574 361 Popular Instruction and Social Manners in England and Scotland in 1862, Reason for Beauty, A. By THOMAS HOOD University Degrees, The Influence of, on the Education of Women Victoria Regina "Vie de Jesus," M. Renan's. By R. H. HUTTON War, A Retrospect of the. By EDWARD DICEY 481 289 90 148 282 Yet, widowed Monarch, left alone, Victoria! Though none there be to share thy throne, Victoria! Royal Mother! happy in thy Son,- Whose life of promise, well begun Victoria ! Bid the last cloud of mourning flee, Victoria ! The world expectant turns to thee: Thy name itself is Victory; And thou wilt conquer worthily, Victoria! SOCIAL LIFE IN THE UNITED STATES. BY EDWARD DICEY. THE French proverb about the premier pas is eminently applicable to American society. Given the first step, the others follow very readily. But then, I am by no means sure, that the first step is a very easy one. In my own case that step had been taken for me. Thanks to the kindness of my friends, I had been so richly provided with letters of introduction, that during my visit to the United States, I was franked, as it were, from town to town, and house to house. Had I not been thus fortunate, I much doubt whether I, as a stranger, should have found access to American society very readily. I have met with many Englishmen, sociable and presentable enough, who have travelled through the United States, without seeming to have formed any acquaintances in the country. I attribute this not to our insular shyness, but to the difficulties of getting the first footing, which an unknown Englishman meets with in America. Judging from my own experience in the few towns where I happened to be unprovided with introductions, a stranger in the North is left very much to his own resources. Before I set out on my trans-Atlantic travels, I had an impression, prevalent in England since the days of Martin Chuzzlewit, that everybody I met in the States would begin to catechize me about my plans, tastes, antecedents, and opinions; and that my difficulty would consist in avoiding chance acquaintances, not in forming them. I had not been long there, before I found out my mistake. The opportunities a stranger has of picking up acquaintances are not very numerous. I am not speaking, of course, of residents, but of travellers, who are only stopping a few weeks at the utmost in any one spot. When travelling by railway in Europe, you are necessarily thrown a good deal into contact with your fellow passengers. Even in England, you can hardly take a long railway journey without forming a speaking acquaintance with some occupant of the small compartment, of which very likely, you and he or she, as the case may be-are the only tenants. In America you take your seat in a long car holding some sixty people. Any word that you say to your next neighbour can be overheard by a score of bystanders; and this of itself throws rather a damper on the first hesitating efforts that you make towards acquaintance. Somehow or other, there is no great amount of general conversation amongst the passengers. Even parties travelling in company seem to me to talk but little. No doubt, the working people that you meet are ready to talk, and are for a time pleasant companions enough, but the inmates of the more aristocratic ladies' car, where the cushions are softer, and the floors cleaner than in the other carriages, are not, as a rule, sociable fellowtravellers. Moreover, if the cars are full-and they almost always are full-a single gentleman, not escorting ladies, is not admitted by the conductor into the select car, and an American conductor is not a Cerberus you can pacify, like an English guard, by the sop of a shilling. So, after a short time, I gave up the idea of intruding into society, of which a bachelor was not thought worthy, and took my seat chiefly in the smoking cars, where the company was more talkative though less select. Then the Hotels are a disappointment to a traveller in search of acquaintance. They are so large that you hardly come across your neighbours. It is true, that if you are wise enough to know that the manager is a gentleman, and expects to be treated as an equal, you will find him an intelligent and agreeable acquaintance, and always ready to assist a stranger in any way you can suggest. So in like manner, you may frequent the bar-room; and you might find many worse companions for half an hour's chat, than the bar-keeper; always provided, you do not assume the "my good fellow" tone, habitual to Englishmen when they want to be affable to their inferiors. But still, neither manager nor bar-keeper will bring you into acquaintance with the lodgers in the hotel. Meal-time, too, affords little opening for conversation. You breakfast, lunch, dine, and sup, in the public room, and each meal is on the table for a couple of hours, and people drop in as they like, so that there is no regular eating hour; everybody feeds, so to speak, upon their own hook; and anything like general conversation, such as you meet with at a foreign table d'hote, is almost unknown. Unless therefore, by some chance or other, you meet with an acquaintance, travelling in America is solitary work, and a stranger finds it hard to get any amusement save that which his own resources provide him with. Except in one or two of the chief towns, the theatres are as poor as our own provincial ones. There are no public reading rooms, concerts are very rare, and anybody, whose taste does not find gratification in billiard rooms and music halls, will find that the pursuit of outdoor amusement in America is attended with about as much difficulty as it would be in an English country town. From all these causes, I am not surprised to find, that many Englishmen have a somewhat dreary recollection of their travels in the United States, and look back upon them much as a Frenchman does on a visit to our own country. not a lively day, but it is a day of rejoicing compared to one in New An English Sunday is York or Philadelphia. If, however, you possess the " open sesame,” America is a wonderfully pleasant country, as far as society goes. So, at least, I found it. Anybody who has seen much of foreigners must, I think, feel that there is a limit to the degree of intimacy you can get to with them. The first approach is very pleasant, but somehow you get before long to the end of your conversational tether. Sooner or later you reach the point where you cease to understand each other. Your thoughts are not their thoughts, your standard of taste, and morals, and sentiments, differs from theirs. I am not saying whether it is higher or lower, I only say that it is fundamentally different. number of foreigners of different nations in my life, and pretty closely, I have known a good but with only one or two exceptions, I could never feel really intimate with any of them. Of course the difference of language has a good deal to do with this, but I do not think it is the sole or the principal cause. Now with Americans, this feeling of mutual divergence does not exist. Their conversation and tone of mind and sentiments are novel, like those of other foreigners, but they are of a kindred character to one's The species may vary, but the genus is the same. your American friends have so much in common with you, they care for And then the same things, they have so many of the same interests, they share so largely in the same prejudices. The difference between you and them is just sufficient to give a freshness to your intercourse and not sufficient to create a barrier. Moreover, the indifferentism-to use a bad word for want of a better-which is the bane of English educated conversation, has not yet become fashionable in America. Across the Atlantic, people profess interest in wider subjects, and talk of more important own. |