Gleanings in Europe

by James Fenimore Cooper

The offices of the London residences are much more extensive than with us, for, besides occupying a substratum of the house itself, they quite often extend into the yard, where they are covered with a large skylight. I am inclined to think the lodging rooms, generally, not as good as ours. The English get along with moderately-sized town-houses, all the better perhaps from their habits, for the young men quit the paternal roof early, it being usual to put them on allowances, and to let them go at large.

I have heard extraordinary things concerning the distance that is maintained between friends in England, and the ménagement that is necessary in conducting intercourse even between the members of the same family. One who ought to know from his official position, a foreigner in charge of a diplomatic mission, has assured me a son cannot presume to go unceremoniously and dine with a father, but that invitations are always necessary, and that the forms of society are rigidly observed between the nearest connexions. There is a secondary and an imitative class, (in England it is very numerous) of whom I can believe any absurdity of this nature, for they caricature usages, breeding, forms, and even principles. These are the people who talk about eating cheese, and drinking beer and port, and lay stress on things insignificant in themselves, as if manners, and taste, and elegance were not far more violated in their fussy pretensions, than they would be in emptying one of Barclay’s big butts. In other words, this is the silver-fork school, of whom one has heard a good deal in America, the gentry who come among us, in common, having little other claims to a knowledge of the world than that they have thus obtained at second hand, as the traditions of fashion, or perhaps in the pages of a novel.

I do not say that among the crowd of genteel vulgar that throng the capital of a great empire like this, a pretty numerous array of silly pretenders of this description may not be made, but it will not do to receive these people as the head of society, or, indeed, as a very material portion of it. As a rule, I certainly think mere drill passes for more in London than in most other capitals. This arises, in part, from the manner in which the whole nation is drilled, each in his station, from the valet to the master; but, in a social sense, chiefly, I think, because the same arbitrary distinctions do not prevail in England as elsewhere in Europe, nobility being, in most other countries, an indispensable requisite for admission into the great world. Certainly, as between Paris and London, the advantage in this particular is in favour of the former, where good sense, at all times, appears to regulate good breeding; but, notwithstanding, I am far from attributing to the English all the follies of this nature that it is the fashion to impute to them.

Nothing can have been more simple and unaffected than the intercourse between father and son, that I have witnessed here. It would be improper for a son, having a separate establishment, to come at unseasonable hours to the house of any father, who is in the habit of receiving much, for it might occasion an awkward inconvenience; and if one is bound to treat ordinary friends with this respect, still more so is he bound to manifest the same deference to his own parents.

I have been amused in tracing the many points of resemblance that are to be found between our own manners and those of the English. I should say the off-hand and familiar way in which the seniors of a family address the juniors, is one. Dining the other day with Lord S——, who has filled high ministerial appointments, when the ladies had retired, he said to his eldest son, a man older than I am, and a leading member of parliament, “Jack, ring the bell.”[10] I will not say that this is precisely American simplicity, but it is the way your father and mine would have been very apt to speak, under the same circumstances, and I think it is a manner which belongs to all that portion of our people who really come of the Middle States.

Seated at a table like Lord Grey’s, with the company I met there, I have been led to look around me, in quest of the points of difference, by which I could have known that I was not at home. Putting the conversation aside, for that necessarily was English as ours would have been American, it would not have been easy to point out any very broad distinctions. The dining-room was very much like one of our own, in a good house. There was a side-board which stood in a recess, with columns near it. The furniture was a little plainer than it might be with us, for an eating-room in Europe is seldom used for any other purpose. The form and arrangements of the table were very like, with a slight difference in the width of the table itself, ours, in the narrow cramped houses it is now so much the fashion to build, usually wanting width. We dined off of plate, a thing so rarely done in America as to form a substantial difference. The footmen were powdered and in showy liveries, and the butler was in black. The latter might still be seen at home, but three or four footmen in livery, in the same house, I have never witnessed but once. But remove the cloth, and send the servants away, and I think any one might have been deceived. As the party around this table was composed of men of high rank, and still higher personal consideration, it would be unfair to compare them with the wine-discussing, trade-talking, dollar-dollar, set that has made an inroad upon society in our commercial towns, not half of whom are educated, or indeed Americans; but I speak of a class vastly superior, which you know, and which, innovated on as it is by the social Vandals of the times, still clings to its habits and retains much of its ancient simplicity and respectability. Between these men, and those I have met at the table of Lord Grey, and at one or two other houses, here, I confess I have been almost at a loss to detect any other points of difference, than those which belong to personal individuality.

In the phrases, the intonation of the voice, the use and pronunciation of the words, it was not easy to detect any points of difference, although I have watched attentively, for a whole evening. The manner of speaking is identically the same as our own, (I speak now of the gentlemen of the Middle States) direct, simple and abbreviated. There is none of the pedantry of “I can not,” for “I can’t,” “I do not,” for “I don’t,” and all those school-boy and boarding-school affectations, by which a parade is made of one’s orthography. These are precisely our own good old New York forms of speech, and, knowing the associations and extraction of those who formed the school, I have always suspected it was the best in the country. I do not mean, however, to exclude from it the same classes in all the other Middle States, and that portion of those in the Southern who live much in the towns. Communion with the world is absolutely necessary to prevent prig-ism, for one insensibly inclines to books in a solitude, getting to be critical and fastidious about things that are better decided by usage than by reason.

The simple and quiet manner of addressing each other that prevails here, helps to complete the resemblance. The term “my Lord,” is scarcely ever uttered. I do not think that I have heard it used by gentlemen, six times since I have been in London, though the servants and all of the inferior classes never neglect it. I should say the term “my lady,” is absolutely proscribed in society. I have heard it but three times, since I have been in Europe, although one scarcely sees less of the titled English in Paris, than in London. These three cases are worth remembering, since they mark three different degrees of manners. It was used, or rather the phrase “your ladyship” was used by Sir —— ——, a physician, who evidently wanted the tone of one accustomed to associate with equals. It was used by Mrs. ——, an American (we are a little apt to be ultra in such things) at Paris, and I saw a daughter of “my lady” turn her head to conceal a smile. Thirdly, and lastly, it was used by Sir —— ——, a dashing young baronet, to Lady —— ——, in a sort of playful emphasis, as we should dwell on official appellations, in grave and sounding pleasantry.

Of course, there is more or less of fashion in all this; nor should I be surprised, ten years hence, to find it indispensable to breeding, to be punctilious the other way; so much depends on the mode of doing these things, that any custom of this nature can be brought into vogue, or be condemned. Still, there is so much inherent good taste in simplicity, that, I think, no very laboured exhibitions of the sort, can ever long maintain themselves.

One seldom repeats the terms “your Majesty,” and “Royal Highness,” in ordinary conversations with sovereigns and princes, any more than one is always saying “your Excellency” and “your Honour” in talking with the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts; the only two functionaries in America, I believe, who have legal styles of address. In France it is usual to say “sire,” “oui sire,” and “non sire;” but, here, I am told, for I never have had any personal communication with an English prince, it is the practice to say, “sir.” The English have rather an affectation of saying that “one uses ‘sir,’ only to the king and to servants.” This word is much less used by the English than with us, as it is much less used by people of the world in America, than by those who, either from living retired, or from not having access to society, are not people of the world. It is, however, a good word, and can be thrown in, occasionally, into American conversation with singular grace and point, though, like other good things it may be overdone. The coxcomb who refrains altogether from using it, with us, in deference to the cockney pandects of the Brummel school, shows neither “blood nor bottom.”