CHAPTER XXXI.
Olla Podrida.
The preceding observations lead naturally to a few observations upon American character in a national point of view; for in treating of so exceedingly varied a community, combining as it does nearly every nation of the Old World, it would be beyond the limits of a work like this to enter into details on so complicated a subject.
As I prefer commencing with the objectionable points, and winding up with the more favourable, I shall first name Vanity as a great national feature. The fulsome adulation with which the Press bespatters its readers, throughout the length and breadth of the Union, wherever any comparisons are drawn with other nations, is so great that the masses have become perfectly deluded; and being so far removed from the nations of the Old World, and knowing, consequently, nothing of them except through the columns of a vanity-feeding Press, they receive the most exaggerated statements as though they were Gospel truths—little aware how supremely ridiculous the vaunting which they read with delight makes them appear in the eyes of other people.
I insert the following extract from the Press, as one instance among many of the vain and ridiculous style of some of their editorial leaders. It is taken from the New York Herald—one of the most widely-circulated papers in the Union, but one which, I am bound in justice to say, is held in contempt[[CK]] by the more intelligent portion of the community. Speaking of Mrs. B. Stowe's reception in England, he says:—"She proves herself quite an American in her intercourse with the English aristocracy. Her self-possession, ease, and independence of manner were quite undisturbed in the presence of the proud duchesses and fraughty dames of the titled English nobility. They expected timidity and fear, and reverence for their titles, in an untitled person, and they found themselves disappointed. Mrs. Stowe felt herself their equal in social life, and acted among them as she felt. This, above all other things, has caused a great astonishment in the higher circles in favour of American women, for in fact it is a quality peculiarly distinguishing an American woman, that she can be and is a duchess among duchesses."
Even in the simple article of diplomatic dress we see the same feature peeping out. Vanity may be discovered as readily in singularity, however simple, as in the naked savage who struts about as proud as a peacock, with no covering but a gold-laced cocked hat on his head and a brass-mounted sword at his side. When civilized society agrees upon some distinctive uniform for diplomatic service, who can fail to observe the lurking vanity that dictated the abolition of it by the Republic?—not to mention the absurdity of wearing a sword in plain clothes. The only parallel it has among bipeds, that I know of, is a master-at-arms on board a ship, with a cane by his side; but then he carries a weapon which he is supposed to use. The Minister of the Republic carries a weapon for ornament only. In quadruped life, it reminds me of a poodle closely shaved all over, except a little tuft at the end of his tail, the sword and the tuft recalling to mind the fact that the respective possessors have been shorn of something.
Firmly convinced, from my earliest schoolboy days, of the intimate connexion which exists between boasting and bullying, I had long blushed to feel how pre-eminent my own country was in the ignoble practice; but a more intimate acquaintance with the United States has thoroughly satisfied me that that pre-eminence justly belongs to the great Republic. But it is not merely in national matters that this feeling exhibits itself; you observe it in ordinary life as well, by the intense love shown for titles; nobody is contented until he obtain some rank. I am aware this is a feature inseparable from democracy. Everybody you meet is Captain, Colonel, General, Honourable, Judge, or something; and if they cannot obtain it legitimately, they obtain it by courtesy, or sometimes facetiously, like a gentleman I have before alluded to, who obtained the rank of judge because he was a connoisseur in wine. In these, and a thousand other ways, the love of vanity stands nationally revealed.
I do not think Americans are aware what injustice they do themselves by this love of high-sounding titles.[[CL]] For instance, in a paper before me, I see a Deputy Sheriff calling on the mob to resist the law; I see Governor Bigler authorizing General King to call out the military, one naturally supposes to keep order; but observe he calls Mr. Walker, of Erie, a traitor and a scoundrel; of the directors and managers of the railroad, he says, "We will whip them, will whip them, will bury them so deep electricity can't reach them—we will whip them—we will whip the g—ts out of them!" &c.—Now, judging of these people by their titles, as recognised by the rest of the civilized world, what a disgrace to the higher classes of Americans is the foregoing! But anybody who really knows the title system of the Republic will at once see that the orator was a mere rowdy. Thus they suffer for their vanity. It pervades every class of the whole community, from the rowdy, who talks of "whipping creation," to the pulpit orator, who often heralds forth past success to feed the insatiable appetite: in short, it has become a national disease; and were it not for the safety-valve formed by the unmeasured terms of mutual vituperation they heap upon each other on occasions of domestic squabbles, their fate would assuredly be that of the frog in the fable.
In the medical world, it is said no one has a cold without fever; and I think it may with equal truth be asserted of the national world, no nations are vain without being afflicted with sensitiveness: at all events, it is true as regards the United States. No maiden in her teens is so ticklishly sensitive as the Americans. I do not refer merely to that portion of the community of which I have selected Mr. Douglas, of Illinois, as the type; I allude also to the far higher order of intelligence with which the Republic abounds. There is a touchiness about them all with respect to national and local questions which I never saw equalled: in fact, the few sheets of their Press which reach this country are alone sufficient to convince any one on that point; for in a free country the Press may always be fairly considered, to a certain extent, as the reflex of the public mind. I suppose it is with nations as with individuals, and that each are alike blind to their own failings. In no other way can I account for the Republic overlooking so entirely the sensitiveness of others. Take for instance the appointment of M. Soulé—a Frenchman naturalized in America—as minister to the court of Spain. I do not say that he was a Filibustero, but he was universally supposed to be identified with that party; and if he were not so identified, he showed a puerile ignorance of the requirements of a Minister, quite beyond conception, when he received a serenade of five thousand people at New York, who came in procession, bearing aloft the accompanying transparencies, he being at the time accredited to his new ministry.