This was said as they were observing the beauties of lakes Garda and Como. From thence they bent their pinions for Vienna. They circled it to view the fields made memorable by Sobieski and Napoleon. They enter it; and a cold and silvery twilight seemed to prevail as if its most consummate imperialism and refinement preferred the blinded and curtained salons of governmental and social civilization. In such palatial halls were its Court; and there the finesse of closet and boudoir intrigue had attained to its most exquisite development in this epoch. And the decorated white cloth coats of its costume delighted the eyes, but were significant of hypocrisy to the brain, of the American. Winged as he was, and probably because of it, he found temptations addressed to both his head and heart. It was there thought that even angels could be corrupted “on earth as in heaven.”
They seek the purer air of Switzerland and the Alps. They “did” Mont Blanc and the Simplon, slid upon an avalanche, looked upon Geneva and its lake, and thought of Tell, the Cantons, and Calvin. They next seat themselves in human style on the deck of a steamer, and make the trip of the ever disputable and picturesque Rhine. They dash off on wing to Brussels, and imagining they hear the “sounds of revelry by night” and “the cannon’s opening roar,” they ponder on Waterloo.
American.—“Now for the dear old cliffs of Albion. Oh, Great Britain and Ireland, land of my fathers, let me see thee!” Stretching their wings in full sympathy and in joyous flight across the Channel, they scan with loving and careful eye England, Scotland and Ireland. They take in their all and every part and place; and terminate their British tour in London. Everything indicated genuine maturity and stability. Both the material and spiritual developments proclaim solid sense and judicious cultivation. It is the only country in which the Past and Present seem to blend and harmonize.
There is a Royal levee at St. James palace, and there all appear royal. The British nobility and gentry! what a superb body of men and women! What glorious types of the mental and physical—what exemplars of education and refinement, character and tone! It is in Great Britain that industry, honesty and intellect have acquired gold; and gold has not debased but elevated humanity—has not disintegrated but cemented the social elements.
They were graciously received by Majesty; and they congratulated the Queen, not as sovereign, but as the royal representative of such a nation. Her peers, with calm satisfaction and cordial dignity, exclaimed, “That the just appreciation of the British people by native white Americans, involved the highest compliment to both.”
The Lord Mayor took them in charge, visited with them the notable places and buildings of London, and à l’Anglaise, entertained them at a banquet. On the occasion the Premier, who was a guest, remarked in his speech: “Great Britain, at last, although a monarchy in name and form, is a republic in fact. Its government combines the more of the advantages and the less of the disadvantages of the one-man power and of the many-power, than that of any other nation does. Hence it is, that the rights of the citizen equal those of even America, and are more practically protected and left in undisturbed satisfaction, politically and socially, than in any country in the world. There is more nominal but less real personal liberty in the United States than in England. Yet in these regards it is the just and proud boast and boon of these two nations, that their peoples alone can be called free.”
American.—“Is it because popular opinion in America is a tyrant toward each individual, that Great Britain has the advantage in practical, if not theoretical liberty?”
Immortal.—“Yes. Settled law and not fluctuating opinion should govern and protect.”
The good-byes are genial. While crossing the Straits of Dover for the Continent, the Immortal said with emphasis:
“The Anglo-Saxons everywhere furnish the best wives and mothers of your globe.”