The writer does not expect much favor for the political opinions that occasionally appear in these letters. He has the misfortune to belong to neither of the two great parties that divide the country, and which, though so bitterly hostile and distrustful of each other, will admit of no neutrality. It is a menacing symptom that there is a disposition to seek for a base motive, whenever a citizen may not choose to plunge into the extremes that characterize the movements of political factions. This besetting vice is accompanied by another feeling, that is so singularly opposed to that which every body is ready to affirm is the governing principle of the institutions, that it may do no harm slightly to advert to it. Any one who may choose to set up a semi-official organ of public opinion, called a newspaper, however illiterate, base, flagrantly corrupt, and absolutely destitute of the confidence and respect of every man in the community, may daily pour out upon the public his falsehoods, his contradictions, his ignorance, and his corruption, treating the national interests as familiarly as "household terms," and all because he is acting in an admitted vocation; the public servant, commissioned to execute the public will, may even turn upon his masters, and tell them not only in what light they are to view him and his conduct, but in what light they are also to view the conduct of his associates in trust; in short, tell them how to make up their judgments on himself and others; and all because he is a public servant, and the public is his master: but the private citizen, who merely forms a part of that public, is denounced for his presumption, should he dare to speak of matters of general concernment, except under such high sanction, or as the organ of party.
It may be well to say at once, that this peculiar feeling has not been permitted to influence the tone of these letters, which have been written, in all respects, as if the republic did not contain one of those privileged persons, honored as "patriots" and "godlikes," but as if both classes were as actually unknown to the country as they are certainly unknown to the spirit and letter of its institutions.
The spirit of these observations seems to be carried out (we cannot say with what degree of justice,) in many other portions of the book. On page 71, vol. i, we observe what follows.
Among other books, I have laid my hands, by accident, on the work of a recent French traveller in the United States. We read little other than English books at home, and are much given to declaiming against English travellers for their unfairness; but, judging from this specimen of Gallic opinion, our ancient allies rate us quite as low as our quondam fellow subjects. A perusal of the work in question has led me to inquire further into the matter, and I am now studying one or two German writers on the same interesting subject. I must say that thus far, I find little to feed national vanity, and I begin to fear (what I have suspected ever since the first six months in Europe) that we are under an awkward delusion respecting the manner in which the rest of Christendom regards that civilization touching which we are so sensitive. It is some time since I have made the discovery, that 'the name of an American is not a passport all over Europe,' but on the other hand, that where it conveys any very distinct notions at all, it usually conveys such as are any thing but flattering or agreeable.... I shall pursue the trail on which I have fallen, and you will probably hear more of this, before these letters are brought to a close.
At page 113 of the same volume we have something of the same nature, and which we confess astonished us in no little degree.
We have just had a visit from two old acquaintances—Manhattanese. They tell me a good many of our people are wandering among the mountains, though they are the first we have seen. There is a list of arrivals published daily in Berne; and in one of them I found the name of Captain C——, of the Navy; and that of Mr. O., an old and intimate friend, whom it was vexatious to miss in a strange land. Mr. and Mrs. G——, of New York, are also somewhere in the cantons. Our numbers increase, and with them our abuse; for it is not an uncommon thing to see, written in English in the travellers' books kept by law at all the inns, pasquinades on America, opposite the American names. What a state of feeling it betrays, when a traveller cannot write his name, in compliance with a law of the country in which he happens to be, without calling down upon himself anathemas of this kind! I have a register of twenty-three of these gratuitous injuries. What renders them less excusable, is the fact, that they who are guilty of the impropriety would probably think twice before they performed the act in the presence of the party wronged. These intended insults are, consequently, so many registers of their own meanness. Let the truth be said; I have never seen one, unless in the case of an American, or one that was not written in English! Straws show which way the wind blows. This disposition, in our kinsmen, to deride and abuse America, is observed and freely commented on by the people of the continent, who are far from holding us themselves in the highest respect.
And again, on page 327, vol. ii.
I have made this comparison as the last means I know of to arouse you from your American complacency on the subject of the adjectives grand, majestic, elegant and splendid, in connection with our architecture. The latter word, in particular, is coming to be used like a household term; while there is not, probably, a single work of art, from Georgia to Maine, to which it can with propriety be applied. I do not know a single edifice in the Union that can be considered more than third rate by its size and ornaments, nor more than one or two that ought to be ranked even so high. When it comes to capitals, and the use of the adjectives I have just quoted, it may be well to remember, that there is no city in the Republic that has not decidedly the air and the habits of a provincial town, and this too, usually without possessing the works of art that are quite commonly found in this hemisphere, even in places of that rank, or a single public building to which the term magnificent can with any fitness be adjudged.
We can only say, that if the suppressed portions of Mr. Cooper's intended publication embraced any thing more likely than these assertions and opinions to prove unacceptable to American readers at large, it is perhaps better, both for his own reputation, and for the interest of his publishers, that he finally decided upon the suppression. Yet Mr. Cooper may be right, and not having the fear of punishment sufficiently before our eyes, we, for ourselves, frankly confess that we believe him to be right. The passages which remain of a similar nature to those we have quoted, will only serve we hope, to give additional piquancy to these admirable Sketches. As a work affording extensive and valuable information on the subject of Switzerland, we have seen nothing in any shape, at all equal to the volumes before us.