IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 



525 



bury, and still look in vain for the John Bull of 

 his imagination. Neither in appearance nor in 

 manners would the men he met with correspond 

 to the familiar type. At an agricultural show he 

 might find a man here and there who looked 

 dressed for the character, but the chances are 

 ten to one that if he began to talk with the 

 burly-looking farmers he would discover that 

 many of them, though a little rough in their 

 ways and rather loud in their speech, were wholly 

 unlike in their temper and spirit what he had 

 supposed that every Englishman ought to be. 

 Occasionally, no doubt, the type is realized — re- 

 alized physically and realized morally — but it is 

 possible to live for months in many parts of Eng- 

 land without seeing a man who has anything of 

 the appearance of the John Bull of one of Punch's 

 cartoons ; and when you have found a man who 

 looks as if he might have sat for the picture, he 

 often turns out to have no moral resemblance to 

 the conventional ideal of our national character. 

 The people I happened to meet with in New York 

 and Chicago, in Boston and Philadelphia, in 

 Washington and the manufacturing towns of 

 New England, were equally unlike the high-fa- 

 lutin', self-asserting American of caricature and 

 popular fancy. They were quiet instead of noisy, 

 modest instead of ostentatious and boastful, reti- 

 cent rather than demonstrative. 



My own impressions were confirmed by an 

 English friend who had been living in New York 

 for several months, and who asked me whether I 

 had not been struck with the extreme gentleness 

 of American manners. Nor was it the gentleness 

 merely that impressed me. There was something 

 of the old-fashioned formal courtesy which has 

 now almost disappeared in this country. It is 

 one of the reproaches, indeed, which the Repub- 

 licans of America fling at the Democrats that the 

 triumph of the Democratic party in 1801 de- 

 stroyed the good manners of the people and 

 made them rude and insolent. Before Jefferson's 

 election to the presidency — so it is said — the 

 children, when they passed their elders on coun- 

 try roads or in the streets of the smaller towns, 

 made a respectful bow ; but with the accession 

 of the Democrats to power the bow began to sub- 

 side, " first into a vulgar nod, half ashamed and 

 half impudent, and then, like the pendulum of a 

 dying clock, totally ceased." To illustrate this 

 charge, a popular author, Mr. Goodrich, tells a 

 characteristic story: "How are you, priest?" 

 said a rough fellow to a clergyman. " How are 

 you, Democrat ? " was the clergyman's retort. 

 " How do you know I am a Democrat ? " asked 



the man. " How do you know I am a priest ? " 

 said the clergyman. " I know you to be a priest 

 by your dress." " I know you to be a Democrat 

 by your address," said the parson. 1 



It is true, no doubt, that the kind of respect 

 which the people in an English agricultural vil- 

 lage sometimes show to their pastors and masters 

 is not to be found, as far as I know, in the 

 United States. The little girls do not draw up 

 against the wall and make a respectful courtesy 

 to every well-dressed stranger they meet. If you 

 say " Good-morning " to a man you happen to 

 pass in the rural parts of New England, and 

 who looks like a prosperous agricultural la- 

 borer, but who is probably the owner of a farm 

 of eighty or a hundred acres, he will not feel 

 so honored by your condescension as to stand 

 still and pull the front lock of his hair ; he 

 may even stride on with a grunt which is hard- 

 ly courteous. The servants or "helps " have not 

 exactly the manners of servants in England. I 

 always found them respectful and attentive, but 

 there is a certain something with which we are 

 familiar on this side of the Atlantic that is ab- 

 sent. It is quite clear that they do not suppose 

 that their master and their master's guests be- 

 long to a superior race. At an English picnic 

 the younger ladies and gentlemen sometimes 

 spread the cloth, hand the lobster-salad, the 

 cold chicken, and the bread, pour out the wine, 

 and take round the fruit ; they wait "for love " 

 and not for wages. Perhaps, when the dinner is 

 half over, they take their seats and are waited 

 on themselves. American servants reminded me 

 occasionally of these kindly volunteers. Seneca 

 tells one of his correspondents that he should 

 treat his slaves not like beasts of burden, but as 

 "humble friends." Seneca would have found 

 himself quite at home in America. If he thought 

 that the slaves who waited on him should be 

 treated as " humble friends," he would have treat- 

 ed free men and women who waited on him as 

 friends that required to be described by another 

 epithet. I found that the servants took quite a 

 hospitable interest in me. The day before I left 

 New Haven I called to bid good-by to a friend, 

 whose guest I had been during the earlier part of 

 my stay in the city. He happened to be out, but 

 the house-maid who opened the door understood 

 the object of my call, and hoped I was well, and 

 that I had had a pleasant time in America, and 

 that I should have a good voyage, and find all 

 well at home. I do not think that the girl 



] James Parton's " Life of Thomas Jefferson," pp. 

 584, 585. 



