Am on my way to Albany, just outside “the neighborhood of Chicago.” I lecture in that place to-night, and shall get to New York to-morrow.
I am suffering from the monotony of life. My greatest objection to America (indeed I do not believe I have any other) is the sameness of everything. I understand the Americans who run away to Europe every year to see an old church, a wall covered with moss and ivy, some good old-fashioned peasantry not dressed like the rest of the world.
| “THE SAME ‘INDIAN.’” |
What strikes a European most, in his rambles through America, is the absence of the picturesque. The country is monotonous, and eternally the same. Burned-up fields, stumps of trees, forests, wooden houses all built on the same pattern. All the stations you pass are alike. All the towns are alike. To say that an American town is ten times larger than another simply means that it has ten times more blocks of houses. All the streets are alike, with the same telegraph poles, the same “Indian” as a sign for tobacconists, the same red, white, and blue pole as a sign for barbers. All the hotels are the same, all the menus are the same, all the plates and dishes the same—why, all the ink-stands are the same. All the people are dressed in the same way. When you meet an American with all his beard, you want to shake his hands and thank him for not shaving it, as ninety-nine out of every hundred Americans do. Of course I have not seen California, the Rocky Mountains, and many other parts of America where the scenery is very beautiful; but I think my remarks can apply to those States most likely to be visited by a lecturer, that is, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and others, during the winter months, after the Indian summer, and before the renewal of verdure in May.
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After breakfast, that indefatigable man of business, that intolerable bore, who incessantly bangs the doors and brings his stock-in-trade to the cars, came and whispered in my ears:
“New book—just out—a forbidden book!”
“A forbidden book! What is that?” I inquired.
He showed it to me. It was “Manon Lescaut.”