A notion was for some time in vogue that this English distinction did not obtain in America, but that the race had degenerated here. It was a mere notion, having its origin in a prejudiced perversion of isolated facts; in the desire of book-writing travellers to find something strange, and also derogatory, with which to spice their pages; and in a craving, which amounts to a mild insanity, among European people, and particularly among all classes of the British nation, to lay hold of some distinctive "American" quality, whether physiological, literary, political, or other, and label it, and file it away, and pigeon-hole it for reference by way of differencing "Americans" from themselves.
The notion, I venture to say, was essentially absurd. That a race of men should materially change its physical traits in the course of two centuries, under whatever conditions of climate or other external influence, is inconsistent with all that we know upon that subject. The very pyramids protest against it by their pictured records. According to the history of mankind, as it is thus far known to us, such a change could not take place within such a period, unless to external influences of great modifying power there were added such an intermingling of races as has not yet taken place here more than in England itself, although plainly it is to come in future generations. Up to thirty years ago the intermarriage of Yankees—by which name, for lack of another, I designate people of English blood born in this country—with Irish and Germans was so rare as practically, in regard to this question, not to exist; and at that period there was not in England itself a more purely English people than that of New England.
This notion of English degeneracy in "America" has, however, been rapidly dying out in Europe, and even in England during the last ten or fifteen years. The change has been brought about partly by the events of our civil war; for the blindest prejudice saw that that war was not fought by a physically degenerate people; and partly by the increase of knowledge obtained, not from carping travellers writing books to please a carping public, but from personal observation. This I know, not by inference, but from Englishmen and others who have been here, and who have not written books. The belief, formerly prevalent, that "American" women had in their youth pretty doll faces, but at no period of life womanly beauty of figure, is passing away before a knowledge of the truth, and I have heard it scouted here by Englishmen, who, pointing to the charming evidence to the contrary before their eyes, have expressed surprise that the travelling book-writers, who had given them their previous notions on the subject, could have so misrepresented the truth. A colonel in the British army, who had been all over the world, and with whom I was in New England during the war, at a time when a large number of our volunteers were home on furlough, expressed constantly his surprise at the "fine men" he saw going about in uniform, the equals of whom he said that he had never seen as a whole in any army; although he did not hesitate to express his dislike of their uniform, or his disgust at the slouchy, slovenly way in which they carried themselves. I was ready to believe what he said; for I had then just seen the Coldstreams in Montreal; and I had before seen the Spanish regular troops in Cuba, who, even the regiment of the Queen, were so small that they looked to me like toy soldiers to be kept in a box; and a very bad box they soon got into. During my recent visit to England, after I had been in London a week or two, having previously visited other places, a London friend who had twice visited "the States," said to me, "Well, I suppose you've been looking at the people here and comparing them with those you've left at home?" "Yes, of course." "Do you find much difference in them really?" "No; very little; almost none." "You're right—quite right. There may be a little more fulness of figure and a little more ruddiness; but it's been greatly exaggerated—greatly." One reason for this exaggeration I learned from the remarks of two English friends to me in this country. Some years ago I took one, a gentleman who had travelled a good deal, and who held an important position in the Queen's household—and a very outspoken man he was—to a "private view," at which for a wonder there was not a miscellaneous throng, but just enough people to fill the rooms pleasantly. As we sat together after a tour, looking at the company, I asked him to tell me the difference between the people he saw there and those he would see on a like occasion at the Royal Academy. He sat looking around him in silence for so long a time that I thought he was going to pass my question unnoticed, when he said, "I can see no difference; none at all; except that there would not be quite so many pretty women there, and that there would be more stout old people." The other, a lady, who also did not hesitate in her criticisms, remarked that the chief difference in appearance between people of the same condition here and in England was that here she "didn't see any fat old men." She said nothing about fat old women; not, however, that she herself was either fat or old.
There is this difference among old people; although even this has been exaggerated; and it is this which gives a certain color of truth to the notion I have referred to. English men and women do not always grow stout and red-faced as they grow old; but after they have passed middle age more of them do tend to rubicundity and to protuberant rotundity of figure than people of the same age do in "America." The cause, I am quite sure, is simply—beer. Both the color and the rotundity come to a large proportion of the Americans who live in England and drink English beer, in English allowance; which, it need hardly be said, could not be the case if there had been any essential change in the type of the race. But among men under forty and women under thirty, the difference either in complexion or figure is almost inappreciable.
As to the women, there are at least as many in England who are spare and angular of figure as here, and of those who have not passed thirty I think rather more. The London "Spectator" said some years ago, in discussing the Banting diet, I believe, that "scragginess was more common in England among women than stoutness"; and it is remarkable that the French caricatures of Englishwomen always represent them as thin, bony, and sharp-featured. In this of course there is a little malice; but it shows the impression left upon the French people by their near neighbors. I cannot do better here than to offer my readers, in the following passage, a share in one of my letters written home; it has at least the advantage of recording on the spot impressions received by me after careful examination under the most favorable circumstances. I was writing about the beauty of the parks:
"It is amazing to see the great space of this little island that these English folk have reserved for air, and health, and beauty; and it is for all, the poorest and meanest as well as the richest and noblest; there are no privileged classes in this. As to the effect upon their health, I suppose it must be something, but it shows for very little. G—— the hats—round felt hats—of the whole seven without raising my chin. I remember that like Rosalind I am 'more than common tall,' but I never did anything like that at home. At the Horse Guards they put their finest men as sentinels, mounted, on each side of the gate. Well, they are fine fellows, and would be very uncomfortable chaps to meet, except in a friendly way; a detachment of them riding up St. James's street the other morning, with their cuirasses like mirrors, and the coats of their big black horses almost as bright, was a spectacle which it seemed to me could not be surpassed for its union of military splendor and the promise of bitter business in a fight; but Maine, or Vermont, or Connecticut, or Kentucky can turn out whole regiments of bigger and stronger men. Colonel M——, whom I met in Canada, said the same to me when he thought he was talking to an Englishman. I wonder that he ever forgave me the things he said to me during his brief self-deception; for they were true. But he was a good fellow and bore no malice. Nevertheless, you sometimes meet here a very fine man, or a big, blooming beauty, and in either case the impression is stronger and more memorable than in a like case it is apt to be with us; chiefly, I think, because of their dress and 'set up,' which in such cases—as in that of the Guards and Dragoons—is apt to be very pronounced."
I will add here, in passing, that this English "set up," particularly in the case of almost all Englishmen of any pretensions, is distinctive, and is in a great measure the cause of the impression of superior good looks and strength on their side. It appears in a marked degree in all military persons, rank and file as well as officers, and in the police force, the men of which are on the whole inferior in stature and bulk to ours—leaving the big Broadway squad, most of them Yankees, out of the question—and yet it is far superior in appearance to ours, owing to the "set up" of the men, and the way in which they carry themselves. I observed that although the upper classes contained a fair proportion, although no notable excess, of large and well-formed men and women, the burly men and the big-bodied, heavy-limbed women were generally of the lower and the lower middle class. This made me wonder where all the pretty housemaids and shop girls came from; for the prettiest faces, the most delicately blooming complexions, and the finest figures that I saw in England were among them. In a letter written from the Rose Inn at Canterbury, a cosy comfortable old hostlery, I find the following passage, which is to the purpose:
"I ate my bacon and eggs this morning in the coffee room, where at another table were three queer Englishwomen, yet nice looking—apparently a mother and two daughters. The elder daughter was, I will not say a lathy girl, but very slim not only in the waist, but above and below it. The mother and the younger were plump and rosy, absurdly alike, and with that cocked-up nose which is one of the very few distinctive peculiarities of figure that you see here, but even this very rarely; and their black hair was curled in tight curls all over their heads. I was struck by this, because curling hair is comparatively rare here, and I had expected to find it common. It was cut just like a man's, and plainly so because it would have been impossible to dress it if it were allowed to grow long in woman fashion. They were very jolly and pleasant, chaffing each other in low, soft voices, and breaking out in rich, sweet laughter. They looked just like boys masquerading in women's clothes; for the eldest was quite young looking and may have been an elder sister. The youngest, who was some seventeen or eighteen years old, looked very fair and blooming across the room, but when I came close to her, which I had an opportunity of doing, I found that her color, both white and red, was coarse, which is very often the case here when there is color. In the mother, or eldest sister, this coarseness was apparent even at a distance. But see, Lady —— and her daughters, although pretty and elegant, had no tinge of color in their cheeks, and they were all as thin as rails, and the girls' hair, as well as their mother's, was as straight as fiddle strings. I came here expecting to see golden curls in plentiful crops, or at least not uncommonly. But it seems to me that I haven't seen a dozen curly-haired children since I have been in the country; and I have seen them—the children—by tens of thousands, and examined them closely, making memorandums of my observation. Nor have the ladies of this family (I am now at ——), Lady —— and Mrs. ——, any more bloom than this paper, and they are both as thin as Lady —— and her daughters; Mrs. —— painfully so. The men, belonging of course to another family, are stout, well-built fellows enough, but the two other guests are as lean as greyhounds. I went to a little dinner party the other evening, and the carriage sent to the station for me (for they think nothing here of asking you fifteen or twenty miles to dinner even when you are not expected to stay over night) took also a Major General Sir —— ——. I was told that he would join me, and I expected to see a portly, ruddy man of inches, with sweeping whiskers and moustache. I found a short, slender, meek-looking, pale-faced man; but his bearing was very military; he was a charming companion and the pink of courtesy. We entered the drawing-room together of course; but notwithstanding his rank, he waved me in before him, and my plain Mistership was announced before his titles. I have seen no men here at all equal in face or figure to General Hooker, General Hancock, General Augur, or General Terry, to say nothing of General Scott, who was something out of the common even with us. And Burnside, and McDowell, and Grant, and McClellan are all stouter men than you are apt to find here. The biggest men that I have seen were from the north, Yorkshire and Northumberland. Those of the south, particularly in Kent, are the shortest; although, as a Kent man said to me, they are generally 'stocky.'"[3 ]
A New England man now living in England, who made his house very delightful to me, first by the presence of himself and his family, and next by the kindest and most considerate hospitality, is an ever present rebuke of the stoutest sort to the British notion of the physical degeneracy of the English race in "America." He, a Yankee of the old Puritan emigration, is five feet ten and a half inches high, is forty-eight inches, four good feet, in girth around the chest, weighs two hundred pounds, and yet has not the least appearance of portliness, rather the contrary. He is the only man I ever met whose friendly grip was rather more than I liked to bear. I spoke to his wife about his strength and his figure, and she told me that when he went to get his life insured here the surgeons said that they very rarely saw such a powerful, finely formed, and perfectly healthy man as he is, and never any finer or healthier. That would be impossible. And as he is so was his father. Were they exceptions? Only of a sort that constantly occur among real Yankees—"Americans" whose families have been in the country for generations, and who are the only proper examples of the influence of the climate and the social conditions of the country.
I have, perhaps, said too much upon this subject of the comparative physical condition of the race in the two countries; but I have been led to do so because of the very great inconsistency I found between the facts and the common notion as to stout Englishmen and lean "Americans," blooming, buxom Englishwomen and pale, slender "American" women—a notion which one writer has repeated, parrot-like, after the other, until even we ourselves have accepted it without question. Like many other notions which no one disputes, it is false. But the world has gone on accepting it and assuming it to be true until it has so taken possession of the general mind that if in a room full of English people only one man were found ruddy and burly, and only one woman blooming and well rounded (and this or something very like it I have seen more than once), they would be picked out and spoken of as English-looking, to the disregard of all the others. The exceptions would be taken as examples of the rule; and this even by the English themselves, so swayed are we by tradition and authority, even in such an everyday matter. Nay, even I myself, skeptical and carping, was thus misled. The steamer, going out, was filled chiefly with English people. Two of my fellow passengers I selected in my mind as notably and typically English, not only in person, but in bearing. They proved to be, one a Massachusetts Yankee and the other a Western man; but both had from association contracted English habits of dress and of manner. Two Englishwomen, however, attracted my particular attention. One was, I think, the very largest human female I ever saw outside of a caravan. She was a fearful manifestation of the enormous development of solid flesh which the British fair sometimes attain. As she stood by her husband she was the taller from the ear upward. She weighed about twenty stone. I think that a plumb line dropped from the front of her corsage would have reached the deck without touching her skirts. Her tread was hippopotamic. And yet she showed traces of beauty, and not improbably had been a fine fair girl; and even at the present time she managed to effect a very palpable waist. I mused wonderingly upon the process by which she did this; but still more upon that sad gradual enormification by which she passed from a tall blooming beauty into her present tremendous proportions. The other was exactly the reverse. She could hardly be called ill looking in the face, but her pale, blank, unfeatured countenance reminded one instantly of a sheep. She was a washed-out, and although young, a faded creature, with no more shoulders or hips than my forefinger. And yet she was a perfect English type, and so like some of John Leech's women that I could not look at her without internal laughter. Her husband—for even such women by some mysterious process known to themselves will get husbands—was like unto her in face, in feature, and in expression; and yet he was so strikingly, so aggressively British in look and in manner that I heard some Yankees on board say that they would like to kick him. And I somewhat shared their prejudice; of which before we landed I learned to be ashamed; for I found him a very intelligent, well-informed, pleasant man, reserved in his manners, and although firm in his opinions, which were strongly British, very respectful of other men's, and very careful of giving offence. His union of firmness and courtesy seemed to me worthy of admiration; and if he did wish to kick any of the Yankees on board, for which in one or two cases I could have forgiven him, I am sure that he never let the desire manifest itself in their presence.