Gleanings in Europe

by James Fenimore Cooper

Of the climate, I have not a word to say that is favourable. In America we have very cold and very hot weather; perhaps four months of the year are decidedly uncomfortable, from one or the other of these causes; though the cold being usually a dry, honest cold, may be guarded against, and be borne; and the cold, certainly with us, is commonly weather that is exhilarating and otherwise healthful. The remaining eight months are such as are not surpassed, and hardly equalled, in any part of Europe, that I have visited. I should divide our New York weather in some such manner as this. Between November and March, there may be found, in all, a month of uncomfortable cold; between March and May, another month of disagreeable weather; between May and October, five or six weeks of lassitude, or of heat, that one could wish were not so, and then, I think, our positively bad weather is fully disposed of. The remainder of the year, under the necessary variations of the seasons, may be termed good.

I question if England can boast of half as much tolerable weather. I am aware that it requires long residences, and habits of comparison, to speak understandingly of climates; and, perhaps, there is no point on which travellers are more apt to be influenced by their own feelings, than on this; but, judging as much by the accounts of those who ought to know, as by my own experience, I believe four months in the year would fully include all the weather, of this island, that a stranger would not find uncomfortably bad. I have been disappointed in the English spring. I do not say it is not better than ours of the northern states, for nothing, in its way, can be less genial than our spring; but, this at London, strikes me as much less pleasant than that we have passed at Paris, though even that was afflicted with what the French call “la lune rousse.”

There is much verdure, many beautiful flowers, and a fine foliage in the parks, it is true, but the days in which all these can be thoroughly enjoyed, are few indeed. This English weather strikes me as possessing the humidity of the sea-air, without its blandness. It is too often raw, penetrating to the heart and marrow, and leaving a consciousness of misery. The Neapolitan scirocco is scarcely more withering.[8] In Paris the season advances more steadily and gracefully, and there are three months of progressive, calm, and stealthily increasing delight, until one has enjoyed all the gradations of vegetation between the bud, the blossom, and the leaf. With us the transitions are too rapid; in England they are accompanied by weather that constantly causes one to dread a return to winter.

June is the month of all this part of Europe. The Parisians extol their autumn, but it will not compare with our own. As for this island, between the first of October and January, it ought not to be inhabited. Nature has blessed me with a constitutional gaiety and a buoyancy of spirits, that are not to be mastered by trifles, but I have walked in the streets of this town, in certain conditions of the weather, when it appeared that every one I met was ready to point his finger at me, in mockery. At this season, in which we are now here, the verdure, and the trees in the parks, constantly invite one to walk, and yet there is rarely a day in which it is not pleasanter to be on the sunny side of the street. Still I prefer the English spring to our own, until we reach May, when, I think, we get the advantage. Mr. McAdam, who resided seventeen years in America, says, that in New York he was often very cold, whereas in England, he is almost always chilled. The distinction is significant, as between the bad seasons of the two countries.

As the town stretches along the parks, and contains so many squares, it is possible to ride, or drive, two or three miles, from a residence to Westminster-hall, without touching the stones, and almost without losing sight of verdure. Any one can enter Hyde Park on horseback, or in a carriage; hackney-coaches, stage-coaches, and the common vehicles excepted. This is the place usual for taking an airing. It is hardly necessary to say that, at certain times, the world does not afford similar exhibitions of taste, beauty, and a studied, but regulated magnificence, of the sort. Still carriages and four strike me as being less frequent, now, than they were in my youth. I think the taste for displays of this nature is lessening in England; though, within the limits set by usage, I perceive no falling off in the equipages, but rather an improvement in form and lightness.

The road around Regent’s Park appears open to every thing; but into St. James’s, none but the privileged can enter except on foot. The Green Park is exclusively for pedestrians, being little more than a pretty and extensive play-ground for children. Kensington Gardens can be entered by all properly dressed pedestrians.

These parks are in the custody of the crown, and the privilege of entering St James’s, on horseback, or in a carriage, is much coveted. Like every thing else that is exclusive, men pine to possess it. I was told, the other day, that Lord ——, a nobleman, who in addition to his high rank, has filled many important offices in the ministry, cannot ride through this park, in going to or from the house, because he has had too much self-respect to solicit the favour; and they who, regulate the matter, are too selfish and too narrow-minded to accord it, unasked. But this is the history of favours all over the world, the mean and truckling always obtaining them, while they who depend solely on their services are overlooked, unless, indeed, their names and presence become necessary to those in power.

They have a story, here, that some man of mark, wishing to get this privilege was denied; the friend, through whom he had preferred the request, telling him “it was impossible to get permission for him to go through the park, but he could have him made an Irish peer, if he wished it.”[9]

Taking an airing, lately, with a friend, who is good authority in these matters, as indeed he is in others of a much higher character, he told me the following anecdote, pointing out, as we passed him, the hero of the story. A party was riding in Hyde Park, of whom all but one had the privilege of passing through St. James’s. The excluded offered to take twenty guineas that he got through the horse-guards (the place where the unprivileged are stopped), while none of the others should. With this understanding, he boldly entered the tabooed grounds, and rode with the rest, until he got within a certain distance of the gate of the horse-guards. Here he trotted ahead, and whispered the sentinel that neither of the gentlemen coming had a right to pass, but that they intended to attempt it, under false names, and he advised him to be on the alert. The soldier was mystified by this communication, and suffered the rogue to go through, while the others were stopped of course.

It is not easy to appreciate the effects that exclusion, in these trifling matters, produces on graver things. National character gets to be affected by such practices, which create a sort of a dog-in-the-manger propensity. Foreigners say, and I think not without reason, that the tone of English manners is injured by the system, for it renders the natives insensible to the claims of humanity, and especially to the obligations of hospitality. I have heard it said, that Mrs. ——, the wife of an American minister, was once excluded from a seat that was thought desirable, in a private assembly, by women of condition, who maintained that if she were privileged at court, she was not privileged there. The effect of all exclusiveness in deportment, that is not founded on taste, or sentiment, is to render people low-bred and vulgar; as the effect of all exclusiveness in institutions, which is purely factitious, is to depress the mass without elevating the superiors. I, myself, have seen English women of quality spread their petticoats on a seat, when —— and —— were approaching it, in order to prevent their obtaining places, and manifest an alarm that was quite superfluous, as both of those whom they wished to exclude were too much accustomed to good company, to think of bringing themselves unnecessarily in contact with people who betrayed so gross an ignorance of its primary laws.