Mr. Slick’s character, like that of many of his countrymen, is not so easily understood as a person might suppose. We err more often than we are aware of, when we judge of others by ourselves. English tourists have all fallen into this mistake, in their, estimate of the Americans. They judge them by their own standard; they attribute effects to wrong causes, forgetting that a different tone of feeling, produced by a different social and political state from their own, must naturally produce dissimilar results.
Any person reading the last sketch containing the account, given by Mr. Slick of the House of Commons, his opinion of his own abilities as a speaker, and his aspiration after a seat in that body, for the purpose of “skinning,” as he calls it, impertinent or stupid members, could not avoid coming to the conclusion that he was a conceited block-head; and that if his countrymen talked in that absurd manner, they must be the weakest, and most vain-glorious people in the world.
That he is a vain man, cannot be denied—self-taught men are apt to be so every where; but those who understand the New England humour, will at once perceive, that he has spoken in his own name merely as a personification, and that the whole passage means after all, when transposed into that phraseology which an Englishman would use, very little more than this, that the House of Commons presented a noble field for a man of abilities as a public speaker; but that in fact, it contained very few such persons. We must not judge of words or phrases, when used by foreigners, by the sense we attribute to them, but endeavour to understand the meaning they attach to them themselves.
In Mexico, if you admire any thing, the proprietor immediately says, “Pray do me the honour to consider it yours, I shall be most happy, if you will permit me, to place it upon you, (if it be an ornament), or to send it to your hotel,” if it be of a different description. All this means in English, a present; in Mexican Spanish, a civil speech, purporting that the owner is gratified, that it meets the approbation of his visiter. A Frenchman, who heard this grandiloquent reply to his praises of a horse, astonished his friend, by thanking him in terms equally amplified, accepting it, and riding it home.
Mr. Slick would be no less amazed, if understood literally. He has used a peculiar style; here again, a stranger would be in error, in supposing the phraseology common to all Americans. It is peculiar only to a certain class of persons in a certain state of life, and in a particular section of the States. Of this class, Mr. Slick is a specimen. I do not mean to say he is not a vain man, but merely that a portion only of that, which appears so to us, is vanity, and that the rest and by far the greater portion too, is local or provincial peculiarity.
This explanation is due to the Americans, who have been grossly misrepresented, and to the English, who have been egregiously deceived, by persons attempting to delineate character, who were utterly incapable of perceiving those minute lights and shades, without which, a portrait becomes a contemptible daub, or at most a mere caricature.
“A droll scene that at the house o’ representatives last night,” said Mr. Slick when we next met, “warn’t it? A sort o’ rookery, like that at the Shropshire Squire’s, where I spent the juicy day. What a darned cau-cau-cawin’ they keep, don’t they? These members are jist like the rooks, too, fond of old houses, old woods, old trees, and old harnts. And they are jist as proud, too, as they be. Cuss ‘em, they won’t visit a new man, or new plantation. They are too aristocratic for that. They have a circle of their own. Like the rooks, too, they are privileged to scour over the farmers’ fields all round home, and play the very devil.
“And then a fellow can’t hear himself speak for ‘em; divide, divide, divide, question, question, question; cau, cau, cau, cau, cau, cau. Oh! we must go there again. I want you to see Peel, Stanley, Graham, Shiel, Russell, Macauley, Old Joe, and so on. These men are all upper crust here. Fust of all, I want to hear your opinion of ‘em. I take you to be a considerable of a good judge in these matters.”
“No Bunkum, Mr. Slick.”
“D—— that word Bunkum! If you say that ‘ere agin, I won’t say another syllable, so come now. Don’t I know who you are? You know every mite, and morsel as well as I do, that you be a considerable of a judge of these critters, though you are nothin’ but an outlandish colonist; and are an everlastin’ sight better judge, too, if you come to that, than them that judge you. Cuss ‘em, the state would be a nation sight better sarved, if one o’ these old rooks was sent out to try trover for a goose, and larceny for an old hat, to Nova Scotia, and you was sent for to take the ribbons o’ the state coach here; hang me if it wouldn’t. You know that, and feel your oats, too, as well as any one. So don’t be so infarnal mealy-mouthed, with your mock modesty face, a turnin’ up of the whites of your eyes as if you was a chokin’, and savin’ ‘No Bun-kum, Mr. Slick.’ Cuss that word Bunkum! I am sorry I ever told you that are story, you will be for everlastinly a throwin’ up of that are, to me now.