Gleanings in Europe

by James Fenimore Cooper

Though Westminster, in the season, has the peculiarities I have mentioned, I do not think that the population of London, as a whole, is remarkable for either size or freshness. I have elsewhere said that, in my opinion, Paris has the advantage of London in these particulars, though certainly not in good looks. The English female face is essentially the same as the American, though national peculiarities are to be observed in both. It is a delicate office to decide on the comparative personal charms of the sex in different communities, but as you and I are both beyond the hopes and fears of the young, on this point, a passing word is no more than a tribute due to the incontestable claims of both. Were it not for the females of Rome, I should say that the women of England and America might bear away the palm from all other competitors, on the score of personal charms, so far as we are familiarly acquainted with the rest of the world. There is a softness, an innocence, a feminine sweetness, an expression of the womanly virtues, in the Anglo-Saxon female countenance, that is met with only as an exception, in the rest of Christendom. As between the English and American divisions of this common race, I think one may trace a few general points of difference. The English female has the advantage in the bust, shoulders, and throat. She has usually more colour, and, on the whole, a more delicacy of complexion. The American is superior in general delicacy of outline, as well as in complexion; she has a better person, bust and shoulders excepted, and smaller hands and feet. Those who pretend to know much on this subject, and to make critical comparisons, say, that it is usual to see most truly beautiful women in England, and most pretty women in America. Real beauty is an exception every where, and it must be remembered how much easier it is to find exceptions in a crowded population, than in one scattered over a surface as large as a third of Europe. Of one thing I am certain; disagreeable features are less frequently met, among the native females of America, than among any other people I have visited. I must hesitate as to the points of beauty and prettiness, for, judging merely by what one would see in London and New York, I think there is truth in the distinction. The English women appear better in high dress, the Americans in demi-toilettes. One other distinction, and I shall quit the subject. I have remarked that faces here, which appear well in the distance, often fail in some necessary finesse or delicacy, when closer, and I should say, as a rule, that the American female, certainly the American girl, will bear the test of examination better than her European rival. I do not mean, by this, however, under a fierce sun, that direful enemy of soft eyes, for there is scarcely such a thing as a bright sun, or what we should call one, known in England.

It would pollute this page, were I to return to the horses. I may, however, say, for the subject is, to a degree, connected with the ladies, that sedan chairs appear to have finally disappeared from St. James’s street. Even in 1826, I saw a stand of them, that has since vanished. The chairs may still be used, on particular occasions, but were Cecilia now in existence, she would find it difficult to be set down in Mrs. Benfield’s entry, from a machine so lumbering. Thank God! men have ceased to be horses;—when will the metamorphosis be completed by their relinquishing the affinity to the other quadruped?

LETTER VIII.
TO EDWARD FLOYD DELANCEY, ESQ.

London justly boasts of her squares and parks. The former are both more numerous and more beautiful than are to be found in any other town; and, while Vienna has its Prater, Paris its Bois de Boulogne, and Berlin, Munich, Dresden, Brussels, and, indeed, nearly every capital of Europe, its particular garden, or place of resort, none of them offer the variety, range, and verdure, of the parks of this great town. As compared with their size, the smaller capitals of Germany perhaps possess this advantage in an equal degree with London: but the inhabitants of Leipsig, Dresden, or Munich, cannot enjoy the circuit and broad expanse of fields that are met with here. There are said to be eighty squares alone in this huge town, to say nothing of its parks.

You are too young to know much, even by report, of the London of the last century; but the squares, rendered nearly classical by the better novels of that period, are, I believe, with one solitary exception, already without the pale of fashion. I can remember Soho when it was still the residence of people of condition; but that and Leicester Square, with Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the largest area of the sort in London, are now all abandoned to business. St. James’s still maintains its character, owing, probably, to its position near the palace. Norfolk-house, the town-dwelling of the first peer of the realm, is in this square, as is also that of the Duke of St. Albans. In a country as aristocratical as this, in which there are but some twenty nobles of this high rank, the presence of a single duke will suffice to leaven the gentility of a neighbourhood. In this manner does Northumberland-house, standing on the confines of trade, serve as an outpost to protect the eastern flank of the beau quartier, extending its atmosphere a little beyond itself, in a sort of diluted fashion.

Norfolk-house,[6] on the street, (I have never entered it), shows a front of nine windows, I believe, differing but little in externals from one of our own dwellings, with the difference in length. There is one feature, however, in our architecture, that distinguishes it almost invariably from that of Europe. Here the details are on the same dimensions as the building. Thus a house of nine windows would not be exactly three times as long as one of three, but probably something longer. Houses of three or four windows in front, which are common enough in London, if intended for good abodes, are usually on a larger scale than our own: the fact that even a small building can get a noble aspect by fine details, being better understood here than with us. We multiply, but seldom enlarge rooms, though the size and proportions are indispensably necessary to effect.

Norfolk-house has neither court nor gate, and, of course, it can be entered only by crossing the side-walk, as with us; a circumstance that, of itself, does away with most of its air of grandeur. A private palace that is well known to me at Florence, has thirty-three windows in front, besides being built around a court!

I have been in but one house in St. James’s Square, which belongs to Lord Clanricarde, though now occupied by Lord Wellesley. It is a house of the size, style, and appearance of one of our own better sort of town residences, with the difference I have named; that of having rather nobler details. The practice of living on the first floor, enables the English to take into the better rooms the whole width of the building. This practice prevailed with us thirty years since, when our architecture, like our society, was less ambitious, but in better taste than it is to-day. There may be in London, possibly, a hundred dwellings that, in Paris, might be called hotels, and which are deemed, here, worthy to bear names. They belong principally to the higher nobility, for I fancy it would be deemed social treason for a commoner to erect such an abode. Among them are Northumberland, Devonshire, Norfolk, Apsley, Lansdowne, Marlborough, Westminster, Bridgewater, Spencer, and Burlington-houses, &c. &c. &c. Neither of these dwellings would be considered first-rate on the continent of Europe; especially in Italy; nor do I think either is as large as the President’s house; though the residence of the Duke of Northumberland may be an exception. The unfinished building intended for the Duke of York, and which, since his death, has been purchased by the Marquis of Stafford, promises to be one of the noblest dwellings of London, and is truly a palace.[7]

It strikes me there is a sort of arbitrary line run between the quarters of London, following the direction of Regent’s street. There are many squares on the eastern side of this thoroughfare, and some good streets, but rank and fashion appear to avoid them. When I was here in 1826, Mr. Canning facetiously asked, in parliament, if any one knew where Russell Square might be, and the question was thought to be derogatory to its standing. Still Russell, Bedford, Bloomsbury, and one or two more squares in that vicinity, are among the finest in London. They are chiefly occupied, I fancy, by people in the professions, or in trade. Cavendish, Hanover, St. James’s, Grosvenor, Portman, Berkeley, and Manchester, are the squares most affected by people of condition. I presume a parvenu, who should wish to get into one of these squares, would have to make his advances with caution; not that houses may not be bought, or built, but because opinion draws arbitrary distinctions, on all these matters, in England. This feeling is inherent in man, and we are far from being free from it. If a person of one of our own recognized but impoverished families were to become rich suddenly, no one would think it extraordinary that he set up his carriage and extended his mode of living; for, by a sort of general but silent consent, it would be admitted there was a fitness in it; while the entirely new man would be commented on and sneered at. Institutions are of no avail in such matters, opinion being stronger than law. Mankind insensibly defer to the things and persons to whom they are accustomed. There is some just and useful sentiment, mingled with a good deal of narrow prejudice, in this feeling, and it should be the aim of those who influence opinion, to distinguish between the two; neither running into a bigotted exclusion, nor indulging in those loose and impracticable theories, that only tend to impair the influence of those who are capable of refining and advancing the tone and tastes, and frequently the principles, of society, without finding a substitute.