Club is the universal payer. Actual money does not make its appearance, but every man who sits down to play receives a little basket of markers of various forms, the value of which is inscribed upon them, and which the clerk enters in his book; as often as he loses, he asks for more. Each player reckons with the clerk, and either proves his loss, or, if he has won, delivers up the markers. In either case he receives a card containing a statement of the result, and the duplicate of the reckoning in the account-book.
As soon as any one is indebted more than a hundred pounds, he must pay it in the following morning to the clerk; and every man who has any demands can claim his money at any time.
None but a nation so entirely commercial as the English can be expected to attain to this perfection of methodizing and arrangement. In no other country are what are here emphatically called ‘habits of business’ carried so extensively into social and domestic life; the value of time, of order, of despatch, of inflexible routine, nowhere so well understood. This is the great key to the most striking national characteristics. The quantity of material objects produced and accomplished—the work done—in England, exceeds all that man ever effected. The causes and the qualities which have produced these results have as certainly given birth to the dulness, the contracted views, the routine habits of thought as well as of action, the inveterate prejudices, the unbounded desire for, and deference to, wealth, which characterize the mass of Englishmen.
It were much to be wished that in our German cities we imitated the organization of English Clubs, which would be very practicable as to the essentials, though our poverty would compel us to dispense with many of their luxuries. In this case we ought to repay the English like for like, and not prostrate ourselves in puerile slavish admiration of their money and their name; but while we treated them with all civility, and even with more courtesy than they show to us, yet let them see that Germans are masters of their own house, particularly as many of them only come among us either to economize, or to form connexions with people of rank, from which their own station at home excluded them, or to have the satisfaction of showing us that in all arrangements for physical comfort we are still barbarians compared with them.[22]
It is indeed inconceivable, and a proof that it is only necessary to treat us contemptuously in order to obtain our reverence, that, as I have remarked, the mere name of Englishman is, with us, equivalent to the highest title. Many a person, who would scarcely get admission into very inferior circles in England, where the whole of society, down to the very lowest classes, is so stiffly aristocratical, in the various states of Germany is received at Court and fête by the first nobility; every act of coarseness and ill-breeding is set down as a trait of charming English originality, till perhaps, by some accident, a really respectable Englishman comes to the place, and people learn with astonishment that they have been doing all this honour to an ensign ‘on half pay,’ or a rich tailor or shoemaker. An individual of this rank is, however, generally, at least civil, but the impertinence of some of the higher classes surpasses all belief.
I know that in one of the largest towns of Germany, a prince of the royal house, distinguished for his frank, chivalrous courtesy, and his amiable character, invited an English Viscount, who was but just arrived, and had not yet been presented to him, to a hunting-party; to which His Lordship replied, that he could not accept the invitation, as the prince was perfectly unknown to him.
It is true, that no foreigner will ever have it in his power so to requite a similar civility in England, where a grandee considers an invitation to dinner (they are very liberal of invitations to routs and soirées, for the sake of filling their rooms) as the most signal honour he can confer upon even a distinguished foreigner,—an honour only to be obtained by long acquaintance, or by very powerful letters of introduction. But if by any miracle such a ready attention were to be paid in England, it would be impossible to find a single man of any pretensions to breeding, on the whole Continent, who would make such a return as this boorish lord did.[23]
November 21st.
I called yesterday morning on L—— to execute your commission, but did not find him at home. Instead of him, I found to my great joy a letter from you, which I was so impatient to read, that I set myself down in his room, and read it attentively two or three times. Your affection, which strives to spare me everything disagreeable, and dwells only upon those subjects which can give me pleasure, I acknowledge most gratefully. But you must not spare me more than you are convinced you can do without detriment to our common interests. You estimate my letters far more highly than they deserve; but you may imagine that, in my eyes, it is a very amiable fault in you to overvalue me thus. Love paints the smallest merit in magic colours. I will, however, do myself the justice to believe that you, who have had such ample opportunities of knowing me, may find in me qualities which shrink from the rude touch of the world. This consoled me,—but your expression “that all you wrote appeared to you so incoherent, that you thought the grief of parting had weakened your intellects,” gave me great pain. Do I then want phrases? How much more delightful is that natural, confidential talk, which flows on without constraint and without effort, and therefore expresses itself admirably. I am particularly delighted at your sentiments concerning what I tell you; they are ever exactly such as I expect and share.