America, the land of contrasts; a Briton's view of his American kin;

IRLF

D-THf-VAN-KERCKHOFF

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID

The Land of Contrasts

Note from "The Springfield Republican"

THE NEW BOOK ABOUT AMERICA

In a cable dispatch last Wednesday, it was
stated that Prince Henry of Prussia, in
preparation for his visit to this country, was
reading James Bryce's "The American Com
monwealth," and a book called "The Land
of Contrasts." Mr. Andrew White, United
States Ambassador in Berlin, the distin
guished author of " The Warfare of Science
with Theology in Christendom," etc., must
have been the prince's literary adviser, for
the second book is a worthy companion to
Mr. Bryce's celebrated work. It is written
by James F. Muirhead, and the sub-title is
"A Briton's View of his American Kin."
It is a survey of social, religious, moral,
political, and economic conditions, and prac
tically deals with each state. Mr. Muirhead
is the general editor of Baedeker's guides ;
and his wife is a sister of Josiah Quincy. It
is somewhat odd that the best commentators
on America of to-day should thus be English
men, — or, rather, Scots. Mr. Muirhead
would do well to change his title to read
"America: the Land of Contrasts."

America The Land
of Contrasts

A Briton's View of his American Kin

By

James Fullarton Muirhead

Author of Baedeker's Handbooks to Great Britain
and the United States

John Lane: The Bodley Head
London and New York

M DCCCC 1 1

Copyright, 1898
By Lamson, Wolffe and Company

All rights restrvtd

THIRD EDITION

PRESSWORK BY
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

To

The Land

That has given me

What makes Life most worth living

Author's Note

MY first visit to the United States of America
— a short one — was paid in 1888. The
observations on which this book is mainly
based were, however, made in 1890-93, when
I spent nearly three years in the country, engaged in
the preparation of " Baedeker's Handbook to the United
States." My work led me into almost every State and
Territory in the Union, and brought me into direct
contact with representatives of practically every class.
The book was almost wholly written in what leisure I
could find for it in 1895 and 1896. The foot-notes,
added on my third visit to the country (1898), while
I was seeing the chapters through the press, have at
least this significance, that they show how rapidly
things change in the Land of Contrasts.

No part of the book has been previously published,
except some ten pages or so, which appeared in the
Arena for July, 1892. Most of the matter in this arti
cle has been incorporated in Chapter II. of the present
volume.

So far as the book has any general intention, my aim

has been, while not ignoring the defects of American

vii

M3.1 CM 19

viii Author's Note.

civilisation, to dwell rather on those features in which,
as it seems to me, John Bull may learn from Brother
Jonathan. I certainly have not had so much trouble
in finding these features as seems to have been the case
with many other British critics of America. My sojourn
in the United States has been full of benefit and stimu
lus to myself; and I should like to believe that my
American readers will see that this book is substantially
a tribute of admiration and gratitude.

J. F. M.

Contents

Chapter Page

I. Introductory ....... 1

II. The Land of Contrasts 7

III. Lights and Shadows of American Society . 24

IV. An Appreciation of the American Woman . 45
V. The American Child 63

VI. International Misapprehensions and National

Differences 74

VII. Sports and Amusements . . . .106

VIII. The Humour of the « Man on the Cars " . 128

IX. American Journalism — A Mixed Blessing . 143

X. Some Literary Straws . . . . .162

XI. Certain Features of Certain Cities . . . 190

XII. Baedekeriana 219

XIII. The American Note 273

Introductory

IT is not everyone's business, nor would it be every
one's pleasure, to visit the United States of
America. More, perhaps, than in any other country
that I know of will what the traveller finds there
depend on what he brings with him. Preconception will
easily fatten into a perfect mammoth of realisation ; but
the open mind will add immeasurably to its garner of
interests and experiences. It may be " but a colourless
crowd of barren life to the dilettante — a poisonous field
of clover to the cynic " (Martin Morris) ; but he to
whom man is more than art will easily find his
account in a visit to the American Republic. The man
whose bent of mind is distinctly conservative, to whom
innovation always suggests a presumption of deteriora
tion, will probably be much more irritated than inter
ested by a peregrination of the Union. The Englishman
who is wedded to his own ideas, and whose conception
of comfort and pleasure is bounded by the way they do
things at home, may be goaded almost to madness by
the gnat-stings of American readjustments — and all the
more because he cannot adopt the explanation that they
are the natural outcome of an alien blood and a foreign
tongue. If he expects the same servility from his " in
feriors " that he has been accustomed to at home, his
relations with them will be a series of electric shocks ;
nay, his very expectation of it will exasperate the
American and make him show his very worst side.

Introductory

The stately English dame must let her amusement out
weigh her resentment if she is addressed as " grandma "
by some genial railway conductor of the West ; she may
feel assured that no impertinence is intended.

The lover of scenery who expects to see a Jungfrau
float into his ken before he has lost sight of a Mte. Rosa 5
the architect who expects to find the railway time-table
punctuated at hourly intervals by a venerable monument
of his art ; the connoisseur who hopes to visit a Pitti
Palace or a Dresden Picture Gallery in every large city ;
the student who counts on finding almost every foot of
ground soaked with historic gore and every building hal
lowed by immemorial association; the sociologist who
looks for different customs, costumes, and language at
every stage of his journey ; — each and all of these will
do well to refrain his foot from the soil of the United
States. On the other hand, the man who is interested
in the workings of civilisation under totally new condi
tions ; who can make allowances, and quickly and easily
readjust his mental attitude ; who has learned to let the
new comforts of a new country make up, temporarily at
least, for the loss of the old ; who finds nothing alien to
him that is human, and has a genuine love for mankind ;
who can appreciate the growth of general comfort at
the expense of caste ; who delights in promising experi
ments in politics, sociology, and education ; who is not
thrown off his balance by the shifting of the centre of
gravity of honour and distinction ; who, in a word, is
not congealed by conventionality, but is ready to accept
novelties on their merits, — he, unless I am very griev
ously mistaken, will find compensations in the United
States that will go far to make up for Swiss Alp and

Introductory

Italian lake, for Gothic cathedral and Palladian palace,
for historic charters and time-honoured tombs, for paint
ings by Raphael and statues by Phidias.

Perhaps, in the last analysis, our appreciation of
America will depend on whether we are optimistic or
pessimistic in regard to the great social problem which
is formed of so many smaller problems. If we think
that the best we can do is to preserve what we have,
America will be but a series of disappointments. If,
however, we believe that man's sympathies for others
will grow deeper, that his ingenuity will ultimately be
equal to at least a partial solution of the social question,
we shall watch the seething of the American crucible
with intensest interest. The solution of the social prob
lem, speaking broadly, must imply that each man must in
some direction, simple or complex, work for his own
livelihood. Equality will always be a word for fools
and doctrinaires to conjure with, but those who believe
in man's sympathy for man must have faith that some
day relative human justice will be done, which will be
as far beyond the justice of to-day as light is from dark.1
And it would be hard to say where we are to look for
this consummation if not in the United States of America,
which " has been the home of the poor and the eccentric
from all parts of the world, and has carried their poverty
and passions on its stalwart young shoulders." We may
visit the United States, like M. Bourget, pour reprendre
un pen de foi dans le lendemain de civilisation.

The paragraph on a previous page is not meant to
imply that the United States are destitute of scenic,
artistic, picturesque, and historic interest. The worst

1 1 have some suspicion that this ought to be in quotation marks, but cannot
now trace the passage.

Introductory

that can be said of American scenery is that its best
points are separated by long intervals ; the best can
hardly be put too strongly. Places like the Yosemite
Valley (of which Mr. Emerson said that it was the only
scenery he ever saw where " the reality came up to the
brag"), the Yellowstone Park, Niagara, and the stupen
dous Canon of the Colorado River amply make good their
worldwide reputation ; but there are innumerable other
places less known in Europe, such as the primeval woods
and countless lakes of the Adirondacks, the softer
beauties of the Berkshire Hills, the Hudson (that
grander American Rhine), the Swiss-like White Moun
tains, the Cats kills, the mystic Ocklawaha of Florida,
and the Black Mountains of Carolina that would amply
repay the easy trouble of an Atlantic passage under
modern conditions. The historic student, too, will find
much that is worthy of his attention, especially in the
older Eastern States ; and will, perhaps, be surprised to
realise how relative a term antiquity is. In a short time
he will find himself looking at an American building of
the seventeenth century with as much reverence as if it
had been a contemporary of the Plantagenets ; and,
indeed, if antiquity is to be determined by change and
development rather than by mere flight of time, the two
centuries of New York will hold their own with a cycle
of Cathay. It is, as Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes re
marked to the present writer, like the different thermo-
metrical scales ; it does not take very long to realise that
twenty-five degrees of Rdaumur mean as great a heat as
ninety degrees of Fahrenheit. Such a city as Boston
amply justifies its inclusion in a " Historic Towns " series,
along with London and Oxford ; and it is by no means

Introductory

a singular instance. Even the lover of art will not find
America an absolute Sahara. To say nothing of the
many masterpieces of European painters that have found
a resting-place in America, where there is at least one
public picture gallery and several private ones of the
first class, the best efforts of American painters, and
perhaps still more those of American sculptors, are full
of suggestion and charm ; while I cannot believe that
the student of modern architecture will anywhere find a
more interesting field than among the enterprising and
original works of the American school of architecture.

This book will be grievously misunderstood if it is
supposed to be in any way an attempt to cover, even
sketchily, the whole ground of American civilisation, or
to give anything like a coherent appreciation of it. In
the main it is merely a record of personal impressions,
a series of notes upon matters which happened to come
under my personal observation and to excite my personal
interest. Not only the conditions under which I visited
the country, but also my own disqualifications of taste
and knowledge, have prevented me from more than
touching on countless topics, such as the phenomena of
politics, religion, commerce, and industry, which would
naturally find a place in any complete account of
America. I have also tried to avoid, so far as possible,
describing well-known scenery, or in other ways going
over the tracks of my predecessors. The phenomena
of the United States are so momentous in themselves
that the observation of them from any new standpoint
cannot be wholly destitute of value ; while they change
so rapidly that he would be unobservant indeed who
could not find something new to chronicle.

Introductory

It is important, also, to remember that the generalisa
tions of this book apply in very few cases to the whole
extent of the United States. I shall be quite contented
if any one section of the country thinks that I cannot
mean it in such-and-such an assertion, provided it allows
that the cap fits some other portion of the great com
munity. As a rule, however, it may be assumed that
unqualified references to American civilisation relate to
it as crystallised in such older communities as New
York or Philadelphia, not to the fermenting process of
life-in-the-making on the frontier.

In the comparisons between Great Britain and the
United States I have tried to oppose only those classes
which substantially correspond to each other. Thus, in
contrasting the Lowell manufacturer, the Hampshire
squire, the Virginian planter, and the Manchester man,
it must not be forgotten that the first and the last have
many points of difference from the second and third
which are not due to their geographical position. Many
of the instances on which my remarks are based may
undoubtedly be called extreme ; but even extreme cases
are suggestive, if not exactly typical. There is a breed
of poultry in Japan, in which, by careful cultivation,
the tail-feathers of the cock sometimes reach a length of
ten or even fifteen feet. This is not precisely typical of
the gallinaceous species ; but it is none the less a phe
nomenon which might be mentioned in a comparison
with the apteryx.

Finally, I ought perhaps to say, with Mr. E. A. Free
man, that I sometimes find it almost impossible to be
lieve that the whole nation can be so good as the people
who have been so good to me.

II

The Land of Contrasts

WHEN I first thought of writing about the
United States at all, I soon came to the con
clusion that no title could better than the
above express the general impression left
on my mind by my experiences in the Great Republic.
It may well be that a long list of inconsistencies might
be made out for any country, just as for any individual ;
but so far as my knowledge goes the United States stands
out as preeminently the " Land of Contrasts " — the land
of stark, staring, and stimulating inconsistency ; at
once the home of enlightenment and the happy hunting
ground of the charlatan and the quack ; a land in which
nothing happens but the unexpected ; the home of Hy
perion, but no less the haunt of the satyr ; always the
land of promise, but not invariably the land of perform
ance ; a land which may be bounded by the aurora bore-
alis, but which has also undeniable acquaintance with
the flames of the bottomless pit ; a land which is laved
at once by the rivers of Paradise and the leaden waters
of Acheron.

If I proceed to enumerate a few of the actual contrasts
that struck me, in matters both weighty and trivial, it is
not merely as an exercise in antithesis, but because I
hope it will show how easy it would be to pass an entirely
and even ridiculously untrue judgment upon the United

7

8 The Land of Contrasts

States by having an eye only for one series of the start
ling opposites. It should show in a very concrete way
one of the most fertile sources of those unfair interna
tional judgments which led the French Academician
Joiiy to the statement : " Plus on re'fle'chit et plus on
observe, plus on se convainct de la fausset^ de la plu-
part de ces jugements ported sur un nation entiere par
quelques ecrivains et adopted sans examen par les
autres." The Americans themselves can hardly take
umbrage at the label, if Mr. Howells truly represents
them when he makes one of the characters in "A
Traveller from Altruria " assert that they pride them
selves even on the size of their inconsistencies. The
extraordinary clashes that occur in the United States are
doubtless largely due to the extraordinary mixture of
youth and age in the character of the country. If ever
an old head was set upon young shoulders, it was in this
case of the United States — this " Strange New World,
thet yit was never young." While it is easy, in a study
of the United States, to see the essential truth of the
analogy between the youth of an individual and the
youth of a State, we must also remember that America
was in many respects born full-grown, like Athena from
the brain of Zeus, and coordinates in the most extraor
dinary way the shrewdness of the sage with the naivetd
of the child. Those who criticise the United States
because, with the experience of all the ages behind her,
she is in some points vastly defective as compared with
the nations of Europe are as much mistaken as those
who look to her for the fresh ingenuousness of youth
unmarred by any trace of age's weakness. It is simply
inevitable that she should share the vices as well as the

The Land of Contrasts

virtues of both. Mr. Freeman has well pointed out how
natural it is that a colony should rush ahead of the mother
country in some things and lag behind it in others ; and
that just as you have to go to French Canada if you want
to see Old France, so, for many things, if you wish to
see Old England you must go to New England.

Thus America may easily be abreast or ahead of us
in such matters as the latest applications of electricity,
while retaining in its legal uses certain cumbersome
devices that we have long since discarded. Americans
still have "Courts of Oyer and Terminer" and still
insist on the unanimity of the jury, though their judges
wear no robes and their counsel apply to the cuspidor
as often as to the code. So, too, the extension of munic
ipal powers accomplished in Great Britain still seems a
formidable innovation in the United States.

The general feeling of power and scope is probably
another fruitful source of the inconsistencies of Ameri
can life. Emerson has well said that consistency is the
hobgoblin of little minds ; and no doubt the largeness,
the illimitable outlook, of the national mind of the
United States makes it disregard surface discrepancies
that would grate horribly on a more conventional com
munity. The confident belief that all will come out
right in the end, and that harmony can be attained
when time is taken to consider it, carries one triumphantly
over the roughest places of inconsistency. It is easy to
drink our champagne from tin cans, when we know that
it is merely a sense of hurry that prevents us fetching
the chased silver goblets waiting for our use.

This, I fancy, is the explanation of one series of con
trasts which strikes an Englishman at once. America

io The Land of Contrasts

claims to be the land of liberty par excellence, and in a
wholesale way this may be true in spite of the gap be
tween the noble sentiments of the Declaration of Inde
pendence and the actual treatment of the negro and the
Chinaman. But in what may be called the retail traffic
of life the American puts up with innumerable restric
tions of his personal liberty. Max O'Rell has expatiated
with scarcely an exaggeration on the wondrous sight of
a powerful millionaire standing meekly at the door of a
hotel dining-room until the consequential head-waiter
(very possibly a coloured gentleman) condescends to
point out to him the seat he may occupy. So, too, such
petty officials as policemen and railway conductors are
generally treated rather as the masters than as the ser
vants of the public. The ordinary American citizen
accepts a long delay on the railway or an interminable
" wait " at the theatre as a direct visitation of Provi
dence, against which it would be useless folly to direct
cat-calls, grumbles, or letters to the Times. Americans
invented the slang word " kicker," but so far as I could
see their vocabulary is here miles ahead of their prac
tice ; they dream noble deeds, but do not do them ;
Englishmen "kick" much better, without having a
name for it. The right of the individual to do as he
will is respected to such an extent that an entire com
pany will put up with inconvenience rather than infringe
it. A coal-carter will calmly keep a tramway-car wait
ing several minutes until he finishes his unloading. The
conduct of the train-boy, as described in Chapter XII.,
would infallibly lead to assault and battery in England,
but hardly elicits an objurgation in America, where the
right of one sinner to bang a door outweighs the desire

The Land of Contrasts 1 1

of twenty just persons for a quiet nap. On the other
hand, the old Puritan spirit of interference with indi
vidual liberty sometimes crops out in America in a
way that would be impossible in this country. An
inscription in one of the large mills at Lawrence, Mass.,
informs the employees (or did so some years ago)
that " regular attendance at some place of worship
and a proper observance of the Sabbath will be expected
of every person employed." So, too, the young women
of certain districts impose on their admirers such restric
tions in the use of liquor and tobacco that any less
patient animal than the native American would infal
libly kick over the traces.

In spite of their acknowledged nervous energy and
excitability, Americans often show a good deal of a
quality that rivals the phlegm of the Dutch. Their
above-mentioned patience during railway or other delays
is an instance of this. So, in the incident related in
Chapter XII. the passengers in the inside coach retained
their seats throughout the whole experiment. Their
resemblance in such cases as this to placid domestic kine
is enhanced — out West — by the inevitable champing of
tobacco or chewing-gum, than which nothing I know
of so robs the human countenance of the divine spark
of intelligence. Boston men of business, after being
whisked by the electric car from their suburban resi
dences to the city at the rate of twelve miles an hour, sit
stoically still while the congested traffic makes the car
take twenty minutes to pass the most crowded section of
Washington street, — a walk of barely five minutes.1

1 The Boston Subway, opened in 1898, has impaired the truth of this
sentence,

12 The Land of Contrasts

Even in the matter of what Mr. Ambassador Bayard
has styled u that form of Socialism, Protection," it seems
to me that we can find traces of this contradictory ten
dency. Americans consider their country as emphatically
the land of protection, and attribute most of their pros
perity to their inhospitable customs barriers. This may
be so ; but where else in the world will you find such a
volume and expanse of free trade as in these same United
States ? We find here a huge section of the world's
surface, 3,000 miles long and 1,500 miles wide, occupied
by about fifty practically independent States, containing
seventy millions of inhabitants, producing a very large
proportion of all the necessities and many of the luxuries
of life, and all enjoying the freest of free trade with each
other. Few of these States are as small as Great Britain,
and many of them are immensely larger. Collectively
they contain nearly half the railway mileage of the globe,
besides an incomparable series of inland waterways.
Over all these is continually passing an immense amount
of goods. The San Francisco News Letter, a well-known
weekly journal, points out that of the 1,400,000,000 tons
of goods carried for 100 miles or upwards on the railways
of the world in 1895, no less than 800,000,000 were car
ried in the United States. Even if we add the 140,000,-
000 carried by sea-going ships, there remains a balance
of 60,000,000 tons in favor of the United States as
against the rest of the world. It is, perhaps, impossible
to ascertain whether or not the actual value of the goods
carried would be in the same proportion ; but it seems
probable that the value of the 800,000,000 tons of the
home trade of America must considerably exceed that of
the free portion of the trade of the British Empire, i.e~>

The Land of Contrasts 13

practically the whole of its import trade and that portion
of its export trade carried on with free-trade countries
or colonies. The internal commerce of the United States
makes it the most wonderful market on the globe ; and
Brother Jonathan, the rampant Protectionist, stands con
victed as the greatest Cobdenite of them all !

We are all, it is said, apt to " slip up " on our strongest
points. Perhaps this is why one of the leading writers
of the American democracy is able to assert that " there
is no country in the world where the separation of the
classes is so absolute as ours," and to quote a Russian
revolutionist, who lived in exile all over Europe and
nowhere found such want of sympathy between the rich
and poor as in America. If this were true it would cer
tainly form a startling contrast to the general kind-
heartedness of the American. But I fancy it rather
points to the condition of greater relative equality. Our
Russian friend was accustomed to the patronising kind
ness of the superior to the inferior, of the master to the
servant. It is easy, on an empyrean rock, to be "kind"
to the mortals toiling helplessly down below. It costs
little, to use Mr. Bellamy's parable, for those securely
seated on the top of the coach to subscribe for salve to
alleviate the chafed wounds of those who drag it. In
America there is less need and less use of this patronis
ing kindness ; there is less kindness from class to class
simply because the conscious realisation of " class " is
non-existent in thousands of cases where it would be to
the fore in Europe. As for the first statement quoted
at the head of this paragraph, I find it very hard of belief.
It is true that there are exclusive circles, to which, for
instance, Buffalo Bill would not have the entrde, but the

14 The Land of Contrasts

principle of exclusion is on the whole analogous to that
by which we select our intimate personal friends. No
man in America, who is personally fitted to adorn it,
need feel that he is automatically shut out (as he might
well be in England) from a really congenial social sphere.
Another of America's strong points is its sense of
practical comfort and convenience. It is scarcely open
to denial that the laying of too great stress on material
comfort is one of the rocks ahead which the American
vessel will need careful steering to avoid ; and it is cer
tain that Americans lead us in countless little points of
household comfort and labour-saving ingenuity. But
here, too, the exception that proves the rule is not too
coy for our discovery. The terrible roads and the atro
ciously kept streets are amongst the most vociferous
instances of this. It is one of the inexplicable mysteries
of American civilisation that a young municipality, — or
even, sometimes, an old one, — with a million dollars to
spend, will choose to spend it in erecting a most un
necessarily gorgeous town-hall rather than in making
the street in front of it passable for the ordinarily shod
pedestrian. In New York itself the hilarious stock
broker returning at night to his palace often finds the
pavement between his house and his carriage more diffi
cult to negotiate than even the hole for his latch-key ;
and I have more than once been absolutely compelled to
make a detour from Broadway in order to find- a cross
ing where the icy slush would not come over the tops
of my boots.1 The American taste for luxury sometimes
insists on gratification even at the expense of the ordi-

1 It is only fair to say that this was originally written in 1893, and that
matters have been greatly improved since then.

The Land of Contrasts 15

nary decencies of life. It was an American who said,
" Give me the luxuries of life and I will not ask for the
necessities ; " and there is more truth in this epigram,
as characteristic of the American point of view, than its
author intended or would, perhaps, allow. In private
life this is seen in the preference shown for diamond
earrings and Paris toilettes over neat and effective
household service. The contrast between the slatternly,
unkempt maid-servant who opens the door to you and
the general luxury of the house itself is sometimes of
the most startling, not to say appalling, description. It
is not a sufficient answer to say that good servants are
not so easily obtained in America as in England. This
is true ; but a slight rearrangement of expenditure
would secure much better service than is now seen. To
the English eye the cart in this matter often seems put
before the horse ; and the combination of excellent wait
ing with a modest table equipage is frequent enough in
the United States to prove its perfect feasibility.

In American hotels we are often overwhelmed with
"all the discomforts that money can procure," while
unable to obtain some of those things which we have
been brought up to believe among the prime necessaries
of existence. It is significant that in the printed direc
tions governing the use of the electric bell in one's bed
room, I never found an instance in which the harmless
necessary bath could be ordered with fewer than nine
pressures of the button, while the fragrant cocktail or
some other equally fascinating but dangerous luxury
might often be summoned by three or four. The most
elaborate dinner, served in the most gorgeous china, is
sometimes spoiled by the Draconian regulation that it

1 6 The Land of Contrasts

must be devoured between the unholy hours of twelve
and two, or have all its courses brought on the table at
once. Though the Americans invent the most delicate
forms of machinery, their hoop-iron knives, silver plated
for facility in cleaning, are hardly calculated to tackle
anything harder than butter, and compel the beef-eater
to return to the tearing methods of his remotest ances
tors. The waiter sometimes rivals the hotel clerk him
self in the splendour of his attire, but this does not
render more appetising the spectacle of his thumb in the
soup. The furniture of your bedroom would not have
disgraced the Tuileries in their palmiest days, but,
alas, you are parboiled by a diabolic chevaux-de-frise of
steam-pipes which refuse to be turned off, and insist on
accompanying your troubled slumbers by an intermittent
series of bubbles, squeaks, and hisses. The mirror oppo
site which you brush your hair is enshrined in the heavi
est of gilt frames and is large enough for a Brobdignagian,
but the basin in which you wash your hands is little
larger than a sugar-bowl; and when you emerge from
your nine-times-summoned bath you find you have to
dry your sacred person with six little towels, none larger
than a snuff-taker's handkerchief. There is no carafe
of water in the room ; and after countless experiments
you are reduced to the blood-curdling belief that the
American tourist brushes his teeth with ice-water, the
musical tinkling of which in the corridors is the most
characteristic sound of the American caravanserai.

If there is anything the Americans pride themselves
on — and justly — it is their handsome treatment of
woman. You will not meet five Americans without
hearing ten times that a lone woman can traverse the

The Land of Contrasts 17

length and breadth of the United States without fear of
insult ; every traveller reports that the United States is
the Paradise of women. Special entrances are reserved
for them at hotels, so that they need not risk contamina
tion with the tobacco-defiled floors of the public office ;
they are not expected to join the patient file of room-
seekers before the hotel clerk's desk, but wait comforta
bly in the reception-room while an employee secures
their number and key. There is no recorded instance of
the justifiable homicide of an American girl in her
theatre hat. Man meekly submits to be the hewer of
wood, the drawer of water, and the beast of burden for
the superior sex. But even this gorgeous medal has
its reverse side. Few things provided for a class well
able to pay for comfort are more uncomfortable and in
decent than the arrangements for ladies on board the
sleeping cars. Their dressing accommodation is of the
most limited description ; their berths are not segre
gated at one end of the car, but are scattered above
and below those of the male passengers ; it is considered
tolerable that they should lie with the legs of a
strange, disrobing man dangling within a foot of their
noses.

Another curious contrast to the practical, material,
matter-of-fact side of the American is his intense interest
in the supernatural, the spiritualistic, the superstitious.
Boston, of all places in the world, is, perhaps, the happiest
hunting ground for the spiritualist medium, the faith
healer, and the mind curer. You will find there the
most advanced emancipation from theological supersti
tion combined in the most extraordinary way with a
more than half belief in the incoherences of a spiritual-

1 8 The Land of Contrasts

istic sdance. The Boston Christian Scientists have just
erected a handsome stone church, with chime of bells,
organ, and choir of the most approved ecclesiastical cut ;
and, greatest marvel of all, have actually had to return
a surplus of 850,000 (.£10,000) that was subscribed for
its building. There are two pulpits, one occupied by
a man who expounds the Bible, while in the other a
woman responds with the grandiloquent platitudes of
Mrs. Eddy. In other parts of the country this desire to
pry into the Book of Fate assumes grosser forms. Mr.
Bryce tells us that Western newspapers devote a special
column to the advertisements of astrologers and sooth
sayers, and assures us that this profession is as much
recognised in the California of to-day as in the Greece
of Homer.

It seems to me that I have met in America the nearest
approaches to my ideals of a Bayard sans peur et sans
reproche ; and it is in this same America that I have met
flagrant examples of the being wittily described as sans
pere et sans proche — utterly without the responsibility
of background and entirely unacquainted with the
obligation of noblesse. The superficial observer in the
United States might conceivably imagine the character
istic national trait to be self-sufficiency or vanity (this
mistake has, I believe, been made), and his opinion
might be strengthened should he find, as I did, in an
arithmetic published at Richmond during the late Civil
War, such a modest example as the following : " If one
Confederate soldier can whip seven Yankees, how many
Confederate soldiers will it take to whip forty-nine
Yankees ? " America has been likened to a self-made
man, hugging her conditions because she has made them,

The Land of Contrasts 19

and considering them divine because they have grown
up with the country. Another observer might quite as
easily come to the conclusion that diffidence and self-
distrust are the true American characteristics. Certainly
Americans often show a saving consciousness of their
faults, and lash themselves with biting satire. There are
even Americans whose very attitude is an apology —
wholly unnecessary — for the Great Republic, and who
seem to despise any native product until it has received
the hall-mark of London or of Paris. In the new world
that has produced the new book, of the exquisite delicacy
and insight of which Mr. Henry James and Mr. Howells
may be taken as typical exponents, it seems to me that
there are more than the usual proportion of critics
who prefer to it what Colonel Higginson has well called
"the brutalities of Haggard and the garlic-flavors of
Kipling." While, perhaps, the characteristic charm of
the American girl is her thorough-going individuality
and the undaunted courage of her opinions, which leads
her to say frankly, if she think so, that Martin Tupper
is a greater poet than Shakespeare, yet I have, on the
other hand, met a young American matron who confessed
to me with bated breath that she and her sister, for the
first time in their lives, had gone unescorted to a concert
the night before last, and, mirabile dictu, no harm had
come of it ! It is in America that I have over and over
again heard language to which the calling a spade a
spade would seem the most delicate allusiveness ; but it
is also in America that I have summoned a blush to the
cheek of conscious sixty-six by an incautious though
innocent reference to the temperature of my morning
tub. In that country I have seen the devotion of Sir

20 The Land of Contrasts

Walter Raleigh to his queen rivalled again and again by
the ordinary American man to the ordinary American
woman (if there be an ordinary American woman), and
in the same country I have myself been scoffed at and
made game of because I opened the window of a railway
carriage for a girl in whose delicate veins flowed a few
drops of coloured blood. In Washington I met Miss
Susan B. Anthony, and realised, to some extent at least,
all she stands for. In Boston and other places I find there
is actually an organised opposition on the part of the ladies
themselves to the extension of the franchise to women.
I have hailed with delight the democratic spirit displayed
in the greeting of my friend and myself by the porter of
a hotel as " You fellows," and then had the cup of pleas
ure dashed from my lips by being told by the same porter
that" the other gentleman would attend to my baggage ! "
I have been parboiled with salamanders who seemed to
find no inconvenience in a room-temperature of eighty
degrees, and have been nigh frozen to death in open-air
drives in which the same individuals seemed perfectly
comfortable. Men appear at the theatre in orthodox
evening dress, while the tall and exasperating hats of the
ladies who accompany them would seem to indicate a
theory of street toilette. From New York to Buffalo I
am whisked through the air at the rate of fifty or sixty
miles an hour ; in California I travelled on a train on which
the engineer shot rabbits from the locomotive, and the
fireman picked them up in time to jump on the baggage-
car at the rear end of the train. At Santa Barbara I
visited an old mission church and convent which vied in
quaint picturesqueness with anything in Europe; but,
alas ! the old monk who showed us round, though wear-

The Land of Contrasts 21

ing the regulation gown and knotted cord, had replaced
his sandals by elastic-sided boots and covered his tonsure
with a common chummy.1

Few things in the United States are more pleasing
than the widespread habits of kindness to animals (most
American whips are, as far as punishment to the horse
is concerned, a mere farce). Yet no American seems to
have any scruple about adding an extra hundred weight
or two to an already villainously overloaded horse-car ;
and I have seen a score of American ladies sit serenely
watching the frantic straining of two poor animals to
get a derailed car on to the track again, when I knew
that in " brutal " Old England every one of them would
have been out on the sidewalk to lighten the load.

In England that admirable body of men popularly
known as Quakers are indissolubly associated in the
public mind with a pristine simplicity of life and con
versation. My amazement, therefore, may easily be
imagined, when I found that an entertainment given by
a young member of the Society of Friends in one of the
great cities of the Eastern States turned out to be the
most elaborate and beautiful private ball I ever attended,
with about eight hundred guests dressed in the height of
fashion, while the daily papers (if I remember rightly)
estimated its expense as reaching a total of some thousands
of pounds. Here the natural expansive liberality of the
American man proved stronger than the traditional
limitations of a religious society. But the opposite art
of cheese-paring is by no means unknown in the United

1This may be paralleled in Europe: "The Franciscan monks of Bosnia
wear long black robes, with rope, black ' bowler hats,' and long and heavy
military moustachios (by special permission of the Pope) ." — Daily Chronicle,
Oct. 5, 1895.

22 The Land of Contrasts

States. Perhaps not even, canny Scotland can parallel
the record of certain districts in New England, which
actually elected their parish paupers to the State Legis
lature to keep them off the rates. Let the opponents
of paid members of the House of Commons take notice !

Amid the little band of tourists in whose company I
happened to enter the Yosemite Valley was a San Fran
cisco youth with a delightful baritone voice, who enter
tained the guests in the hotel parlour at Wawona by a
good-natured series of songs. No one in the room
except myself seemed to find it in the least incongruous
or funny that he sandwiched " Nearer, my God, to thee "
between " The man who broke the bank at Monte
Carlo " and " Her golden hair was hanging down her
back," or that he jumped at once from the pathetic
solemnity of " I know that my Redeemer liveth " to the
jingle of " Little Annie Rooney." The name Wawona
reminds me how American weather plays its part in the
game of contrasts. When we visited the Grove of Big
Trees near Wawona on May 21, it was in the midst of a
driving snow-storm, with the thermometer standing at
36 degrees Fahrenheit. Next day, as we drove into
Raymond, less than forty miles to the west, the sun was
beating down on our backs, and the thermometer marked
80 degrees in the shade.

There is probably no country in the world where, at
times, letters of introduction are more fully honoured
than in the United States. The recipient does not con
tent himself with inviting you to call or even to dinner.
He invites you to make his house your home ; he invites
all his friends to meet you; he leaves his business to
show you the lions of the town or to drive you about the

The Land of Contrasts 23

country ; he puts you up at his club ; he sends you off
provided with letters to ten other men like himself,
only more so. On the other hand, there is probably no
country in the world where a letter of introduction from
a man quite entitled to give it could be wholly ignored
as it sometimes is in the United States. The writer
has had experience of both results. No more funda
mental contrast can well be imagined than that between
the noisy, rough, crude, and callous street-life of some
Western towns and the quiet, reticence, delicacy, spirit
uality, and refinement of many of the adjacent interiors.

The table manners of the less-educated American
classes are hardly of the best, but where but in America
will you find eleven hundred charity-school boys sit down
daily to dinner, each with his own table napkin, as they
do at Girard College, Philadelphia? And where except
at that same institute will you find a man leaving mill
ions for a charity, with the stipulation that no parson of
any creed shall ever be allowed to enter its precincts ?

In concluding this chapter, let me say that its object,
as indeed the object of this whole book, will have been
achieved if it convinces a few Britons of the futility of
generalising on the complex organism of American soci
ety from inductions that would not justify an opinion
about the habits of a piece of protoplasm.1

1 In the just-ended war with Spain, the United States did not fail to justify
its' character as the Land of Contrasts. From the wealthy and enlightened
United States we should certainly have expected all that money and science
could afford in the shape of superior weapons and efficiency of commissariat
and medical service, while we could have easily pardoned a little unsteadiness
in civilians suddenly turned into soldiers. As a matter of fact, the poverty-
stricken Spaniards had better rifles than the Americans; the Commissariat
and Medical Departments are alleged to have broken down in the most dig-
graceful way ; the citizen-soldiers behaved like veterans.

Ill

Lights and Shadows of American
Society

BY " society " I do not mean that limited body
which, whether as the Upper Ten Thousand of
London or as the Four Hundred of New York,
usually arrogates the title. Such narrowness
of definition seems peculiarly out of place in the vigor
ous democracy of the West. By society I understand
the great body of fairly well-educated and fairly well-
mannered people, whose means and inclinations lead
them to associate with each other on terms of equality
for the ordinary purposes of good fellowship. Such
people, not being fenced in by conventional barriers and
owning no special or obtrusive privileges, represent
much more fully and naturally the characteristic national
traits of their country ; and their ways and customs are
the most fruitful field for a comparative study of national
character. The daughters of dukes and princes can
hardly be taken as typical English girls, since the con
ditions of their life are so vastly different from those
of the huge majority of the species — conditions which
deny a really natural or normal development to all but
the choicest and strongest souls. So the daughter of a
New York multimillionaire, who has been brought up to
regard a British duke or an Italian prince as her natural
partner for life, does not look out on the world through

24

American Society 25

genuinely American spectacles, but is biassed by a point
of view which may be somewhat paradoxically termed
the "cosmopolitan-exclusive." As Mr. Henry James
puts it : " After all, what one sees on a Newport piazza is
not America ; it is the back of Europe."

There are, however, reasons special to the United
States why we should not regard the "Newport set"
as typical of American society. Illustrious foreign
visitors fall not unnaturally into this mistake ; even so
keen a critic as M. Bourget leans this way, though Mr.
Bryce gives another proof of his eminent sanity and good
sense by his avoidance of the tempting error. But, as
Walt Whitman says, " The pulse-beats of the nation are
never to be found in the sure-to-be-put-forward-on-such-
occasions citizens." European fashionable society, how
ever unworthy many of its members may be, and however
relaxed its rules of admission have become, has its roots
in an honourable past ; its theory is fine ; not all the big
names of the British aristocracy can be traced back to
strong ales or weak (Lucy) Waters. Even those who
desire the abolition of the House of Peers, or look on it,
with Bagehot, as " a vapid accumulation of torpid com
fort," cannot deny that it is an institution that has grown
up naturally with the country, and that it is only now
(if even now) that it is felt with anything like univer
sality to be an anomaly. The American society which is
typified by the four hundred of New York, the society
which marries its daughters to English peers, is in a very
different position. It is of mushroom growth even accord
ing to American standards ; it has theoretically no right
to exist ; it is entirely at variance with the spirit of the
country and contradictory of its political system ; it is

26 The Land of Contrasts

almost solely conditioned by wealth * it is disregarded
if not despised by nine-tenths of the population ; it does
not really count. However seriously the little cliques
of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia may take them
selves, they are not regarded seriously by the rest of the
country in any degree comparable to the attitude of the
British Philistine towards the British Barbarian. With
out the appropriate background of king and nobility, the
whole system is ridiculous ; it has no national basis.
The source of its honour is ineradicably tainted. It is
the reductio ad absurdum of the idea of aristocratic soci
ety. It is divorced from the real body of democracy. It
sets no authoritative standard of taste. If anything could
reconcile the British Radical to his House of Lords,
it would be the rankness of taste, the irresponsible freaks
of individual caprice, that rule in a country where there
is no carefully polished noblesse to set the pattern.
George William Curtis puts the case well : " Fine society
is no exotic, does not avoid, but all that does not belong
to it drops away like water from a smooth statue. We
are still peasants and parvenues, although we call each
other princes and build palaces. Before we are three
centuries old we are endeavouring to surpass, by imitat
ing, the results of all art and civilisation and social genius
beyond the sea. By elevating the standard of expense
we hope to secure select society, but have only aggra
vated the necessity of a labour integrally fatal to the kind
of society we seek."

It would, of course, be a serious mistake to assume

1 Mrs. Burton Harrison reports that a young New York matron said to her,
" Really, now that society in New York is getting so large, one must draw
the line somewhere ; after this I shall visit and invite only those who have
more than five millions."

American Society 27

that, because there are no titles and no theory of caste
in the United States, there are no social distinctions
worth the trouble of recognition. Besides the crudely
obvious elevation of wealth and " smartness " already
referred to, there are inner circles of good birth, of cult
ure, and so on, which are none the less practically
recognised because they are theoretically ignored. Of
such are the old Dutch clans of New York, which still,
I am informed, regard families like the Vanderbilts as
upstarts and parvenues. In Chicago there is said to
be an inner circle of forty or fifty families which is
recognised as the " best society," though by no means
composed of the richest citizens. In Boston, though
the Almighty Dollar now plays a much more impor
tant role than before, it is still a combination of
culture and ancestry that sets the most highly prized
hall-mark on the social items. And indeed the heredity
of such families as the Quincys, the Lowells, the Win-
throps, and the Adamses, which have maintained their
superior position for generations, through sheer force of
ability and character, without the external buttresses of
primogeniture and entail, may safely measure itself
against the stained lineage of many European families
of high title. The very absence of titular distinction
often causes the lines to be more clearly drawn ; as Mr.
Charles Dudley Warner says : " Popular commingling
in pleasure resorts is safe enough in aristocratic coun
tries, but it will not answer in a republic." There is,
however, no universal theory that holds good from New
York to California ; and hence the generalising foreigner
is apt to see nothing but practical as well as theoretical
equality.

28 The Land of Contrasts

In spite of anything in the foregoing that may seem
incompatible, the fact remains that the distinguishing
feature of American society, as contrasted with the soci
eties of Europe, is the greater approach to equality that it
has made. It is in this sphere, and not in those of industry,
law, or politics, that the British observer must feel that
the American breathes a distinctly more liberal and dem
ocratic air than he. The processes of endosmose and
exosmose go on under much freer conditions ; the indi
vidual particle is much more ready to nitrate up or
down to its proper level. Mr. W. D. Ho wells writes
that " once good society contained only persons of noble
or gentle birth ; then persons of genteel or sacred call
ings were admitted ; now it welcomes to its level every
one of agreeable manners or cultivated mind ; " and
this, which may be true of modern society in general,
is infinitely more true in America than elsewhere. It
might almost be asserted that everyone in America ulti
mately finds his proper social niche ; that while many
are excluded from the circles for which they think them
selves adapted, practically none are shut off from their
really harmonious milieu. The process of segregation is
deprived to a large extent of the disagreeableness con
sequent upon a rigid table of precedence. Nothing sur
prises an American more in London society than the
uneasy sense of inferiority that many a distinguished
man of letters will show in the presence of a noble lord.
No amount of philosophy enables one to rise entirely
superior to the trammels of early training and hoary
association. Even when the great novelist feels him
self as at least on a level with his ducal interlocutor, he
cannot ignore the fact that his fellow-guests do not share

American Society 29

his opinion. Now, without going the length of assert
ing that there is absolutely nothing of this kind in the
intercourse of the American author with the American
railroad magnate, it may be safely stated that the general
tone of society in America makes such an attitude rare
and unlikely. There social equality has become an
instinct, and the ruling note of good society is of
pleasant cameraderie, without condescension on the one
hand or fawning on the other. " The democratic system
deprives people of weapons that everyone does not
equally possess. No one is formidable ; no one is on
stilts ; no one has great pretensions or any recognised
right to be arrogant." (Henry James.) The spirit of
goodwill, of a desire to make others happy (especially
when it does not incommode you to do so), swings
through a much larger arc in American society than in
English. One can be surer of one's self, without either
an overweening self-conceit or the assumption of brassy
self-assertion.

The main rock of offence in American society is, per
haps, its tendency to attach undue importance to materi
alistic effects. Plain living with high thinking is not so
much of an American formula as one would wish. In
the smart set of New York, and in other places mutatis
mutandis, this shows itself in an appallingly vulgar and
ostentatious display of mere purchase power. We are
expected to find something grand in the fact that an
entertainment costs so much ; there is little recognition
of the truth that a man who spends $100 where $10
would meet all the demands of good taste is not only a
bad economist, but essentially bourgeois and borne in
soul. Even roses are vulgarised, if that be possible, by

30 The Land of Contrasts

production in the almost obtrusively handsome variety
known as the " American Beauty," and by being heaped
up like hay-stacks in the reception rooms. At a recent
fashionable marriage in New York no fewer than 20,000
sprays of lily of the valley are reported to have been
used. A short time ago a wedding party travelled from
Chicago to Burlington (Iowa) on a specially constructed
train which cost .£100,000 to build; the fortunes of
the heads of the few families represented aggregated
£ 100,000,000. The private drawing-room cars of mill
ionaires are too handsome ; they do not indicate so
much a necessity of taste as a craving to spend. Many
of the best hotels are characterised by a tasteless mag
nificence which annoys rather than attracts the artistic
sense. At one hotel I stayed at in a fashionable
watering-place the cheapest bedroom cost «£! a night ;
but I did not find that its costly tapestry hangings,
huge Japanese vases, and elaborately carved furniture
helped me to woo sweet slumber any more successfully
than the simple equipments of an English village inn.
Indeed, they rather suggested insomnia, just as the
ominous name of " Macbeth," affixed to one of the bed
rooms in the Shakespeare Hotel at Strat ford-on- A von,
immediately suggested the line " Macbeth doth murder
sleep."

This materialistic tendency, however, which its de
fenders call a higher standard of comfort, is not confined
to the circles of the millionaires ; it crops out more or
less at all the different levels. Americans seem a little
more dependent on bodily comforts than Englishmen, a
little more apt to coddle themselves, a little less hardy.
They are more susceptible to variations of temperature,

American Society 31

and hence the prevalent over-heating of their houses,
hotels, and railway-cars. A very slight shower will
send an American into his overshoes.1 There is more
of a self-conscious effort in the encouragement of manly
sports. Americans seldom walk when they can ride.
The girls are apt to be annoyed if a pleasure-party be
not carried out so as to provide in the fullest way for
their personal comfort.

This last sentence suggests a social practice of the
United States which, perhaps, may come under the topic
we are at present discussing. I mean the custom by
which girls allow their young men friends to incur
expense in their behalf. I am aware that this custom is
on the wane in the older cities, that the most refined
girls in all parts of the Union dislike it, that it is " bad
form " in many circles. In the bowling-club to which I
had the pleasure to belong the ladies paid their subscrip
tions " like a man ; " when I drove out on sleigh-parties
the girls insisted on paying their share of the expense.
The fact, however, remains that, speaking generally
and taking class for class, the American girl allows her
admirers to spend their money on her much more freely
than the English girl. A man is considered mean if he
does not pay the car-fare of his girl companion ; a girl
will allow a man who is merely a " friend " to take her to
the theatre, fetching her and taking her home in a car
riage hired at exorbitant rates. The Illustrated Amer
ican (Jan. 19, 1895) writes :

The advanced ideas prevalent in this country regarding
the relations of the opposite sexes make it not only proper,

1 1 have seen a hrakeman on a passenger train wear overshoes on a showery
day, though his duties hardly ever compelled him to leave the covered cars.

32 The Land of Contrasts

but necessary, that a young man with serious intentions
shall take his sweetheart out, give her presents, send her
flowers, go driving with her, and in numberless little ways
incur expense. This is all very delightful for her, but to
him it means ruin. And at the end he may find that she
was only flirting with him.

In fact, whenever a young man and a young woman
are associated in any enterprise, it is quite usual for the
young man to pay for both. On the whole, this custom
seems an undesirable one. It is so much a matter of
habit that the American girl usually plays her part in
the matter with absolute innocence and unconsciousness ;
she feels no more obligation than an English girl would
for the opening of a door. The young man also takes it
as a matter of course, and does not in the least presume
on his services. But still, I think, it has a slight ten
dency to rub the bloom off what ought to be the most
delicate and ethereal form of social intercourse. It
favours the well-to-do youth by an additional handicap.
It throws another obstacle in the track of poverty and
thrift. It is contrary to the spirit of democratic equal
ity ; the woman who accepts such attentions is tacitly
allowing that she is not on the same footing as man.
On reflection it must grate a little on the finest feel
ings. There seems to me little doubt that it will gradu
ally die out in circles to which it would be strange in
Europe.

On the whole, however, even with such drawbacks as
the above, the social relationship of the sexes in the
United States is one of the many points in which the
new surpasses the old. The American girl is thrown

American Society 33

into such free and ample relations with the American
boy from her earliest youth up that she is very apt to
look upon him simply as a girl of a stronger growth.
Some such word as the German G-eschwister is needed to
embrace the " young creatures " who, in petticoats or
trousers, form the genuine democracy of American youth.
Up to the doors of college, and often even beyond them,
the boy and girl have been " co-educated ; " at the high
school the boy has probably had a woman for his teacher,
at least in some branches, up to his sixteenth or seven
teenth year. The hours of recreation are often spent
in pastimes in which girls may share. In some of the
most characteristic of American amusements, such as
the " coasting " of winter, girls take a prominent place.
There is no effort on the part of elders to play the spy
on the meetings of boy or girl, or to place obstacles in
their way. They are not thought of as opposite sexes ;
it is " just all the young people together." The result is
a spirit of absolute good comradeship. There is little
atmosphere of the unknown or the mysterious about the
opposite sex. The love that leads to marriage is thus
apt to be the product of a wider experience, and to be
based on a more intimate knowledge. The sentimental
may cry fie on so clear-sighted a Cupid, but the sensible
cannot but rejoice over anything that tends to the un
doing of the phrase " lottery of marriage."

That the ideal attitude towards and in marriage has
been attained in average American society I should be
the last to assert. The way in which American wives
leave their husbands toiling in the sweltering city while
they themselves fleet the time in Europe would alone
give me pause. But I am here concerned with the rela-

34 The Land of Contrasts

tive and not the absolute; and my contention is that
the average marriage in America is apt to be made
Under conditions which, compared with those of other
nations, increase the chances of happiness. A great
deal has been said and written about the inconsistency
of the marriage laws of the different States, and much
cheap wit has been fired off at the fatal facility of
divorce in the United States ; but I could not ascertain
from my own observation that these defects touched any
very great proportion of the population, or played any
larger part in American society, as I have defined it, than
the differences between the marriage laws of England
and Scotland do in our own island. M. Bourget, quite
arbitrarily and (I think) with a trace of the proverbial
Gallic way of looking at the relations of the sexes, has
attributed the admitted moral purity of the atmosphere
of American society to the coldness of the American
temperament and the sera juvenum Venus. It seems to
me, however, that there is no call to disparage American
virtue by the suggestion of a constitutional want of lia
bility to temptation, and that Mark Twain, in his some
what irreverent rejoinder, is much nearer the mark when
he attributes the prevalent sanctity of the marriage tie
to the fact that the husbands and wives have generally
married each other for love. This is undoubtedly the
true note of America in this particular, though it may
not be unreservedly characteristic of the smart set of
New York. If the sacred flame of Cupid could be
exposed to the alembic of statistics, I should be sur
prised to hear that the love matches of the United
States did not reach a higher percentage than those of
any other nation. One certainlv meets more husbands

American Society 35

and wives of mature age who seem thoroughly to enjoy
each other's society.

There is a certain " snap " to American society that is
not due merely to a sense of novelty, and does not
wholly wear off through familiarity. The sense of
enjoyment is more obvious and more evenly distributed ;
there is a general willingness to be amused, a general
absence of the blase. Even Matthew Arnold could not
help noticing the " buoyancy, enjoyment, and freedom
from restraint which are everywhere in America," and
which he accounted for by the absence of the aristocratic
incubus. The nervous fluid so characteristic of America
in general flows briskly in the veins of its social organ
ism; the feeling is abroad that what is worth doing is
worth doing well. There is a more general ability than
we possess to talk brightly on the topics of the moment ;
there is less lingering over one subject ; there is a con
stant savour of the humorous view of life. The more
even distribution of comfort in the United States
(becoming, alas ! daily less characteristic) adds largely
to the pleasantness of society by minimising the semi
conscious feeling of remorse in playing while the "other
half" starves. The inherent inability of the American
to understand that there is any " higher " social order
than his own minimises the feeling of envy of those
" above " him. " How dreadful," says the Englishman
to the American girl, " to be governed by men to whom
you would not speak ! " " Yes," is the rejoinder, " and
how delightful to be governed by men who won't
speak to you ! " From this latter form of delight Ameri
can society is free. Henry James strikes a true note
when he makes Miranda Hope (in " A Bundle of Let-

36 The Land of Contrasts

ters ") describe the fashionable girl she met at a Paris
pension as " like the people they call ' haughty ' in
books," and then go on to say, " I have never seen
anyone like that before — anyone that wanted to make
a difference." And her feeling of impersonal interest
in the phenomenon is equally characteristic. "She
seemed to me so like a proud young lady in a novel. I
kept saying to myself all day, 4 haughty, haughty,' and I
wished she would keep on so." Too much stress can
not easily be laid on this feeling of equality in the air
as a potent enhancer of the pleasure of society. To feel
yourself patronised — even, perhaps especially, when
you know yourself to be in all respects the superior of
the patroniser — may tickle your sense of humour for a
while, but in the long run it is distinctly dispiriting.
The philosopher, no doubt, is or should be able to dis
regard the petty annoyances arising from an ever-present
consciousness of social limitation, but society is not
entirely composed of philosophers, even in America ;
and the sense of freedom and space is unqualifiedly wel
come to its members. It is not easy for a European to
the manner born to realise the sort of extravagant,
nightmare effect that many of our social customs have
in the eyes of our untutored American cousins. The
inherent absurdities that are second nature to us exhale
for them the full flavour of their grotesqueness. The
idea of an insignificant boy peer taking precedence of
Mr. John Morley ! The idea of having to appear before
royalty in a state of partial nudity on a cold winter day !
The necessity of backing out of the royal presence !
The idea of a freeborn Briton having to get out of an
engagement long previously formed on the score that

American Society 37

" he has been commanded to dine with H.R.H." The
horrible capillary plaster necessary before a man can
serve decently as an opener of carriage-doors ! The
horsehair envelopes without which our legal brains can
not work ! The unwritten law by which a man has to
nurse his hat and stick throughout a call unless his
hostess specially asks him to lay them aside !

Mr. Bryce commits himself to the assertion that
" Scotchmen and Irishmen are more unlike Englishmen,
the native of Normandy more unlike the native of Prov
ence, the Pomeranian more unlike the Wurtemberger,
the Piedmontese more unlike the Neapolitan, the Basque
more unlike the Andalusian, than the American from
any part of the country is to the American from any
other." Max O'Rell, on the other hand, writes :
" L'habitant du Nord-est des Etats Unis, le Yankee, dif-
fere autant de FAmericam de T Quest et du Midi que
1' Anglais differe de 1'Allemand ou de 1'Espagnol." On
this point I find myself far more in accord with the
French than with the British observer, though, perhaps,
M. Blouet rather overstates his case. Wider differences
among civilised men can hardly be imagined than those
which subsist between the Creole of New Orleans and
the Yankee of Maine, the Kentucky farmer and the
Michigan lumberer. It is, however, true that there is a
distinct tendency for the stamp of the Eastern States to
be applied to the inhabitants of the cities, at least, of the
West. The founders of these cities are so largely men
of Eastern birth, the means of their expansion are so
largely advanced by Eastern capitalists, that this ten
dency is easily explicable. [So far as my observation
went it was to Boston rather than to New York or Phila-

38 The Land of Contrasts

delphia that the educated classes of the Western cities
looked as the cynosure of their eyes. Boston seemed
to stand for something less material than these other
cities, and the subtler nature of its influence seemed to
magnify its pervasive force.] None the less do the
people of the United States, compared with those of any
one European country, seem to me to have their due
share of variety and even of picturesqueness. This
latter quality is indeed denied to the United States not
only by European visitors, but also by many Americans.
This denial, however, rests on a limited and traditional
use of the word picturesque. America has not the
European picturesqueness of costume, of relics of the
past, of the constant presence of the potential foeman at
the gate. But apart altogether from the almost theat
rical romance of frontier life and the now obsolescent
conflict with the aborigines, is there not some element
of the picturesque in the processes of readjustment by
which the emigrants of European stock have adapted
themselves and are adapting themselves to the con
ditions of the New World ? In some ways the nineteenth
century is the most romantic of all; and the United
States embody and express it as no other country. Is
there not a picturesque side to the triumph of civilisa
tion over barbarism ? Is there nothing of the picturesque
in the long thin lines of gleaming steel, thrown across
the countless miles of desert sand and alkali plain, and
in the mighty mass of metal with its glare of Cyclopean
eye and its banner of fire-illumined smoke, that bears the
conquerors of stubborn nature from side to side of the
great continent ? Is there not an element of the pict
uresque in the struggles of the Western farmer ? Can

American Society 39

anything be finer in its way than a night view of Pitts-
burg — that " Hell with its lid off," where the cold gleam
of electricity vies with the lurid glare of the furnaces
and smelting works ? I say nothing of the Californian
Missions ; of the sallow Creoles of New Orleans with their
gorgeous processions of Mardi-Gras ; or of the almost
equally fantastic fete of the Veiled Prophet of St. Louis ;
or of the lumberers of Michigan ; or of the Mexicans of
Arizona ; or of the German beer-gardens of Chicago ; or
of the swinging lanterns and banners of Chinatown in
San Francisco and Mott street in New York ; or of the
Italians of Mulberry Bend in the latter city ; or of the
alternating stretches on a long railway journey of forest
and prairie, yellow corn-fields and sandy desert; or of
many other classes and conditions which are by no means
void of material for the artist in pen or brush. All these
lend hues that are anything but prosaic to my kaleido
scopic recollections of the United States ; but more than
all these, the characteristically picturesque feature of
American life, stands out the omnipresent negro. It
was a thrill to have one's boots blackened by a coloured
" professor " in an alley-way of Boston, and to hear his
richly intoned " as shoh's you're bawn." It was a delight
to see the negro couples in the Public Garden, conduct
ing themselves and their courting, as Mr. Howells has
well remarked, with infinitely more restraint and refine
ment than their Milesian compeers, or to see them pass
ing out of the Charles-street Church in all the Sunday
bravery of broadcloth coats, shiny hats, wonderfully
laundered skirts of snowy whiteness, and bodices of all
the hues of the rainbow. And all through the Union their
glossy black faces and gleaming white teeth shed a kind

4-O The Land of Contrasts

of dusky radiance over the traveller's path. Who but
can recall with gratitude the expansive geniality and
reassuring smile of the white-coated negro waiter, as com
pared with the supercilious indifference, if not positive
rudeness, of his pale colleague? And what will ever
ertace the mental kodak of George (not Sambo any more)
shuffling rapidly into the dining-room, with his huge flat
Dalm inverted high over his head and bearing a colossal
tray heaped up with good things for the guest under his
charge ? And shall I ever forget the grotesque gravity
of the negro brakeman in Louisiana, with his tall silk
hat ? or the pair of gloves pathetically shared between
two neatly dressed negro youths in a railway carriage in
Georgia? or the pickaninnies slumbering sweetly in old
packing-cases in a hut at Jacksonville, while their father
thrummed the soft guitar with friendly grin? It has
always seemed to me a reproach to American artists that
they fill the air with sighs over the absence of the pict
uresque in the United States, while almost totally over
looking the fine flesh-tones and gay dressing of the
coloured brother at their elbow.

The most conventional society of America is apt to
be more or less shrouded by the pall of monotony that
attends convention elsewhere, but typical American
society — the society of the great mass of Americans —
shows distinctly more variety than that of England. In
social meetings, as in business, the American is ever on
the alert for some new thing ; and the brain of every
pretty girl is cudgelled in order to provide some novelty
for her next party. Hence the progressive euchre, the
" library " parties, the " shadow " dances, the conversa
tion parties, and the long series of ingenious games, the

American Society 41

adoption of which, for some of us at least, has done
much to lighten the deadly dulness of English " small
and earlies." Even the sacro-sanctity of whist has not
been respected, and the astonished shade of Hoyle has
to look on at his favourite game in the form of " drive "
and "duplicate." The way in which whist has been
taken up in the United States is a good example of the
national unwillingness to remain in the ruts of one's
ancestors. Possibly the best club-players of England
are at least as good as the best Americans, but the gen
eral average of play and the general interest in the
game are distinctly higher in the United States. Every
English whist-player with any pretension to science
knows what he has to expect when he finds an unknown
lady as his partner, especially if she is below thirty ; but
in America he will often find himself "put to his
trumps " by a bright girl in her teens. The girls in
Boston and other large cities have organised afternoon
whist-clubs, at which all the " rigour of the game " is
observed. Many of them take regular lessons from
whist experts ; and among the latter themselves are
not a few ladies, who find the teaching of their favour
ite game a more lucrative employment than governess-
ing or journalism. Even so small a matter as the eating
of ice-cream may illustrate the progressive nature of
American society. Elderly Americans still remember
the time when it was usual to eat this refreshing deli
cacy out of economical wine-glasses such as we have
still to be content with in England. But now-a-days
no American expects or receives less than a heaping
saucer of ice-cream at a time.

Americans are born dancers ; they have far more

42 The Land of Contrasts

quicksilver in their feet than their English cousins.
Perhaps the very best waltzers I have ever danced with
were English girls, who understood the poetry of the
art and knew how to reflect not merely the time of the
music, but its nuances of rhythm and tone. But dancers
such as these are like fairies' visits, that come but once
or twice in a lifetime ; and a large proportion of English
girls dance very badly. In America one seldom or never
finds a girl who cannot dance fairly, and most of them
can claim much warmer adverbs than that. The Amer
ican invention of " reversing " is admirable in its unex-
aggerated form, but requires both study and practice ;
and the reason that it was voted " bad form " in England
was simply that the indolence of the gilded youth pre
vented him ever taking the trouble to master it. Our
genial satirist Punch hit the nail on the head : " Shall
we — eh — reverse, Miss Lilian? " " Reverse, indeed ; it's
as much as you can do to keep on your legs as it is."
One custom at American dances struck me as sin
gularly stupid and un-American in its inelasticity. I
know not how widespread it is, or how fashionable, but
it reigned in circles which seemed to my unsophisticated
eyes quite comme il faut. The custom is that by which
a man having once asked a lady to dance becomes
responsible for her until someone else offers himself as
her partner. It probably arose from the chivalrous
desire not to leave any girl partnerless, but in practice it
works out quite the other way. When a man realises
that he may have to retain the same partner for several
dances, or even for the greater part of the evening, he
will, unless he is a Bayard absolutely sans peur et sans
reproche, naturally think twice of engaging a lady from

American Society 43

whom his release is problematical. Hence the tendency
is to increase the triumphs of the belle, and decrease the
chances of the less popular maiden. It is also extremely
uncomfortable for a girl to feel that a man has (to use
the ugly slang of the occasion) " got stuck " with her ;
and it takes more adroitness and self-possession than
any young girl can be expected to possess to extricate her
self neatly from the awkward position. Another funny
custom at subscription balls of a very respectable char
acter is that many of the matrons wear their bonnets
throughout the evening. But this, perhaps, is not
stranger than the fact that ladies wear hats in the theatre,
while the men who accompany them are in evening dress
— a curious habit which to the uninitiated observer
would suggest that the nymphs belonged to a less
fashionable stratum than their attendant swains. A
parallel instance is that of afternoon receptions, where
the hostess and her myrmidons appear in ball costume,
while the visitors are naturally in the toilette of the
street. The contrast thus evolved of low necks and
heavy furs is often very comical. The British conven
tion by which the hostess always dresses as plainly as
possible so as to avoid the chance of eclipsing any of her
guests, and so chooses to briller par sa simplicity, is in
other cases also more honoured in the breach than in the
observance in America.

A very characteristic little piece of the social democ
racy of America is seen at its best in Chicago, though
not unknown in other large cities. On the evening of
a hot summer day cushions and rugs are spread on the
front steps of the houses, and the occupants take pos
session of these, the men to enjoy their after-dinner

44 The Land of Contrasts

cigars, the women to talk and scan the passers-by. The
general effect is very genial and picturesque, and de
cidedly suggestive of democratic sociability. The same
American indifference to the exaggerated British love
of privacy which leads John Bull to enclose his fifty-
foot-square garden by a ten-foot wall is shown in the
way in which the gardens of city houses are left un-
fenced. Nothing can be more attractive in its way than
such a street as Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, where the
pretty villas stand in unenclosed gardens, and the ver
dant lawns melt imperceptibly into each other without
advertisement of where one leaves off and the other
begins, while the fronts towards the street are equally
exposed. The general effect is that of a large and
beautiful park dotted with houses. The American is
essentially gregarious in his instinct, and the possession
of a vast feudal domain, with a high wall round it, can
never make up to him for the excitement of near neigh
bours. It may seriously be doubted whether the Ameri
can millionaire who buys a lordly demesne in England
is not doing violence to his natural and national tastes
every day that he inhabits it.

IV

An Appreciation of the American Woman

COMPARED to the appearance of the American
girl in books written about the United States,
that of Charles I.'s head in Mr. Dick's memo
rial might perhaps be almost called casual.
All down the literary ladder, from the weighty tomes of a
Professor Bryce to the witty persiflage of a Max O'Rell,
we find a considerable part of every rung occupied by
the skirts appropriated to the gentler sex ; and — what
is, perhaps, stranger still — she holds her own even in
books written by women. It need not be asserted that
all the references to her are equally agreeable. That
amiable critic, Sir Lepel Griffin, alludes to her only to
assure us that " he had never met anyone who had lived
long or travelled much in America who did not hold
that female beauty in the States is extremely rare,
while the average of ordinary good looks is unusually
low," and even visitors of an infinitely more subtle and
discriminating type, such as M. Bourget, mingle not a
little vinegar with their syrup of appreciation. But the
fact remains that almost every book on the United States
contains a chapter devoted explicitly to the female
citizen ; and the inevitableness of the record must have
some solid ground of reason behind or below it. It indi
cates a vein of unusual significance, or at the very least
of unusual conspicuousness, in the phenomenon thus

45

46 The Land of Contrasts

treated of. Observers have usually found it possible to
write books on the social and economical traits of other
countries without a parade of petticoats in the head
lines. This is not to say that one can ignore one-half of
society in writing of it ; but if you search the table of
contents of such books as Mr. Philip Hamerton's charm
ing "French and English," or Mr. T. H. S. Escott's
"England: Its People, Polity, and Pursuits," you will
not find the words " woman " or " girl," or any equiva
lent for them. But the writer on the United States seems
irresistibly compelled to give woman all that coordinate
importance which is implied by the prominence of capi
tal letters and separate chapters. •

This predominance of woman in books on America is
not by any means a phase of the " woman question,"
technically so called. It has no direct reference to the
woman as voter, as doctor, as lawyer, as the competitor
of man ; the subject of interest is woman as woman, the
Ding an sich of German philosophical slang. No doubt
the writer may have occasion to allude to Dr. Mary
Walker, to the female mayors of Wyoming, to the presi
dential ambitions of Mrs. Belva Lockwood; but these
are mere adjuncts, not explanations, of the question under
consideration. The European visitor to the United States
has to write about American women because they bulk so
largely in his view, because they seem essentially so prom
inent a feature of American life, because their relative im
portance and interest impress him as greater than those of
women in the lands of the Old World, because they seem
to him to embody in so eminent a measure that intangible
quality of Americanism, the existence, or indeed the pos
sibility, of which is so hotly denied by some Americans.

An Appreciation of the American Woman 47

Indeed, those who look upon the prominent rdle of
the American woman merely as one phase of the " new
woman " question — merely as the inevitable conspicu-
ousness of woman intruding on what has hitherto been
exclusively the sphere of man — are many degrees beside
the point. The American note is as obvious in the girl
who has never taken the slightest interest in politics, the
professions, or even the bicycle, as in Dr. Mary Walker
or Mrs. Lockwood. The prevalent English idea of the
actual interference of the American woman in public
life is largely exaggerated. There are, for instance, in
Massachusetts 625,000 women entitled to vote for mem
bers of the school committees ; and the largest actual
vote recorded is 20,146. Of 175,000 women of voting
age in Connecticut the numbers who used their vote in
the last three years were 3,806, 3,241, and 1,906. These,
if any, are typical American States ; and there is not the
shadow of a doubt that the 600,000 women who stayed
at home are quite as " American " as the 20,000 who
went to the poll. The sphere of the American woman's
influence and the reason of her importance lie behind
politics and publicity.

It seems a reasonable assumption that the formation
of the American girl is due to the same large elemental
causes that account for American phenomena generally ;
and her relative strikingness may be explained by the
reflection that there was more room for these great forces
to work in the case of woman than in the case of man.
The Englishman, for instance, through his contact with
public life and affairs, through his wider experience,
through his rubbing shoulders with more varied types,
had already been prepared for the working of American

48 The Land of Contrasts

conditions in a way that his more sheltered womankind
had not been. In the bleaching of the black and the
grey, the change will be the more striking in the former ;
the recovery of health will be conspicuous in proportion
to the gravity of the disease. America has meant oppor
tunity for women even more in some ways than for
men. The gap between them has been lessened in pro
portion as the gap between the American and the
European has widened. The average American woman
is distinctly more different from her average English
sister than is the case with their respective brothers.
The training of the English girl starts from the very
beginning on a different basis from that of the boy ;
she is taught to restrain her impulses, while his are
allowed much freer scope ; the sister is expected to
defer to the brother from the time she can walk or
talk. In America this difference of training is con
stantly tending to the vanishing point. The American
woman has never learned to play second riddle. The
American girl, as Mr. Henry James says, is rarely nega
tive ; she is either (and usually) a most charming suc
cess or (and exceptionally) a most disastrous failure.
The pathetic army of ineffective spinsters clinging
apologetically to the skirts of gentility is conspicuous
by its absence in America. The conditions of life there
encourage a girl to undertake what she can do best, with
a comparatively healthy disregard of its fancied " respec
tability." Her consciousness of efficiency reacts in a
thousand ways ; her feet are planted on so solid a
foundation that she inevitably seems an important con
structive part of society. The contrast between the
American woman and the English woman in this respect

An Appreciation of the American Woman 49

may be illustrated by the two Caryatides in the Braccio
Nuovo at the Vatican. The first of these, a copy of one
of the figures of the Erechtheum, seems to bear the
superincumbent architrave easily and securely, with her
feet planted squarely and the main lines running verti
cally. In the other, of a later period, the fact that the
feet are placed close together gives an air of insecurity
to the attitude, an effect heightened by the prevalence
of curved lines in the folds of the drapery.

The American woman, too, has had more time than
the American man to cultivate the more amiable — if
you will, the more showy — qualities of American civil
isation. The leisured class of England consists of both
sexes, that of America practically of one only. The
problem of the American man so far has mainly been to
subdue a new continent to human uses, while the woman
has been sacrificing on the altar of the Graces. Hence
the wider culture and the more liberal views are often
found in the sex from which the European does not
expect them ; hence the woman of New York and other
American cities is often conspicuously superior to her
husband in looks, manners, and general intelligence.
This has been denied by champions of the American
man; but the observation of the writer, whatever it
may be worth, would deny the denial.

The way in which an expression such as " Ladies'
Cabin " is understood in the United States has always
seemed to me very typical of the position of the gentler
sex in that country. In England, when we see an in
scription of that kind, we assume that the enclosure
referred to is for ladies only. In America, unless the
46 only " is emphasized, the " Ladies' Drawing Room "

50 The Land of Contrasts

or the " Ladies' Waiting Room " extends its hospitality
to all those of the male sex who are ready to behave as
gentlemen and temporarily forego the delights of to
bacco. Thus half of the male passengers of the United
States journey, as it were, under the segis of woman,
and think it no shame to be enclosed in a box labelled
with her name.

Put roughly, what chiefly strikes the stranger in the
American woman is her candour, her frankness, her
hail-fellow-well-met-edness, her apparent absence of con
sciousness of self or of sex, her spontaneity, her vivacity,
her fearlessness. If the observer himself is not of a
specially refined or delicate type, he is apt at first to
misunderstand the cameraderie of an American girl, to
see in it suggestions of a possible coarseness of fibre.
If a vain man, he may take it as a tribute to his per
sonal charms, or at least to the superior claims of a
representative of old-world civilisation. But even to
the obtuse stranger of this character it will ultimately
become obvious — as to the more refined observer ab
initio — that he can no more (if as much) dare to take
a liberty with the American girl than with his own
countrywoman. The plum may appear to be more
easily handled, but its bloom will be found to be as
intact and as ethereal as in the jealously guarded hot
house fruit of Europe. He will find that her frank and
charming companionability is as far removed from mas
culinity as from coarseness ; that the points in which
she differs from the European lady do not bring her
nearer either to a man on the one hand, or to a common
woman on the other. He will find that he has to re'
adjust his standards, to see that divergence from the

An Appreciation of the American Woman 51

best type of woman hitherto known to him does not
necessarily mean deterioration ; if he is of an open and
susceptible mind, he may even come to the conclusion
that he prefers the transatlantic type !

Unless his lines in England have lain in very pleasant
places, the intelligent Englishman in enjoying his first
experience of transatlantic society will assuredly be
struck by the sprightliness, the variety, the fearless in
dividuality of the American girl, by her power of rep
artee, by the quaint appositeness of her expressions, by
the variety of her interests, by the absence of undue
deference to his masculine dignity. If in his newly
landed innocence he ventures to compliment the girl he
talks with on the purity of her English, and assumes
that she differs in that respect from her companions, she
will patriotically repel the suggested accusation of her
countrywomen by assuring him, without the ghost of a
smile, " that she has had special advantages, inasmuch
as an English missionary had been stationed near her
tribe." If she prefers Martin Tupper to Shakespeare,
or Strauss to Beethoven, she will say so without a
tremor. Why should she hypocritically subordinate her
personal instincts to a general theory of taste? Her
independence is visible in her very dress.; she wears
what she thinks suits her (and her taste is seldom at
fault), not merely what happens to be the fashionable
freak of the moment. What Englishman does not
shudder when he remembers how each of his woman
kind — the comely and the homely, the short and
the long, the stout and the lean — at once assumed the
latest form of hat, apparently utterly oblivious to the
question of whether it suited her special style of beauty

52 The Land of Contrasts

or not ? Now, an American girl is not built that way.
She wishes to be in the fashion just as much as she can ;
but if a special item of fashion does not set her off to
advantage, she gracefully and courageously resigns it
to those who can wear it with profit. But honour where
honour is due ! The English girl generally shows more
sense of fitness in the dress for walking and travelling ;
she, consciously or unconsciously, realises that adapt
ability for its practical purpose is essential in such a
case.

The American girl, as above said, strikes one as indi
vidual, as varied. In England when we meet a girl in
a ball-room we can generally — not always — "place"
her after a few minutes' talk ; she belongs to a set of
which you remember to have already met a volume or
two. In some continental countries the patterns in
common use seem reduced to three or four. In the
United States every new girl is a new sensation.
Society consists of a series of surprises. Expectation
is continually piqued. A and B and C do not help you
to induce D ; when you reach Z you may imagine you
find a slight trace of reincarnation. Not that the sur
prises are invariably pleasant. The very force and self-
confidence of the American girl doubly and trebly under
line the undesirable. Vulgarity that would be stolid
and stodgy in Middlesex becomes blatant and aggres
sive in New York.

The American girl is not hampered by the feeling of
class distinction, which has for her neither religious nor
historical sanction. The English girl is first the squire's
daughter, second a good churchwoman, third an Eng
lish subject, and fourthly a woman. Even the best of

An Appreciation of the American Woman 53

them cannot rise wholly superior to the all-pervading,
and, in its essence, vulgarising, superstition that some
of her fellow-creatures are not fit to come between
the wind and her nobility. Those who reject the theory
do so by a self-conscious effort which in itself is crude
and a strain. The American girl is, however, born into
an atmosphere of unconsciousness of all this, and, unless
she belongs to a very narrow coterie, does not reach this
point of view either as believer or antagonist. This
endues her, at her best, with a sweet and subtle fra
grance of humanity that is, perhaps, unique. Free from
any sense of inherited or conventional superiority or
inferiority, as devoid of the brutality of condescension
as of the meanness of toadyism, she combines in a
strangely attractive way the charm of eternal womanli
ness with the latest aroma of a progressive century.
It is, doubtless, this quality that M. Bourget has in
view when he speaks of the incomparable delicacy of
the American girl, or M. Paul Blouet when he asserts
that " you find in the American woman a quality which,
I fear, is beginning to disappear in Paris and is almost
unknown in London — a kind of spiritualised politeness,
a tender solicitude for other people, combined with
strong individuality."

There is one type of girl, with whom even the most
modest and most moderately eligible of bachelors must be
familiar in England, who is seldom in evidence in the
United States — she whom the American aborigines
might call the " Girl-Anxious-to-be-Married." What
right-minded man in any circle of British society has
not shuddered at the open pursuit of young Croesus ?
Have not our novelists and satirists reaped the most

54 The Land of Contrasts

ample harvest from the pitiable spectacle and all its
results ? A large part of the advantage that American
society has over English rests in the comparative absence
of this phenomenon. Man there does not and cannot
bear himself as the cynosure of the female eye ; the
art of throwing the handkerchief has not been included
in his early curriculum. The American dancing man
does not dare to arrive just in time for supper or to
lounge in the doorway while dozens of girls line the
walls in faded expectation of a waltz. The English
girl herself can hardly be blamed for this state of things.
She has been brought up to think that marriage is the
be-all and end-all of her existence. " For my part,"
writes the author of " Cecil, the Coxcomb," " I never
blame them when I see them capering and showing off
their little monkey-tricks, for conquest. The fault is
none of theirs. It is part of an erroneous system."
Lady Jeune expresses the orthodox English position
when she asserts flatly that " to deny that marriage
is the object of woman's existence is absurd." The
anachronistic survival of the laws of primogeniture and
entail practically makes the marriage of the daughter
the only alternative for a descent to a lower sphere of
society. In the United States the proportion of girls who
strike one as obvious candidates for marriage is remark
ably small. This may be owing to the art with which
the American woman conceals her lures, but all the evi
dence points to its being in the main an entirely natural
and unconscious attitude. The American girl has all
along been so accustomed to associate on equal terms with
the other sex that she naturally and inevitably regards
him more in the light of a comrade than of a possible

An Appreciation of the American Woman 55

husband. She has so many resources, and is so inde
pendent, that marriage does not bound her horizon.

Her position, however, is not one of antagonism to
marriage. If it were, I should be the last to commend
it. It rather rests on an assurance of equality, on the
assumption that marriage is an honourable estate — a
rounding and completing of existence — for man as
much as for woman. Nor does it mean, I think, any
lack of passion and the deepest instincts of womanhood.
All these are present and can be wakened by the right
man at the right time. Indeed, the very fact that mar
riage (with or without love) is not incessantly in the
foreground of an American girl's consciousness probably
makes the awakening all the more deep and tender
because comparatively unanticipated and unforeseen.

The marriages between American heiresses and Euro
pean peers do not militate seriously against the above
view of American marriage. It cannot be sufficiently
emphasised that the doings of a few wealthy people in
New York are not characteristic of American civilisa
tion. The New York Times was entirely right when it
said, in commenting upon the frank statement of the
bridegroom in a recent alliance of this kind that it had
been arranged by friends of both parties : " A few years
ago this frankness would have cost him his bride, if his
' friends ' had chosen an American girl for that distinc
tion, and even now it would be resented to the point of
a rupture of the engagement by most American girls."

The American girl may not be in reality better edu
cated than her British sister, nor a more profound
thinker; but her mind is indisputably more agile and
elastic. In fact, a slow-going Britisher has to go through

56 The Land of Contrasts

a regular course of training before he can follow the
rapid transitions of her train of associations. She has
the happiest faculty in getting at another's point of
view and in putting herself in his place. Her imagina
tion is more likely to be over-active than too sluggish.
One of the most popular classes of the " Society for the
Encouragement of Study at Home " is that devoted to
imaginary travels in Europe. She is wonderfully adapt
able, and makes herself at ease in an entirely strange
milieu almost before the transition is complete. Both
M. Blouet and M. Bourget notice this, and claim that it
is a quality she shares with the Frenchwoman. The
wife of a recent President is a stock illustration of it —
a girl who was transferred in a moment from what we
should call a quiet " middle-class " existence to the apex
of publicity, and comported herself in the most trying
situations with the ease, dignity, unconsciousness, taste,
and graciousness of a born princess.

The innocence of the American girl is neither an affec
tation, nor a prejudiced fable, nor a piece of stupidity.
The German woman, quoted by Mr. Bryce, found her
American compeer furchtbar frei, but she had at once to
add und furchtbar fromm. " The innocence of the Amer
ican girl passes abysses of obscenity without stain or
knowledge." She may be perfectly able to hold her own
under any circumstances, but she has little of that detest
able quality which we call " knowing." The immortal
Daisy Miller is a charming illustration of this. I used
sometimes to get into trouble with American ladies, who
"hoped I did not take Daisy Miller as a type of the
average American girl," by assuring them that " I did
not — that I thought her much too good for that." And

An Appreciation of the American Woman 57

in truth there seemed to me a lack of subtlety in the
current appreciation of the charming young lady from
Schenectady, who is much finer than many readers give
her credit for. And on this point I think I may cite
Mr. Henry James himself as a witness on my side, since,
in a dramatic version of the tale published in the Atlantic
Monthly (Vol. 51, 1883), he makes his immaculate Bos-
tonian, Mr. Winterbourne, marry Daisy with a full con
sciousness of all she was and had been. As I understand
her, Miss Daisy Miller, in spite of her somewhat unpro-
pitious early surroundings, was a young woman entirely
able to appreciate the very best when she met it. She
at once recognised the superiority of Winterbourne to
the men she had hitherto known, and she also recognised
that her " style " was not the " style " of him or of his
associates. But she was very young, and had all the
unreasonable pride of extreme youth ; and so she de
termined not to alter her behaviour one jot or tittle in
order to attract him — nay, with a sort of bravado, she
exaggerated those very traits which she knew he dis
liked. Yet all the time she had the highest appreciation
of his most delicate refinements, while she felt also that
he ought to see that at bottom she was just as refined as
he, though her outward mask was not so elegant. I have
no doubt whatever that, as Mrs. Winterbourne, she
adapted herself to her new milieu with absolute success,
and yet without loss of her own most fascinating indi
viduality.1

1 Since writing the above I have learned that Mr. W. D. Howells has
written of " Daisy Miller " in a similar vein, speaking of her " indestructible
innocence and her invulnerable new-worldliness." " It was so plain that Mr.
James disliked her vulgar conditions that the very people to whom he revealed
her essential sweetness and light were furious that he should have seemed not
to see what existed through him. "

58 The Land of Contrasts

The whole atmosphere of the country tends to pre
serve the spirit of unsuspecting innocence in the Amer
ican maiden. The function of a chaperon is very
differently interpreted in the United States and in Eng
land. On one occasion I met in a Pullman car a young
lady travelling in charge of her governess. A chance
conversation elicited the fact that she was the daughter
of a well-known New York banker ; and the fact that we
had some mutual acquaintances was accepted as all-
sufficing credentials for my respectability. We had
happened to fix on the same hotel at our destination ;
and in the evening, after dinner, I met in the corridor
the staid and severe-looking gouvernante, who saluted me
with " Oh, Mr. Muirhead, I have such a headache !
Would you mind going out with my little girl while she
makes some purchases ? " I was a little taken aback at
first ; but a moment's reflection convinced me that I had
just experienced a most striking tribute to the honour
of the American man and the social atmosphere of the
United States.

The psychological method of suggestive criticism has,
perhaps, never been applied with more delicacy of intel
ligence than in M. Bourget's chapter on the American
woman. Each stroke of the pen, or rather each turn of
the scalpel, amazes us by its keen penetration. As we at
last close the book and meditate on what we have read,
it is little by little borne in upon us that though due
tribute is paid to the charming traits of the American
woman, yet the general outcome of M. Bourget's analy
sis is truly damnatory. If this sprightly, fascinating,
somewhat hard and calculating young woman be a true
picture of the transatlantic maiden, we may sigh indeed

An Appreciation of the American Woman 59

for her lack of the Ewig Weibliche. I do not pretend to
say where M. Bourget's appreciation is at fault, but that
it is false — unaccountably false — in the general impres
sion it leaves, I have no manner of doubt. Perhaps his
attention has been fixed too exclusively on the Newport
girl, who, it must again be insisted on, is too much
impregnated with cosmopolitan fin de si£cle-ism to be
taken as the American type. Botanise a flower, use the
strongest glasses you will, tear apart and name and
analyse, — the result is a catalogue, the flower with its
beauty and perfume is not there. So M. Bourget has
catalogued the separate qualities of the American
woman ; as a whole she has eluded his analysis. Per
haps this chapter of his may be taken as an eminent
illustration of the limitations of the critical method,
which is at times so illuminating, while at times it so
utterly fails to touch the heart of things, or, better, the
wholeness of things.

Among the most searching tests of the state of civil
isation reached by any country are the character of its
roads, its minimising of noise, and the position of its
women. If the United States does not stand very high
on the application of the first two tests, its name assur
edly leads all the rest in the third. In no other country
is the legal status of women so high or so well secured,
or their right to follow an independent career so fully
recognised by society at large. In no other country is
so much done to provide for their convenience and com
fort. All the professions are open to them, and the
opportunity has widely been made use of. Teaching,
lecturing, journalism, preaching, and the practice of
medicine have long been recognised as within woman's

60 The Land of Contrasts

sphere, and she is by no means unknown at the bar.
There are eighty qualified lady doctors in Boston alone,
and twenty-five lady lawyers in Chicago. A business
card before me as I write reads, " Mesdames Foster &
Steuart, Members of the Cotton Exchange and Board
of Trade, Real Estate and Stock Brokers, 143 Main
Street, Houston, Texas." The American woman, how
ever, is often found in still more unexpected occupa
tions. There are numbers of women dentists, barbers,
and livery-stable keepers. Miss Emily Faithful saw a
railway points woman in Georgia ; and one of the regular
steamers on Lake Champlain, when I was there, was
successfully steered by a pilot in petticoats. There is
one profession that is closed to women in the United
/ States — that of barmaid. That professional associa
tion of woman with man when he is apt to be in his
most animal moods is firmly tabooed in America — all
honour to it !

The career of a lady whose acquaintance I made in
New York, and whom I shall call Miss Undereast, illus
trates the possibilities open to the American girl. Born
in Iowa, Miss Undereast lost her mother when she was
three years old, and spent her early childhood in com
pany with her father, who was a travelling geologist and
mining prospector. She could ride almost before she could
walk, and soon became an expert shot. Once, when only
ten years of age, she shot down an Indian who was in
the act of killing a white woman with his tomahawk ;
and on another occasion, when her father's camp was
surrounded by hostile Indians, she galloped out upon her
pony and brought relief. " She was so much at home
with the shy, wild creatures of the woods that she learned

An Appreciation of the American Woman 61

their calls, and they would come to her like so many
domestic birds and animals. She would come into camp
with wild birds and squirrels on her shoulder. She
could lasso a steer with the best of them. When, at
last, she went to graduate at the State University of
Colorado, she paid for her last year's tuition with the
proceeds of her own herd of cattle." After graduating
at Colorado State University, she took a full course in a
commercial college, and then taught school for some time
at Denver. Later she studied and taught music, for
which she had a marked gift. The next important step
brought her to New York, where she gained in a com
petitive examination the position of secretary in the office
of the Street Cleaning Department. Her linguistic
accomplishments (for she had studied several foreign
languages) stood her in good stead, and during the ill
ness of her chief she practically managed the depart
ment and " bossed " fifteen hundred Italian labourers in
their own tongue. Miss Undereast carried on her musical
studies far enough to be offered a position in an oper
atic company, while her linguistic studies qualified her
for the post of United States Custom House Inspectress.
Latterly she has devoted her time mainly to journalism
and literature, producing, inter alia, a guidebook to New
York, a novel, and a volume of essays on social topics.
It is a little difficult to realise when talking with the
accomplished and womanly litterateur that she has been
in her day a slayer of Indians and "a mighty huntress
before the Lord ; " but both the facts and the opportu
nities underlying them testify in the most striking man
ner to the largeness of the sphere of action open to the
puella Americana.

62 The Land of Contrasts

If American women have been well treated by their
men-folk, they have nobly discharged their debt. It is
trite to refer to the numerous schemes of philanthropy
in which American women have played so prominent a
part, to allude to the fact that they have as a body used
their leisure to cultivate those arts and graces of life
which the preoccupation of man has led him too often
to neglect. This chapter may well close with the words
of Professor Bryce : "No country seems to owe more to
its women than America does, nor to owe to them so
much of what is best in its social institutions and in the
beliefs that govern conduct."

V

The American Child

THE United States has sometimes been called
the " Paradise of Women ; " from the child's
point of view it might equally well be termed
the "Paradise of Children," though the
thoughtful observer might be inclined to qualify the title
by the prefix "Fool's." Nowhere is the child so con
stantly in evidence ; nowhere are his wishes so carefully
consulted ; nowhere is he allowed to make his mark so
strongly on society in general. The difference begins at
the very moment of his birth, or indeed even sooner.
As much fuss is made over each young republican as if
he were the heir to a long line of kings ; his swaddling
clothes might make a ducal infant jealous ; the family
physician thinks $100 or $150 a moderate fee for usher
ing him into the light of day. Ordinary milk is not good
enough for him ; sterilised milk will hardly do ; " modi
fied " milk alone is considered fit for this democratic
suckling. Even the father is expected to spend hours
in patient consultation over his food, his dress, his teeth
ing-rings, and his outgoing. He is weighed daily, and
his nourishment is changed at once if he is a fraction
either behind or ahead of what is deemed a normal and
healthy rate of growth. American writers on the care
of children give directions for the use of the most com
plex and time-devouring devices for the proper prepara-

63

64 The Land of Contrasts

tion of their food, and seem really to expect that mamma
and nurse will go through with the prescribed juggling
with pots and pans, cylinders and lamps.

A little later the importance of the American child is
just as evident, though it takes on different forms. The
small American seems to consider himself the father of
the man in a way never contemplated by the poet. He
interrupts the conversation of his elders, he has a voice
in every matter, he eats and drinks what seems good to
him, he (or at any rate she) wears finger-rings of price,
he has no shyness or even modesty. The theory of the
equality of man is rampant in the nursery (though I use
this word only in its conventional and figurative sense,
for American children do not confine themselves to their
nurseries). You will actually hear an American mother
say of a child of two or three years of age : " I can't induce
him to do this ; " " She won't go to bed when I tell her ; "
" She will eat that lemon pie, though I know it is bad for
her." Even the public authorities seem to recognise the
inherent right of the American child to have his own
way, as the following paragraph from the New York
Herald of April 8, 1896, will testify :

WASHINGTON, April 7. — The lawn in front of the White
House this morning was littered with paper bags, the dyed
shells of eggs, and the remains of Easter luncheon baskets.
It is said that a large part of the lawn must be resodded.
The children, shut out from their usual romp in the grounds
at the back of the mansion, made their way into the front
when the sun came out in the afternoon, and gambolled
about at will, to the great injury of the rain-soaked turf.

The police stationed in the grounds vainly endeavored
to persuade the youngsters to go away, and were finally sue-

The American Child 65

cessful only through pretending to be about to close all the
gates for the night.

It is, perhaps, superfluous to say that this kind of
bringing up hardly tends to make the American child an
attractive object to the stranger from without. On the
contrary, it is very apt to make the said stranger long
strenuously to spank these budding citizens of a free
republic, and to send them to bed instanter. So much
of what I want to say on this topic has been well said
by my brother Findlay Muirhead in an article on " The
American Small Boy," contributed to the St. James's
Gazette, that I venture to quote the bulk of that article
below.

The American Small Boy

The American small boy is represented in history by
the youthful George Washington, who suffered through his
inability to invent a plausible fiction, and by Benjamin
Franklin, whose abnormal simplicity in the purchase of
musical instruments has become proverbial. But history
is not taken down in shorthand as it occurs, and it some
times lags a little. The modern American small boy is a
vastly different being from either of these transatlantic
worthies ; at all events his most prominent characteristics,
as they strike a stranger, are not illustrated in the earlier
period of their career.

The peculiarities of young America would, indeed, matter
but little to the stranger if young America stayed at home.
But young America does not stay at home. It is not neces
sary to track the American small boy to his native haunts
in order to see what he is like. He is very much in evi
dence even on this side the Atlantic. At certain seasons
he circulates in Europe with the facility of the British sov-

66 The Land of Contrasts

ereign ; for the American nation cherishes the true nomadic
y habit of travelling in families, and the small boy is not left
behind. He abounds in Paris ; he is common in Italy ; and
he is a drug in Switzerland. He is an element to be allowed
for by all who make the Grand Tour, for his voice is heard
in every land. On the Continent, during the season, no first-
class hotel can be said to be complete without its American
family, including the small boy. He does not, indeed, ap
pear to " come off " to his full extent in this country, but in
all Continental resorts he is a small boy that may be felt,
as probably our fellow-countrymen all over Europe are now
discovering.

There is little use in attempting to disguise the fact that
the subject of the present paper is distinctly disagreeable.
There is little beauty in him that we should desire him.
He is not only restless himself, but he is the cause of rest
lessness in others. He has no respect even for the quies
cent evening hour, devoted to cigarettes on the terrace after
table d'kote, and he is not to be overawed by a look. It is
a constant source of wonder to the thoughtfully inclined
how the American man is evolved from the American boy ;
it is a problem much more knotty than the difficulty con
cerning apple-dumplings which so perplexed " Farmer
George." No one need desire a pleasanter travelling com
panion than the American man ; it is impossible to imagine
a more disagreeable one than the American boy.

The American small boy is precocious ; but it is not with
the erudite precocity of the German Heinecken, who at
three years of age was intimately acquainted with history
and geography ancient and modern, sacred and profane,
besides being able to converse fluently in Latin, French,
and German. We know, of course, that each of the
twenty-two Presidents of the United States gave such lively

The American Child 67

promise in his youth, that twenty-two aged friends of the
twenty-two families, without any collusion, placed their
hands upon the youthful heads, prophesying their future
eminence. But even this remarkable coincidence does not
affect the fact that the precocity of the average trans
atlantic boy is not generally in the most useful branches
of knowledge, but rather in the direction of habits, tastes,
and opinion. He is not, however, evenly precocious. He
unites a taste for jewelry with a passion for candy. He
combines a penetration into the motives of others with an
infantile indifference to exposing them at inconvenient
times. He has an adult decision in his wishes, but he has
a youthful shamelessness in seeking their fulfilment. One
of his most exasperating peculiarities is the manner in
which he querulously harps upon the single string of his
wants. He sits down before the refusal of his mother and
shrilly besieges it. He does not desist for company. He
does not wish to behave well before strangers. He desires
to have his wish granted ; and he knows he will probably
be allowed to succeed if he insists before strangers. He is
distinguished by a brutal frankness, combined with a cynical
disregard for all feminine ruses. He not seldom calls up
the blush of shame to the cheek of scheming innocence ; and
he frequently crucifies his female relatives. He is gener
ally an adept in discovering what will most annoy his
family circle ; and he is perfectly unscrupulous in aveng
ing himself for all injuries, of which he receives, in his
own opinion, a large number. He has an accurate memory
for all promises made to his advantage, and he is relentless
in exacting payment to the uttermost farthing. He not
seldom, displays a singular ingenuity in interpreting am
biguous terms for his own behoof. A youth of this kind
is reported to have demanded (and received) eight apples

68 The Land of Contrasts

from his mother, who had bribed him to temporary stillness
by the promise of a few of that fruit, his ground being that
the Scriptures contained the sentence, " Wherein few, that
is, eight, souls were saved by water."

The American small boy is possessed, moreover, of a
well-nigh invincible aplomb. He is not impertinent, for it
never enters into his head to take up the position of pro
testing inferiority which impertinence implies. He merely
takes things as they come, and does not hesitate to express
his opinion of them. An American young gentleman of the
mature age of ten was one day overtaken by a fault. His
father, more in sorrow than in anger, expressed his displeas
ure. " What am I to do with you, Tommy ? What am I to do
with you ? " "I have no suggestions to offer, sir,'7 was the
response of Tommy, thus appealed to. Even in trying cir
cumstances, even when serious misfortune overtakes the
youthful American, his aplomb, his confidence in his own
opinion, does not wholly forsake him. Such a one was found
weeping in the street. On being asked the cause of his tears,
he sobbed out in mingled alarm and indignation : " I'm lost ;
mammy's lost me ; I told the darned thing she'd lose me."
The recognition of his own liability to be lost, and at the
same time the recognition of his own superior wisdom, are
exquisitely characteristic. They would be quite incongru
ous in the son of any other soil. In his intercourse with
strangers this feeling exhibits itself in the complete self-
possession and sang-froid of the youthful citizen of the
Western Republic. He scorns to own a curiosity which he
dare not openly seek to satisfy by direct questions, and he
puts his questions accordingly on all subjects, even the
most private and even in the case of the most reverend
strangers. He is perfectly free in his remarks upon all
that strikes him as strange or reprehensible in any one's

The American Child 69

personal appearance or behaviour; and he never dreams
that his victims might prefer not to be criticised in public.
But he is quick to resent criticism on himself, and he shows
the most perverted ingenuity in embroiling with his family
any outsider who may rashly attempt to restrain his ebulli
tions. He is, in fact, like the Scottish thistle : no one may
meddle with him with impunity. It is better to " never
mind him," as one of the evils under the sun for which
there is no remedy.

Probably this development of the American small boys
is due in great measure to the absorption of their fathers
in business, which necessarily surrenders the former to a
too undiluted " regiment of women." For though Thack
eray is unquestionably right in estimating highly the in
fluence of refined feminine society upon youths and young
men, there is no doubt that a small boy is all the better for
contact with some one whose physical prowess commands
his respect. Some allowance must also be made for the
peevishness of boys condemned to prolonged railway
journeys, and to the confinement of hotel life in cities and
scenes in which they are not old enough to take an interest.
They would, doubtless, be more genial if they were left
behind at school.

The American boy has no monopoly of the character
istics under consideration. His little sister is often his
equal in all departments. Miss Marryat tells of a little
girl of five who appeared alone in the table d'hote room
of a large and fashionable hotel, ordered a copious and
variegated breakfast, and silenced the timorous misgiv
ings of the waiter with " I guess I pay my way." At
another hotel I heard a similar little minx, in a fit of
infantile rage, address her mother as " You nasty, mean,

70 The Land of Contrasts

old crosspatch ; " and the latter, who in other respects
seemed a very sensible and intelligent woman, yielded
to the storm, and had no words of rebuke. I am afraid
it was a little boy who in the same way called his father
a "black-eyed old skunk;" but it might just as well
have been a girl.

While not asserting that all American children are of
this brand, I do maintain that the sketch is fairly typical
of a very large class — perhaps of all except those of
exceptionally firm and sensible parents. The strangest
thing about the matter is, however, that the fruit does
. not by any means correspond to the seed ; the wind is
sown, but the whirlwind is not reaped. The unendur
able child does not necessarily become an intolerable
man. By some mysterious chemistry of the American
atmosphere, social or otherwise, the horrid little minx
blossoms out into a charming and womanly girl, with
just enough of independence to make her piquant ; the
cross and dyspeptic little boy becomes a courteous and
amiable man. Some sort of a moral miracle seems to
take place about the age of fourteen or fifteen ; a violent
dislocation interrupts the natural continuity of progress ;
and, presto ! out springs a new creature from the modern
cauldron of Medea.

The reason — or at any rate one reason — of the normal
attitude of the American parent towards his child is not
far to seek. It is almost undoubtedly one of the direct
consequences of the circumambient spirit of democracy.
The American is so accustomed to recognise the essential
equality of others that he sometimes carries a good thing
to excess. This spirit is seen in his dealings with under
lings of all kinds, who are rarely addressed with the

The American Child 71

bluntness and brusqueness of the older civilisations.
Hence the father and mother are apt to lay almost too
much stress on the separate and individual entity of their
child, to shun too scrupulously anything approaching
the violent coercion of another's will. That the results
are not more disastrous seems owing to a saving quality
in the child himself. The characteristic American
shrewdness and common sense do their work. A badly
brought up American child introduced into a really well-
regulated family soon takes his cue from his surround
ings, adapts himself to his new conditions, and sheds his
faults as a snake its skin. The whole process may tend
to increase the individuality of the child ; but the cost
is often great, the consequences hard for the child itself.
American parents are doubtless more familiar than others
with the plaintive remonstrance : " Why did you not
bring me up more strictly? Why did you give me so
much of my own way ? " The present type of the Amer
ican child may be described as one of the experiments of
democracy ; that he is not a necessary type is proved by
the by no means insignificant number of excellently
trained children in the United States, of whom it has
never been asserted that they make any less truly
democratic citizens than their more pampered play
mates.

The idea of establishing summer camps for school
children may not have originated in the United States
— it was certainly put into operation in Switzerland and
France several years ago; but the most characteristic
and highly organised institution of the kind is the George
Junior Republic at Freeville, near Ithaca, in the State of
New York, and some account of this attempt to recog-

72 The Land of Contrasts

nise the " rights of children," and develop the political
capacity of boys and girls, may form an appropriate end
ing to this chapter. The republic was established by
Mr. William R. George, in 1895. It occupies a large
tent and several wooden buildings on a farm forty-eight
acres in extent. In summer it accommodates about two
hundred boys and girls between the ages of twelve and
seventeen ; and about forty of these remain in residence
throughout the year. The republic is self-governing,
and its economic basis is one of honest industry. Every
citizen has to earn his living, and his work is paid for
with the tin currency of the republic. Half of the day
is devoted to work, the other half to recreation. The
boys are employed in farming and carpentry ; the girls
sew, cook, and so on. The rates of wages vary from 50
cents to 90 cents a day according to the grade of work.
Ordinary meals cost about 10 cents, and a night's lodg
ing the same ; but those who have the means and the
inclination may have more sumptuous meals for 25 cents,
or board at the " Waldorf " for about $4 (16s.) a week.
As the regular work offered to all is paid for at rates
amply sufficient to cover the expenses of board and lodg
ing, the idle and improvident have either to go without
or make up for their neglect by overtime work. Those
who save money receive its full value on leaving the
republic, in clothes and provisions to take back to their
homes in the slums of New York. Some boys have been
known to save $50 (X10) in the two months of summer
work. The republic has its own legislature, court-house,
jail, schools, and the like. The legislature has two
branches. The members of the lower house are elected
by ballot weekly, those of the senate fortnightly. Each

The American Child 73

grade of labour elects one member and one senator for
every twelve constituents. Offences against the laws o£
the republic are stringently dealt with, and the jail, with
its bread-and-water diet, is a by no means pleasant expe
rience. The police force consists of thirteen boys and
two girls ; the office of " cop," with its wages of 90 cents
a day, is eagerly coveted, but cannot be obtained without
the passing of a stiff civil service examination.

So far this interesting experiment is said by good
authorities to have worked well. It is not a socialistic or
Utopian scheme, but frankly accepts existing conditions
and tries to make the best of them. It is not by any
means merely " playing at house." The children have
to do genuine work, and learn habits of real industry,
thrift, self-restraint, and independence. The measures
discussed by the legislature are not of the debating
society order, but actually affect the personal welfare of
the two hundred citizens. It has, for example, been
found necessary to impose a duty of twenty-five per cent.
" on all stuff brought in to be sold," so as to protect the
native farmer. Female suffrage has been tried, but did
not work well, and was discarded, largely through the
votes of the girls themselves.

The possible disadvantages connected with an experi
ment of this kind easily suggest themselves ; but since
the " precocity " of the American child is a recognised
fact, it is perhaps well that it should be turned into such
unobjectionable channels.

VI

International Misapprehensions and
National Differences

SOME years ago I was visiting the cyclorama of
Niagara Falls in London and listening to the
intelligent description of the scene given by the
"lecturer." In the course of this he pointed
out Goat Island, the wooded islet that parts the head
long waters of the Niagara like a coulter and shears
them into the separate falls of the American and Cana
dian shores. Behind me stood an English lady who did
not quite catch what the lecturer said, and turned to
her husband in surprise. "Rhode Island? Well, I
knew Rhode Island was one of the smallest States, but
I had no idea it was so small as that ! " On another
occasion an Englishman, invited to smile at the idea of
a fellow-countryman that the Rocky Mountains flanked
the west bank of the Hudson, exclaimed : " How ab
surd! The Rocky Mountains must be at least two
hundred miles from the Hudson." Even so intelligent
a traveller and so friendly a critic as Miss Florence
Marryat (Mrs. Francis Lean), in her desire to do justice
to the amplitude of the American continent, gravely
asserts that " Pennsylvania covers a tract of land larger
than England, France, Spain, and Germany all put
together/' the real fact being that even the smallest of
the countries named is much larger than the State, while
the combined area of the four is more than fourteen
times as great. Texas, the largest State in the Union, is

74

International Misapprehensions 75

not so very much more extensive than either Germany
or France.

An analogous want of acquaintance with the mental
geography of America was shown by the English lady
whom Mr. Freeman heard explaining to a cultivated
American friend who Sir Walter Scott was, and what
were the titles of his chief works.

It is to such international ignorance as this that much,
if not most, of the British want of appreciation of the
United States may be traced; just as the acute critic
may see in the complacent and persistent misspelling of
English names by the leading journals of Paris an index
of that French attitude of indifference towards foreigners
that involved the possibility of a Sedan. It is not, per
haps, easy to adduce exactly parallel instances of Ameri
can ignorance of Great Britain, though Mr. Henry
James, who probably knows his England better than
nine out of ten Englishmen, describes Lord Lambeth, the
eldest son of a duke, as himself a member of the House
of Lords (" An International Episode "). It was amus
ing to find when meine Wenigkeit was made the object
of a lesson in a Massachusetts school, that many of the
children knew the name England only in connection
with their own New England home. Nor, I fear, can it
be denied that much of the historical teaching in the
primary schools of the United States gives a somewhat
one-sided view of the past relations between the mother
country and her revolted daughter. The American
child is not taught as much as he ought to be that the
English people of to-day repudiate the attitude of the
aristocratic British government of 1770 as strongly as
Americans themselves.

76 The Land of Contrasts

The American, however, must not plume himself too
much on his superior knowledge. Shameful as the
British ignorance of America often is, a corresponding
American ignorance of Great Britain would be vastly
more shameful. An American cannot understand him
self unless he knows something of his origins beyond the
seas ; the geography and history of an American child
must perforce include the history and geography of the
British Isles. For a Briton, however, knowledge of
America is rather one of the highly desirable things
than one of the absolutely indispensable. It would cer
tainly betoken a certain want of humanity in me if I
failed to take any interest in the welfare of my sons and
daughters who had emigrated to New Zealand ; but it
is evident that for the conduct of my own life a knowl
edge of their doings is not so essential for me as a
knowledge of what my father was and did. The Ameri
can of Anglo-Saxon stock visiting Westminster Abbey
seems paralleled alone by the Greek of Syracuse or
Magna Graecia visiting the Acropolis of Athens ; and the
experience of either is one that less favoured mortals may
unfeignedly envy. But the American and the Syracusan
alike would be wrong were he to feel either scorn or
elation at the superiority of the guest's knowledge of the
host over the host's knowledge of the guest.

However that may be, and whatever latitude we allow
to the proverbial connection of familiarity and contempt,
there seems little reason to doubt that closer knowledge
of one another will but increase the mutual sympathy
and esteem of the Briton and the American. The
former will find that Brother Jonathan is not so exuber
antly and perpetually starred-and-striped as the comic

International Misapprehensions 77

cartoonist would have us believe ; and the American
will find that John Bull does not always wear top-boots
or invariably wield a whip. Things that from a distance
seem preposterous and even revolting will often assume
a very different guise when seen in their native environ
ment and judged by their inevitable conditions. It is
not always true that " coelum non animum mutant qui
trans mare currunt " — that is, if we allow ourselves to
translate " animum " in its Ciceronian sense of " opinion." *
To hold this view does not make any excessive demand
on our optimism. There seems absolutely no reason
why in this particular case the line of cleavage between
one's likes and one's dislikes should coincide with that
of foreign and native birth. The very word " foreign "
rings false in this connection. It is often easier to
recognise a brother in a New Yorker than in a York-
shireman, while, alas ! it is only theoretically and in a
mood of long-drawn-out aspiration that we can love our
alien-tongued European neighbour as ourselves.

The man who wishes to form a sound judgment of
another is bound to attain as great a measure as pos
sible of accurate self-knowledge, not merely to under
stand the reaction of the foreign character when brought
into relation with his own, but also to make allowance
for fundamental differences of taste and temperament.
The golden rule of judging others by ourselves can easily
become a dull and leaden despotism if we insist that
what we should think and feel on a given occasion
ought also to be the thoughts and actions of the French
man, the German, or the American. There are, perhaps,
no more pregnant sentences in Mr. Bryce's valuable

1 See, e.g.t " Ad Familiares," 5, 18.

78 The Land of Contrasts

book than those in which he warns his British readers
against the assumption that the same phenomena in
two different countries must imply the same sort of
causes. Thus, an equal amount of corruption among
British politicians, or an equal amount of vulgarity
in the British press, would argue a much greater
degree of rottenness in the general social system than
the same phenomena in the United States. So, too,
some of the characteristic British vices are, so to say,
of a spontaneous, involuntary, semi-unconscious growth,
and the American observer would commit a griev
ous error if he ascribed them to as deliberate an intent
to do evil as the same tendencies would betoken in his
own land. Neither Briton nor American can do full
justice to the other unless each recognises that the other
is fashioned of a somewhat different clay.

The strong reasons, material and otherwise, why
Great Britain and the United States should be friends
need not be enumerated here. In spite of some recent
and highly unexpected shocks, the tendencies that make
for amity seem to me to be steadily increasing in strength
and volume.1 It is the American in the making rather
than the matured native product that, as a rule, is guilty
of blatant denunciation of Great Britain ; and it is
usually the uritravelled and preeminently insular Briton
alone that is utterly devoid of sympathy for his Ameri
can cousins. The American, as has often been pointed
out, has become vastly more pleasant to deal with since
his country has won an undeniable place among the
foremost nations of the globe. The epidermis of Brother

i This was written just after President Cleveland's pronunciamento in regard
to Venezuela, and thus long before the outbreak of the war with Spain.

International Misapprehensions 79

Jonathan has toughened as he has grown in stature, and
now that he can look over the heads of most of his com
peers he regards the sting of a gnat as little as the best
of them. Perhaps not quite so little as John Bull, whose
indifference to criticism and silent assurance of superi
ority are possibly as far wrong in the one direction as a
too irritable skin is in the other.

Of the books written about the United States in the
last score of years by European writers of any weight,
there are few which have not helped to dissipate the
grotesquely one-sided view of America formerly held in
the Old World. Preeminent among such books is, of
course, the " American Commonwealth " of Mr. James
Bryce; but such writers as Mr. Freeman, M. Paul
Bourget, Sir George Campbell, Mr. William Sanders,
Miss Catherine Bates, Mme. Blanc, Miss Emily Faith
ful, M. Paul de Rousiers, Max O'Rell, and Mr. Stevens
have all, in their several degrees and to their several
audiences, worked to the same end. It may, however,
be worth while mentioning one or two literary perform
ances of a somewhat different character, merely to remind
my British readers of the sort of thing we have done to
exasperate our American cousins in quite recent times,
and so help them to understand the why and wherefore
of certain traces of resentment still lingering beyond
the Atlantic. In 1884 Sir Lepel Griffin, a distinguished
Indian official, published a record of his visit to the
United States, under the title of "The Great Re
public." Perhaps this volume might have been left to
the obscurity which has befallen it, were it not that
Mr. Matthew Arnold lent it a fictitious importance by
taking as the text for some of his own remarks on Amer-

8o The Land of Contrasts

ica Sir Lepel's assertion that he knew of no civilised
country, Russia possibly excepted, where he should less
like to live than the United States. To me it seems a
book most admirably adapted to infuriate even a less
sensitive folk than the Americans. I do not in the least
desire to ascribe to Sir Lepel Griffin a deliberate design
to be offensive ; but it is just his calm, supercilious Phil
istinism, aggravated no doubt by his many years' expe
rience as a ruler of submissive Orientals, that makes it
no less a pleasure than a duty for a free and intelligent
republican to resent and defy his criticisms.

Can, for instance, anything more wantonly and point-
lessly insulting be imagined than his assertion that an
intelligent and well-informed American would probably
name the pork-packing of Chicago as the thing best
worth seeing in the United States ? After that it is not
surprising that he considers American scenery singularly
tame and unattractive, and that he finds female beauty
(can his standard for this have been Orientalised ?) very
rare. He predicts that it would be impossible to main
tain the Yellowstone National Park as such, and asserts
that it was only a characteristic spirit of swagger and
braggadocio that prompted this attempt at an impossible
ideal. He also seems to think lynching an any-day pos
sibility in the streets of New York. The value of his
forecasts may, however, be discounted by his prophecy
in the same book that the London County Council would
be merely a glorified vestry, utterly indifferent to the
public interest, and unlikely to attract any candidates
of distinction !

An almost equal display of Philistinism — perhaps
greater in proportion to its length — is exhibited by an

International Misapprehensions

article entitled "Twelve Hours of New York," published
by Count Gleichen in Murray's Magazine (February,
1890). This energetic young man succeeded (in his
own belief) in seeing all the sights of New York in the
time indicated by the title of his article, and apparently
met nothing to his taste except the Hoffman House
bar and the large rugs with which the cab-horses were
swathed. He found his hotel a den of incivility and
his dinner " a squashy, sloppy meal." He wishes he
had spent the day in Canada instead. He is great in
his scorn, for the " glue kettle " helmets of the New
York police, and for the ferry-boats in the harbour, to
which he vastly prefers what he wittily and originally
styles the "common or garden steamer." His feet, in
his own elegant phrase, felt " like a jelly " after four
hours of New York pavement. What are the Ameri
cans to think of us when they find one of our innermost
and most aristocratic circle writing stuff like this under
the aegis of, perhaps, the foremost of British publishers ?
As a third instance of the ingratiating manner in
which Englishmen write of Americans, we may take the
following paragraph from " Travel and Talk," an inter
esting record of much journeying by that well-known
London clergyman, the Rev. H. R. Haweis : " Among
the numerous kind attentions I was favoured with and
somewhat embarrassed by was the assiduous hospitality
of another singular lady, also since dead. I allude to
Mrs. Barnard, the wife of the venerable principal of
Columbia College, a well-known and admirably ap
pointed educational institution in New York. This
good lady was bent upon our staying at the college, and
hunted us from house to house until we took up our

82 The Land of Contrasts

abode with her, and, I confess, I found her rather amus
ing at first, and I am sure she meant most kindly. But
there was an inconceivable fidgetiness about her, and an
incapacity to let people alone, or even listen to anything
they said in answer to her questions, which poured as
from a quick-firing gun, that became at last intoler
able." Comment on this passage would be entirely
superfluous ; but I cannot help drawing attention to the
supreme touch of gracefulness added by the three words
I have italicised.

There is one English critic of American life whose
opinion cannot be treated cavalierly — least of all by
those who feel, as I do, how inestimable is our debt to
him as a leader in the paths of sweetness and light.
But even in the presence of Matthew Arnold I desire
to preserve the attitude of "nuUius addictus jurare in
verba magistri" and I cannot but believe that his esti
mate of America, while including much that is subtle,
clear-sighted, and tonic, is in certain respects inadequate
and misleading. He unfortunately committed the mis
take of writing on the United States before visiting the
countiy, and had made up his mind in advance that it
was almost exclusively peopled by, and entirely run in
the interests of, the British dissenting Philistine with a
difference.

It is the more to be regretted that he adopted this
attitude of premature judgment of American character
istics because it is only too prevalent among his less dis
tinguished fellow-countrymen. From this position of
parti pris, maintained with all his own inimitable suavity
and grace, it seems to me that he was never wholly able
to advance (or retire), though he candidly admitted that

International Misapprehensions 83

he found the difference between the British and Amer
ican Philistine vastly greater than he anticipated. The
members of his preconceived syllogism seem to be some
what as follows : the money-making and comfort-loving
classes in England are essentially Philistine ; the United
States as a nation is given over to money-making ; ergo,
its inhabitants must all be Philistines. Furthermore, the
British Philistines are to a very large extent dissenters ;
the United States has no established church; ergo, it
must be the Paradise of the dissenter.

This line of argument ignores the fact that the stolid
self-satisfaction in materialistic comfort, which he defines
as the essence of Philistinism, is not a predominant trait
in the American class in which our English experience
would lead us to look for it. The American man of
business, with his restless discontent and nervous, over
strained pursuit of wealth, may not be a more inspiring
object than his British brother, but he has little of the
smugness which Mr. Arnold has taught us to associate
with the label of Philistinism. And his womankind is
perhaps even less open to this particular reproach. Mr.
Arnold ignores a whole far-reaching series of American
social phenomena which have practically nothing in com
mon with British nonconformity, and lets a similarity
of nomenclature blind him too much to the differentia
tion of entirely novel conditions. The Methodist " Moon
shiner" of Tennessee is hardly cast in the same mould as
the deacon of a London Little Bethel ; and even the most
legitimate children of the Puritans have not descended
from the common stock in parallel lines in England and
America.

Mr. Arnold admitted that the political clothes of

84 The Land of Contrasts

Brother Jonathan fitted him admirably, and allowed
that he can and does think straighter (Jest le bonheur
des hommes quand Us pensent juste) than we can in the
maze of our unnatural and antiquated complications ; he
wholly admired the natural, unselfconscious manner of
the American woman ; he saw that the wage-earner
lived more comfortably than in Europe ; he noted that
wealthy Americans were not dogged by envy in the same
way as in England, partly because wealth was felt to be
more within the range of all, and partly because it was
much less often used for the gratification of vile and
selfish appetites ; he admitted that America was none
the worse for the lack of a materialised aristocracy such
as ours ; he praises the spirit which levels false and
conventional distinctions, and waives the use of such
invidious discriminations as our " Mr." and " Esquire."
Admissions such as these, coming from such a man as
he, are of untold value in promoting the growth of a
proper sentiment towards our transatlantic kinsmen.
When he points out that the dangers of such a commun
ity as the United States include a tendency to rely too
much on the machinery of institutions ; an absence of the
discipline of respect ; a proneness to hardness, materialism,
exaggeration, and boastfulness ; a false smartness and a
false audacity, — the wise American will do well to pon
der his sayings, hard though they may sound. When,
however, he goes on to point out the " prime necessity
of civilisation being interesting," and to assert that
American civilisation is lacking in interest, we may well
doubt whether on the one hand the quality of interest is
not too highly exalted, and, on the other, whether the
denial of interest to American life does not indicate an

International Misapprehensions 85

almost insular narrowness in the conception of what is
interesting. "When he finds a want of soul and delicacy
in the American as compared with John Bull, some of us
must feel that if he is right the latitude of interpretation
of these terms must indeed be oceanic. When he gravely
cites the shrewd and ingenious Benjamin Franklin as
the most considerable man whom America has yet pro
duced, we must respectfully but firmly take exception
to his standard of measurement. When he declares that
Abraham Lincoln has no claim to distinction, we feel
that the writer must have in mind distinction of a sin
gularly conventional and superficial nature ; and we are
not reassured by the quasi brutality of the remark in
one of his letters, to the effect that Lincoln's assassina
tion brought into American history a dash of the tragic
and romantic in which it had hitherto been so sadly
lacking ("sic semper tyrannis is so unlike anything
Yankee or English middle class "). When he asserts
that from Maine to Florida and back again all America
Hebraises, we reflect with some bewilderment that hith
erto we had believed the New Orleans Creole (e.g.) to
be as far removed from Hebraising as any type we knew
of. It is strikingly characteristic of the weak side of
Mr. Arnold's outlook on America that he went to stay
with Mr. P. T. Barnum, the celebrated showman, with
out the least idea that his American friends might think
the choice of hosts a peculiar one. To him, to a very
large extent, Americans were all alike middle-class, dis
senting Philistines ; and so far as appears on the surface,
Mr. Barnum's desire to " belong to the minority" pleased
him as much as any other sign of approval conferred
upon him in America.

86 The Land of Contrasts

A native of the British Isles is sometimes apt to be a
little nettled when he finds a native of the United States
regarding him as a " foreigner " and talking of him ac
cordingly. An Englishman never means the natives
of the United States when he speaks of " foreigners ; "
he reserves that epithet for non-English-speaking races.
In this respect it would seem as if the Briton, for once,
took the wider, the more genial and human, point of
view ; as if he had the keener appreciation of the ties of
race and language. It is as if he cherished continually
a sub-dominant consciousness of the fact that the occu
pation of the North American continent by the Anglo-
Saxons is one of the greatest events in English history
— that America is peopled by Englishmen. When he
thinks of the events of 1776 he feels, to use Mr. Hall
Caine's illustration, like Dr. Johnson, who dreamed that
he had been worsted in conversation, but reflected when
he awoke that the conversation of his adversary must
also have been his own. As opposed to this there may
be a grain of self-assertion in the American use of the
term as applied to the British ; it is as if they would
emphasise the fact that they are no mere offshoot of
England, that the Colonial days have long since gone by,
and that the United States is an independent nation
with a right to have its own "foreigners." An Ameri
can friend suggests that the different usage of the two
lands may be partly owing to the fact that the cordial,
frank demeanour of the American, coupled with his use
of the same tongue, makes an Englishman absolutely
forget that he is not a fellow-countryman, while the
subtler American is keenly conscious of differences
which escape the obtuser Englishman, Another partial

International Misapprehensions 87

explanation is that the first step across our frontier
brings us to a land where an unknown tongue is spoken,
and that we have consequently welded into one the two
ideas of foreignhood and unintelligibility ; while the
American, on the other hand, identifies himself with his
continent and regards all as foreigners who are not
natives of it.

The point would hardly be worth dwelling upon, were
it not that the different attitude it denotes really leads
in some instances to actual misunderstanding. The
Englishman, with his somewhat unsensitive feelers, is
apt, in all good faith and unconsciousness, to criticise
American ways to the American with much more free
dom than he would criticise French ways to a French
man. It is as if he should say, " You and I are brothers,
or at least cousins ; we are a much better sort than all
those foreign Johnnies ; and so there's no harm in my
pointing out to you that you're wrong here* and ought to
change there." But, alas, who is quicker to resent our
criticism than they of our own household ? And so the
American, overlooking the sort of clumsy compliment
that is implied in the assurance of kinship involved in
the very frankness of our fault-finding criticism, resents
most keenly the criticisms that are couched in his own
language, and sees nothing but impertinent hostility in
the attitude of John Bull. And who is to convince
him that it is, as in a Scottish wooing, because we love
him that we tease him, and in so doing put him (in our
eyes) on a vastly higher pedestal than the "blasted
foreigner " whose case we consider past praying for ?
And who is to teach us that Brother Jonathan is able
now to give us at least as many hints as we can give

88 The Land of Contrasts

him, and that we must realise that the same sauce must
be served with both birds ? Thus each resiles from the
encounter infinitely more pained than if the antagonist
had been a German or a Frenchman. The very fact that
we speak the same tongue often leads to false assump
tions of mutual knowledge, and so to offences of un
guarded ignorance.

One of the most conspicuous differences between the
American and the Briton is that the former, take him
for all in all, is distinctly the more articulate animal of
the two. The Englishman seems to have learned,
through countless generations, that he can express him
self better and more surely in deeds than in words, and
has come to distrust in others a fatal fluency of expres
siveness which he feels would be exaggerated and even
false in himself. A man often has to wait for his own
death to find out what his English friend thinks of him ;

and

" Wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us,"

we might often be surprised to discover what a wealth of
real affection and esteem lies hid under the glacier of
Anglican indifference. The American poet who found
his song in the heart of a friend could have done so,
were the friend English, only by the aid of a post-mortem
examination. The American, on the other hand, has the
most open and genial way of expressing his interest in
you; and when you have readjusted the scale of the
moral thermometer so as to allow for the change of tem
perament, you will find this frankness most delightfully
stimulating. It requires, however, an intimate knowl
edge of both countries to understand that when an Eng-

International Misapprehensions 89

lishman congratulates you on a success by exclaiming,
" Hallo, old chap, I didn't know you had it in you," he
means just as much as your American friend, whose
phrase is : " Bravo, Billy, I always knew you could do
something fine."

That the superior powers of articulation possessed by
the American sometimes takes the form of profuse and
even extreme volubility will hardly be denied by those
conversant with the facts. The American may not be
more profound than his English cousin or even more
fertile in ideas, but as a rule he is much more ready and
easy in the discussion of the moment ; whatever the
state of his " gold reserve " may be, he has no lack of
the small counters of conversation. In its proper place
this faculty is undoubtedly most agreeable ; in the fleet
ing interviews which compose so much of social inter
course, he is distinctly at an advantage who has the
power of coming to the front at once without wasting
precious time in preliminaries and reconnaissances.
Other things being equal, the chances of agreeable con
versation at dinner, at the club, or in the pauses of the
dance are better in the United States than in England.
The " next man " of the new world is apt to talk better
and to be wider in his sympathies than the " next man "
of the old. On the other hand, it seems to me equally
true that the Americans possess the defects of their
qualities in this as in other respects ; they are often apt
to talk too much, they are afraid of a conversational lull,
and do not sufficiently appreciate the charm of " flashes
of brilliant silence." It seemed to me that they often
carried a most unnecessary amount of volubility into
their business life ; and I sometimes wondered whether

90 The Land of Contrasts

the greater energy and rush that they apparently put
into their conduct of affairs were not due to the necessity
of making up time lost in superfluous chatter. If an
Englishman has a mile to go to an appointment he will
take his leisurely twenty minutes to do the distance, and
then settle his business in two or three dozen sentences ;
an American is much more likely to devour the ground
in five minutes, and then spend an hour or more in lively
conversation not wholly pertinent to the matter in hand.
The American mind is discursive, open, wide in its
interests, alive to suggestion, pliant, emotional, imagi
native; the English mind is concentrated, substantial,
indifferent to the merely relative, matter-of-fact, stiff,
and inflexible.

The English have reduced to a fine art the practice of
a stony impassivity, which on its highest plane is not
devoid of a certain impressiveness. On ordinary occa
sions it is apt to excite either the ire or the amusement
of the representatives of a more animated race. I sup
pose it is almost impossible for an untravelled English
man to realise the ridiculous side of the Church Parade
in Hyde Park — as it would appear, say, to a lively girl
from Baltimore. The parade is a collection of human
beings, presumably brought together for the sake of see
ing and being seen. Yet the obvious aim of each Eng
lish item in the crowd is to deprive his features of all
expression, and to look as if he were absolutely uncon
scious that his own party were not the only one on the
ground. Such vulgarity as the exhibition of the slight
est interest in a being to whom he has not been introduced
would be treason to his dearest traditions. In an Ameri
can function of the same kind, the actors take an undis-

International Misapprehensions 91

guised interest in each other, while a French or Italian
assembly would be still more demonstrative. On the
surface the English attitude is distinctly inhuman ; it
reminds one that England is still the stronghold of the
obsolescent institution of caste, that it frankly and even
brutally asserts the essential inequality of man. No
where, perhaps, will you see a bigger and handsomer,
healthier, better-groomed, more efficient set of human
animals ; but their straight-ahead, phlegmatic, expres
sionless gaze, the want of animated talk, the absence of
any show of intelligence, emphasises our feeling that
they are animals.

The Briton's indifference to criticism is at once his
strength and his weakness. It makes him invincible in
a cause which has dominated his conscience ; it hinders
him in the attainment of a luminous discrimination be
tween cause and cause. His profound self-confidence,
his sheer good sense, his dogged persistence, his bull
dog courage, his essential honesty of purpose, bring him
to the goal in spite of the unnecessary obstacles that
have been heaped on his path by his own vfipis and
contempt of others. He chooses what is physically the
shortest line in preference to the line of least resistance.
He makes up for his want of light by his superiority in
weight. Social adaptability is not his foible. He accepts
the conventionality of his class and wears it as an im
penetrable armour. Out of his own class he may some
times appear less conventional than the American, simply
because the latter is quick to adopt the manners of a
new milieu, while John Bull clings doggedly or uncon
sciously to his old conventions. If an American and
an English shop-girl were simultaneously married to

92 The Land of Contrasts

peers of the realm, the odds would be a hundred to one
in favour of the former in the race for self -identification
with her new environment.

The American facility of expression, if I do not err,
springs largely from an amiable difference in tempera
ment. The American is, on the whole, more genially dis
posed to all and sundry. I do not say that he is capable
of truer friendships or of greater sacrifices for a friend
than the Englishman ; but the window through which
he looks out on humanity at large has panes of a ruddier
hue. He cultivates a mildness of tone, which a Briton
is apt to despise as weakness. His desire to oblige some
times impels him to uncharacteristic actions, which lead
to fallacious generalisations on the part of his British
critic. He shrinks from any assumption of superiority ;
he is apt to think twice of the feelings of his inferiors.
The American tends to consider each stranger he meets
— at any rate within his own social sphere — as a good
fellow until he proves himself the contrary ; with the
Englishman the presumption is rather the other way.
An Englishman usually excuses this national trait as
really due to modesty and shyness ; but I fear there is
in it a very large element of sheer bad manners, and of
a cowardly fear of compromising one's self with undesir
able acquaintances. Englishmen are apt to take omne
ignotum pro horribile, and their translation of the Latin
phrase varies from the lifting of the aristocratic eyebrow
over the unwarranted address of the casual companion
at table d'hote down to the " 'ere's a stranger, let's 'eave
'arf a brick at 'im " of the Black Country. In England
I am apt to feel painfully what a lame dog I am ; in
America I feel, well, if I am a lame dog I ain being

International Misapprehensions 93

helped most delightfully over the conversational stile.
An Englishman says, "Would you mind doing so-and-so
for me ? " showing by the very form of the question that
he thinks kindness likely to be troublesome. An Amer
ican says, " Wouldn't you like to do this for me ? "
assuming the superior attitude of one who feels that to
give an opportunity to do a kindness is itself to confer
a favour. The Continental European shares with the
American the merit of having manners on the self -regard
ing pattern of noblesse oblige, while the Englishman wants
to know who you are, so as to put on his best manners
only if the force majeure of your social standing compels
him. No one wishes the Englishman to express more
than he really feels or to increase the already overwhelm
ing mass of conventional insincerity ; but it might
undoubtedly be well for him to consider whether it is
not his positive duty to drop a little more of the oil of
human kindness on the wheels of the social machinery,
and to understand that it is perfectly possible for two
strangers to speak with and look at each other pleasantly
without thereby contracting the obligation of eternal
friendship. Why should an English traveller deem it
worthy of special record that when calling at a Boston
club, he found his friend and host not yet arrived, other
members of the club, unknown to him, had put them
selves about to entertain him ? An American gentleman
would find this too natural to call for remark.

Whether we like it or not, we have to acknowledge
the fact that our brutal frankness, our brusqueness, and
our extreme fondness for calling a spade a spade are
often extremely disagreeable to our American cousins,
and make them (temporarily at any rate) feel them-

94 The Land of Contrasts

selves to be our superiors in the matter of gentle breed
ing. As Col. T. W. Higginson has phrased it, they
think that " the English nation has truthfulness enough
for a whole continent, and almost too much for an
island." They think that a line might be drawn some
where between dissembling our love and kicking them
downstairs. They also object to our use of such terms
as "beastly," " stinking," and "rot;" and we must
admit that they do so with justice, while we cannot
assoil them altogether of the opposite tendency of a
prim prudishness in the avoidance of certain natural
and necessary words. For myself I unfeignedly admire
the delicacy which leads to a certain parsimony in the
use of words like " perspiration," " cleaning one's self,"
and so on. And, however much we may laugh at the
class that insists upon the name of "help" instead of
"servant," we cannot but respect the class which yields
to the demand and looks with horror on the English
slang word " slavey."

On the other hand there are certain little personal
habits, such as the public use of the toothpick, and what
Mr. Morley Roberts calls the modern form of /corraySo?,
which I think often find themselves in better com
pany in America than in England. Still I desire to
speak here with all due diffidence. I remember when I
pointed out to a Boston girl that an American actor in
a piece before us, representing high life in London, was
committing a gross solecism in moistening his pencil in
his mouth before adding his address to his visiting card,
she trumped my criticism at once by the information
that a distinguished English journalist, with a handle to
his name, who recently made a successful lecturing tour

International Misapprehensions 95

in the United States, openly and deliberately moistened
his thumb in the same ingenuous fashion to aid him in
turning over the leaves of his manuscript.

A feature of the average middle-class Englishman
which the American cannot easily understand is his tacit
recognition of the fact that somebody else (the aristocrat)
is his superior. In fact, this is sometimes a fertile source
of misunderstanding, and it is apt to beget in the Amer
ican an entirely false idea of what he thinks the innate
servility of the Englishman. He must remember that
the aristocratic prestige is a growth of centuries, that it
has come to form part of the atmosphere, that it is often
accepted as unconsciously as the law of gravitation.
This is a case where the same attitude in an American
mind (and, alas, we occasionally see it in American
residents in London) would betoken an infinitely lower
moral and mental plane than it does in the Englishman.
No true American could accept the proposition that
" Lord Tom Noddy might do so-and-so, but it would be
a very different thing for a man in my position ; " and yet
an Englishman (I regret to say) might speak thus and
still be a very decent fellow, whom it would be unjust
cruelty to call a snob. No doubt the English aristocracy
(as I think Mr. Henry James has said) now occupies a
heroic position without heroism ; but the glamour of the
past still shines on their faded escutcheons, and " the love
of freedom itself is hardly stronger in England than the
love of aristocracy."

Matthew Arnold has pointed out to us how the aristoc
racy acts like an incubus on the middle classes of Great
Britain, and he has put it on record that he was struck
with the buoyancy, enjoyment of life, and freedom of

96 The Land of Contrasts

constraint of the corresponding classes in America. In
England, he says, a man feels that it is the upper class
which represents him ; in the United States he feels that
it is the State, i.e., himself. In England it is the Bar
barian alone that dares be indifferent to the opinion of
his fellows ; in America everyone expresses his opinion
and " voices " his idiosyncrasies with perfect freedom.
This position has, however, its seamy side. There is in
America a certain anarchy in questions of taste and
manners which the long possession of a leisured, a culti
vated class tends to save us from in England. I never
felt so kindly a feeling towards our so-called " upper
class " as when travelling in the United States and
noting some effects of its absence. This class has an
accepted position in the social hierarchy ; its dicta are
taken as authoritative on points of etiquette, just as the
clergy are looked on as the official guardians of religious
and ecclesiastical standards. I do not here pretend to
discuss the value of the moral example of our jeunesse
dor£e, filtering down through the successive strata of
society ; but their influence in setting the fashion on
such points as scrupulous personal cleanliness, the avoid
ance of the outrS in costume, and the maintenance of an
honourable and generous standard in their money deal
ings with each other, is distinctly on the side of the hu
manities. In America — at least, " Out West" — every
one practically is his own guide, and the nouveau riche
spends his money strictly in accordance with his own
standard of taste. The result is often as appalling in
its hideousness as it is startling in its costliness. On
the other hand I am bound to state that I have known
American men of great wealth whose simplicity of type

International Misapprehensions 97

could hardly be paralleled in England (except, perchance,
within the Society of Friends). They do not feel any
social pressure to imitate the establishment of My Lord
or His Grace ; and spend their money for what really in
terests them without reference to the demands of society.

It is rather interesting to observe the different forms
which vulgarity is apt to take in the two countries. In
England vulgarity is stolid ; in America it is smart and
aggressive. We are apt, I think, to overestimate the
amount in the latter country because it is so much more
in voluble evidence. An English vulgarian is often
hushed into silence by the presence of his social superior ;
an American vulgarian either recognises none such or
tries to prove himself as good as you by being unneces
sarily grob. This has, at any rate, a manlier air than the
vulgar obsequiousness of England towards the superior
on the one hand or its cynical insolence to the inferior
on the other. The feeling which made a French lady of
fashion in the seventeenth century dress herself in the
presence of a footman with as much unconcern as if he
were a piece of furniture still finds its modified analogy
in England, but scarcely in America. Almost the only
field in which the Americans struck me as showing any
thing like servility was in their treatment of such
mighty potentates as railway conductors, hotel clerks,
and policemen. Whether, until a millenial golden mean
is attained, this is better than our English bullying tone
in the same sphere might be an interesting question for
casuists.

Americans can rarely understand the amount of social
recognition given by English duchesses to such Ameri
can visitors as Col. William Cody, generally known as

98 The Land of Contrasts

" Buffalo Bill." They do not reflect that it is just be
cause the social gap between the two is so irretrievably
vast and so universally recognised that the duchesses
can afford to amuse themselves cursorily with any eccen
tricity that offers itself. As Pomona's husband put it,
people in England are like types with letters at one end
and can easily be sorted out of a state of "pi," while
Americans are theoretically all alike, like carpet-tacks.
Thus Americans of the best class often shun the free
mixing that takes place in England, because they know
that the process of redistribution will be neither easy
nor popular. The intangible sieve thus placed between
the best and the not-so-good is of a fine discrimination,
beside which our conventional net-works seem coarse
and ineffective.

Since returning from the United States I have occa
sionally been asked how the general tone of morality in
that country compared with that in our own. To
answer such a question with anything approaching to an
air of finality or absoluteness would be an act of extreme
presumption. The opinions which one holds depend so
obviously on a number of contingent and accidental cir
cumstances, and must so inevitably be tinged by one's
personal experiences, that their validity can at best have
but an approximate and tentative character. In making
this comparison, too, it is only right to disregard the
phenomena of mining camps and other phases of life on
the fringes of American civilisation, which can be fairly
compared only with pioneer life on the extreme
frontiers of the British Empire. From a similar cause
we may omit from the comparison a great part of
the Southern States, where we do not find a homogeneous

International Misapprehensions 99

mass of white civilisation, but a state of society inex
pressibly complicated by the presence of an inferior race.
To compare the Southerner with the Englishman we
should need to observe the latter, as he exists in, say, one
of our African colonies. Speaking, then, with these res
ervations, I should feel inclined to say that in domestic
and social morality the Americans are ahead of us, in
commercial morality rather behind than before, and in
political morality distinctly behind.

Thus, in the first of these fields we find the American
more good-tempered and good-natured than the English
man. Women, children, and animals are treated with
considerably more kindness. The American translation
of paterfamilias is not domestic tyrant. Horses are
driven by the voice rather than by the whip. The
superior does not thrust his superiority on his inferior
so brutally as we are apt to do. There is a general in
tention to make things pleasant — at any rate so long as
it does not involve the doer in loss. There is less gra
tuitous insolence. Servility, with its attendant hypocrisy
and deceit, is conspicuously absent; and the general
spirit of independence, if sometimes needlessly boorish
in its manifestations, is at least sturdy and manly. In
England we are rude to those weaker than ourselves ;
in America the rudeness is apt to be directed against
those whom we suspect to be in some way our superior.
Man is regarded by man rather as an object of interest
than as an object of suspicion. Charity is very wide
spread ; and the idea of a fellow-creature actually suf
fering from want of food or shelter is, perhaps, more
repugnant to the average American than to the aver
age Englishman, and more apt to act immediately

ioo The Land of Contrasts

on his purse-strings. In that which popular lan
guage usually means when it speaks of immorality, all
outward indications point to the greater purity of the
American. The conversation of the smoking-room is a
little less apt to be risque ; the possibility of masculine
continence is more often taken for granted ; solicitation
on the streets is rare ; few American publishers of repute
dare to issue the semi-prurient style of novel at present
so rife in England ; the columns of the leading magazines
are almost prudishly closed to anything suggesting the
improper. The tone of the stage is distinctly healthier,
and adaptations of hectic French plays are by no means
so popular, in spite of the general sympathy of American
taste with French. The statistics of illegitimacy point
in the same direction, though I admit that this is not
necessarily a sign of unsophisticated morality. In a
word, when an Englishman goes to France he feels
that the moral tone in this respect is more lax than in
England ; when he goes to America he feels that it is
more firm. And he will hardly find adequate the
French explanation, viz., that there is not less vice
but more hypocrisy in the Anglo-Saxon community.

There is another very important sphere of morality in
which the general attitude of the United States seems
to me very appreciably superior to that of England. It
is that to which St. Paul refers when he says, " If a man
will not work, neither shall he eat." American public
sentiment is distinctly ahead of ours in recognising that
a life of idleness is wrong in itself, and that the possibil
ity of leading such a life acts most prejudicially on char
acter. The American answer to the Englishman trying
to define what he meant by "gentlemen of leisure"

International Misapprehensions 101

44 Ah, we call them tramps in America " — is not merely
a jest, but enshrines a deep ethnical and ethical principle.
Most Americans would, I think, agree strongly with Mr.
Bosanquet's philosophical if somewhat cumbersomely
worded definition of legitimate private property, " that
things should not come miraculously and be unaffected
by your dealings with them, but that you should be in
contact with something which in the external world is the
definite material representative of yourself " (" Aspects
of the Social Problem," p. 313). The British gentleman,
aware that his dinner does not agree with him unless
he has put forth a certain amount of physical energy,
reverts to one of the earliest and most primitive forms of
work, viz., hunting. There is a small — a very small —
class in the United States in the same predicament ; but
as a rule the worker there is not only more honoured,
but also works more in accordance with the spirit of
the age.

The general attitude of Americans towards militarism
seems to me also superior to ours ; and one of the keenest
dreads of the best American citizens during a recent
wave of jingoism was that of " the reflex influence of
militarism upon the national character, the transforma
tion of a peace-loving people into a nation of swaggerers
ever ready to take offence, prone to create difficulties,
eager to shed blood, and taking all sorts of occasions to
bring the Christian religion to shame under pretence of
vindicating the rights of humanity in some other country.'*
The spectacle of a section in the- United States apparently
ready to step down from its pedestal of honourable
neutrality, and run its head into the ignoble web of
European complications, was indeed one to make both

IO2 The Land of Contrasts

gods and mortals weep. But I do not believe it
expressed the true attitude of the real American people.
Perhaps the personal element enters too largely into my
ascription of superior morality to the Americans in this
matter, because I can never thoroughly enjoy a military
pageant, no matter how brilliant, for thinking of the
brutal, animal, inhuman element in our nature of which
it is, after all, the expression ; military pomp is to me
merely the surface iridescence of a malarious pool, and
the honour paid to our life destroyers would, from my
point of view, be infinitely better bestowed on life pre
servers, such as the noble and intrepid corps of firemen.
Sympathisers with this view seem much more numerous
in the United States than in England. l

The judgment of an uncommercial traveller on com
mercial morality may well be held as a feather-weight in
the balance. Such as mine is, it is gathered mainly from
the tone of casual conversation, from which I should
conclude that a considerable proportion of Americans
read a well-known proverb as " All's fair in love or busi
ness." Men — I will not say of a high character and
standing, but men of a standing and character who
would not have done it in England — told me instances
of their sharp practices in business, with an evident
expectation of my admiration for their shrewdness, and
with no apparent sense of the slightest moral delin
quency. Possibly, when the " rules of the game " are
universally understood, there is less moral obliquity in
taking advantage of them than an outsider imagines.
The prevalent belief that America is more sedulous in

1 This paragraph was written before the outbreak of the Spanish- American
war; but the events of that struggle do not seem to me to call for serious
modification of the opinion expressed above.

International Misapprehensions 103

the worship of the Golden Calf than any other country
arises largely, I believe, from the fact that the chances
of acquiring wealth are more frequent and easy there
than elsewhere. Opportunity makes the thief. Anyhow,
the reproach comes with a bad grace from the natives of
a country which has in its annals the outbreak of the
South Sea Bubble, the railway mania of the Hudson
era, and the revelations of Mr. Hooley.

Politics enter so slightly into the scope of this book
that a very few words on the question of political moral
ity must suffice. That political corruption exists more
commonly in the United States than in Great Britain —
especially in municipal government — may be taken as
admitted by the most eminent American publicists
themselves. A very limited degree of intercourse with
" professional politicians " yields ample confirmatory
evidence. Thus, to give but one instance, a wealthy citi
zen of one of the largest Eastern towns told me, with
absolute ingenuousness, how he had " dished " the (say)
Republican party in a municipal contest, not in the least
because he had changed his political sympathies, but
simply because the candidates had refused to accede to
certain personal demands of his own. He spoke through
out the conversation as if it must be perfectly apparent
to me, as to any intelligent person, that the only possi
ble reason for working and voting for a political party
must be personal interest. I confess this seemed to me
a very significant straw. On the other hand the con
clusions usually drawn by stay-at-home English people
on these admissions is ludicrously in excess of what is
warranted by the facts. " To imagine for a moment
that 60,000,000 of people — better educated than any

104 The Land of Contrasts

other nation in the world — are openly tolerating uni
versal corruption in all Federal, State, and municipal
government is simply assuming that these 60,000,000
are either criminals or fools." Now, "you can fool all
of the people some of the time, and some of the people
all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of
the time." A more competent judge 1 than the present
writer estimates the morals of the American political
" wire-puller " as about on a level with those of our com
pany directors. And before my English readers make
their final decision on the American political system let
them study Chapter XL VI. of that very fascinating
novel, "The Honorable Peter Stirling," by Paul Leices
ter Ford. It may give them some new light on the
subject of " a government of the average," and show
them what is meant by the saying, " The boss who does
the most things that the people want can do the most
things that the people don't want."

We must remember, too, that nothing is hidden from
general knowledge in America; every job comes sooner
or later into the merciless glare of publicity. And if
our political sins are not the same as theirs, they are
perhaps equally heinous. Was not the British landlord
who voted against the repeal of the corn laws, so that
land might continue to bring in a high rent at the ex
pense of the poor man, really acting from just as corrupt
a motive of self-interest as the American legislator who
accepts a bribe ? It does not do to be too superior on
this question.

We may end this chapter by a typical instance of the
way in 'which British opinion of America is apt to be

1 Sir George Campbell, in " Black and White in America."

International Misapprehensions 105

formed that comes under my notice at the very moment
I write these lines. The Daily Chronicle of March 24,
1896, published a leading article on " Family Life in
America," in which it quotes with approval Mme.
Blanc's assertion that "the single woman in the United
States is infinitely superior to her European sister." In
the same issue of the paper is a letter from Mrs. Fawcett
relating to a recent very deplorable occurrence in Wash
ington, where the daughter of a well-known resident
shot a coloured boy who was robbing her father's
orchard. In the Chronicle of March 25th appears a
triumphant British letter from " Old-Fashioned," asking
satirically whether the habit of using loaded revolvers
is a proof of the " infinite superiority " of the American
girl. Now tliis estimable gentleman is making the mis
take that nine out of ten of his countrymen constantly
make in swooping down on a single outre instance as
characteristic of American life. If " Old-Fashioned"
has not time to pay a visit to America or to read Mr.
Bryce's book, let him at least accept my assurance that
the above-mentioned incident seems to the full as ex
traordinary to the Bostonian as to the Londoner, and
that it is just as typical of the habits of the American
society girl as the action of Miss Madeleine Smith was of
English girls.

" Of all the sarse thet I can call to mind,
England doos make the most onpleasant kind.
It's you're the sinner oilers, she's the saint ;
Whot's good's all English, all thet isn't, ain't.
She is all thet's honest, honnable, an' fair.
An' when the vartoos died they made her heir."

VII

Sports and Amusements

IN face of the immense sums of money spent on all
kinds of sport, the size and wealth of the athletic
associations, the swollen salaries of baseball play
ers, the prominence afforded to sporting events in
the newspapers, the number of " world's records " made
in the United States, and the tremendous excitement
over inter-university football matches and international
yacht-races, it may seem wanton to assert that the love
of sport is not by any means so genuine or so universal
in the United States as in Great Britain ; and yet I am
not at all sure that such a statement would not be abso
lutely true. By true " love of sport " I understand the
enjoyment that arises from either practising or seeing
others practise some form of skill-demanding amuse
ment for its own sake, without question of pecuniary
profit ; and the true sport lover is not satisfied unless
the best man wins, whether he be friend or foe. Sport
ceases to be sport as soon as it is carried on as if it were
war, where " all " is proverbially " fair." The excite
ment of gambling does not seem to me to be fairly cov
ered by the phrase " love of sport," and no more does
the mere desire to see one's university, state, or nation
triumph over someone else's university, state, or nation.
There are thousands of people who rejoice over or bewail
the result of the Derby without thereby proving their

106

Sports and Amusements 107

possession of any right to the title of sportsman ; there
is no difference of quality between the speculator in grain
and the speculator in horseflesh and jockeys' nerves. So,
too, there are many thousands who yell for Yale in a foot
ball match who have no real sporting instinct whatever.
Sport, to be sport, must jealously shun all attempts to
make it a business ; the more there is of the spirit of pro
fessionalism in any game or athletic exercise the less it
deserves to be called a sport. A sport in the true sense
of the word must be practised for fun or glory, not for
dollars and cents ; and the desire to win must be very
strictly subordinated to the sense of honour and fair
play. The book-making spirit has undoubtedly entered
far too largely into many of the most characteristic of
British sports, and I have no desire to palliate or excuse
our national shortcomings in this or other respects.
But the hard commercial spirit to which I have alluded
seems to me to pervade American sport much more uni
versally than it does the sport of England, and to form
almost always a much larger factor in the interest
excited by any contest.

This is very clearly shown by the way in which
games are carried on at the universities of the two coun
tries. Most members of an English college are members
of some one or other of the various athletic associations
connected with it, and it cannot be denied that the gen
eral interest in sport is both wide and keen. But it does
not assume so " business-like " an air as it does in such
a university as Yale or Princeton. Not nearly so much
money is spent in the paraphernalia of the sport or in
the process of training. The operation of turning a
pleasure into a toil is not so consistently carried on

io8 The Land of Contrasts

The members of the intercollegiate team do not obtain
leave of absence from their college duties to train and
practise in some remote corner of England as if they
were prize-fighters or yearlings. "Gate-money" does
not bulk so largely in the view; in fact, admission to
many of the chief encounters is free. The atmosphere
of mystery about the doings of the crew or team is not
so sedulously cultivated. The men do not take defeat
so hardly, or regard the loss of a match as a serious
calamity in life. I have the authority of Mr. Caspar W.
"Whitney, the editor of Forest and Stream, and perhaps
the foremost living writer on sport in the United States,
for the statement that members of a defeated football
team in America will sometimes throw themselves on
their faces on the turf and weep (see his u Sporting Pil
grimage," Chapter IV., pp. 94, 95).1 It was an American
orator who proposed the toast : " My country — right or
wrong, my country ; " and there is some reason to fear
that American college athletes are tempted to adapt this
in the form " Let us win, by fair means or foul." I
should hesitate to suggest this were it not that the
evidence on which I do so was supplied from American
sources. Thus, one American friend of mine told me he
heard a member of a leading university football team
say to one of his colleagues : " You try to knock out
A. B. this bout; I've been warned once." Tactics of
this kind are freely alleged against our professional play
ers of association football ; but it may safely be asserted
that no such sentence could issue from the lips of a
member of the Oxford or Cambridge university teams.

1 1 wish to confess my obligation to this interesting book for much help in
writing the present chapter.

Sports and Amusements 109

Mr. E. J. Brown, Track Captain of the University of
California, asserted, on his return from a visit to the
Eastern States, that Harvard was the only Eastern uni
versity in which the members of the athletic teams
were all bond fide students. This is doubtless a very
exaggerated statement, but it would seem to indicate
which way the wind blows. The entire American ten
dency is to take amusement too seriously, too stren
uously. They do not allow sport to take care of itself.
" It runs to rhetoric and interviews." All good contest
ants become " representatives of the American people."
One serious effect of the way in which the necessity of
winning or "making records " is constantly held up as the
raison d'etre of athletic sports is that it suggests to the
ordinary student, who has no hopes of brilliant success
in athletics, that moderate exercise is contemptible, and
that he need do nothing to keep up his bodily vigour.
Thus, Dr. Birkbeck Hill found that the proportion of
students who took part in some athletic sport was dis
tinctly less at Harvard than at Oxford. Nor could I
ascertain that nearly so large a proportion of the adult
population themselves played games or followed athletics
of any kind as in England. I should say, speaking
roughly, that the end of his university career or his first
year in responsible business corresponded practically for
the ordinary American to the forty-fifth year of the
ordinary Englishman, i.e., after this time he would
either entirely or partially give up his own active partic
ipation in outdoor exercises. Of course there are thou
sands of exceptions on both sides ; but the general rule
remains true. The average American professional or
business man does not play baseball as his English cousin

no The Land of Contrasts

does cricket. He goes in his thousands to see baseball
matches, and takes a very keen and vociferous interest in
their progress ; but he himself has probably not handled
a club since he left college. No doubt this contrast is
gradually diminishing, and such games as lawn tennis
and golf have made it practically a vanishing quantity in
the North-eastern States ; but as one goes West one can
not but feel that baseball and other sports, like dancing in
China, are almost wholly in the hands of paid performers.
The national games of cricket and baseball serve very
well to illustrate this, as well as other contrasts in the
pastimes of the two nations. In cricket the line between
the amateur and the professional has hitherto been very
clearly drawn ; and Englishmen are apt to believe that
there is something elevating in the very nature of the
game which makes it shed scandals as a duck's back
sheds water. The American view is, perhaps, rather that
cricket is so slow a game that there is little scope for
betting, with all its attendant excitement and evils.
They point to the fact that the staid city of Philadel
phia is the only part of the United States in which
cricket flourishes ; and, if in a boasting mood, they may
claim with justice that it has been cultivated there in a
way that shows that it is not lack of ability to shine
in it that makes most Americans indifferent to the game.
A first-class match takes three days to play, and even a
match between two teams of small boys requires a long
half -holiday. Hence the game is largely practised by the
members of the leisure class. The grounds on which it
is played are covered with the greenest and best-kept of
turf, and are often amid the most lovely surroundings.
The season at which the game is played is summer, so

Sports and Amusements in

that looking on is warm and comfortable. There is
comparatively little chance of serious accident ; and the
absence of personal contact of player with player re
moves the prime cause of quarrelling and ill-feeling.
Hence ladies feel that they may frequent cricket matches
in their daintiest summer frocks and without dread of
witnessing any painful accident or unseemly scuffle.
The costumes of the players are varied, appropriate, and
tasteful, and the arrangement of the fielders is very
picturesque.

Baseball, on the other hand (which, pace, my American
friends, is simply glorified rounders), with the exception
of school and college teams, is almost wholly practised
by professional players; and the place of the county
cricket matches is taken by the games between the vari
ous cities represented in the National League, in which
the amateur is severely absent. The dress, with a long-
sleeved semmet appearing below a short-sleeved jersey,
is very ugly, and gives a sort of ruffianly look to a
" nine " which it might be free from in another costume.
The ground is theoretically grass, but practically (often,
at least) hard-trodden earth or mud. A match is fin
ished in about one hour and a half. In running for base
a player has often to throw himself on his face, and
thereby covers himself with dust or mud. The specta
tors have each paid a sum varying from Is. or 2s. to 8s.
or even 10s. for admission, and are keenly excited in the
contest ; while their yells, and hoots, and slangy chaff
are very different to the decorous applause of the cricket
field, and rather recall an association football crowd in
the Midlands. As a rule not much sympathy or courtesy
is extended to the visiting team, and the duties of an

H2 The Land of Contrasts

umpire are sometimes accompanied by real danger.1
Several features of the play seem distinctly unsports
manlike. Thus, it is the regular duty of one of the
batting team, when not in himself, to try to " rattle "
the pitcher or fielder by yells and shouts just as he is
about to " pitch " or " catch " or " touch." It is not con
sidered dishonourable for one of the waiting strikers to
pretend to be the player really at a base and run from base
to base just outside the real line so as to confuse the
fielders. On the other hand the game is rapid, full of ex
citement and variety, and susceptible of infinite develop
ment of skill. The accuracy with which a long field will
throw to base might turn an English long-leg green with
envy ; and the way in which an expert pitcher will make a
ball deflect in the air, either up or down, to the right or
left, must be seen to be believed. A really skilful
pitcher is said to be able to throw a ball in such a way
that it will go straight to within a foot of a tree, turn
out for the tree, and resume its original course on the
other side of it !

The football match between Yale and Princeton on
Thanksgiving Day (last Thursday in November) may,
perhaps, be said to hold the place in public estimation in
America that the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race does
in England. In spite of the inclement season, spectators
of either sex turn out in their thousands ; and the scene,
except that furs are substituted for summer frocks,
easily stands comparison with the Eton and Harrow day
at Lord's. The field is surrounded in the same way
with carriages and drags, on which the colours of the

i A match played in no less aristocratic a place than Newport on Sept. 2, 1897,
between the local team and a club from Brockton, ended in a general scrim
mage, in which even women joined in the cry of " Kill the umpire ! "

Sports and Amusements 113

rival teams are profusely displayed ; and there are the
same merry coach-top luncheons, the same serried files
of noisy partisans, and the same general air of festivity,
while the final touch is given by the fact that a brilliant
sun is not rarer in America in November than it is in
England in June. The American game of football is
a developed form of the Rugby game ; but is, perhaps,
not nearer it than baseball is to rounders. It is played
by eleven a side. American judges think that neither
Rugby nor Association football approaches the Ameri
can game either in skill or in demand on the player's
physical endurance. This may be so ; in fact, so far as
my very inexpert point of view goes I should say that
it is so. Undoubtedly the American teams go through
a much more prolonged and rigid system of training,
and their scheme of tactics, codes of signals, and sharp
devices of all kinds are much more complicated.
" Tackling " is probably reduced to a finer art than in
England. Mr. Whitney, a most competent and impar
tial observer, does not think that our system of " passing "
would be possible with American tacklers. Whether all
this makes a better game is a very different question,
and one that I should be disposed to answer in the nega
tive. It is a more serious business, just as a duel d
outrance is a more serious business than a fencing match ;
but it is not so interesting to look at and does not seem
to afford the players so much fun. There is little run
ning with the ball, almost no dropping or punting, and
few free kicks. The game between Princeton and Yale
which I, shivering, saw from the top of a drag in 1891,
seemed like one prolonged, though rather loose, scrim
mage ; and the spectators fairly yelled for joy when they

H4 The Land of Contrasts

saw the ball, which happened on an average about once
every ten or fifteen minutes. Americans have to gain
five yards for every three " downs " or else lose posses
sion of the ball ; and hence the field is marked off by
five-yard lines all the way from goal to goal. American
writers acknowledge that the English Rugby men are
much better kickers than the American players, and that
it is now seldom that the punter in America gets a fair
chance to show his skill. There are many tiresome
waits in the American game ; and the practice of " inter
ference," though certainly managed with wonderful
skill, can never seem quite fair to one brought up on the
English notions of " off-side." The concerted cheering
of the students of each university, led by a regular fugle
man, marking time with voice and arms, seems odd to
the spectator accustomed to the sparse, spontaneous,
and independent applause of an English crowd.

An American football player in full armour resembles
a deep-sea diver or a Roman retiarius more than any
thing else. The dress itself consists of thickly padded
knickerbockers, jersey, canvas jacket, very heavy boots,
and very thick stockings. The player then farther pro
tects himself by shin guards, shoulder caps, ankle and
knee supporters, and wristbands. The apparatus on his
head is fearful and wonderful to behold, including a
rubber mouthpiece, a nose mask, padded ear guards, and
a curious headpiece made of steel springs, leather straps,
and India rubber. It is obvious that a man in this cum
bersome attire cannot move so quickly as an English
player clad simply in jersey, short breeches, boots, and
stockings ; and I question very much whether — slug
ging apart — the American assumption that the science

Sports and Amusements 115

of Yale would simply overwhelm the more elementary
play of an English university is entirely justified. Any
one who has seen an American team in this curious
paraphernalia can well understand the shudder of appre
hension that shakes an American spectator the first time
he sees an English team take the field with bare knees.
Certainly the spirit and temper with which football is
played in the United States would seem to indicate that
the over-elaborate way in which it has been handled has
not been favourable to a true ideal of manly sport. On
this point I shall not rely on my own observation, but on
the statements of Americans themselves, beginning with
the semi-jocular assertion, which largely belongs to the
order of true words spoken in jest, that " in old English
football you kicked the ball ; in modern English football
you kick the man when you can't kick the ball ; in
American football you kick the ball when you can't kick
the man." In Georgia, Indiana, Nebraska, and possibly
some other States, bills to prohibit football have actually
been introduced in the State Legislatures within the past
few years. The following sentences are taken from an
article in the Nation (New York), referring to the Har
vard and Yale game of 1894 :

The game on Saturday at Springfield between the two
great teams of Harvard and Yale was by the testimony —
unanimous, as far as our knowledge goes — of spectators
and newspapers the most brutal ever witnessed in the
United States. There are few members of either university
— we trust there are none — who have not hung their heads
for shame in talking over it, or thinking of it.

In the first place, we respectfully ask the governing body
of all colleges what they have to say for a game between

n6 The Land of Contrasts

youths presumably engaged in the cultivation of the liberal
arts which needs among its preliminaries a supply on the
field of litters and surgeons ? Such preparations are not
only brutal, but brutalising. How any spectator, especially
any woman, can witness them without a shudder, so dis
tinctly do they recall the duelling field and the prize ring,
we are unable to understand. But that they are necessary
and proper under the circumstances the result showed.
There were actually seven casualties among twenty-two
men who began the game. This is nearly 33 per cent, of
the combatants — a larger proportion than among the Fed
erals at Cold Harbor (the bloodiest battle of modern times),
and much larger than at Waterloo or at Gravelotte. What
has American culture and civilisation to say to this mode
of training youth ? " Brewer was so badly injured that he
had to be taken off the field crying with mortification."
Wright, captain of the Yale men, jumped on him with both
knees, breaking his collar bone. Beard was next turned
over to the doctors. Hallowell had his nose broken.
Murphy was soon badly injured and taken off the field on
a stretcher unconscious, with concussion of the brain. But-
terworth, who is said nearly to have lost an eye, soon fol
lowed. Add that there was a great deal of " slugging " —
that is, striking with the fist and kicking — which was not
punished by the umpires, though two men were ruled out
for it.

It may be laid down as a sound rule among civilised
people that games which may be won by disabling your
adversary, or wearing out his strength, or killing him,
ought to be prohibited, at all events among its youth.
Swiftness of foot, skill and agility, quickness of sight, and
cunning of hands, are things to be encouraged in education.

Sports and Amusements 117

The use of brute force against an unequally matched antag
onist, on the other hand, is one of the most debauching
influences to which a young man can be exposed. The
hurling of masses of highly trained athletes against one
another with intent to overcome by mere weight or kicking
or cuffing, without the possibility of the rigid superintend
ence which the referee exercises in the prize ring, cannot
fail to blunt the sensibilities of young men, stimulate their
bad passions, and drown their sense of fairness. When
this is done in the sight of thousands, under the stimulation
of their frantic cheers and encouragement, and in full view
of the stretchers which carry their fellows from the field,
for aught they know disabled for life, how, in the name of
common sense, does it differ in moral influence from the
Roman arena ?

Now, the point in the above notice is that it is
written of " gentlemen " — of university men. It is to
be feared that very similar charges might be brought
against some of the professionals of our association
teams ; but our amateurs are practically exempt from
any such accusation. The climax of the whole thing is
the statement by a professor of a well-known university,
that a captain of one of the great football teams
declared in a class prayer-meeting " that the great suc
cess of the team the previous season was in his opinion
due to the fact that among the team and substitutes
there were so many praying men." The true friends of
sport in the United States must wish that the foot
ball mania may soon disappear in its present form ; and
the Harvard authorities are to be warmly congratulated
on the manly stand they have taken against the evil.
And it is to be devoutly hoped that no president of a

n8 The Land of Contrasts

college in the future will ever, as one did in 1894, con
gratulate his students on the fact " that their progress
and success in study during the term just finished had
been fully equal to their success in intercollegiate athlet
ics and football ! " 1

1 have, however, no desire to pose as the British
Pharisee, and I am aware that, though we make the
better showing in this instance, there are others in
which our record is at least as bad. The following
paragraph is taken from the Field (December 7th, 1895) :

HIGHCLERE. — As various incorrect reports have been
published of the shooting at Highclere last week, Lord
Carnarvon has desired me to forward the enclosed partic
ulars of the game shot on three days : November 26,
27, and 29, James McCraw (13, Berkeley-square, w.).
November 26, Grotto (Brooks) Beat, 5 partridges, 1,160
pheasants, 42 hares, 2,362 rabbits, 7 various ; total, 3,576.
November 27, Highclere Wood (Cross) Beat, 5 partridges,
1,700 pheasants, 1 hare, 1,702 rabbits, 4 woodcock, 16 vari
ous ; total, 3,428. November 29, Beeches (Cross) Beat, 6
partridges, 2,811 pheasants, 969 rabbits, 2 wild fowl, 15
various ; total, 3,803. Grand total : 16 partridges, 5,671
pheasants, 43 hares, 5,033 rabbits, 4 woodcock, 2 wild

*It is, perhaps, only fair to quote on the other side the opinion of Mr.
Rudolf Lehmann, the well-known English rowing coach, who witnessed the
match between Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania in 1897. He
writes in the London News: "I have never seen a finer game played with a
manlier spirit. The quickness and the precision of the players were marvel
lous. . . . The game as I saw it, though it was violent and rough, was
never brutal. Indeed, I cannot hope to see a finer exhibition of courage,
strength, and manly endurance, without a trace of meanness."

And to Mr. Lehmann's voice may be added that of a " Mother of Nine
Sons," who wrote to the Boston Evening Transcript in 1897, speaking warmly
of the advantages of football in the formation of habits of self-control and sub
mission to authority.

Sports and Amusements 119

fowl, 38 various ; total, 10,807. The shooters on the first
two days were Prince Victor Duleep Singh, Prince Fred
erick Duleep Singh, Lord de Grey, Lord Ashburton, Lord
Carnarvon, and Mr. Chaplin. On November 29 Mr. Ruth
erford took the place of Mr. Chaplin.

A little calculation will show that each of the six
gentlemen mentioned in the paragraph must have killed
one head of game every minute or two. This makes it
impossible that there could have been many misses. This
in turn makes it certain that the pheasants in the bag
must have been nearly as tame as barndoor fowl. The
shooting, then, must have been one long drawn-out
massacre of semi-tame animals, with hardly a breathing
interval. I confess such a record seems to me as abso
lutely devoid of sport and as full of brutality as the
worst slugging match between Princeton and Yale ; and
it, moreover, lacks the element of physical courage which
is certainly necessary in the football match. Besides, the
English sinners are grown men and members of the class
which is supposed to set the pattern for the rest of the
nation ; the university footballers, in spite of their own
sense of importance, are after all raw youths, to whom
reason does not altogether forbid us to hope that riper
years may bring more sense and more true manliness.

Two of the most popular outdoor amusements in the
United States are driving and sailing. I do not know
how far statistics would bear me out, but one certainly
gets the impression that more people keep horses for
pleasure in America than in England. Horses are com
paratively cheap, and their keep is often lower than with
us. The light buggies must cost less than the more

I2O The Land of Contrasts

substantial carriages of England. Hence, if a man is so
iond of driving as to be willing to be his own coachman
and groom, the keeping of a horse and shay is not very
ruinous, especially in the country or smaller towns. As
soon as the element of wages enters into the question the
result is very different : carriage-hire is usually twice as
high as in England and often more. However that may
be, it is certainly very striking to see the immense num
ber of one-horse " teams " that turn out for an afternoon
or evening spin in the parks and suburban roads of
places like New York, Boston, and Chicago. Many of
these teams are of a plainness, not to say shabbiness,
which would make an English owner too shamefaced to
exhibit them in public. The fact that the owner is his
own stableman is often indicated by the ungroomed coat
of his horse, and by the month-old mud on his wheels.
The horse, however, can generally do a bit of smart trot
ting, and his owner evidently enjoys his speed and grit.
The buggies, unsubstantial as they look, are comfortable
enough when one is seated ; but the access, between,
through, and over the wheels, is unpleasantly suggestive
for the nervous. So fond are the Americans of driving
that they evidently look upon it as a form of active exer
cise for themselves as well as for their nags. One man
said to me : " I am really getting too stout ; I must
start a buggy."

I am almost ashamed to avow that I spent five years
in the United States without seeing a trotting-race,
though this was owing to no lack of desire. The only
remark that I shall, therefore, venture to make about
this form of sport is that the American claim that it
has a more practical bearing than the English form of

Sports and Amusements 121

horse-racing seems justified. It is alleged indeed that
the English " running " races are of immense impor
tance in keeping up the breed of horses ; but it may well
be open to question whether the same end could not be
better attained by very different means. What is gen
erally wanted in a horse is draught power and ability to
trot well and far. It is not clear to the layman that a
flying machine that can do a mile in a minute and a
half is the ideal parent for this form of horse. On the
other hand, the famous trotting-horses of America are
just the kind of animal that is wanted for the ordinary
uses of life. Moreover, the trot is the civilised or arti
ficial gait as opposed to the wild and natural gallop.
There are 1,500 trotting-tracks in the United States,
owned by as many associations, besides those at all county
and State fairs as well as many private tracks at brood-
farms and elsewhere. Stakes, purses, and added moneys
amount to more than $3,000,000 annually ; and the cap
ital invested in horses, tracks, stables, farms, etc., is
enormous. The tracks are level, with start and finish
directly in front of the grand stand, and are either one
mile or one-half mile in length. They are always of
earth, and are usually elliptical in shape, though the
" kite-shaped track " was for a time popular on account of
its increased speed. In this there is one straight stretch
of one-third mile, then a wide turn of one-third mile,
and then a straight run of one-third mile back to the
start and finish. The horses are driven in two-wheeled
" sulkies " of little weight, and the handicapping is ex
clusively by time-classes. Records of every race are
kept by two national associations. Horses that have
never trotted a mile in less than two minutes and forty

122 The Land of Contrasts

seconds are in one class ; those that have never beaten
2.35 in another ; those that have never beaten 2.30 in a
third ; and so on down to 2.05, which has been beaten
but a dozen times. Races are always run in heats, and
the winner must win three heats. With a dozen entries
(or even six or eight, the more usual number) a race
may thus occupy an entire afternoon, and require many
heats before a decision is reached. Betting is common
at every meeting, but is not so prominent as at running
tracks.

The record for fast trotting is held at present by
Mr. Morris Jones' mare "Alix," which trotted a mile
in two minutes three and three-quarters seconds at
Galesburg in 1894. Turfmen confidently expect that
a mile will soon be trotted in two minutes. The two-
minute mark was attained in 1897 by a pacing horse.

Sailing is tremendously popular at all American sea
side resorts ; and lolling over the ropes of a " cat-boat "
is another form of active exercise that finds innumerable
votaries. Rowing is probably practised in the older
States with as much zest as in Great Britain, and the
fresh-water facilities are perhaps better. Except as a
means to an end, however, this mechanical form of sport
has never appealed to me. The more nearly a man can
approximate to a triple-expansion engine the better
oarsman he is ; no machine can be imagined that could
play cricket, golf, or tennis.

The recent development of golf — perhaps the finest
of all games — both in England and America might give
rise to a whole series of reflections on the curious vicis
situdes of games and the mysterious reasons of their
development. Golf has been played universally in

Sports and Amusements 123

Scotland for hundreds of years, right under the noses of
Englishmen ; yet it is just about thirty years ago that
(except Blackheath) the first golf-club was established
south of the Tweed, and the present craze for it is of
the most recent origin (1885 or so). Yet of the eight
hundred golf -clubs of the United Kingdom about four
hundred are in England. The Scots of Canada have
played golf for many years, but the practice of the game
in the United States may be dated from the establish
ment of the St. Andrew's Club at Yonkers in 1888.
Since then the game has been taken up with consider
able enthusiasm at many centres, and it is estimated that
there are now at least forty thousand American golfers.
There is, perhaps, no game that requires more patience
to acquire satisfactorily than golf, and the preliminary
steps cannot be gobbled. It is therefore doubtful whether
the game will ever become extensively popular in a
country with so much nervous electricity in the air. I
heartily wish that this half-prophecy may prove utterly
mistaken, for no better relief to overcharged nerves and
wearied brains has ever been devised than a well-matched
" twosome " or the more social " foursome ; " and the
fact that golf gently exercises all the muscles of the
body and can be played at all ages from eight to eighty
gives it a unique place among outdoor games. The
skill already attained by the best American players is
simply marvellous; and it seems by no means beyond
the bounds of possibility that the open champion of (say)
the year 1902 may not have been trained on American
soil. The natural impatience of the active-minded
American makes him at present very apt to neglect the
etiquette of the game. The chance of being " driven

124 The Land of Contrasts

into " is much larger on the west side of the Atlantic
than on the conservative greens of Scotland ; and it
seems almost impossible to make Brother Jonathan
"replace that divot." I have seen three different
parties holing out at the same time on the same putting
green. In one open handicap tournament I took part in
near Boston the scanty supply of caddies was monopo
lized by the members of the club holding the tourna
ment, and strangers, who had never seen the course,
were allowed to go round alone and carrying their own
clubs. On another occasion a friend and myself played
in a foursome handicap tournament and were informed
afterwards that the handicaps were yet to be arranged !
As the match was decided in our favour it would be
ungracious to complain of this irregularity. Those little
infringements of etiquette are, after all, mere details, and
will undoubtedly become less and less frequent before
the growing knowledge and love of the game.

Lacrosse, perhaps the most perspicuous and fascin
ating of all games to the impartial spectator, is, of
course, chiefly played in Canada, but there is a Lacrosse
League in the Atlantic cities of the United States. The
visitor to Canada should certainly make a point of see
ing a good exposition of this most agile and graceful
game, which is seen at its best in Montreal, Toronto, or
Ottawa. Unfortunately it seems to be most trying to
the temper, and I have more than once seen players in
representative matches neglect the game to indulge in a
bout of angry quarter-staff with their opponents until
forcibly stopped by the umpires, while the spectators
also interfere occasionally in the most disgraceful
manner. Another drawback is the interval of ten

Sports and Amusements 125

minutes between each game of the match, even when
the game has taken only two minutes to play. This
absurd rule has been promptly discarded by the Eng
lish Lacrosse Clubs, and should certainly be modified in
Canada also.

Lawn tennis is now played almost everywhere in the
United States, and its best exponents, such as Larned
and Wrenn, have attained all but — if not quite — Eng
lish championship form. The annual contest for the
championship of America, held at Newport in August,
is one of the prettiest sporting scenes on the continent.
Polo and court tennis also have their headquarters at
Newport. Hunting, shooting, and fishing are, of course,
immensely popular (at least the last two) in the United
States, but lie practically beyond the pale of my experi
ence.

Bowling or ten-pins is a favourite winter amusement
of both sexes, and occupies a far more exalted position
than the English skittles. The alleys, attached to most
gymnasia and athletic-club buildings, are often fitted up
with great neatness and comfort ; and even the fashiona
ble belle does not disdain her " bowling-club " evening,
where she meets a dozen or two of the young men and
maidens of her acquaintance. Regular meetings take
place between the teams of various athletic associations,
records are made and chronicled, and championships
decided. If the game could be naturalised in England
under the same conditions as in America, our young
people would find it a most admirable opportunity
for healthy exercise in the long dark evenings of
winter.

Track athletics (running, jumping, etc.) occupy very

126 The Land of Contrasts

much, the same position in the United States as in Eng
land ; and outside the university sphere the same abuses
of the word " amateur" and the same instances of selling
prizes and betting prevail. Mr. Caspar Whitney says
that " amateur athletics are absolutely in danger of
being exterminated in the United States if something is
not done to cleanse them." The evils are said to be great
est in the middle and far West. There are about a score
of important athletic clubs in fifteen of the largest cities
of the United States, with a membership of nearly
25,000 ; and many of these possess handsome club
houses, combining the social accommodations of the
Carlton or Reform with the sporting facilities of
Queen's. The Country Club is another American insti
tution which may be mentioned in this connection. It
consists of a comfortably and elegantly fitted-up club
house, within easy driving distance of a large city, and
surrounded by facilities for tennis, racquets, golf, polo,
baseball, racing, etc. So far it has kept clear of the
degrading sport of pigeon shooting.

Training is carried out more thoroughly and consist
ently than in England, and many if not most of the
" records " are held in America. The visits paid to the
United States by athletic teams of the L.A.C. and
Cambridge University opened the eyes of Englishmen
to what Americans could do, the latter winning seven
teen out of twenty events and making several world's
records. Indeed, there is almost too much of a craze to
make records, whereas the real sport is to beat a com
petitor, not to hang round a course till the weather or
other conditions make " record-making " probable. A
feature of American athletic meetings with which we

Sports and Amusements 127

are unfamiliar in England is the short sprinting-races,
sometimes for as small a distance as fifteen yards.

Bicycling also is exposed, as a public sport, to the
same reproaches on both sides of the Atlantic. The bad
roads of America prevented the spread of wheeling so
long as the old high bicycle was the type, but the prac
tice has assumed enormous proportions since the in
vention of the pneumatic-tired "safety." The League
of American Wheelmen has done much to improve the
country roads. The lady's bicycle was invented in the
United States, and there are, perhaps, more lady riders in
proportion in that country than in any other. As evi
dence of the rapidity with which things move in America
it may be mentioned that when I quitted Boston in
1893 not a single "society" lady so far as I could hear
had deigned to touch the wheel ; now (1898) I under
stand that even a house in Beacon Street and a lot in
Mt. Auburn Cemetery are not enough to give the guinea-
stamp of rank unless at least one member of the family
is an expert wheelwoman. An amazing instance of the
receptivity and adaptability of the American attitude is
seen in the fact that the outsides of the tramway-cars
in at least one Western city are fitted with hooks for
bicycles, so that the cyclist is saved the unpleasant, jolt
ing ride over stone pavements before reaching suburban
joys.

VIII
The Humour of the " Man on the Cars "

" y4 DIFFERENCE of taste in jokes is a great
/ \ strain on the affections." So wrote George
JL JL Eliot in " Daniel Deronda." And the truth
of the apothegm may account for much of the
friction in the intercourse of John Bull and Brother
Jonathan. For, undoubtedly, there is a wide difference
between the humour of the Englishman and the humour of
the American. John Bull's downrightness appears in
his jests also. His jokes must be unmistakable ; he
wants none of your quips masquerading as serious obser
vations. A mere twinkle of the eye is not for him a
sufficient illumination between the serious and the comic.
" Those animals are horses," Artemus Ward used to say
in showing his panorama. " I know they are — because
my artist says so. I had the picture two years before I
discovered the fact. The artist came to me about six
months ago and said, ' It is useless to disguise it from
you any longer — they are horses. ' " l This is the
form of introduction that John Bull prefers for his
witticisms. He will welcome a joke as hospitably as a

iln an English issue of Artemus Ward, apparently edited by Mr. John
Camden Hotten (Chatto and Windus),this passage is accompanied with the
following gloss : " Here again Artemus called in the aid of pleasant banter
as the most fitting apology for the atrocious badness of the painting."

This note is an excellent illustration of English obtuseness — if needed, on
the part of the reading public ; if needless, on the part of the editor.

128

The Humour of the "Man on the Cars" 129

visitor, if only the credentials of the one as of the other
are unimpeachable.

Now the American does not wish his joke underlined
like an urgent parliamentary whip. He wants some
thing left to his imagination ; he wants to be tickled by
the feeling that it requires a keen eye to see the point ;
he may, in a word, like his champagne sweet, but he
wants his humour dry. His telephone girls halloo, but
his jokes don't. In this he resembles the Scotsman
much more than the Englishman ; and both European
foreigners and the Americans themselves seem aware of
this. Thus, Max O'Rell writes :

De tons les citoyens du Royaume plus ou moins Uni
1'ami Donald est le plus fini, le plus solide, le plus positif,
le plus perseverant, le plus laborieux, et le plus spirituel.

Le plus spirituel ! voila un grand mot de lache. Oui, le
plus spirituel, n'en deplaise a 1'ombre de Sydney Smith. . . .
J'espere bien prouver, par quelques anecdotes, que Donald
a de 1'esprit, de Fesprit de bon aloi, d'humour surtout, de
cet humour fin subtil, qui passerait a travers la tete d'un
Cockney sans y laisser la moindre trace, sans y faire la
moiudre impression.

The testimony of the American is equally explicit.

The following dialogue, quoted from memory, appeared
some time since in one of the best American comic
journals :

Tomkyns (of London). — I say, Vanarsdale, I told such a
good joke, don't you know, to MacPherson, and he didn't
laugh a bit ! I suppose that's because he's a Scotsman ?

Vanarsdale (of New York). — I don't know ; I think it's
more likely that it's because you are an Englishman !

130 The Land of Contrasts

An English audience is usually much slower than an
American or Scottish one to take up a joke that is any
thing less than obvious. I heard Max O'Rell deliver one
of his witty orations in London. The audience was good
humored, entirely with the lecturer, and only too ready
to laugh. But if his joke was the least bit subtle, the least
bit less apparent than usual, it was extraordinary how
the laughter hung fire. There would be an appreciable
interval of silence ; then, perhaps, a solitary laugh in a
corner of the gallery ; then a sort of platoon fire in differ
ent parts of the house ; and, finally, a simultaneous roar.
So, when Mr. John Morley, in his admirable lecture on
the Carlyle centenary celebration (Dec. 5, 1895), quoted
Carlyle's saying about Sterling : " We talked about this
thing and that — except in opinion not disagreeing,"
there was a lapse of half-a-minute before the audience
realised that the saying had a humorous turn. In an
American audience, and I believe also in a Scottish one,
the report would have been simultaneous with the flash.

Perhaps the Americans themselves are just a little too
sure of their superiority to the English in point of
humour, and indeed they often carry their witticisms on
the supposed English " obtuseness " to a point at which
exaggeration ceases to be funny. It is certainly not
every American who scoffs at English wit that is enti
tled to do so. There are dullards in the United States
as well as elsewhere ; and nothing can well be more
ghastly than American humour run into the ground.
On the other hand their sense of loyalty to humour
makes them much more free in using it at their own
expense ; and some of their stories show themselves up
in the light usually reserved for John Bull. I remem-

The Humour of the "Man on the Cars" 131

ber, unpatriotically, telling a stock stoiy (to illustrate
the English slowness to take a joke) to an American
writer whose pictures of New England life are as full
of a delicate sense of humour as they are of real and
simple pathos. It was, perhaps, the tale of the London
bookseller who referred to his own coiffure the Ameri
can's remark apropos of the two-volume English edition
of a well-known series of " Walks in London " — " Ah,
I see you part your Hare in the middle." Whatever it
was, my hearer at once capped it by the reply of a
Boston girl to her narration of the following anecdote :
A railway conductor, on his way through the cars to
collect and check the tickets, noticed a small hair-trunk
lying in the forbidden central gangway, and told the
old farmer to whom it apparently belonged that it must
be moved from there at once. On a second round he
found the trunk still in the passage, reiterated his
instructions more emphatically, and passed on without
listening to the attempted explanations of the farmer.
On his third round he cried: "Now, I gave you fair
warning ; here goes ; " and tipped the trunk overboard.
Then, at last, the slow-moving farmer found utterance
and exclaimed : " All right ! the trunk is none o' mine ! "
To which the Boston girl: "Well, whose trunk was
it ? " We agreed, nem. con., that this was indeed Anglis
ipsis Anglior.

These remarks as to the comparative merits of English
and American humour must be understood as referring to
the average man in each case — the "Man on the Cars,"
as our cousins have it. It would be a very different
position, and one hardly tenable, to maintain that the land
of Mark Twain has produced greater literary humorists

132 The Land of Contrasts

than the land of Charles Lamb. In the matter of comic
papers it may also be doubted, even by those who most
appreciate American humour, whether England has alto
gether the worst of it. It is the fashion in the States to
speak of " poor old Punch" and to affect astonishment
at seeing in its " senile pages " anything that they have
to admit to be funny. Doubtless a great deal of very
laborious and vapid jesting goes on in the pages of the
doyen of English comic weeklies ; but at its best Punch
is hard to beat, and its humours have often a literary
quality such as is seldom met with in an American
journal of the same kind. No American paper can
even remotely claim to have added so much to the gaiety
of nations as the pages that can number names like
Leech and Thackeray, Douglas Jerrold and Tom Hood,
Burnand and Charles Keene, Du Maurier and Tenniel,
Linley Sambourne and the author of "Vice Versa,"
among its contributors past and present. And besides —
and the claim is a proud one — Punch still remains the
only comic paper of importance that is always a perfect
gentleman — a gentleman who knows how to behave
both in the smoking-room and the drawing-room, who
knows when a jest oversteps the boundary line of coarse
ness, who realises that a laugh can sometimes be too
dearly won. Punch is certainly a comic journal of
which the English have every reason to be proud ; but
if we had to name the paper most typical of the English
taste in humour we should, perhaps, be shamefacedly
compelled to turn to Ally Sloper.

The best American comic paper is Life, which is
modelled on the lines of the Miinchener Fliegende
Blatter, perhaps the funniest and most mirth-provoking

The Humour of the "Man on the Cars" 133

of all professedly humorous weeklies. Among the
most attractive features are the graceful and dignified
drawings of Mr. Charles Dana Gibson, who has in its
pages done for American society what Mr. Du Maurier
has done for England by his scenes in Punch; the
sketches of F. G. Attwood and S. W. Van Schaick; and
the clever verses of M. E. W. The dryness, the smart
exaggeration, the point, the unexpectedness of American
humour are all often admirably represented in its pages ;
and the faults and foibles of contemporary society are
touched off with an inimitable delicacy of satire both in
pencil and pen work. Life, like Punch, has also its
more serious side ; and, if it has never produced a
" Song of the Shirt," it earns our warm admiration for
its steadfast championing of worthy causes, its severe
and trenchant attacks on rampant evils, and its eloquent
tributes to men who have deserved well of the country.
On the other hand, it not unfrequently publishes jokes
the birth of which considerably antedates that of the
United States itself; and it sometimes descends to a
level of trifling flatness and vapidity which no English
paper of the kind can hope to equal. It is hard — for a
British critic at any rate — to see any perennial interest
in the long series of highly exaggerated drawings and
jests referring to the gutter children of New York,
a series in which the same threadbare motifs are con
stantly recurring under the thinnest of disguises. And
occasionally — very occasionally — there is a touch of
coarseness in the drawings of Life which suggests the
worst features of its German prototype rather than any
thing it has borrowed from England.

Among the political comic journals of America men-

134 Th6 Land of Contrasts

tion may be made of Puck, the rough and gaudy car
toons of which have often what the Germans would call
a packende Derbheit of their own that is by no means
ineffective. Of the other American — as, indeed, of the
other British — comic papers I prefer to say nothing,
except that I have often seen them in houses and in
hands to which they seemed but ill adapted.

Among the characteristics of American humour — the
humour of the average man, the average newspaper, the
average play — are its utter irreverence, its droll ex
travagance, its dry suggestiveness, its na'ivetg (real or
apparent), its affectation of seriousness, its fondness for
antithesis and anti-climax. Mark Twain may stand as
the high priest of irreverence in American humour, as
witnessed in his " Innocents Abroad " and his " Yankee
at the Court of King Arthur.'' In this regard the
humour of our transatlantic cousins cannot wholly escape
a charge of debasing the moral currency by buffoonery.
It has no reverence for the awful mystery of death and
the Great Beyond. An undertaker will place in his
window a card bearing the words : " You kick the
bucket ; we do the rest." A paper will head an account
of the hanging of three mulattoes with " Three Choco
late Drops." It has no reverence for the names and
phrases associated with our deepest religious feelings.
Buckeye's patent filter is advertised as thoroughly relia
ble — " being what it was in the beginning, is now, and
ever shall be." Mr. Boyesen tells of meeting a venera
ble clergyman, whose longevity, according to his intro
ducer, was due to the fact that " he was waiting for a
vacancy in the Trinity." One of the daily bulletins of
the captain of the large excursion steamer on which I

The Humour of the "Man on the Cars" 135

visited Alaska read as follows : " The Lord only knows
when it will clear ; and he won't tell." And none of
the two hundred passengers seemed to find anything
unseemly in this official freedom with the name of their
Creator. On a British steamer there would almost cer
tainly have been some sturdy Puritan to pull down the
notice. One of the best newspaper accounts of the
Republican convention that nominated Mr. J. G. Elaine
for President in 1884 began as follows : " Now a man of
God, with a bald head, calls the Deity down into the
meUe and bids him make the candidate the right one
and induce the people to elect him in November." If I
here mention the newspaper head-line (apropos of a
hanging) " Jerked to Jesus," it is mainly to note that
M. Blouet saw it in 1888 and M. Bourget also purports
to have seen it in 1894. Surely the American journalist
has a fatal facility of repetition or — ?

American humour has no reverence for those in high
position or authority. An American will say of his chief
executive, " Yes, the President has a great deal of taste —
and all of it bad." A current piece of doggerel when I
was in Washington ran thus :

"Benny runs the White House,

Levi keeps a bar,
Johnny runs a Sunday School —
And, damme, there you are ! "

The gentlemen named are the then President, Mr.
Harrison ; the Vice-President, Mr. Morton, who was
owner or part owner of one of the large Washington
hotels ; and Mr. Wanamaker, Postmaster General,
well known as " an earnest Christian worker."

136 The Land of Contrasts

I have seen even the sacred Declaration of Indepen
dence imitated, both in wording and in external form, as
the advertisement of a hotel.

A story current in Philadelphia refers to Mr. Richard
Vaux, an eminent citizen and member of a highly
respected old Quaker family, who in his youth had been
an attach^ of the American Legation in London. One
of his letters home narrated with pardonable pride that
he had danced with the Princess Victoria at a royal ball
and had found her a very charming partner. His mother
replied : " It pleaseth me much, Richard, to hear of thy
success at the ball in Buckingham Palace; but thee
must remember it would be a great blow to thy father
to have thee marry out of meeting/'

Philosophy, art, and letters receive no greater defer
ence at the hands of the American humorist. Even an
Oliver Wendell Holmes will say of metaphysics that it
is like " splitting a log ; when you have done, you have
two more to split." A poster long used by the come
dians Crane and Robson represented these popular
favourites in the guise of the two lowermost cherubs in
the Sistine Madonna. Bill Nye's assertion that " the
peculiarity of classical music is that it is so much better
than it sounds " is typical of a whole battalion of quips.
Scenery, even when associated with poetry, fares no
better. The advertising fiend who defaces the most
picturesque rocks with his atrocious announcements is,
perhaps, hardly entitled to the name of humorist ; but
the man who affixed the name of Minniegiggle to a small
fall near the famous Minnehaha evidently thought him
self one. So, doubtless, did one of my predecessors in a
dressing-cabin at Niagara, who had inscribed on its walls :

The Humour of the "Man on the Cars" 137

" Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them,
Volleyed and thundered !
But the man who descends
Through the Cave of the Winds
Can give points to the noble six hundred."

Of the extravagant exaggeration of American humour
it is hardly necessary to give examples. This, to the
ordinary observer, has perhaps been always its salient
feature ; and stock examples will occur to everyone. It
is easy to see how readily this form of humour can be
abused, and as a matter of fact it is abused daily and
hourly. Many would-be American humorists fail en
tirely to see that exaggeration alone is not necessarily
funny.

To illustrate : the story of the woman who described the
suddenness of the American cyclone by saying that, as
she looked up from her gardening, " she saw the air black
with her intimate friends," seems to me a thoroughly
humorous application of the exaggeration principle. So,
too, is the description of a man so terribly thin that he
never could tell whether he had the stomach-ache or the
lumbago. But the jester who expects you to laugh at
the tale of the fish that was so large that the water of
the lake subsided two feet when it was drawn ashore
simply does not know where humour ends and drivel
ling idiocy begins.

The dry suggestiveness of American humour is also a
well-known feature. In its crudest phase it assumes
such forms as the following : " Mrs. William Hankins
lighted her fire with coal oil on February 23. Her clothes

138 The Land of Contrasts

fit the present Mrs. Hankins to a T." The ordinary
Englishman will see the point of a jest like this (though
his mind will not fly to it with the electric rapidity of
the American's), but the more delicate forms of this allu
sive style of wit will often escape him altogether. Or,
if he now begins to " jump " with an almost American
agility it is because the cleverest witticisms of the
Detroit Free Press are now constantly served up to him
in the comic columns of his evening paper. We have
got the length of being consumers if not producers of
this style of jest.

In its higher developments this quality of humour
melts imperceptibly into irony. This has been culti
vated by the Americans with great success — perhaps
never better than in the columns of that admirable
weekly journal the Nation. Anyone who cares to search
the files of about eight or ten years back will find a num
ber of ironical leaders, which by their subtlety and wit
delighted those who " caught on," while, on the other
hand, they often deceived even the elect Americans them
selves and provoked a shower of innocently approving
or depreciatory letters.

Apart altogether from the specific difference between
American and English humour we cannot help noticing
how humour penetrates and gives savour to the whole of
American life. There is almost no business too impor
tant to be smoothed over with a jest ; and serio-comic
allusions may crop up amongst the most barren-looking
reefs of scrip and bargaining. It is almost impossible to
imagine a governor of the Bank of England making a
joke in his official capacity, but wit is perfected in the
mouth of similar sucklings in New York. Of recent

The Humour of the "Man on the Cars" 139

prominent speakers in America all except Carl Scliurz
and George William Curtis are professed humorists.

When Professor Boyesen, at an examination in Co
lumbia College, set as one of the questions, " Write an
account of your life," he found that seventeen out of
thirty-two responses were in a jocular vein. Fifteen
of the seventeen students bore names that indicated
American parentage, while all but three of the non-
jokers had foreign names. Abraham Lincoln is, of
course, the great example of this tendency to introduce
the element of humour into the graver concerns of
life ; and his biography narrates many instances of its
most happy effect. All the newspapers, including the
religious weeklies, have a comic column.

The tremendous seriousness with which the English
man takes himself and everything else is practically
unknown in America ; and the ponderous machinery of
commercial and political life is undoubtedly facilitated
in its running by the presence of the oil of a sub-con
scious humorous intention. The American attitude,
when not carried too far, seems, perhaps, to suggest a
truer view of the comparative importance of things ; the
American seems to say : " This matter is of importance to
you and for me, but after all it does not concern the
orbit of a planet and there is no use talking and acting
as if it did." This sense of humour often saves the
American in a situation in which the Englishman would
have recourse to downright brutality; it unties the
Gordian knot instead of cutting it. A too strong con
viction of being in the right often leads to conflicts that
would be avoided by a more humorous appreciation of
the relative importance of phenomena. To look on life

140 The Land of Contrasts

as a jest is no doubt a deep of cynicism which is not and
cannot lead to good, but to recognise the humorous side,
the humorous possibilities running through most of our
practical existence, often works as a saving grace. To his
lack of this grace the Englishman owes much of his un
popularity with foreigners, much of the difficulty he expe
riences in inducing others to take his point of view, even
when that point of view is right. You may as well hang
a dog as give him a bad name ; and a sense of humour
which would prevent John Bull from calling a thing
" un-English," when he means bad or unpractical, would
often help him smoothly towards his goal. To his pos
session of a keen sense of humour the Yankee owes
much of his success ; it leads him, with a shrug of his
shoulders, to cease fighting over names when the real
thing is granted ; it may sometimes lean to a calculating
selfishness rather than spontaneous generosity, but on
the whole it softens, enriches, and facilitates the prob
lems of existence. It may, however, be here noted that
some observers, such as Professor Boyesen, think that
there is altogether too much jocularity in American life,
and claim that the constant presence of the jest and the
comic anecdote have done much to destroy conversation
and eloquence.

Humour also acts as a great safety-valve for the
excitement of political contests. When I was in New
York, just before the election of President Harrison in
1888, two great political processions took place on the
same day. In the afternoon some thirty thousand Re
publicans paraded the streets between lines of amused
spectators, mostly Democrats. In the evening as many
Democrats carried their torches through the same thor-

The Humour of the "Man on the Cars" 141

oughfares. No collisions of any kind took place ; no ill
humour was visible. The Republicans seemed to enjoy
the jokes and squibs and flaunting mottoes of the Demo
crats ; and when a Republican banner appeared with
the legend, " No frigid North, no torrid South, no tem
perate East, no Sackville West" nobody appeared to
relish it more than the hard-hit Democrat. The Cleve
land cry of " Four, four, four years more " was met
forcibly and effectively with the simple adaptation,
44 Four, four, four months more," which proved the more
prophetic of that gentleman's then stay at the White
House. At midnight, three days later, I was jammed
in the midst of a yelling crowd in Chestnut Street,
Philadelphia, watching the electoral returns thrown by
a stereopticon light, as they arrived, on large white sheets.
Keener or more interested partisans I never saw ; but at
the same time I never saw a more good-humored crowd.
If I encountered one policeman that night that was all
I did see ; and the police reports next morning, in a
city of a million inhabitants let loose in the streets on
a public holiday, reported the arrest of five drunk men
and one pickpocket !

Election bets are often made payable in practical
jokes instead of in current coin. Thus, after election
day you will meet a defeated Republican wheeling his
Democratic friend through the chuckling crowd in a
wheelbarrow, or walking down the Bond Street of his
native town with a coal-black African laundress on his
arm. But in such forms of jesting as in " White Hat
Day," at the Stock Exchange of New York, Americans
come perilously near the Londoner's standard of the
truly funny.

142 The Land of Contrasts

In comparing American humour with English we
must take care that we take class for class. Those of
us who find it difficult to get up a laugh at Judge, or
Bill Nye, or Josh Billings, have at least to admit that
they are not quite so feeble as Ally Sloper and other
cognate English humorists. When we reach the level of
Artemus Ward, Ik Marvel, H. C. Bunner, Frank Stock
ton, and Mark Twain, we may find that we have no
equally popular contemporary humorists of equal excel
lence ; and these are emphatically humorists of a pure
American type. If humour of a finer point be demanded
it seems to me that there are few, if any, living English
writers who can rival the delicate satiric powers of a
Henry James or the subtle suggestiveness of Mr. W. D.
Howells' farces, for an analogy to which we have to look
to the best French work of the kind. But this takes us
beyond the scope of this chapter, which deals merely
with the humour of the "Man on the Cars."

IX
American Journalism — A Mixed Blessing

THE average British daily newspaper is, perhaps,
slightly in advance of its average reader ; if
we could imagine an. issue of the Standard,
or the Daily Chronicle, or the Scotsman meta
morphosed into human form, we should probably have
to admit that the being thus created was rather above
the average man in taste, intelligence, and good feeling.
Speaking roughly, and making allowances for all obvious
exceptions, I should be inclined to say that a similar
statement would not be as universally true of the Amer
ican paper and the American public, particularly if the
female citizen were included under the latter head. If
the intelligent foreigner were to regard the British citi
zen as practically an incarnation of his daily press,
whether metropolitan or provincial, he would be doing
him more than justice ; if he were to apply the same
standard to the American press and the American citi
zen, it would not be the latter who would profit by the
assumption. The American paper represents a distinctly
lower level of life than the English one ; it would often
seem as if the one catered for the least intelligent class
of its readers, while the other assumed a standard higher
than most of its readers could reach. The cultivated
American is certainly not so slangy as the paper he
reads ; he is certainly not keenly interested in the

143

144 The Land of Contrasts

extremely silly social items of which it contains several
columns. Such journals as the New York Evening Post
and the Springfield Republican are undoubtedly worthy
of mention alongside of our most reputable dailies ; but
journals of their admirably high standard are compara
tively rare, and no cultivated English visitor to the
United States can have been spared a shock at the con
trast between his fastidious and gentlemanly host and the
general tone of the sheet served up with the matutinal
hot cakes, or read by him on the cars and at the club.

Various causes may be suggested for this state of
affairs. For one thing, the mass of half -educated people
in the United States — people intelligent enough to take
a lively interest in all that pertains to humanity, but not
trained enough to insist on literary form — is so immense
as practically to swamp the cultivated class and render it
a comparatively unimportant object for the business-like
editor. In England a standard of taste has been gradu
ally evolved, which is insisted on by the educated class
and largely taken on authority by others. In America
practically no such standard is recognised ; no one there
would continue to take in a paper he found dull because
the squire and the parson subscribed for it. The Ameri
can reader — even when himself of high education and
refinement — is a much less responsible being than the
Englishman, and will content himself with a shrug of
his shoulders where the latter would write a letter of
indignant protest to the editor. I have more than once
asked an American friend how he could endure such a
daily repast of pointless vulgarity, slipshod English, and
general second-rateness ; but elicited no better answer
than that one had to see the news, that the editorial

American Journalism — A Mixed Blessing 145

part of the paper was well done, and that a man
had to make the best of what existed. This is a
national trait ; it has simply to be recognised as such.
Perhaps the fact that there is no metropolitan press in
America to give tone to the rest of the country may also
count for something in this connection. The press of
Washington, the political capital, is distinctly provincial ;
and the New York papers, though practically represent
ative of the United States for the outside world, can
hardly be said to play a genuinely metropolitan role
within the country itself.

The principal characteristics of American journalism
may be summed up in the word " enterprise." No one
on earth is more fertile in expedients than an American
editor, kept constantly to the collar by a sense of compet
ing energies all around him. No trouble, or expense, or
contrivance is spared in the collection of news ; scarcely
any item of interest is overlooked by the army of alert
reporters day and night in the field. The old-world
papers do not compete with those of the new in the
matter of quantity of news. But just here comes in one
of the chief faults of the American journal, one of the
besetting sins of the American people, — their well-
known love of "bigness," their tendency to ask "How
much? " rather than " Of what kind? " There is a lack
of discrimination in the daily bill of fare served up by
the American press that cannot but disgust the refined
and tutored palate. It is only the boor who demands a
savoury and a roast of equal bulk ; it is only the
vulgarian who wishes as much of his paper occupied by
brutal prize-fights or vapid " personals " as by important
political information or literary criticism. There is un-

146 The Land of Contrasts

doubtedly a modicum of truth in Matthew Arnold's sneer
that American journals certainly supply news enough —
but it is the news of the servants' hall. It is as if the
helm were held rather by the active reporter than by the
able editor. It is said that while there are eight editors
to one reporter in Denmark, the proportion is exactly
reversed in the United States. The net of the ordinary
American editor is at least as indis criminating as that of
the German historiographer ; every detail is swept in, irre
spective of its intrinsic value. The very end for which
the newspaper avowedly exists is often defeated by the
impossibility of finding out what is the important news
of the day. The reporter prides himself on being able to
" write up " the most intrinsically uninteresting and un
important matter. The best American critics themselves
agree on this point. Mr. Howells writes : " There are
too many tilings brought together in which the reader can
and should have no interest. The thousand and one
petty incidents of the various casualties of life that are
grouped together in newspaper columns are profitless
expenditure of money and energy."

The culminating point of this aimless congeries of
reading matter, good, bad, and indifferent, is attained in
the Sunday editions of the larger papers. Nothing
comes amiss to their endless columns : scandal, politics,
crochet-patterns, bogus interviews, puerile hoaxes, highly
seasoned police reports, exaggerations of every kind,
records of miraculous cures, funny stories with comic
cuts, society paragraphs, gossip about foreign royalties,
personalities of every description. In fact, they form
the very ragbag of journalism. An unreasonable pride
is taken in their very bulk — as if forty pages per se

American Journalism — A Mixed Blessing 147

were better than one ; as if the tons of garbage in the
Sunday issue of the Gotham Gasometer outweighed in
any valuable sense the ten or twelve small pages
of the Parisian Temps. Not but that there is a great
deal of good matter in the Sunday papers. Wer vieles
bringt wird manchem etwas bringen ; and he who knows
where to look for it will generally find some edible morsel
in the hog-trough. It has been claimed that the Sunday
papers of America correspond with the cheaper English
magazines ; and doubtless there is some truth in the
assertion. The pretty little tale, the interesting note of
popular science, or the able sketch of some contemporary
political condition is, however, so hidden away amid a
mass of feebly illustrated and vulgarly written notes on
sport, society, criminal reports, and personal interviews
with the most evanescent of celebrities that one cannot
but stand aghast at this terrible misuse of the powerful
engine of the press. It is idle to contend that the news
paper, as a business undertaking, must supply this sort
of thing to meet the demand for it. It is (or ought to
be) the proud boast of the press that it leads and moulds
public opinion, and undoubtedly journalism (like the
theatre) is at least as much the cause as the effect of the
depravity of public taste. Enterprising stage-managers
have before now proved that Shakespeare does not spell
ruin, and there are admirable journals in the United
States which have shown themselves to be valuable prop
erties without undue pandering to the frivolous or
vicious side of the public instinct.1

1 Writing of theatrical managers, the Century (November, 1895) says :
" One of the greatest obstacles in the way of reform is the inability of these
same men to discern the trend of intelligent, to say nothing of cultivated,
public opinion, or to inform themselves of the existence of the widespread
craving for higher and better entertainment."

148 The Land of Contrasts

A straw shows how the wind blows ; let one item
show the unfathomable gulf in questions of tone and
taste that can subsist between a great American daily
and its English counterparts. In the summer of 1895
an issue of one of the richest and most influential of
American journals — a paper that such men as Mr.
Cleveland and Mr. McKinley have to take account of —
published under the heading " A Fortunate Find " a
picture of two girls in bathing dress, talking by the edge
of the sea. One says to the other : " How did you
manage your father? I thought he wouldn't let you
come ? " The answer is : " I caught him kissing the
typewriter." It is, of course, perfectly inconceivable
that any reputable British daily could descend to this
depth of purposeless and odious vulgarity. If this be
the style of humour desiderated, the Thunderer may
take as a well-earned compliment the American sneer
that " no joke appears in the London Times, save by
accident." If another instance be wanted, take this :
Major Calef, of Boston, officiated as marshal at the funeral
of his friend, Gen. Francis Walker. In so doing he
caught a cold, of which he died. An evening paper
hereupon published a cartoon showing Major Calef
walking arm in arm with Death at General Walker's
funeral.

Americans are also apt to be proud of the number of
their journals, and will tell you, with evident apprecia
tion of the fact, that " nearly two thousand daily papers
and fourteen thousand weeklies are published in the
United States." Unfortunately the character of their
local journals does not altogether warrant the inference
as to American intelligence that you are expected to

American Journalism — A Mixed Blessing 149

draw. Many of them consist largely of paragraphs such
as the following, copied verbatim from an issue of the
Plattsburg Sentinel (September, 1888) :

George Blanshard, of Champlain, an experienced prescrip
tion clerk and a graduate of the Albany School of Pharmacy,
has accepted a position in Breed's drug-store at Malone.

Clerk Whitcomb, of the steamer " Maquarn," has finished
his season's work in the boat, and has resumed his studies
at Burlington.

I admit that the interest of the readers of the Sen
tinel in the doings of their friends Mr. Blanshard and Mr.
Whitcomb is, perhaps, saner and healthier than that of
the British snob in the fact that " Prince and Princess
Christian walked in the gardens of Windsor Castle and
afterwards drove out for an airing." But that is the
utmost that can be said for the propagation of such
utter vapidities ; and the man who pays his five cents
for the privilege of reading them can scarcely be said to
produce a certificate of intelligence in so doing. If the
exhibition of such intellectual feebleness were the worst
charge that could be brought against the American
newspaper, there would be little more to say ; but, alas,
" there are some among the so-called leading newspapers
of which the influence is wholly pernicious because of
the perverted intellectual ability with which they are
conducted." (Prof. Chas. E. Norton, in the Forum,
February, 1896.)

The levity with which many — perhaps most — Amer
ican journals treat subjects of serious importance is
another unpleasant feature. They will talk of divorces
as " matrimonial smash-ups," or enumerate them under

150 The Land of Contrasts

the caption " Divorce Mill." Murders and fatal acci
dents are recorded with the same jocosity. Questions
of international importance are handled as if the main
purpose of the article was to show the writer's power of
humour. Serious speeches and even sermons are reported
in a vein of flippant jocularity. The same trait often
obtrudes into the review of books of the first importance.
The traditional " No case — abuse the plaintiff's attorney "
is translated into " Can't understand or appreciate this —
let's make fun of it."

By the best papers — and these are steadily multiply
ing — the " interview " is looked upon as a serious
opportunity to obtain in a concise form the views of a
person of greater or less eminence on subjects on which
he is entitled to speak with authority. By the majority
of journals, however, the interview is abused to an inor
dinate extent, both as regards the individual and the
public. It is used as a vehicle for the cheapest forms of
wit and the most personal attack or laudation. My own
experience was that the interviewer put a series of pre
arranged questions to me, published those of my answers
which met his own preconceptions, and invented ap
propriate substitutes for those he did not honour with
his approval. A Chicago reporter made me say that
English ignorance of America was so dense that " a
gentleman of considerable attainments asked me if Con
necticut was not the capital of Pittsburg, and notable
for its great Mormon temple," - — an elaborate combina
tion due solely to his own active brain. The same in
genuous (and ingenious) youth caused me to invent " an
erratic young Londoner, who packed his bag and started
at once for any out-of-the-way country for which a new

American Journalism — A Mixed Blessing 151

guide-book was published." Another, with equal lack
of ground, committed me to the unpatriotic assertion
that neither in Great Britain nor in any other part of
Europe was there any scenery to compare with that of
the United States. But perhaps the unkindest cut of all
was that of the reporter at Washington who made me
introduce my remarks by the fatuous expression " Me-
thought" ! Mr. E. A. Freeman was much amused by a
reporter who said of him : " When he don't know a thing,
he says he don't. When he does, he speaks as if he were
certain of it." Mr. Freeman adds : " To the interviewer
this way of action seemed a little strange, though he
clearly approved of the eccentricity." This gentleman's
mental attitude, like his superiority to grammar, is, un
fortunately, characteristic of hundreds of his colleagues
on the American press.

The distinction between the editorial and reportorial
functions of a newspaper are apt to be much less clearly
defined in the United States than in England. The
English reporter, as a rule, confines himself strictly to
his report, which is made without bias. A Conservative
speech is as accurately (though perhaps not as lengthily)
reported in a Liberal paper as in one of its own colour.
All comment or criticism is reserved for the editorial
Columns. This is by no means the case in America.
Such an authority as the Atlantic Monthly admits that
wilful distortion is not infrequent; the reporter seems
to consider it as part of his duty to amend the record in
the interest of his own paper or party. The American
reporter, in a word, may be more active-minded, more
original, more amusing, than his English colleague ; but
he is seldom so accurate. This want of impartiality is

152 The Land of Contrasts

another of the patent defects of the American daily
press. It is a too unscrupulous partisan ; it represents
the ethics of the ward politician rather than the seeker
after truth.

If restraint be a sign of power, then the American
press is weak indeed. There is no reticence about it.
Nothing is sacred to an American reporter; everything
that can be in any sense regarded as an item of news is
exposed to the full glare of publicity. It has come to
be so widely taken for granted that one likes to see his
name in the papers, that it is often difficult to make a
lady or gentleman of the American press understand
that you really prefer to have your family affairs left in
the dusk of private life. The touching little story enti
tled " A Thanksgiving Breakfast," in Harper's Maga
zine for November, 1895, records an experience that is
almost a commonplace except as regards the unusually
thin skin of the victim and the unusual delicacy and
good feeling of the operator. The writer of an interest
ing article in the Outlook (April 25, 1896), an admirable
weekly paper published in New York, sums it up in a
sentence : " It is no exaggeration to say that the wanton
and unrestricted invasion of privacy by the modern
press constitutes in certain respects the most offensive
form of tyranny which the world has ever known." The
writer then narrates the following incident to illustrate
the length to which this invasion of domestic privacy is
carried :

A cultivated and refined woman living in a boarding-
house was so unfortunate as to awaken the admiration of a
young man of unbalanced mind who was living under the
same roof. He paid her attentions which were courteously

< American Journalism — A Mixed Blessing 153

but firmly declined. He wrote her letters which were at
first acknowledged in the most formal way, and finally ig
nored. No woman could have been more circumspect and
dignified. The young man preserved copies of his own
letters, introduced the two or three brief and formal notes
which he had received in reply, made a story of the inci
dent, stole the photograph of the woman, enclosed his own
photograph, mailed the whole matter to a New York news
paper, and committed suicide. The result was a two or
three column report of the incident, with portraits of the
unfortunate woman and the suicide, and an elaborate and
startling exaggeration of the few inconspicuous, insignifi
cant, and colorless facts from which the narrative was
elaborated. That a refined woman in American society
should be exposed to such a brutal invasion of her privacy
as that which was committed in this case reflects upon
every gentleman in the country.

No doubt, as the Outlook goes on to show, the American
people are themselves largely responsible for this atti
tude of the press. They have as a whole not only less
reverence than Europeans for the privacy of others, but
also less resentment for the violation of their own privacy.
The new democracy has resigned itself to the custom of
living in glass houses and regards the desire to shroud
one's personal life in mystery as one of the survivals of
the dark ages. The newspaper personalities are largely
"the result of the desperate desire of the new classes,
to whom democratic institutions have given their first
chance, to discover the way to live, in the wide social
meaning of the word."

One regrettable result of the way in which the Amer
ican papers turn liberty into license is that it actually

154 The Land of Contrasts

deters many people from taking their share in public
life. The fact that any public action is sure to bring
down upon one's head a torrent of abuse or adulation,
together with a microscopic investigation of one's most
intimate affairs, is enough to give pause to all but the
most resolute. Leading journals go incredible lengths
in the way they speak of public men. One of the best
New York dailies dismissed Mr. Bryan as " a wretched,
rattle-pated boy." Others constantly alluded to Mr.
Cleveland as "His Corpulency." For weeks the New
York Sun published a portrait of President Hayes with
the word FRAUD printed across the forehead.

Such competent observers as Mr. George W. Smalley
(Harper's Magazine, July, 1898) bear testimony to the
fact that the irresponsibility of the press has seriously
diminished its influence for good. Thus he points out
that "the combined and active support given by the
American press to the Anglo-American Arbitration
Treaty weighed as nothing with the Senate." In recent
mayoralty contests in New York and in Boston, almost
the whole of the local press carried on vigorous but
futile campaigns against the successful candidates.
Several public libraries and reading-rooms have actually
put some of the leading journals in an Index Expur-
gatorius.1

The moral and intellectual defects of the American
newspaper are reflected in its outward dress. Neither
the paper nor the printing of a New York or Boston

iThe so-called "Yellow Press" has reached such an extreme of extrava
gance during the progress of the Spanish- American war that it may be hoped
that it has at last dug its own grave. On the other hand, many journals were
perceptibly steadied by having so vital an issue to occupy their columns, and
the tone of a large section of the press was distinctly creditable.

American Journalism — A Mixed Blessing 155

daily paper is so good as that of the great English
dailies. American editors are apt to claim a good deal
of credit for the illustrations with which the pages of
their journals are sprinkled ; but a less justifiable claim
for approbation was surely never filed. In nine cases
out of ten the wood-cuts in an American paper are an
insult to one's good taste and sense of propriety, and,
indeed, form one of the chief reasons for classing the
American daily press as distinctly lower than that of
England. The reason of this physical inferiority I do
not pretend to explain. It is, however, a strange phe
nomenon in a country which produces the most beauti
ful monthly magazines in the world, and also holds its
own in the paper, printing, and binding of its books.
But, as Mr. Freeman remarks, the magazines and books
of England and America are merely varieties of tha
same species, while the daily journals of the two
countries belong to totally different orders. Many of
the better papers are now beginning to give up illustra
tions. A bill to prevent the insertion in newspapers
of portraits without the consent of the portrayed was
even brought before the New York Legislature. An exas
perating feature of American newspapers, which seems
to me to come also under the head of physical inferiority,
is the practice of scattering an article over the whole of
an issue. Thus, on reaching the foot of a column on
page 1 we are more likely than not to be directed for
its continuation on page 7 or 8. The reason of this is
presumably the desire to have all the best goods in the
window; i.e., all the most important head-lines on the
front page ; but the custom is a most annoying one to
the reader.

156 The Land of Contrasts

It is frequently asserted by Americans that their press
is very largely controlled by capitalists, and that its
columns are often venal. On such points as these I
venture to make no assertion. To prove them would
require either a special knowledge of the back-lobbies of
journalism or so intimate an understanding of the work
ing of American institutions and the evolution of Ameri
can character as to be able to decide definitely that no
other explanation can be given of the source of such-
and-such newspaper actions and attitude. I confine
myself to criticism on matters such as he who runs may
read. It is, however, true that, contrary to the general
spirit of the country, such questions as socialism and the
labour movement seldom receive so fair and sympathetic
treatment as in the English press.

So many of the journalists I met in the United States
were men of high character, intelligence, and breeding
that it may seem ungracious and exaggerated to say that
American newspaper men as a class seem to me dis
tinctly inferior to the pressmen of Great Britain. But
I believe this to be the case ; and indeed a study of the
journals of the two countries would alone warrant the
inference. The trail of the reporter is over them all.
Not that I, mindful of the implied practicability of the
passage of a needle's eye by a camel, believe it impossi
ble for reporters to be gentlemen ; but I do say that it
is difficult for a reporter on the American system to pre
serve to the full that delicacy of respect for the mental
privacy of others which we associate with the idea of
true gentlemanliness. Mr. Smalley, in a passage con
troverting the general opinion that a journalist should
always begin at the lowest rung of the ladder, admits

American Journalism — A Mixed Blessing 157

that a modern reporter has often to approach people in a
way that he will find it hard to reconcile with his own
self-respect or the dignity of his profession. The repre
sentative of the press whom one meets in English society
and clubs is very apt to be a university graduate, dis
tinguished from his academic colleagues, if at all, by his
superior ability and address. This is also true of many
of the editorial writers of large American journals ; but
side by side with these will be found a large number of
men who have worked their way up from the pettiest
kind of reporting, and who have not had the advantage,
at the most impressionable period of their career, of
associating with the best-mannered men of the time. It
is, of course, highly honourable to American society and
to themselves that they have and take the opportunity
of advancement, but the fact remains patent in their
slip-shod style and the faulty grammar of their writings,
and in their vulgar familiarity of manner. It has been
asserted that journalism in America is not a profession,
and is " subject to none of the conditions that would
entitle it to the name. There are no recognised rules
of conduct for its members, and no tribunal to enforce
them if there were."

The startling contrasts in America which suggested
the title of the present volume are, of course, well in
evidence in the American press. Not only are there
many papers which are eminently unobnoxious to the
charges brought against the American press generally,
but different parts of the same paper often seem as if
they were products of totally different spheres (or, at
any rate, hemispheres). The " editorials," or leaders,
are sometimes couched in a form of which the scholarly

158 The Land of Contrasts

restraint, chasteness of style, moral dignity, and intel
lectual force would do honour to the best possible of
papers in the best possible of worlds, while several col
umns on the front page of the same issue are occupied by
an illustrated account of a prize-fight, in which the most
pointless and disgusting slang, such as "tapping his
claret " and " bunging his peepers," is used with blood
curdling frequency.

In a paper that lies before me as I write, something
like a dozen columns are devoted to a detailed account
of the great contest between John L. Sullivan and Jim
Corbett (Sept. 7, 1892), while the principal place on
the editorial page (but only one column) is occupied by
a well-written and most appreciative article on the
Quaker poet Whittier, who had gone to his long home
just about the time the pugilists were battering each
other at New Orleans.1

It would give a false impression of American journal
ism as a whole if we left the question here. While
American newspapers certainly exemplify many of the
worst sides of democracy and much of the rawness of a
new country, it would be folly to deny that they also
participate in the attendant virtues of both the one and
the other. The same inspiring sense of largeness and
freedom that we meet in other American institutions is
also represented in the press : the same absence of
slavish deference to effete authority, the same openness
of opportunity, the same freshness of outlook, the same
spontaneity of expression, the same readiness in windbag-

i It may be doubted, however, whether any American author of similar
standing would devote a chapter to the loathsome details of the prize-ring, as
Mr. George Meredith does in his novel " The Ainaziug Marriage."

American Journalism — A Mixed Blessing 159

piercing, the same admiration for talent in whatever field
displayed. The time-honoured alliance of dulness and
respectability has had its decree nisi from the American
press. Several of our own journalists have had the wit to
see and the energy to adopt the best feature of the Amer
ican style ; and the result has been a distinct advance in
the raciness and readableness of some of our best-known
journals. The " Americanisation of the British press "
is no bugbear to stand in awe of, if only it be carried on
with good sense and discrimination. We can most
advantageously exchange lessons of sobriety and re
straint for suggestions of candour, humour, and point;
and America's share in the form of the ideal English
reading journal of the future will possibly not be the
smaller.

The Nation, a political and literary weekly, and the
religious or semi-religious weekly journals like the Out
look and the Independent, are superior to anything we
have in the same genre ; and the high-water mark even
of the daily political press, though not very often attained,
is "perhaps almost on a level with the best in Europe.
Richard Grant White found a richness in the English
papers, due to the far-reaching interests of the British
empire, which made all other journalism seem tame and
narrow; but perhaps he would nowadays hesitate to
attach this stigma to the best journals of New York.
And, in conclusion, we must not forget that American
papers have often lent all their energies to the champion
ship of noble causes, ranging from the enthusiastic anti-
slavery agitation of the New York Tribune, under Horace
Greeley, down to the crusade against body-snatching, suc
cessfully carried on by the Press of Philadelphia, and to

160 The Land of Contrasts

the agitation in favour of the horses of the Fifth-avenue
stages so pertinaciously fomented by the humorous jour
nal Life.

I cannot resist the temptation of printing part of a notice
of " Baedeker's Handbook to the United States," which will
show the almost incredible lengths to which the less cult
ured scribes of the American press carry their " spread-
eagleism " even now. It is from a journal published in a
city of nearly 100,000 inhabitants, the capital (though not
the largest city) of one of the most important States in the
Union. It is headed " A Blind Guide : "

It is simply incomprehensible that an author of so much lit
erary merit in his preparation of guides to European countries
should make the absolute failure that he has in the building of a
guide to the United States intended for European travellers. As
a guide, it is a monstrosity, fully as deceptive and misleading in
its aims as it is ridiculous and unworthy in its criticisms of our
people, our customs and habitations. It is not a guide in any
sense, but a general tirade of abuse of Americans and their
country ; a compilation of mean, unfair statements ; of presumed
facts that are a tissue of transparent falsehoods ; of comparisons
with Europe and Europeans that are odius (sic). Baedeker sees
very little to commend in America, but a great deal to criticise,
and warns Europeans coming to this country that they must use
discretion if they expect to escape the machinations of our people
and the snares with which they will be surrounded. Any person
who has ever travelled in Europe and America will concede that
in the United States the tourist enjoys better advantages in every
way than he can in Europe. Our hotels possess by far better
accommodations, and none of that " flunkeyism " which causes
Americans to smile as they witness it on arrival. Our railway
service is superior in every respect to that of Europe. As regards
civility to strangers the Americans are unequalled on the face of
the globe. In antiquity Europe excels ; but in natural picturesque
scenery the majestic grandeur of our West is so far ahead of

American Journalism — A Mixed Blessing 161

anything to be seen in Europe, even in beautiful Switzerland,
that the alien beholder cannot but express wonder and admira
tion. Baedeker has made a mistake in his attempt to underrate
America and Americans, its institutions and their customs. True,
our nation is in a crude state as compared with the old monarchies
of Europe, but in enterprise, business qualifications, politeness,
literary and scientific attainments, and in fact all the essential
qualities that tend to constitute a people and a country, America
is away in the advance of staid, old foggy (sic) Europe, and
Baedeker will find much difficulty to eradicate that all-important
fact.

I hasten to assure my English readers that this is no fair
sample of transatlantic journalism, and that nine out of ten
of my American acquaintances would deem it as unique a
literary specimen as they would. At the same time I may
remind my American readers that the scutcheon of Ameri
can journalism is not so bright as it might be while
blots of this kind occur on it, and that it is the blatancy
of Americans of this type that tends to give currency
to the distorted opinion of Uncle Sam that prevails so
widely in Europe.

Perhaps I shall not be misunderstood if I say that this
review is by no means typical of the notice taken by
American journals of " Baedeker's Handbook to the United
States." Whatever other defects were found in it, review
ers were almost unanimous in pronouncing it fair and
free from prejudice. Indeed, the reception of the Hand
book by the American press was so much more friendly
than I had any right to expect that it has made me feel
some qualms in writing this chapter of criticism, while it
must certainly relieve me of any possible charge of a wish
to retaliate.

X

Some Literary Straws

BY far the most popular novel of the London season
of 1894 was "The Manxman," by Mr. Hall
Caine. Its sale is said to have reached a fab
ulous number of thousands of copies, and the
testimony of the public press and the circulating library
is unanimous as to the supremacy of its vogue. In the
United States the favourite book of the year was Mr.
George Du Maurier's " Trilby." To the practical and
prosaic evidence of the eager purchase of half a million
copies we have to add the more romantic homage of the
new Western towns (Trilbyville !) and patent bug
exterminators named after the heroine. It may, possi
bly, be worth while examining the predominant qualities
of the two books with a view to ascertain what light
their similarities and differences may throw upon the
respective literary tastes of the Englishman and the
American.

There has, I believe, been no important critical denial
of the right of " The Manxman " to rank as a " strong "
book. The plot is drawn with consummate skill — not
in the sense of a Gaboriau-like unravelment of mystery,
but in its organic, natural, inevitable development, and
in the abiding interest of its evolution. The details are
worked in with the most scrupulous care. Rarely, in

162

Some Literary Straws 163

modern fiction, have certain elemental features of the
human being been displayed with more determination
and pathos.

The central motif of the story — the corrosion of a
predominantly righteous soul by a repented but hidden
sin culminating in an overwhelming necessity of con
fession — is so powerfully presented to us that we forget
all question of originality until our memory of the
fascinating pages has cooled down. Then we may
recall the resemblance of theme in the recent novel
entitled " The Silence of Dean Maitland," while we find
the prototype of both these books in " The Scarlet
Letter " of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who has handled the
problem with a subtlety and haunting weirdness to
which neither of the English works can lay any claim.
As our first interest in the story farther cools, it may
occur to us that the very perfection of plot in "The
Manxman " gives it the effect of a "set piece ;" its asso
ciation with Mr. Wilson Barrett and the boards seems
foreordained. It may seem to us that there is a little
forcing of the pathos, that a certain artificiality pervades
the scene. In a word, we may set down " The Manx
man" as melodrama — melodrama at its best, but still
melodrama. Its effects are vivid, positive, sensational ;
its analysis of character is keen, but hardly subtle ; it
appeals to the British public's love of the obvious, the
full-blooded, the thorough-going; it runs on well-tried
lines; it is admirable, but it is not new.

" Trilby " is a very different book, and it would be a
catholic palate indeed that would relish equally the
story of the Paris grisette and the story of the Manx
deemster. In " Trilby " the blending of the novel and

164 The Land of Contrasts

the romance, of the real and the fantastic, is as much of
a stumbling-block to John Bull as it is, for example, in
Ibsen's " Lady from the Sea." " The central idea," he
might exclaim, " is utterly extravagant ; the transforma
tion by hypnotism of the absolutely tone-deaf girl into
the unutterably peerless singer is unthinkable and
absurd." The admirers of " Trilby " may very well
grant this, and yet feel that their withers are unwrung.
It is not in the hypnotic device and its working out that
they find the charm of the story ; it is not the plot that
they are mainly interested in ; it is not even the
slightly sentimental love-story of Trilby and Little
Billee. They are willing to let the whole framework,
as it were, of the book go by the board ; it is not the
thread of the narrative, but the sketches and incidents
strung on it, that appeals to them. They revel in the
fascinating novelty and ingenuousness of the Du Mau-
rier vein, the art that is superficially so artless, the
exquisitely simple delicacy of touch, the inimitable fine
ness of characterisation, the constant suggestion of the
tender and true, the keen sense of the pathetic in life
and the humour that makes it tolerable, the lovable
drollery that corrects the tendency to the sentimental,
the subtle blending of the strength of a man with the
naivete of the child, the ambidextrous familiarity with
English and French life, the kindliness of the satire,
the absence of all straining for effect, the deep humanity
that pervades the book from cover to cover.

If, therefore, we take " The Manxman " and " Trilby "
as types of what specially appeals to the reading public
of England and America, we should conclude that the
Englishman calls for strength and directness, the Amer-

Some Literary Straws 165

lean for delicacy and suggestiveness. The former does
not insist so much on originality of theme, if the hand
ling be but new and clever ; there are certain elementary
passions and dramatic situations of which the British
public never wearies. The American does not clamour
for telling " curtains," if the character-drawing be keen,
the conversations fresh, sparkling, and humorous. John
Bull likes vividness and solidity of impasto ; Jonathan's
eye is often more pleasantly affected by a delicate grada
tion of half-tones. The one desires the downright, the
concrete, the real ; the other is titillated by the subtle, the
allusive, the half-spoken. The antithesis is between force
and finesse, between the palpable and the impalpable.1

If anybody but George Du Maurier could have written
" Trilby," it seems to me it would have been an Amer
ican rather than a full-blooded Englishman. The keen
ness of the American appreciation of the book corresponds
to elements in the American nature. The Anglo-French
blend of Mr. Du Maurier's literary genius finds nearer
analogues in American literature than in either English
or French.

*I confess I should have felt myself on still firmer ground in making the
above comparison if I had been able to select " Peter Ibbetson " instead of
" Trilby " as the American favourite. It is distinctly the finest, the most char
acteristic, and the most convincing of Mr. Du Maurier's novels, though it is
easy to see why it did not enjoy such a " boom " as its successor. In " Peter
Ibbetson " our moral sense does not feel outraged by the fact of the sympathy
we have to extend to a man-slayer ; we are made to feel that a man may kill
his fellow in a moment of ungovernable and not unrighteous wrath without
losing his fundamental goodness. On the other hand, it seems to me, Mr. Da
Maurier fails to convert us to belief in the possibility of such a character as
Trilby, and fails to make us wholly sympathise with his paeans in her praise. It
seems psychologically impossible for a woman to sin so repeatedly as Trilby,
and so apparently without any overwhelming temptation, and yet at the same
time to retain her essential purity. It is a prostitution of the word " love" to
excuse Trilby's temporary amourettes with a " quia multum amavit."

1 66 The Land of Contrasts

The best writing of our American cousins has, of
course, much that it shares with our own, much that is
purely English in source and inspiration. Longfellow,
for instance, might almost have been an Englishman, and
his great popularity in England probably owed nothing
to the attraction exercised by the unfamiliar. The Eng
lish traits, moreover, are often readily discernible even in
those works that smack most of the soil. When, however,
we seek the differentiating marks of American literature,
we find that many of them are also characteristics of
the writings of Mr. Du Maurier, while they are much less
conspicuous in those of Mr. Hall Caine. Among such
marks are its freshness and spontaneity, untrammelled
by authority or tradition ; its courage in tackling prob
lems elsewhere tabooed ; its breezy intrepidity, rooted
half in conscious will and half in naive ignorance. Be
sides these, we find features that we should hardly have
expected on a priori grounds. A wideness of sweep and
elemental greatness in proportion to the natural majesty
of the huge new continent are hardly present; Walt
Whitman remains an isolated phenomenon. Instead, we
meet in the best American literature an almost aristo
cratic daintiness and feeling for the refined and select.
As compared with the British school, the leading Amer
ican school is marked by an increased delicacy of finesse,
a tendency to refine and refine, a perhaps exaggerated
dread of the platitude and the commonplace, a fondness
for analysis, a preference for character over event, an
avoidance of absolutely untempered seriousness and
solidity. Mr. Bryce notes that the verdicts of the best
literary circles of the United States often seem to "pro
ceed from a more delicate and sympathetic insight " than
ours.

Some Literary Straws 167

This fastidiousness of the best writers and critics of
America is by no means inconsistent with the existence
of an enormous class of half-educated readers, who
devour the kind of " literature " provided for them, and
batten in their various degrees on the productions of
Mr. E. P. Roe, Miss Laura Jean Libbey, or the Sun
day War- Whoop. The evolution of democracy in the
literary sphere is exactly analogous to its course in the
political sphere. In both there is the same tendency to
go too far, to overturn the good and legitimate authority
as well as the bad and oppressive ; both are apt, to use
the homely German proverb, " to throw the baby out of
the bath along with the dirty water." This lack of dis
crimination leads to the rushing in of fools where angels
might well fear to tread. All sorts of men try to write
books, and all sorts of men think they are able to judge
them. The old standard of authority is overthrown, and
for a time no other takes its place with the great mass of
the reading public. This state of affairs is, however, by
no means one that need make us despair of the literary-
future of America. It reminds me of the mental con
dition of a kindly American tourist who once called at
our office in Leipsic to give us the benefit of the correc
tions he had made on " Baedeker's Handbooks " during
his peregrination of Europe. "Here," he said, "is one
error which I am absolutely sure of : you call this a
statue of Minerva ; but I know that's wrong, because I
saw Pallas carved on the pedestal ! " When I told this
tale to English friends, they saw in it nothing but a
proof of the colossal ignorance of the travelling Amer
ican. To my mind, however, it redounded more to the
credit of America than to its discredit. It showed that

1 68 The Land of Contrasts

Americans of defective education felt the need of cult
ure and spared no pains to procure it. A London
tradesman with the education of my American friend
would probably never extend his ideas of travelling be
yond Margate, or at most a week's excursion to " Parry."
But this indefatigable tourist had visited all the chief
galleries of Europe, and had doubtless greatly improved
his taste in art and educated his sense of the refined and
beautiful, even though his book-learning had not taught
him that the same goddess might have two different
names.

The application of this anecdote to the present condi
tion of American literature is obvious. The great fact
is that there is an enormous crowd of readers, and the
great hope is that they will eventually work their way
up through Miss Laura Jean Libbey to heights of purer
air. America has not so much degraded a previously
existing literary palate as given a taste of some sort to
those who under old-world conditions might never have
come to it. In American literature as in American life
we find all the phenomena of a transition period — all
the symptoms that might be expected from the extraordi
nary mixture of the old and the new, the childlike and
the knowing, the past and the present, in this Land of
Contrasts. The startling difference between the best
and the worst writers is often reflected in different
works by the same author ; or a real and strong natural
talent for writing will be found conjoined with an ex
traordinary lack of education and training. An excel
lent piece of English — pithy, forcible, and even elegant
— will often shatter on some simple grammatical reef,
such as the use of " as " for " that " (u he did not know

Some Literary Straws 169

as he could "), or of the plural for the singular (" a long
ways off "). Mr. James Lane Allen, the author of a series
of refined and delicately worded romances, can write
such phrases as "In a voice neither could scarce hear"
and " Shake hands with me and tell me good-by."
("The Choir Invisible," pp. 222, 297.)

I know not whether the phrase "was graduated,"
applied not to a vernier, but to a student, be legitimate
or not ; it is certainly so used by the best American
writers. Another common American idiom that sounds
queer to British ears is, " The minutes were ordered
printed " (for " to be printed"). Misquotations and mis
use of foreign phrases are terribly rife ; and even so
spirited and entertaining a writer as Miss F. C. Baylor
will write : " This Jenny, with the esprit de Vescalier
of her sex, had at once divined and resented " (" On
Both Sides," p. 26). In the same way one is constantly
appalled in conversation by hearing college graduates
say " acrost " for " across " and making other " bad
breaks " which in England could not be conjoined with
an equal amount of culture and education.

The extreme fastidiousness and delicacy of the lead
ing American writers, as above referred to, may be to a
large extent accounted for by an inevitable reaction
against the general tendency to the careless and the
slipshod, and is thus in its way as significant and natural
a result of existing conditions as any other feature of
American literature. Perhaps a secondary cause of this
type of writing may be looked for in the fact that so far
the spirit of New England has dominated American liter
ature. Even those writers of the South and West who
are freshest in their material and vehicle are still perme-

170 The Land of Contrasts

ated by the tone, the temper, the method, the ideals, of
the New England school. And certainly Allibone's
dictionary of authors shows that an enormous propor
tion of American writers are to this day of New
England origin or descent.

Among living American writers the two whose names
occur most spontaneously to the mind as typical exam
ples are, perhaps, Henry James and W. D. Howells.
Of these the former has identified himself so much with
European life and has devoted himself so largely to
European subjects that we, perhaps, miss to some
extent the American atmosphere in his works, though
he undoubtedly possesses the American quality of work
manship in a very high degree. Or, to put it in another
way, his touch is indisputably American, while his acces
sories, his staffage, are cosmopolitan. His American
hand has become dyed to that it works in. This, how
ever, is more true of his later than of his earlier works.
That imperishable little classic " Daisy Miller " is a very
exquisite and typical specimen of the American suggest-
iveness of style ; indeed, as I have hinted (Chapter IV.),
its suggestiveness almost overshot the mark and re
quired the explanation of a dramatic key. His dislike
of the obvious and the commonplace sometimes leads
Mr. James to become artificial and even obscure,1 but at
its best his style is as perspicuous as it is distinguished,
dainty, and subtle ; there is, perhaps, no other living
artist in words who can give his admirers so rare a liter
ary pleasure in mere exquisiteness of workmanship.

i His extraordinary article on George Du Maurier in Harper's Magazine for
September, 1897, is, perhaps, so far as style is concerned, as glaring an exam
ple of how not to do it as can be found in the range of American letters.

Some Literary Straws 171

Mr. Howells, unlike Mr. James, is purely and exclu
sively American, in his style as in his subject, in his
main themes as in his incidental illustrations, in his
spirit, his temperament, his point of view. No one has
written more pleasantly of Venice ; but just as surely
there is a something in his Venetian sketches which no
one but an American could have put there. Mr. James
may be as patriotic a citizen of the Great Republic, but
there is not so much tangible evidence of the fact in his
writings ; Mr. Howells may be as cosmopolitan in his
sympathies as Mr. James, but his writings alone would
hardly justify the inference. Mr. Howells also possesses
a bonhomie, a geniality, a good-nature veiled by a slight
mask of cynicism, that may be personal, but which
strikes one as also a characteristic American trait. Mr.
James is not, I hasten to say, the reverse of this, but he
shows a coolness in his treatment, a lordly indifference
to the fate of his creations, an almost pitiless keenness
of analysis, which savour a little more of an end-of-the-
century European than of a young and genial democ
racy.

Mr. Howells is, perhaps, not always so well appreci
ated in his own country as he deserves — and this in
spite of the facts that his novels are widely read and his
name is in all the magazines. What I mean is, that in
the conversation of the cultured circles of Boston or
New York too much stress is apt to be laid on the
prosaic and commonplace character of his materials-
There are, perhaps, unusually good reasons for this
point of view. Cromwell's wife and daughters would
probably prefer to have him painted wartless, but pos*
terity wants him warts and all. So those to whom tha

172 The Land of Contrasts

average — the very average — American is an every-day
and all-day occurrence cannot abide him in their litera
ture ; while we who are removed by the ocean of space
can enjoy these pictures of common life, as enabling us,
better than any idealistic romance or study of the rare
and extraordinary, to realise the life of our American
cousins. To those who can read between the lines with
any discretion, I should say that novels like " Silas
Lapham" and "A Modern Instance " will give a clearer
idea of American character and tendencies than any
other contemporary works of fiction ; to those who can
read between the lines — for it is obvious that the
commonplace and the slightly vulgar no more exhaust
the field of society in the United States than elsewhere.
But to me Mr. Howells, even when in his most realistic
and sordid vein, always suggests the ideal and the noble ;
the reverse of the medal proclaims loudly that it is the
reverse, and that there is an obverse of a very different
kind to be seen by those who will turn the coin. It seems
to me that no very great palseontological skill is neces
sary to reconstruct the whole frame of the animal from
the portion that Mr. Howells sets up for us. His novels
remind me of those maps of a limited area which indi
cate very clearly what lies beyond, by arrows on their
margins. In nothing does Mr. Howells more clearly
show his " Americanism " than in his almost divinely
sympathetic and tolerant attitude towards commonplace,
erring, vulgar humanity. " Ah, poor real life, which I
love ! " he writes somewhere ; " can I make others share
the delight I find in thy foolish and insipid face!"
We must remember in reading him his own theory of
the duty of the novelist. " I am extremely opposed

Some Literary Straws 173

to what we call ideal characters. I think their por
trayal is mischievous ; it is altogether offensive to me
as an artist, and, as far as the morality goes, I believe
that when an artist tries to create an ideal he mixes
some truth up with a vast deal of sentimentality, and
produces something that is extremely noxious as well as
nauseous. I think that no man can consistently portray
a probable type of human character without being useful
to his readers. When he endeavors to create something
higher than that, he plays the fool himself and tempts
his readers to folly. He tempts young men and women
to try to form themselves upon models that would be
detestable in life, if they were ever found there."

Perhaps the delicacy of Mr. Howells' touch and the
gentle subtlety of his satire are nowhere better illus
trated than in the little drawing-room " farces " of which
he frequently publishes one in an American magazine
about Christmas time. I call them farces because he
himself applies that name to them; but these dainty
little comediettas contain none of the rollicking qualities
which the word usually connotes to English ears. They
have all the finesse of the best French work of the kind,
combined with a purity of atmosphere and of intent that
we are apt to claim as Anglo-Saxon, and which, perhaps,
is especially characteristic of America. One is tired of
hearing, in this connection, of the blush that rises to
the innocent girl's cheek ; but why should even those
who are supposed to be past the age of blushing not also
enjoy humour unspiced by even a suggestion of lubricity ?
The " Mikado " and " Pinafore " have done yeoman's
service in displacing the meretricious delights of Offen
bach and Lecocq; and Howells' little pieces yield an

174 The Land of Contrasts

exquisite, though innocent, enjoyment to those whose
taste in farces has not been fashioned and spoiled by
clumsy English adaptations or imitations of intriguing
levers-de-rideau, and to those who do not associate the
name of farce with horse-play and practical joking.
They form the best illustration of what has been de
scribed as Mr. Howells' " method of occasionally opening
up to the reader through the bewilderingly intricate
mazes of his dialogue clear perceptions of the true values
of his characters, imitating thus the actual trick of life,
which can safely be depended on to now and then expose
meanings that words have cleverly served the purpose
of concealing." If I hesitate to call them comediettas
u in porcelain," it is because the suggested analogy falls
short, owing to the greater reconditeness, the purer intel
lectual quality, of Mr. Howells' humour as compared
with Mr. Austin Dobson's. So intensely American in
quality are these scenes from the lives of Mr. and Mrs.
Willis Campbell, Mr. and Mrs. Roberts, and their friends,
that it sometimes seems to me that they might almost
be used as touchstones for the advisability of a visit
to the United States. If you can appreciate and enjoy
these farces, go to America by all means ; you will have
a "good time." If you cannot, better stay at home,
unless your motive is merely one of base mechanic
necessity ; you will find the American atmosphere a
little too rare.

A recent phase of Mr. Howells' activity — that, namely,
in which, like Mr. William Morris, he has boldly risked
his reputation as a literary artist in order to espouse
unpopular social causes of whose justice he is con
vinced — will interest all who have hearts to feel as well

Some Literary Straws 175

as brains to think. He made his fame by consummately
artistic work, addressed to the daintiest of literary
palates ; and yet in such books as " A Hazard of New
Fortunes " and " A Traveller from Altruria " he has con
scientiously taken up the defence and propagation of a
form of socialism, without blanching before the epicure
who demands his literature " neat " or the Philistine
householder who brands all socialistic writings as
dangerous. Mr. Howells, however, knows his public ;
and the reforming element in him cannot but rejoice at
the hearing he has won through its artistic counterpart.
No one of his literary brethren of any importance has,
so far as I know, emulated his courage in this particular.
Some, like Mr. Bellamy, have made a reputation by their
socialistic writings ; none has risked so magnificent a
structure already built up on a purely artistic founda
tion. It is mainly on account of this phase of his work,
in which he has not forsaken his art, but makes it " the
expression of his whole life and the thought and feeling
mature life has brought to him," that Mr. Howells has
been claimed as the American novelist, the best delinea
tor of American life.1

Mr. Howells the poet is not nearly so well known as
Mr. Howells the novelist ; and there are doubtless many
European students of American literature who are un
aware of the extremely characteristic work he has done
in verse. The accomplished critic, Mr. R. H. Stoddard,
writes thus of a volume of poems published by Mr.

1 Perhaps Mr. George W. Cable is entitled to rank with Mr. Howells in this
respect as a man who refused to disguise his moral convictions behind his
literary art, and thus infallibly and with full consciousness imperilled his popu
larity among his own people.

176 The Land of Contrasts

Howells about three years ago : l " There is something
here which, if not new in American poetry, has never
before made itself so manifest there, never before
declared itself with such vivacity and force, the process
by which it emerged from emotion and clothed itself in
speech being so undiscoverable by critical analysis that
it seems, as Matthew Arnold said of some of Words
worth's poetry, as if Nature took the pen from his hand
and wrote in his stead." These poems are all short,
and their titles (such as " What Shall It Profit? " " The
Sphinx," "If," " To-morrow," " Good Society," " Equal
ity," "Heredity," and so forth) sufficiently indicate
that they do not rank among the lighter triflings with
the muse. Their abiding sense of an awful and inevi
table fate, their keen realisation of the startling con
trasts between wealth and poverty, their symbolical
grasp on the great realities of life and death, and the
consummate skill of the artistic setting are all pervaded
with something that recalls the paintings of Mr. G. F.
Watts or the visions of Miss Olive Schreiner. One spec
imen can alone be given here :

" The Bewildered Guest

" I was not asked if I should like to come.
I have not seen ray host here since I came,
Or had a word of welcome in his name.
Some say that we shall never see him, and some
That we shall see him elsewhere, and then know
Why we were bid. How long I am to stay
I have not the least notion. None, they say,
Was ever told when he should come or go.

i " Stops of Various Quills," by W. D. Howella (Harper & Brothers, New
York, 1895).

Some Literary Straws 177

But every now and then there bursts upon

The song and mirth a lamentable noise,

A sound of shrieks and sobs, that strikes our joys

Dumb in our breasts ; and then, someone is gone.

They say we meet him. None knows where or when.

We know we shall not meet him here again."

Mr. Howells has, naturally enough, the defects of his
qualities ; and if it were my purpose here to present an
exhaustive study of his writings, rather than merely to
touch lightly upon his " American " characteristics, it
would be desirable to consider some of these in this place.
In his desire to avoid the merely pompous he sometimes
falls into the really trifling. His love of analysis runs
away with him at times ; and parts of such books as
"A World of Chance " must weary all but his most un-
discriminating admirers. His self-restraint sometimes
disappoints us of a vivid colour or a passionate throb
which we feel to be our due. His humour and his satire
occasionally pass from the fine to the thin.

It is, however, with Mr. Howells in his capacity of
literary critic alone that my disappointment is too great
to allow of silence. For the exquisiteness of a writer
like Mr. Henry James he has the keenest insight, the
warmest appreciation. His thorough-going conviction
in the prime necessity of realism even leads him out of
his way to commend Gabriele d'Annunzio, in whom
some of us can detect little but a more than Zolaesque
coarseness with a total lack of Zola's genius, insight,
purpose, or philosophy. But when he comes to speak of a
Thackeray or a Scott, his attitude is one that, to put it
in the most complimentary form that I can think of, re
minds us strongly of Homeric drowsiness. The virtue of

178 The Land of Contrasts

James is one thing and the virtue of Scott is another ;
but surely admiration for both does not make too un
reasonable a demand on catholicity of palate? Mr.
Howells could never write himself down an ass, but
surely in his criticism of the " Wizard of the North " he
has written himself down as one whose literary creed is
narrower than his human heart. The school of which
Mr. Henry James is a most accomplished member has
added more than one exquisite new flavour to the ban
quet of letters ; but it may well be questioned whether
a taste for these may not be acquired at too dear a cost
if it necessitates a loss of relish for the steady good
sense, the power of historic realisation, the rich human
ity, and the marvellously fertile imagination of Walter
Scott. It is not, I hope, a merely national prejudice
that makes me oppose Mr. Howells in this point, though,
perhaps, there is a touch of remonstrance in the reflec
tion that that great novelist seems to have no use for
the Briton in his works except as a foil or a butt for his
American characters.

In considering Mr. Howells as an exponent of Ameri
canism in literature, we have left him in an attitude
almost of Americanus contra mundum — at any rate in the
posture of one who is so entirely absorbed by his delight
in the contemporary and national existence around him
as to be partially blind to claims separated from him by
tracts of time and space. My next example of the
American in literature is, I think, to the full as national
a type as Mr. Howells, though her Americanism is
shown rather in subjective character than in objective
theme. Miss Emily Dickinson is still a name so un
familiar to English readers that I may be pardoned a

Some Literary Straws 179

few lines of biographical explanation. She was born in
1830, the daughter of the leading lawyer of Amherst, a
small and quiet town of New England, delightfully
situated on a hill, looking out over the undulating
woods of the Connecticut valley. It is a little larger
than the English Marlborough, and like it owes its dis
tinctive tone to the presence of an important educa
tional institute, Amherst College being one of the best-
known and worthiest of the smaller American colleges.
In this quiet little spot Miss Dickinson spent the whole
of her life, and even to its limited society she was almost
as invisible as a cloistered nun except for her appearances
at an annual reception given by her father to the digni
taries of the town and college. There was no definite
reason either in her physical or mental health for this
life of extraordinary seclusion ; it seems to have been
simply the natural outcome of a singularly introspective
temperament. She rarely showed or spoke of her poems
to any but one or two intimate friends ; only three or
four were published during her lifetime ; and it was
with considerable surprise that her relatives found, on
her death in 1886, a large mass of poetical remains,
finished and unfinished. A considerable selection from
them has been published in three little volumes, edited
with tender appreciation by two of her friends, Mrs.
Mabel Loomis Todd and Col. T. W. Higginson.

Her poems are all in lyrical form — if the word form
may be applied to her utter disregard of all metrical
conventions. Her lines are rugged and her expressions
wayward to an extraordinary degree, but " her verses all
show a strange cadence of inner rhythmical music," and
the " though t>rhymes " which she often substitutes for

180 The Land of Contrasts

the more regular assonances appeal " to an unrecognised
sense more elusive than hearing" (Mrs. Todd). In
this curious divergence from established rules of verse
Miss Dickinson may be likened to Walt Whitman,
whom she differs from in every other particular, and
notably in her pithiness as opposed to his diffuseness ;
but with her we feel in the strongest way that her mode
is natural and unsought, utterly free from affectation,
posing, or self-consciousness.

Colonel Higginson rightly finds her nearest analogue
in William Blake ; but this " nearest " is far from iden
tity. While tenderly feminine in her sympathy for suffer
ing, her love of nature, her loyalty to her friends, she is
in expression the most unfeminine of poets. The usual
feminine impulsiveness and full expression of emotion is
replaced in her by an extraordinary condensation of
phrase and feeling. In her letters we find the eternal
womanly in her yearning love for her friends, her brood
ing anxiety and sympathy for the few lives closely in
tertwined with her own. In her poems, however, one is
rather impressed with the deep well of poetic insight
and feeling from which she draws, but never unre
servedly. In spite of frequent strange exaggeration of
phrase one is always conscious of a fund of reserve force.
The subjects of her poems are few, but the piercing
delicacy and depth of vision with which she turned from
death and eternity to nature and to love make us feel
the presence of that rare thing, genius. Hers is a
wonderful instance of the way in which genius can dis
pense with experience ; she sees more by pure intuition
than others distil from the serried facts of an eventful
life. Perhaps, in one of her own phrases, she is " too

Some Literary Straws 181

intrinsic for renown," but she has appealed strongly to a
surprisingly large band of readers in the United States,
and it seems to me will always hold her audience. Those
who admit Miss Dickinson's talent, but deny it to be
poetry, may be referred to Thoreau's saying that no defini
tion of poetry can be given which the true poet will not
somewhere sometime brush aside. It is a new depart
ure, and the writer in the Nation (Oct. 10, 1895) is
probably right when he says : " So marked a new depart
ure rarely leads to further growth. Neither Whitman
nor Miss Dickinson ever stepped beyond the circle they
first drew."

It is difficult to select quite adequate samples of Miss
Dickinson's art, but perhaps the following little poems
will give some idea of her naked simplicity, terseness,
oddness, — of her method, in short, if we can apply that
word to anything so spontaneous and unconscious :

" I'm nobody ! Who are you ?
Are you nobody, too ?
Then there's a pair of us. Don't tell !
They'd banish us, you know.

** How dreary to be somebody !
How public, like a frog,
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog ! "

«« I taste a liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl ;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an alcohol !

" Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,

182 The Land of Contrasts

Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.

" When landlords turn the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove's door,
When butterflies renounce their drams,
I shall but drink the more !

" Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the sun ! "

" But how he set 1 know not.
There seemed a purple stile
Which little yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while,

*' Till when they reached the other side,
A dominie in grey
Put gently up the evening bars,
And led the flock away."

" He preached upon ' breadth ' till it argued him narrow —
The broad are too broad to define ;
And of ' truth ' until it proclaimed him a liar —
The truth never flaunted a sign.
Simplicity fled from his counterfeit presence
As gold the pyrites would shun.
What confusion would cover the innocent Jesus
To meet so enabled a man ! "

The " so enabled a man " is a very characteristic Dick-
insonian phrase. So, too, are these :

" He put the belt around my life —
I heard the buckle snap."

Some Literary Straws 183

Unfitted by an instant's grace
For the contented beggar's face
I wore an hour ago."

"Just his sigh, accented,
Had been legible to me."

" The bustle in a house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon earth —
The sweeping up the heart,
And putting love away
We shall not want to use again
Until eternity."

Her interest in all the familiar sights and sounds of a
village garden is evident through all her verses. Her
illustrations are not recondite, literary, or conventional ;
she finds them at her own door. The robin, the butter
cup, the maple, furnish what she needs. The bee, in
particular, seems to have had a peculiar fascination for
her, and hums through all her poems. She had even a
kindly word for that " neglected son of genius," the
spider. Her love of children is equally evident, and no
one has ever better caught the spirit of

" Saturday Afternoon

4i From all the jails the boys and girls

Ecstatically leap,
Beloved, only afternoon
That prison doesn't keep.

" They storm the earth and stun the air,
A mob of solid bliss,

184 The Land of Contrasts

Alas ! that frowns could lie in wait
For such a foe as this ! "

The bold extravagance of her diction (which is not,
however, mere extravagance) and her ultra-American
familiarity with the forces of nature may be illustrated
by such stanzas as :

" What if the poles should frisk about

And stand upon their heads !
I hope I'm ready for the worst,
Whatever prank betides."

" If I could see you in a year,

I'd wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers
Until their time befalls.

'* If certain, when this life was out,
That yours and mine should be,
I'd toss it yonder like a rind,
And taste eternity."

For her the lightnings "skip like mice," the thunder
" crumbles like a stuff." What a critic has called her
" Emersonian self-possession " towards God may be seen
in the little poem on the last page of her first volume,
where she addresses the Deity as " burglar, banker,
father." There is, however, no flippancy in this, no
conscious irreverence ; Miss Dickinson is not " ortho
dox," but she is genuinely spiritual and religious.
Inspired by its truly American and " actuel " freedom,
her muse does not fear to sing of such modern and
mechanical phenomena as the railway train, which she
loves to see "lap the miles and lick the valleys up,"

Some Literary Straws 185

while she is fascinated by the contrast between its pro
digious force and the way in which it stops, " docile and
omnipotent, at its own stable door." But even she can
hardly bring the smoking locomotive into such pathetic
relations with nature as the " little brig," whose " white
foot tripped, then dropped from sight," leaving "the
ocean's heart too smooth, too blue, to break for you."

Her poems on death and the beyond, on time and
eternity, are full of her peculiar note. Death is the
" one dignity " that " delays for all ; " the meanest brow
is so ennobled by the majesty of death that " almost a
powdered footman might dare to touch it now," and yet
no beggar would accept " the Sclat of death, had he the
power to spurn." " The quiet nonchalance of death " is
a resting-place which has no terrors for her; death
" abashed " her no more than "the porter of her father's
lodge." Death's chariot also holds Immortality. The
setting sail for " deep eternity " brings a " divine intoxi
cation " such as the " inland soul " feels on its " first
league out from land." Though she " never spoke with
God, nor visited in heaven," she is " as certain of the
spot as if the chart were given." "In heaven some
how, it will be even, some new equation given."
" Christ will explain each separate anguish in the fair
schoolroom of the sky."

" A death-blow is a life-blow to some
Who, till they died, did not alive become ;
Who, had they lived, had died, but when
They died, vitality begun."

The reader who has had the patience to accompany me
through these pages devoted to Miss Dickinson will

1 86 The Land of Contrasts

surely own, whether in scoff or praise, the essentially
American nature of her muse. Her defects are easily
paralleled in the annals of English literature ; but only
in the liberal atmosphere of the New World, compara
tively unshadowed by trammels of authority and
standards of taste, could they have co-existed with so
much of the highest quality.

A prominent phenomenon in the development of
American literature — so prominent as to call for com
ment even in a fragmentary and haphazard sketch like
the present — is the influence exercised by the monthly
magazine. The editors of the leading literary periodicals
have been practically able to wield a censorship to
which there is no parallel in England. The magazine
has been the recognised gateway to the literary public ;
the sweep of the editorial net has been so wide that it
has gathered in nearly all the best literary work of the
past few decades, at any rate in the department of belles
lettres. It is not easy to name many important works of
pure literature, as distinct from the scientific, the philo
sophical, and the instructive, that have not made their
bow to the public through the pages of the Century, the
Atlantic Monthly, or some one or other of their leading
competitors. And probably the proportion of works by
new authors that have appeared in the same way is still
greater. There are, possibly, two sides as to the value
of this supremacy of the magazine, though to most observ
ers the advantages seem to outweigh the disadvantages.
Among the former may be reckoned the general encour
agement of reading, the opportunities afforded to young
writers, the raising of the rate of authors' pay, the dis
semination of a vast quantity of useful and salutary

Some Literary Straws 187

information in a popular form. Perhaps of more impor
tance than any of these has been the maintenance of that
purity of moral tone in which modern American litera
ture is superior to all its contemporaries. Malcontents
may rail at " grandmotherly legislation in letters," at the
undue deference paid to the maiden's blush, at the
encouragement of the mealy-mouthed and hypocritical ;
but it is a ground of very solid satisfaction, be the cause
what it may, that recent American literature has been so
free from the emasculate fin-de-siecle-ism, the nauseating
pseudo-realism, the epigrammatic hysteria, that has of
late been so rife in certain British circles. Moreover, it
is impossible to believe that any really strong talent
could have been stifled by the frown of the magazine
editor. Walt Whitman made his mark without that
potentate's assistance ; and if America had produced a
Zola, he would certainly have come to the front, even if
his genius had been hampered with a burden of more
than Zolaesque filth.

It is undoubtedly to the predominance of the magazine,
among other causes, that are due the prevalence and
perfection of the American short story. It has often
been remarked that French literature alone is superior
in this genre ; and many of the best American produc
tions of the kind can scarcely be called second even to
the French in daintiness of phrase, sureness of touch,
sense of proportion, and skilful condensation of interest.
Excellent examples of the short story have been common
in American literature from the times of Hawthorne,
Irving, and Poe down to the present day. Mr. Henry
James, perhaps, stands at the head of living writers in
this branch. Miss Mary E. Wilkins is inimitable in her

1 88 The Land of Contrasts

sketches of New England, the pathos, as well as the
humour of which she touches with a master hand. It is
interesting to note that, foreign as her subject would
seem to be to the French taste, her literary skill has
been duly recognised by the Revue des Deux Mondes.
Bret Harte and Frank Stockton are so eminently short-
story writers that the longer their stories become, the
nearer do they approach the brink of failure. Other
names that suggest themselves in a list that might be
indefinitely extended are those of Miss Jewett, Mrs.
Elizabeth Phelps Ward, Mr. Richard Harding Davis,
Mr. T. B. Aldrich, Mr. Thos. Nelson Page, Mr. Owen
Wister, Mr. Hamlin Garland, Mr. G. W. Cable, and (in
a lighter vein) Mr. H. C. Bunner.

This chapter may fitly close with a straw of startling
literary contrast, that seems to me alone almost enough
to bring American literature under the rubric of this
volume's title. If a critic familiar only with the work
chiefly associated with the author's name were asked to
indicate the source of the following quotations, I should
be surprised if he were to guess correctly in his first
hundred efforts. Indeed, I should not be astonished if
some of his shots missed the mark by centuries of time
as well as oceans of space. One hesitates to use lightly
the word Elizabethan ; but at present I do not recall
any other modern work that suggests it more strongly
than some of the lines I quote below :

" So wanton are all emblems that the cloak
Which folds a king will kiss a crooked nail
As quickly as a beggar's gabardine
Will do like office."

Some Literary Straws 189

Thou art so like to substance that I'd think
Myself a shadow ere thyself a dream. "

" Not so much beauty, sire,
As would make full the pocket of thine eye."

' ' A vein

That spilt its tender blue upon her eyelid,
As though the cunning hand that dyed her eyes
Had slipped for joy of its own work."

•' What am I who doth rail against the fate
That binds mankind ? The atom of an atom,
Particle of this particle the earth,
That with its million kindred worlds doth spin
Like motes within the universal light.
What if I sin — am lost— do crack my life
Against the gateless walls of Fate's decree ?
Is the world fouler for a gnat's corpse ? Nay,
The ocean, is it shallower for the drop
It leaves upon a blade of grass ? "

" There is a boy in Essex, they do say,
Can crack an ox's ribs in one arm-crotch."

All these passages are taken from the tragedy of
" Athelwold," written by Miss Amelie Rives, the author
of a novel entitled " The Quick and the Dead."

XI

Certain Features of Certain Cities

ONE of the dicta in M. Bourget's " Outre Mer "
to which I cannot but take exception is that
which insists on the essential similarity and
monotony of all the cities of the United
States. Passing over the question of the right of a
Parisian to quarrel with monotony of street architect
ure, I should simply ask what single country possesses
cities more widely divergent than New York and New
Orleans, Philadelphia and San Francisco, Chicago and
San Antonio, Washington and Pittsburg ? If M. Bour-
get merely means that there is a tendency to homogene
ity in the case of modern cities which was not compatible
with the picturesque though uncomfortable reasons for
variety in more ancient foundations, his remark amounts
to a truism. For his implied comparison with European
cities to have any point, he should be able to assert that
the recent architecture of the different cities of Europe
is more varied than the contemporary architecture of the
United States. This seems to me emphatically not the
case. Modern Paris resembles modern Rome more
closely than any two of the above-named cities resemble
each other ; and it is simply the universal tendency to
note similarity first and then unlikeness that makes
the brief visitor to the United States fail to find char
acteristic individuality in the various great cities of the

190

Certain Features of Certain Cities 191

country. We are also too prone to forget that the
United States, though continental in its proportions, is
after all but a single nation, enjoying the same institu
tions and speaking practically one tongue ; and this of
necessity introduces an element of sameness that must
be absent from the continent of Europe with which
we are apt to compare it. If we oppose to the United
States that one European country which approaches it
most nearly in size, we shall, I think, find the balance
of uniformity does not incline to the American side.
When all is said, however, it cannot be denied that
there is a great deal of similarity in the smaller and
newer towns and cities of the West, and Mr. W. S.
Caine's likening them to "international exhibitions a
week before their opening " will strike many visitors as
very apposite. It is only to the indiscriminate and
unhedged form of M. Bourget's statement that objection
need be made.

Architecture struck me as, perhaps, the one art in
which America, so far as modern times are concerned,
could reasonably claim to be on a par with, if not ahead
of, any European country whatsoever. I say this with
a full realisation of the many artistic nightmares that
oppress the soil from the Atlantic to the Pacific, with a
perfect recollection of the acres of petty, monotonous, and
mean structures in almost every great city of the Union,
with a keen appreciation of the witty saying that the
American architect often " shows no more self-restraint
than a bunch of fire-crackers." It is, however, dis
tinctly true, as Mr. Montgomery Schuyler well puts it,
that " no progress can result from the labour of archi
tects whose training has made them so fastidious that

192 The Land of Contrasts

they are more revolted by the crudity of the forms that
result from the attempt to express a new meaning than
by the failure to make the attempt ; " and it is in his
freedom from this fastidious lack of courage that the
American architect is strong. His earlier efforts at in
dependence were, perhaps, hardly fortunate ; but he is
now entering a phase in which adequate professional
knowledge cooperates with good taste to define the limits
within which his imagination may legitimately work. I
know not where to look, within the last quarter of a cen
tury or so, for more tasteful designs, greater sincerity of
purpose, or happier adaptations to environment than the
best creations of men like Mr. H. H. Richardson, Mr. R.
M. Hunt, Mr. J. W. Root, Mr. G. B. Post, and Messrs.
McKim, Mead, and White. Some of the new residen
tial streets of places as recent as Chicago or St. Paul
more than hold their own, as it seems to me, with any
contemporaneous thoroughfares of their own class in
Europe. To my own opinion let me add the valuable
testimony of Mr. E. A. Freeman, in his " Impressions of
the United States " (pp. 246, 247) :

I found the modern churches, of various denominations,
certainly better, as works of architecture, than I had
expected. They may quite stand beside the average of
modern churches in England, setting aside a few of the
very best. . . . But I thought the churches, whose style
is most commonly Gothic of one kind or another, decidedly
less successful than some of the civil buildings. In some of
these, I hardly know how far by choice, how far by happy
accident, a style has been hit upon which seemed to me far
more at home than any of the reproductions of Gothic.
Much of the street architecture of several cities has very

Certain Features of Certain Cities 193

successfully caught the leading idea of the true Italian
style.

New York, the gateway to America for, perhaps, nine
out of ten visitors, is described by Mr. Richard Grant
White, the American writer, as "the dashing, dirty,
demi-rep of cities." Mr. Joaquin Miller, the poet of the
Sierras, calls it " an iron-fronted, iron-footed, and iron
hearted town." Miss Florence Marryat asserts that
New York is " without any exception the most charming
city she has ever been in." Miss Emily Faithful admits
that at first it seems rough and new, but says that when
one returns to it from the West, one recognises that it
has everything essential in common with his European
experiences. In my own note-book I find that New
York impressed me as being "like a lady in ball cos
tume, with diamonds in her ears, and her toes out at
her boots."

Here, then, is evidence that New York makes a pretty
strong impression on her guests, and that this impression
is not by any means the same in every case. New York is
evidently a person of character, and of a character with
many facets. To most European visitors it must, on the
whole, be somewhat of a disappointment ; and it is not
really an advantageous or even a characteristic portal to
the American continent. For one thing, it is too over
whelmingly cosmopolitan in the composition of its
population to strike the distinctive American note. It
is not alone that New York society imitates that of
France and England in a more pronounced way than I
found anywhere else in America, but the names one sees
over the shops seem predominantly German and Jewish,

194 The Land of Contrasts

accents we are familiar with at home resound in our
ears, the quarters we are first introduced to recall the
dinginess and shabbiness of the waterside quarters of
cities like London and Glasgow. More intimate ac
quaintance finds much that is strongly American in
New York; but this is not the first impression, and
first impressions count for so much that it seems to me
a pity that New York is for most travellers the pro
logue to their American experiences.

The contrasts between the poverty and wealth of New
York are so extreme as sometimes to suggest even
London, where misery and prosperity rub shoulders in
a more heartrending way than, perhaps, anywhere else
in the wide world. But the contrasts that strike even
the most unobservant visitor to the so-called Amer
ican " metropolis " are of a different nature. When I was
asked by American friends what had most struck me in
America, I sometimes answered, if in malicious mood,
" The fact that the principal street of the largest and
richest city in the Union is so miserably paved ; " and,
indeed, my recollections of the holes in Broadway, and
of the fact that in wintry weather I had sometimes to
diverge into University Place in order to avoid a mid-
shin crossing of liquid mud in Broadway, seem as
strange as if they related to a dream.1 New York,
again, possesses some of the most sumptuous private
residences in the world, often adorned in particular with
exquisite carvings in stone, such as Europeans have
sometimes furnished for a cathedral or minster, but which
it has been reserved for republican simplicity to apply

1 This refers to 1893 ; things are much better now.

Certain Features of Certain Cities 195

to the residence of a private citizen.1 Yet it is by no
means ausgeschlossen, as the Germans say, that the pave
ment in front of this abode of luxury may not be seamed
by huge cracks and rents that make walking after night
fall positively dangerous.

Fifth Avenue is not, to my mind, one of the most attrac
tive city streets in the United States, but it is, perhaps,
the one that makes the greatest impression of prosperity.
It is eminently solid and substantial ; it reeks with
respectability and possibly dulness. It is a very alder
man among streets. The shops at its lower end, and
gradually creeping up higher like the modest guest of
the parable, make no appeal to the lightly pursed, but
are as aristocratic-looking as those of Hanover Square.
Its hotels and clubs are equally suggestive of well-lined
pockets. Its churches more than hint at golden offer
tories ; and the visitor is not surprised to be assured (as he
infallibly will be) that the pastor of one of them preaches
every Sunday to " two hundred and fifty million dollars."
Even the beautiful Roman Catholic cathedral lends its
aid to this impression, and encourages the faithful by a
charge of fifteen to twenty-five cents for a seat. The
" stoops " of the lugubrious brown sandstone houses
seem to retain something more of their Dutch origin
than the mere name. The Sunday Parade here is better
dressed than that of Hyde Park, but candour compels me
to admit, at the expense of my present point, consider
ably less stiff and non-committal. Indeed, were it not

i This suggestion of topsy-turvydom in the relations of God and Mammon
is much intensified when we find an apartment house like the " Osborne "
towering high above the church-spire on the opposite side of the way, or see
Trinity Church simply smothered by the contiguous office buildings.

196 The Land of Contrasts

for the miserable horses of the "stage lines " Fifth Ave
nue might present a clean bill of unimpeachable affluence.

Madison Avenue, hitherto uninvaded by shops, rivals
Fifth Avenue in its suggestions of extreme well-to-
do-ness, and should be visited, if for no other reason,
to see the Tiffany house, one of the most daring and
withal most captivating experiments known to me in city
residences.

Unlike those of many other American cities, the best
houses of New York are ranged side by side without
the interposition of the tiniest bit of garden or greenery ;
it is only in the striking but unfinished River
side Drive, with its grand views of the Hudson, that
architecture derives any aid whatsoever from natural
formations or scenic conditions. The student of archi
tecture should not fail to note the success with which
the problem of giving expression to a town house of
comparatively simple outline has often been tackled,
and he will find many charming single features, such as
doors, or balconies, or windows. Good examples of these
are the exquisite oriel and other decorative features of
the house of Mr. W. K. Vanderbilt, by Mr. Hunt, in
Fifth Avenue, at the corner of 52d Street, and speci
mens will also be found in 34th, 36th, 37th, 43d, 52d,
56th, and 57th Streets, near their junction with Fifth
Avenue. The W. H. Vanderbilt houses (Fifth Avenue,
between 50th and 51st Streets) have been described as
u brown-stone boxes with architecture appliqu£ ; " but
the applied carving, though meaningless enough as far
as its position goes, is so exquisite in itself as to deserve
more than a passing glance. The iron railings which
surround the houses are beautiful specimens of metal-

Certain Features of Certain Cities 197

work. The house of Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt, a little
farther up the avenue, with its red brick and slates, and
its articulations and dormers of grey limestone, is a
good example of an effective use of colour in domestic
architecture — an effect which the clear, dry climate of
New York admits and perpetuates.1 The row of quiet
oldtime houses on the north side of Washington Square
will interest at least the historical student of archi
tecture, so characteristic are they of times of restfulness
and peace to which New York has long been a stranger.
Down towards the point of the island, in the " city "
proper, the visitor will find many happy creations for
modern mercantile purposes, besides such older objects
of architectural interest as Trinity Church and the City
Hall, praised by Professor Freeman and many other con
noisseurs of both continents. Among these business
structures may be named the "Post Building," the
building of the Union Trust Company (No. 80 Broad
way), and the Guernsey Building (also in Broadway).
At the extreme apex of Manhattan Island lie the his
toric Bowling Green and Battery Park, the charm of
which has not been wholly annihilated by the intrusion
of the elevated railway. Here rises the huge rotunda
of Castle Garden, through which till lately all the immi
grants to New York made their entry into the New
World. Surely this has a pathetic interest of its own
when we consider what this landing meant to so many
thousands of the poor and needy. A suitable motto for
its hospitable portals would have been, "Imbibe new
hope, all ye who enter here."

1 Compare Montgomery Scliuyler's " American Architecture," an excellent
though brief account and appreciation of modern American building.

198 The Land of Contrasts

As I have said, there is no lack of good Americanism
in New York. Let the Englishman who does not be
lieve in an American school of sculpture look at St.
Gaudens' statue of Admiral Farragut in Madison
Square, and say where we have a better or as good a
single figure in any of our streets. Let him who thinks
that fine public picture galleries are confined to Europe
go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art,1 with its treasures
by Rembrandt and Rubens, Holbein and Van Dyck,
Frans Hals and Teniers, Reynolds and Hogarth, Meis-
sonier and Detaille, Rosa Bonheur and Troyon, Corot
and Breton. Let the admirer of engineering marvels,
after he has sufficiently appreciated the elastic strength
of the Brooklyn Suspension Bridge, betake himself to
the other end of the island and enjoy the more solid, but
in their way no less imposing, proportions of the Wash
ington Bridge over the Harlem, and let him choose his
route by the Ninth-avenue Elevated Railroad with its
dizzy curve at 110th street. And, finally, let not the
lover of the picturesque fail to enjoy the views from the
already named Riverside Drive, the cleverly created
beauties of Central Park, and the district known as
Washington Heights.

The Englishman in New York will probably here
make his first acquaintance with the American system of
street nomenclature ; and if he at once masters its few
simple principles, it will be strange if he does not find it
of great utility and convenience. The objection usually
made to it is that the numbering of streets, instead of

1 The position of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is so assured that in 1896
its trustees declined a bequest of 90 paintings (claiming to include specimens
of Velazquez, Titian, Rubens, and other great artists) , because it was ham
pered with the condition that it had to be accepted and exhibited en bloc.

Certain Features of Certain Cities 199

naming them, is painfully arithmetical, bald, and un
interesting ; but if a man stays long enough to be really
familiar with the streets, he will find that the bare
numbers soon clothe themselves with association, and
Fifth Avenue will come to have as distinct an individu
ality as Broadway, while 23d Street will call up as
definite a picture of shopping activity as Bond Street
or Piccadilly. The chief trouble is the facility of con
fusing such an address as No. 44 East 45th Street with
No. 45 East 44th Street ; and so natural is an inversion
of the kind that one is sometimes heedless enough to
make it in writing one's own address.

The transition from New York to Boston in a chapter
like this is as inevitable as the tax-collector, though
perhaps less ingenuity is now spent in the invention of
anecdotes typical of the contrasts between these two
cities since Chicago, by the capture of the World's
Fair, drew upon herself the full fire of the satire-shotted
guns of New York's rivalry. It seems to me, however,
that in many ways there is much more similarity
between New York and Chicago than between New
York and Boston, and that it is easier to use the latter
couple than the former to point a moral or adorn a tale.
In both New York and Chicago the prevailing note is
that of wealth and commerce, the dominant social
impression is one of boundless material luxury, the
atmosphere is thick with the emanations of those who
hurry to be rich. I hasten to add that of course this is
largely tempered by other tendencies and features ; it
would be especially unpardonable of me to forget the
eminently intellectual, artistic, and refined aspects of
New York life of which I was privileged to enjoy

2oo The Land of Contrasts

glimpses. In Boston, however, there is something
different. Mere wealth, even in these degenerate days,
does not seem to play so important a part in her society.
The names one constantly hears or sees in New York
are names like Astor, Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, and
Bradley-Martin, names which, whatever other qualities
they connote, stand first and foremost for mere crude
wealth. In Boston the prominent public names — the
names that naturally occur to my mind as I think of
Boston as I saw it — are Oliver Wendell Holmes, the
poet and novelist ; Eliot, the college president ; Francis
Walker, the political economist; Higginson, the gener
ous cultivator of classical music ; Robert Treat Paine,
the philanthropist ; Edward Everett Hale ; and others of
a more or less similar class. Again, in New York and
in Chicago (Pullman, Marshall Field, Armour) the
prominent names are emphatically men of to-day and
seem to change with each generation. In Boston we
have the names of the first governor and other leaders
of the early settlers still shining in their descendants
with almost undiminished lustre. The present mayor
of Boston, for example, is a member of a family the
name of which has been illustrious in the city's annals
for two hundred years. He is the fifth of his name in
the direct line to gain fame in the public service, and
the third to occupy the mayor's chair. No less than
sixteen immediate members of the family are recorded
in the standard biographical dictionaries of America.

While doubtless the Attic tales of Boeotian dulness
were at least as often well invented as true, it is perhaps
the case that there is generally some ground for the
popular caricatures of any given community. I duly dis-

Certain Features of Certain Cities 201

counted the humorous and would-be humorous stories
of Boston's pedantry that I heard in New York, and
found that as a rule I had done right so to do. Blue spec
tacles are not more prominent in Boston than elsewhere ;
its theatres do not make a specialty of Greek plays ; the
little boys do not petition the Legislature for an increase
in the hours of school. There yet remains, however, a
basis of truth quite large enough to show the observer
how the reputation was acquired. It is a solemn fact
that what would appear in England as "No spitting
allowed in this car " is translated in the electric cars of
Boston into: "The Board of Health hereby adjudges
that the deposit of sputum in street-cars is a public
nuisance." 1 The framer of this announcement would
undoubtedly speak of the limbs of a piano and allude to
a spade as an agricultural implement. And in social
intercourse I have often noticed needless celerity in skat
ing over ice that seemed to my ruder British sense quite
well able to bear any ordinary weight, as well as a certain
subtlety of allusiveness that appeared to exalt ingenuity
of phrase at the expense of common sense and common
candour. Too high praise cannot easily be given to the
Boston Symphony Concerts ; but it is difficult to avoid a
suspicion of affectation in the severe criticism one hears
of the conductor whenever he allows a little music of a
lighter class than usual to appear on the programme.

Boston is, in its way, as prolific of contrasts as any
part of the United States. There is certainly no more
cultivated centre in the country, and yet the letter r
is as badly maltreated by the Boston scholar as by the
veriest cockney. To the ear of Boston centre has pre-

1 This was changed to simple English in 1898.

2O2 The Land of Contrasts

cisely the same sound as the name of the heroine of
Wagner's " Flying Dutchman," and its most cultivated
graduates speak of Herbert Spenca/i's Datar of Ethics.
The critical programmes of the Symphony Concerts are
prepared by one of the ablest of living musical critics,
and are scholarly almost to excess ; yet, as the observant
Swiss critic, M. Wagniere, has pointed out, their refined
and subtle text has to endure the immediate juxtaposi
tion of the advertisements of tea-rooms and glove-sellers.
Boston has the deserved reputation of being one of the
best-governed cities in America, yet some of its important
streets seldom see a municipal watering-cart, dust flies
in clouds both summer and winter, and myriads of life-
endangering bicycles shoot through its thoroughfares at
night without lamps. The Boston matron holds up her
hands in sanctified horror at the freedom of Western
manners, and yet it is a local saying, founded on a solid
basis of fact, that Kenney & Clark (a well-known firm
of livery-stable keepers) are the only chaperon that a
Boston girl needs in going to or from a ball. The Bos-
tonians are not the least intelligent of mortals, and yet I
know no other city in America which is content with
such an anomalous system of hack hire, where no reduc
tion in rate is made for the number of persons. One
person may drive in a comfortable two-horse brougham
to any point within Boston proper for 50 cents ; two per
sons pay $1, three persons $ 1.50, and so on. My advice
to a quartette of travellers visiting Boston is to hire four
carriages at once and go in a procession, until they find
a liveryman who sees the point.

One acute observer has pointed out that it is the men
of New York who grow haggard, wrinkled, anxious-

Certain Features of Certain Cities 203

looking, and prematurely old in their desperate efforts to
provide diamonds and balls and Worth costumes and trips
to Europe for their debonair, handsome, easy-going, and
well-nourished spouses and daughters ; while the men of
Boston are " jolly dogs, who make money by legitimate
trade instead of wild speculation, and show it in their
countenances, illumined with the light of good cigars and
champagne and other little luxuries," while their woman
kind are constantly worried by the New England con
science, and constantly creating anxieties for themselves
where none exist. There is indeed a large amount of
truth in this description, if allowance be made for pardon
able exaggeration. It is among the women of Boston that
one finds its traditional mantle of intellectuality worn
most universally, and it is among the women of New York
that one finds the most characteristic displays of love of
pleasure and social triumphs. It is, perhaps, not a mere ac
cident that the daughters of Boston's millionaires seem to
marry their fellow-citizens rather than foreign noblemen.
" None of their money goes to gild rococo coronets."

I have a good deal of sympathy with a Canadian friend
who exclaimed : " Oh, Boston ! I don't include Boston
when I speak of the United States." Max O'Rell has
similarly noted that if you wish to hear severe criticism
of America you have only to go to Boston. " La on loue
Boston et Angleterre, et Von deline VAmerique a dire
cC experts." It would be a mistake, however, to infer
that Boston is not truly American, or that it devotes
itself to any voluntary imitation of England. In a very-
deep sense Boston is one of the most intensely American
cities in the Union ; it represents, perhaps, the finest
development of many of the most characteristic ideals

204 The Land of Contrasts

of Americanism. Its resemblances to England seem to
be due to the simple fact that like causes produce like
results. The original English stock by which Boston
was founded has remained less mixed here than, perhaps,
in any other city of America ; and the differences between
the descendants of the Puritans who emigrated and the
descendants of those of them who remained at home are
not complicated by a material infusion of alien blood in
either case. The independence of the original settlers,
their hatred of coercion and tyranny, have naturally
grown with two centuries and a half of democracy ; even
the municipal administration has not been wholly
captured by the Irish voter. The Bostonian has, to a
very appreciable extent, solved the problem of combining
the virtues of democracy with the manners of aristocracy ;
and I know not where you will find a better type of the
American than the Boston gentleman : patriotic with en
lightened patriotism ; finely mannered even to the class
immediately below his own ; energetic, but not a slave to
the pursuit of wealth ; liberal in his religion, but with
something of the Puritan conscience still lying perdu
beneath his universalism ; distributing his leisure between
art, literature, and outdoor occupations ; a little cool in
his initial manner to strangers, but warmly hospitable
when his confidence in your merit is satisfied. We, in
England, may well feel proud that the blood which flows
in the veins of the ideal Bostonian is as distinctly and
as truly English as that of our own Gladstones and
Morleys, our Brownings and our Tennysons.

Prof. Hugo Miinsterberg, of Berlin, writes thus of
Boston and Chicago : " Ja, Boston ist die Hauptstadt
jenes jungen, liebenswerthen, idealistischen Amerikas

Certain Features of Certain Cities 205

und wird es bleiben ; Chicago dagegen ist die Hochburg
der alien protzigen amerikanisehen Dollarsucht, und die
Weltausstellung schliesslich ist uberhaupt nicht Amer-
ika, sondern chicagosirtes Europa" Whatever may be
thought of the first part of this judgment, the second
member of it seems to me rather unfair to Chicago and
emphatically so as regards the Chicago exhibition.

Since 1893 Chicago ought never to be mentioned as
Porkopolis without a simultaneous reference to the fact
that it was also the creator of the White City, with its
Court of Honour, perhaps the most flawless and fairy-
like creation, on a large scale, of man's invention. We
expected that America would produce the largest, most
costly, and most gorgeous of all international exhibi
tions ; but who expected that she would produce any
thing so inexpressibly poetic, chaste, and restrained,
such an absolutely refined and soul-satisfying picture, as
the Court of Honour, with its lagoon and gondolas, its
white marble steps and balustrades, its varied yet har
monious buildings, its colonnaded vista of the great
lake, its impressive fountain, its fairy-like outlining
after dark by the gems of electricity, its spacious and
well-modulated proportions which made the largest
crowd in it but an unobtrusive detail, its air of spon
taneity and inevitableness which suggested nature itself,
rather than art? No other scene of man's creation
seemed to me so perfect as this Court of Honour.
Venice, Naples, Rome, Florence, Edinburgh, Athens,
Constantinople, each in its way is lovely indeed ; but in
each view of each of these there is some jarring feature,
something that we have to ignore in order to thoroughly
lose ourselves in the beauty of the scene. The Court of

206 The Land of Contrasts

Honour was practically blameless ; the aesthetic sense of
the beholder was as fully and unreservedly satisfied as
in looking at a masterpiece of painting or sculpture, and
at the same time was soothed and elevated by a sense of
amplitude and grandeur such as no single work of art
could produce. The glamour of old association that
illumines Athens or Venice was in a way compensated by
our deep impression of the pathetic transitoriness of the
dream of beauty before us, and by the revelation it
afforded of the soul of a great nation. For it will to all
time remain impossibly ridiculous to speak of a country
or a city as wholly given over to the worship of Mammon
which almost involuntarily gave birth to this ethereal
emanation of pure and uneconomic beauty.

Undoubtedly there are few tilings more dismal than
the sunless canons which in Chicago are called streets ;
and the luckless being who is concerned there with
retail trade is condemned to pass the greater part of his
life in unrelieved ugliness. Things, however, are rather
better in the " office " quarter ; and he who is ready to
admit that exigency of site gives some excuse for
" elevator architecture " will find a good deal to interest
him in its practice at Chicago. Indeed, no one can fail
to wonder at the marvellous skill of architectural engi
neering which can run up a building of twenty stories,
the walls of which are merely a veneer or curtain. Few
will cavil at the handsome and comfortable equipment
of the best interiors ; but, given the necessity of their
existence, the wide-minded lover of art will find some
thing to reward his attention even in their exteriors.
In many instances their architects have succeeded
admirably in steering a middle course between the

Certain Features of Certain Cities 207

ornate style of a palace 011 the one hand and the pack
ing case with windows on the other ; and the observer
might unreservedly admire the general effect were it not
for the crick in his neck that reminds him most forcibly
that he cannot get far enough away for a proper estimate
of the proportions. Any city might feel proud to count
amid its commercial architecture such features as the
entrance of the Phenix Building, the office of the Amer
ican Express Company, and the monumental Field
Building, by Richardson, with what Mr. Schuyler calls
its grim utilitarianism of expression ; and the same
praise might, perhaps, be extended to the Auditorium,
the Owings Building, the Rookery, and some others.
In non-commercial architecture Chicago may point with
some pride to its City Hall, its University, its libraries,
the admirable Chicago Club (the old Art Institute), and
the new Art Institute on the verge of Lake Michigan.
Of its churches the less said the better ; their architect
ure, regarded as a studied insult to religion, would go
far to justify the highly uncomplimentary epithet Mr.
Stead applied to Chicago.

In some respects Chicago deserves the name City
of Contrasts, just as the United States is the Land of
Contrasts ; and in no way is this more marked than in
the difference between its business and its residential
quarters. In the one — height, narrowness, noise, monot
ony, dirt, sordid squalor, pretentiousness ; in the other —
light, space, moderation, homelikeness. The houses in
the Lake Shore Drive, the Michigan Boulevard, or the
Drexel Boulevard are as varied in style as the brown-
stone mansions of New York are monotonous ; they face
on parks or are surrounded with gardens of their own ;

208 The Land of Contrasts

they are seldom ostentatiously large ; they suggest
comfort, but not offensive affluence ; they make credible
the possession of some individuality of taste on the part
of their owners. The number of massive round open
ings, the strong rusticated masonry, the open loggie, the
absence of mouldings, and the red-tiled roofs suggest
to the cognoscenti that Mr. H. H. Richardson's spirit
was the one which brooded most efficaciously over the
domestic architecture of Chicago. The two houses I
saw that were designed by Mr. Richardson himself are
undoubtedly not so satisfactory as some of his public
buildings, but they had at least the merit of interest and
originality ; some of the numerous imitations were by
no means successful.

The parks of Chicago are both large and beautiful.
They contain not a few very creditable pieces of sculpt
ure, among which Mr. St. Gaudens' statue of Lincoln
is conspicuous as a wonderful triumph of artistic genius
over unpromising material. The show of flowers in the
parks is not easily paralleled in public domains elsewhere.
Of these, rather than of its stockyards and its lightning
rapidity in pig-sticking, will the visitor who wishes to
think well of Chicago carry off a mental picture.

The man who has stood on Inspiration Point above
Oakland and has watched the lights of San Francisco
gleaming across its noble bay, or who has gazed down
on the Golden Gate from the heights of the Presidio,
must have an exceptionally rich gallery of memory if he
does not feel that he has added to its treasures one of
the most entrancing city views he has ever witnessed.
The situation of San Francisco is indeed that of an
empress among cities. Piled tier above tier on the hilly

Certain Features of Certain Cities 209

knob at the north end of a long peninsula, it looks down
on the one side over the roomy waters of San Francisco
Bay (fifty miles long and ten miles wide), backed by
the ridge of the Coast Range, while in the other direction
it is reaching out across the peninsula, here six miles
wide, to the placid expanse of the Pacific Ocean. On
the north the peninsula ends abruptly in precipitous
cliffs some hundreds of feet high, while a similar penin
sula, stretching southwards, faces it in a similar massive
promontory, separated by a scant mile of water. This is
the famous Golden Gate, the superb gateway leading
from the ocean to the shelters of the bay. To the south
the eye loses itself among the fertile valleys of corn and
fruit stretching away toward the Mexican frontier.

When we have once sated ourselves with the general
effect, there still remains a number of details, picturesque,
interesting, or quaint. There is the Golden Gate Park,
the cypresses and eucalypti at one end of which testify
to the balminess of the climate, while the sand-dunes at
its other end show the original condition of the whole
surface of the peninsula, and add to our admiration of
nature a sense of respectful awe for the transforming
energy of man. Beyond Golden Gate Park we reach
Sutro Heights, another desert that has been made to
blossom like the rose. Here we look out over the
Pacific to the musically named Farralone Islands, thirty
miles to the west. Then we descend for luncheon to
the Cliff House below, and watch the uncouth gambols
of hundreds of fat sea-lions (Spanish lobos marines'),
which, strictly protected from the rifle or harpoon, swim,
and plunge, and bark unconcernedly within a stone's
throw of the observer. The largest of these animals are

210 The Land of Contrasts

fifteen feet long and weigh about a ton ; and it is said
that certain individuals, recognisable by some peculiarity,
are known to have frequented the rocks for many years.
On our way back to the lower part of the city we
use one of the cable-cars crawling up and down the
steep inclines like flies on a window-pane ; and we
find, if the long polished seat of the car be otherwise
unoccupied, that we have positive difficulty in prevent
ing ourselves slipping down from one end of the car to
the other. By this time the strong afternoon wind l has
set in from the sea, and we notice with surprise that the
seasoned Friscans, still clad in the muslins and linens
that seemed suitable enough at high noon, seek by
preference the open seats of the locomotive car, while
we, puny visitors, turn up our coat-collars and flee to
the shelter of the "trailer" or covered car. As we
come over " Nob Hill " we take in the size of the houses
of the Californian millionaires, note that they are of
wood (on account of the earthquakes ?), and bemoan the
misdirected efforts of their architects, who, instead of
availing themselves of the unique chance of producing
monuments of characteristically developed timber archi
tecture, have known no better than to slavishly imitate
the incongruous features of stone houses in the style of

1 It is to this wind, the temperature of which varies little all the year round,
that San Francisco owes her wonderfully equable climate, which is never
either too hot or too cold for comfortable work or play. The mean annual
temperature is about 57° Fahr., or rather higher than that of New York; but
while the difference between the mean of the months is 40° at the latter city,
it is about 10<> only at the Golden Gate. The mean of July is about 60o, that
of January about 50°. September is a shade warmer than July. Observa
tions extending over 30 years show that the freezing point on the one hand
and 80° Fahr. on the other are reached on an average only about half a dozen
times a year. The hottest day of the year is more likely to occur in Septem
ber than any other month.

Certain Features of Certain Cities 211

the Renaissance. Indeed, we shall feel that San Fran
cisco is badly off for fine buildings of all and every kind.
If daylight still allows we may visit the Mission Dolores,
one of the interesting old Spanish foundations that form
the origin of so many places in California, and if we are
historically inclined we may inspect the old Spanish
grants in the Surveyor-General's office. Those of us
whose tastes are modern and literary may find our ac
count in identifying some of the places in R. L. Steven
son's " Ebb Tide," and it will go hard with us if we do not
also meet a few of his characters amid the cosmopolitan
crowd in the streets or on the wharves. At night we
may visit China without the trouble of a voyage, and
perambulate a city of 25,000 Celestials under the safe
guidance of an Irish-accented detective. So often have
the features of Chinatown been described — its incense-
scented joss-houses, its interminable stage-plays, its
opium-joints, its drug-stores with their extraordinary
remedies, its curiosity shops, and its restaurants — that
no repetition need be attempted here. We leave it with
a sense of the curious incongruity which allows this
colony of Orientals to live in the most wide-awake of
western countries with an apparently almost total
neglect of such sanitary observances as are held indis
pensable in all other modern municipalities. It is cer
tain that no more horrible sight could be seen in the
extreme East than the so-called " Hermit of Chinatown,"
an insane devotee who has lived for years crouched in a
miserable little outhouse, subsisting on the offerings of
the charitable, and degraded almost beyond the pale of
humanity by his unbroken silence, his blank immobility,
and his neglect of all the decencies of life. And this is

212 The Land of Contrasts ^

an American resident, if not an American citizen ! If the
reader is as lucky as the writer, he may wind up the day
with a smart shock of earthquake ; and if he is equally
sleepy and unintelligent (which Heaven forefend !), he
may miss its keen relish by drowsily wondering what on
earth they mean by moving that very heavy grand piano
overhead at that time of night.

" Two-thirds of them come here to die, and they can't
do it." This was said by the famous Mr. Barnum about
Colorado Springs ; and the active life and cheerful man
ners of the condemned invalids who flourish in this
charming little city go far to confirm the truth concealed
beneath the jest. The land has insensibly sloped up
wards since the traveller left the Mississippi behind him,
and he now finds himself in a flowery prairie 6,000 feet
above the sea level, while close by one of the finest sec
tions of the Rocky Mountains rears its snowy peaks to a
height of 6,000 to 8,000 feet more. The climate resem
bles that of Davos, and like it is preeminently suited for
all predisposed to or already affected with consumption ;
but Colorado enjoys more sunshine than its Swiss rival,
and has no disagreeable period of melting snow. The
town is sheltered by the foothills, except to the south
east, where it lies open to the great plains ; and, being
situated where they meet the mountains, it enjoys the
openness and free supply of fresh air of the seashore,
without its dampness. The name is somewhat of a
misnomer, as the nearest springs are those of Manitou,
about five miles to the north.

Colorado Springs may be summed up as an oasis of
Eastern civilisation and finish in an environment of West
ern rawness and enterprise. It has been described as

Certain Features of Certain Cities 213

44 a charming big village, like the well-laid-out suburb of
some large Eastern city." Its wide, tree-shaded streets
are kept in excellent order. There is a refreshing ab
sence of those " loose ends " of a new civilisation which
even the largest of the Western cities are too apt to
show. No manufactures are carried on, and 110
44 saloons " are permitted. The inhabitants consist very
largely of educated and refined people from the Eastern
States and England, whose health does not allow them
to live in their damper native climes. The tone of the
place is a refreshing blend of the civilisation of the East
and the unconventionalisrn of the West. Perhaps there
is no pleasanter example of extreme social democracy.
The young man of the East, unprovided with a private
income, finds no scope here for his specially trained
capacities, and is glad to turn an honest penny and
occupy his time with anything he can get. Thus there
are gentlemen in the conventional sense of the word
among many of the so-called humbler callings, and one
may rub shoulders at the charming little clubs with an
Oxford-bred livery-stable keeper or a Harvard graduate
who has turned his energies toward the selling of milk.
Few visitors to Colorado Springs will fail to carry away
a grateful and pleasant impression of the English doctor
who has found vigorous life and a prosperous career in
the place of exile to which his health condemned him in
early manhood, and who has repaid the place for its gift
of vitality by the most intelligent and effective champion
ship of its advantages. These latter include an excellent
hotel and a flourishing college for delicate girls and boys.
Denver, a near neighbour of Colorado Springs (if we
speak more Americano), is an excellent example, both in

214 The Land of Contrasts

theory and practice, of the confident expectation of
growth with which new American cities are founded.
The necessary public buildings are not huddled together
as a nucleus from which the municipal infant may grow
outwards ; but a large and generous view is taken of
the possibilities of expansion. Events do not always
justify this sanguine spirit of forethought. The capitol
at Washington still turns its back on the city of which
it was to be the centre as well as the crown. In a great
number of cases, however, hope and fact eventually
meet together. The capitol of Bismarck, chief town of
North Dakota, was founded in 1883, nearly a mile from
the city, on a rising site in the midst of the prairie. It
has already been reached by the advancing tide of
houses, and will doubtless, in no long time, occupy a
conveniently central situation. Denver is an equally
conspicuous instance of the same tendency. The changes
that took place in that city between the date of my visit
to it and the reading of the proof-sheets of " Baedeker's
United States " a year or so later demanded an almost
entire rewriting of the description. Doubtless it has
altered at least as much since then, and very likely the
one or two slightly critical remarks of the handbook of
1893 are already grossly libellous. Denver quadrupled
its population between 1880 and 1890. The value of its
manufactures and of the precious ores smelted here
reaches a fabulous amount of millions of dollars. The
usual proportion of " million " and " two million dollar
buildings" have been erected. Many of the principal
streets are (most wonderful of all!) excellently paved
and kept reasonably clean. But the crowning glory of
Denver for every intelligent traveller is its magnificent

Certain Features of Certain Cities 215

view of the Rocky Mountains, which are seen to the
West in an unbroken line of at least one hundred and
fifty miles. Though forty miles distant, they look, owing
to the purity of the atmosphere, as if they were within a
walk of two or three hours. Denver is fond of calling
herself the " Queen City of the Plains," and few will
grudge the epithet queenly if it is applied to the posses
sion of this matchless outlook on the grandest manifesta
tions of nature. If the Denver citizen brags more of his
State Capitol, his Metropole Hotel (no accent, please !),
and his smelting works than of his snow-piled mountains
and abysmal canons, he only follows a natural human
instinct in estimating most highly that which has cost
him most trouble.

Mr. James Bryce has an interesting chapter on the
absence of a capital in the United States. By capital
he means " a city which is not only the seat of political
government, but is also by the size, wealth, and character
of its population the head and centre of the country, a
leading seat of commerce and industry, a reservoir of
financial resources, the favoured residence of the great
and powerful, the spot in which the chiefs of the learned
professions are to be found, where the most potent and
widely read journals are published, whither men of
literary and scientific capacity are drawn." New York
journalists, with a happy disregard of the historical con
notation of language, are prone to speak of their city as
a metropolis ; but it is very evident that the most liberal
interpretation of the word cannot elevate New York to
the relative position of such European metropolitan
cities as Paris or London. Washington, the nominal
capital of the United States, is perhaps still farther from

2i6 The Land of Contrasts

satisfying Mr. Bryce's definition. It certainly is a rela
tively small city, and it is not a leading seat of trade,
manufacture, or finance. It is also true that its journals
do not rank among the leading papers of the land ; but,
on the other hand, it must be remembered that every
important American journal has its Washington corre
spondent, and that in critical times the letters of these
gentlemen are of very great weight. As the seat of the
Supreme Judicial Bench of the United States, it has as
good a claim as any other American city to be the resi
dence of the " chiefs of the learned professions ; " and
it is quite remarkable how, owing to the great national
collections and departments, it has come to the front as
the main focus of the scientific interests of the country.
The Cosmos Club's list of members is alone sufficient to
illustrate this. Its attraction to men of letters has
proved less cogent ; but the life of an eminent literary
man of (say) New Orleans or Boston is much more
likely to include a prolonged visit to Washington than
to any other American city not his own. The Library
of Congress alone, now magnificently housed in an
elaborately decorated new building, is a strong magnet.
In the same way there is a growing tendency for all who
can afford it to spend at least one season in Washing
ton. The belle of Kalamazoo or Little Rock is not satis
fied till she has made her bow in Washington under the
wing of her State representative, and the senator is no
wise loath to see his wife's tea-parties brightened by a
bevy of the prettiest girls from his native wilds. Uni
versity men throughout the Union, leaders of provincial
bars, and a host of others have often occasion to visit
Washington. When we add to all this the army of gov-

Certain Features of Certain Cities 217

ernment employees and the cosmopolitan element of the
diplomatic corps, we can easily see that, so far as
" society " is concerned, Washington is more like a
European capital than any other American city.
Nothing is more amusing — for a short time, at least —
than a round of the teas, dinners, receptions, and balls
of Washington, where the American girl is seen in all
her glory, with captives of every clime, from the almond-
eyed Chinaman to the most faultlessly correct Piccadilly
exquisite, at her dainty feet. I never saw a bevy of more
beautiful women than officiated at one senatorial after
noon tea I visited ; so beautiful were they as to make me
entirely forget what seemed to my untutored European
taste the absurdity of their wearing low-necked evening
gowns while their guests sported hat and jacket and fur.
The whole tone of Washington society from the Presi
dent downward is one of the greatest hospitality and
geniality towards strangers. The city is beautifully
laid out, and its plan may be described as that of a
wheel laid on a gridiron, the rectangular arrangement of
the streets having superimposed on it a system of radi
ating avenues, lined with trees and named for the differ
ent States of the Union. The city is governed and
kept admirably in order by a board of commissioners
appointed by the President. The sobriquet of " City
of Magnificent Distances," applied to Washington when
its framework seemed unnecessarily large for its growth,
is still deserved, perhaps, for the width of its streets and
the spaciousness of its parks and squares. The floating
white dome of the Capitol dominates the entire city, and
almost every street-vista ends in an imposing public
building, a mass of luxuriant greenery, or at the least
a memorial statue. The little wooden houses of the

2i8 The Land of Contrasts

coloured squatters that used to alternate freely with the
statelier mansions of officialdom are now rapidly disap
pearing ; and some, perhaps, will regret the obliteration
of the element of picturesqueness suggested in the
quaint contrast. The absence of the wealth-suggesting
but artistically somewhat sordid accompaniments of a
busy industrialism also contributes to Washington's
position as one of the most singularly handsome cities
on the globe. Among the other striking features of the
American capital is the Washington Memorial, a huge
obelisk raising its metal-tipped apex to a height of five
hundred and fifty-five feet. There are those who
consider this a meaningless pile of masonry; but the
writer sympathises rather with the critics who find it,
in its massive and heaven-reaching simplicity, a fit
counterpart to the Capitol and one of the noblest monu
ments ever raised to mortal man. When gleaming in
the westering sun, like a slender, tapering, sky-pointing
finger of gold, no finer index can be imagined to direct
the gazer to the record of a glorious history. Near the
monument is the White House, a building which, in its
modest yet adequate dimensions, embodies the demo
cratic ideal more fitly, it may be feared, than certain
other phases of the Great Republic. Without catalogu
ing the other public buildings of Washington, we may
quit it with a glow of patriotic fervour over the fact that
the Smithsonian Institute here, one of the most important
scientific institutions in the world, was founded by an
Englishman, who, so far as is known, never even visited
the United States, but left his large fortune for " the
increase and diffusion of knowledge among men," to the
care of that country with whose generous and popular
principles he was most in sympathy.

XII
Baedekeriana

THIS chapter deals with subjects related to the
tourist and the guidebook, and with certain
points of a more personal nature connected
with the preparation of u Baedeker's Handbook
to the United States." Readers uninterested in topics
of so practical and commonplace a character will do well
to skip it altogether.

When the scheme of publishing a " Baedeker " to the
United States was originally entertained, the first thought
was to invite an American to write the book for us. On
more mature deliberation it was, however, decided that
a member of our regular staff would, perhaps, do the
work equally well, inasmuch as he would combine, with
actual experience in the art of guidebook making, the
stranger's point of view, and thus the more acutely
realise, by experiment in his own corpus vile, the points
on which the ignorant European would require advice,
warning, or assistance. So far as my own voice had
aught to do with this decision, I have to confess that I
severely grudged the interesting task to an outsider.
The opportunity of making a somewhat extensive survey
of the country that stood preeminently for the modern
ideas of democracy and progress was a peculiarly grate
ful one ; and I even contrived to infuse (for my own
consumption) a spice of the ideal into the homely brew

219

22O The Land of Contrasts

of the guidebook by reflecting that it would contribute
(so far as it went) to that mutual knowledge, intimacy
of which is perhaps all that is necessary to ensure true
friendship between the two great Anglo-Saxon powers.

While thus reserving the editing of the book for one
of our own household, we realised thoroughly that no
approach to completeness would be attainable without
the cooperation of the Americans themselves ; and I
welcome this opportunity to reiterate my keen apprecia
tion of the open-handed and open-minded way in which
this was accorded. Besides the signed articles by men
of letters and science in the introductory part of the
handbook, I have to acknowledge thousands of other
kindly offices and useful hints, many of which hardly
allow themselves to be classified or defined, but all of
which had their share in producing aught of good that
the volume may contain. So many Americans have
used their Baedekers in Europe that I found troops of
ready-made sympathisers, who, half-interested, half-
amused, at the attempt to Baedekerise their own con
tinent, knew pretty well what was wanted, and were
able to put me on the right track for procuring informa
tion. Indeed, the book could hardly have been written
but for these innumerable streams of disinterested assist
ance, which enabled the writer so to economise his time
as to finish his task before the part first written was en
tirely obsolete.

The process of change in the United States goes on so
rapidly that the attempt of a guidebook to keep abreast
of the times (not easy in any country) becomes almost
futile. The speed with which Denver metamorphosed
her outward appearance has already been commented on

Baedekeriana 221

at page 214 ; and this is but one instance in a thousand.
Towns spring up literally in a night. McGregor in
Texas, at the junction of two new railways, had twelve
houses the day after it was fixed upon as a town site,
and in two months contained five hundred souls. Towns
may also disappear in a night, as Johnstown (Penn.)
was swept away by the bursting of a dam on May 31,
1889, or as Chicago was destroyed by the great fire of
1871. These are simply exaggerated examples of what
is happening less obtrusively all the time. The means
of access to points of interest are constantly changing ;
the rough horse-trail of to-day becomes the stage-road of
to-morrow and the railway of the day after. The con
servative clinging to the old, so common in Europe, has
no place in the New World ; an apparently infinitesimal
advantage will occasion a bouleversement that is by no
means infinitesimal.

Next to the interest and beauty of the places to be
visited, perhaps the two things in which a visitor to a
new country has most concern are the means of moving
from point to point and the accommodation provided
for him at his nightly stopping-places — in brief, its con
veyances and its inns. During the year or more I spent
in almost continuous travelling in the United States I
had abundant opportunity of testing both of these. In
all I must have slept in over two hundred different beds,
ranging from one in a hotel-chamber so gorgeous that it
seemed almost as indelicate to go to bed in it as to un
dress in the drawing-room, down through the berths of
Pullman cars and river steamboats, to an open-air couch
of balsam boughs in the Adirondack forests. My means
of locomotion included a safety bicycle, an Adirondack

222 The Land of Contrasts

canoe, the back of a horse, the omnipresent buggy, a
bob-sleigh, a "cutter," a " booby," four-horse "stages,"
river, lake, and sea-going steamers, horse-cars, cable-cars,
electric cars, mountain elevators, narrow-gauge railways,
and the Vestibuled Limited Express from New York to
Chicago.

Perhaps it is significant of the amount of truth in
many of the assertions made about travelling in the
United States that I traversed about 35,000 miles in
the various ways indicated above without a scratch and
almost without serious detention or delay. Once we
were nearly swamped in a sudden squall in a mountain
lake, and once we had a minute or two's pleasant expe
rience of the iron-shod heels of our horse inside the
buggy, the unfortunate animal having hitched his hind-
legs over the dash-board and nearly kicking out our
brains in his frantic efforts to get free. These, however,
were accidents that might have happened anywhere, and
if my experiences by road and rail in America prove
anything, they prove that travelling in the United
States is just as safe as in Europe.1 Some varieties of
it are rougher than anything of the kind I know in the
Old World ; but on the other hand much of it is far
pleasanter. The European system of small railway
compartments, in spite of its advantage of privacy and
quiet, would be simply unendurable in the long journeys
that have to be made in the western hemisphere. The

1 Lady Theodora Guest, sister of the Duke of Westminster, in her book,
" A Round Trip in North America," bears the same testimony : " Over eleven
thousand miles of railway travelling and miles untold of driving besides, with
out an accident or a semblance of one. No contretemps of any kind, except
the little delay at Hope from the 'washout,' which did not matter the least;
lovely weather, and universal kindness and courtesy from man, woman, and
child."

Baedekeriana 223

journey of twenty-four to thirty hours from New York to
Chicago, if made by the Vestibuled Limited, is probably
less fatiguing than the day-journey of half the time from
London to Edinburgh. The comforts of this superb
train include those of the drawing-room, the dining-
room, the smoking-room, and the library. These apart
ments are perfectly ventilated by compressed air and
lighted by movable electric lights, while in winter they
are warmed to an agreeable temperature by steam-pipes.
Card-tables and a selection of the daily papers minister
to the traveller's amusement, while bulletin boards give
the latest Stock Exchange quotations and the reports of
the Government Weather Bureau. Those who desire it
may enjoy a bath en route, or avail themselves of the
services of a lady's maid, a barber, a stenographer, and
a type-writer. There is even a small and carefully
selected medicine chest within reach; and the way in
which the minor delicacies of life are consulted may be
illustrated by the fact that powdered soap is provided in
the lavatories, so that no one may have to use the same
cake of soap as his neighbour.

No one who has not tried both can appreciate the
immense difference in comfort given by the opportunity
to move about in the train. No matter how pleasant
one's companions are in an English first-class compart
ment, their enforced proximity makes one heartily sick
of them before many hours have elapsed ; while a con
versation with Daisy Miller in the American parlour car
is rendered doubly delightful by the consciousness that
you may at any moment transfer yourself and your bons
mots to Lydia Blood at the other end of the car, or retire
with Gilead P. Beck to the snug little smoking-room.

224 The Land of Contrasts

The great size and weight of the American cars make
them very steady on well-laid tracks like those of the
Pennsylvania Railway, and thus letter-writing need not
be a lost art on a railway journey. Even when the per
manent way is inferior, the same cause often makes the
vibration less than on the admirable road-beds of_ Eng
land.

Theoretically, there is no distinction of classes on an
American railway; practically, there is whenever the
line is important enough or the journey long enough to
make it worth while. The parlour car corresponds to our
first class ; and its use has this advantage (rather curious
in a democratic country), that the increased fare for its
admirable comforts is relatively very low, usually (in
my experience) not exceeding \d. a mile. The ordinary
fare from New York to Boston (220 to 250 miles) is 15
(<£!) ; a seat in a parlour car costs $1 (4s.), and a sleeping-
berth $1.50 (6s.). Thus the ordinary passenger pays at
the rate of about \\d. per mile, while the luxury of the
Pullman may be obtained for an additional expenditure
of just about $d. a mile. The extra fare on even the
Chicago Vestibuled Limited is only $8 (32s.) for 912
miles, or considerably less than %d. a mile. These rates
are not only less than the difference between first-class
and third-class fares in Europe, but also compare very
advantageously with the rates for sleeping-berths on
European lines, being usually 50 to 75 per cent, lower.
The parlour-car rates, however, increase considerably as
we go on towards the West and get into regions where
competition is less active. A good instance of this is
afforded by the parlour-car fares of the Canadian Pacific
Railway, which I select because it spans the continent

Baedekeriana 225

with its own rails from the Atlantic to the Pacific ; the
principle on the United States lines is similar. The
price of a " sleeper " ticket from Montreal to Fort Will
iam (998 miles) is $6, or about f d. per mile ; that from
Banff to Vancouver (560 miles) is the same, or at the
rate of about \%d. per mile. The rate for the whole
journey from Halifax to Vancouver (3,362 miles) is
about %d. per mile.

Travellers who prefer the privacy of the European
system may combine it with the liberty of the American
system by hiring, at a small extra rate, the so-called
" drawing-room " or " state-room," a small compartment
containing four seats or berths, divided by partitions
from the rest of the parlour car. The ordinary carriage or
"day coach " corresponds to the English second-class car
riage, or, rather, to the excellent third-class carriages on
such railways as the Midland. It does not, I think, excel
them in comfort except in the greater size, the greater
liberty of motion, and the element of variety afforded by
the greater number of fellow-passengers. The seats are
disposed on each side of a narrow central aisle, and are
so arranged that the occupants can ride forward or back
ward as they prefer. Each seat holds two persons, but
with some difficulty if either has any amplitude of bulk.
The space for the legs is also very limited. The chief
discomfort, however, is the fact that there is no support
for the head and shoulders, though this disability might
be easily remedied by a movable head-rest. Very little
provision is made for hand luggage, the American cus
tom being to " check " anything checkable and have it
put in the " baggage car." Rugs are entirely superflu
ous, as the cars are far more likely to be too warm than

226 The Land of Contrasts

too cold. The windows are usually another weak point.
They move vertically as ours do, but up instead of down ;
and they are frequently made so that they cannot be
opened more than a few inches. The handles by which
they are lifted are very small, and afford very little pur
chase ; and the windows are frequently so stiff that it
requires a strong man to move them. I have often seen
half a dozen passengers struggle in vain with a refrac
tory glass, and finally have to call in the help of the
brawny brakeman. This difficulty, however, is of less
consequence from the fact that even if you can open
your window, there is sure to be some one among your
forty or fifty fellow-passengers who objects to the
draught. Or if you object to the draught of a window
in front of you, you have either to grin and bear it or
do violence to your British diffidence in requesting its
closure. The windows are all furnished with small
slatted blinds, which can be arranged in hot weather so
as to exclude the sun and let in the air. The conductor
communicates with the engine-driver by a bell-cord sus
pended from the roof of the carriages and running
throughout the entire length of the train. It is well to
remember that this tempting clothes-rope is not meant
for hanging up one's overcoat. Whatever be the reason,
the plague of cinders from the locomotive smoke is often
much worse in America than in England. As we pro
ceed, they patter on the roof like hailstones, in a way
that is often very trying to the nerves, and they not un-
frequently make open windows a doubtful blessing, even
on immoderately warm days. At intervals the brake
man carries round a pitcher of iced water, which he
serves gratis to all who want it; and it is a pleasant

Baedekeriana 227

sight on sultry summer days to see how the children
welcome his coming. In some cases there is a perma
nent filter of ice-water with a tap in a corner of the car.
At each end of the car is a lavatory, one for men and
one for women. In spite, then, of the discomforts noted
above, it may be asserted that the poor man is more com
fortable on a long journey than in Europe ; and that on
a short journey the American system affords more enter
tainment than the European. When Richard Grant
White announced his preference for the English system
because it preserves the traveller's individuality, looks
after his personal comfort, and carries all his baggage,
he must have forgotten that it is practically first-class
passengers only who reap the benefit of those advantages.

One most unpleasantly suggestive equipment of an
American railway carriage is the axe and crowbar sus
pended on the wall for use in an accident. This makes
one reflect that there are only two doors in an American
car containing sixty people, whereas the same number
of passengers in Europe would have six, eight, or even
ten. This is extremely inconvenient in crowded trains
(e.g., in the New York Elevated), and might conceivably
add immensely to the horrors of an accident. The latter
reflection is emphasised by the fact that there are practi
cally no soft places to fall on, sharp angles presenting
themselves on every side, and the very arm-rests of the
seats being made of polished iron.

There is always a smoking-car attached to the train,
generally immediately after the locomotive or luggage
van. Labourers in their working clothes and the
shabbily clad in general are apt to select this car, which
thus practically takes the place of third-class carriages

228 The Land of Contrasts

on European railways. On the long-distance trains
running to the West there are emigrant cars which also
represent our third-class cars, while the same function
is performed in the South by the cars reserved for
coloured passengers. In a few instances the trains are
made up of first-class and second-class carriages actually
so named. A " first-class ticket," however, in ordinary
language means one for the universal day-coach as above
described.

The ticket system differs somewhat from that in vogue
in Europe, and rather curious developments have been
the result. For short journeys the ticket often resembles
the small oblong of pasteboard with which we are all
familiar. For longer journeys it consists of a narrow
strip of coupons, sometimes nearly two feet in length.
If this is " unlimited " it is available at any time until
used, and the holder may " stop over " at any interme
diate station. The " limited " and cheaper ticket is
available for a continuous passage only, and does not
allow of any stoppages en route. The coupons are col
lected in the cars by the conductors in charge of the
various sections of the line. The skill shown by these
officials, passing through a long and crowded train after
a stoppage, in recognising the newcomers and asking for
their tickets, is often very remarkable. Sometimes the
conductor gives a coloured counter-check to enable him
to recognise the sheep whom he has already shorn.
These checks are generally placed in the hat-band or
stuck in the back of the seat. The conductor collects
them just before he hands over the train to the charge
of his successor. As many complaints are made by
English travellers of the incivility of American con-

Baedekeriana 229

ductors, I may say that the first conductor I met found
me, when he was on his rounds to collect his counter
checks, lolling Lack on my seat, with my hat high above
me in the rack. I made a motion as if to get up for it,
when he said, "Pray don't disturb yourself, sir; I'll
reach up for it." Not all the conductors I met after
wards were as polite as this, but he has as good a right
to pose as the type of American conductor as the over
bearing ruffians who stalk through the books of sundry
British tourists. In judging him it should be remem
bered that he democratically feels himself on a level
with his passengers, that he would be insulted by the
offer of a tip, that he is harassed all day long by hun
dreds of foolish questions from foolish travellers, that
he has a great deal to do in a limited time, and that
however " short " he may be with a male passenger he
is almost invariably courteous and considerate to the
unprotected female. Though his address may some
times sound rather familiar, he means no disrespect ; and
if he takes a fancy to you and offers you a cigar, you
need not feel insulted, and will probably find he smokes
a better brand than your own.

A feature connected with the American railway
system that should not be overlooked is the mass of
literature prepared by the railway companies and dis
tributed gratis to their passengers. The illustrated
pamphlets issued by the larger companies are marvels of
paper and typography, with really charming illustrations
and a text that is often clever and witty enough to
suggest that authors of repute are sometimes tempted to
lend their anonymous pens for this kind of work. But
even the tiniest little "one-horse" railway distributes

230 The Land of Contrasts

neat little " folders," showing conclusively that its
tracks lead through the Elysian Fields and end at the
Garden of Eden. A conspicuous feature in all hotel
offices is a large rack containing packages of these gaily
coloured folders, contributed by perhaps fifty different
railways for the use of the hotel guests.

Owing to the unlimited time for which tickets are
available, and to other causes, a race of dealers in rail
way tickets has sprung up, who rejoice in the euphonious
name of " scalpers," and often do a roaring trade in sell
ing tickets at less than regular fares. Thus, if the fare
from A to B be $10 and the return fare $15, it is often
possible to obtain the half of a return ticket from a
scalper for about $8. Or a man setting out for a journey
of 100 miles buys a through ticket to the terminus of
the line, which may be 400 miles distant. On this
through ticket he pays a proportionally lower rate for
the distance he actually travels, and sells the balance of
his ticket to a scalper. Or if a man wishes to go from
A to B and finds that a special excursion ticket there
and back is being sold at a single fare ($10), he may use
the half of this ticket and sell the other half to a
scalper in B. It is obvious that anything he can get
for it will be a gain to him, while the scalper could
afford to give up to about $7 for it, though he probably
will not give more than $4. The profession of scalper
may, however, very probably prove an evanescent one,
as vigorous efforts are being made to suppress him by
legislative enactment.

Americans often claim that the ordinary railway-fare
in the United States is less than in England, amounting
only to 2 cents (Id.) per mile. My experience, how-

Baedekeriana

231

ever, leads me to say that this assertion cannot be
accepted without considerable deduction. It is true
that in many States (including all the Eastern ones)
there is a statutory fare of 2 cents per mile, but this
(so far as I know) is not always granted for ordinary
single or double tickets, but only on season, " commuta
tion," or mileage tickets. The " commutation " tickets
are good for a certain number of trips. The mileage
tickets are books of small coupons, each of which repre
sents a mile ; the conductor tears out as many coupons
as the passenger has travelled miles. This mileage
system is an extrehiely convenient one for (say) a
family, as the books are good until exhausted, and the
coupons are available on any train (with possibly one or
two exceptions) on any part of the system of the com
pany issuing the ticket. Which of our enlightened
British companies is going to be the first to win the
hearts of its patrons by the adoption of this neat and
easy device? Out West and down South the fares for
ordinary tickets purchased at the station are often much
higher than 2 cents a mile; on one short and very
inferior line I traversed the rate was 7 cents (3£d.) per
mile. I find that Mr. W. M. Acworth calculates the
average fare in the United States as IJd. per mile as
against \\d. in Great Britain. Professor Hadley, an
American authority, gives the rates as 2.35 cents and 2
cents respectively.

British critics would, perhaps, be more lenient in their
animadversions on American railways, if they would
more persistently bear in mind the great difference in the
conditions under which railways have been constructed
in the Old and the New World. In England, for example,

232 The Land of Contrasts

the railway came after the thick settlement of a district,
and has naturally had to pay dearly for its privileges, and
to submit to stringent conditions in regard to construc
tion and maintenance. In the United States, on the
other hand, the railways were often the first roads (hence
T&ilroad is the American name for them) in a new dis
trict, the inhabitants of which were glad to get them on
almost any terms. Hence the cheap and provisional
nature of many of the lines, and the numerous deadly
level crossings. The land grants and other privileges
accorded to the railway companies may be fairly com
pared to the road tax which we willingly submit to in
England as the just price of an invaluable boon. This
reflection, however, need not be carried so far as to cover
with a mantle of justice all the railway concessions of
America !

Two things in the American parlour-car system struck
me as evils that were not only unnecessary, but easily
avoidable. The first of these is that most illiberal regu
lation which compels the porter to let down the upper
berth even when it is not occupied. The object of this
is apparently to induce the occupant of the lower berth
to hire the whole " section " of two berths, so as to have
more ventilation and more room for dressing and un
dressing. Presumably the parlour-car companies know
their own business best ; but it would seem to the aver
age "Britisher" that such a petty spirit of annoyance
would be likely to do more harm than good, even in a
financial way. The custom would be more excusable if
it were confined to those cases in which two people
shared the lower berth. The custom is so unlike the
usual spirit of the United States, where the practice is

Baedekeriana 233

to charge a liberal round sum and then relieve you of all
minor annoyances and exactions, that its persistence is
somewhat of a mystery.

The continuance of the other evil I allude to is still
less comprehensible. The United States is proverbially
the paradise of what it is, perhaps, now behind the times
to term the gentler sex. The path of woman, old or new,
in America is made smooth in all directions, and as a
rule she has the best of the accommodation and the lion's
share of the attention wherever she goes. But this is
emphatically not the case on the parlour car. No attempt
is made there to divide the sexes or to respect the privacy
of a lady. If there are twelve men and four women on
the car, the latter are not grouped by themselves, but
are scattered among the men, either in lower or upper
berths, as the number of their tickets or the courtesy of
the men dictates. The lavatory and dressing-room for
men at one end of the car has two or more " set bowls "
(fixed in basins), and can be used by several dressers at
once. The parallel accommodation for ladies barely
holds one, and its door is provided with a lock, which
enables a selfish bang-frizzier and rouge-layer to occupy
it for an hour while a queue of her unhappy sisters
remains outside. It is difficult to see why a small por
tion at one end of the car should not be reserved for
ladies, and separated at night from the rest of the car by
a curtain across the central aisle. Of course the passage
of the railway officials could not be hindered, but the
masculine passengers might very well be confined for
the night to entrance and egress at their own end of the
car. An improvement in the toilette accommodation for
ladies also seems a not unreasonable demand.

234 The Land of Contrasts

Miss Catherine Bates, in her " Year in the Great
Republic," narrates the case of a man who was nearly
suffocated by the fact that a slight collision jarred the
lid of the top berth in which he was sleeping and snapped
it to ! This story may be true ; but in the only top
berths which I know the occupant lies upon the lid,
which, to close, would have to spring upwards against
his weight!

A third nuisance, or combination of benefit and nui
sance, or benefit with a very strong dash of avoidable
nuisance, is the train boy. This young gentleman,
whose age varies from fifteen to fifty, though usually
nearer the former than the latter, is one of the most
conspicuous of the embryo forms of the great American
speculator or merchant. He occupies with his stock in
trade a corner in the baggage car or end carriage of the
train, and makes periodical rounds throughout the cars,
offering his wares for sale. These are of the most vari
ous description, ranging from the daily papers and cur
rent periodicals through detective stories and tales of
the Wild West, to chewing-gum, pencils, candy, bananas,
skull-caps, fans, tobacco, and cigars. His pleasing way
is to perambulate the cars, leaving samples of his wares
on all the seats and afterwards calling for orders. He
does this with supreme indifference to the occupation of
the passenger. Thus, you settle yourself comfortably
for a nap, and are just succumbing to the drowsy god,
when you feel yourself " taken in the abdomen," not
(fortunately) by " a chunk of old red sandstone," but
by the latest number of the Illustrated American or
Scribner's Monthly. The rounds are so frequent that
the door of the car never seems to cease banging or the

Baedekeriana 235

cold draughts to cease blowing in on your .bald head.
Mr. Phil Robinson makes the very sensible suggestion
that the train boy should have a little printed list of his
wares which he could distribute throughout the train,
whereupon the traveller could send for him when
wanted. Another suggestion that I venture to present
to this independent young trader is that he should pro
vide himself with copies of the novels treating of the
districts which the railway traverses. Thus, when I
tried to procure from him " Ramona " in California, or
" The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains " in
Tennessee, or " The Hoosier Schoolmaster " in Ohio, or
" The Grandissimes " near New Orleans, the nearest he
could come to my modest demand was " The Kreutzer
Sonata " or the last effort of Miss Laura Jean Libbey, a
popular American novelist, who describes in glowing
colours how two aristocratic Englishmen, fighting a duel
near London somewhere in the seventies, were inter
rupted by the heroine, who drove between them in a
hansom and pair and received the shots in its panels !
Out West, too, he could probably put more money in
his pocket if he were disposed to put his pride there too.
One pert youth in Arizona preferred to lose my order
for cigars rather than bring the box to me for selection ;
he said " he'd be darned if he'd sling boxes around for
me ; I could come and choose for myself." However,
when criticism has been exhausted it is an undeniable
fact that the American Pullman cars are more comfort-
able and considerably cheaper than the so-called comparti-
ments de luxe of European railways.

It is, perhaps, worth noting that the comfort of the
engine-driver, or engineer as he is called linyud Amen-

236 The Land of Contrasts

cand, is much better catered for in the United States
than in England. His cab is protected both overhead
and at the sides, while his bull's-eye window permits
him to look ahead without receiving the wind, dust, and
snow in his eyes. The curious English conservatism
which, apparently, believes that a driver will do his work
better because exposed to almost the full violence of the
elements always excites a very natural surprise in the
American visitor to our shores.

The speed of American trains is as a rule slower than
that of English ones, though there are some brilliant
exceptions to this rule. I never remember dawdling
along in so slow and apparently purposeless a manner
as in crossing the arid deserts of Arizona — unless,
indeed, it was in travelling by the Manchester and Mil-
ford line in Wales. The train on the branch between
Raymond (a starting-point for the Yosemite) and the
main line went so cannily that the engine-driver (an
excellent marksman) shot rabbits from the engine, while
the fireman jumped down, picked them up, and
clambered on again at the end of the train. The only
time the train had to be stopped for him was when the
engineer had a successful right and left, the victims of
which expired at some distance from each other. It
should be said that there was absolutely no reason to
hurry on this trip, as we had " lashins " of time to spare
for our connection at the junction, and the passengers
were all much interested in the sport.

At the other end of the scale are the trains which run
from New York to Philadelphia (90 miles) in two hours,
the train of the Reading Railway that makes the run
of 55 miles from Camden to Atlantic City in 52 minutes,

Baedekeriana 237

and the Empire State Express which runs from New
York to Buffalo (436 J miles) at the rate of over 50
miles an hour, including stops. These, however, are
exceptional, and the traveller may find that trains known
as the " Greased Lightning," " Cannon Ball," or " G-
Whizz " do not exceed (if they even attain) 40 miles an
hour. The possibility of speed on an American railway
is shown by the record run of 436£ miles in 6J hours,
made on the New York Central Railroad in 1895
(= 64.22 miles per hour, exclusive of stops), and by the
run of 148.8 miles in 137 minutes, made on the same
railway in 1897. The longest unbroken runs of regular
trains are one of 146 miles on the Chicago Limited train
on the Pennsylvania route, and one of 143 miles by the
New York Central Railway running up the Hudson to
Albany. As experts will at once recognise, these are
feats which compare well with anything done on this
side of the Atlantic.

In the matter of accidents the comparison with Great
Britain is not so overwhelmingly unfavourable as is some
times supposed. If, indeed, we accept the figures given
by Mullhall in his " Dictionary of Statistics," we have
to admit that the proportion of accidents is five times
greater in the United States than in the United King
dom. The statistics collected by the Railroad Commis
sioners of Massachusetts, however, reduce this ratio to
five to four. The safety of railway travelling differs
hugely in different parts of the country. Thus Mr. E.
B. Dorsey shows (" English and American Railways
Compared ") that the average number of miles a pas
senger can travel in Massachusetts without being killed
is 503,568,188, while in the United Kingdom the num-

238 The Land of Contrasts

ber is only 172,965,362, leaving a very comfortable
margin of over 300,000,000 miles. On the whole, how
ever, it cannot be denied that there are more accidents
in American railway travelling than in European, and
very many of them from easily preventable causes.
The whole spirit of the American continent in such
matters is more " casual " than that of Europe ; the
American is more willing to " chance it ; " the patri
archal regime is replaced by the every-man-for-himself-
and-devil-take-the-hindmost system. When I hired a
horse to ride up a somewhat giddy path to the top of a
mountain, I was supplied (without warning) with a young
animal that had just arrived from the breeding farm and
had never even seen a mountain. Many and curious,
when I regained my hotel, were the enquiries as to how
he had behaved himself ; and it was no thanks to them
that I could report that, though rather frisky on the
road, he had sobered down in the most sagacious man
ner when we struck the narrow upward trail. In
America the railway passenger has to look out for him
self. There is no checking of tickets before starting to
obviate the risk of being in the wrong train. There is
no porter to carry the traveller's hand-baggage and see
him comfortably ensconced in the right carriage. When
the train does start, it glides away silently without any
warning bell, and it is easy for an inadvertent traveller
to be left behind. Even in large and important stations
there is often no clear demarcation between the plat
forms and the permanent way. The whole floor of the
station is on one level, and the rails are flush with the
spot from which you climb into the car. Overhead
bridges or subways are practically unknown ; and the

Baedekeriana 239

arriving passenger has often to cross several lines of rails
before reaching shore. The level crossing is, perhaps,
inevitable at the present stage of railroad development
in the United States, but its annual butcher's bill is so
huge that one cannot help feeling it might be better
safeguarded. Richard Grant White tells how he said to
the station-master at a small wayside station in England,
d propos of an overhead footbridge : " Ah, I suppose
you had an accident through someone crossing the line,
and then erected that ? " u Oh, no," was the reply, " we
don't wait for an accident." Mr. White makes the com
ment, " The trouble in America :'s that we do wait for the
accident."

When I left England in September, 1888, we sailed
down the Mersey on one of those absolutely perfect
autumn days, the very memory of which is a continual
joy. I remarked on the beauty of the weather to an
American fellow-passenger. He replied, half in fun,
" Yes, this is good enough for England ; but wait till
you see our American weather ! " As luck would have
it, it was raining heavily when we steamed up New
York harbour, and the fog was so dense that we could
not see the statue of Liberty Enlightening the World,
though we passed close under it. The same American
passenger had expatiated to me during the voyage on
the merits of the American express service. " You have
no trouble with porters and cabs, as in the Old World ;
you simply point out your trunks to an express agent,
give him your address, take his receipt, and you will
probably find your trunks at the house when you
arrive." We reached New York on a Saturday ; I con
fidently handed over my trunk to a representative of

240 The Land of Contrasts

the Transfer Company about 9 A.M., hied to my friend's
house in Brooklyn, and saw and heard nothing more of
my trunk till Monday morning !

Such was the way in which two of my most cherished
beliefs about America were dissipated almost before I
set foot upon her free and sacred soil ! It is, however,
only fair to say that if I had assumed these experiences
to be really characteristic, I should have made a grievous
mistake. It is true that I afterwards experienced a
good many stormy days in the United States, and found
that the predominant weather in all parts of the country
was, to judge from my apologetic hosts, the "excep
tional ; " but none the less I revelled in the bright blue,
clear, sunny days with which America is so abundantly
blessed, and came to sympathise veiy deeply with the
depression that sometimes overtakes the American exile
during his sojourn on our fog-bound coasts. So, too, I
found the express system on the whole what our friend
Artemus Ward calls "a sweet boon." Certainly it is
as a rule necessary, in starting from a private house, to
have one's luggage ready an hour or so before one starts
one's self, and this is hardly so convenient as a hansom
with you inside and your portmanteau on top; and
it is also true that there is sometimes (especially in
New York) a certain delay in the delivery of one's
belongings. In nine cases out of ten, however, it
was a great relief to get rid of the trouble of taking
your luggage to or from the station, and feel your
self free to meet it at your own time and will. It
was not often that I was reduced to such straits as
on one occasion in Brooklyn, when, at the last moment,
I had to charter a green-grocer's van and drive down

Baedekeriana 241

to the station in it, triumphantly seated on my port
manteau.

The check system on the railway itself deserves
almost unmitigated praise, and only needs to be under
stood to be appreciated. On arrival at the station the
traveller hands over his impedimenta to the baggage
master, who fastens a small metal disk, bearing the
destination and a number, to each package, and gives the
owner a duplicate check. The railway company then
becomes responsible for the luggage, and holds it until
reclaimed by presentation of the duplicate check. This
system avoids on the one hand the chance of loss and
trouble in claiming characteristic of the British system,
and on the other the waste of time and expense of the
Continental system of printed paper tickets. On arrival
at his destination the traveller may hurry to his hotel
without a moment's delay, after handing his check either
to the hotel porter or to the so-called transfer agent,
who usually passes through the train as it reaches an
important station, undertaking the delivery of trunks
and giving receipts in exchange for checks.

Besides the city express or transfer companies, the
chief duty of which is to convey luggage from the
traveller's residence to the railway station or vice versa,
there are also the large general express companies or
carriers, which send articles all over the United States.
One of the most characteristic of these is the Adams
Express Company, the widely known name of which has
originated a popular conundrum with the query, " Why
was Eve created? " This company began in 1840 with
two men, a boy, and a wheelbarrow ; now it employs
8,000 men and 2,000 wagons, and carries parcels over

242 The Land of Contrasts

25,000 miles of railway. The Wells, Fargo & Company
Express operates over 40,000 miles of railway.

Coaching in America is, as a rule, anything but a
pleasure. It is true that the chance of being held up
by " road agents" is to-day practically non-existent, and
that the spectacle of a crowd of yelling Apaches making
a stage-coach the pin-cushion for their arrows is now to
be seen nowhere but in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show.
But the roads ! No European who has done much driv
ing in the United States can doubt for one moment that
the required Man of the Hour is General Wade.1 Even
in the State of New York I have been in a stage that
was temporarily checked by a hole two feet deep in the
centre of the road, and that had to be emptied and held
up while passing another part of the same road. In Vir
ginia I drove over a road, leading to one of the most fre
quented resorts of the State, which it is simple truth to
state offered worse going than any ordinary ploughed
field. The wheels were often almost entirely submerged
in liquid mud, and it is still a mystery to me how the
tackle held together. To be jolted off one's seat so vio
lently as to strike the top of the carriage was not a
unique experience. Nor was the spending of ten hours
in making thirty miles with four horses. In the Yellow
stone one of the coaches of our party settled down in
the midst of a slough of despond on the highway, from
which it was finally extricated backwards by the com
bined efforts of twelve horses borrowed from the other
coaches. Misery makes strange bedfellows, and the
ingredients of a Christmas pudding are not more thor-

1 " Had you seen but these roads before they were made,
You would hold up your hands and bless General Wade."

Baedekeriana 243

oughly shaken together or more inextricably mingled
than stage-coach passengers in America are apt to be.
The difficulties of the roads have developed the skill,
courage, and readiness of the stage-coach men to an
extraordinary degree, and I have never seen bolder or
more dexterous driving than when California Bill or
Colorado Jack rushed his team of four young horses
down the breakneck slopes of these terrible highways.
After one particularly hair-raising descent the driver
condescended to explain that he was afraid to come down
more slowly, lest the hind wheels should skid on the
smooth rocky outcrop in the road and swing the vehicle
sideways into the abyss. In coming out of the Yosemite,
owing to some disturbance of the ordinary traffic arrange
ments our coach met the incoming stage at a part of the
road so narrow that it seemed absolutely impossible for
the two to pass each other. On the one side was a
yawning precipice, on the other the mountain rose steeply
from the roadside. The off-wheels of the incoming coach
were tilted up on the hillside as far as they could be
without an upset. In vain ; our hubs still locked. We
were then allowed to dismount. Our coach was backed
down for fifty yards or so. Small heaps of stones were
piled opposite the hubs of the stationary coach. Our
driver whipped his horses to a gallop, ran his near-wheels
over these stones so that their hubs were raised above
those of the near-wheels of the other coach, and success
fully made the dare-devil passage, in which he had not
more than a couple of inches' margin to save him from
precipitation into eternity. I hardly knew which to
admire most — the ingenuity which thus made good in
altitude what it lacked in latitude, or the phlegm with

244 The Land of Contrasts

which the occupants of the other coach retained their
seats throughout the entire episode.

The Englishman arriving in Boston, say in the middle
of the lovely autumnal weather of November, will be
surprised to find a host of workmen in the Common
and Public Garden busily engaged in laying down
miles of portable " plank paths " or " board walks," ele
vated three or four inches above the level of the ground.
A little later, when the snowy season has well set in, he
will discover the usefulness of these apparently super
fluous planks ; and he will hardly be astonished to learn,
that the whole of the Northern States are covered in
winter with a network of similar paths. These gang
ways are made in sections and numbered, so that when
they are withdrawn from their summer seclusion they
can be laid down with great precision and expedition.
No statistician, so far as I know, has calculated the
total length of the plank paths of an American winter ;
but I have not the least doubt that they would reach
from the earth to the moon, if not to one of the planets.

The river and lake steamboats of the United
States are on the average distinctly better than any I
am acquainted with elsewhere. The much-vaunted
splendours of such Scottish boats as the "lona" and
" Columba " sink into insignificance when compared
with the wonderful vessels of the line plying from New
York to Fall River. These steamers deserve the name
of floating hotel or palace much more than even the
finest ocean-liner, because to their sumptuous appoint
ments they add the fact that they are, except under
very occasional circumstances, floating palaces and not
reeling or tossing ones. The only hotel to which I can

Baedekeriana 245

honestly compare the " Campania " is the one at San
Francisco in which I experienced my first earthquake.
But even the veriest landsman of them all can enjoy the
passage of Long Island Sound in one of these stately
and stable vessels, whether sitting indoors listening to
the excellent band in one of the spacious drawing-
rooms in which there is absolutely no rude reminder of
the sea, or on deck on a cool summer night watching
the lights of New York gradually vanish in the black
wake, or the moon riding triumphantly as queen of the
heavenly host, and the innumerable twinkling beacons
that safeguard our course. And when he retires to his
cabin, pleasantly wearied by the glamour of the night
and soothed by the supple stability of his floating home,
he will find his bed and his bedroom twice as large as
he enjoyed on the Atlantic, and may let the breeze
enter, undeterred by fear of intruding wave or breach
of regulation. If he takes a meal on board he will
find the viands as well cooked and as dexterously
served as in a fashionable restaurant on shore ; he may
have, should he desire it, all the elbow-room of a sepa
rate table, and nothing will suggest to him the con
fined limits of the cook's galley or the rough-and-ready
ways of marine cookery.

Little inferior to the Fall River boats are those which
ascend the Hudson from New York to Albany, one of
the finest river voyages in the world ; and worthy to
be compared with these are the Lake Superior steamers
of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Among the special
advantages of these last are the device by which meals
are served in the fresh atmosphere of what is practically
the upper deck, the excellent service of the neat lads

246 The Land of Contrasts

who officiate as waiters and are said to be often college
students turning an honest summer penny, and the
frequent presence in the bill of fare of the Coregonus
clupeiformis, or Lake Superior whitefish, one of the
most toothsome morsels of the deep. Most of the other
steamboat lines by which I travelled in the United
States and Canada seemed to me as good as could be
expected under the circumstances. There is, however,
certainly room for improvement in some of the boats
which ply on the St. Lawrence, and the Alaska service
will probably grow steadily better with the growing rush
of tourists.

Another wonderful instance of British conservatism is
the way in which we have stuck to the horrors of our
own ferry-boat system long after America has shown us
the way to cross a ferry comfortably. It is true that the
American steam ferry-boats are not so graceful as ours,
looking as they do like Noah's arks or floating houses,
and being propelled by the grotesque daddy-long-leg
like arrangement of the walking-beam engine. They
are, however, far more suitable for their purpose. The
steamer as originally developed was, I take it, intended
for long (or at any rate longish) voyages, and was built
as far as possible on the lines of a sailing-vessel. The
conservative John Bull never thought of modifying this
shape, even when he adopted the steamboat for ferries
such as that across the Mersey from Liverpool to Birk-
enhead. He still retained the sea-going form, and pas
sengers had either to remain on a lofty deck, exposed to
the full fury of the elements, or dive down into the
stuffy depths of an unattractive cabin. As soon, how
ever, as Brother Jonathan's keen brain had to concern

Baedekeriana 247

itself with the problem, he saw the topsy-turvyness of
this arrangement. Hence in his ferry-boats there are
no "underground" cabins, no exasperating flights of
steps. We enter the ferry-house and wait comfortably
under shelter till the boat approaches its " slip," which
it does end on. The disembarking passengers depart by
one passage, and as soon as they have all left the boat
we enter by another. A roadway and two side-walks
correspond to these divisions on the boat, which we enter
on the level we are to retain for the passage. In the
middle is the gangway for vehicles, to the right and left
are the cabins for " ladies " and " gentlemen," each run
ning almost the whole length of the boat. There is a
small piece of open deck at each end, and those who
wish may ascend to an upper deck. These long-drawn-
out cabins are simply but suitably furnished with seats
like those in a tramway-car or American railway-carriage.
The boat retraces its course without turning round, as it
is a " double-ender." On reaching the other side of the
river we simply walk out of the boat as we should out
of a house on the street-level. The tidal difficulty is
met by making the landing-stage a floating one, and of
such length that the angle it forms with terra firma is
never inconvenient.

A Swiss friend of mine, whose ocean steamer landed
him on the New Jersey shore of the North River,
actually entered the cabin of the ferry-boat under the
impression that it was a waiting-room on shore. The
boat slipped away so quietly that he did not discover his
mistake until he had reached the New York side of the
river ; and then there was no more astonished man on
the whole continent!

248 The Land of Contrasts

The transition from travelling facilities to the tele
graphic and postal services is natural. The telegraphs
of the United States are not in the hands of the gov
ernment, but are controlled by private companies, of
which the Western Union, with its headquarters in New
York, is facile, princeps. This company possesses the
largest telegraph system in the world, having 21,000
offices and 750,000 miles of wire. It also leases or uses
seven Atlantic cables. In this, however, as in many
other cases, size does not necessarily connote quality.
My experiences may (like the weather) have been excep
tional, and the attempt to judge of this Hercules by the
foot I saw may be wide of the mark ; but here are
three instances which are at any rate suspicious :

I was living at Germantown, a suburb of Philadelphia,
and left one day about 2 P.M. for the city, intending to
return for dinner. On the way, however, I made up my
mind to dine in town and go to the theatre, and imme
diately on my arrival at Broad-street station (about
2.15 P.M.) telegraphed back to this effect. "When I
reached the house again near midnight, I found the
messenger with my telegram ringing the bell ! Again,
a friend of mine in Philadelphia sent a telegram to me
one afternoon about a meeting in the evening ; it reached
me in Germantown, at a distance of about five miles, at
8 o'clock the following morning. Again, I left Salis
bury (N.C.) one morning about 9 A.M. for Asheville,
having previously telegraphed to the baggage-master at
the latter place about a trunk of mine in his care. My
train reached Asheville about 5 or 6 P.M. I went to the
baggage-master, but found he had not received my wire.
While I was talking to him, one of the train-men entered

Baedekeriana 249

and handed it to him. It had, apparently, been sent by
hand on the train by which I had travelled ! This tele
graphic giant may, of course, have accidentally and
exceptionally put his wrong foot foremost on those occa
sions ; but such are the facts.

The postal service also struck me as on the whole less
prompt and accurate than that of Great Britain. The
comparative infrequency of fully equipped post-offices is
certainly an inconvenience. There are letter-boxes
enough, and the commonest stamps may be procured in
every drug-store (and of these there is no lack !) or even
from the postmen ; but to have a parcel weighed, to
register a letter, to procure a money-order, or sometimes
even to buy a foreign stamp or post-card, the New
Yorker or Philadelphian has to go a distance which a
Londoner or Glasgowegian would think distinctly
excessive. It appears from an official table prepared in
1898 that about half the population of the United States
live outside the free delivery service, and have to call at
the post-office for their letters. On the other hand, the
arrangements at the chief post-offices are very complete,
and the subdivisions are numerous enough to prevent
the tedious delays of the offices on the continent of
Europe. The registration fee (eight cents) is double
that of England. The convenient "special delivery
stamp " (ten cents) entitles a letter to immediate deliv
ery by special messenger. The tendency for the estab
lishment of slight divergency in language between Eng
land and America is seen in the terms of the post-office
as in those of the railway. A letter is " mailed," not
" posted ; " the " postman " gives way to the " letter-
carrier;" a "post-card" is expanded into a "postal-

250 The Land of Contrasts

card." The stranger on arrival at New York will
be amused to see the confiding way in which news
paper or book packets, too large for the orifice, are
placed on the top of the street letter-boxes (affixed to
lamp-posts), and will doubtless be led to speculate on
the different ways and instincts of the street Arabs of
England and America. A second reflection will suggest
to him the superior stability of the New York climate.
On what day in England could we leave a postal packet of
printed matter in the open air with any certainty that it
would not be reduced to pulp in half an hour by a deluge
of rain ?

No remarks on the possible inferiority of the Amer
ican telegraph and postal systems would be fair if unac
companied by a tribute to the wonderful development of
the use of the telephone. New York has (or had very
recently) more than twice as many subscribers to the
telephonic exchanges as London, and some American
towns possess one telephone for every twenty inhabitants,
while the ratio in the British metropolis is 1 : 3,000. In
1891 the United States contained 240,000 miles of tele
phone wires, used by over 200.000 regular subscribers.
In 1895 the United Kingdom had about 100,000 miles of
wire. The Metropolitan telephone in New York alone
has 30,000 miles of subterranean wire and about 9,000
stations. The great switch-board at its headquarters is
250 feet long, and accommodates the lines of 6,000 sub
scribers. Some subscribers call for connection over a
hundred times a day, and about one hundred and fifty
girls are required to answer the calls.

The generalisations made in travellers' books about
the hotels of America seem to me as fallacious as

Baedekeriana 251

most of the generalisations about this chameleon among
nations. Some of the American hotels I stayed at were
about the best of their kind in the world, others about
the worst, others again about half-way between these
extremes. On the whole, I liked the so-called " Amer
ican system " of an inclusive price by the day, covering
everything except such purely voluntary extras as wine ;
and it seems to me that an ideal hotel on this system
would leave very little to wish for. The large American
way of looking at things makes a man prefer to give
twenty shillings per day for all he needs and consumes
rather than be bothered with a bill for sixteen to seven
teen shillings, including such items (not disdained even
by the swellest European hotels) as one penny for sta
tionery or a shilling for lights. The weak points of the
system as at present carried on are its needless expense
owing to the wasteful profusion of the management, the
tendency to have cast-iron rules for the hours within
which a guest is permitted to be hungry, the refusal to
make any allowance for absence from meals, and the
general preference for quantity over quality. It is also
a pity that baths are looked upon as a luxury of the rich
and figure as an expensive extra; it is seldom that a
hotel bath can be obtained for less than two shillings.
There would seem, however, to be no reason why the
continental table cFhdte system should not be combined
with the American plan. The bills of fare at present
offered by large American hotels, with lists of fifty to
one hundred different dishes to choose from, are simply
silly, and mark, as compared with the table d'hote of,
say, a good Parisian hotel, a barbaric failure to under
stand the kind of meal a lady or gentleman should want.

252 The Land of Contrasts

To prepare five times the quantity that will be called for
or consumed is to confess a lack of all artistic perception
of the relations of means and end. The man who gloats
over a list of fifty possible dishes is not at all the kind
of customer who deserves encouragement. The service
would also be improved if the waiters had not to carry
in their heads the heterogeneous orders of six or eight
people, each selecting a dozen different meats, vegetables,
and condiments. The European or a la carte system is
becoming more and more common in the larger cities,
and many houses offer their patrons a choice of the two
plans ; but the fixed-price system is almost universal in
the smaller towns and country districts. In houses on
the American system the price generally varies accord
ing to the style of room selected ; but most of the in
convenience of a bedchamber near the top of the house
is obviated by the universal service of easy-running
" elevators " or lifts. (By the way, the persistent man
ner in which the elevators are used on all occasions is
often amusing. An American lady who has some twenty
shallow steps to descend to the ground floor will rather
wait patiently five minutes for the elevator than walk
downstairs.)

Many of the large American hotels have defects sim
ilar to those with which we are familiar in their Euro
pean prototypes. They have the same, if not an exag
gerated, gorgeousness of bad taste, the same plethora of
ostentatious " luxuries " that add nothing to the real
comfort of the man of refinement, the same pier glasses
in heavy gilt frames, the same marble consoles, the
same heavy hangings and absurdly soft carpets. On
the other hand, they are apt to lack some of the unob-

Baedekeriana 253

trusive decencies of life, which so often mark the
distinction between the modest home of a private
gentleman and the palace of the travelling public. In
deed, it might truthfully be said that, on the whole, the
passion for show is more rampant among American
hotel-keepers than elsewhere. They are apt to be more
anxious to have all the latest " improvements " and
inventions than to ensure the smooth and easy running
of what they already have. You will find a huge " tel-
eseme " or indicator in your bedroom, on the rim of
which are inscribed about one hundred different objects
that a traveller may conceivably be supposed to want ;
but you may set the pointer in vain for your modest
lemonade or wait half an hour before the waiter answers
his complicated electric call. The service is sometimes
very poor, even in the most pretentious establishments.
On the other hand, I never saw better service in my
life than that of the neat and refined white-clad maid
ens in the summer hotels of the White Mountains,
who would take the orders of half-a-dozen persons for
half a dozen different dishes each, and execute them with
out a mistake. It is said that many of these waitresses
are college-girls or even school-mistresses, and certainly
their ladylike appearance and demeanour and the intel
ligent look behind their not infrequent spectacles
would support the assertion. It gave one a positive
thrill to see the margin of one's soup-plate embraced by
a delicate little pink-and-white thumb that might have
belonged to Hebe herself, instead of the rawly red or
clumsily gloved intruder that we are all too familiar
with. The waiting of the coloured gentleman is also
pleasant in its way to all who do not demand the epis-

254 The Land of Contrasts

copal bearing of the best English butler. The smiling
darkey takes a personal interest in your comfort, may
possibly enquire whether you have dined to your liking,
is indefatigable in ministering to your wants, slides and
shuffles around with a never-failing bonhomie, does every
thing with a characteristic flourish, and in his neat
little white jacket often presents a most refreshing
cleanliness of aspect as compared with the greasy sec
ond-hand dress coats of the European waiter.

As a matter of fact, so much latitude is usually
allowed for each meal (breakfast from 8 to 11, dinner
from 12 to 3, and so on) that it is seldom really diffi
cult to get something to eat at an American hotel when
one is hungry. At some hotels, however, the rules are
very strict, and nothing is served out of meal hours.
At Newport I came in one Sunday evening about 8
o'clock, and found that supper was over. The manager
actually allowed me to leave his hotel at once (which
I did) rather than give me anything to eat. The case
is still more absurd when one arrives by train, having
had no chance of a square meal all day, and is coolly
expected to go to bed hungry ! The genuine democrat,
however, may take what comfort he can from the
thought that this state of affairs is due to the independ
ence of the American servants, who have their regular
hours and refuse to work beyond them.

The lack of smoking-rooms is a distinct weak point
in American hotels. One may smoke in the large pub
lic office, often crowded with loungers not resident in
the hotel, or may retire with his cigar to the bar-room ;
but there is no pleasant little snuggery provided with
arm-chairs and smokers' tables, where friends may sit

Baedekeriana 255

in pleasant, nicotine-wreathed chat, ringing, when they
want it, for a whiskey-and-soda or a cup of coffee.

American hotels, even when otherwise good, are apt
to be noisier than European ones. The servants have
little idea of silence over their work, and the early morn
ing chambermaids crow to one another in a way that is
very destructive of one's matutinal slumbers. Then
somebody or other seems to crave ice-water at every
hour of the day or night, and the tinkle, tinkle, tinkle
of the ice-pitcher in the corridors becomes positively
nauseous when one wants to go to sleep. The innumer
able electric bells, always more or less on the go, are
another auditory nuisance.

While we are on the question of defects in American
hotels, it should be noticed that the comfortable little
second-class inns of Great Britain are practically
unknown in the United States. The second-class inns
there are run on the same lines as the best ones ; but in
an inferior manner at every point. The food is usually
as abundant, but it is of poorer quality and worse cooked ;
the beds are good enough, but not so clean ; the table
linen is soiled ; the sugar bowls are left exposed to the
flies from week-end to week-end ; the service is poor and
apt to be forward; and (last, but not least) the man
ners of the other guests are apt to include a most super
fluous proportion of tobacco-chewing, expectorating, an
open and unashamed use of the toothpick, and other
little amenities that probably inflict more torture on
those who are not used to them than would decorous
breaches of the Decalogue.

In criticising American hotels, it must not be forgot
ten that the rapid process of change that is so charac-

256 The Land of Contrasts

teristic of America operates in this sphere with especial
force. This is at work a distinct tendency to substitute
the subdued for the gaudy, the refined for the meretri
cious, the quiet for the loud ; and even now the cultured
American who knows his monde may spend a great part
of his time in hotels without conspicuously lowering the
tone of his environment.

The prevalent idea that the American hotel clerk is
a mannerless despot is, me judice, rather too severe.
He is certainly apt to be rather curt in his replies and
ungenial in his manner ; but this is not to be wondered
at when one reflects under what a fire of questions he
stands all day long and from week to week ; and, besides,
he does generally give the information that is wanted.
That he should wear diamond studs and dress gor
geously is not unnatural when one considers the social
stratum from which he is drawn. Do not our very cooks
the same as far as they can ? That he should somewhat
magnify the importance of his office is likewise explica
ble; and, after all, how many human beings have greater
power over the actual personal comforts of the fraction
of the world they come into contact with? I can,
however, truthfully boast that I met hotel clerks who, in
moments of relief from pressure, treated me almost as
an equal, and one or two who seemed actually disposed
to look on me as a friend. I certainly never encoun
tered any actual rudeness from the American hotel clerk
such as I have experienced from the pert young ladies
who sometimes fill his place in England ; and in the less
frequented resorts he sometimes took a good deal of trou
ble to put the stranger in the way to do his business
speedily and comfortably. His omniscience is great, but

Baedekeriana 257

not so phenomenal as I expected ; I posed him more than
once with questions about his abode which, it seemed to
me, every intelligent citizen should have been able to
answer easily. In his most characteristic development
the American hotel clerk is an urbane living encyclo
paedia, as passionless as the gods, as unbiassed as the
multiplication table, and as tireless as a Corliss engine.
Traveller's tales as to the system of " tipping " in
American hotels differ widely. The truth is probably as
far from the indignant Briton's assertion, based proba
bly upon one flagrant instance in New York, that " it is
ten times worse than in England and tantamount to rob
bery with violence," as from the patriotic American's
assurance that " The thing, sir, is absolutely unknown in
our free and enlightened country ; no American citizen
would demean himself to accept a gratuity." To judge
from my own experience, I should say that the practice
was quite as common in such cities as Boston, New
York, and Philadelphia as in Europe, and more onerous
because the amounts expected are larger. A dollar goes
no farther than a shilling. Moreover, the gratuity is
usually given in the form of " refreshers "from day to day,
so that the vengeance of the disappointed is less easily
evaded. Miss Bates, a very friendly writer on America,
reports various unpleasantnesses that she received from
untipped waiters, and tells of an American who found
that his gratuities for two months at a Long Branch
hotel (for three persons and their horses) amounted to
£40. In certain other walks of life the habit of tipping
is carried to more extremes in New York than in any
European city I know of. Thus the charge for a shave
(already sufficiently high) is 7jc?., but the operator

258 The Land of Contrasts

expects 2$d. more for himself. One barber with whom
I talked on the subject openly avowed that he considered
himself wronged if he did not get his fee, and recounted
the various devices he and his fellows practised to
extract gratuities from the unwilling. As one goes
West or South the system of tipping seems to fall more
and more into abeyance, though it will always be found
a useful smoother of the way. In California, so far as
I could judge, it was almost entirely unknown, and the
Californian hotels are among the best in the Union.

Among the lessons which English and other European
hotels might learn from American hotels may be named
the following :

1. The combination of the present d la carte system
with the inclusive or American system, by which those
who don't want the trouble of ordering their repasts may
be sure of finding meals, with a reasonable latitude of
choice in time and fare, ready when desired. It is a
sensible comfort to know beforehand exactly, or almost
exactly, what one's hotel expenses will amount to.

2. The abolition of the charge for attendance.

3. A greater variety of dishes than is usually offered
in any except our very largest hotels. This is especially
to be desired at breakfast. Without going to the Amer
ican extreme of fifty or a hundred dishes to choose from,
some intermediate point short of the Scylla of sole and
the Chary bdis of ham and eggs might surely be found.
There is probably more pig-headed conservatism than
justified fear of expense in the reluctance to follow
this most excellent "American lead." The British
tourist in the United States takes so kindly to the pre
liminary fruit and cereal dishes of America that he

Baedekeriana 259

would probably show no objection to them on his native
heath.

4. An extension of the system of ringing once for the
boots, twice for the chambermaid, and so on. The
ordinary American table of calls goes up to nine.

5. The provision of writing materials free for the
guests of the hotels. The charge for stationery is one
of the pettiest and most exasperating cheese-parings of
the English Boniface's system of account-keeping. If,
however, he imitates the liberality of his American
brother, it is to be hoped that he will "go him one
better " in the matter of blotting-paper. Nothing in the
youthful country across the seas has a more venerable
appearance than the strips of blotting-paper supplied in
the writing-rooms of its hotels.

Nothing in its way could be more inviting or seem
more appropriate than the cool and airy architecture
of the summer hotels in such districts as the White
Mountains, with their wide and shady verandas, their
overhanging eaves, their balconies, their spacious corri
dors and vestibules, their simple yet tasteful wood-
panelling, their creepers outside and their growing
plants within. Mr. Howells has somewhere reversed
the threadbare comparison of an Atlantic liner to a
floating hotel, by likening a hostelry of this kind to a
saloon steamer; and indeed the comparison is an apt
one, so light and buoyant does the construction seem,
with its gaily painted wooden sides, its glass-covered
veranda decks, and its streaming flags. Perhaps the
nearest analogue that we have to the life of an Am
erican summer hotel is seen in our large hydropathic
establishments, such as those at Peebles or Crieff, where

260 The Land of Contrasts

the therapeutic appliances play but a subdued obbligato
to the daily round of amusements. The same spirit of
camaraderie generally rules at both ; both have the same
regular meal-hours, at which almost as little drinking is
seen at the one as the other ; both have their evening
entertainments got up (gotten up, our American cousins
say, with a delightfully old-fashioned flavour) by the
enterprise of the most active guests. The hydropathists
have to go to bed a little sooner, and must walk to the
neighbouring village if they wish a bar-room ; but on the
whole their scheme of life is much the same. Whether
it is due to the American temperament or the American
weather, the palm for brightness, vivacity, variety, and
picturesqueness must be adjudged to the hotel. For
those who are young enough to " stand the racket," no
form of social gaiety can be found more amusing than
a short sojourn at a popular summer hotel among the
mountains or by the sea, with its constant round of
drives, rides, tennis and golf matches, picnics, "ger-
mans," bathing, boating, and loafing, all permeated by
flirtation of the most audacious and innocent description.
The focus of the whole carnival is found in the " piazza "
or veranda, and no prettier sight in its way can be imag
ined than the groups and rows of "rockers " and wicker
chairs, each occupied by a lithe young girl in a summer
frock, or her athletic admirer in his tennis flannels.

The enormous extent of the summer exodus to the
mountains and the seas in America is overwhelming ;
and a population of sixty-five millions does not seem a
bit too much to account for it. I used to think that
about all the Americans who could afford to travel came
to Europe. But the American tourists in Europe are,

Baedekeriana 261

after all, but a drop in the bucket compared with the
oceans of summer and winter visitors to the Adiron-
dacks and Florida, Manitoba Springs and the coast of
Maine, the Catskills and Long Brancn, Newport and
Lenox, Bar Harbor and California, White Sulphur
Springs and the Minnesota Lakes, Saratoga and Richfield,
The Thousand Isles and Martha's Vineyard, Niagara
and Trenton Falls, Old Point Comfort and Asheville,
the Yellowstone and the Yosemite, Alaska and the Hot
Springs of Arkansas. And everywhere that the season's
visitor is expected he will find hotels awaiting him that
range all the way from reasonable comfort to outrageous
magnificence ; while a simpler taste will find a plain
boarding-house by almost every mountain pool or practi
cable beach in the whole wide expanse of the United
States. The Briton may not have yet abdicated his
post as the champion traveller or explorer of unknown
lands, but the American is certainly the most restless
mover from one resort of civilisation to another.

Perhaps the most beautiful hotel in the world is the
Ponce de Leon at St. Augustine, Florida, named after
the Spanish voyager who discovered the flowery1 State
in 1512, and explored its streams on his romantic search
for the fountain of eternal youth. And when I say
beautiful I use the word in no auctioneering sense of
mere size, and height, and evidence of expenditure, but
as meaning a truly artistic creation, fine in itself and
appropriate to its environment. The hotel is built of
"coquina," or shell concrete, in a Spanish renaissance

1 This epithet must not confirm the usual erroneous belief that Florida means
" the flowery State." It is so called because discorered on Easter Day (Spanish
Pascua Florida).

262 The Land of Contrasts

style with Moorish features, which harmonises admirably
with the sunny sky of Florida and the historic associa
tions of St. Augustine. Its colour scheme, with the
creamy white of the concrete, the overhanging roofs of
red tile, and the brick and terra-cotta details, is very
effective, and contrasts well with the deep-blue overhead
and the luxuriant verdancy of the orange-trees, magno
lias, palmettos, oleanders, bananas, and date-palms that
surround it. The building encloses a large open court,
and is lined by columned verandas, while the minaret-
like towers dominate the expanse of dark-red roof. The
interior is richly adorned with wall and ceiling paintings
of historical or allegorical import, skilfully avoiding
crudity or garishness ; and the marble and oak decora
tions of the four-galleried rotunda are worthy of the
rest of the structure. The general effect is one of
luxurious and artistic ease, with suggestions of an
Oriental dolce far niente in excellent keeping with the
idea of the winter idler's home. The Ponce de Leon
and the adjoining and more or less similar structures of
the Alcazar, the Cordova, and the Villa Zorayda form
indeed an architectural group which, taken along with
the semi-tropical vegetation and atmosphere, alone repays
a long journey to see. But let the strictly economical
traveller take up his quarters in one of the more modest
hostelries of the little town, unless he is willing to pay
dearly (and yet not perhaps too dearly) for the privilege
of living in the most artistic hotel in the world.

It is a long cry from Florida to California, where
stands another hotel which suggests mention for its
almost unique perfections. The little town of Monterey,
with its balmy air, its beautiful sandy beach, its adobe

Baedekeriana 263

buildings, and its charming surroundings, is, like St.
Augustine, full of interesting Spanish associations,
dating back to 1602. The Hotel del Monte, or « Hotel
of the Forest," one of the most comfortable, best-kept,
and moderate-priced hotels of America, lies amid blue-
grass lawns and exquisite grounds, in some ways recalling
the parks of England's gentry, though including among
its noble trees such un-English specimens as the sprawl
ing and moss-draped live-oaks and the curious Monterey
pines and cypresses. Its gardens offer a continual
feast of colour, with their solid acres of roses, violets,
calla lilies, heliotrope, narcissus, tulips, and crocuses;
and one part of them, known as " Arizona," contains a
wonderful collection of cacti. The hotel itself has no
pretension to rival the Ponce de Leon in its architecture
or appointments, and is, I think, built of wood. It is,
however, very large, encloses a spacious garden-court,
and makes a pleasant enough impression, with its turrets,
balconies, and verandas, its many sharp gables, dormers,
and window-hoods. The economy of the interior re
minded me more strongly of the amenities and decencies
of the house of a refined, well-to-do, and yet not extrava
gantly wealthy family than of the usual hotel atmos
phere. There were none of the blue satin hangings,
ormolu vases, and other entirely superfluous luxuries for
which we have to pay in the bills of certain hotels at
Paris and elsewhere ; but on the other hand nothing
was lacking that a fastidious but reasonable taste could
demand. The rooms and corridors are spacious and airy ;
everything was as clean and fresh as white paint and
floor polish could make them ; the beds were comfortable
and fragrant ; the linen was spotless ; there was lots of

264 The Land of Contrasts

" hanging room ; " each pair of bedrooms shared a bath
room ; the cuisine was good and sufficiently varied ; the
waiters were attentive ; flowers were abundant without
and within. The price of all this real luxury was $3 to
$3.50 (12s. to 14s.) a day. Possibly the absolute perfec
tion of the bright and soft California!! spring when I
visited Monterey, and the exquisite beauty of its environ
ment, may have lulled my critical faculties into a state of
unusual somnolence ; but when I quitted the Del Monte
Hotel I felt that I was leaving one of the most charming
homes I had ever had the good fortune to live in.

The only hotel that to my mind contests with the
Del Monte the position of the best hotel in the North
American continent is the Canadian Pacific Hotel at
Banff, in the National Rocky Mountains Park of Canada.
Here also magnificent scenery, splendid weather, and
moderate charges combined to bias my judgment; but
the residuum, after all due allowance made for these fac
tors, still, after five years, assures me of most unusual
excellence. Two things in particular I remember in
connection with this hotel. The one is the almost abso
lute perfection of the waiting, carried on by gentlemanly
youths of about eighteen or twenty, who must, I think,
have formed the corps d* elite of the thousands of waiters
in the service of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The
marvellous speed and dexterity with which they minis
tered to my wants, the absolutely neat and even dainty
manner in which everything was done by them, and
their modest readiness to make suggestions and help
one's choice (always to the point!) make one of the
pleasantest pictures of hotel life lurking in my memory.
The other dominant recollection of the Banff Hotel

Baedekeriana 265

is the wonderfully beautiful view from the summer-
house at its northeast corner. Just below the bold
bluff on which this hotel stands the piercingly blue Bow
River throws itself down in a string of foaming white
cataracts to mate with the amber and rapid-rushing
Spray. The level valley through which the united and
now placid stream flows is carpeted with the vivid-red
painter's brush, white and yellow marguerites, asters,
fireweed, golden-rod, and blue-bells ; to the left rise the
perpendicular cliffs of Tunnel Mountain, while to the
right Mt. Rundle lifts its weirdly sloping, snow-flecked
peaks into the azure.

In the dense green woods of the Adirondacks, five
miles from the nearest high road on the one side and on
the other lapped by an ocean of virgin forest which to
the novice seems almost as pathless as the realms of
Neptune, stands the Adirondack Lodge, probably one
of the most quaint, picturesque little hotels in the world.
It is tastefully built in the style of a rustic log-hut, its
timber being merely rough-hewn by the axe and not
reduced to monotonous symmetry by the saw-mill. It
is roofed with bark, and its wide-eaved verandas are
borne by tree-trunks with the bark still on. The same
idea is carried out in the internal equipment, and the
bark is left intact on much of the furniture. The wood
retains its natural colours, and there are no carpets or
paint. This charming little hotel is due to the taste or
whim of a New York electrical engineer (the inven
tor, I believe, of the well-known "ticker"), who acts the
landlord in such a way as to make the sixty or seventy
inmates feel like the guests of a private host. The clerk
is a medical student, the very bell-boy ("Eddy") a

266 The Land of Contrasts

candidate for Harvard, and both mix on equal terms
with the genial circle that collects round the bonfire
lighted in front of the house every summer's evening.
As one lazily lay there, watching the wavering play
of the ruddy blaze on the dark-green pines, listening
to the educated chatter of the boy who cleaned the
boots, realising that a deer, a bear, or perchance even a
catamount might possibly be lurking in the dark woods
around, and knowing that all the material comforts
of civilised life awaited one inside the house, one felt
very keenly the genuine Americanism of this Arcadia,
and thought how hard it would be to reproduce the effect
even in the imagination of the European.

It was in this same Adirondack Wilderness that I
stayed in the only hotel that, so far as I know, caught
on to the fact that I was a " chiel amang them takin'
notes " for a guidebook. With true American enter
prise I was informed, when I called for my bill, that
that was all right ; and I still recall with amusement
the incredulous and obstinate resistance of the clerk to
my insistence on paying my way. I hope that the gen
ial proprietors do not attribute the asterisk that I gave
the hotel to their well-meant efforts to give me quid pro
quo, but credit me with a totally unbiassed admiration for
their good management and comfortable quarters.

Mention has already been made (p. 30) of a hotel at a
frequented watering-place, at which the lowest purchas
able quantity of sleep cost one pound sterling. It is,
perhaps, superfluous to say that the rest procured at this
cost was certainly not four or five times better than that
easily procurable for four or five shillings ; and that the
luxury of this hotel appealed, not in its taste perhaps, but

Baedekeriana 267

certainly in its effect, to the shoddy rather than to the
refined demands of the traveller. Shenstone certainly
never associated the ease of his inn with any such hyper
bolical sumptuousness as this ; and it probably could
not arise in any community that did not include a large
class of individuals with literally more money than
they knew what to do with, and desirous of any means
of indicating their powers of expenditure. It has been
said of another hotel at Bar Harbor that " Anyone can
stay there who is worth two millions of dollars, or can
produce a certificate from the Recorder of New York
that he is a direct descendant of Hendrik Hudson or
Diedrich Knickerbocker."

Many other American hotels suggest themselves to me
as sufficiently individual in character to discriminate
them from the ruck. Such are the Hygieia at Old Point
Comfort, with its Southern guests in summer and its
Northern guests in winter ; looking out from its carefully
enclosed and glazed piazzas over the waste of Hampton
Roads, where the " Merrimac " wrought devastation to the
vessels of the Union until itself vanquished by the turret-
ship " Monitor ; " the enormous caravansaries of Saratoga,
one of which alone accommodates two thousand visitors,
or the population of a small town, while the three larg
est have together room for five thousand people ; the
hotel at the White Sulphur Springs of Virginia, for
nearly a century the typical resort of the wealth and
aristocracy of the South, and still furnishing the eligible
stranger with a most attractive picture of Southern
beauty, grace, warm-heartedness, and manners ; the
Stockbridge Inn in the Berkshire Hills, long a striking
exception to the statement that no country inns of the

268 The Land of Contrasts

best English type can be found in the United States, but
unfortunately burned down a year or two ago ; the
Catskill Mountain House, situated on an escarpment
rising so abruptly from the plain of the Hudson that
the view from it has almost the same effect as if we were
leaning out of the car of a balloon or over the battle
ments of a castle two thousand feet high ; the colossal
Auditorium of Chicago, with its banquet hall and kitchen
on the tenth floor ; and the Palace Hotel of San Fran
cisco, with its twelve hundred beds and its covered and
resonant central court. Enough has, however, been said
to show that all American hotels are not the immense
and featureless barracks that many Europeans believe,
but that they also run through a full gamut of variety
and character.

The restaurant is by no means such an institution in
the United States as in the continental part of Europe ;
in this matter the American habit is more on all fours
with English usage. The caf£ of Europe is, perhaps,
best represented by the piazza. Of course there are
numerous restaurants in all the larger cities ; but else
where the traveller will do well to stick to the meals
at his hotel. The best restaurants are often in the hands
of Germans, Italians, or Frenchmen. This is conspicu
ously so at New York. Delmonico's has a worldwide
reputation, and is undoubtedly a good restaurant ; but
it may well be questioned whether the New York esti
mate of its merits is not somewhat excessive. If price
be the criterion, it has certainly few superiors. The d
la carte restaurants are, indeed, all apt to be expensive
for the single traveller, who will find that he can easily
spend eight to twelve shillings on a by no means sump-

Baedekeriana 269

tuotis meal. The French system of supplying one portion
for two persons or two portions for three is, however, in
vogue, and this diminishes the cost materially. The table
d'hote restaurants, on the other hand, often give excellent
value for their charges. The Italians have especially
devoted themselves to this form of the art, and in New
York and Boston furnish one with a very fair dinner
indeed, including a flask of drinkable Chianti, for four
or five shillings. At some of the simple German restau
rants one gets excellent German fare and beer, but
these are seldom available for ladies. The fair sex,
however, takes care to be provided with more elegant
establishments for its own use, to which it sometimes
admits its husbands and brothers. The sign of a large
restaurant in New York reads : " Women's Cooperative
Restaurant ; tables reserved for gentlemen," in which I
knew not whether more to admire the uncompromising
antithesis between the plain word " women " and the
complimentary term " gentlemen " or the considerate-
ness that supplies separate accommodation for the
shrinking creatures denoted by the latter. Perhaps this
is as good a place as any to note that it is usually as
unwise to patronise a restaurant which professedly
caters for " gents " as to buy one's leg-coverings of a
tailor who knows them only as " pants." Probably the
" adult gents' bible-class," which Professor Freeman
encountered, was equally unsatisfactory.

Soup, poultry, game, and sweet dishes are generally
as good as and often better than in English restaurants.
Beef and mutton, on the other hand, are frequently
inferior, though the American porterhouse and other
steaks sometimes recall English glories that seem

270 The Land of Contrasts

largely to have vanished. The list of American fish
is by no means identical with that of Europe, and some
of the varieties (such as salmon) seem scarcely as
savoury. The stranger, however, will find some of his
new fishy acquaintances decided acquisitions, and it
takes no long time to acquire a very decided liking for
the bass, the pompano, and the bluefish, while even the
shad is discounted only by his innumerable bones. The
praises of the American oyster should be sung by an
abler and more poetic pen than mine ! He may not
possess the full oceanic flavour (coppery, the Americans
call it) of our best " natives," but he is large, and juicy,
and cool, and succulent, and fresh, and (above all)
cheap and abundant. The variety of ways in which he
is served is a striking index of the fertile ingenuity of
the American mind ; and the man who knows the oyster
only on the half-shell or en escalope is a mere culinary
suckling compared with him who has been brought face
to face with the bivalve in stews, plain roasts, fancy
roasts, fries, broils, and fricassees, to say nothing of the
form "pigs in blankets," or as parboiled in its own
liquor, creamed, sauted, or pickled.

Wine or beer is much less frequently drunk at meals
than in Europe, though the amount of alcoholic liquor
seen on the tables of a hotel would be a very misleading
measure of the amount consumed. The men have a
curious habit of flocking to the bar-room immediately
after dinner to imbibe the stimulant that preference, or
custom, or the fear of their wives has deprived them of
during the meal. Wine is generally poor and dear.
The mixed drinks at the bar are fascinating and prob
ably very indigestible. Their names are not so bizarre

Baedekeriana 271

as it is an article of the European's creed to believe.
America possesses the largest brewery in the world, that
of Pabst at Milwaukee, producing more than a million
of gallons a year ; and there are also large breweries at
St. Louis, Rochester, and many other places. The beer
made resembles the German lager, and is often excellent.
Its use is apparently spreading rapidly from the German
Americans to Americans of other nationalities. The
native wine of California is still fighting against the
unfavourable reputation it acquired from the ignorance
and impatience of its early manufacturers. The art of
wine-growing, however, is now followed with more
brains, more experience, and more capital, and the
result is in many instances excellent. The vin ordinaire
of California, largely made from the Zinfandel grape,
has been described as a " peasant's wine," but when
drunk on the spot compares fairly with the cheaper
wines of Europe. Some of the finest brands of Cali-
fornian red wine (such as that known as Las Palmas),
generally to be had from the producers only, are sound
and well-flavoured wines, which will probably improve
steadily. It is a thousand pities that the hotels and
restaurants of the United States do not do more to push
the sale of these native wines, which are at least better
than most of the foreign wine sold in America at extrav
agant charges. It is also alleged that the Calif ornian
and other American wines are often sold under French
labels and at French prices, thus doing a double injus
tice to their native soil. Coffee or tea is always included
in the price of an American meal, and these comforting
beverages (particularly coffee) appear at luncheon and
dinner in the huge cups that we associate with breakfast

272 The Land of Contrasts

exclusively. Nor do they follow the meal, as with us,
but accompany it. This practice, of course, does not
hold in the really first-class hotels and restaurants.

The real national beverage is, however, ice-water. Of
this I have little more to say than to warn the Brit
ish visitor to suspend his judgment until he has been
some time in the country. I certainly was not preju
diced in favour of this chilly draught when I started for
the United States, but I soon came to find it natural and
even necessary, and as much so from the dry hot air of
the stove-heated room in winter as from the natural
ambition of the mercury in summer. The habit so easily
formed was as easily unlearned when I returned to civili
sation. On the whole, it may be philosophic to conclude
that a universal habit in any country has some solid if
cryptic reason for its existence, and to surmise that the
drinking of ice-water is not so deadly in the States as it
might be elsewhere. It certainly is universal enough.
When you ring a bell or look at a waiter, ice-water is
immediately brought to you. Each meal is started with
a full tumbler of that fluid, and the observant darkey
rarely allows the tide to ebb until the meal is concluded.
Ice-water is provided gratuitously and copiously on
trains, in waiting-rooms, even sometimes in the public
fountains. If, finally, I were asked to name the charac
teristic sound of the United States, which would tell you
of your whereabouts if transported to America in an in
stant of time, it would be the musical tinkle of the ice
in the small white pitchers that the bell-boys in hotels
seem perennially carrying along all the corridors, day
and night, year in and year out.

XIII
The American Note

THOSE who have done me the honour to read
through the earlier pages of this volume will
probably find nothing in the present chapter
that has not already been implied in them, if
not expressed. Indeed, I should not consider these pages
written to any purpose if they did not give some indi
cation of what I believe to be the dominant trend of
American civilisation. A certain amount of condensed
explication and recapitulation may not, however, be out
of place.

In spite of the heterogeneous elements of which
American civilisation consists, and in spite of the ever-
ready pitfalls of spurious generalisation, it seems to me
that there is very distinctly an American note, different
in pitch and tone from any note in the European con
cert. The scale to which it belongs is not, indeed, one
out of all relation to that of the older hemisphere, in
the way, for example, in which the laws governing Chi
nese music seem to stand apart from all relations to
those on which the Sonata Appassionata is constructed.
"The American," as Emerson said, uis only the con
tinuation of the English genius into new conditions,
more or less propitious ; " and the American note, as I
understand it, is, with allowance for modifications by

273

274 The Land of Contrasts

other nationalities, after all merely the New World in
carnation of a British potentiality.

To sum it up in one word is hardly practicable ; even
a Carlylean epithet could scarcely focus the content of
this idea. It includes a sense of illimitable expansion
and possibility ; an almost childlike confidence in human
ability and fearlessness of both the present and the
future ; a wider realisation of human brotherhood than
has yet existed; a greater theoretical willingness to
judge by the individual rather than by the class ; a
breezy indifference to authority and a positive predilec
tion for innovation ; a marked alertness of mind and a
manifold variety of interest ; above all, an inextinguish
able hopefulness and courage. It is easy to lay one's
finger in America upon almost every one of the great
defects of civilisation — even those defects which are
specially characteristic of the civilisation of the Old
World. The United States cannot claim to be exempt
from manifestations of economic slavery, of grinding
the faces of the poor, of exploitation of the weak, of
unfair distribution of wealth, of unjust monopoly, of
unequal laws, of industrial and commercial chicanery,
of disgraceful ignorance, of economic fallacies, of public
corruption, of interested legislation, of want of public
spirit, of vulgar boasting and chauvinism, of snobbery,
of class prejudice, of respect of persons, of a preference
of the material over the spiritual. In a word, America
has not attained, or nearly attained, perfection. But
below and behind and beyond all its weaknesses and
evils, there is the grand fact of a noble national theory,
founded on reason and conscience. Those may scoff
who will at the idea of anything so intangible being

The American Note 275

allowed to count seriously in the estimation of a nation's
or an individual's happiness but the man of any imagi
nation can surely conceive the stimulus of the constantly
abiding sense of a fine national ideal. The vagaries of
the Congress at Washington may sometimes cause a
man more personal inconvenience than the doings of
the Parliament at Westminster, but they cannot wound
his self-respect or insult his reason in the same way as
the idea of being ruled by a group of individuals who
have merely taken the trouble to be born. The hauteur
and insolence of those " above " us are always unpleas
ant, but they are much easier to bear when we feel that
they are entirely at variance with the theory of the
society in which they appear, and are at worst merely
sporadic manifestations. Even the tyranny of trusts is
not to be compared to the tyranny of landlordism ; for
the one is felt to be merely an unhappy and (it is
hoped) temporary aberration of well-meant social
machinery, while the other seems bred in the very bone
of the national existence. It is the old story of freedom
and hardship being preferable to chains and luxury.
The material environment of the American may often
be far less interesting and suggestive than that of the
European, but his mind is freer, his mental attitude
more elastic. Every American carries a marshal's baton
in his knapsack in a way that has hardly ever been true
in Europe. It may not assume a more tangible shape
than a feeling of self-respect that has never been
wounded by the thought of personal inferiority for
merely conventional reasons ; but he must be a materi
alist indeed who undervalues this priceless possession.
It is something for a country to have reached the stage

276 The Land of Contrasts

of passing "resolutions," even if their conversion into
"acts" lags a little; it is bootless to sneer at a real
" land of promise " because it is not at once and in every
way a " land of performance."

There is something wonderfully rare and delicate in
the finest blossoms of American civilisation — some
thing that can hardly be paralleled in Europe. The
mind that has been brought up in an atmosphere theo
retically free from all false standards and conventional
distinctions acquires a singularly unbiassed, detached,
absolute, purely human way of viewing life. In Matthew
Arnold's phrase, " it sees life steadily and sees it whole."
Just this attitude seems unattainable in England;
neither in my reading nor my personal experience have
I encountered what I mean elsewhere than in America.
We may feel ourselves, for example, the equal of a mar
quis, but does he ? And even if he does, do A, and B,
and C ? No profoundness of belief in our own superi
ority or the superiority of a humble friend to the aristo
crat can make us ignore the circumambient feeling on the
subject in the same way that the man brought up in the
American vacuum does.

The true-born American is absolutely incapable of
comprehending the sense of difference between a lord
and a plebeian that is forced on the most philosophical
among ourselves by the mere pressure of the social
atmosphere. It is for him a fourth dimension of space ;
it may be talked about, but practically it has no exist
ence. It is entirely within the bounds of possibility for
an American to attempt graciously to put royalty at its
ease, and to try politely to make it forget its anomalous
position. The British radical philosopher may attain

The American Note 277

the height of saying, " With a great sum obtained I this
4 freedom ' ; " the American may honestly reply, " But I
was free-born."

It is necessary to take long views of American civili
sation ; not to fix our gaze upon small evils in the fore
ground, not to mistake an attack of moral measles for a
scorbutic taint. It is quite conceivable that a philo
sophic observer of a century ago might almost have pre
dicted the moral and social course of events in the
United States, if he had only been informed of the com
ing material conditions, such as the overwhelmingly
rapid growth of the country in wealth and population,
coupled with a democratic form of government. Even if
assured that the ultimate state of the nation would be
satisfactory, he would still have foreseen the difficulties
hemming its progress toward the ideal : the inevitable
delays, disappointments, and set-backs ; the struggle be
tween the gross and the spiritual ; the troubles arising
from the constant accession of new raw material before
the old was welded into shape. There is nothing in the
present evils of America to lead us to despair of the
Republic, if only we let a legitimate imagination place us
on a view-point sufficiently distant and sufficiently high
to enable us to look backwards and forwards over long
stretches of time, and lose the effect of small roughnesses
in the foreground. Even M. de Tocqueville exagger
ated the evils existing when he wrote his famous work,
and forecast catastrophes that have never arisen and
seem daily less and less likely ever to arise. Let it be
enough for the present that America has worked out " a
rough average happiness for the million," that the great
masses of the people have attained a by no means des-

278 The Land of Contrasts

picable amount of independence and comfort. Those
who are apt to think that the comfort of the crowd
must mean the ennui of the cultured may safely be
reminded of Obermann's saying, that no individual life
can (or ought to) be happy passSe an milieu des g6n-
erations qui souffrent. This source of unhappiness, at
any rate, is less potent in the United States than else
where. It is only natural that material prosperity should
come more quickly than emancipation from ignorance, as
Professor Norton has noted in a masterly, though perhaps
characteristically pessimistic, article in the Forum for
February, 1896. It may, too, be true, as the same writer
remarks, that the common school system of America
does little " to quicken the imagination, to refine and
elevate the moral intelligence ; " and the remark is valu
able as a note of warning. But it may well be asked
whether the American school system is in this respect
unfavourably distinguished from that of any other
country ; and it must not be forgotten that even instruc
tion in ordinary topics stimulates the soil for more
valuable growths. The methods of the Salvation Army
do not appeal to the dilettante; but it is more than
possible that the grandchildren of the man whose imagi
nation has been touched, if ever so slightly, by the crude
appeal of trombones out of tune and the sight of poke-
bonnets and backward-striding maidens, will be more
intelligent and susceptible human beings than the grand
children of the chawbacon whose mental horizon has
been bounded by the bottom of his pewter mug.

Those who think for themselves will naturally make
more mistakes than those who carefully follow the
dictates of a competent authority; but there are other

The American Note 279

counterbalancing advantages which bring the enterpris
ing mistake-maker more speedily to the goal than his
impeccable rival. The poet might almost have sung
"'Tis better to have erred and learned than never to
have erred at all." The intellectual monopoly of Eng
land is, perhaps, even more dangerous than the material.
The monastic societies of Oxford and Cambridge are too
apt to insist on certain forms of knowledge, and to think
that real wisdom is the prerogative of the few. And we
undoubtedly owe many of the healthy breezes of rebel
lion and scepticism in such matters to the example of
America. The keen-eyed Yankees distinguish more
clearly than we do between the essential conditions of
existence and the "stupid and vulgar accidents of
human contrivance," and are consequently readier to lay
irreverent hands on time-honoured abuses. If a balance
could be struck between the influence of Europe on
America and that of America on Europe, it is not by
any means clear that the scale would descend in favour
of the older world.

There is a long list of influential witnesses in favour
of the theory that the development of the democratic
spirit is bound inevitably to hamper individuality
and encourage mediocrity. De Tocqueville, Scherer,
Renan, Maine, Bourget, Matthew Arnold, all lend the
weight of their names to this conclusion. It does not
seem to me that this theory is supported by the social
facts of the United States. When we have made al
lowance for the absence of a number of picturesque
phenomena which are due to temporal and physical
conditions, and would be equally lacking if the country
were an autocracy or oligarchy, there remains in the

280 The Land of Contrasts

United States greater room for the development of idio
syncrasy than, perhaps, in any other country. It has
been paradoxically argued by an English writer that
individualism could not reach its highest point except
in a socialistic community ; i.e., that the unbridled
competition of the present day drives square pegs into
round holes and thus forces the individual, for the sake
of bread and butter, to do that which is foreign to his
nature ; whereas in an ideal socialism each individual
would be encouraged to follow his own bent and develop
his own special talent for the good of the community.
To a certain extent this seems true of the United States.
The career there is more open to the talents ; the world
is an oyster which the individual can open with many
kinds of knives ; what the Germans call " umsatteln"
or changing one's profession as one changes one's horse,
is much more feasible in the New World than in the Old.
The freedom and largeness of opportunity is a stimulus
to all strong minds. Lincoln, as Professor Dowden
remarks, would in the Middle Ages have probably con
tinued to split rails all his life.

The fact is that if the predominant power of a few
great minds is diminished in a democracy, it is because,
together with such minds, a thousand others are at work
contributing to the total result. . . . It is surely for the
advantage of the most eminent minds that they should be
surrounded by men of energy and intellect, who belong
neither to the class of hero-worshippers nor to the class of
valets-de-chambre.

The truth seems to be that with an increased population
and the multiplicity of interests and influences at play on

The American Note 281

men, we may expect a greater diversity of mental types in the
future than could be found at any period in the past. The
supposed uniformity of society in a democratic age is appar
ent, not real ; artificial distinctions are replaced by natural
differences ; and within the one great community exists a vast
number of smaller communities, each having its special in
tellectual and moral characteristics. In the few essentials
of social order the majority rightly has its way, but within
certain broad bounds, which are fixed, there remains ample
scope for the action of a multitude of various minorities. —
" Neiu Studies in Literature" by Prof. E. Dowden.

The so-called uniformity and monotony of American
life struck me as existing in appearance much more
than in reality. If all my ten neighbours have pretty
much the same income and enjoy pretty much the same
comforts, their little social circle is certainly in a sense
much more uniform than if their incomes ranged down
from .£10,000 to £300 and their household state from
several powdered footmen to a little maid-of-all-work ;
but surely in all that really matters — in thoughts, ideas,
personal habits and tastes, internal storms and calms,
the elements of tragedy and comedy, talents and ambi
tions, loves and fears — the former circle might be infi
nitely more varied than the latter. Many critics of
American life seem to have been led away by merely
external similarities, and to have jumped at once to the
conclusion that one Philadelphian must be as much like
another as each little red-brick, white-stooped house of
the Quaker City is like its neighbours. A single glance
at the enormous number of intelligent faces one sees in
American society, or even in an American street, is

282 The Land of Contrasts

enough to dissipate the idea that this can be a country
of greater monotony than, say, England, where expres
sionless faces are by no means uncommon, even in the
best circles. America is more monotonous than England,
if a more equitable distribution of material comforts be
monotony ; it is not so, if the question be of originality
of character and susceptibility to ideas.

America "The Land of Contrasts

By James Fullarton Muirhead
5/ net $1.20 net

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