.MmrmmyM ■<:y)k is printed abroad, 3nd our Printfrs and Pa{»er Makers lose the work in its prrKhiction ^ (it of our unfair copyri^rht law, which allows this Dominion to l>e supplietl with United States f and prohibits its production in our own land. . PritMsHKH. ', A- ( _____^ RENGH/AAN 11^ United Strtes and ^mfd BY AiUlior of *' JOAiATH4]V A^U HIS UONTTIIVEHIT," &<•., Acr. 5 WILLIAM BRYCE:. TORONTO, CANADA. H BERLIN, GERMAN' t With 17 Full-Page illustrations anil 34 WoodcuU in tlit Ttxt BY LANCELOT SPEED. ^n I LI Lui By h. rider haggard. SATURDAY REVIEIV.-" ^ Brio BrigBteyes ' is a a book to delight yonng and old. Simple and heroic, nresh, tenible, and in touches humorous, it brings a new, or father old, and diflferetit life into our experience Here is a saga that he who runs may read. Indeed, to invert the old saying, he who naos must run, for ho cannot willingly leave off." ANTI-JACOBIN.—^' We incline to think that this u artistically the most perfect of its author's works • There is plenty of fighting in the book, and it is Tery good fighting indeed— as good as any that Mr. Hazard has given us ; with plenty of stir and m>i8e and fire of primitive conflict, and little o£ the gory detail of which the author has sometimes been aooa^. Neither in his matter nor his manner does Mr. Haggard ihow any signs of weariness. In break- ing mm gr(KiBd he di^lays all the old vigour." PAPF» CAvroct so CENTS. WILLIAM BRYCE, JPul>li!4tter'ip TOfCOIVTO. K/ J0^ A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA (THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE REVISITED) BY _ MAX O'RELL I'c^-^ ^Utfa^^j AUTHOR OF •JOHN BULL AND HIS ISLAND*, »FRIEND MAC DONALD" •JONATHAN AND HIS CONTINENT" BTC., ETC. Binted abroad. -*1^ • • Cf B I Oust: P V(, ./ CONTENTS. Page Chapter I.— Departure — The Atlantic — Demoralisation of the » Boarders* — Betting — The Auctioneer — An Inquisitive K a1IIWC\^ ••• •■• ••• ••• ••■ ■•• ••■ 7 Chapter II. — Arrival of the Pilot — First Look at American Ne\y3papers ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 13 Chapter III. — Arrival — The Custom House — Things Look Bad — Tue Interviewers — First Visits — Things Look Brighter — »0, Vanity of Vanities!* .... ... ... 16 Chapter IV. — Impressions of American Hotels ... ,», 23 Chapter V. — My Opening Lecture — Reflections on Audiences I have had — The Man who Won't Smile— The One who Laughs Too Soon, and Many Others .., ^* . , ... 30 Chapter VI. — A Coanecticut Audience — Merry Meriden — A Hard Pull .^. ... .,♦• .... 37 Chapter VIL —A Tempting Offer — The Thursday Club— ^^ ^ Bill Nye — Visit to Young Ladies' School — The Players' ^iUD •>• ••• ••• ••• ■•• ••• -•• ••• 4' Chapter VIII. — The Flourishing of Coats of Arms in America — Reflections Thereon — Forefathers Made to Order — The Phonog'-aph at Home — The Wealth of New York — Departure for Buffalo ... ... ... ... ... 46 Chapter IX. — Different Ways of Advertising a Lecture — American Impresarios and their Methods ... ... 50 Chapter X. — Buffalo — The Niagara Falls — A Frost — Rochester to the Rescue of Buffalo — Cleveland — I Meet Jonathan ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 54 Chapter XI. — A Great Admirer — Notes on Railway Travelling — Is America a Free Nation? A Pleasant Evening in x^cw X oriv ••-•' •*•"'•»• •■* ••• «•• ••• 59 CONTENTS. Bige- Chapter XII. — Notes on American Women — Comparisons — How Men Treat "Women and vice versa — Scenes as Illustrations ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 65. Chapter XIII. — More about Journalism in America — A Dinner at Delmonico's — My First Appearance in an American Church ... ... ... 79^ Chapter XTV. — Marcus Aurelius in America — Chairmen I have had — American, English, and Scotch Chairmen — One who had been to Boulogne — Talkative and SUeni Chairmen — A Trying Occasion — The Lord is asked to allow the Audience to see my Jokes ... ^90^ Chapter XV. — Reflections on the Typical American ... 99» Chapter XVI. — I am asked to express myself freely on America — I meet Mrs. Blank, and for the first time hear -• of Mr. Blank — Beacon Street Society — The Boston Clubs 107^ Chapter XVII. — A Lively Sunday in Boston — Lecture in the Boston Theatre — Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes — The Booth-Modjeska Combination ... ... ... .,, ii^ Chapter XVm.— St. Johnsbury— The State of Maine — New England Self-control — Cold Climates and Frigid Audiences ^ —Where is the Audience? — All Drunk! — A Reminiscence w " of a Scotch Audience on a Saturday Night ... .4. 1 1 7" Chapter XDC. — A Lovely Ride to Canada — Quebec, a Comer J: ^ of Old France Strayed up West and Lost in the Snow — The French Canadians — The Parties in Canada — Will the Canadians become Yankees? ... .... 125, Chapter XX. — Montreal — The City — Mount Royal— Canadian Sports — Ottawa — The Government — Rideau ****** •*• ••• ••• «*» *•« ••» ••• ••• l"?* Chapter XXI. — Toronto — The City — The Ladies — The Sports — Strange Contrasts — The Canadian Schools ... 137 Chapter XXn.— West Canada — Relations between British and Indians — Return to the United States — Difficulties in the Way — Encounter with an American Custom-house '-''••cer ... ... ... ,,, ,., ,,, ,,, '4^ CONTENTS. Bxge •CHAPTER XXIII. — Chicago (first visit) —The Neighbourhood of Chicago — The History of Chicago — Public Servants — A very Deaf Man 146 •Chapter XXIV. — St. Paul and Minneapolis the Sister Cities — Rivalries and Jealousies between Large American Cities — Minnehaha Falls — Wonderful Interviewers — My Hat Gets into Trouble Again — Electricity in the Air — Forset Advertisements — Railway Speed in America ... ... 154 Chapter XXV.— Detroit— The Town— The Deiroi/ Free Press — A Lady Interviewer — The »Unco' guid« in Detroit — Reflections on the Anglo-Saxon •Unco' guid« ... ... i6o Chapter XXVI. — Milwaukee — A Well-filled Day— Reflections on the Scotch in America — Chicago Criticisms 170 Chapter XXVII. — The Monotony of Travelling in the States Manon Z«fa«/ in America 175 Chapter XXVin. — For the first time I see an American paper • Abuse me^ — Albany to New York — A Lecture at Daly's :;. Theatre — Afternoon Audiences ... .*. ... *!,k ilfS Chapter XXDC — Wanderings through New York — Lecture at (p/y the Harmony Club — Visit to the Century Club 183 Chapter XXX. — Visit to the Brooklyn Academy of Music — Rev. Dr. Talmage ... i«^ 18$ Chapter XXXI.— Virginia— The Hotels— The South— I will Kill a ■ Railw{\y Conductor before I leave America — Philadelphia — Impressions of the Old City 189 Chapter XXXn. — My Ideas of the State of Texas— Why I Did Not go There — The Story of a Frontier Man ... 196 Chapter XXXin. — Cincinnati — The Town — The Suburbs — A German City — »Over the Rhinet — What is a Good Patriot? — An Impressive Funeral — A Great Fire — How it Appeared to Me, and how it Appear*^ to the Newspaper Reporters .^. ... ... ... ... ... ... 199 Chapter XXXTV. — A Journey if you Like— Terrible Encounter with an American Interviewer ... 209 6 CONTENTS. Pi»ge Chapter XXXV. — The University of Indiana. — Indianapolis — The Veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic on the Spree — A Marvellous Equilibrist ... ... 217 Chapter XXXVI. — Chicago (second visit) — Vassili Verest- chagin's Exhibition — The »Angelus« — Wagner and Wagnerites — Wanderings about the Big City — I Sit on the Tribunal ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 220 Chapter XXXVII. — Ann Arbor — The University of Michigan — Detroit again — The French out of France— Oberlin College, Ohio— Black and White — Are all American Citizens Equal?" 'i«.V 228 Chapter XXXVIII.— Mr. ani Mrs. Kendal in New York— j Joseph Jefferson — Julian Hawthorne— Miss Ada Rehan — -'t- s^^^ As You Like It, at Daly's Theatre 234 Chapter XXXIX.— Washington— The City— Willard's Hotel , ^ ;>V — The Politicians— General Benjamin Harrison, U. S.C. .- * ■:-_[. President — Washington Society — Baltimore — Philadelphia 236 Chapter XL. — Easter Sunday in New York 243 - Chapter XLI. — I Mount the Pulpit and Preach on the * «- • Sabbath, in the State of Wisconsin — The Audience is Large and Appreciative; but I probably Fail to Please one of the Congregation ... ... 246 Chapter XLII. — The Origin of American Humour and its Characteristics — The Sacred and the Profane — The Germans and American Humour — My Corpse would ■Draw* in my Impresario's Opinion 250 Chapter XUII. — Good-bye to America — Not » Adieu «, but »Au Revoir* — On Board the Teutonic— Hova^ again ... 254 1 • >. \ A FRENCHMAN IN ^ .' ■ CHAPTER I. Departure — The Atlantic — Demoralisation of the *^ Boarders'' — Betting — The Auctioneer — An Inqmsi- .■ tive Yankee. '<'':^.^%:--''^:' -. • '•'"-'"•:,_ ,^ 0n boarU tlir ''lErltir^ ICiiriBtraas njffb. 1889.% In the order of things the Teutonic was to have sailed to-day, but the date is the 25 th of December, and few people elect to eat their Christmas dinner on the ocean if they can avoid it; so there are only twenty- five saloon passengers, and they have been committed io the brave little Celtic, while that huge floating pa- lace, the Teutonic^ remains in harbour. Little Celtic I Has it come to this with her and her companions, the Germanic, the Britanfiic, and the rest that were the wonders and the glory of the shipbuilding craft a few years ago ? There is something almost sad in seeding these queens of the Atlantic dethroned, and obliged to rank below newer and grander ships. It was even pathetic to hear the remarks of the sailors as we passed the Germanic, who, in her day, had created even more wondering admiration than the two famous armed cruisers lately added to the > White Star« fleet. 8 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. I know nothing more monotonous than a voyage from Liverpool to New York. Nine times out of ten — not to say ninety-nine times out of a hundred — the peissage is bad. The Atlanlic Ocean has an ugly temper; it has for ever got its back up. Sulky, angry, and terrible by turns, it only takes a few days' rest out of every year, and this always occurs when you are not crossing. And then, the wind is invariably against you. When you go to America, it blows from the west ; when you come back to Europe, it blows from the east. If the captain steers south to avoid icebergs, it is sure to begin to blow southerly. Doctors say that sea-sickness emanates from the brain. I can quite believe them. The blood rushes to your head, leaving your extremities cold and help- less. All the vital force flies to the brain, aad your legs refuse to carry you. It is with sea-sickness as it is with wine. When people say that a certain wine goes to the head more quickly than another, it means that it more quickly goes to the legs. There you are on board a huge construction that rears and kicks like a buck jumper. She lifts all the parts of your body together, and, after well shaking them in the air several seconds, lets them down hig- gledy-piggledy, leaving to Providence the business of picking them up and putting them together again. That is the kind of thing one has to go through about sixty times an hour; and there is no hope for you — nobody dies ot it. Under such conditions the mental state of the boarders may easily be imagined. They smoke, they play cards, they pace the deck like Bruin pacing a cage, or else they read, and forget at the second chapter all they have read in the first. A few pre- sumptuous ones try to think, but without succ^s. The ladies — the American ones more especially — lie A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 9 on their deck chairs swathed in rugs and shawls like Egyptian mummies in their sarcophagi, and there they pass from ten to twelve hours a day motionless,, hope- less, helpless, speechless. Some few incurables keep to their cabins altogether, and only show their wasted faces when it is time to debark. Up they come, with cross, stupefied, pallid, yellow-green-looking physiog- nomies, and seeming to say » Speak to me if you like, but don't expect me to open my eyes or answer you, and, above aJl, don't shake me.c Impossible to fraternise. The crossing now takes about six days and a half. By the time you have spent two in getting your sea legs on, and three more in reviewing, and being re- viewed by, your fellow-pcissengers, you will find your- self at the end of your troubles — and your voyage. No, peor»Ic do not fraternise on board ship during such a short passage unless a rumour runs fi-om cabin to cabin that there has been some accident to the machinery, or that the boat is in imminent danger. At the least scare of this kind everyone looks at his neighbour with eyes that are alarmed, but amiable, nay, even amicable. But as soon as one can say, »We have come off" with a mere scare this time,* all the facial traits stiffen once more, and nobody knows anybody. Universal grief only will bring about uni\'ersal brotherhood. We must waft till the Day of Judgment. When the world is passing away, oh I how men will forgive and love one another 1 What outpourings ot goodwill and affection th;re will be I How touching, how edifying will be the sight! The universal republic will be founded in the twinkling of an eye, distinctions of creed and class forgotten. The author will embrace the critic, and even the publisher; the socialist open his arms to the capitalist; the married men will be seen » making it up« with their mothers-in-law, begfging lO A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. them to forgive and forget, an admitting that they had not been always quite so . . . so — in fact, as they might have been. If the Creator of all is a philosopher, or enjoys humour, how He will be amused to see all the various sects ot Christians, who have passed their lives in running one another down, throw themselves into one another's arms. It will be a scene never to be forgotten. Yes, I repeat it, the voyage from Liverpool to New York is monotonous and wearisome in the extreme. It is an interval in one's existence, a week more or less lost — decidedly more than less. One grows gelatinous from head to foot, especially in the upper part of one's anatomy. * In order to see to what an extent the brain softens, you only need look at the pastimes the poor passen gers go in for. >. . ; A state of demoralisation prevails throughout. They bet. That is the form the disease takes. They bet on anything and everything. They bet that the sun will or will not appear next day at eleven precisely, or that rain will fall at noon. They bet that the number of miles made by the boat at twelve o'clock next day will terminate with o, i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9. Each draws one of these numbers, and pays his shilling, half-crown, or even sovereign. Then these numbers are put up at auction. An improvised auctioneer, with the gift of the gab, puts his talent at the service of his fellow-passengers. It is really very funny to see him swaying about the smoking-room table, and using all his eloquence over each number in turn for sale. A good auctioneer will run the bid- ding so smartly that the winner of the pool next day often pockets as much as thirty and forty pound*?. On the eve .of arrival in New York harbour everybody knows that twenty-four pilots are waiting about for the advent of the liner, and that each boat carries her A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. II number on her sail. Accordingly, twenty-four numbers are rolled up and thrown into a cap, and betting be- gins again. He who has drawn the. number which happens to be that of the pilot who takes the steamer into harbour pockets the pool. I, who have never bet on anything in my life, even bet with my travelling companion, when the roll- ing of the ship sends our portmanteaus from one side of the cabin to the other, that mine will arrive first. One's intellectual faculties are reduced to this ebb. The nearest approaci* to a gay note in this concert of groans and grumblings is struck by some humorous and good-tempered American. He will come and ask you the most impossible questions with an ease and impudence perfectly inimitable. These catechisings are all the more droll because they are done with a naivety which completely disarms you. The phrase is short, without verb, reduced to its most concise expression. The intonation alone marks the interrogation. Here is a specimen. * ^^ We have on board the Celtic an American who is not a very shrewd person, for it has actually taken him five days to discover that English is not my na- tive tongue. This morning (30th December) he found it out, cmd, being seated near me in the smoke-room just now, started the following conversation: — > Foreigner {•€ said he. t Foreigner, « said I, replying in American. » German, I guess. « *■ v » Guess again. « 1, . -- » French?! »Pure blood, c „ »Married?« — - ^ Married . » -- » Going to America? >Yes, evidently. € 12 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. »Pleasure trip?c »N0.€ ^ . r-(, f''(^^:-:i;,,^; >On business ?c ' ^X;:'-^:^:''C^P'k:^'^^^^^^^ >0n business, yes.t '};_;■ 'ir;'l^:-l^^i;i;f:;.v^'^^-4;g^ » What's your line?* '3' M-^'iAW^-:'^^^i^''-^i' »Hm — French 8foods.< '::,,^^S)/i.x\-^\^'i:;- »Ah! What class of goods?* i j^ ^^^^\ ■ ; »Z.' article de Paris.t ,,i,\::,..:: .t: =..'-::' \i^':y':^'>' ^f »The what?« ■-^■-:^"V-'^"i'--;ri",;.\--.- ■-:„']--;•■ >The ar-ti-cle de Pa-ris^ »Oh! yes, the arnticle of Pahrriss.^ »Exactly so. Excuse my pronunciation. c 4 This floored him. » Rather impertinent, your smoke-room neighbour!* you will say. ^ ^ ■ : i - Undeceive yourself at once upon that point. It is not impertinence, still less an intention to offend you, that urges him to put these incongruous questions to you. It is the interest he takes in you. The American is a good fellow: good fellowship is one of his chief characteristic traits. Of that I became perfectly con- vinced during my last visit to the United States. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA, 1 3 CHAPTER n. Arrival of the Pilot — First Look at American Newspapers, SaturDaV/ ^tt| ganuary, 1890. We shall arrive in New York harbour to-night, but too late to go on shore. After sunset, the Custom House officers are not to be disturbed. We are about to land in a country where, as I remember, everything is in subjection to the paid servant. In the United States he who is paid wages commands. We make the best of it. After havii^ mercilessly tumbled us about for nine days, the wind has graciously calmed down, and our last day is going to be a good one, thanks be. lliere is a pure atmosphere. A clear line at the horizon divides space into two immensities, two sheets of blue sharply defined. Faces are smoothing out a bit. People talk, are becoming in fact quite communicative. One seems to say to another: >Why, after all, you don't look half so disagreeable as I thought. If I had only known that, we might have seen more of each other, and killed time more quickly, c The pilot boat is in sight. It comes towards us, and sends off in a rowing boat the pilot who will take us into port. The arrival of the pilot on board is not an incident. It is an event. Does he not bring the New York newspapers? And when you have been ten days at sea, cut off from the world, to read the papers of the day before is to come back to life again, and once more take up your place in this Httle planet that has been 14 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. going on its jog-trot way during your temporary sup- pression. The first article which meets my e}es, as I open the New York Worlds is headed: »High time for Mr. Nash to put a stop to it.c This is the article: — >Ten days ago, Mrs. Nash brought a boy into existence. Three days afterwards she presented her hus- band with a little girl. Yesterday the lady was safely delivered of a third baby.« Mrs. Nash takes her time over it would have been another good heading. Here we are in America! Old world ways don't obtain here. In Europe, Mrs. Nash would probably have ushered the little trio into this life in one day; but in Europe we are out of date, rococd^ and if one came over to find the Americans doing things just as they are done on the other side, one might as well stay at home, I run through the papers. America, I see, is split into two camps. Two young ladies. Miss Nelly Bly and Miss Elizabeth Bisland, have left New York by opposite routes to go round the world, the former sent by the New York World, the latter by the Cosmopolitan. Which will be back first? is what all America is conjecturing upon. Bets have been made, *nd the betting is even. I do not know Miss Bly, but last time I came over I had the pleasure of making Miss Bisland's acquaintance. Naturally, as soon as I get on shore, I shall bet on Miss Bisland. You would do the same yourself, would you not? I pass the day reading the papers. All the bits of news, insignificant or not, given in the shape of crisp, lively stories, help pass the time. They contain little information, but much amusement. The American news-\ paper always reminds me of a shop window with all |og the goods ticketed in a marvellous style, so as to attract | and tickle the eye. You cannot pass over anything. The j A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 1 5 leadins[ article is scarcely kn >wn across the »wet spot« ; the paper is a collection of bits of gossip, hearsay, news, j J scandal, the whole served a la sauce piquante. We are passing the bar, and going to anchor. New York is sparkling with lights, and the Brooklyn Bridge is a thing of beauty. I will enjoy the scene for an hour, and then turn in. We land to-morrow morning at seven. r 1 6 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. ■.g'iW:'" CHAPTER m. |^'^1^-S5S-:?^ Arrival — Z;^^ Custom House — Things Look Bad — The Interviewers — First Visits — Things Look Brighter -^ Oy Vanity of Vanities r\ ii jprm ^orh harbour, 5tt| Hfinuarv* At seven o'clock in the morning, the Custom House officers came on board. One of them at once recognised me, said, calling me by name, that he was glad to see me back, and inquired if I had not brought Madame with me this time. It is extraordinary the memory of many of those Americans! This one had seen me for a few minutes two years before, and probably had to deal with two or three hundred thousand people since. All the passengers came to the saloon, and made their declarations one after another; after which they swore in the usual form that they had told the truth, and signed a paper to that effect. This done, many a poor pilgrim innocently imagines that he has finished with the Custom House, and he renders thanks to Heaven tliat he is going to set foot on a soil where a man's word is not doubted. He reckons without his host. In spite of his declaration, sworn and signed, his trunks are opened and searched with all the dogged zeal of a policeman who believes he is on the track of a criminal, and who will only give up after perfectly convincing himself that the trunks do not contain the slightest dutiable article. Everything is taken out and examined. If there are any objects of apparel that appear like new ones to that scrutinising eye, look out for squalls. I must say that the officer was very kind to me. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 1 7 For that matter, the luggage of a man who travels alone, without Madame and her impedimenta, is soon examined. Before leaving the ship, I went to shake hands with Captain Parsell, that experienced sailor whose bright, interesting conversation, added to the tempting delicacies provided by the cooks, made many an hour pass right cheerily for those who, like m.yself, had the good fortune to sit at his table. I thanked him for jdl the kind attentions I had received at his hands, I should have liked to thank all the employ is of the »^\'^lite Star« Line Company. Their politeness is above all praise, their patience perfectly angelical. Ask them twenty times a day the most absurd questions, such as: »Will the sea soon calm down?c > Shall we get into harbour on Wednes- day?* »Do you think we shall be in early enough to land in the evening?* And so on. You find them always ready with a kind and encouraging answer: »The baro- meter is going up and the sea is going down;« or, »We are now doing our nineteen knots an hour.* Is it true, or not? It satisfies you, at all events. In certain cases, it is so sweet to be deceived ! Better to be left to nurse a beloved illusion than to have to give it up for a harsh reality that you are powerless against. Everyone is grateful to those kind sailors and stewards for the little innocent fibs that they are willing to load their con- sciences with, in order that they may brighten your path across the ocean a little. 4i « « m lEnrrrtt %ou0f, :pD0n. My baggage examined, I took a cab to the hotel. Three dollars for a mile and a half: a mere trifle. It was pouring with rdn. New York on a Sunday is never very gay. To-day the city seemed to me horrible, dull, dirty, and dreary. It is not the fault of New York altogether. I have the spleen. A horribly stormy passage, the stomach upside down, the heart up in the throat, 1 8 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. the thought that my dear ones are three thousand miles away : all these things help to make everythii^ look black. It would have needed a radiant sun in one of those pure blue skies that North America is so rich in, to make life look agreeable and New York passable to-day. In ten minutes, cabby set me down at the Everett House. After having signed the register, I went and looked up my manager, whose bi reau is on the ground floor of the hotel. * The spectacle which awaited me was appalling. There sat the unhappy Major Pond in his office, his head bowed upon his chest, his arms hanging limp, the very picture of despair. The country is seized with a panic. Everybody has the influenza. Everyone does not die of it, but everyone is having it. The malady is not called influenza over here, as it is in Europe. It is called > Grippe «. No American escapes it. Some have la grippe, others have the grippe, a few even have the la grippe. Others again, the lucky ones, think they have it. Those who have not had it, or do not think they have it yet, are expecting it. The nation is in a complete state of demoralisation. Theatres are empty, business almost suspended, doctors on their backs or run ofl" their legs. At twelve a telegram is handed to me. It is from my friend Wilson Barrett, who is playing in Philadelphia : » Hearty greetings, dear friend. Five grains of quinine and two tablets of antipyrine a day, or you get grippe. <^ Then came many letters, by every post: > Impossible to go and welcome you in person. I have la grippe. Take every precaution. < Such is the tenor of them all. The outlook is not bright. What to do? For a moment^ I have half a mind to call a cab and get on board the first boat bound for Europe. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 1 9 I go to my room, the windows of which overlook Union Square. The skj^ is sombre, the street is black and deserted, the air is suffocatin<:^y warm, and a very heavy rain is beating against the windows. Shade of Columbus, how I wish I were home again ! Cheer up, boy, the handgrasps of your dear New York friends will be sweet after the frantic grasping of stair-rails and other ship furniture for so many days! I will have lunch and go and pay calls. , .^^ Excuse me if I leave you for a few minutes. The interviewers are waiting for me downstairs in Major Pond's office. The interviewers! a gay note at last. The hall-porter hands me their cards. They are all there: representatives of the Tribwie, the Times, the Sun, the Herald, the World, the Star. What nonsense Europeans have written on the subject of interviewing in America, to be sure! To hear them speak, you would believe that it is the greatest nuisance in the world. A Frenchman writes in the Figaro: - '^ »I will go to America, if my life can be insured against that terrific nuisance interviewing. « An Englishman writes to an English pap^, on returning from America: »When the reporters called on me, I invariably refused to see them.« Trash! cant! hypocrisy! With the exception of a King, or the Prime Minister of one of the Great Powers, a man is only too glad to be interviewed. Don't talk to me about the nuisance, tell the truth, it is always such a treat to hear it. I consider that interviewing is a compliment, a great compliment, a great compliment paid to the interviewed. In asking a man to give you his views, so as to enlighten the 2» 20 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. public on such and such a subject, you acknowledge that he is an important man, which is flattering to him ; or you take him for one, which is more flattering still. I maintain that American interviewers are ex- tremely courteous and obliging, and, as a rule, very faithful reporters of what you say to them. Let me say that I have a lurking doubt in my mind whether those who have so much to say against interviewing in America have ever been asked to be interviewed at all, or have even ever run such a danger. .-^ ■:^ ' , - '. ., ^^.n. ".. ■ . '^■^:':%:-'-f->':;i:t-^r- _ . I object to interviewing as a sign of decadence in modern journalism; but I do not object to being interviewed, I like it; and, to prove it, I will go down at once and be interviewed. The interview with the New York reporters passed, off" very well. I went through the operation like a man, they said. ^ -n ■■'.[.■■. ^■U::^i After lunch I went to see Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman, who had shown me a great deal of kind* ness during my first visit to America. I found in him a friend ready to welcome me. The poet and literary critic is a man of about fifty, of small stature, with a beautifully chiselled head. In every one of the features you can detect the artist, the man of delicate, tender, and refined feelings. It was a pleasure for me to see him again. He has finished his Library of American Literature^ a gigantic work of erudite criticism and judicious compilation, which he undertook a few years ago in collaboration with Miss Ellen Mackay Hutchinson. These eleven volumes form a perfect national monument, a com- plete cyclopaedia of American literature, giving ex- A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 21 tr;i,cts from the writings of every American who has published anything for the last three hundred years [1607 1890). ■~^,. ■■,/';-: •- -y,-^ - :,^:r::K^^if On leaving him, I went to call on Mrs. Anna Bowmaq Dodd, the author of Cathedral Days^ Glo- rinda, and other charming books, and one of the brightest conversationalists it has ever been my good fortune to meet. After an hour's chat with her, I had foi-gotten all about the grippe and all my other more or less imaginary miseries. I ret'irned to the Everett House to dress, and w<;;nt to the Union League Club to dine with General Horace Porter. ; r i 3' A The General possesses a rare and most happy combination of brilliant, flpshing Parisian wit and dry, qiLJet American humour. This charming causeur and r.mUeur tells an anecdote as nobody I know can do: le never misses fire. He assured me at table that i:h(;; Copyright Bill will soon be passed, for, he added, »Ave have now a pure and pious Administration. At »^^ lh<: White House they open their oysters with prayer, t TId e conversation fell on American Society, or, rather, <»Ei American Societies. The highest and lowest of these can be distinguished by the use of van. >The Hue blood of America put it before their names, as lAm Nicken; political society put it after, as Sullivan**. Van-itas Van-itatum! Time passed rapidly in such delightful company. 1 finished the evening at the house of Colonel Robert G. IngersoU. If there had been any cloud of gloom still left hanging about me, it would have vanished at the sight of his sunny face. There was a small gathering of some thirty people, and among theiTi Mr. Edgar Fawcett, whose acquaintance I was deh^'hted to make. Conversation went on briskly with one and the other, and at half-past eleven I returned to tlie hotel completely cured. 22 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. To-morrow morning I leave for Boston at ten o'clock, to begin the lecture tour in that city, or, to use an Americanism, to »open the show*. ^ « mm m There is a knock at the door. It is the hall porter with a letter: an invitation to dine with the members of the Clover Club at Phila- delphia on Thursday next, the i6th. I look at my list of engagements and find I am in Pittsburgh on that day. 1 take a telegraph form and pen the following, which I will send to my friend, Major M. P. Handy, the president of this lively association: >Many thanks. Am engaged in t^ittsburgh on the sixteenth. Thank God, cannot attend your dinner.* I remember how those »boys« cheeked me two years ago, laughed at me, sat on me. That's my telegram to you, Cloverites — with my love. ...s* A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 2$ ' CHAPTER IV. Impressions of American Hotels, - Boston, 6tli Januart. Arrived here this afternoon, and resumed acquain- tance with American hotels. ^^r-'-n':J7'^:'M^^^ American hotels are all alike. i I ^ if Some are worse. - v Describe one and you have described them all. On the ground floor, a lai^e entrance-hall strewed with cuspidores for the men, and a side entrance provided with a triumphal arch for the ladies. On this floor the sexes are separated, as at the public baths. In the large hall, a counter behind which solemn clerks, whose business-faces relax not a muscle, are ready with their book to enter your name and assign you a number. A small army of coloured porters ready to take you in charge. Not a salute, not a word, not a smile of welcome. The negro takes your bag and makes a sign that your case is settled. You follow him. For the time being, you lose your personality and become No. 375, as you would in gaol. Don't ask questions, there is no time to answer; don't ring the bell to ask for a favour, if you set any value on your time. All the rules of the establish- ment are printed and posted in your bedroom; you have to submit to them. No question to ask, you know everything. Henceforth you will have to be hungry from 7 to 9 a. m., from i to 3 p. m., from 6 to 8 p. m. The slightest infringement of the routine 24 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. would Stop the wheel, so don't ask if you could have a meal ai four o'clock; you would be taken for a lunatic, or a crank (as they call it in America). Between meals you will be supplied with ice water ad libitum. No privacy. No coffee-room, no smoldng-room. No place where you can go and quietly sip a cup of coffee or drink a glass of beer with a cigar. You can have a drink at the bar, and then go and sit down in the hall among the crowd. Life in an American hotel is an alternation of the cellular system during the night and of the gregarious system during the day, an alternation of the penitential systems carried out at Philadelphia and at Auburn. It is not in the bedroom either that you must seek anything to cheer you. The bed is good, but only for the night. The room is perfectly nude. Not even »Napoleon*s Farewell to his Soldiers at Fontainebleau* as in France, or » Strafford Walking^ to the Scaffold* as in England. Not that these I pictures are particulary cheerfull, still they break the, monotony of the wall-paper. Here the only oases in the brown or grey desert are cautions. First of all, a notice that, in a cupboard near the window, you will find some t\\'enty yards of coiled rope which, in case of fire, you are to fix to a hook outside the window. The rest is guessed. You fix the rope and — you let yourself go. From a sixth, seventh, or eighth story, the prospect is lively. Another caution informs you of all that you must not do, such as your own washing in the bedroom. Another warns you that if, on retiring, you put your boots outside the door, you do so at your own risk and peril. Another is posted near the door, close to an electric bell. With a little care and practice, you will be able to carry out the instructions printed rress 5 once > twice » three times » four ^ fiv^e » *■';"'■ » six » 'S^^'- » seven » eight » A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 2$ thereon. The only thing wonderful about the con- trivance is that the servants never make mistakes. for ice-water. » hall-boy. . ^ > fireman. » chambermaid. .£■- . •;,* /4 > hot water. » ink and writing materials. » ba^age. .;,..^ * » messenger. In some hotels I have seen the list carried Jo number twelve. Another notice tells you what the proprietor's responsibilities are, and at what time the meals take place. Now this last notice is the most important of all. Woe to you if you forget it! For if you should present yourself one minute after the dining- room door is closed, no humar. consideration would get it open for you. SuppHcations, ailments would be of no avail. Not even money. »What do you mean?« some old-fashioned Eu- ropean will exclaim. »When the tad/e d^hote is over, of course you cannot expect the menu to be served to you ; but surely you can order a steak or a chop.« No, you cannot, not even an omelette or a piece of cold meat. If you arrive at one minute past three (in small towns, at one minute past two), you find the dining-room closed, and you must wait till six o'clock to see its hospitable doors open again. *, • ._.„,^,_-,,.,-,.^-- » * When you enter the dining-room, you must not believe that you can go and sit where you like. The chief waiter assigns you a seat, and you must take it. Whit a superb wave of the hand, he signs to you to follow him. He does not even turn round to 26 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. see if you are behind him, following him in all the meanders he describes amidst the sixty, eighty, sometimes hundred, tables that are in the room. He takes it for granted you are an obedient, submissive traveller who knows his duty. Altogether I travelled in the United States for about ten months, and I never came across an American so daring, so in- dependent, as to actually take any other seat than that ' assigned to him by that tremendous potentate, the chief waiter. Occasionally, just to try him, I would at down in a chair I took a fancy to. But he would come and fetch me, and tell me that I could not stay there. In Europe, the waiter asks you where you would like to sit. In America, you ask him where : you may sit. He is a paid servant, therefore a master in America. He is in command, not of the other waiters, but of the guests. Several times, recognising friends in the dining-room, I asked the man to take me to their table (I should not have dared to go by : myselt), and the permission was granted with a patronising sign of the head. I have constantly seen Americans stop on the threshold of the dining-room door, and wait until the chief waiter had returned from placing a guest to come and fetch them in their turn. I never saw them venture alone, and take an empty seat without the sanction of the waiter. The guests feel stn*CK- with awe in that dining- room, and solemnly bolt their food as quickly as they can. You hear less noise in an American hotel dining- room containing five hundred people, than you do at a French table d'hote accommodating fifty people, at a German one containing a dozen guests, or at a table where two Italians are dining tete-a-tete. The chief waiter, at large Northern and Western hotels, is a white man. In the Southern ones, he is a mulatto or a black ; but white or black, he is always a magni- ficent specimen of his race. There is not a ghost of .1*^' A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 2/ a savour of the serving-man about him : no whiskers and shaven upper lips reminding you of the waiters of the Old World; but always a fine moustache, the twirling of which helps to give an air of nonchalant superiority ta its wearer. The mulatto head waiters in the South really look like dusky princes. Many of them are so handsome and carry themselves so superbly, that you find them very impressive at first, and would fain apologise to them. You feel as if you wanted to thank them for kindly condescending to concern themselves about anything so commonplace as your seat at table. [f'^■/r-^f\.-\-\/r:''^■'■^■^:y::^:.-^-^:'^-',:r- ■ In the smaller hotels, the waiters are all — wait- \ resses. The waiting is done by damsels entirely — \/o or rather by the guests of the hotel. ' If the Southern head waiter looks like a prince, what shall we say of the head waitress in the East, the North and the West? No term short of queenly will describe her stately bearing as she moves about among her bevy of reduced duchesses. She is evi- dently chosen for her appearance. She is » divinely tallc as well as »most divinely fair,« and, as if to add to her importance, sht is crowned with a gigantic mass of frizzled hair. All the waitresses have this coiffure. It is a livery, as caps are in the Old World; but in- steat of being a badge of servitude, it looks, and is, alarmingly emancipated — so much so that, before ma- king close acquaintance with my dishes, I always examine them with great care. A beautiful mass of hair looks lovely on the head of a woman, but one in your soup, even if it had strayed from the tresses of your beloved one, would make the comers of your mouth go down, and the tip of your nose go up. A regally handsome woman always »goes well in the landscape,* as the French say, and I have seen specimens of these waitresses so handsome and so commanding-looking that if they cared to come over 28 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. to Europe and play the queens in London pantomimes, I feel sure they would command quite exceptional prices, and draw big salaries and crowded houses. m m * m The thing which strikes me most disagreeably in the American hotel dining-room, is the sight of the tremendous waste of food that goes on at every meal. No European, I suppose, can fail to be struck with this; but to a Frenchman it would naturally be most remarkable. In France, where, I venture to say, people live as well as anywhere else, if not better, there is a horror of anything like waste of good food. It is to me, therefore, a repulsive thing to see t|:ie wanton manner in which some Americans will waste at one meal enough to feed several hungry fellow- creatures. In the large hotels, conducted on the American plan, there are rarely fewer than fifty different dishes on the menu at dinner-time. Every day, and at every meal, you may see people order three times as much of this food as they could under any circumstances eat, and, after picking at and spoiling one dish after another, send the bulk away uneaten. I am bound to say that this practice is not only to be observed in hotels where the charge is so much per day, but in those conducted on the European plan — that is, where you pay for every item you order. There I notice that people proceed in much the same wasteful fashion. It is evidently not a desi.e to have more than is paid %r, but simply a bad and ugly habit. * 9 * m I think that many Europeans are prevented from going to America by an idea that the expense of tra- velling and living there is very great. Tlus is quite a delusion. For my part, I find that hotels are as cheap in America as in England at any rate, and railway * A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 29 travelling in Pullman cars is certainly cheaper than in European first-class carriages and incomparably more comfortable. Put aside in America such hotels as Delmonico's, the Brunswick in New York, the Richelieu in Chicago, and in England such hotels as the Metro- pole, the Victoria, the Savoy; and take the good hotels of the country, such as the Grand Pacific at Chicago, the West House at Minneapolis, the Windsor at Montreal, the Cadillac at Detroit — I only mention those I remember as the very best. In these hotels you are comfortably lodged and magnificently fed for from three to five dollars a day. In no good hotel of England, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, would you get the same amount of comfort, or even luxury, at the same price, and those who require a sitting-room get it for a little less than they would have to pay in p. European hotel. The only very dear hotels I have come across in the United States are those of Virginia. There I have been charged as much as two dollars a day, but never in my life did I pay so dear lor what I had, never in my life did I see so many dirty rooms or so many messes that were unfit for human food. But I will just say this much for the American refinement of feeling to be met Tvith, even in the hotels of Virginia, even in i lunch c rooms in small stations. You are supplied, at the end of each meal, with a bowl of water — to rinse your mouth. 30 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. CHAPTER V^:, ''' .,*<■-, >. My Opening Lecture — Reflections on Audiences I have had — The Man who Won't Smile — The One who Laughs Too Soon, and Many Others. i |> 1 1^ finston, 7ttj JanuarY. ^ . * Began my second American tour under most favour- : able auspices last night, in the Tremont Temple. The huge hall was crowded with an audience of about v^500 people: a most kind, warm, keen, and appre- f dative audience. I was a little afraid of the Boston, v nians; I had heard so much about their power of cri- ;f ticism, that I had almost come to the conclusion that it was next to impossible to please them. The Boston newspapers this morning give full reports of my lec- ture. All of them are kind and most favourable. This .: is a good start, and I feel hopeful. The subject of the lecture was »A National Por- trait Gallery of the Anglo-Saxon Races, « in which I delineated the English, the Scotch, and the American characters. Strange to say, the Scotch sketches seem- ed to tickle them most. This, however, I can ex- plain to myself. Scotch »wut« is more like American \ humour than any kind of wit I know. There is about \\I it the same dryness, the same quaintness, the same / preposterousness, the same subtlety. / The Boston audience also seemed to enjoy my criticisms of America and the Americans, which dis- poses of the absurd belief that the Americans will not listen to the criticism of their country. There are Americans and Americans, as there is criticism and A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 3 1 criticism. If you can speak of people's virtues without flattery; if you can speak of their weaknesses and failings with kindness and good humour, I believe you can criticise to your heart's content without ever fearing to give offence to intelligent and fair-minded people. I admire and love the Americans. How could they help seeing it through all the little criticism that I in- dulged in on the platform ? On the whole, I was de- lighted with my Boston audience, and, to judge from the reception last night, I believe I succeeded in pleas- ing them. ■ ': ..-ruv.; \' ■ ^■■■^;:;if'■^::^v:;;^:,.,; , ',:''" ia'-^rr-^.^' I have never been able to lecture, whether in Eng- land, in Scotland, in Ireland, or in America, without discovering somewhere in the hall, after speaking for five minutes or so, an old gentleman who will not smile. He \vas there last night, and it is evident that he is going to favour me with his presence every night during this second American tour. He generally sits near the platform, and not unfrequently on the first row. There is a horrible fascination about that man. You cannot get your eyes off him. You do your utmost to » fetch « him. You feel it to be your duty not to send him home empty-headed; your conscience tells you that he has not to please you, but that j^ou are paid to please him, and you struggle on. You- would like to slip into his pocket the price of his seat and have him removed, or throw the water-bottle at his face and make him show signs of hfe. As it is, you try to look the other way, but you know he is there, and that does not improve matters. Now this man, who will not smile, very often is not so bad as he looks. You imagine that you bore him to death, but you don't. You wonder how it is he does not go, but the fact is he actually enjoys himself — inside. Or, maybe, he is a professional man 32 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. himself, and no conjuror has ever been known to laugh at another conjuror's tricks. A great American hu- morist relates that, after speaking for an hour and a half without succeeding in getting a smile from a cer- tain man in the audience, he sent someone to inquire into the state of his mind. ■■■^-^'-^^ <.;,■'-?, .,ff-''\'-:;]-:^ » Excuse me, sir, did you not enjoy the lecture that has been given to-night ?c »Very much indeed, c said the man; >it was a most clever and entertaining lecture. < >But you never smiled « >0h, no — I'm a liar myself. « Sometimes there are other reasons to explain the unsmiling man's attitude. ^r;'^ v One evening I lectured in Birmingham. On the first row there sat the whole time an old gentleman, with his umbrella standing between his legs, his hands crossed on the handle, and his chin resting on his hands. Frowning, his mouth gaping, and his eyes perfectly vacant, he remained motionless looking at me, and for an hour and twenty minutes seemed to say to me : >My poor fellow, you may do what you like, but you won't 'fetch' me to-night, I can tell you.« I looked at him, I spoke to him, I winked at Wm, I aimed at him; several times even I paused so as to give him ample time to see a point. AH was in vain. I had just returned, after the lecture, to the secretary's room behind the platform, when he entered. »0h, that man again !« I cried, pointing to him. He advanced towards me, held out his hand, and said: » Thank you very much for your excellent lecture; I have enjoyed it very much.« »Have you?« said I. > Would you be kind enough to give me your autograph ?« And he pulled out of his pocket a beau- tiful autograph book. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. t, 4 .^ 33 »Well,€ I said to tfie secretary in a whisper, >this old gentleman is extremely kind to ask for my autograph, for I am certain he has not enjoyed the lecture.* »What makes you think so?« i -^ i? 5 . >4=f y >Why, he never smiled once.€ " ' " >0h, poor old gentleman,* said the secretary, »he is stone deaf « ' - -; c!':i:.:M".s'-^A- ^':'«i/-r.^ cMi--ti;iv;^\, Many a lecturer must have met this man. s -^'^ /:? f^ It would be unwise, when you discover that certain * members of the audience will not laugh, to give them up at once. As long as you are on the platform there is hope. I was once lecturing in the chief town of a great hunting centre in England. On the first row sat half a dozen hair-parted-in-the-middle, single-eyeglass young 1 Johnnies c. They stared at me unmoved, and never relaxed a muscle except for yawning. It was most distressing to see how the poor fellows looked bored. How I did wish I could do something for them! I had spoken for nearly an hour when, by accident, I upset the tumbler on my table. The water trickled down the cloth. The young men laughed, roared. They were happy and enjoying themselves, and I had fetched them at last. I have never forgotten this trick, and when I see in the audience an apparently hopeless case, I often resort to it, generally with success. There are other people who do not much enjoy your lecture: your own. n Of course you must forgive your wife. The dear creature knows all your lectures by heart, she has heard your stories hundreds of times. She comes to your lecture rather to see how you are going to be received than to listen to you. Besides, she feels that for an hour and a half you do not belong to her. When she comes with 3 1^ , , A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. ;-ou to the lecture hall, you are both ushered into the secretary's room. Two or three minutes before it is time to go on the pJatform, it is suggested to her that it is time she should take her seat among the audience. She looks at the secretary and recognises that for an hour and a half her husband is the property of this official, who is about to hand him over to the tender mercies of the public. As she says: lOh, yes, I suppose I must go,< .she almost feels like shaking hands with her hus- band as Mrs. Baldwin takes leave of the professor before he starts on his aerial trip. But, though she may not laugh, her heart is with you, and she is all busy watching the audience, ever ready to tell them: »Now, don't you think this is a very good point? Well, then, if you do, why don't you laugh, and cheer?< she is part and parcel of yourself. She is not jealous of your success, for she is your helpmate, your kind and sound counsellor, and 1 can assure you that if an audience should fail to be responsive, it would never enter her head to lay the blame on her husband; she would feel the most supreme contempt for »that stupid audience that was unable to appreciate you.c That's all. But your other own folks ! You are no hero to them. To judge the effect of anything, you must be placed at a certain distance, and your own folks are too near you. '• ^ One afternoon I had given a lecture to a large and fashionable audience in the South of England. A near relative of mine, who lived in the neighbourhood, was in the hall. He never smiled. I watched him from the beginning to the end. When the lecture was over, he came to the little room behind the platform to take me to his house. As he entered the room, I was settling the money matters with my impresario. I will let you into the secret. There was £52 in the house, and my share was two-thirds of the gross receipts — that js, about £34. My relative heard the sum. As we drove along in his dog-cart, he nudged me and said. ; I; A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. i 35 "^^ itDid you make £34 this afternoon ?€ u ^' ^^ j>Oh, did you hear?« I said. »Yes, that was my part of the takings. For a small town I am quite satis- fied.*: , ^ , '^ ::A.'i: , r. ,; i>l[ should think you were If he replied, tlf you iad made 34 shillings, you would have been well paid for 5M)ur work I c Nothing is more true to life than the want of apprcicnation the successful man encounters from relatives and also from former friends. Nothing is more certain than that, when a man has lived on terms of perfect equality and familiaiity with a certain set of men, he can never hope to be anything but » plain John* to them, though by his personal efforts he may have obtained the applause of the public. Did he not rub shoulders whit them for years in the same walk 01 life? Why tlicse bravos? Wliat was there in him more than in them? Even though they may have gone so far as to single him out as a » rather clever fellow* whilst he was one of theirs, still the surprise at the public appreciation is none the less keen, his advance towards the front an unforgiveable offence, and they are immediately seized with a desire to rush out in the highways and proclaim that he is only »Jackc^ vand not the >John* his admirers think him. I remember that in the early years of my life in England, whea I h^ not tlie faintest idea of ever writing a book on John Bull, a young English friend of mine did me the honour of appreciating highly all my observations on British life and manners, and for years urged me hard and often to jot them down to make a book of. One day the book was finished and appeared in print. It attracted a good deal of public attention, but no one was more sui-prised than this man, who, from a kind friend, was promptly transformed into the most severe and unfriendly of my critics, and went about saying that the book and the amount of public attention 3* 36 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. bestowed upon it were both equally ridiculous. He has never spoken to me since. A successful man is very often charged with wishing to turn his back on his former friends. No accusation is more false. Nothing would please him more than to retain the friends of more modest times, bot it is they who have changed their feelings. They snub him, and this man, who is in constant need of moral support and pick-me-up, cannot stand it. • • * ♦ But let us return to the audience. The man who won't smile is not the only person who causes you some annoyance,. There is the one who laughs too soon : who laughs before you have made your points, and who thinks, because you have opened your lecture with a joke, that everything you say aftenvards is a joke. There is another rather objectionable person: it is the one who explains your points to his neighbours, and makes them laugh aloud just at the moment when you require complete silence to fire off one of your best remarks. There is the old lady who listens to you frown- ing, and who does not mind what you are saying, but is all the time shaking for fear jf what you are going to say next. She never laughs before she has seen other peoble laugh. Then she thinks she is safe. All these I am going to have in America again, that is clear. But I am now a man of experience. I have lectured in concert rooms, lecture halls, in theatres, in churches, in schools. I have addressed embalmed Britons in English health-resorts, petrified English mummies at hydropathic establishments, and lunatics in private asylums. i am ready for the fray.^ ___^ A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 37 >•,' --'- *■■*•&•:' ^-'^mmr-:'-'p CHAPTER VL A Connecticut Audience — Merry Meriden — A Hard Pull. %-s .vrSt, A Connecticut audience was a new experience to me. Yesterday I had a crowded room at the Opera House in Meriden ; but if you had been behind the scenery when I made my appearance on the stage, you would not have suspected it, for not one of the audience treated me to a Httle applause. I was frozen, and so were they. For a quarter of an hour, I proceeded very cautiously, feeling the ground, as it were, as I went on. By that time the thaw set in, and they began to smile. I must say that they had been very attentive from the beginning, and seemed very interested in the lecture. Encouraged by this, I warmed too. It wat curious to watch that i.udience. By twos and threes the faces lit up with amusement till, by-and-by, the house wore quite an animated aspect. Presently, there was a laugh, then two, then laughter more general. All the ice was gone. Next, a bold spirit in the stalls ventured some applause. At his second outburst, he had * company. The uphill work was nearly over now, and I began to feel better. The infection spread up to the circles and the gallery, and at last there came a real good hearty round of applause. I had » fetched < them after all. But it was tough work. When once I had them in hand, I took good care not to let them go. ^ • • « • 38 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. Visited several interesting establishments this morning. Merry Meriden is famous for its manu- factories of electro-plated silver. Unfortunately I am not yet accustomed to the heated rooms of America, and I could not stay in the showrooms moie than a few minutes. I should have thought the heat was strong enough to melt all the goods on view. This town looks like a beehive of activity, with its animated streets, its electric cars. Dear old Europe! With the exception of a few large cities, the cars are still drawn by horses, like in the time of Sesostris and Nebuchadnezzar. On arriving at the station a man took hold of my bag and asked to take care of it until the arrival of the train. I do not know whether he belonged to the hotel where I spent the night, or to the railroad company. Whatever he was, I felt grateful for this wonderful show of courtesy. »I heard you last night at the Opera House, t he said to me. »Why, were you at the lecture ?« >Yes, sir, and I greatly enjoyed it.« »Well, why didn't you laugh sooner?« I said. »I wanted to very much.« >Why didn't you?« »Well, sir, I couldn't very well laugh before the rest, « »Why didn't you give the signal ?« »You see sir,« he said, »we are in Connecticut.c »Is laughter prohibited by the Statute Book in Connecticut?* I remarked. »No, sir; but if you all laugh at the same time, then * »I see, nobody can tell who is the real criminal. € The train arrived. I shook hands with my friend, A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 39 after offering him half a dollar for holding my bag — which he refused, and went on board. In the parlour-car, I met my kind friend, Col. Charles H. Taylor, editor of that very successful paper, the Boston Globe, We had luncheon together in the dining-car, and time passed dehghtfully in his company till we reached the Grand Central Station, New York, when we parted. He was kind enough to make me promise to look him up in Boston in a fortnight's time, when I make my second appearance in the City of Culture. . ■f'r "" %:-• 40 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. CHAPTER VIL A Tempting Offer — The Thursday Cluh — Bill Nye — Visit to Young Ladies^ Schools — The Players* Club, On returning here I found a most curious letter awaiting me. I must tell you that, in Boston last Monday, I made the following remarks in my lecture : >The American is, I believe, on the road to the possession of all that can contribute to the well-being and success of a nation, but he seems to me to have missed the path that leads to real happiness. To live in a whirl is not to live weU. The little French shopkeeper who locks his shop-door from half-past twelve till half-past one, so as not to be disturbed yC while he is having his dinner with his wife and family has come nearer to solving the great problem of life ,How to be happy* than the American who sticks on his door: ,Gone to dinner, shall be back in five minutes.' You eat too fast, and I understand why your antidyspeptic pill-makers cover your walls, your forests even, with their advertisements, c And I named the firm of pill-makers. The letter is from them. They offer me $icxx), if I will repeat the phrase at every lecture I give during my tour in the United States. You may imagine if I will be careful to abstain in the future. «r • • » Lectured to-night before the members of the Thurs- day Club: a small, but very select, audience gathered A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 4I in the drawing-room of one of the members. The lecture was followe How — shall — ^I — get — there, I — wonder ? c ♦ * • » ' This afternoon I paid a most interesting visit to several girls' schools. The pupils were ordered by the head mistress, in each case, to gather in the large room. There they arrived two by two to the sound of a march played on the piano by one of the under- mistresses. When they had all reached their respec- tive places, two chords were struck on the instrument, and they all sat down with the precision of the best drilled Prussian regiment. Then some sang, others re- cited little poems, or epigrams— mostly at the expense of men. When, three years ago, I visited the Normal School for Girls in the company of the President of Xi A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 43 the Education Board and Col. Elliott F. Sheppard, it was the anniversary of George Eliot's birth. The pu- pils, one by one, recited a few quotations from her works, choosing all she had written against man. When the singing and the recitations were over, the mistress requested me to address a few words to the young ladies. An American is used from infancy to deliver a speech on the least provocation. I am not. However, I managed to congratulate these young American girls on their charming appearance, and to thank them for the pleasure they had afforded me. Then two chords were struck on the piano, and all stood up; two more chords, and all marched off in double file to the sound of another march. Not a smile, not a giggle. All these young girls from six- teen to twenty looked at me with modesty, but com- plete self-assurance — certainly witK far more assurance than I dared look at them. Then the mistress asked me to go to the gymna- sium. There the girls arrived, and as solemnly as be- fore, went through all kinds of muscular exercise. They are never allowed to sit down in the class-rooms more than two hours at a time. They have to go down to the gymnasium every two hours. I was perfectly amazed to see such discipline. These young girls are the true daughters of a great Republic: self-possessed, self-confident, dignified, respect- ful, law-abiding. I also visited the junior departments of those schools. In one of them, eight hundred little girls from five to ten years of age were gathered together, and, as in the other departments, sang and recited tp me. These young children are taught by the girls of the Normal School, under the supervision of mistresses. Here teaching is learned by teaching, A good method. Doctors are not allowed to practice before they have .attended patients in hospitals. Why should people be ) 44 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. allowed to teach before they have attended schools as apprentice teachers? I had to give a speech to these dear little ones. I wish I had been able to give them a kiss instead. In my little speech, I had occasion to remark that I had arrived in America only a week before. After I left, it appears that a little girl, aged about six, went to her mistress and said to her: tHe's only been here a weekl And how beauti* fully he speaks English already I < I have been tput upc at the Players* Qub by my friend Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman, and dined with him to-n^ht. This club is the snuggest house I know in New York. Only a few months old, it possesses treasures such as few clubs a hundred years old possess. It was a present from Mr. Edwin Booth, the greatest actor America has produced. He bought the house in Twentieth Street facing Gramercy Park, furnished it handsomely and with the greatest taste, and fitted it with all the artistic treasures that he has collected during his life: portraits of celebrated actors, most valuable old engravings, photographs with the origi- nals* autographs, china, curios of all sorts, stage pro- perties such as the sword used by Macready in Macbeth^ and hundreds of such beautiful and interest- ing souvenirs. On the second floor is the library, mostly composed of works connected with the drama. This club is a perfect gem. When in New York, Mr. Booth occupies a suite of rooms on the second floor, which he has reserved for himself; but he has handed over the property to the trustees of the club, who, after his death, will be- come the sole proprietors of the house and of all its A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 45 priceless contents. It was a princely gift, worthy of this prince of actors. The members are all connected with literature, art, and the drama, and number about one hundred. 46 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. I- ''chapter vttt. ':>;^;4J/fK^.i^:'''*■;■•^'■.f^#■^:.J { The Flourishing of Coats of Arms in America — Re* flections Thereon — Forefathers Made to Order — The Phonograph at Home — The Wealth of New York — Departure for Buffalo, * / Bfoi Qorb, m\ Januarv. There are in America, as in many other countries ot the world, people who have coats of arms and whose ancestors had no arms to their coats. , / ^ This remark was suggested by the reading of the following paragraph in the New York World this morning: — » There is growing in this country the rotten in* fluence of rank, pride of station, contempt for labour scorn of poverty, worship of caste, such as we verily believe is growing in no country in the world. What are the ideals that fill so large a part of the day and generation? For the boy it is riches, for the girl the marrying of a title. The ideal of this time in America is vast riches and the trappings of rank. It is good that proper scorn should be expressed of such ideals, c American novelists, journalists, and preachers are constantly upbraidii^ and ridiculing their countrywomen for their love of titled foreigners, but the Society women of the great Republic only love the foreign lords all the more. And I have heard some of them openly express their contempt of a form of govern- ment whose motto is one of the clauses of the great Declaration of Independence: »A11 men are created equal. € I really believe that if the Society women of A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 47 America had their own way, they would set up a Monarchy to-morrow, in the hope of seeing an aristo- cracy established as the sequel of it. ' President Garfield once said that the only real coats of arms in America were shirt-sleeves. The epi- gram is good, but not based on truth, as every epi- gram should be. Labour in the States is not honour- able for its own sake, but only if it brings wealth. President Garfield's epigram » fetched c the crowd, no doubt, as any smart democratic or humanitarian utter- ance will anywhere, whether it be emitted from the platform, the stage, the pulpit, or the hustings; but if any American philosopher heard it, he must have - r;^ smiled. -.;'^^^--"':. ^^'V^«:*:k:>^ , A New York friend, who called on me this morn- ing, and with whom I had a chat on this subject, assured me that there is now such a demand in the States for pedigrees, heraldic insignia, mottoes, and coronets, that it has created a new industry. He also informed me that almost every American city has a college of heraldry, which will provide unbroken lines of ancestors, and make to order a new line of fore- fathers »of the most approved pattern, with suitable arms, etc.c $ / Addison's prosperous foundling, who ordered at the /second-hand picture dealer's ta complete set of an- /^ / cestors,« is, according to my friend, a typical personage I to be met with in fiie States nowadays. * m * * • m Bah! after all, every country has her snobs, Why should America be an exception to the rule? When I think of the numberless charming people I have met in this country, I may as well leave it to the Euro- peans, who have come in contact with American snobs, to speak about them, inasmuch as the subject is not particularly entertaining. What amuses me much more here is the effect of 48 * A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. democracy on what we Europeans would call the lowei classes. A few days e^o, in a hotel, I asked the porter if my trunk had arrived from the station, and had been taken to my room. »I don't know,* he said majestically; >you ask that gentleman, c The gentleman, pointed out to me, was the negro who looks after the luggage in the establishment In the papers you may read in the advertisement columns: > Washing wanted by a lady at such and such address, c The cabman will ask, »if you are the man as ' wants a gentleman to drive him to the deepo.^ During an inquiry concerning the Workhouse at Cambridge, Massachusetts, a witness spoke of the >ladies' cells < as being all that should be desired. Democracy, such is thy handiwork 1 Went to the Stock Exchange in Wall Street at one o'clock. I thought that Whitechapel, on a Saturday night, was beyond competition as a scene of rowdyism. I haye now altered this opinion. I am still wondering whether I was not guyed by my pilot, and whether I was not shown the playground of a madhouse, at the time when all the most desperate lunatics are let loose. After lunch I went to Folk's photographic studio to be taken, and read the first page of jfonathan and His Continent into his phonograph. Marvellous this phonograph! I imagine Mr. Falk has the best collec- tion of cylinders in the world. I heard a song by Patti, the piano played by Von Biilow, speeches, orchestras, and what not? The music is reproduced most faithfully. With the voice the instrument is not quite so successful. Instead of your own voice. A FRENCHMAN IK AMERICA. 49 you fancy you hear an imitation, of it by Punch. All the same, it seems to me to be the wonder of the age. After paying a few calls, and dining quietly at the Everett House, I went to the Metropolitan Opera House, and saw >The Barber of Bagdad «. Cornelius* music is Wagnerian in aim, but I did not carry with me a single bar of all I heard. After all, this is perhaps the aim of Wagnerian music. Wliat a sight, this Metropolitan Opera House, with its boxes full of lovely women, arrayed in gorgeous garments, and blazing with diamonds! What luxury! What wealth is gathered there! How interesting it would be to know the exact amount of wealth of which New York can boast! In this morning's papers, I read that land on Fifth Avenue has lately sold for $115 a square foot. In an acre of land there are 43,560 square feet, which iit $115 a foot would be $5,009,400 an acre. Just oblige me by thinking of it! « « • • 12ti| January. I went to the Catholic Cathedral at eleven. A mass by Haydn was splendidly rendered by full orchestra and admirable chorus. The altar was a blaze of candles. The yellow of the lights and the plain mauve of two windows, one on each side of the candles, gave a most beautiful crocus-bed effect. I enjoyed the service. As a concert alone it was worth the half-dollar entrance money. In the evening I dined with Mr. Lloyd Bryce, editor of the North American Review y at the splendid residence of his father-in-law, Mr. Cooper, late Mayor of New York. Mrs. Lloyd Bryce is one of the handsomest American women I have met, and a most charming and graceful hostess. I reluctantly left early, so as to prepare for my night journey to Buffalo. so A FRENCHMAN IN AMEl^ICA. I, CHAPTER IX. Different Ways of Advertising a Lecture — America' Impresarios and their Methods, ^ fiuffflin, 13tlj Januarv. When you intend to give a lecture anywhere, and you wish it to be a success, it is a mistake to make a mystery of it. ; < On arriving here this morning, I found that my coming had been kept perfectly secret. Perhaps my impresario wishes the audience to be very select, and has sent only private circulars to the intelligent, well-to-do inhabitants of the place — or, I said to myself, perhaps the house is all sold, and he has no need of any further advertisements. I should very much like to know. Sometimes, however, it is a vsy stake to advertise a lecture too widely. You run the risk of getting the wrong people. A few years ago, in Dundee, a little comer gallery, placed at the end of the hall where I was to speak, was thrown open to the public at sixpence. I warned the manager that I was no attraction for the sixpenny public; but he insisted on having his own way. The hall was well filled, but not the little gallery, where I counted about a dozen people. Two of these, however, did not remain long, and, after the lecture, I was told that they had gone to the box- A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 5 1 office and asked to have their money returned to them. »Why,« they said, »it's a d swindle; it's only a man talking, c The man at the box-office was a Scotchman, and it will easily be understood that the two sixpences remained in the hands of the management. I can well remember how startled I was, three years ago, on arriving in an American town where I was to lecture, to see the walls covered with placards announcing my lecture thus : >He is coming, ah! ha!< And after I had arrived, new placards were stuck over the old ones: >He has arrived, ah! ha!< In another American town I was advertised as »the best paying platform celebrity in the world. « In another in the following way: »If you would grow fat and happy, go and hear Max O'Rell tonight.* One of my Qiicago lectures was advertised thus : » Laughter is restful. If you desire to feel as though you had a vacation for a week, do not fail to attend this lecture, c I was once fortunate enough to deal with a local manager who, before sending it to the newspapers, submitted to my approbation the following advertise- ment, of which he was very proud. I d'ont know whether it was his own literary production, or whether he had borrowed it of a showman friend. Here it is : — »Two Hours of Unalloyed Fun and Happiness. > IViil put two inches of solid fat even upon the ribs of the most cadaverous old miser. Everybody shouts peals of laughter as the rays of fun are emitted from this famous sun of Merrymakers. « I threatened to refuse to appear if the advertise^ ment was ij^^serted in the papers. This manager later gave his opinion that, as a lecturer, I was good; but that as a man, I was a little bit » stuck up< . 4* 52 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. When you arrive in an American town to lecture, you find the place flooded with your pictures, huge lithographs stuck on the walls, on the show windows, l in your very hotel entrance hall. Your own face stares at you everywhere, you are recognised by everybody. You have to put up with it. If you love privacy, peace and quiet, don't go to America on a lecturing tour. That is what your impresario will tell you. m * * * In each town where you go you have a local - manager to »boss the show*. He has to pay you a certain fee, which he guarantees; you cannot find fault with him for doing his best in order to have a large audience. He runs risks, you do not. Suppose, for example, you are engaged, not by a Society for a fee, but by a manager on sharing terms — say sixty per cent, of the gross receipts for you, and forty for Wm- self Suppose his local expenses amount to $200; he has to bring $500 into the house before there is a cent for himself You must forgive him if he goes about the tolace beating the big drum. If you do not like it, there is a place where you can stay — home. * m « m ■ An impresario once asked me if I required a piano, and if I would bring my own accompanist. Another wrote to ask the subject of my » enter- tainment*. I wrote back to say that my lecture was generally found entertaining, but that I objected to its being called an entertainment. I added that the lecture was composed of four character sketches; viz., John Bull, Sandy, Pat, and Jonathan. In his answer to this, he enquired whether I should change my dress four times during the performance, and whether it would not be a good thing to have a little music during the intervals. g A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 53 Just fancy my appearing on the platform succes- sively as John, Sandy, Pat, and Jonatiian! A good impresario is constantly on the look-out for anything that may draw the attention of the public to his entertainment. Nothing is sacred for him. His eyes and ears are always open, all his senses on the alert. One afternoon I was walking with my impresario over the beautiful Clifton Suspension Bridge. I was to lecture at the Victoria Rooms in the evening. We leaned on the railings, and grew pensive as we looked at the scenery and the abyss under us. , , My impresario sighed. >What are you thinking about?* I said to him. »Last year,* he replied, >a girl tried to commit suicide and jumped over this bridge; but the wind got under her skirt, made a parachute of it, and she descended to the bottom of the valley perfectly un- hurt.* p'S'- ' : • And he sighed again. - , ?^ " ^ >Well,* said I, »why do you sigh?* »Ah! my dear fellow, if you could do the same this afternoon, there would be standing room only in the Victoria Room to-night.* I left that bridge in no time. 54 , A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. CHAPTER X. \ Buffalo — The Niagara Falls — A Frost — Rochester ta'K^i the Rescue of Buffalo — Cleveland — / Meet Jonathan, 1 Buffaio, 14tij January/ i ^^^^^^^^ ®^ This town is situated twenty-seven miles from Niagara Falls. The Americans say that the Buffalo people can hear the n6ise of the waterfall quite distinctly. I am quite prepared to believe it. However, an hour's journey by rail, and then a quarter of an hour's sleigh ride, will take you from Buffalo within sight of this, perhaps the grandest piece of scenery in the world. Words cannot describe it. You spend a couple of hours visiting every point of view. You are nailed,\ as it were, to the ground, feeling like a- pigmy awestruck |V in presence of Nature at her grandest. The snow/ was falling thickly, and though it made the view less clear, it added to the grandeur of the scene. I went down by the cable car to a level with the rapids and the place where poor Captain Webb was last seen alive — a presumptuous pigmy he to dare such waters as these! His widow keeps a little bazaar near the Falls, and sells souvenirs to the visitors. It was most thrilling to stand within touching distance of that great torrent of water, called the. Niagara Falls, in distinction to the Horseshoe Falls, . to hear the roar of it as it fell. The idea of forceV it gives one is tremendous. You stand and wonder ^ ^ how many ages it has been roaring on, what eyes -^ besides your own have gazed awestruck at its mighty A FRENCHMAN IN AxMERICA. 55 rushing, and wonder if the pigmies will ever do what they say they will: one day make those mighty columns of water their servants, to turn wheels at their bidding. We crossed the bridge over to the Canadian side, and there we had the whole grand panorama before our eyes. It appears that it is quite a feasible thing to run the rapids in a barrel. Girls have done it, and it may become the fashionable sport for American girls in the near future. It has been safely accomplished plenty of times by young fellows up for an exciting day's sport. On the Canadian shore was a pretty villa where Princess Louise stayed while she painted the scene. Some of the pretty houses were fringed all round the roofs and balconies in the loveliest way with icicles a yard long and loaded with snow. They looked most beautiful. On the way back we called at Prospect House, a charming hotel, which I hope, if ever I go near Buffalo again, I shall put up at for a day or two to see the whole neighbourhood well. Two years ago I was lucky enough to witness a most curious sight: the water was frozen under the Falls, and a natural bridge formed by the ice was being used by venturesome people to cross the Nia- gara River on. This occurs very seldom. Have had a fizzle to-night. I almost expected it. In a hall that could easily have accommodated fifteen hundred people, I lectured to an audience of about three hundred. Fortunately they proved so intelligent, warm, and appreciative, that I did not feel at sdl de- pressed — but my impresario did. However, he con- gratulated me on having been able to do justice to the causerie, as if I had had a bumper house. 1 56 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. I must own that it is much easier to be a trage- dian than a light comedian before a $200 house. tltntlmli, IBv 15tt) January The weather is so bad that I shall be unable to see anything of this city which, people tell me, is very beautiful. On arriving at the Wedell House, I met a New York friend. )»Well,« said he, »how are you getting on? Where do you come fromPc >From Buffalo, « said I, pulling a long face. » What's the matter? Don't you like the Buffalo people?* »Yes, I like those I saw. I should have liked to extend my love to a lai^er number. I had a fizzle: about three hundred people. Perhaps I drew all the brain of Buffalo.* »How many people do you say you had in the hall?« said my friend. » About three hundred.* »Then you must have drawn a good many people from Rochester, I should think,* said he quite solemnly. In reading the Buffalo newspapers this morning, I noticed favourable criticisms of my lecture; but while my English was praised, so for as the language went, severe comments were passed on my pronun- ciation. In England, where the English language is spoken with a decent pronunciation, I have never once read a condemnation of my pronunciation ol the English language. I M^U not appear again in Buffalo before I fed much improved. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 57 Cn route to Pittsburg, I6t^ Kannorv. The American railway stations have special waiting- rooms for ladies, not, as in England, places furnished with looking-glasses where they can go and arrange their bonnets, etc. — no, no, places where they can wait for the trains, protected against the contamination of man, and where they are spared the sight of that eternal little round piece of furniture with which the w^ floors of the whole of the United States are dotted. At Cleveland Station this morning I met Jonathan, such as he is represented in the comic papers of the world. A man of sixty, with long straight white hair falling over his shoulders; no moustache, long imperial beard, a razor-blade shaped nose, small keen eyes, and high prominent cheek bones, the whole smoking the traditional cigar: the Anglo-Saxon indianized — Jonathan. If he had a long swallow- tail coat on, a waistcoat ornamented with stars, and pants with stripes, he might have sat for the cartoons of Puck or Judge. In the car, Jonathan came and sat opposite me. A few minutes after the train had started, he said: > Going to Pittsbui^, I guess, c >Yes,€ I replied. , >To lecture ?€ »0h, you know I lecture?* >Why, certainly; I heard you in Boston ten days «^o.< He offered me a cigar, told me his name — I mean his three names — ^what he did, how much he earned, where he lived, how many children he had; he read me a poem of his own composition, invited me to go and see him, and entertained me for three hours and a half, telling me the history of his life, etc. Indeed, it was Tonathan. _^ Xj 58 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. All the Americans I have met have written a poem (pronounce pome). Now I am not generalizing. I do not say that all the Americans have written a poem, I say All the Americans I have met. • » • • Ipittslmrg (same iiav, latrr). I lecture here to-night under the auspices of The Press Club of the town. The president of the Club came to meet me at the station, in order to show me something of the town. I like Pittsburg very much. From the top of the . hill, which you reach in a couple of minutes by the cable car, there is a most beautiful sight to contem- plate — one never to be forgotten. / On our way to the hotel, my kind friend took ■ me to a fire station, anc asked the man in command = of the place to go through the performance of a fire call for my edification. > ^i^s >4 Now, in two words, here is the thing. You touch the fire bell in your own house. That causes the name of your street and the number of your house to appear in the fire station; it causes all the doors of the station to open out^'^ard. Wait a minute : it causes whips, which are hanging behind the horses, to lash them and send them under harnesses that fall upon them and are selfadjusting; it causes the men, who are lying down on the first floor, to slide down an incHne and fall on the box and steps of the cart. And off they gallop. It takes about two minutes to describe it as quickly as possible. It only takes fourteen seconds to do it. It is the nearest approach to phantasmagoria that I have yet seen in real life. A FEKNCHMAN IN AMERICA. $9 y CHAPTER XI. A Great Admirer — Notes on Railway Travelling — Is America a Free Nation^ — A Pleasant Evening in \^- New York, ... ^^ ,.,...,,,,., |n t^r Bratibuif Irain from l^ittaburg to fitm ®orb, 17tl| Januarv. This morning, before leaving tiie hotel in Pittsburg, I was approached by a young man who, after giving me his card, thanked me most earnestly for my lecture of last night. In fact, he nearly embraced me. . »l never enjoyed myself so much in my life,« he said. I grasped his hand. v> •1 am glad,« I replied, >that my humble eflfort pleased you so much. Nothing is more gratifying to a lecturer than to know he has afforded pleasure to his audience. « tYes,€ he said, >it gave me immense pleasure. You see, I am engaged to be married to a girl in town. All her family went to your Show, and I had her at home all to myself. Oh! I had such a good time! Thank you so much! Do lecture here again soon.c And, after wishing me a pleasant journey, he left me. I was glad to know I left at least one friend and admirer behind me in Pittsburg. ., Had a charming audience last night, a large and most appreciative one. I was introduced by Mr. Geoi^e H. Welshons, of the Pittsburg Times, in a neat little speech, hmiiorous and very gracefully worded. 60 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. After the lecture, I was entertained at supper in the rooms of the Press Club, and .aoroughly enjoyed myself with the members. On entering the Oub, I was amused to see two journalists, who had heard me at the lecture discourse on chewing, go to a comer of the room, and there get rid of their wads, before coming to shake hands with me. < « * ♦ • ■* ^ '"■■.t; If you have not journeyed in a vestibule train of %■ the Pennsylvania Railway Company, you do not know ;..^ what it is to travel in luxurious comfort. Dining- saloon, drawing-room, smoking-room, reading-room with writing tables, supplied with the papers and a library of books, all furnished with exquisite taste and luxury. . The cooking is good and well served. ■ - .' . The day has passed without adventures, but in comfort. We left Pittsburg at seven in the morning." ^,;; At nine we passed Johnstown. The terrible calamity that befell that city two years ago was before my mind's eye: the town suddenly inundated, the people rusiiing on the bridge, and there caught and burnt alive. America is the country for great disasters.^ Everything here is on a huge scale. Towards nooni the country grew hilly, and, for an hour before we' ^ reached Harrisburg, it gave me great enjoyment; for - in America, where there is so much sameness in the landscapes, it is a treat to see the mountains of central Pennsylvania breaking the monotony of the huge flat stretch of land. The employes (I must be careful not to say » servants*) of the Pennsylvania Railroad are polite, and form an agreeable contrast to those of the other railway com- panies. Unhappily, the employes whom you find on board the Pullman cars, are not in the control of the company. * * * * The train will reach Jersey City for New York at seven to-night. I shall dine at the hotel. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 6 1 About 5.30, it occurred to me to go to the dining car and ask for a cup of tea. Before entering the dining-room I stopped at the lavatory to wash my hands. Someone was using the basin. It was the conductor, the autocrat in charge of the dining car, a fat, sleek, chewing, surly, frowning, snarling cur. He turned round. >What do you want?» said he. >I should very much like to wash my hands, < 1 tiniidly ventured. >You see very well I am using the basin. You go to the next car.c I came to America this time with a large pro- vision of philosophy, and quite determined to even enjoy such little scenes as this. So I quietly went to the next lavatory, returned to the dining car, and sat down at one of the tables. > * >Will you please give me a cup of tea?c I said to one of the coloured waiters. »I can't do dat, Sah,c said N^ro. >You can have dinnah.c »But I don't want dinnah^t I replied; >I want a cup of tea.€ »Den you must ask dat gem'man if you can have itjf said he, pointing to the above-mentioned > gent- leman*. I went to him. » Excuse me,* said I, >are you the nobleman who runs this show?« He frowned. i^ ^ ^ >I don't want to dine; I should like to have a cup of tea.* He frowned a Httle more, ah deigned to hear my request to the end. >Can I?« I repeated. He spoke not; he brought his eyebrows still lowo* down, and solemnly shook his head. •Can'*; T really?* I continued. y 62 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. At last he spoke. >You can,« quoth he, >for a dollar. ^ J And, taking the bill of fare in his hands, without wasting any more of his precious utterances, he pointed out to me: »£ach meal one dollar. c -, .. .,,., The argument was unanswerable. '-"''" [ ; I went back to my own car, resumed my seat, and betook myself to reflection. What I cannot, for the life of me, understand is why, in a train which has a dining car and a kitchen, a man cannot be served with a cup of tea, unless he pays the price of a dinner for it, and this notwith- standing the fact of his having paid five dollars extra to enjoy the extra luxury of this famous vestibule train. / ; • After all, this is one out of the many illustrations one could give to show that whatever Jonathan is, he is not the master in his own house. The Americans are the most docile people in the world. They are the slaves of their seivants, whether these are high officials, or the » reduced duchesses* of .domestic service. They are so submitted to their lot that they seem to find it quite natural. The Americans are lions governed by bull dogs. They have given themselves a hundred thousand masters, these folks who laugh at monarchies, for example, and scorn the rule of a king, as if it were better to be bullied by a crowd than by an indi- vidual. In America, the man who pays does not command the paid. I have already said it; I will maintain the truth of the statement that in America the paid servant rules. Tyranny from above is bad; tyranny from below Is worse. .„_„ __ _ Of my many first impressions that have deepened into convictions, this is one of the firmest. \„ ■Si «^ A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 63 When you arrive at an English railway station, all the porters seem to say: >Here is a customer, let us treat him well.t And it is who shall relieve you of your luggage, or answer any questions you may be pleased to ask. They are glad to see you. In America, you may have a dozen parcels, not a hand will move to help you with them. So Jonathan is obliged to forego the luxury of hand baggage, so convenient for long journeys. When you arrive at an American station, the officials are all frowning, and seem to say: >Why the deuce don't you go to Chicago by some other line, instead of coming here to bother us?« This subject reminds me of an interesting fact told me by Mr. Chauncey M. Depew on board the Teutonic. When the tramcars were used in the States, it was a long time before the drivers and conductors would consent to wear any kind of uniform, so great is the horror of anything like a badge of paid servitude. Now that they do wear some kind of uniform, they spend their time in standing sentry at the door of their dignity, and in thinking that, if they were polite, you would take their affable manners for servility. lEorrftt %ou8r, jprm gorh (JHiUnigftt). So many charming houses have opened their hospitable doors to me in New York that, when I am in this city, I have soon forgotten the little annoyances of a railway journey or the hardships of a lecture tour. After dinner here, I went to spend the evening at the house of Mr. Richard Watson Gilder, the poet, and /editor of the Century Magazine y that most successful of all magazines in the world. A circulation of nearly 300,000 copies, just think of it. But it need not excite wonder in anyone who knows this beautiful and artistic periodical, to which all the leading litterateurs of America \ lend their pens, and the best artists their pencils. 64 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. Mrs. Richard Watson Gilder is one of the best and most genial hostesses in New York. At her Fridays, one meets the cream of intellectual Society, the best known names of the American aristocracy of talent. To-night I met Mr. Frank Stockton, the novelist; Mr. George Webb, the humourist; Mr. Frank Millet, the painter, and his lovely wife, and a galaxy of cele- brities and beautiful women, all most interesting and del^htful people to meet. Conversation went on briskly all over the rooms till late. The more I see of the American women, the more confirmed I become in my impression that they are typical; more so than the men. They are like no other women I know. The brilliancy of their convereation, the animation of their features, the absence of affectation in their manners, make them unique. There are no women to compare to them in a drawing-room. There are none with whom I feel so much at ease. Their beauty, physically speaking, is great; but you are still more struck by their intellectual beauty, the frankness of their eyes, and the naturalness of then- bearing. I returned to the Everett House, musing all the way on the difference between the American women and the women of France and England. The theme was attractive, and, remembering that to-morrow would be an off-day for me, I resolved to spend it in going more fully into this fascinating subject with pen and ink. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 6$ CHAPTER Xn. Notes on American Women — Comparisons — How Men Treat Women and vice versa — Scenes as Illustrations. F'lD ^orii, 18tb January. A Man was one day complaining to a friend that he I had been married twenty years without being able to understand his wife. tYou should not complain of that,« remarked the friend; »I have been married to my wife two years only, and I understand her perfectly.* The leaders of thought in France have long proclaimed that woman was the only problem it was not given to man to solve. They have all tried and they have all failed. They all acknowledge it — but they afe trying still. Indeed, the interest that woman inspires in every Frenchman is never exhausted. Parodying Terence, he says to him^lf: >I am a man, and all that concerns woman interests me.« All the French modem novels are studies, analytical, dissecting studies, of woman's heart. To the Anglo-Saxon mind, this may sometimes appear a trifle puerile, if not also ridiculous. But to understand this feeling, one must remember how a Frenchman is brought up. In England, boys and girls meet and play together; in America and Canada, they sit side by side on the same benches at school, not only as children of tender age, but at College and in the Universities. They get accustomed to each other's company ; they see nothing S Ob A FRENCHMAN IN AMEiUCA. strai^c in being in contact with one another, and this naturally tends to reduce the interest or curiosity one sex takes in the other. But, in France, they are apart, and the ball-room is the only place where they can meet when they have attained the age of twenty. Strange to reflect that young people of both s^ces can meet in ball-rooms without exciting their parents' suspicions, and that they cannot do so in class-rooms! When I was a boy at school in France, I can well remember how we boys felt on the subject. If we heard that a young girl, say the sister of some schoolfellow, was with her mother in the common parlour to see her brother, why, it created a commotion, a perfect revolution in the whole establishment. It was no use trying to keep us in order. We would climb on the top of the seats or of the tables to endeavour to see sometliing of her, even if it were but the top of her hat, or a bit of her gown across the recreation-yard at the very end of the building. It was an event. Many of us would even immediately get inspired and compose verses addressed to the unknown fair visitor. In these poetical effusions, we would imagine the young girl carried off by some miscreant, and we would fly to her rescue, save her, and throw ourselves at her feet, to receive her hand as ur reward. Yes, we would get quite romantic, or, in plain English, quite silly. We could not imagine that a woman was a reasoning being with whom you can talk on the topics of the day, or have an ordinary conversation on any ordinary subject. To us a woman was a being with whom you can only talk of love, or fall in love, or, maybe, for whom you may die of love. This manner of training young men goes a long way towards explaining the position of woman in France as well as her ways. It explains why a French- man and a Frenchwoman, when they converse togetiier, seldom can forget that one is a man and the other a A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 67 woman. It does not prove, that a Frenchwoman must necessarily be, anu is, affected in her relations with men; but it explains why she does not feel, as the American woman does, that a man and a woman can eigoy a tete-h-tete free from all those commonplace flatteries, compliments, and platitudes that mistaken gallantry suggests. Many American ladies have made me forget, by the easiness of their manner and the charm and naturalness of their conversation, that I was speaking with women, and with lovely ones too. This I could never have foi^otten in the company of French ladies. On account of this feeling, and perhaps also of the ^difference which exists between the education received by a man and that received by a woman in France, the conversation will always be on some light topics, literary, artistic, dramatic, social, or other. Indeed, it would be most unbecoming for a man to start a very serious subject of conversation with a French lady to whom he had just been introduced. He would be taken for a pedant or a man of bad breeding. In America, men and women receive practically the same education, and this of course enlarges the circle of conversation between the sexes. I shall always remember a beautiful American girl, not more than twenty years of age, to whom I was once introduced in New York, as she was giving to a lady sitting next to her a most detailed description of the latest bonnet invented in Paris, and who, turning towards me, asked me point blank if I had read M. Ernest Renan's History of the People of Israel. Well, I had not. I had to confess that I hat not yet had time to read it. But she had, and she gave me, without the remotest touch of affectation or pedantry, a most interesting and learned analysis of that remarkable work. I related this incident in Jonathan and His Continent. On reading it, some of my countrymen, critics and others, exclaimed: 68 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. >We imagine the fair American girl wore a pair of gold spectacles.* 3>No, my dear compatriots, nothing of the sort. Na gold spectacles, no guy. It was a beautiful girl, dressed with the most exquisite taste and care, and most charming^ and womanly.* An American woman, however learned she may be,, is a sound politician, and she knows that the best thing she can make of herself is a woman, and she remains a woman. She will always make herself as attractive as she possibly can. Not to please men — I believe she has the greatest contempt for them — but to please ■ herself If, in a French drawing-room, I were to remark to a lady how clever some woman in tlie room looked, she would probably closely examine that woman's dress^ to find out what I thought was wrong about it. It would probably be the same in England, but not m America. ' ;, -^.;- vi^rrc .€.." : . M-jf-:- A Frenchwoman will seldom be jealous of another woman's cleverness. She will far more readily for- give her this quality than beauty. And in this par- ticular point, it is probable that the Frenchwoman, resembles all the women in the world. Of all the ladies I have met, I have no hesitation^ in declaring that the American ones are the least affected. With them, I repeat it, I feel at ease as I do with no other women in the world. With whom but an Americaine would the following little scene have been possible? I was in Boston. It was Friday, and knowing it to be the reception day of Mrs. X., an old friend of mine and my wife's, I thought I would call upon her early before the crowd of visitors had begun to arrive. So I went to the house about half-past three in the afternoon. Mrs. X. received me in the drawing-roon\ A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 69 and we soon were talking on the one hundred and one topics that old friends have on their tongue tips. Presently the conversation fell on love and lovers. Mrs. X. drew her chair up a little nearer to the fire, put the toes of her little slippers on the fender stool, and with a charmingly confidential, but perfectly natural, manner said: ^You are married and love your wife; I am mar- ried and love my husband; we are both artists, let's have our say out.« ,- . And we proceeded to have our say out. But all at once I noticed about half an inch of tlie seam of her black silk bodice was unsewn. We men, when we see a lad}'^ with something awry in her toilette, how often do we long to say to her: » Ex- cuse me, madam, but perhaps you don't know that you have a hairpin sticking out two inches just behind . your ear,* or » Pardon me, miss, I'm a married man, there is something wrong there about your waist- belt. « :.. J Now, I felt for Mrs. ]^., who was just going to receive a crowd of callers with a little rent in one of her bodice seams, and tried to persuade myself to be brave and tell her of it. Yet I hesitated. People take things so differently. The conversation went on un- flaggingly. At last I could not stand it any longer. »Mrs. X.,« said I all in a breath, »you are married and love your husband; I am married and love my wife; we are both artists; there is a little bit of seam come unsewn just there by your arm, run and get it sewn up!« ', The peals of laughter that I heard going on up- stairs, while the damage was being repaired, proved to me that there was no resentment to be feared, but, on the contrary, that I had earned the gratitude of Mre. X. -'-'""^ " " " JO A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. In many respects I have often been struck with the resemblance which exists between French and American women. When I took my first walk on Broadway, New York, on a fine afternoon some two years and a half ago, I can well remember how I exclaimed: »Why, this is Paris, and all these ladies are ParisiennesU It struck me as being the same type of face, the same animation of features, the same brightness of the eyes, the same self-assurance, the same attractive plumpness in women over thirty. To my mind, I was having a walk on my own Boule- vards (every Parisian owns that place). The more I became acquainted with American ladies, the more forcibly this resemblance struck me. This was not a mere first impression. It has been, and is still, a deep conviction — so much so, that whenever I returned to New York fi-om a journey of some weeks in the heart of the country, I felt as if I was returning home. After a short time, a still closer resemblance bet- ween the women of the two countries will strike a Frenchman most forcibly. It is the same finesse^ the same suppleness of mind, the same wonderful adapta- bility. Place a little French milliner in a good draw- ing-room for an hour, and at the end of that time she will behave, talk, and walk like any lady in the room. Suppose an American, married to a woman below his status in Society, is elected President of the United States, I believe, at the end of a week, this wife of his would do the honours of the White House with the ease and grace of a high-bom lady. In England it is just the contrary. Of course good Society is good Society every- where. The ladies of the English aristocracy are perfect queens; but the Englishwoman who was not bom a lady, will seldom become a lady, and I believe this is why mesalliances are more scarce in England than in America and especially in France. I could . .^ ^ A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 7 1 namb many Englishmen at the head of their pro- fessions, who cannot produce their wives in Society because these women have not been able to raise themselves to the level of their husbands* station in life. The Englishwoman, as a rule, has no faculty for fitting herself for a higher position than the one she was bom in: like the rabbit, she will often taste of the cabbage she fed on. And I am bound to add that this is perhaps a quality, and proves the truthfulness of her character. She is no actress. In France, the mesalliance, though not relished by parents, is not feared so much, because they know the young woman will observe and study, and very soon fit herself for her new position. And while on this subject of mesalliance, why not \ try to destroy an absurd prejudice that exists in almost every country on the subject of France? It is, I believe, the firm conviction of foreigners that Frenchmen marry for money — that is to say, that all Frenchmen marry for money. As a rule, when people discuss fore^ social topics, they have a wonderful faculty for generalisation. The fact that many Frenchmen do marry for money is not to be denied, and the explanation of it is this: We have in France a number of men belong- ing to a class almost unknown in other countries, small bourgeois of good breeding and genteel habits, but relatively poor, who occupy posts in the different Government offices. Their name is legion, and their salary something like two thousand francs (£ 8o). These men have an appearance to keep up, and unless a wife brings them enough to at least double their income, they cannot marry. These young men are often sought after by well-to-do parents for their daughters, because they are steady, cultured, gentle- manly, and occupy an honourable position, which brings tliem a pension for their old age. With the 72 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. wife's dowry the couple can easily get along, and lead a peaceful, uneventful, and happy jog-trot life, which, is the great aim of the majority of the French people. But, on the other hand, there is no country where^ you will see so many cases of mesalliance as France^* and this alone should dispose of the belief that Fraich-^ men marry for money. Indeed, it is a most common thing for a young Frenchman of good family to fall in love with a girl of a much lower station in life than his own, to court her, at first with perhaps only the idea of killing time or of starting a liaison to soon discover that the girl is highly respectable, and to finally marry her. This is a most common occurrence. French parents frown on this sort of thing, and do their best to discourage it, of course; but rather than cross thei^ son's love, they g^ve their consent, and trust to that adaptability of the Frenchwoman of which I was speaking just now to raise herself to her hus- band's level and make a wife he will never be asham- ed of. ' > * ••';■■• * The Frenchman is the .; -ve of his womankind, but not in the same way is the American is. The Frenchman is brought jp by his mother, and remains under her sway till she dies. When he marries, his wife leads him by the nose (an operation which he seems to enjoy), and when, besides, he has a daughter, on whom he generally dotes, this lady soon joins the other two in ruling this easy-going, goodhumoured man. As a rule, when you see a Frenchman, you behold a man who is kept in order by three gene- rations of women: mother, wife, and daughter. The American will lavish attention and luxury on his wife and daughters, but he will save them the trouble of being mixed in his affairs. His business is his, his office is private. His womankind is the sun and glory of his life, whose company he will A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 73 hasten to enjoy as soon as he can throw away the cares of his business. In France a wife is a partner, a cashier who takes care of the money, even an adviser on stocks and speculations. In the mercantile class, she is both cashier and book-keeper. Enter a shop in France, Paris included, and behind »Pay here*, you will see Madame smiling all over as she pockets the money for the purchase you have made. When I said .she is a partner, I might safely have said that she is the active partner, and, as a rule, by far the shrewder of the two. She brings to bear her native suppleness, her fascinating little ways, her persuasive manners, and many a customer, whom her husband was allowing to go away without a purchase, has been brought back by the wife, and induced to part with his cash in the shop. Last year, I went to Paris, on my way home from Germany, to spend a few days visiting the Exposition. One day I entered a shop on the Boulevards to buy a white hat. The new-fashioned hats, the only hats which the man showed me, were narrow-brimmed, and I declined to buy one. I was just going to leave when the wife, who, from the back- parlour, had listened to my conversation with her hus- band; stepped in and said: *But, Adolphe, why do you let Monsieur go? Perhaps he does not care to follow the fashion. We have a few white broad- brimmed hats left from last year that we can let Monsier have A bon compte. They are upstairs, go and fetch them.* And, sure enough, there was one which fitted and pleased me, and I left in ttiat shop a little sum of twenty-five francs, which the husband was going to let me take elsewhere, but which the wife managed to secure for the firm. No one who has lived in France has failed to be struck with Ihe intelligence of the women, and there exist few Frenchmen who do not readily admit how intellectually' nf,;rior they are to their countrywomen. 74 n '; . A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. ;., chiefly among the middle and lower classes. And this is not due to any special training, for the educa- tion received by the women of that class is of the most limited kind; they are taught to read, write, and reckon, and their education is finished. Shrewd- ness is inborn in them, as well as a peculiar talent for getting twelve penny worth for every shilling they spend. How to make a house look pretty and attractive with small outlay; how to make a dress or turn out a bonnet with a few knir c-knacks; how to make a savoury dish out of a snir remnant of beef, mutton, and veal; all that is a icience not to be despised when a husband in receipt of a hundred ^pounds' salary wants to make a good dinner, and see his wife look pretty. No doubt the aristocratic inhabitants of Mayfair and Belgravia in London, and the plutocracy of New York, may think all this very small, and these French people very uninteresting. They can, perhaps, hardly imagine that such people may live on such incomes and look decent. But they do live, and live very happy lives too. And I will go so far as to say that happiness, real happiness, is chiefly found among people of limited income. The husband, who perhaps for a whole year has put quietly by a few shillings every week, so as to be able to give his dear wife a nice present at Christmas, gives her a far more valuable, a far better appreciated present than the millionaire who orders Tiffany to send a diamond rivikre to his wife. That quiet young French couple whom you see at the upper circle of a theatre, and who have saved the money to come and hear the play, are happier than the occupants of the boxes on the first tier. If you doubt it, takfr your opera-glasses, and »look on this picture, and on this*. In observing nations, I have always taken more interest in the >miilionc, who differ in every country. A FRENCHMAl^ IN AMERICA. 75 than in the i upper tent, who are alike all over the world. People who have plenty of money at their disposal, generally discover the same way of spending it, and adopt the same mode of living. People who have only a small income show their native instincts in the intelligent use of it. All these differ, and these only are worth studying, unless you belong to the staff of a » Society « paper. As a Frenclmian, I am glad to say we have no > Society* papers. England and America are the only two countries in the world where these official organs of Anglo-Saxon snobbery can be found, and I should not be surprised to hear that Australia possessed some of these already. The source of French happiness is to be found in the thrift of the women, from the best middle class to the peasantry. This thrift is also the source of French wealth. A nation is really wealthy when the fortunes are stable, however small. We have no Railway Kings, no Oil Kings, no Silver Kings, but we have no tenement houses, no Unions, no Work- houses. Our lower classes do not yet ape in ridiculous ittire the upper class, either in their habits or dress. The wife of a peasant or of a mechanic wears a simple snowy cap, and a sei^e or cotton dress. The wife of a shopkeeper does not wear any jewellery, because she cannot afford to buy real stones, and her taste is too good to allow of her wearing false ones. She is not ashamed of her husband's occupation; she does not play the fine lady while he is at work. She saves liim the expense of a cashier or of an extra clerk by helping him in his business. When the shutters are up, she enjoys life with him, and is the companion of his pleasures as well as of his hardships. Club life ' is unknown in France, except among the upper . classes. Man and wife are constantly together, and •]0 , A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. France «" a nation ofDarbys and Joans. There is, I believe, no country where men and women go through life on such eauai terms as France, In England (and here a^ain I speak of the masses only), the man tliinks liimself a much superior being to the woman. It is the same in Germany. In America, I should feel inclined to believe that a woman looks down upon a man with a certain amount of contempt She receives at his hands attentions of all sorts, but I cannot say, as I have remarked before, that I have ever discovered in her the slightest trace of gratitude to man. ,*:"--^": -■' . '■ - , " •*:-■'>-.-'';-•-- -.,^,. ' ^-.j -. '■■■>.•- I have often tried to explain to myself this gentle contempt of American ladies for the male sex, for, contrasting it with the lovely devotion of Jonathan to his womankind, it is a curious enigma. Have I found the solution at last? Does it begin at School? In American schools, boys and girls, from the ten- derest age, follow the same path to learning, and side by side on the same benches. Moreover, the girls prove themselves thoroughly capable of keeping pace with the boys. Is it not possible that the girls, eis they watched the performances of the boys in the study, learned to say: »Is that all?< while the young lords of creation, as they looked on at what » those girls« can do, perhaps exclaimed: »Well, well, who would have thought it?« And does not this explain the two attitudes : the great respect of men for women, and the mild contempt of women for men? Very often, in New York, when I had time to saunter about, I would go up to Broadway and wait until a car, well crammed with people, came along. Then I would jump on board and stand near the door. Whenever a man wanted to get out, he would say to me, » Please* or » Excuse me«, or just touch A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. TJ iric lightly to warn me tfiat t stood in his way. But the women! Oh, the women! Why, it was simply lovely. They would just push me away with the tips of their fingers, and turn up such disgusted and haughty noses! You would have imagined it was a heap of dirty rubbish in their way,". * ;' Would you have a fair illustration of the respective positions of woman in France, in England, and in America? Go to a hotel, and watch the arrival of couples in the dining-room. Now don't go to the Louvre, the Grand Hotel, or the Bristol, in Paris. Don't go to the Savoy, the Victoria, or the Metropole in London. Don't go to Delmonico's in New York, because in all these hotels you will see that all behave alike. Go elsewhere and, I say^ watch. -\? , "!-::-.v. v'^-v^r..-^; ,,;:;- ; In France, you will see the couples arrive together, walk abreast towards the table assigned to them, very often arm in arm, and smiling at each other — though married. In England, you will see John Bull leading the i^ay. He does not like to be seen eating in public, and thinks it very hard that he should not have the dining-room all to himself. .So he enters, with his hands in his pockets, looking askance at everybody, right and left. Then, meek and demure, with her eyes cast down, follows Mrs. John Bull. In America, behold the dignified, nay, the majestic entry of Mrs. Jonathan, a perfect queen going towards her throne, bestowing a glance on her subjects right and left — ^and Jonathan behind! They say in France that Paris is the paradise of women. If so, there is a more blissful pLce than paradise, t^*^re is another word to invent to give an 78 A FRENCHMAN IN AME!^:»& idea of the social position enjoyed by American ladies. If I had to be born again, and might choose my sex and my birthplace, I would shout at the top ot my voice: >0h! make me an American woman U 4^ : \ . A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 79 ::fl. More about Journalism in America — A Dinner at Delfpivuco's — My First Appearance in an American Church. : ^rm (gorb, BnnHav Biabt, 19tb fanuarv. Have been spending the whole day in reading the Sunday papers. I am never tired of reading and studying the American newspapers. The whole character of the lation is there: Spirit of enterprise, liveliness, childish- ness, inquisitiveness, deep interest in everything that is human, fun aud humour, indiscretion, love of gossip, brightness. Speak of electric light, of phonographs and grapho- phones, if you like; speak of those thousand and one inventions which have come out of the American brain; but if you wish to mention the greatest and most wonderful achievement of American activity, do not hesitate for a moment to give the palm to American journalism: it is simply the nee plus ultra. You will find some people, even in America, who condemn its loud tone; others who object to its meddling with private life; others, again, who have something to say of its contempt for statements which are not in perfect accordance with strict truth. I even believe that a French writer, whom I do not wish to name, once said that very few statements to be found in an American paper were to be relied upon — beyond the date. People may say this and may say that about American joumali sgii I confess that I like it. 80 A FRENCHNL\N IN AMERICA. simply because it will supply you with twelve — on Sundays with thirty— -pages that are readable from the first line to the last. Yes, from the first line to the last, including the advertisements. The American journalist may be a man of letters, but, above all, he must possess a bright and graphic pen, and his services are not wanted ii he cannot write a racy article or paragraph out of the most trifling incident. He must relate facts, if he can; but if he cannot, so much the v/orse for the facts, he must be entertaining and turn out something that is readable. Suppose, for example, a reporter has to send to his paper the account of a police-court proceeding. There is nothing more important to bring to the office than the case of a servant-girl who has robbed her mistress of a pair of diamond earrings. The English reporter will bring to his editor something in the following style: »Mary Jane So-and-so was yesterday charged before the magistrate with stealing a pair of diamond earrings from her mistress. It appears c (always it appears^ that is the formula) »that, last Monday, as Mrs. X. went to her room to dress for dinner, she missed a pair of diamond earrings, which she usually kept in a little drawer in her bedroom. On questioning her maid on the subject, she received incoherent answers. Suspicion that the maid was the thief arose in her mind, and < Along paragraph in this dry style will be published in The TitneSt or any other London morning paper. ■'..'■':*■:- :• ' . ■■ .■-'".•• :'v"v"'-'^-. "..,.* ^ ^^• -■ -y::i - Now, the American reporter will be required to bring something a little more entertaining, if he hopes to be worth his salt on the staff of his paper, and he will probably get up an account of the case somewhat in the following fashion: > Mary Jane So- and so is a pretcy little brunette >. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 8i oi some twenty summers. On looking in the glass at her dainty little ears, she fancied how lovely a pair of diamond earrings would look in them. So one day she thought she would try on those of her mistress. How lovely she looked! said the looking- glass, and the Mephistopheles that is hidden in the comer of every man's or woman's breast suggested that she should keep them. This is how Mary Jane found herself in trouble . . .< etc., etc. The whole will read like a little story, probably entitled something like, » Another Gretchen gone Wrong through the Love of Jewels. < The heading has to be thought of no less than the paragraph. Not a line is to be dull in a paper sparkling all over with eye-ticklers of all sorts. Oh I those delicious headings that would resuscitate the dead and make them sit up in their graves! A Tennessee paper, which I have now under my eyes, announces tiie death of a townsman with the following heading: fAt ten o'clock last night Joseph W. Nelson put on his angel plumage.* « * • « tRacy, catching advertisements supplied to the trade,* such is the announcement that I see in the same paper. I understand the origin of such literary productions as the following, which I cull from a Co- lorado sheet: »This morning our Saviour summoned away the jeweller William T. Sumner of our city from his shop to another and a better world. The undersigned, his widow, will weep upon his tomb, as will also his two daughters, Maud and Emma, the former of whom is married, and the other is open to an offer. The funeral will take place to-morrow. Signed: His disconsolate widow, Mathilda Sumner. -^- »P.S. — This bereavement will not interrupt our ----—— — -"f— — -^ ^ ■'■ ■■(.^ \ 82 ' A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. business, which will be carried on as usual, only our place of business will be removed from Washington Street to No. 1 7 St. Paul Street, as our grasping land- lord has raised our rent. — M. S.< The following advertisement probably emanates from the same firm: PERSONAL. — HIS LOVE SUDDENLY RETURNED; recently they had not been on the best of terms owing to a little family jar occasioned by the wife insisting on being allowed to renovate his wearing apparel, and which, of course, was done in a bungling manner; in order to prevent the trouble they agreed to send all their work hereafter to D— , the Tailor, and now everything is lovely, and peace and happiness again reigns in their household. All this is lively. I repeat it, never fail to read the advertisements of an American paper, or you will not have got out of it all the fun it supplies. Here are a few that I extract from the Cincinnati Enquirer f which tell different stories: THE young MADAME J. C. ANTONIA, just arrived from Europe, will remain a short time; tells past, present, and future; iells by the letters in hand who the future husband or wife will be; brings back the husband or lover in so many days, and guarantees to settle family troubles; can give good luck and success; ladies call at once; also cures corns and bunions. Hours 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. THE acquaintance desired of lady passing along Twelfth St. at 3 o'clock Sunday afternoon, by blonde gent standing at comer. Address LOU K 48, Enquirir office. WILL the three ladies that got on the electric car at the Zoo Sunday afternoon favour three gents that got off at Court and Walnut Sts. with their addr*«s? Address ELECTRIC CAR, Enquirer office. W 7"ILL two ladies on Clark St. car that noticed two gents VV in front of (rrand Opera House, about 7 last evening, please address J and S, Enqttirer office? A short time ago a man named Smith was bitten, by a rattlesnake and treated with whisky at a New A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 8 ? J York hospital. An English paper would have just mentioned the fact, and have had the paragraph headed : »A remarkable cure,c or lA man cured of a rattlesnake bite by whisky;* but a kind corres- pondent sends me the headings of this bit of in- telligence in five New York papers. They are as follows: 1. »Smith is all right!* 2. »\Vhisky does it I* 3. »The Snake routed at all points!* 4. »The Reptile is nowhere!* I 5. » Drunk for three days and cured!* Let a batch of officials be dismissed. Do not suppose than an American editor will accept the news with such a heading as » Dismissal of Officials*. The reporter will have to bring some label that will fetch the attention, > Massacre at the Custom House!* or »So many Heads in the Basket!* will do. Now, I maintain that it requires a wonderful imagination, something little short of genius, to be able, every day, to hit on a hundred of such headings. But the American journalist does it. An American paper is a collection of short stories. The Sunday edition of the New York Worlds the New York Heraldy the Boston Herald, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Herald, and many others, is something like ten volumes of miscellaneous literature, and I do not know of any achievement to be compared to it. I cannot do better than compare an American paper to a large store, where the articles are labelled so as to immediately strike the customer. A few weeks ago, I heard my friend. Colonel Charles H. Taylor, editor of the Boston Globe, give me an interesting summary of an address on journalism which he is to deliver next Saturday before the members of -the New England Club of Boston. He maintains that ' the proprietor of a newspaper Jgs as much right to- im 84 . A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. ' :': ' make his shopwindow as attractive to the public as any tradesman. If the Colonel is of opinion that journalism is a trade and the journalist a mere trades- man, I agree with him. If journalism is not to rank amoi^ the highest and noblest of professions, and is to be nothing more than a commercial enterprise, I agree whith him. Now, if we study the evolution of journalism for the last forty or fifty years, we shall see that daily journalism, especially in a democracy, has become a commercial enterprise, and that journalism, as it was understood forty years ago, has become to-day monthly journalism. The dailies have now no other object than to give the news, the latest; just as a tradesman that would succeed, must give you the latest fashion in any kind of business. The people of a democracy like America are educated in politics. They think for themselves, and care but litUe for the opinions of such and such journalist on any question of public interest. They want news, not literary essays on news. When I hear some Americans say that they object to their daily journalism, I answer that journalists are like other people who supply the public: they keep the article that is wanted. A free country possesses the government it deserves,, and the journalism it wants. A people active and busy, as the Americans are, want a journalism that will keep their interest awake and amuse them. And they naturally get it. The average American, . for example, cares not a pin for what his representatives say or do in Washington ; but he likes to be acquainted with what is going on in Europe, and that is why the American jo malist will give him a far more detailed account of what is going on in the Palace of West- minster than of what is being said in the Capitol. * In France, journalism is personal. On any great question of the day, domestic or foreign, the French- y :' A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. ^|B^ man will want to read the opinion of John Lemoinne in the Journal des Debats, or the opinion of Ed'^uard Lockroy in the Rappel^ or nriaybe that of Paul de Cassagnac or Henri Rochefort. Every Frenchman is more or less led by the editor of the newspaper which he patronises. But the Frenchman is only a democrat in name and aspirations, not in fact. France made t'le mistake of etablishing a republic before she made re- publicans of her sons. A French journalist signs his articles, and is a leader of public opinion — so much so, that every successful journalist in France has been, is now, and ever will be elected a representative of the people. In America, as in England, the journalist has no personality outside the literary classes. Who, among the masses, knows the names of Bennett, Dana, Whitelaw Reid, Madill, Childs, in the United States? Who, in England, knows the names of Mudford, Robinson, and other editors of the great dailies? If it had not been for his trial and imprisonment, Mr. W. T. Stead him- self, though a most brilliant journalist, would never have heard his name on anybody's lips. A leading article in an American or an English newspaper will attract no notice at home. It will only be quoted on the European Continent. It is the monthly and the weekly papers and ma- gazines that now play the part of the dailies of bygone days. An article in the Spectator or Saturday Review^ or especially in one of the great monthly magazines, will be quoted all over the land, and I believe that this relatively new journalism, which is read only by the cultured, has now for ever taken the place of the old one. In a country where everybody reads, men as well as women; in a country where nobody takes much interest in politics outside of the State and the city in which he lives, the journalist has to turn out eveiy day 86 ; ^ A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. .x.„.-,-, * *, . all the news he can gather, and present them to the reader in the most readable form. Formerly daily journalism was a branch of literature; now it is a news store, and is so not only in America. The English press shows signs of the same tendency, and so does the Parisian press. Take the London Pall Mall Gazette and Star^ and the Paris Figaro^ as illustrations of what I advance. As democracy makes progress in England, jour- nalist, will become more and more American, altl'ough the English reporter will have some trouble in succeed- ing to comf)ete with his American confrere in humour and liveliness. Under the guidance of political leaders, the news- papers of Continental Europe direct public opinion. In a democracy, the newspapers follow public opinion, and cater to the public taste: they are the servants of the people. The American says to his journalists: »I don't care a pin for your opinion on such a question. Give me the news and I will comment on it myself. Only don't forget that I am an overworked man, and that before, or after, my fourteen hours' work, I want to be entertained.* So, as I have said elsewhere, the American jour- nalist must be spicy, lively, and bright. He must know how, not merely to report, but to relate in a racy, catching style, an accident, a trial, a conflagration, and be able to make up an article of one or two columns upon the most insignificant incident. He must be in- teresting, readable. His eyes and ears must be always open, every one of his five senses on the alert, for he must keep ahead in this wild race for news. He must be a good conversationalist on most subjects, so as to bring back from his interviews with different people a good store of materials. He must be a man of courage^ to brave rebuffs. He must be a philosopher, to pocket abuse cheerfully. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA.. ^^:r.,yjB7 He must be a man of honour, to inspire confidence in the people he has to deal whit. Personally I can say this of him, that whenever I have begged him, for instance, to kindly abstain from mentioning this or that which might have been said in conversation with him, I have invariably found that he kept his word. But if the matter is of public interest, he is, before and above all, the servant of the public; so never challenge his spirit of enterprise, or he will leave no stone unturned until he has found out your secret and exhibited it in public. • ^ I do not think that American journalism needs an apology. It is the natural outcome of circumstances and the democratic times we live in. The Theatre-Fran- ; gais is not now, under a Republic, and probably never , again will be, what it was when it was placed under the patronage and supervision of the French Court. Democracy is the form of government least of all cal- culated to foster literature and the fine arts. To that purpose, Monarchy, with its Court and its fashionable society, is the best. This is no reason to prefer a monarchy to a republic. Journalism cannot be now what it was when papers were read by people of culture only. In a democracy, the stage and journalism have to please the masses of the people. As the people become better and better educated, the stage and journalism will rise with them. What the people want, I repeat it, is news, and jour- nals are properly called iV Speeches* is rather a big word for what took place at dessert. Everyone supplied an anecdote, a story, a reminiscence, and contributed to the general entertainment of the guests. The Americans have too much humour to spoil their dinners with toasts to the President, the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Army, the Navy, the Militia, the Volunteers, and the Reserve Forces. How can you be humorous on the subject of Re'^ serve Forces? I once heard Mr. Chauncey M. Depew referring to the Volunteers, at some English public dinner, as »Men invincible — in peace, and invisible in war.« After dinner I remarked to an English peer : »You have heard to-night the great New York after-dinner speaker, what do you think of his speech?* >Well,« he said, »it was witty; but I think his remark about our Volunteers was not in very good taste.* :,^, -«■--_/ .. , .:,:hy\ I remained composed, and did not explode. ftmto^fl (fl- JJ. Slat Januarv. Lectured in Melrose, near Boston, last night, and had the satisfaction of pleasing a Massachusetts au- \ ' A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. > 89 dience for the second time. After t^j lecture, I had supper with Mr. Nat Goodwin, a very good actor, who is now playing in Boston in a new play by Mr. Steele Mackaye. Mr. Nat Goodwin told many good stories at supper. He can entertain his friends in pri- vate as well as he can the public. * • * • Tho-night I have appeared in a church, in New- burgh. The minister, ^vho took the chair, had the good sense to refrain from opening the lecture with prayer. There are many who have not the tact ne- cessary to see that praying before a humorous lecture is almost as irreverent as praying before a glass of g^og. It is as an artist, however, that I resent that prayer. After the audience have said Amen^ it takes them a full quarter of an hour to realise that the lec- ture is not a sermon, that they are in a church, but not at church, and the whole time their minds are in that undecided state all your points fall flat and miss fire. Even without the preliminary prayer, I dislike lecturing in a church. The very atmosphere of a church is against the success of a light, humorous lec- ture, and many a point, which would bring down the house in a theatre, will be received only with smiles in a lecture-hall, and in respectful silence in a church. An audience is greatly influenced by surroundings. Now, I must say that the interior of an American church, with its lines of benches, its galleries, and its platform, does not inspire such religious feelings as the interior of a European Catholic church. In many American towns, the church is let for meetings, con- certs, exhibitions, bazaars, etc., and so far as you can see, there is nothing to distinguish it from an ordinary lecture-hall. Yet, it is a church, and both lecturer and audience feel it.-.-'-^^^^ :-:.:'-■-:- -■ 90 . A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. CHAPTER XIV. Marcus AureUus in America — Chairmen I have had — American^ English ^ and Scotch Chairmen — One who had been to Boulogne — Talkative and Stleftt Chair- men — A Trying Occasion — The Lord is asked to allow the Audience to see my Jokes. B^m §orii, 22nll Janaarv. There are indeed very few Americans who have not either tact or a sense of humour. They make the best of chairmen. They know that the audience have not come to hear them, and that ail that is required of them is to introduce the lecturer in very few words, and to give him a good start. Who is the lecturer that would not appreciate, nay, love, such a chairman as Dr. R. S. McArthur, who introduced me yesterday to a New York audience in the following manner? » Ladies and gentlemen,* said he, *the story goes that, last summer, a party of Americans visiting Rome paid a visit to the famous Spithover's bookshop in the Piazza di Spagna. Now Spithover is the most learned of bibliophiles. You must go thither if you need ar- tistic and archae' gical works of the profoundest re- search and crudi \, But one of the ladies in this tourists' party only wanted the lively travels in Ame- rica of Max O'Rell, ut she asked for the book at Spithover's. There cauie in a deep guttural voice — an Anglo-German voice — from a spectacled clerk be- litnd a desk, words to this purport: ,Marcus Aurelius A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 91 vos neffer in the Unided Shtaates!' — But, ladies and gentlemen, he is now, and here he is.€ With such an introduction, 1 was immediately in touch with the audience. What a change after some English chairmen! A few days before lecturing in any English town, under the auspices of a Literary Society or Mechanics* Institute, the lecturer generally receives from the secretary a letter running somewhat as follows: »Dear sir, I have much pleasure in informing you that our ' Mr. Blank, one of our vicepresidents and a well- < known resident here, will take the chair at your lecture.* Translated into plain English, this reads: »My poor fellow, I am much grieved to have to inform you that a chairman will be inflicted upon you on the occasion of your lecture before the members of our Society.* In my few years' lecturing experience, I have come across all sorts and conditions of chairmen, but I can recollect very few that i»have helped me«. Now, what is the office, the duty, of a chairman on such occa- sions? He is supposed to introduce the lecturer to the audience. For this he needs to be able to make a neat speech. He has to tell the audience who the lecturer is, in case they should not know it, which is seldom the case. I was once introduced, to an audience who knew me, by a chairman who, I don't think, had ever heard my name in his life. Before going on the platform he asked me whether I had written anything, next whether I was an Irishman or a Frenchman, etc. Sometimes the chairman is nervous; he hems and haws, connot find the words he wants, and only succeeds in fidgeting the audience. Sometimes, on the other hand, he is a wit. There is danger again. 1 was once introduced to a Nev/ York audience by General Horace Porter. Those of my readers who know the delightful General, and have heard him 92 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. ^ .. deliver one of those little gems of speeches in his own inimitable manner, will agree with me that certainly there was danger in that; and they will not be surprised when I tell them that after his delightfully witty and graceful little introduction, I felt as if the best part of the »showc was over. ^ ' ^?^ Sometimes the chair has to be offered to a magnate of the neighbourhood, though he may be noted for nis long prosy orations (which annoy the public), or to a very popular man in the locality who gets all the applause (which annoys the lecturer). » Brevity is the soul of wit,« should be the motto of chairmen, and I sympathise with a friend of mine who says that chairmen, like little boys and girls, should be seen and not heard. Of those chairmen who can and do speak, the Scotch ones are generally good. They have a knack of starti-»g the evening with some droll Scotch anec- dote, told with that piquant and picturesque accent of theirs, and of putting the audience in a good humour. Occasionally they will also make a propos and equally droll little speeches at the close. One evening, in talk-^> ing of America, I had mentioned the fact that Ame- rican banquets were very lively, and that I thought the fact of Americans being able to keep up such a flow of wit for so many hours was perhaps due to their drinking Apollinaris water instead of stronger things after dessert. At the end of the lecture, the chairman rose, and said he had greatly enjoyed it, but that he must take exception to one statement the lecturer had made, for he thought it >fery deeficult to be wutty on Apollinaris watter.c Another kind of chairman is the one who kills your finish, and stops all the possibility of your being called back for applause, by coming forward, the very^ f istant the last words are out of your mouth, to inform the audience that the next lecture will be given by Mr. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. f^^,.. 93 So-and-so, or to malce a statement of the Society's financial position, concluding by appcciling to the members to induce their friends to join. Then there is the chairman who, although he does not know what you are going to speak about, thinks it his duty to give the audience a land of summary of what he imagines the lecture is going to be. He is terrible. But he is nothing to the one who, when the lecture is over, will persist in summing it up, and ex- plaining your own jokes, especially the ones he has not quite seen through. This is the dullest, the sad- dest chairman yet invented. Some modest chairmen apologize for standing bet- ween the lecturer and the audience, and declare they cannot speak, but do. Others promise to speak a minute only, but don't. iWhat shall I speak about ?€ said a chairman to me one day, after I had been introduced to him in the little back room behind the platform. ^ *l{ you will oblige me sir,< I replied, >kindly speak about — one minute, c ^ i ^ ; Once I was introduced to the audience as the pro- moter of good feelings between England and France. >Sometimes,€ said the chairman, twe see clouds of misunderstanding arise between the French — between the English — between the two. The lecturer of thi? evening makes it his business to disperse these clouds — these clouds — to — to But I will not detain you any longer. His name is familiar to all of us. I'm sure he needs no introduction to this audience. We all know him. C have much pleasure in introducing to you Mr. Mosshiay — Mr.- .t Then he looked at me in despair. ; It was evident he had forgotten my name. »Max O'Rell is, I believe, what you are driving at,c I whispered to him. 94 . A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. ^ '^ ^ / The most objectionable chairmen in England are perhaps local men holding civic honours. Accustomed to deliver themselves of a speech whenever and wher- ever they get a chance, aldermen, town councillors, ' members of local boards, school boards, never miss an : opportunity of getting upon a platform to address a good crowd. Not long ago I was introduced to an audience in a large English city by a candidate for civic honours. The election of the Town Council was to take place a fortnight afterwards, and this gentleman profited by the occasion to air all his grievances against the sitting Council, and to assure the citizens that it they would only elect him, there were bright days in store for them and their city. This was the gist of the matter. The speech lasted tw^enty minutes. Once the chair was taken by an alderman in a -Lancashire city, and the hall was crowded. - »What a fine house !« I remarked to the chairman as we sat down on the platform. -- , »Very fine, indeed,* he said. ^Everybody in the town knew I was going to take the chair. » More than once, when announced to deliver a lec- ture on France and the French, I have been introduced by a chairman who, having spent his holidays in that country once or twice, opened the evening's proceed- ings by himself delivering a lecture on France. I have felt very tempted to imitate a confrere^ and say to the audience: » Ladies and gentlemen, as one lec- ture on France is enough for an evening, perhaps you would rather I spoke about something else now.> The confrere I have just mentioned was to deliver a lecture on Charles Dickens one evening. The chairman knew something of Charles Dickens, and for quite a quarter of an hour spoke on the great English novelist, giving anecdotes, extracts of his writings, etc. When the lec- turer rose, he said: »Ladies and gentlemen, two lec- tures on Charles Dickens are perhaj^ more than you A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. ^ ^^ 95 expected to hear to-night. You have just heard a lec- ture on Charles Dickens; I am now going to give you one on Charles Kingsley. « ^ Sometimes I get a little amusement, however (as jn the county town of X.), out of the usual proceed- ings of the society before whose members I am en- gaged to appear. At X., the audience being assem- bled and the time up, I was told to go on the plat- form alone and, being there, to immediately sit down. So I went on, and sat down. Some one in the room then rose and proposed that Mr. N. should take the chair. Mr, N., it appeared, had been to Boulogne (to Blong), and was particularly fitted to introduce a Frenchman. In a speech of aboui five minutes dura- tion, all Mr. N.'s qualifications for the post of chair- v^ man that evening were duly set forth. Then someone else rose, and seconded the proposition, re-enumerat- ing most of these qualifications. Mr. N. then marched up the hall, ascended the platform, and proceeded to return thanks for the kind manner in which he had been proposed for the chair, and for the enthusiasm (a few friends had applauded) with which the audience had sanctioned the choice. He said it was true that he had been in France, and that he greatly admired the country and the people, and he was glad to have this opportunity, to say so before a Frenchman, Then he related some of his travelling impressions in France. A few people coughed, two or three more bold stamp- ed their feet, but he took no heed, and for ten minutes he gave the audience the benefit of the in- formation he had gathered in France. These preli- min^'-ies over, I gave the lecture, after which Mr. N. called upon a member of the audience to propose a vote of thanks to the lecturer »for the most amusing and interesting discourse, etc.« Now a paid lecturer wants his cheque when his work is over ; and although a vote of thanks, when it '-^ g6 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. >r-'. H.'.-' is spontaneous, is a compliment which he greatly ap- preciates, he is more likely to feel awkwardness than pleasure when it is a mere redtape formality. The .vote of thanks on this particular occasion was proposed in due form. Then it was seconded by some one who repeated two or three of my points and spoiled them. By this time I began to enter into the ftin of the thing, and, after having returned thanks for the vote of thanks and sat down, I stepped forward again, filled with a mild resolve to have the last word: > Ladies and gentlemen, « I said, » I have now much pleasure in proposing that a hearty vote of thanks be g'ven to Mr. N. for the able manner in which be has fiii«:d the chair, I am proud to have been introduced to you by an Englishman who knows my country so well.* I went again through the list of Mr. N.'s qualifications, not forgetting the trip to Boulogne and the impressions it had left on him. Somebody rose and seconded this. Mr. N. delivered a speech to thank the audience once more, and then those who had survived went home. Some Nonconformist Societies will engage a light or humorous lecturer, put him in their chapel, and open his mouth with prayer. Prayer is good, but I would as soon think of saying grace over a glass of champagne as of beginning my lecture with a prayer, j This kind of experience has been mine several times. J » A truly trying experience it was, on the first occasion, fr; to be accompanied to the platform by the minister^ who, motioning me to sit down, advanced to the front, lowered his head, and said in solemn accents : »Let us pray.« After I got started, it took me fully ten minutes to make the people realise that chcy were not at church. This experience I had in America as well as in England. Another experience in this line was still worse, for the prayer was supplemented by the singing of a hymn of ten or twelve verses. You A. FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 97 may easily imagine that my first point fell dead flat. I have been introduced to audiences as Mossoo, Meshoe, and Mounzeer OReel, and found it very difficult to bear with equanimity a chairman who mal- treated a name which I had taken some care to keep correctly spelt before the public. Yet this man is charming ^hen compared to the one who, in the midst of his introductory remarks, turns to you and, in a stage whisper perfectly audible all over the hall, asks: >How do you pronounce your name?€ Passing over chairmen chatty and chairmen terse, chairmen eloquent and chairmen the reverse, I feel decidedly most kindly towards the silent chairman. He is very rare, but he does exist, and when met with is exceedingly precious. Why he exists, in some English Institutes, I have always been at a loss to imagine. Whether he comes on to see that the lec- turer does not run off before his time is up, or with the water bottle, which is the only portable thing on the platform generally; whether he is a successor to some venerable deaf and dumb founder of his society; or whether he goes on with the lecturer to give a lesson in modesty to the public as who should say: »I could speak an if I would, but I forbear, c Be his raison detre what it may, we all love him. To the nervous novice he is a kind of quiet support, to the old stager he is as a picture unto the eye and as music unto the ear. ^ } Here I pause. I want to collect my thoughts. Does my memory serve me ? Am I dreaming, or worse still, am I on the point of inventing? No, I could not invent such a story, it is beyond my power. I was once lecturing to the students of a rel^ious college in America. Before I began, a professor step- 7 gB A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. ped forward, and offered a prayer in which he asked the Lord to allow the audience to see my points. Now, I duly feel the weight of responsibility attach- ing to such a statement, and in justice to myself I can do no less than give the reader the petition just as it fell on my astonished eare: — fLord, Thou knowest that we work hard for Thee, and that recreation is necessary in order that we may work with renewed vigour. We have to-night with us a gentleman from France « (excuse my recording a compliment too flattering), » whose criticisms are witty and refined, duf suhtUy and we pray Thee to so pre- pare our minds that we may thorouj^hly understand and enjoy them.c If •%Uiit sitbtleU ,^' • I am still wondering whether my lectures are so subtle as to need praying over, or whether that audience was so dull that they needed praying for. Whichever it was, the prayer was heard, for the audience proved warm, keen, and thoroughly appre- ciative. i A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. ^ . r-rfc?. ' ^ ' • ' • '"-''''''■'■,'"'" ■ ■ ^ A\-.-.^. •'■:::;•'■»■ .'/ . CHAPTER XV^ . i ". Reflections on the Typical American* * ^ Jlfm §orh, 23rti Sanuarv. ^ • ; I WAS asked to-day by the editor of the North Americaji Review to write an article on the typical American. , * - -The typical Americanf -., V ; In the eyes of my beloved compatriots, the typical American is a man with hair falling over his shoulders, wearing a sombrero^ a red shirt, leather leggings, a pair of revolvers in his belt, spending his life on horseback, and able to shoot a fly off the tip of your nose without for a moment endangering your olfactory organ; and, since Buffalo Bill has been exhibiting his Indians and cowboys to the Parisians, this impression has become a deep conviction. I shall never forget the astonishment I caused to my mother when I first broke the news to her that I wanted to go to America. My mother had practi- cally never left a lovely little provincial town of France. Her face expressed perfect bewilderment »You don't mean to say you want to go to Ame- rica! « she said. >What for?« _ >I am invited to give lectures therct • " > Lectures I in what language !c »Well, Mother, I will try my best in English, c Do they speak English out there ?< >H*m — pretty well, I t'iink.c We did not go any further on the subject that time. Probably the g^ »d mother thought of the time 7* 100 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. when the Califomian gold fields attracted afl the scum of Europe, and, no doubt, she thought that it was strange for a man, who had a decent position in Europe, to go and >seek fortune* in America. Later on, however, after returning to England, I wrote to her that I had made up my mind to go. Her answer was full of gentle reproaches, and of sorrow at seeing that she had lost all her influence over her son. She signed herself lalways your loving mother, € and indulged in a postscript. Madame de S^vigne said that the gist of a woman's letter was to be found in the postscript. ■■ '-■-r-.^y :'^-:,^:-\ -'r-^-^-:':/-,^-!^.'^-' My mother's was this: >P.S. I shall not tell anyone in the town that you have gone to America, c This explains why I still dare show my face in my native little town The typical American! First of all, does he exist? I do not think so. As I have said elsewhere, there are Americans in plenty, but tke American has not made his appear- ance yet. The type existed a hundred years ago in New England. He is there still; but he is not now a national type, he is only a local one. I was talking one day to two eminent Americans on the subject of the typical American, real or imaginary. One of them was of opinion that he was a taciturn being; the other, on the contrary, maintained that he was talkative. How is a foreigner to dare decide, where two eminent natives find it impossible to agree? In speaking of the typical American, let us under- stand each other. All the civilised nations of the earth are alike in one respect: they are all composed of two kinds of men, those that are gentlemen, and those that are not. America is no exception to this rule. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 1 01 Fifth Avenue does not differ from Belgfavia and May- fair. A gentleman is everywhere a gerideman. As a type, he belongs to no particular country, he is universal. When the writer of some > Society c paper, English or American, reproaches a sociologist for writing about the masses instead of the classes, suggesting that the probably never frequented the best society of the nation he describes, € that writer writes himself down In the matters of feeling, conduct;, taste, culture, I have never discovered the least difference between a gentleman from America and a gcmtleman from France, England, Russia, or any other country of Europe — including Germany. So, if w<; want to find a typical American, it is not in good society that we must search for him, but among the mass of the population. Well, it is just here that our search will break down. We shall come across all sorts and conditions of Americans, but not one that is really typical. A little while ago, the Century' Magazine published specimens of composite photography. .Firet, there was the portrait of one person, then that of this same face with another superposed, then anothei- containing three faces blended, and so on up to eight or nine. On the last page the result was shown. I can only compare the typical American to the last of those. This appears to me the process of evolution through which the American type is now going. What it will be when this process of evolution is over, no one, I imagine, can tell. The evolution will be coreiplete when immi- gration shall have ceased, and all the different types have been well mixed and assimilated. >Vhilst the process of assimilation is still going on, the result is suspended, and the type is incomplete. . But, meanwhile, are there not certain characteristic I02 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. traits to be found throughout ahnost all America? That is a question much easier to answer. Is it necessary to repeat that I put aside good society and confine myself merely to the people? Nations are like individuals: when they are young, they have the qualities and the defects of children. The characteristic trait of childhood is curiosity. It is also that of the American. I have never been in Australia, but I should expect to find this trait in the Australian. Look at American journalism. What does it live on. Scandal and gossip. Let a writer, an artist, or anyone else become popular in the States, and the papers will immediately tell the public at what time he rises and what he takes for breakfast. When anyone of the least importance arrives in America, he is quickly beset by a band of reporters who ask him a host of preposterous questions, and examine him minutely from head to foot, in order to tell the public next day whether he wears laced, buttoned, or elastic boots, enlighten them as to tlie cut of his coat and the colour of his pants, and let them know if he parts his hair in the middle or not. Every time I went into a new town to lecture, I was interviewed, and the next day, besides an account of the lecture, there was invpriably a paragraph some- what in this style: »The 'xturer is a man of about forty, whose cranium is getting visible through his hair. He wears a double eyeglass, with which he plays whilst talking to his audience. His handkerchief was black- bordered. He wore the regulation patent leather shoes, and his shirt-front was fastened with a single stud. He spoke without effort or pretension, and often with his ^nds in his pockets,* Etc. A few days ago, on reading the morning papers^ in a town where I had lectured the night before. I found, in one of them, about twenty lines consecrated to my lecture, and half a column to my hat. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. I05 I must tell you tliat this hat was brown, and all the hats in America are black. If you wear anything that is not exactly like what Americans wear, you are gazed at as if you were a curious animal. The Ame- ricans are as great badauds as the Parisians. In London, you may go down Regent Street or Piccadilly got up as a Swiss admiral, a Polish general, or even a High- lander, and nobody will take the trouble to look at you. But, in America, you have only to put on a brown hat or a pair of light pants, and you will be- come the object of a curiosity which will not fail very promptly to bore you, if you are fond of tranquillity, and like to go about unremarked. I was so fond of that poor brown hat, too ! It was an incomparably obliging hat. It took any shape, and adapted itself to any circumstances. It even went into my pocket on occasions. I had bought it at Lincoln and Bennett's, if you please. But I had to give it up. To my great regret, I saw that it was imperative: its popularity bid fair to make me jealous. Twenty lines about me, and half a column about that hat! It was time to come to some determination. It was not to be put up with any longer. So I took it up tenderly, smoothed it with care, and laid it in a neat box which was then posted to the chief editor of the paper with the following note: »Dear Sir, — I see by your estimable paper that my hat has attracted a good deal of public attention diuing its short sojourn in your city. I am even tempted to think that it has attracted more of it than my lecture. I send you the interesting headgear, and b^ you will accept it as a souvenir of my visit, with my respectful compliments.* A dtizen of the Grreat Republic knows how to take a joke. The worthy editor inserted my letter in tlje next number of his paper, and informed his readers that the hat fitted him to a nicety, and that I04 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA, he was going to have it dyed and wear it. He further said: »Max O'Rell evidently thinks the song Where did you get that hat? was specially written to annoy him, « and went on to 1 the effect that >Max O'Rell is not the only man who ' does not care to tell where he got his hat.« Do not run away with the idea that such nonsense | as this has no interest for the American public. The editor of a paper is just like the head of any other *^ commercial enterprise, he supplies the article that is in demand. American reporters have asked me, with the most T serious face in the world, whether I worked in the - morning, afternoon, or evening, and what colour paper. f I used (sic). One actually asked me whether it was true that M. Jules Claretie used white paper to write . his novels on, and blue paper for his newspaper articles. Not having the honour af a personal acquaint- -^ ance with the director of the Comedie-Frangaise^ I had to confess my inability to gratify my amiable inters locutor. ^ Look at the advertisements in the newspapers. There you have the bootmaker, the hatter, the travel- i. ling quack, publishing their portraits at the head of their advertisements. Why are those portraits there, if it be not to satisfy the cuiiosity of customers? The mass of personalities, each more trumpery than the other, those details of people's private life, and all the gossip daily served up in the newspapers, are they not proof enough that curiosity is a characteristic trait of the American? This curiosity, which often shows itself in the most f impossible questions, gives immense amusement to i Europeans; unhappily it amuses them at the expense » of the well-bred Americans, people who are as innocent of it as the members of the stiffest aristocracy in the world could be. The English especially persist iii not A FRENCHMAN IN AJIERICA. IP5 distinguishing Americans who are gentlemen from Asre- ricans who are not ^^^--Zi^^i^^^i And even that easy-going American bourgeois, with his childish but good-humoured nature, they often fail to do justice to. They too often look ai his curiosity as impertinence and ill breeding, and will not admit that, in nine cases out of ten, the freedom he uses with you is but a show of good feeling, an act of good fellowship. Take, for insta. ^, the following little story: An American is seated in a railway carriage, and opposite him is a lady in deep mourning and looking a picture of sadness : a veritable mater dolorosa. »Lost a father?« begins the worthy fellow. >No, sir. « , . ¥K »A mother, maybe ?€v^'.?^,;:;-,,_ iw^-^w;*. tNo, sir. « " • '""■' ■ "^ ' . :0,^-=i 'J' ^^■^ .•■ »Ah! a child, then?< ^ r^ 4: >No, sir, I have lost my husband.c »Your husband? Ah — left you comfortable ?c The lady, rather offended, retires to the other end of the car and cuts short the conversation. ;» Rather stuck-up, this woman, c remarks the good Yankee to his neighbour. The intention was good, if the way of showing it was not He had but wanted to show the poor lady the interest he took in her. After havii^ seen you two or three times, the American will suppress >Mr.c and address you by your name without any handle to it. Do not say that ;this is ill-placed familiarity; it is meant as an act of good fellowship, and should be received by you as such. If you are stiff, proud, and stuck-up, for goodness' sake never go to America, you will never get on there. I06 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. On the contrary, take over a stock of simple, affable manners, and a good temper, and you will be treated as a friend everywhere, feied, and well looked after. In fact, try to deserve a certificate of goodfellow- ship, such as the Clover Club of Philadelphia awards , to those who can sit at its hospitable table without ' taking affront at the little raileries levelled at them by the members of that lively association. With ? people of refinement who have humour, you can indulge in a joke at their expense. So says La Bruy^re. Every visitor to America, who wants to bring back a pleasant recollection of his stay there, should lay this to heart. Such are the impressions that I formed of the American during my first trip to his country, and the more I think over the matter, the more sure I am that they were correct. Curiosity is his chief little failing, and good fellowship his most prominent quality. This is the theme I will develop and send to the editor , of the North American Review, I will profit by having i: a couple of days to spend in New York, to install myself in a cosy corner of that cosiest of clubs, the > Players €, and there write it. It seems that, in the same number of this Maga- zine, the same subject is to be treated by Mr. Andrew Lang. He has never seen Jonathan at home, and it will be interesting to see what impressions he has form- ed of him abroad. In the hands of such a graceful writer, the atypical American* is sure to be treated in a pleasant and interesting manner. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. I07 /f CHAPTER XVL ^n^ #? *• ■--■,-,■ %^ ■■-■ .- / am asked to express myself freely on America — / meet Mrs. Blank, and for the first time hear of Mr. Blank — Beacon Street Society — The Boston Clubs. Boston, 25tft Jannary. Pr amuses me to notice how the Americans, to whom I have the pleasure of being introduced, refrain from asking me what I think of America. But they invari- ably inquire if the impressions of my first visit are confirmed. r\y--/-y:r /■^,',,j'7 :,. This afternoon, at an »At Homec, I met a lady from New York who asked me a most extraordinary question. »I have read Jonathan and His Continent ^€ she said to me. >I suppose that is a book of impressions written for publication. But now, tell me en confidence, what do you think of us?< »Is there anything in that book,< I replied, > which can make you suppose that it is not the faithful ex- pression of what I think of America and the Americans?! >Well,c she said, »it is so complimentary, taken altogether, that I must confess I had a lurking sus- picion of your having purposely flattered us, and in- dulged our national weakness for hearing ourselves praised, so as to make sure of a warm reception for your book.€ >No doubt, « I replied, iby writing a flattering book on any country, you would greatly increase your chance ^f a lai^e sale in that country; but, on the other hand, you may write an abusive book on any country and I08 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. score a ^eat success among that nation's neighbours. For my part, I have always gone my own quiet way, philosophising rather than opinionating, and when I write, it is not with the aim of pleasing any particular public. I note down what I see, say what I think, and people may read it or not, just as they please. But I think I may boast, however, that my pen is never bitter, and I do not care to criticise unless I feel a certain amount of sympathy with the subject of my criticism. If I felt that I could only honestly say hard things of people, I would always abstain altogether, c f iNow,« said the fair questioner, >how is it that you have so little to say about our Fifth Avenue folks? Is it because you have seen very little of them, or is it because you could only have said hard things of them?c »On the contrary,* I replied, »I saw a good deal of them; but what I saw showed me that to describe them would be only to describe polite society, as it exists in London and elsewhere. Society gossip is not in my line, boudoir and club smoking-room scandal has no charm for me. Fifth Avenue resembles too much Mayfair and Belgravia to make criticism of » it worth attempting.* I knew this answer would have the effect of putting me into the lady's good graces at once, and I was not disappointed. She accorded to me her sweetest smile, as I bowed to her to go, and be introduced to another lady by the mistress of the house. The next lady was a Bostonian. I had to explain to her why I ha4 not spoken oi Beacon Street people, using the same argument as in the case of Fifth Avenue Society. At the same »At Home*, I had the pleasure oi A FRENCHM.\N IN AMERICA. IO9 meeting Mrs. Blank, whom I had met many times in London and Paris. She is one of the crowd of pretty and cJever women whom America sends to brighten up European Society, and who reappear in London and Paris with the regularity of the swallows. You meet them every- where, and conclude that they n^ust be married, since they are styled Mrs., and not Miss. But whether they are wives, widows, or divorcees, you rarely think of inquiring, and you may enjoy their friendship for years without knowing whether they have a living lord or not. Mrs. Blank, as I say, is a most fascinating speci- men of America's daughters, and to-day I find that Mr. Blank is also very much alive, but that the com- panions of his joys and sorrows are the telephone and the ticker; in fact, it is thanks to his devotion to these that the wife of his bosom is able to adorn European Society during every recurring season. American women have such love for freedom and are so passionless and prudent that their visits to Europe could not arouse suspicion even in the most malicious. But, nevertheless, I am glad to have heard of Mr. Blank, because it is comfortable to have one's mind at rest on these subjects. Up to now, whenever I had been asked, as sometimes happened, though seldom, »Who is Mr. Blank, and where is he?» 1 had always answered, iLast puzzle outU I lunched to-day in the beautiful Algonquin Club as the guest of Colonel Charles H. Taylor, editor of the Boston Globe, and met the editors of the other Boston papers, among whom was John Boyle O'Reilly,* the lovely poet, and the delightful man, who sat on my right. The general conversation turned on two •J. B. O'Reilly died in 1890. no A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. subjects most interesting to me; vtz., Amencan jour- nalism and American politics. All these gentlemen seemed to agree that the American people take an interest in local politics only, but not in imperial politics, and this explains why the papers of the smaller towns-- give detailed accounts of what is going on in the houses of legislature of both City and State, but dMax Eliot «, and with whom I had a delightful half-hour's chat. I have had to-day the pleasure of meeting the editors of all the Boston news- papers. » » « » In the evening, I dined with the members of the New England Club, who thus meet every month to listen, at dessert, to some interesting debate or lecture. The wine is suppHed by bets. You bet, for instance, that the sun will shine on the following Friday at half past two. If you lose, you are one of those wha will have to supply one, two, or three bottles of :;ham- pagne at the next dinner, and so on. ThK evening the lecture, or rather the short address, was given by Colonel Charles H. Taylor on the history of American journalism. I was particularly interested to hear the history of the foundation of the New York Herald by James Gordon Bennett, and that of the New York World by Mr. Pullizer, a Hungarian emi rant, who some years ago arrived in the States unable to speak A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. Ill • English, became jack-of-all-trades, then a reporter to a German paper, then bought the Worlds which is now one of the best paying concerns in the whole of the United States. This man, who to maintain himself not in health, but just alive, is obliged to be constantly travelling, directs the paper by telegraph from Australia, from London, or wherever he happens to be. It ig nothing short of marvellous. Finished the evening in the St. Botolph's Club, and I may say that I have to-day spent one of the most delightful days of my Ufe, with those charming and highly-cultured Bostonians who, a wicked New York friend declares, »are educated beyond their in- tellects. < 112 A FREKCHBCAN IN AMERICA. CHAPTER XVn. A Lively Sunday in Boston — Lecture in the Boston Theatre — Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes — The Booth' Modjeska Combination, Boston, 26tb lanuarv. >Max Eliot* devotes a charming and most flattering article to me in this morning's Herald, embodying the conversation we had together yesterday in the Boston Heralds oflSce. Many thanks, Max. A reception was given to me this afternoon by Citizen George Francis Train, and I met many artists, journalists, and a galaxy of charming wc.nen. The Citizen is pronounced to be the greatest crank on earth. I found him decidedly eccentric, but enter- taining,, witty, and a first-rate raconteur. He shakes hands with you in the Chinese fashion: he shakes his own. He has taken a solemn oath that his body shall never come in contact with the body of anyone. A charming programme of music and recitations was gone through. The invitation cards issued for the occasion speak for themselves. Citiirn ^torgp f ranria lrain'9 RECEPTION TO Citoffn paf B'fitit Vide some of his ^Apothegmic Works!* (Reviewed in Pulitzer's New York World and Cosmos Press !) John Bull et Son ile! Les Filles de John Bull! Les Chers^ A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. II3 Voisinst L'Ami Macdonaldl John Bull, Junior! Jonathan et Son Continent I L'Eloquence Frangaisel etc. YOU ARE LNViTED TO MEET this distinguished French Traveller — Author and Lecturer (from the land of La Fayette, Rochambeau, and De Grasse!) AT MY SIXTH .POP-CORN RECEPTION!. Sunday, January Twenty-Sixth From 2 to 7 p.m. (Tremont House \) Private Banquet Hall! Fifty • Notables !• Talent from Dozen Operas and Theatres I A'l Stars! No Airs! No »WaU Flowers!* No Aniens! No Se'ahs! But »Mutual Admiration Club of Good Fellowship I No Boredom! No Formality! (Dress as you like!) No Program I (Pianos! Cellos! Guitars! Mandolins! Banjos! Violins! Harmonicas! Zithers!) Opera, Theatre, and Press Represented ! — Succeeding Receptions : To Steele Mackaye I Nat Goodwin ! Count Zubof ^t.Peiersburg) ! Prima Donna Clemence De Vere (Italy) I Albany Press Club! (Duly announced printed invitations I) GEORGE FRANaS TRAIN, •Psychic Press thanks for friendly notices Trement House for Winter! of Sunday Musical es !« P.S. — •DemoHst have checkmated •Psychos !« Invitations cancelled! »Hub' Boycotts Sunday Receptions! Bos ion half century behind New York and Europe s Elite Society. {Aruient Athens still Ancient!) Regrets and Regards! Good- Bye, Tremont! {The Proprietors not to blame.) ^ It will be seen from the P.S. that the reception could not be held at The Tremont House; but the plucky Citizen did not allow himself to be beaten, and the reception took place at the house of a friend. In the evening I lectured in the Boston Theatre to a beautiful audience. If there is a horrible fascination about >the man who won't smile, « as I mentioned in a foregoing chapter, there is a lovely fascination about the lady who seems to enjoy your lecture thoroughly. You watch the effect of your remarks on her face, and her bright, intellectual eyes keep you in good form the whole evening; in fact, you give the lecture to her. I perhaps never felt the influence of that face more powerfully than to-night. I had spoken for a few 8 114 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. minutes, when Madame Modjeska, accompanied by her husband, arrived and took a seat on the first row of the orchestra stalls. To be able to entertain the great tragedienne became my sole aim, and as soon as I perceived that I was successful, I felt perfectly proud and happy. I lectured to her the whole even- ing. Her laughter and applause encouraged me; her beautiful, intellectual face cheered me up, and I was able to introduce a little more acting and by -play than usual. I had had the pleasure of making Madame Mod- jeska's acquaiiitance two years ago, during my first visit to the United States, and it was a great pleasure to be able lo renew it after the lecture. 27tli Iflnuary. Spent the whole morning wandering about Boston, and visiting a few interesting places. Beacon Street, the Public Gardens, and Commonwealtli Avenue arc among the finest thoroughfares I know. What enor- mous wealth is contained in those miles of huge man- sions! The more I see Boston, the more it strikes me as like a great English city. It has a character of its own, as no other American city has, excepting per- haps Washington and Philadelphia. The solidity of the buildings, the pTks, the quietness of the women's dresses, the absence of the twang in most of the voi- ces, all remind you of England. ^ After lunch I called on Dr. Oliver Wendell Hol- mes. The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table is now over eighty, but he is as young as ever, and will die With a kind smile on his face and a merry twinkle in his eyes. I know no more delightful talker than this t delightful man. You may say of him that every time he talks he says somethhig. When he asked me what - c A FRENCHMAN IN AlVlERICA. II5 it was I had found most interesting in America, I vvisi:«ed I could have answered : » Why, my dear doctor, to see and to hear such a man as; you, to be sure I < But the doctor is so simple, so unaffected, that I felt an answer of that kind, though pirlectly sincere, would not have been one calculated to f»lease him. The ar- ticles >Over the Tea Cups>, which he writes every month for the Atlantic Monthly^ imd which will soon appear in book form, are as bright, witty, humorous, and philosophic as anything he ever wrote. Long may | he live to delight his native land! • • • • In the evening I went to see Mx. Eiwin Booth and Madame Modjeska in Hatnlei. By far the two greatest tragedians of America in Shakespeare's greatest tragedy. I expected great things. 1 "nad seen Mounet- Sully in the part, Henry Irving, Wils«:n Barrett; and I remembered the witty French quatrain, published on the occasion of Mounet-Sully attemptiiig the pait: — ,,Sans Fechter ni Riviere Le cas etait hasardeux ; yamais, no,: Jamais sur Urre^ On n'a fait (T Hamlet sans eux. ' I had seen Mr. Booth three tiniei? before. As > Brutus* I thought he was excellent. /Vs » Richelieu c he was certainly magnificent. As »lagoc ideally superb. His > Hamlet « was a revelation to me. After seeing the raving y Hamlets of Mounet-Sully, the sombre > Hamlet* of Irving, and the dreamy » Hamlet « of Wilson Barrett, I saw this evening » Hamlet* the phi- losopher, the rhetorician. Mr. Booth is too old to play » Hamlet* c\s he does ^ — that is to say, without any attempt at making-up. He puts on a black wig, and that is dl, absolutely all. It is, however, a most remarkable, subtle piece of acting in his hands. 8* Il6 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. Madame Modjeska was beautiful as > Ophelia t. No tragedienne^ that I have ever seen, weeps more natur- ally. In all sad situations, she makes the chords of one's heart vibrate, and that without any trick or artifice, but simply by the modulations of her sin- gularly sympathetic voice and such like natural means. It is very seldom that you can see in America, outside of New York, more than one very good actor or actress playing together. So you may ima- . gine the success of such a combination as Booth-Mod- jeska. Every night the theatre is packed from floor to ceiling, although the prices of admission are doubled. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 1 1 7 CHAPTER XVm. •S/. Johnsbury — The State of Maine — New England Self-control — Cold Climates and Frigid Audiences — Where is the Audience^ — All Drunk t — A Reminis- cence of a Scotch Audience on a Saturday Night, Bt JolinsiljurY (Bermnnt), 28tl| Januarv- St. Johnsbury is a charming little town perched on the top of a mountain, from which lovely scenery of hills and woods can be had. The whole country is covered with snow, and as I looked at it in the even- ing by the electric light, the effect was very beauti- ful. The town has only six thousand inhabitants, eleven hundred of whom came to hear my lecture to-night. Which is the European town of six thou- sand inhabitants that would supply an audience of eleven hundred people to a literary causerie} St. Johnsbury has a dozen churches, a public library of 1 5000 volumes, with a reading-room beauti- fully fitted with desks and perfectly adapted for study. A Museum, a Young Men's Christian Asso- ciation, with gymnasium, school-rooms, reading-rooms, play-rooms, and a lecture-hall capable of accommo- dating over a thousand people. Who, after that, would consider himself an exile if he had to live in St. Johnsbury? There is more intellectual life in it than in any French town outside of Paris, and about a dozen more large cities. * " * * ft I^ortsrfl, 30tli January. Have been in the State of Maine for two days — a strange State to be in, let me teU you. Il8 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. After addressing' the Connecticut audience ia Meriden a few days ago, I thought I had had the experience of the most frigid audience that could possibly be gathered together. Last Tuesday nighty at Portsea, I was undeceived. Half-way between St. Johnsbury and Portsea, the day before yesterday, I was told that the train would be very late and would not arrive at Portsea before half-past eight. My lecture in that city was to begin at eight. The only thing to do was to send a tele- gram to the manager of the lecture. At the next station, I sent the following: » Train late. If possible, keep audience waiting^ half-an-hour. Will dress on board.* I dressed in the state-room of the parlour-car. At forty minutes past eight, the train airived at Portsea. I immediately jumped into a cab and drove to the City Hall, where the lecture was to take place. The building was lighted, but, as I ascended the stairs, there was not a person to be seen or a sound to be heard. >The place is deserted,* I thought, >and if any- body came to hear me, they have all gone.* I opened the door of the private room behind the platform, and there found the manager, who ex- pressed his delight at seeing me. I excused myself ari was going to enter into a detailed explanation, when he interrupted: >Ah! that's all right.* >What do you mean?* said I. >Have you got an audience, therej, on the other side of that door?* »Why, we have got fifteen hundred people.* > There?* said I, pointing to the door. >Yes, just behind that door.* >But I can't hear a sound.* >I guess you can't. But that's all right. They are there.* A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. II9 »I suppose, € said I, »I had better apologize to them for keeping them waiting three-quarters of an kourPc >Well, just as you please,* said the manager — >I wouldn't.* tWouldn't you?* »No, I guess they would have waited another half-hour without showing any sign of impatience.* I opened the door, trembling. The desk was far, fer away. The manager was right, the audience was there. I stepped on the platform, shut the door after me, making as little noise as I could, and walking on tiptoe so as to wake up as few people as possible. Not one person applauded. A few people looked up Mnconcemed, as if to say: »I guess that's the Show.* The rest seemed asleep, although the eyes were open. Arrived at my desk, I faced the audience, and ventured a little joke, which fell dead flat. I began to realise the treat that was in store for me that night. I tried another little joke and — missed fire. >Never mind, old ifellow,* I said to myself; tit's 250 dollars, go ahead.* And I went on. I saw a few people smile, but not one laughed, although I noticed that a good many were holding their handkerchiefs over their mouths, probably to stifle any attempt at such a frivolous thing as laughter. The eyes of the audience, wliich I always watch, showed signs of interest, and nobody left the hall until Ae conclusion of the lecture. When I had finished, I made as small bow, when certainly fifty people applauded. I ims^ined they were glad it was all over. ^^ ,_ >Wen,« said I to tifie manager when I returned to the little back room, »I suppose we must call this a failure.* I20 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. >A failure If said he, >it's nothing of the sort. Why, I have never seen them so enthusiastic in my life I c I went to the hotel, and tried to forget the audience that I had just had by recaUing to my mind a joyous evening in Scotland. This happened about a year ^o, in a mining town, in the neighbourhood of Glas- gow, where I had been invited to lecture, on a Saturday night, to the members of a popular — very popular — Institute. I arrived at the station from Glasgow at half past seven, and there found the secretary and the treasurer of the Institute, who had been kind enough to come and meet me. We shook hands. They gave me a few words of welcome. I thought my friends looked , a little bit queer. They proposed that we should walk to the lecture hall. The secretary took my right arm, the treasurer took my left, and, abreast, the three of us proceeded towards the hall. They did not take me to that place, I took them, holding them fast all the way — the treasurer especially. We arrived in good time, although we stopped once for light refreshment. At eight punctually, I entered the hall, preceded by the president, and followed by the ricmbers of the committee. The president introduced me in a most queer, incoherent speech. I rose and was vociferously cheered. When silence was restored, I said in a calm, almost solemn manner: » Ladies and Gentlemen.* This was the signal for more cheering and whistling. In France whistl- ing means hissing, and I began to feel uneasy; but soon I bore in mind that whistling, in the North of Great Britain, was used to express the highest pitch of enthusiasm. So I went on. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 121 The audience laughed at everything I said, and even before I said it. I had never addressed such keen people. Everything they cheered and laughed at. They seemed so anxious to laugh and cheer in the right place, that they laughed and cheered all the time — so much so, that in an hour and twenty minutes I had only got through half my lecture, which I had to bring to a speedy conclusion. The president rose and proposed a vote of thanks in another most queer speech, which was a new occasion for cheering. When we had retired to the committee-room, I said to the secretary: > What's the matter with the president? Is he quite right ?c I added touching my forehead. »Oh,« said the secretary, striking his chest as proudly as possible, >he is drunk — and so am I.c The explanation of the v*'hole strange evening dawned upon me. Of course they were drunk, and so was the audience. That night, I believe I was the only sober person on the premises. Yesterday I had an interesting chat with a native of the State of Maine on the subject of my lecture at Portsea. »You are perfectly wrong, c he said to me, »in supposing that your lecture was not appreciated. I was present, and I can assure you that the attentive silence in which they listened to you from beginning to end is the proof that they appreciated you. You would also be wrong in supposing that they do not appreciate humour. On the contrary, they are very keen of it, and I believe in fact, that the old New- En^' nder Wcis the father of American humour, through the solemn manner in which he told comic 122 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. things and the comic manner in which he told the most serious ones. Yes, they are keen of humour, and their apparent want of appeciation is only due to reserve, to self-control, c And, as an illustration of it, my friend told me the following anecdote which, I have no doubt, a good many Americans have heard before. Mark Twain had lectured to a Maine audience without raising a single laugh in his listeners, when, at the close, he was thanked by a gentleman who came to him in the green-room to tell him how hugely everyone had enjoyed his amusing stories. When the lecturer expressed his surprise at this announcement, as the audience had not laughed, the gentleman added: tYes, we never were so amused in our lives, and if you had gone on five minutes more, upon my word I don't think we could have held out any longer. « Such is New-England self-control I A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 12$ * ( CHAPTER XDC. A Lovely Ride to Canada — Quebec, a Comer of Old France Strayed up West and Lost in the Snow — The French Canadians — The Parties in Canada — Will the Canadians become Yankees? JHontnal, Ist Jfeliniary* The ride from the State of Maine to Montreal is very picturesque, even in the winter. It offers you four or five hours of Alpine scenery through the American Switzerland. The White Mountains, commanded by Mount Washington, are for a distance of about forty miles as wild and imposing as anything the real Switzerland can supply the tourist. Grorges, precipices, torrents, nothing is wanting. Nearly the whole time we journeyed through pine forests, coming, now and then, across saw-mills, and little towns looking like beehives of activity. Now there was an opening, and frozen rivers covered with snow formed with the fields a huge uniform mass of dazzling whiteness. The effect, under a pure blue sky and in a perfectly clear atmosphere, was very beautiful. Now the country became hilly ^ain. On the slopes, right down to the bottom of the valley, we saw Berlin Falls, bathing its feet in the river. The yellow houses with their red roof and gables rest the eyes from that long stretch of blue and white. How beautiful this town and its surroundings must be in the Fall, when Dame Nature in America puts WL her cloak of gold and scarlet! All the country 124 A ^FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. t > on the line we travelled is engaged in the timber trade. For once I had an amiable conductor in the par-v lour-car, even more than amiable, quite friendly and familiar. He put his arms on my shoulders and got quite patronising. I did not mind that a bit. I hate anonymous landscapes, and he explained and named everything to me. My innocence of American things in general touched him. He was a great treat after those »ill-licket bears* that you so often come across in the American cars. He went further than that. He kindly recommended me to the Canadian Custom-house officers, when we arrived at the fron-^ tier, and the examination of my trunk and valise did not last half a minute. Altogether the long journey passed rapidly andl agreeably. We were only two people in the parlour- car, and my travelling companion proved a very pleasant man. First, I did not care for the look of him. He had a new silk hat on; a multicoloured satin cravat with a huge diamond pin fixed in it; a waistcoat covered with silk embroidery work, green, blue, and pink; a coat with silk facings, patent-leather boots. Altogether he was rather dressed for a garden party (in more than doubtful taste) than for a fifteen hours* railway journey. But in America the cars are 30 luxurious and kept so warm that traveUing-dresses are not known in the country. Ulsters, cloaks, rugs, garments made of tweed and rough materials, all these things are unnecessary and therefore unknown. I soon found out, however, that this quaintly got-up man was interesting to speak to. He knew every bit of the country we passed, and, being easily \lrawn out, he poured into my ears information that was as rapid as it was valuable. He was well read and had been to Europe several times. He spoke of France with great enthusiasm, which enrolled my sympathy, and he had A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 12$ enjoyed my lecture, which, you may imagine, secured for his intelligence and his good taste my boundless admiration. When we arrived at Montreal, we were a pair of friends. I begin my Canadian tour here on Monday, and then shall go West. I was iri Quebec two jears ago; but the dear old place is not on my list this time. No words could express my regret. I shall never forget my feelings on landing under the great cliff on which stands the citadel, and on driving, bumped along in a sleigh over the half-thawed snow, in the street that lies under the fortress, and on through the other quaint winding steep streets, and again under the majestic archways to the upper town where I was set down at the door of the » Florence c, a quiet, delightful little hotel that the visitor to Quebec should not fail to stop at, if he like home comforts and care to enjoy magnificent scenery from his window. It seemed as though I was in France, in my dear old Brittany. It looked like St. Malo strayed up here and lost in the snow. The illusion became complete when I saw the grey houses, heard the people talk with the Breton intonation, and saw over the shops Langlois, Maillard, Clouet, and all the names familiar to my childhood. But why say » illusion «? It was a fact: I was in France. These folks have given their faith to England; but, as the Canadian poet says, they have kept their hearts for France. Not only their hearts, but their manners and their language. Oh, there was such pleasure in it all! The lovely weather, the beautiful scenery, the kind welcome given to me, the delight of seeing these children of old France, more than three thousand miles from home, happy and thriving — a feast for the eyes, a feast for the heart. And the drive to Montmorency Falls in the 126 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. sleigh, gliding smoothly along on the hard snow ! And the sleighs laden with wood for the Quebec folks, the carmen stimulating their horses with a hue la or hue done I And the return to the » Florence*, where a good dinner served in a private room awaited us! And that polite, quiet, attentive French girl who waited on us, the antipodes of the young Yankee lady who makes you sorry that breakfasting and dining are necessary , in some American hotels , and v/hosc waiting is like taking sand and vinegar with your food! The mere spanking along through the cold, brisk air, when you are well muffled in lars, is exhilarating, especially when the sun is shining m a cloudless blue sky. The beautiful scenery at Quebec was, besides, a feast for eyes tired with the monotonous flatness of America. The whole city is on a perfect moun- tain, and as we came bumping down its side in our sleigh, over the roads, which were there in a perfect state of sherbet, there was a lovely picture spread out in front of us. In the distance, the bluest moun- tains I ever saw (to paint them one must use pure cobalt): away to the right, the frozen St. Lawrence, and the Isle of Orleans, all snow covered, of course, but yet distinguishable from the farm lands of Jacques Bonhomme, whose cosy, clean cottages we soon began to pass. The long ribbon-like strips of farm were indicated by the tops of the fences peeping through the snow, and told us of French thrift and pros- perity. Yes, it was all delightful. When I left Quebec, I felt as much regret as I do every time that I leave my little native town. » » * » I have been told that the works of Voltaire are prohibited in Quebec, not so much because they are A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 12/ irreligious as because they were written by a man who, after the loss of Quebec to the French Crown, exclaimed: »Let us not be concerned about the loss of a few acres of snow.« The memory of Voltaire is execrated ; and for having made a flattering reference to him on the platform in Montreal two yean* ago, I was near being » boycotted c by the French popu- lation. The French Canadians take very little interest in politics — I mean, in outside politics. They are steady, industrious, saving, peaceful; and so long as tiie English leave them alone, in the safe enjoyment of their belongings, they will not give them cause for any anxiety. Among the French Canadians, there is no desire for annexation to the United States. Indeed, during the War of Independence, Canada was saved to the English Crown by the French Canadians, not because the latter loved the English, but because they hated the Yankees. When La Fayette took it for granted that the French Canadians would rally round his flag, he made a great mistake: they would have, if compelled to fight, used their bullets gainst the Americans. If they had their own way, the French in Canada would set up a little country of their own, under the rule of the Catholic Church, a little corner of France two hundred years old. The education of the lower classes is at a very low stage: thirt}- per cent, of the children of school age in Quebec do not attend school. The English dare not introduce gratuitous and conipulsory educa- tion. They have an understanding with the Catholic Church, who insists upon exercising entire control over public education. The Quebec schools are little more than branches of the Confessit^nal box. The English shut their eyes, for part of the understand- ing with the Church is that the latter will keep loyalty 128 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. to the English Crown alive among her submissive flock. The tyranny exercised by the Catholic Church may easily be imagined from the following news- paper extract: »A well-to-do butcher of Montreal attended the Catholic Church at the Perrault last Sunday. He was suffering at the time with acute cramps, and when that part of the service arrived during which the congrega- tion kneel, he found himself unable to do more than assume a reclining devotional position, with one knee on the floor. His action was noticed, and the church- warden, in concert with others, had him brought before the Court charged with an act of irreverence, and he was fined eight dollars and costs.* Such a judgment does not only expose the tyranny of the Catholic Church, but the complicity of the English, who uphold Romanism in the Province of Quebec, as they uphold Buddhism in India, so as not to endanger the security of their possessions. The French Canadians are multiplying so rapidly that in very few years the Province of Quebec will be as French as the town of Quebec itself. Every day they push their advance from East to West. They generally marry very young. When a lad is seen in the company of a girl, he is asked by the priest if he is courting that girl. In which case he is bidden go straightway to the altar; and these young couples rear families of twelve and fifteen children, none of whom leave the country. The English have to make room for them.- The average attendance in Catholic Churches on Sundays, in Montreal, is 111,483; in the sixty churches that belong to the different Protestant denominations, the average attendance is 34,428. The former number has been steadily increasing, the latter steadily decreasing. 41 • » » A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 129 What is the future reserved to French Canada and, indeed, to the whole Dominion? There are only two political parties, Libtrals and Conservatives, but I find the population divided into four camps: Those in favour of Canada, an n»iepen dent nation; those in favour of the political union of Canada and the United States; those in favoui of Ca- nada going into Imperial Federation; and t^ose in favour of Canada remaining an English Colcny or, in other words, in favour of the actual state of things. Of course the French Canadians are dead ;i|^ainst going into Imperial Federation, which would limply crush them, and Canadian » Society c is in favour of remaining English. The other Canadians seem pretty equally divided. It must be said that the annexation idea has been making rapid progress of late years among prom m ant men as well as among the people. The Amer'ceins will never fire one shot to have the idea realised, If ever the union becomes an accomplished fact, it \nt11 become so with the assent of all parties. The tausk will be made easy through Canada and the United States having the same legislation. The local and provinciiEil governments are the same in the Canadian towns and provinces as they are in the Americaiti towns and States : a house of representatives, a senate, and a governor. With this difference, this great differ- ence, to the present advantage of Canada: whereas everj'^ four years the Americans elect a new master, who appoints a ministry responsible to him alone, the Canadians have a ministry responsible to their Parlia- ment — that is, to themselves. The representation of the American people at Washington is democratic, but the Government is autocratic. In Canada, both, l^islature and executive are democratic, as in England, that greatest and truest of all democracies. 9 130 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. The change in Canada would have to be made on the American plan. With the exception of Quebec and parts of Mont- real, Canada is built like America; the country has the same aspect, the currency is the same. Suppress the Governor-General in Ottowa, who is there to^, remind Canada that she is a dependency of the Ei^lish^ Crown, strew the country with more cuspidores, and you have part of Jonathan's big farm. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 131 CHAPTER XX. Montreal — The City — Mount Royal — Canadian Sports — Ottawa — The Government — Rtdeau Hall. JHontreal, 2ni! frbruarv. Montreal is a large and well-built city, containing^ many buildings of importance, mostly churches, of which about thirty are Roman Catholic, and over sixty are devoted to Protestant worship, in all its branch^ and variations, from the Anglican Church to the Sai'ation Army. I arrived at a station situated on a level with the St. Lawrence river. From it, we mounted in an omnibus up, up, up, through narrow streets full of shops with Breton or Norman names over them as in Quebec ; on through other broader ones, where the shops grew lai^er and the names became more fre- quently English; on,, on, till I thought Montreal had no end, and at last alighted on a great square, and found myself at the door of the Windsor Hotel, an enormous and fine construction, which has proved the most comfortable, and in every respect the best hotel I have yet stopped at on the great American Con- tinent. It is about a quarter of a mile from my bedroom to the dining hall, which could, I believe, accommodate nearly a thousand guests. My first visit was to an afternoon >At Home* 'given by the St. Geoi^e's Club, who have a club house high up on Mount Royal. It was a ladies' day, and there was music, dancing, &c. We went in a sleigh up the very steep hill, much to my 9* 132 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. astonishment I should have thought the thing practi- cally impossible. On our way we passed a toboggan slide down the side of Mount Royal. It took my breath away to think of coming down it at the rate of over a mile a minute. The view from the club house was splendid, taking in a great sweep of snow- covered country, the city and the frozen St. Lawrence. There are daily races on the river, and last year they ran tramcars on it. It was odd to hear the phrase » After the flood «► Whep I came to enquire into it, I learned that when the St. Lawrence ice breaks up the lower city is flood- ed, and this is yearly spoken of as »the flood c I drove back from the club with my manager and two English gentlemen who are here on a visit. As we passed the toboggan slide, my manager told me of an old gentleman over sixty, who delights in those breathless passages down the side of Mount Royal. One may see him out there >at itc as early as ten in the morning. Plenty of people, however, try one ride and never ask for another. One gentleman, my manager told me of, after having tried it, expressed , pretty well the feelings of many others. He said: »I wouldn't do it again for two thousand dollars, but I wouldn't have missed it for three. « I asked one of the two Englishmen who accompanied us whether he had had a try. He was a quiet, solemn, middleaged Englishman. >Well,« he said, »yes, I have. It had to be done, and I did itc Last night I was most interested in watching the members of the Snow-shoe club start from the Windsor on a kind of picnic over the country. Their costumes were very picturesque: a short tunique of woollen material fastened round the waist by a belt, a sort of woollen nightcap with tassel falling on the shoulders, thick woollen stockings, and knickerbockers. In Russia, in the northern parts of the United A FRENCHMAN IN AMKRICA. 1 33 States, the people say: »It's too cold to go out.< In Canada, they say: »It's very cold, let's all go outc Only rain keeps them indoors. In the coldest weather, with a temperature of many degrees below zero, you have great difficulty in finding a closed carriage. All, or nearly all, are open sleighs. The driver wraps you up in furs, and as you go, gliding on the snow, your face is whipped by the cold air, you feel glowing all over with warmth, and altogether the sensation is del^htful. » • « • This morning, Joseph Howarth, the talented Ame- rican actor, breakfasted with me and a few friends. 1-ast night, I went to see him play in Steele Mackaye's Paul Kauvar. Canada has no actors worth mentioning, and the people here depend on American artistes for all their entertainments. It is wonderful how the feeling of independence engenders and develops the activity of the mind in a country. Art and literature want a home of their own, and do not flourish in other people's houses. Canada has produced nothing in literature: the only two poets she can boast are French, Louis Frechette and Octave Cr^mazie. It is not because Canada has no time for brain productions. America is just as busy as she is, felling forests and reclaiming the land ; but free America, only a hundred years old as a nation, possesses already a list of historians, novelists, poets, and essayists, that would do honour to any nation in the world. 4tl| f fbruarv I had capitel houses in the Queen's Hall last night and to-night. The Canadian audiences are more demonstrative than the American ones, and certainly quite a? keen and appreciative. When you arrive on the platform. 134 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. they are glad to sec you, and they let you know- it — a fact which, in America, in New England especially, you have to find out for yourself. Montreal possesses a very wealthy and fashionable community, and what strikes me most, coming as I do from the United States, is the stylish simplicity of the w^omen. I am told that Canadian women, in their tastes and ways, have always been far more English than American, and that the fashions have grown more and more simple, since Princess Louise gave the ex- ample by always dressing quietly when occupying Rideau Hall in Ottawa. IBttama' 5tl| f fiiruarv. One of the finest sights I have yet seen in this country was from the bridge on my way from the station to the »Russell« this morning: on the right, the Waterfalls; on the left, on the top of a high am^ almost perpendicular rock, the Houses of Parliament, a grand pile of buildings in grey stone standing out clear against a cloudless, intense blue sky. The » Russell « is one of those huge Babylonian hotels so common on the American Continent, where unfortu- nately the cookery is not on a level with the archi- tectural pretensions ; but most of the leading Canadian politicians are boarding here while Parliament is sitting, and I am interested to see them. After visiting the beautiful library and other part:: of the Government buildings, I had the good luck to hear, in the House of Representatives, a debate bet- ween M. Chapleau, a Minister and one of the leaders of the Conservatives now in office, and M. Laurier, one of the chiefs of the opposition. Both gentlemen are French. It wzs a fight between a tribune and a scholar; between a short, thick-set, long-maned lion, and a tall, slender, delicate fox. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 1 35 After lunch, I went to Rideau Hall, the residence of the Governor-General, Lord Stanley of Preston. The executive mansion stands in a pretty park well wooded with firs, a mile out of the town. His Ex- cellency was out, but his aide-de-camp, to whom I had a letter of introduction, most kindly showed me over the place. Nothing can be more simple and un- pretentious than the interior of Rideau Hall. It is furnished like any comfortable little provincial hotel patronized by the gentry of the neighbourhood. The panels of the drawing room, were painted by Princess Louise, when she occupied the house with the Marquis of Lome some eight or ten years ago. This is the only touch of luxury about the place. In the time of Lord Dufferin, a ball-room and a tennis court were added to the building, and these are among the many souvenirs of his popular rule. As a diplomatist, as a viceroy, and as an ambassador, history will one day record that this noble son of Erin never made a mistake. In the evening, I lectured in the Opera House to a lai^e audience. iSingston, 6tli f piiruarv. This morning, at the » Russell «, I was called to the telephone. It was his Excellency who was asking me to lunch at Rideau Hall. I felt sorry to be obliged to leave Ottowa and thus forego so tempting an in- vitation. Kingston is a pretty little town on the border of Lake Ontario, possessing a university, a penitentiary, and a lunatic asylum, in neither of which I made my appearance to-night. But as soon as I had started speaking on the platform of the Town Hall, I began to think the doors of the Lunatic Asylum had been carelessly left open that night, for close under the window behind the platform, there began a noise 136 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. which was like Bedlam let loose — Bedlam with trumpets and other intruments of torture. It was impossible to go on with the lecture, so I stopped. On inquiry, the unearthly din was found to proceed from a detach- ment of the Salvation Army outside the building. After some parleying, they consented to move on and storm some other citadel. But it was a stormy evening, and peace was not , yet. As soon as I had fairly restarted, a person in the audience began to show signs of disapproval, and twice or thrice he gave vent to his disapproval rather loudly. I was not surprised to learn, at the close of the evening, that this individual had come in with a free pass. He had been admitted on the strength of his being announced to give a >show« of some sort himself a week later in the hall. If a man is inattentive or creates a disturbance at any performance, you may take it for granted that his ticket was given to him. He never paid for it. To-morrow I go to Toronto, where I am to give two lectures. I had no time to see that city properly on my last visit to Canada, and all my friends pro- phesy that I shall have a good time. So does the advance booking, I understand. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 1 37 CHAPTER XXI. Toronto — The City — The Ladies — The Sports — Strange Contrasts — The Canadian Schools. loronto, 9tl| f fbruarv. I HAVE passed three very pleasant days in this city and had two beautiful audiences in the Pavilion. Toronto is a thoroughly American city in appear- ance, but only in appearance, for I find the inhabit- ants British in heart, in tastes, and habits. When I say that it is an American city, I mean to say tliat Toronto is a large area, covered with blocks of pa- lallelograms and dirty streets, overspread with tangles of tel^jraph and telephone wires. The hotels are perfectly American in every respect. The suburbs are exceedingly pretty. Here once more are fine villas standing in large gardens, a sight rarely seen near an American city. It reminds me of England. I admire many buildings, the University* especially. English-looking too are the rosy faces of the To- ronto ladies whom I passed in my drive. How charming they are with the peach-like bloom that their out-door exercise gives theml I should like to be able to describe, as it deserves, the sight of these pretty Canadian women in their sleighs, as the horses fiy along with bells merrily jingling, the coachman in his curly black dogskin and huge busby on his head. Furs float over the back of the sleigh, and in it, muffled up to the chin in sumptuous skins and also * Destroyed by fire three days after I left Toronto. 138 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. capped in furs, sits the radiant, lovely Canadienne, the milk and roses of her complexion enhanced by the proximity of the dark fu-s. As they skim past over the white snow, under a, glorious sun-lit blue sky, I can call to mind no prettier sight, no more beautiful picture, to be seen on this huge Continent, so far as I have got yet. One cannot help being struck, on coming here from the United States, at the number of lady pe- destrians in the streets. They are not merely shopping, ^ I am assured, nor going straight from one point to/^ another of the town, but taking their constitutional [ walks in the true English fashion. My impresario took- me in the afternoon to a club for ladies and gentle* men, and there I had the, to me, novel sight of a. game of hockey. On a large frozen pond there was a party of young people engaged in this graceful and " invigorating game, and not far off was a group of little girls and boys imitating their elders very sensibly and, as it seemed to me, successfully. The clear, healthy complexion of the Canadian women is easy to account for, when one sees how deep-rooted, even after transplantation, is the good British love of exercise in the open air. Last evening I was taken to a ball, and was able to see more of the Canadian ladies than is possible in furs, and on further acquaintance I found them as delightful in manners as in appearance: English in their colouring and in their simplicity of dress, American in their natural bearing and in their frankness of speech. Churches, churches everywhere. In my drive this afternoon, I counted twenty-eight in a quarter of an hour. They are of all denominations, Catholic, Ai^lican, Presbyterian, Baptist, Metliodist, etc. The A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 1 39 Canadians must be still more religious — I mean, still more church-going — than the English. From seven in the evening on Saturday all the taverns are closed, and remain closed throughout Sunday. In England, the Bible has to compete with the gin bottle, but here the Bible has it all its own way on Sundays. Neither tramcar, omnibus, cab, nor hired carriage of any description to be seen abroad. Scotland itself is outdone completely, the land of John Knox has to take a back seat. The walls of this city of churches and chapels are at the present moment covered with huge coarse posters announcing in loud colours the arrival of a company of performing women. Of these posters, one represents Cleopatra in a barque drawn through the water by nude female slaves. Another shows a cavalcade of women dressed in little more tlian a fig-leaf. Yet another represents the booking-office of the theatre stormed by a crowd of ^/aj^'-looking, single eye-glassed old beaux, grinning witli pleasure in anticipation of the show within. Another poster displays the charms of the proprietress of the under- taking. You must not, however, imagine any harm of the performers whose attractions are so liberally placarded. They are taken to their cars in the station immediately after the performances and locked up: there is an announcement to that efifect. These placards are merely eye-ticklers. But this mixture of churches, strict Sabbatarianism and posters of this kind is part of the eternal history of the Anglo-Saxon race: violent contrast. A school inspector has kindly shown me several schools in the town. The chHdren of rich and poor alike are educated together in the public schools, from which they get 140 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. promoted to the high schools. All these schools are free. Boys and girls sit on the same benches and receive the same education, as in the United States. This enables the women in the New World to com- pete with men for all the posts that we Europeans consider the monopoly of man; it also enables them to enjoy all the intellectual pleasures of life. If it does not prevent them, as it has yet to be proved that is does, from being good wives and mothers, the educational system of the New World is much superior to the European one. It is essentially democratic. Europe will have to adopt it. Society, in the Old World, will not long stand on its present basis. There will always be rich and poor, but every child that is bom will require to be given a chance, and, according as he avails himself of it or not, will be successful or a failure. But give him a chance, and the greatest and most real grievance of mankind in the present day will be removed. Every child that is bom in America, whether in the United States or in Canada, has that chance. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 141 CHAPTER XXII. West Canada — Relations between British and Indiavs — Return to the United States — Difficulties in the Way — Encounter with an American Custom-house Officer, !|n tt)p Iraln from f anat!a to ftiirago, 15t!| f rbruary. Lectured in Bowmanville, Ont., on the 12th, in Brantford on the 13th, and in Sarnia on the 14th, and am now on my way to Chicago, to go from there to Wisconsin and Minnesota. From Brantford I drove to the Indian Reservation, a few miles from the town. This visit explained to me why the English are so successful with theii colonies: they have inborn in them the instinct of diplomacy and government. Whereas the Americans often swindle, starve, and shoot the Indians, England keeps them in comfort. She makes paupers and lazy drunkards of them, and they quietly and gradually disappear. England supplies them with bread, food, Bibles, and fire-water, and they become so lazy that they will not even take trouble to sow the land of their reservations. Having a dinner supplied to them, they give up hunting, riding, and all their native sports, and become enervated. They go to school and die of attacks of civilisation. England gives them money to celebrate their national fetes and rejoicings, and the good Indians shout at the top of their voices God save the Queen, that is God save our pensions I England, or Great Britain, or again, if you prefer, Greater Britain goes further than that. In Brantford, 142 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. m the middle of a larj^e square, you can see the statue of the Indian chief, Brant, erected to his me- mory by pubHc subscriptions collected among the British Canadians. Here lies the secret of John Bull's success as a colonizer. To erect a statue to an Indian chief is a stroke of genius. * • « , » What has struck me as most American in Canada is perhaps journalism. Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Quebec possess ex- cellent newspapers, and every little town can boast one or two journals. The tone of these papers is thoroughly American in its liveliness — I had almost said, in its loudness. All are readable and most cleverly edited. Each paragraph is preceded by a neat and attractive head- ing. As in the American papers, the editorials, or leading articles, are of secondary importance. The main portion of the publication is devoted to news, interviews, stories, gossip, jokes, anecdotes, etc. The Montreal papers are read by everybody in the Province of Quebec, and the Toronto papers in the Province of Ontario, so that the newspapers published in the small towns are content with giving all the news of the locality. Each of these has a » Society* column. Nothing is more amusing than to read of the Society doings of those little towns. »Miss Brown is visiting Miss Smith.* »Miss Smith had tea with Miss Robinson yesterday.* When Miss Brown, or Miss Smith, or Miss Robinson has given a party, the names of all the guests are inserted, as well as what they had for dinner, or for supper, as the case may be. So I take it for granted that when anybody gives a party, a ball, a dinner, a reporter receives an invitation to describe the party in the next issue of the paper. m 4s * * « A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 1 43 At nine o'clock this evening, I left Samia on the frontier of Canada to cross the river and pass into the United States. The train left the town, and on arriving on the bank of the river St. Clair was divided into two sections, which were run on board the ferry- boat, and made the crossing side by side. The passage across the river occupied about twenty minutes. On arriving at the other bank, at Port Huron in the State of Michigan, the train left the boat in the same fashion as it had gone on board, the two parts were coupled together, and the journey on terra firina was smoothly resumed. There is something fascinating about crossing a river at night, and I had promised myself some agree- able moments on board the ferry-boat from which I should be able to see Port Huron lit up with twinkling lights. I was also curious to watch the train boarding the boat. But, alas, I had reckoned without my host. Instead of star-gazing and reverie, there was in store for me a »bad quarter of an hour*. No sooner had the train boarded the ferry-boat than there came to the door of the parlour-car a surly-looking, ill-mannered creature, who roughly bade me come to the baggage van in the other section of the train, and open my trunks for him to inspect. As soon as I had complied, he went down on his loiees among my baggage, and it was plain to see that he meant business. The first thing he took out was a suit of clothes, which he threw on the dirty floor of the van. »Have these been worn?* he said. »They have,* I replied. Then he took out a blue jacket which I used to cross the Atlantic, sHave you worn this?* >Yes, for the last two years.* »Is tliat all?* he said with a low sardonic gn'n. 144 ^' FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. My baggage was the only one he had to examine^ as I was the only passenger in the parlour car; and I saw that he meant to annoy me, which, I imagined, he could do with perfect impunity. The best thing, in fact the only thing, to do was to take the misadventure good-humouredly. He took out my linen and examined it in detail. »Have these shirts all been wom?c >Well, I guess they have. But how is it that you, an official of the Government, seem to ignore the law of your own country? Don't you know that if all these articles are for my own private use, they are not dutiable whether new or not?« The man did not answer. He took out more linen, which he put on the floor, and spreading open a pair of unmentionables, he asked again : >Have you worn this? It looks quite new.€ I nodded affirmatively. He then took out a pair of socks. »Have you worn these ?« »I don't know,c I said; »have a sniff a them.c He continued his examination, and was about ta throw my evening suit on the floor. I had up to now been almost amused at the proceedings, but I felt my good-humour was going, and the lion began to wag^ its tail. I took the man by the arm, and looking at him sternly, I said: >Now you put this carefully on the top of some other clothes. € He looked at me, and complied. By this time all the contents of my lai^e trunk were spread on the floor. He got up on his feet, and said: »Have I looked everywhere ?€ »No,« I said, >you haven't. Do you know how the famous Regent diamond, worn by the last Kings A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 1 45 of France on their Crowns, was smuggled into French territory ?c The creature looked at me with an air of impu- dence. »No, I don't, € he replied. I explained to him, and added: >You have not looked there. 9. The lior^ that lies dormant at the bottom of the quietest man, was fairly roused in me, and, on the least provocation, I would have given this man a first-class hiding. He went away, wondering whether I had insulted him or not, and left me in the van to repack my trunk as best I could — an operation which, I under- stand, it was his duty to perform himsel£ 10 i46 A FPvENCHMAN IN AMERICA. CHAPTER XXm. Chicago (first visit). The Neighbourhood of Chicago — The History of Chicago — Public Servants — A very Deaf Man. ♦ ICiiirago, 17tft ffbruarv. OhI a lecturing tour in America! I am here on my way to St. Paul and Minne- apolis. Just before leaving New York, I saw in a comic paper that Bismarck must really now be considered as a great man, ^because, since his departure from office, there had been no rumour of his having applied to Major Pond to get up a lecturing tour for him in the United States. It was not news to me that there are plenty of people in America who laugh at the European author's trick of going to the American platform as soon as he has made a little name for himself in his own country. The laugh finds an echo in England, especially from some journalists who have never been asked to go, and from a few men who, having done one tour, think it wise not to repeat the experience. For my part, when I consider that Emerson, Holmes, Mark Twain have been lecturers; that Dickens, Thackeray, Matthew Arnold, Sala, Stanley, Archdeacon Farrar, and many more, all have made their bow to American audiences, I fail to discover an)rthing very derogatory in the proceeding. Besides, I feel bound to say that there is nothing in a lecturii^ tour in America, even in a higly success- A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. • 1 47 ful one, that can excite envy of the most jealous > failure « in the world. Such work is about the hardest that a man, used to the comforts of this life, can undertake. Actors, at all events, stop a week, some- times a fortnight, in the cities they visit; but a lecturer is on the road every day happy when he has not to start at night. No word can picture the monotony of journeys through an immense continent, the sameness of which strikes you as almost unbearable. Everything is made on one pattem. All the towns are alike. To be in a railroad car for ten or twelve hours day after day can hardly be called luxury or, even, comfort. To have one's poor brain matter thus shaken in the cranium is terrible, especially when the cranium is not quite full. Constant travelling softens the brain, liquifies it, chums it, evaporates it, and it runs out of you through all the cracks of your head. I own that travelling is comfortable in America, even luxurious, but the best fare becomes monotonous and unpalatable when the dose is repeated every day. To-morrow night I lecture in Minneapolis. The next night I am in Detroit. Distance, obout seven hundred miles. »Can I manage it?« said I to my impresario, when he showed me my route. »Why, cert'nly,« he replied. >If you catch a train after your lecture, I guess you will arrive in time for your lecture in Detroit the next day.t These remarks, in America, are made without a smile. On arriving in Chicago this morning, I found, awaiting me at the Grand Pacific Hotel, a letter from my impresario. Here is the purport of it: A know you have with you a trunk and a small portmanteau. I would advise you to leave your trunk at the Grand Pacific, and to take with you only the portmanteau, 10* 148 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. while you are in the neighbourhood of Chicago. You will thus save trouble, expense, etc.« On looking at my route, I found that ithe neigh- bourhood of Chicago c included St. Paul, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Indianapolis: something like a little two thousand mile tour »in the neighbourhood of Chicago* — to be done in about one week. When I confided my troubles to American friends, I got little sympathy from them. »That's quite right,* they would say; »we call the neighbourhood of a city any place which, by starting after dinner, you can reach at about breakfast time the next day.« You dine, you go on board the car> you have a smoke, you go to bed, you sleep, you wake up, you dress — and there you are. Do you see? After all you may be of this opinion, if you do not reckon sleeping time. But I do reckon it, when I have to spend the night in a closed box, six feet long, three feet wide, and about two feet high, and especially when the operation has to be repeated three or four times a week. And the long weary days that are not spent in travelling, how can they be passed, even tolerably, in an American city where the lonely lecturer knows nobody, and where there is absolutely nothing to be seen beyond the hotels and the dry-goods stores? Worse still : he sometimes has the good luck to make the acquaintance of some charming people ; but he has hardly had time to fix their features in his memo- ry when he has to go, probably never to see them again. The lecturer speaks for an hour and a half on the platform every evening, the rest of his time is A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA 1 49 exclusively devoted to keeping silence. Poor fellow I how grateful he is to the hotel clerk who sometimes — alasl very seldom — will chat with 'him for a few minutes. As a rule the hotel clerk is a mute, who assigns a room to you, or hands you the letters waiting for you in the box corresponding to your number. His mouth is closed. He may have seen you for half a minute only, he will remember you. Even in a hotel accommodating over a thousand guests, he will know you, he will know the number of your room, but he won't speak. He is not the only American that won't speak. Every man, in America, who is attending to some duty or other, has his mouth closed. I have tried the railroad con- ductor and found him a mute. I have had a shot at the porter in the Pullman car and found him a mute. I have endeavoured to draw the janitors of the halls where I was to speak in the evening and I have failed. Even the negroes won't speak. You would imagine that speaking was prohibited by the Statute Book. When my lecture was over, I returned to the hotel and, like a culprit, crept to bed. How I do love New York! It is not that it possesses a single building that I really care for; it is because it contains scores and scores of delightful people, brilliant, affable, hospitable, warm-hearted friends, who were kind enough to welcome me when I returned from a tour, and in whose company I could break up the cobwebs that had had time to form in the comers of my mouth. The history of Chicago can be written in a few lines. So can the history of the whole of Ame- rica. In about 1830 a man, called Benjamin Harris, with his family, moved to Chicago, or Fort Dearborn, 150 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. as it was then called. Not more than half a dozen whites all of whom were Indian traders, had preceded them. In 1832, they had a child, the first white female born in Chicago — now married, called Mrs. S. A. Holmes, and the mother of fourteen children. In 1 87 1, Chicago had over ioo,cxx) inhabitants, and was burned to the ground. To-day Chicago has over 1,200 OCX) inhabitants, and in ten years' time will have two millions. The activity in Chicago is perfectly amazing. And I don't mean commercial activity only. Compare the following statistics. In the great reading-rooms of the British Museum, there was an average of 620 readers daily during the year 1888. In the reading room of the Chicago Public Library, there was an average of 1,569 each day in the same year. Considering that the population of London is nearly five times that of Chicago, it ^ows that the reading public is ten times more numerous in Chicasjo than in London. ■-^■:^':6i'^:lW:' I am never tired, but on the contrary always much amused, to observe the ways of public servants in this country. I went to pay a visit to a public museum this afternoon. In Europe, the keepers — that is to say, the servants of the public — have cautions posted in the museums^ in which »the public are requested not to touch*. In France, they are » begged « — which is perhaps a more suitable expression, as the museums, after all, belong to the public. In America, the notice is » Hands off!« This is short and to the point. The servants of the public allow you to enter the museums, charge you 25 cents, and warn you to behave well. » Hands offic struck me as rather off-handed. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 151 I really admire the independence of all the ser- vants in this country. You may give them a tip : you will not run the risk of making them servile, or even polite. The railway conductor says t> Tickets The word please does not belong to his vocabulary any more than the words thank you. He says » Tickets and frowns. You show it to him. He looks at it suspi- ciously, and gives it back to you with a haughty air that seems to say: »I hope you will behave pro- perly while you are in my car.« The tip in America is not-de rigueur as in Europe. The cabman charges you so much, and expects nothing more. He would lose his dignity by accepting a tip (many run the risk). He will often ask you more than you owe him; but this is the act of a sharp man of business, not the act of a servant. In doing so, he does not derogate from his character. The negro is the only one who is sometimes polite and attentive, and the only servant who smiles in America, the only one who speaks English with a pleasant accent. The negro porter, in the sleeping-cars, has seldom failed to thank me for the 25 or 50 cent piece I always give him after he has brushed — or rather, swept — my clothes with his little broom. • * ® * A few minutes ago, as I was packing my valise for the journey to St. Paul and Minneapolis to-night, the porter brought in a card. The^name was unknown to me; but the porter having said that it was the card of d gentleman who was most anxious to speak to me, I said: »Very well, bring him here.« The gentleman entered the room, saluted me, shook hands, and said: >I hope I am not intruding, c 152 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. »Well,« said I, »I must ask you not to detain me long, because I am off in a few minutes, c >I understand, sir, that some time ago you were engaged in teaching the French language in one of the great public schools of England.* »I was, sir,« I replied. >Well, I have a son whom I wish to speak Frenck properly, and I have come to ask for your views o* the subject In other words, will you be good enougk to tell me what are the best methods for teaching this language? Only excuse me, I am very deaf.c He pulled out of his back pocket two yards of gutta-percha tube, and, applying one end to his ear and placing the other against my mouth, he said: »Go ahead. « »Really!* I shouted through the tube. »Now, please shut your eyes, nothing is better for increasii^ the power of hearing. « The man shut his eyes, and turned his head sklc- ways, so as to have the listening ear in front of me. I took my valise and ran to the lift as fast as I could. That man may still be waiting, for aught I know and care. Before leaving the hotel, I made the acquaintance of Mr. George Kennan, the Russian traveller. His articles on Russia and Siberia, published in the Century Maga- zine y attracted a great deal of public attention, an^ people everywhere throng to hear him relate his terrible experiences on the platform. He has two hundred lectures to give this season. He struck me as a most remarkable man; simple, unaffected in his manner, with unflinching resolution written on his face: a man in earnest, you can see. I am delighted t% find that I shall have the pleasure of meeting him A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 153 again in New York in the middle of April. He looks tired. He too is lecturing in »the neighbourhood of Chicago €, and is off now to the night train for Cin- cinnati. 154 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. CHAPTER XXIV. Si. Paul and Minneapolis the Sister Cities — Rivalries and jfealousies between Large American Cities — Minnehaha Falls — U'onderful Interviewers — My Hat Gets into Trouble Again — Electricity ift the Air — Forest Advertisements — Railway Speed in America. Bt Paul, jJHinneapoIia, 20ti| Januarv. Arrived at St. Paul the day before yesterday to pa> a professional visit to the two great cities of the North of America. Sister cities! Yes, they are near enough to shake hands and kiss each other, but I am afraid they avail themselves of their proximity to scratch each other's faces. K you open Bouillet's famous Dictionary of History and Geography (edition 1880), you will find in it neither St. Paul nor Minneapolis. I was told yester- day that in 1834 there was one white inhabitant in Minneapolis. To-day the two cities have about 200,000 inhabitants each. Where is the dictionary of geography that can keep pace with such wonderful, phantasma- goric growth.? The two cities are separated by a distance of about nine miles, but they are every da^ growing towards each other, and to-morrow they will practically have become one. Nothing is more amusing than the jealousies which exist between the different large cities of the United States ; and when these rival places are close to each other, the feeling of jealousy is so intensified as to become highly entertaining. ' A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. I 55 St. Paul charges Minneapolis with copying into the census names from tomb-stones, and it is affirmed that young men living in either one of the cities will marry girls belonging to the other so as to decrease its population by one. The story goes that once a preacher, having announced in a Minneapolis chufch that he had taken the text of his sermon from St. Paul, the congregation walked out en masse. New York despises Philadelphia, and pokes fiin at Boston. On the other hand, Boston hates Chicago, and vice versa. St Louis has only contempt for Chicago, and both cities laugh heartily at Detroit and Milwaukee. San Francisco and Denver are left alone in their prosperity. They are so far away from the East and North of America that the feeling they in- spire is only one of indifference. ^Philadelphia is a city of homes, not of lodging- houses, « once said a Philadelphian to a New Yorker, »and it spreads over a far greater area than New York, with less than half the inhabitants. « »Ah,« replied the New Yorker, »that's because it has been so much sat upon.« »You are a city of commerce,* said a Bostonian to a New York wit, »Boston is a city of culture, c »Yes,« replied the New Yorker, »you spell culture *! with a big C, and God with a small jr,<(, | Of course St. Paul and Minneapolis accuse each f other of counting their respective citizens twice over. x All that is diverting in the highest degree. This feel- ;' ing does not exist only between the rival cities of the New World, it exists in the Old. Ask a Glasgow man what he thinks of Edinburgh, and an Edinburgh man what he thinks of Glasgow? On account of the intense cold (nearly 30 degrees below zero), I have not been able to see much eitlier 156 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. of St. Paul or of Minneapolis, and I am unable to , please or vex either of fhese cities by pointing out their beauties and defects. Both are lai^e and sub- stantially built, with large churches, schools, banks, stores, and all the temples that modem Christians erect to Jehovah and Mammon. I may say that the Ryan Hotel at St. Paul, and the West House at Minneapolis, are among the very best hotels I have come across in America, the latter especially. When I have added that, the day before yesterday, I had an immense audience in the People's Church at St. Paul, and that to-night I have had a crowded house at the Grand Opera House in Minneapolis, it is hardly necessary for me to say that I shall have enjoyed himself in the two great towns, and that I shall carry away with me a delightful recollection of them. Soon after arriving in Minneapolis yesteiday, I went to see the Minnehaha Falls, immortalii'>ed by Longfellow. The Motor Line gave me an idv^a of rapid transit. I returned to the West House for lunch, " and spent the aft:ernoon writing. Many interviewers ^ called The first who came sat down in my room and point-blank asked me my views on Contagious Diseases. Seeing that I was not disposed to talk on the subject, ? he asked me to discourse on Republics and the prospects of General Boulanger. In fact, anything for copy. The second one, after asking me where I came from, and where I was going, inquired whether I had exhausted the Anglo-Saxons, and wheter I should write - on other nations. After I had satisfied him, he asked me what yearly income my books and my lectures brought in. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. I 5/ Another wanted to know why I had not brought my wife with me, how many children I had, how old they were, and other details as wonderfully interest- ing to the public. By-and-by, I saw he was jotting down a description of my appearance, and the different clothes I had on. »I will unpack this trunk, « I said, >and spread all its contents on the floor. Perhaps you would be glad to have a look at my things. « He smiled. »Don't trouble any more,* he said: »I am very much obliged to you for your courtesy, c This morning, on opening the papers, I see that my new hat is getting into trouble. I thought that, after getting rid of my brown hat, and sending it to the editor in the town where it had created such a sensation, peace was secured. Not a bit. In the Minneapolis Journal I read the following: — »The attractive personality of the man« (excuse my recording this for the sake of what follows), »was heightened by his neglige sack coat and vest, with a background of yellowish plaid trousers (sic), occasioned glimpses of which were revealed from beneath the folds of a heavy ulster, which swept the floor < (I was sitting, of course), »and was trimmed with fur collar and cuffs. And then that hat! On the table, care- lessly thrown amidst a pile of correspondence, was his nondescript head-gear. One of those half-sombreros affected by the wild Western cowboy when on dress parade, an impossible combination of dark-blue and bottle-green. « Fancy, treating in this off"-handed way a $7,50 soft black felt hat bought of the best hatter in New York ! No, nothing is sacred for those interviewers. Dark-blue and bottle-green. Why, did that man imagine that I wore my hat inside out, so as to show the silk lining? « » » * The air here is perfectly wonderful, dry and full 158 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. of electricity. If your fingers come into contact with anything metaUic, like the hot- water pipes, the chan- deliers, the stopper of your washing basin, they draw a spark, sharp and vivid. One of the reporters, who called here and to whom I mentioned the fact, was able to light the gas with his finger, by merely obtain- ing an electric spai-k on the top of the burner. When he said he could thus light the gas, I thought he was ioking. I had observed this phenomenon before, in Ottowa for instance. Whether this air makes you live too quickly, I do not know; but it is most bracing and healthy. I have never felt so well and hearty in my life as in these cold, dry climates. I was all the more flattered to have such a large and fashionable audience at the Grand Opera House to-night, that the causerie was not given under the auspicies of any society, or as one of any course of lectures. I lecture in Detroit the day after to-morrow, and shall have to leave Minneapolis to-morrow moming at six o'clock for Chicago, which I shall reach at ten in the evening. Then I shall have to run to the Michigan Central Station to catch the night train to Detroit at eleven. Altogether twenty-three hours of railway travelling — 745 miles. And still in »the neighbourhood of Chicago* I * * • fa Jn tlir Irain to ICliirago, 2lBt f fbruarv. Have just passed a wonderful advertisement. Here, in the m\dat of a forest, I have seen a huge wide board nailed on two trees, parallel to the railway line. On it was written, round a daub supposed to represent A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. I 59 one of the loveliest English ladies: >If you would be as lovely as the beautiful Lady de Gray, use the Gray perfumes. « Soyez done bellr^ to be used as an advertisement in the forests of Minnesota! * . •-. "'- ■'■. • • My lectures have never been criticised in more kind, flattering, and eulogistic terms than in the St. Paul and the Minneapolis papers, which I am reading on the way to Chicago I find newspaper reading a great help in travelling. First of all because these papers are always light reading, and also because reading is a possibility in a well-lighted carriage going only at a moderate speed. Eating is comfortable, and even writing is possible en route. With the exception of a few trains, such as are run from New York to Boston, Chicago and half-a- dozen other important cities, railway travelling is slower in America than in England and France; but I have never found fault with the speed of an Ame- rican train On the contrary, I have always felt grateful to the driver for running slowly. And every time that my car reached the other side of the many rotten wooden bridges on which tl;e train had to pass, I returned thanks. l60 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. CHAPTER XXV. Detroit — The Town — The •* Detroit Free Press € — A Lady Interviewer — The » Unco' guidt. in Detroit — Reflections on the Anglo-Saxon it Unco guid.^ iBrtroit 22nli ]Ffbru0rv. Am delighted with Detroit. It possesses beautiful streets, avenues, and walks, and a fine square, in the middle of which stands a remarkably fine monument. I am also grateful to this city for breaking the mono- tony of the eternal parallelograms with which the whole of the United States are built, My national vanity almost suggests to me that this town owes its gracefulness to its French origin. There are still, I am told, about 25,000 French jpeople settled in Detroit. Have had to-night a crowded and most brilliant audience in the Church of Our Father, whose keemiess, intelligence, and kindness have not failed to make me happy. I was interviewed, both by a lady and a gentle- man, for the Detroit Free Press, that most witty of American newspapers. The charming young lady interviewer came to talk on social topics. I re- marked that she was armed with a copy of Jonathan and Hts Continent^ and I came to the conclusion that she would probably ask for a few explanations about that book. I was not mistaken. She took exception, she informed me, to many statements concerning the American girl in the book. I made an effort to prove to her that all was right, and all was truth, A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. i6t and I think I persuaded her to abandon the prose- cution. To tell you the truth, now the real truth, mind you, I am rather tired of hearing about the American girl. The more I see of her, the more I am getting convinced that she is — like the other girls in the world. '-'.-■ ♦ •,■'•• * ♦ A friend, who came to have a chat with me after the lecture, has told me that the influential people of this city are signing a petition to the custodians of the Museum calling upon them to drape all the nude statues, and intimating their intention of boycotting the institution if the Venuses and Apollos are not forth- with provided with tuckers and togas. It is a well-known fact in the history of the world that young communities have no taste for fine art — they have no time to cultivate it. If I had gone to Oklahama, I should not have expected to find any art feeling at all ; but that in a city like Detroit, where there is such evidence of intellectual life and high culture among the inhabitants, a party should be found numerous and strong enough to issue such a heathen dictate as this seems scarcely credible. I am inclined to think it must be a joke. That the >unco' guid« should flourish under the gloomy sky of Great Britain I understand, but under the bright blue sky of Ame- rica, in that bracing atmosphere, I cannot. It is most curious that there should be people who, when confronted with some glorious masterpiece of sculpture, should not see the poetry, the beauty of the human form divine. This is beyond me, and beyond any educated Frenchman. Does the »unco' guid« exist in America then? I should have thought that these people, of the earth earthy, were not found out of England and Scotland. ' '" 11 1 62 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. When I was in America two years ago, I heard that an English author of some repute, talking one day with Mr. Richard Watson Gilder about the Venus of Milo, had remarked that, as he looked at her beautiful form, he longed to put his arms around her and kiss her. Mr. Gilder who, as a poet, as an artist, has felt only respect mingled with his admiration of the matchless divinity, replied: >I hope she would have grown a pair of arms for the occasion, so as to have slapped your face.« It is not so much the thing that offends the »imco* guid«; it is the name, the reflection, the idea. Unheal- thy-minded himself, he dreads a taint where there is none, and imagines in others a corruption which exists only in himself ' - ;; v wcS,, j^^^ ; Yet, the One whom he would fain call Master, but whose teachings he is slow in following, said: »Woe be to them by whom offence cometh.« But the >unco* guid« is a Ch.nstia.n parvenu. ^ i,? The parvenu is a person who makes strenuous efforts to persuade other people that he is entitled to the position he occupies. There are parvenus in religion as there are parvenus in the aristocracy, in society, in literature, in the fine arts, etc. The worst type of French parvenu is the one whose father was a worthy, hard-working man called Dubois or Dumont^ and who, at his father's death, dubs himself du Hois or du Mont, becomes a clericalist and the staunchest monarchist, and runs down the great Revolution which made one of his grand-parents a man. Mons. du Bois or du Mont outdoes the genuine nobleman, who needs make no noise to attract attention to a name which everybody knows, and which, in spite of what may be said on the subject, often recalls tlie memory of some glorious event in tl:e past. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. l6$ The worst type of Anglo-Saxon parvenu is pro- bably the »unco* guid«, or religious /^/'Z'^ww. The Anglo-Saxon »unco* guid« is seldom to be found among Roman Catholics — that is, among the followers of the most ancient Christian religion. He is to be found among the followers of the newest forms of » Christianity*. This is quite natural. He has to try to eclipse his fellow-Christians by his piety, in order to show that the new religion to which he belongs was a necessary invention. The Anglo-Saxon »unco' guide is easily recog- nised. He is dark (all bigots and fanatics are). He is dressed in black, shiny broadcloth raiment. A wide-brimmed felt hat covers his head. He walks with light, short, jaunty steps, his head a little inclined on one side. He never carries a stick, which might give a rather fast appearance to his turn-out. He in- variably carries an umbrella, even in the brightest weather, as being more respectable — and this umbrella he never roUs, for he would avoid looking in the distance as if he had a stick. He casts right and left little grimaces that are so many forced smiles of self- satisfaction. »Try to be as good as I am,« he seems to say to all who happen to look at him, »and you will be as happy. « And he » smiles, and smiles, and smiles. « He has a small soul, a small heart, and a small brain. As a rule, he is a well-to-do person. It pays better to have a narrow mind than to have broad sympa- thies. He drinks tea, but prefers cocoa, as being a more virtuous beverage. He is perfectly destitute or humour, and is the most inartistic creature in the world. Everything suggests to him either profanity or indecency. The Remmis- cences of Scotch Ltfe and Character, by Dean Ramsay, 11* 1 64^ A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. would strike him as profane; and if placed, in the Musee du Louvre, before the Venus of Milo he would see nothing but a woman who has next to no clothes on. His distorted mind makes him take everything in ill part. His hands get pricked on every thorn that he comes across on the road, and he misses all the roses. K I had not been a Christian, the following story, which is not so often told as it should be, would have converted me long ago: — Jesus arrived one evening at the gates of a certain city, and He sent His disciples forward to prepare supper, while He Himself, intent on doing good, walked through the streets into the market-place. And He saw at the comer of the market some people gathered together looking at an object on the ground; and He drew near to see what it might be. It was a dead dog, with a halter round his neck, by which he ap- peared to have been dragged through the dirt; and a viler, a more abject, a more unclean thing, never met the eyes of man. And those who stood by looked on with abhorrence. » Faugh !« said one, stopping his nose, »it pollutes the air.« »How long,« said another, » shall this foul beast offend our sight ?« »Look at his torn hide,« said a third; »one could not even cut a shoe out of it!« »And his ears,« said a fourth, »all draggled and bleeding!* »No doubt, « said a fifth, *he has been hanged for thieving i« And Jesus heard them, and looking down compassionately on the dead creature, He said: » Pearls are not equal to the white- ness of his teeth !« If I understand the Gospel, the gist of its teachings is contained in the foregoing little story. Love and forgiveness: finding something to pity and admire even in a dead dog. Such is the religion of Christ. The » Christianity « of the »unco' guid« is a«i A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 1 65 like tiiis religion as are the teachings of the Old Testament. - ~^ Something to condemn, the discovery of wickedness in the most innocent, and often elevating, recreations, such is the favourite occupation of the Anglo-Saxon »unco' guid«. Music is licentious, laughter wicked, dancing immoral, statuary almost criminal; and, by- and-by, the » Society for the Suggestion of Indecency <, which is placed under his immediate patronage and supervision, will find fault with our going out in the streets, on the plea that under our garments we carry our nudity. ^ ^^^ uiV i^ ^ -^ The Anglo-Saxon »unco* guid« is the successor of the Pharisee. In reading Christ's description of the latter, you are immediately struck with the like- ness. The modern »unco' guid« » loves to pray standing in the churches and chapels and in the corners of the streets^ that he may be seen of men.c »He uses vain repetitions, for he thinks that he shall be heard for his much speaking.* »When he fasts, he is of sad countenance; for he disfigures his face, that he may appear unto men to fast.« There is not one feature of the portrait that does not fit in exactly* - The Jewish »unco* guid« crucified Christ. The Anglo-Saxon one would crucify Kim again if He should return to earth and interfere with the prosperous business firms that make use of His name. The »unco* guid's« Christianity consists in extolling his virtues and ignoring other people's. He spends his time in pulling motes out of people's eyes, but cannot see clearly to do it, owing to the beams that are in his own. He overwhelms you, he crushes you, with his virtue, and one of the greatest treats is to catch him tripping, a chance which you may occasionally have, especially when you meet him on the Continent of Europe. 1 66 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. The Anglo-Saxon »unco* guide calls himself a Christian, but the precepts of the Gospel are the very- opposite of those he practices. The gentle, merciful, for^iv^ing Man-God of the Gospel has not for him the charms and attractions of the Jehovah who commanded the cowardly, ungrateful, and blood-thirsty people of His choice to treat their women as slaves, and to ex- terminate their enemies, sparing neither old men, women, nor children. This cruel , revengeful, impla- cable deity is far more to the Anglo-Saxon »unco' guid's« liking than the Saviour who bade His disciples love their enemies and put up their swords in the presence of His persecutors. The »unco' guid« is not a Christian, he is a Jew in all but name. And 1 will say this much for him, that the Commandments given on Mount Sinai are much easier to follow than the Sermon on the Mount. It is easier not to commit murder than to hold out your right cheek after your left one has been slapped. It is easier not to steal than to run after the man who has robbed us in order to offer him what bt has not taken. It is easier to honour our parents .'han to love our enemies. The teachings of the Gospel are trying to human nature. There is no religion more difficult to follow; and this is why, in spite of its beautiful, but too lofty, precepts, there is no religion in the world that can boast so many hypocrites — so many followers who pretend that they follow their religion, but who do not, and very probably cannot. Being unable to love man, as he is bidden in the Gospel, the »unco' guid« loves God, as he is bidden in the Old Testament. He loves God in the abstract. He tells Him so in endless prayers and litanies. For him Christianity consists in discussing theo- logical questions, whether a minister shall preach with or without a white surplice on, and in singing hymns more or less out of tune. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 167 As if God could be loved to the exclusion of man ! You love God, after all, as you iove anybody else, not by professions of love, but by deeds. When he prays, the »unco' guid« buries his face in his hands or in his hat. He screws up his face, and the more fervent the prayer is (or the more people are lookinj^ at him), the more grimaces he makes. Henrich Heine, on coming out of an Enc^lish church, said that »a blaspheming Frenchman must be a more pleasing object in the sight of God than many a praying Englishman*. He had no doubt been looking at the »unco' guid «.'■';:?" ;;v^ /;.' *^' ,.^v--r ■';'■. v'.,;. -^v If you do not hold the same religious views as he does, you are a wicked man, an atheist. He alone has the truth. Being engaged in a discussion with an »unco' guid« one day, I told him that if God had given me hands to handle, surely He had given me a little brain to think. »You are right, « he quickly inter- rupted; :»but with the hands that God gave you, you can commit a good action, and you can also commit murder. « Therefore, because I did not think as he did, I was the criminal; for, of course, he was the righteous man. For all those who, like myself, believe in a future life, there is, I believe a great treat in store : the sight of the face he will make, when his place is assigned to him in the next world. Qui niourra verra. Anglo-Saxon land is governed by the »unco* guid«. Good society cordially despises him ; the aristocracy of Anglo-Sayon intelligence, philosophers, scientists, men of letters, artists, simply loathe him; but all have to bow to his rule, and submit their works to his most incompetent criticism, and all are afraid of him. In a moment of wounded national pride, Sydney Smith once exclaimed: >What a pity it is we have no amusements in England except vice and religion!* The same exclamation might be uttered to-day, and the cause laid at the Anglo-Saxon »unco* guid's« door. 1 68 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. It is he who is responsible for the degradation of the British lower classes by refusing to enable them to elevate their minds on Sundays at the sight of the masterpieces of art which are contained in the museums, or at the sound of the symphonies of Beethoven and McJzart, which might be given to the people at reduced prices on that day. The poor people must choose between vice and religion, and as the wretches know they are not wanted in the churches, they go to the taverns. It is this same »unco* guid« who is responsible for the state of the streets in the large cities of Great Britain by refusing to allow vice to be regulated. If you were to add the amount of immorality to be found in the streets of Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and the other capitals of Europe, no fair-minded Englishman »who knows* would contradict me if I said that the total thus obtained would be much below the amount supplied by London alone; but the »unco' guid< stays at home of an evening, advises you to do the same, and, ignoring or pretending to ignore what is going on round his own house, he prays for the conversion — of the French. The »unco guid« thinks that his own future safety is assured, so he prays for his neighbours. He re- minds one of certain Scots who inhabit two small islands on the west coast of Scotland. Their piety is really most touching. Every Sunday, in thefr churches, they commend to God's care )»the puir in- habitants of the two adjacent islands of Britain and Ireland. « A few weeks ago, there appeared, in a Liverpool paper, a letter signed »A Lover of Reverence,* in which this anonymous person complained of a cer- tain lecturer who had indulged in profane remarks. »I was not present myself,* he, or she, said, »but have heard of what took place,* etc. You see this person was not present, but as a good » Christian* A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 1 69 he hastened to judge. Howewer, this is nothing. In the letter I read: > Fortunately there are in Liver- pool a few Christians, like myself, always on the watch and ever looking after our Maker's honour, c Fortunate Liverpool! What a proud position for the Almighty to be placed, in Liverpool, under the protection of the » Lover of Reverence* ! Probably this »unco' guid« and myself would not agree on the definition of the word profanity; for if I had written and published such a letter, I would consider myself guilty not only of profanity, but of blasphemy. If the »unco* guid« is the best product of Christi- anity, Christianity must be pronounced a ghastly failure, and I should feel inclined to exclaim, with the late Dean Milman: »If all this is Christianity, it is high time we should try something else — say the religion of Christ, for instance.* I70 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. • CHAPTER XXVI. Milwaukee — A Well-filled Day — Reflections cm the 'mjCj;;{ Scotch in America — Chicago Criticisms. ^ % ^ I Ij^ ;: JHilmauhrf, 25t^ ffbruarv- ^ ^ — Arrived here from Detroit yesterday. 4 Milwaukee is a city of over two hundred thousand inhabitants, a very lai^e proportion of whom are Germans, who have come here to settle down and wish good luck and prosperity to the Vaterland, at the respectful distance of five thousand miles. At the station, I was met by Mr. John L. Mitchell, the Railway King, and by a compatriot of mine, M. A. de Guerville, a young enthusiast who has made up his mind to check the German invasion of Mil- waukee, and has succeeded in starting a French Society composed of the leading inhabitants of the city. On arriving, I found a heavy but delightful programme to go through during the day : a lunch to be given me by the ladies at Milwaukee College at one o'clo.;k; a reception by the French Club at Mrs. John L. Mit- chell's house at four ; a dinner at six ; my lecture at eight ; and a reception and a supper by the Press Club at 10.30 — the rest of the evening to be spent as circumstances would allow or suggest. I was to be the guest of Mr. Mitchell at his magnificent house in town. " »Good,« I said, »let us begin.* A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. ,171 Went through the whole programme. The reception by the French Club, in the beautiful Moorish-looking rooms of Mrs. John L. Mitchell's superb mansion, was a great success. I was amazed to meet so many French- jpeaking people, and much amused to see my young compatriot go from one group to another to satisfy himself that all the members of the Club were speaking French — for I must tell you that, among the statutes of the Club, there is one that imposes a fine of ten cents on any member caught in the act of speaking English at the gatherings of the association. The lecture was a great success. The New Plymouth Church* was packed, and the audience extremely warm and appreciative. The supper offered to me by the Press Club proved most enjoyable. And yet that was not all. At one o'clock the Press Club repaired to a perfect German Brauerei, where we spent an hour in Bavaria, drinking excellent Bavarian beer, while chatting, telling stories, etc. I will omit to mention at what time we returned home, so as not to tell tales about my kind host. In spite of the late hours we kept last night, breakfast was punctually served at eight this morning. First course : porridge. Thanks to the kind, thoroughly Scotch hospitality of Mr. John L. Mitchell and his charming family, thanks to the many friends and sympathisers I met here, I shall carry away a most pleasant recollection of this large and beautiful city, and shall leave Milwaukee with much regret. Indeed, the worst feature of a thick lecturing tour is to feel, almost every day, that you leave behind friends whom you may never see again. I lecture at the Central Music Hall, Chicago, this ♦ Very strange that church, with its stalls, gal^ 'ries, and boxes . a perfect theatre. From the platform, it was interesting to watch that i- ise throng, in front from floor to ceiling, on the sides, behi'^ 172 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. evening; but Chicago is reached from here in two hours and a half, and I will go as late in the day as I can. .■ -^---i' '"'*:*"-■• :^-.'.A\L-/:/-"^ -■ .: ■■■;/^"'";\/ '-%,:■;"■;?»: 'k^r :> ' No chance of a bed now until I reach Albany, in three days.' r . r m ■ -: \. m-' ■'*-■■ r-.'i-w*-. .-. So the Railway King in Wisconsin is a Scotchmsui. I was not surprised to hear it. The Iron King in Penn- sylvania is a Scotchman, Mr. Andrew Carnegie. The Oil King of Ohio is a Scotchman, Mr. Alexander Macdonald. The Silver King of California is a Scotch- man, Mr. Mackay. The Dry Goods Store King of . New York — he is dead now — was a Scotchman, Mr. Stewart. It is just the same in Canada, just the same in Australia, and all over the English-speaking world. The Scotch are successful everywhere, and the new countries offer them fields for their industry, their per- severance, and their shrewdness. There you see them landowners, directors of companies, at the head of all the great enterprises. In the lower stations of life, thanks to their frugality and saving habits, you find them thriving everywhere. You go to a manufactory, you are told that the foremen are Scotch. . I have perhaps a better illustration still. If you travel in Canada, either by the Grand Trunk . or the Canadian Pacific, you will meet in the last parlour-car, near the stove, a man whose duty consists in seeir^ that, all along the line, the workmen are at their posts, digging, repairing, etc. These workmen are all day long exposed to the Canadian temperature, and often have to work knee-deep in the snow. Well, you will find that the man with small keen eyes, who is able to do his work in the railroad car, warming himself comfortably by the stove, is invariably a Scotchman. There is only one berth with a stove in the whole business, it is he who has got it. Many times I have A FRENCHMAl^ IN AMERICA. 1 73 hat a chat with that Scotchrricin on the subject of Old Scotland. Many times I have sat with him in the little smoking-room of the parlour-car, listening to the history erf" his life, or, maybe, to a few good Scotch anecdotes. fa tljf Irain from iCljiragc to tltmlmti, , , 26tlj ffbruarv. Arrived in Chicago at five o'clock in the afternoon yesterday, dined, dressed, and lectured at the Music Hall, under the auspices of the Drexel free Kinder- garten. There was a large audience, and all passed off very well. After the lecture, I went to the Grand Pacific Hotel, changed dress, and went on board the sleeping-car bound for Cleveland, Ohio. The criticisms of my lecture in this morning's Chicago papers are lively. The Herald calls me »a dapper little Frenchman*. Five feet eleven in height, and two hundred pounds in weight! - The Times says: ^ »That splendid trinity of American peerage, the colonel, the judge, and the professor, turned out in full force at Central Music Hall last night. The lecturer is a magician who serves up your many little defects peculiar to the auditors' own country on a silver salver so artistically garnished that one forgets the sarcasm in admiration of the sauce. « , The Tribune is quite as complimentary, and quite as lively: »His satire is as keen as the blade of the celebrated executioner who could cut a man's head off, and the unlucky person not know it until a pinch of snuff would ^»r 174 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. cause a sneeze, and the decapitated head would, much to its surprise, find itself rolling over in the dust.« And after a good breakfast at Toledo Station, I enjoyed an hour poring over the Chicago papers. I lecture in Cleveland to-night, and am still in »the neighbourhood of Chicago.* A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 1 75 CHAPTER XXVn. The Monotony of Travelling in the States — "Manon I . i : ;.. i^y Lescaiif in America. Jn tljf Irain from iCIrndanti to pibanv, .vaifev^/va'J.?-^^" 27tl) ffbruar^. ... Am getting tired and ill. I am not bed -ridden, but fairly well rid of a bed. I have lately spent as many nights in railway-cars as in hotel beds. Am on my way to Albany, just outside »the neighbourhood of Chicago.* I lecture in that place to-night, and shall get to New York to-morrow. I am suffering from the monotony of life. My greatest objection to America (indeed, I do not believe I have any other) is the sameness of everything. I understand the Americans who run away to Europe every year to see an old church, a wall covered with moss and ivy, some good oldfashioned peasantry not dressed like the rest of the world. What strikes a European most, in his rambles through America, is the absence of the picturesque. The country is monotonous, and eternally the same. Burned -up fields, stumps of trees, forests, wooden houses all built on the same pattern. All the stations you pass are alike. All the towns are alike. To say that an American town is ten times larger than another, simply means that it has ten times more blocks of houses. All the streets are aUke, with the same telegraph-poles, the same » Indian* as a sign for tobacconists, the same red, white, and blue pole as a sign for barbers. All the hotels are the same, all 176 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. the menus are the same, all the plates and dishes the same — why, all the inkstands are the same. All the people are dressed in the same way. When you meet an American with all his beard, you want to shake his hands and thank him for not shaving it, as ninetynine out of every hundred Americans do. Of course, I have not seen California, the Rocky Mountains and many other parts of America where the scenery is very beautiful; but I think my remarks can apply to those States most likely to be visited by a lecturer — that is, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesotta, and others during the winter months, after the Indian summer and before the renewal of verdure in May. .,, .^ - ,, ,,, ^.. -. . . : After breakfast, that indefatigable man of business, that intolerable bore, who incessantly bangs the doors and brings his stock-in-trade to the cars, came to me and whispered in my ears: * »New book — just out — a forbidden book.* »A forbidden book! What is that?« I inquired. He showed it to me. It was Manon Lescaut. Is it possible! That literary and artistic chef-dceuvrcy which was the original type of Paul et Virginie and Atala ; that touching drama, which the prince of critics, Jules Janin, declared would be sufficient to save con- temporary literature from complete oblivion, dragged in the mire, clothed in a dirty coarse English garb I and advertised as a forbidden book! Three generations of French people have wept over the pathetic story. Here it is now, stripped of its unique style and literary beauty, sold to the American pubUc as cin improper book — a libel by translation on a genius. British authors have complained for years that their books were stolen in America. They have suffered in pockets, it is true ; but ihdr reputation has A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. I// Spread through an immense continent. What is their complaint compared to that of the French authors, who have the misfortune to see their works translated into American? It is not only their pockets that suffer, but their reputation. The poor French author is at the mercy of incapable and malicious translators hired at starvation wages by the American pirate publisher. He is liable to a spev.,ies of defamation ten times worse than robbery. And as I looked at that copy of Manon Lescaut^ I almost felt grateful that Prevost was dead. ■•■* J. ,'''%"' i;^;-";.S\ ■;■-■ . ■-Or-, ''iM-:/'''^ t ■> V. " ■, » ^ ' r- ' " -■ ' -' -- » . ___ :__ _^ 12 1/8 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. CHAPTER XXVm. For the first time I see an American paper Abuse me — Albany to New York — A lecture at Daly's Theatre — Afternoon Audiences. Jppro ^arfe, m\\s Jfbruarv. . . The American press has always been very good to me. Fairness one has a right to expect, but kind- ness is an extra that is not always thrown in, and therefore this uniform amiability of the American press could not fail to strike me most agreeably. Up to yesterday I had not seen a single unkind notice or article, but in the Albany Express of yester- day morning I read : — »This evening the people of Albany are asked to listen to a lecture by Max O'Rell, who was in this country two years ago and was treated with distin- guislied courtesy. When he went home, he published a book filled with deliberate misstatements and wilful exaggerations of the traits of the American people.* This paper »has reason*, as the French say. My book contained one misstatement at all events, and that was that »all Americans have a great sense ot humour. V You may say that the French are a witty people, but that does not mean that France contains no fools. It s rather painful to have to explain such things, but I do so for the benefit of that editor and with apologies to the general reader. In spite of this diverting little »par,€ I had an immense audience last night in Harmanus Bleecker Hajlj^a new and magnificent construction in *Albany, A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 1 79 excellent no doubt for music, but hardly adapted for lecturing in on account of its long and narrow shape. :•;-; ■ > -'c,; ;,? -/ ,v;;^ .^-^^i- ^ . I should have liked to stay longer in Albany, which struck me as being a remarkably beautiful place; but having to lecture in New York this after- noon, I took the vestibule train early this morning for New York. This journey is exceedingly picturesque along the Hudson River, travelling as you do between two ranges of wooded hills, dotted over with beautiful habitations, and now and then passing a little town . bathing its feet in the water. In the distance one gets good views of the Catsldll mountains immortalised by Washington Irving in Rtp van Winkle. > On boarding the train, the first thing I did was to read the news of yesterday. Imagine my amusement on opening the Albany Express, to read the following ' extract from the report of my lecture: — iHe has an agreeable but not a strong voice. This was the only point that could be criticised in his lecture, which consisted of many clever sketches of the humorous side of the character of different Anglo- Saxon nations. His humour is keen. He evidently is a great admirer of America and Americans, only bringing into ridicule some of their most conspicuously objectionable traits His lecture was enter- - taining, clever, witty, and thoroughly enjoyable.* The most amusing part of all this is that the " American sketches, which I introduced into my lecture last night and which seemed to have struck the Albany Express so agreeably, were all extracted from the book > filled with deliberate misstatements and wilful exaggerations of the traits of the American people, c Well, after all, there is humour, unconscious humour„ in the Albany Express! ':Ci:'/'HW%^iS' j ^^' n* l80 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. Arrived at the Grand Hotel Station in New York at noon, I gave up my check to a transfer man, but learned to my chagrin that the vestibule train from Albany had carried no baggage and that my things would only arrive by the next train at about three o'clock. Pleasant news for a man who was due ta address an audience at three! There was only one way out of the difficulty. Off I went post-haste to a ready-made tailor, wha sold me a complete fit-out from head to food. I did not examine the cut and fit of each garment very minutely, but went off satisfied that I was presenting a neat and respectable appearance. Before going on the stage, however, I discovered that the sleeves of ' the new coat, though perfectly smooth and v^ellbehaved so long as the arms inside them were bent at the elbow, developed a remarkable cross twist as soon as I let my arms hang straight down. By means of holding it firm with the middle finger, I managed to keep the recalcitrant sleeve in position, and the affair passed off very well. Only some friends remarked to me after the lecture that they thought I looked a little bit stiff, especially when bowing ta the audience. ,: v > :^ ; ,. ..^ The lecture, at Daly's Theatre this afternoon, was given under the auspices of tho Bethlehem Day Nur- sery, and I am thankful to think that this most interesting association is a little richer to-day than it was yesterday. For an afternoon audience it was remarkably warm and responsive. I have many times lectured to afternoon audiences, but have not, as a rule, enjoyed it. Afternoon shows are a mistake. Do not ask me why. But think of those you have ever been to, and see if you have a lively recollection of them. There Js |i time for A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. l8l everything. Fancy playing the guitar under your lady love's window by daylight, for instance! Afternoon audiences are kid-gloved ones. There is but a sprinkling of men, and so the applause, when it comes, is a feeble affair, more chilling almost than silence. In some fashionable towns it is bad form to applaud at all in the afternoon. I have a vivid recollection of the effect produced one afternoon in Cheltenham by the vigorous applause of a sym- pathising friend of mine, sitting in the reserved seats. How all the other reserved seats craned their necks in incredulous astonishment to get a view of this innovator, this outer barbarian! He was new to the wondrous ways of the Chillitonians. In the same audience was a lady, Irish and very charming as I found out on later acquaintance, who showed her appreciation from time to time by clapping the tips of her fingers together noiselessly, while her glance said; »I should very much like to applaud, but you know I can't do it: we are in Cheltenham, and such a thing is bad form, especially in the afternoon. « Afternoon audiences in the Southern health-resorts of England are probably the least inspiriting and inspiring of all. There are the sick, the lame, the halt. Some of them are very interesting people, but a large proportion appear to be suffering more from the boredom of life than any other complaint, and look as if it would do them good to follow out the well-known advice: »Live on sixpence a day, and earn it.« It is hard work entertaining people who have done everything, seen everything, tasted every- thing, been everywhere, people whose sole aim is to kill time. A fair sprinkling are gouty. They spend most of their waking hours in a bath-chair. As a listener, the gouty man is sometimes decidedly funny. He gives signs of life from time to time by a vigorous slap on his thigh and a vicious-looking kick. 1 82 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. Before I began to know him, I used to wonder whether it was my discourse producing some effect upon him. v- :^: t I am not afraid of meeting these people in: America. Few people are bored here; all are happy? to live, and all work and are busy. American men die of brain fever, but seldom of the gout. If an American saw that he must spend his life wheeled in a bat-chair, he would reflect that rivers are numerous in America, and he would go and take a plunge into one of them. 1 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 1 83 V-LS ;;0'-'^ ■"■"'•,;•-;: chapter xxix. ■^'^-v^^^^^^^^^^^ Wanderings through New York — Lecture at the Har- -* ;, mony Club — Visit to the Century d^^.: * ^ fitm ©nrfe, 1st jpartft. ; ^^ The more I see New York, the more I like it. '''''t'^^\ After lunch I had a drive through Central Park, and Riverside Park along the Hudson, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I returned to the Everett House through Fifth Avenue. I have never seen Central Park in the summer, but can realise how beautiful it must be when Lhe trees are clothed. To have such a park in the heart of the city is perfectly marvellous. It is true that, with the exception of tiie superb Catholic f Cathedral, Fifth Avenue has no monument worth % mentioning, but the succession of stately mansions is a pleasant picture to the eye. What a pity this Cathedral cannot stand in a square in front of some long thoroughfare! it would have a splendid effect. I know this was out of the question. Built as New York is, the Cathedral could only take the place of a block. It simply represents so many numbers between 50th and 51st streets on 5th Avenue. In the Park I saw statues of Shakespeare, Walter Scott, and Robert Bums. I should have liked to see those oi Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and many other celebrities of the land. Washington, Franklin, and Lincoln are practically the only Americans whose statues you see all over the country. They play here the part that Wellington and Nelson play in England. After all, the > bosses < and the local poli- 1 84 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. ticians, who run the towns, probably never heard ot Longfellow, Bryant, Poe, etc. At four o'clock, Mr. Thomas Nast, the celebrated caricaturist, called. I was delighted to make his acquaintance, and found him a most charming man. Dined with General Horace Porter and a few other friends at the Union League Club. The witty general was in his best vein. At eight o'clock, I lectured at the Harmony Club, and had a large and most appreciative audience composed of the pick of the Israelite community in New York. After the lecture I attended one of the » Satur- days* at the Century Club, and met Mr. Kendal, who, with his talented wife, is having a triumphal progress through the United States. There is no gathering in the world where you can see so many beautiful, intelligent faces as at the Century Club. There you see gathered together the cleverest men of a nation whose chief characteristic is cleverness. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 1 8$ CHAPTER XXX. Visit to the Brooklyn Academy of Music — Rev. Dr. ;^ ... , Talmage. iRfiD 5orh, 2nti JHarrlj. Went to hear Dr. T. de Witt Talmage this morning at the Academy of Music, Brooklyn. What an actor America has lost by Dr. Talmage choosing the pulpit in preference to the stage ! The Academy of Music was crowded. Standing room only. For an old-fashioned European, to see a theatre, with its boxes, stalls, galleries, open for divine service was a strange sight ; but we had not gone very far into the service before it became plain to me that there was nothing divine about it. The crowd had come there, not to worsiiip God, but to hear Mr. Talmage. At the door, the programme was distributed. It consisted of six hymns to be interlarded with prayers by the doctor. Between the fifth and the sixth he delivered the lecture, or the sermon, if you insist on the name; and during the sixth, there was the collec- tion, that hinge on which the whole service turns in Protestant places of worship. I took a seat and awaited with the rest the entrance of Dr. Talmage. There was sukniued conversation going on all around, just as there would be at a theatre or concert : in fact, throughout the whole of the proceedings, there was no sign of a silent lifting up of the spirit in worship. Not a person, in tliat strange congregation, went on his or her knees to pray. Most of them put one hand in front of the 1 86 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. face, and this was as near as they got that morning to an attitude of devoticri. Except for this, and the fact that they did not applaud, there was absolutely no difference between them and any other theatre audience I ever saw. The monotonous hymns were accompanied by a cornet-a-pistons which lei?' a certain amount of Hfe to them, but very little religious harmony. That cornet was the keynote of the whole performance. The hymns, composed, I believe, for Dr. Talmage's flock, are not of high literary value. » General* Booth would probably hesitate to include such in the reper- toire of the Salvation Army. Judge of them for your- self. Here are three illustrations culled from the programme : — I. "Sing, O sing, ye heirs of gloiy! Shout your triumphs as you go ; Zion's gates will open for you, You shall find an entrance through.* ,. 2. »'Ti3 the promise of God, full salvation to give Unto him who on Jesus, His Son, will believe. » 3. »Though the pathway be lonely and dangerous too («V), Surely Jesus is able to carry me thro'.« Another hymn began : • One more day's work for Jesus, One less of life for me ! « I could not help thinking that there would be good employment for a prophet of God, with a stout whip, in the congregations of the so-called faithful of to-day. I have heard them by hundreds shouting at the top of their voices : •O^Paradise, O Paradise! 'Tis weary waiting here I long io be where Jesus is, To feel, to see him near. O Paradise, O Paradise ! I greatly long to see • The special place my dearest Lord In love prepares for me!* ' A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 1^7 Knowing something of those people outside the church doors, I have often thought what an edifying sight it would be if the Lord deigned to listen and take a few of them at their word. If the fearless Christ were here on earth again, what crowds of cheats and humbugs He would drive out of the temple ! And foremost. I fancy, would go the people who, instead of thanking their Maker that allows the blessed sun to shine, the birds to sing, and the flowers to grow for them here, howl and whine lies about longing for the joy of moving on to a better world, to the ^special placec that is prepared for them. ; If there be a better world, it will be too good - for hypocrites. . . ^ C After hymn the fifth, Dr. Talmage took the floor. ; The audience settled in their seats in evident antici-- pation of a good time, and it was soon clear to me ^ that the discourse was not to be dull at any rate. But I waited in vain for a great thought, a lofty idea, or refined language. There came none. Nothing but commonplaces given out with tricks of voice and the gestures of a consummate actor. The modulations of Sie voice have been studied with care ; no single platform trick was missing. p- The doctor comes on the stage, which is about forty feet wide. He begins jlowly. The flow of language is great, and he is never at a loss for a word. Motionless, in his lowest tones, he puts a question to us. Nobody replies, of course. There- upon he paces wildly up and down the whole length of the stage. Then, bringing up in full view of his auditors, he stares at them, crosses his arms, gives a double and tremendous stamp on the boards, and in a terrific voice he repeats the question, and answers it. The desired effect is produced: he nlever misses fire. Being an old stager of sever years' standing myself, I admire him professioaally. Nobody is 1 88 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. iV: edified, nobody is regenerated, nobody is improved, but ail are entertained. It is not a divine service, but it is a clever performance, and the Americans never fail to patronise a clever performance. All styles go down with them. They will give a hearing to everybody but the bore, especially on Sundays when other forms of entertainment are out of the running. "■ ..■ ^M::-^^:. /,,«?. ^l; l-;'^ -t w.j^S- -.": ■ It is not only the Brooklyn public that are treated j.; to the discourses of Dr. Talmage, but the whole of America. He syndicates his sermons, and they are published in Monday's newspapers in all quarters of America. I have also seen them reproduced in the Australian papers. The delivery of. these orations by Dr. Talmage is so superior to the matter they are made of, that to read them is slow indeed compared to hearing them. At the back of the programme was a flaring adver- tisement of Dr. Talmage's paper, called . .CHRISTIAN HERALD ^ "■ * AND SIGNS OF OUR TIMES, c »A live, undenominational, illustrated Christian paper, with a weekly circulation of fifty thousand copies, and rapidly increasing. Every State of the Union, every Province of Canada, and every country in the world is represented on its enormous subscrip- tion list. » Address your subscription to Mr. N , treasurer.* etc. » Signs of our Times,* indeed 1 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 1 89 CHAPTER XXXI. ^ , Virginia — Tke Hotels — The South — / zvill Kill a Railway Conductor before I leave America — Phila- delphia — Impressions of the old City. vlf ^ftfraburg, Ba., 3r!J Pardj. vj Left New Tork last night and arrived here at noon. No change in the scenery. The same burnt-up fields, the same placards all over the land. The roofs of houses, the trees in the forests, the fences in the fields, announce to the world the magic properties of castor oil, aperients, and liver pills. A little village inn in the bottom of old Brittany is a palace of comfort, compared to the best hotel of a Virginia town. 1 feel wretched. My bedroom is so dirty that I shall not dare to undress to-night. I have just had lunch: a piece of tough dried-up beef, custard pie, and a glass of filthy water, the whole served by an old negro on an old ragged dirty table cloth. Petersburg, which awakes so many souvenirs of the War of Secession, is a pretty town scattered with beautiful villas. It strikes one as a provincial town. To me, coming from the busy North, it looks asleep. The South has not yet recovered from its disasters of thirty years ago. That is what struck me most when, two years ago, I went through Virginia, Carolina, and Georgia. Now and then American eccentricity reveals it- self. I have just seen a church built on the model of a Greek temple, and surmounted with a pointed I90 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. Spire lately added. Just imagine to yourself Julius Caesar with his toga and buskin on, and having a chimney-pot hat on his head. : ;yf The streets seemed deserted, dead. ' -, . : To my surprise, the Opera House was crowded to-light. The audience was fashionable and appre- ciative, but very cool, almost as cool as in Connecticut and Maine. Heaven be praised! a gentleman invited me to have supper at a club aftgr the lecture. ->^^:''--:--'.^--'^''''-:--' 4tlj JBariti. '-t^^ ■::^^----;^:; J Am sore all over. Spent the night on the bed —outside, in my day clothes — and am bruised all over. I have pains in my gums too. Oh, that piece of beef yesterday! I am off to Philadelphia. My bill at the hotel amounts to $1.50. Never did I pay so hard through the nose for what I had through the mouth. ^^'^ " : f^ l^llilaUflpliia, 4tlj jfHart^. vW-.-"?. .,;■ -- ■: Before I return to Europe I will kill a railway conductor. From Petersburg to Richmond I was the only occupant of the parlour-car. It was bitterly cold. The conductor of the train came in the smoke-room, and took a seat. I suppose it was his right, although I doubt it, for he was not the conductor attached to the parlour-car. He opened the window. The cold icy air fell on my legs, or (to use a more proper expression, as I am writing in Philadelphia) on my lower limbs. I said nothing, but rose, and closed the window. The fellow frowned, rose, and opened the window again » Excuse me,< I said, »I thought that perhaps you had come here to look alter my comfort. If you A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. I9I have not, I will look after it myself, c And I rose and closed the window. »I want the window open,c said the conductor, and he prepared to re-open it, giving me a mute, impudent scowl. -. :l I was fairly roused. Nature has gifted me with a biceps and a grip of remarkable power. I seized the man by the collar of his coat. . ,- »As true as I am alive, « I exclaimed, »if you open this window, I will pitch you out of it.c And I prepared for war. The cur sneaked away, and made an exit, compared to which a whipped hound's would be majestic. Am at the Bellevue, a delightful hotel. My friend Wilson Barrett is here, and I have come to spend the day with him. He ^s playing every night to crowded houses, and after each performance he has to make a speech. This is his third visit to Phila- delphia. During the first visit, he tells me that the audience wanted a speech after each act. It is always interesting to compare notes with a frier. d who has been over the same ground as your- self. So I was eager to hear Mr. Wilson Barrett's impressions of his long tour in the States. Several points we both perfectly agreed upon at once: the charming geniality and good-fellowship of the best Americans, the brilliancy and naturalness of the ladies, the wonderful intelligence and activity of the people, and the wearing monotony of life on the road. After the scene in the train, I was interested, too, to find that the train conductors — those mute, magni- ficent monarchs of the railroad — had awakened in Mr. Barrett much the same feeling as in myself. We 192 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. Europeans are used to a form of obedience or, at least, deference from our paid servants, and the arro- gant attitude of the American wage-earner first amazes, and then enrages us — when we have not enough humour, or good humour, to get some amusement out of it. It is so novel to be tyrannised over by- people whom you pay to attend to your comfort. The American keeps his temper under the process, for he is the best-humoured fellow in the world. Be- sides, a small squabble is no more in his line than a small anything else. It is not worth his while. The Westerner may out pistol and shoot you if you annoy him, but neither he nor the Eastern man will wrangle for mastery. If such was the case, do you believe for a moment that the Americans would submit to the rule of the > Rings*, the » Leaders*, and the » Bosses »? I like Philadelphia, with its magnificent park, its beautiful houses that look like homes. It is not brand new like the rest of America. My friend, Mr. J. M. Stoddart, editor of the Lippincotfs Magazine, has kindly chaperoned me all the day. I visited in detail the State House, Independence Square. These words evoke sentiments of patriotism in the hearts of all Americans. Here was the bell that » proclaimed liberty throughout the Colonies* — so loudly that it split. It was on the 8th of July, 1776, that the bell was rung, as the public reading of the Declaration of Independence took place in the State House on that day, and there were great rejoi- cings. John Adams, writing to Samuel Chase on the 9th of July, said: »The bell rang all day, and almost all night. « It is recorded by one writer that, on the 4th ot ,^ A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 193 July, when the motion to adopt the Declaration passed the majority of the Assembly, although not signed by all the delegates, the old bellringer awaited anxiously, with trembling hope, the signing. He kept saying: »They'll never do it, they'll never do it!« but his eyes expanded, and his grasp grew firm when the voice of a blue-eyed youth reached his ears in shouts of triumph as he flew up the stairs of the tower, shouting: »Ring, ring! they've signed!*. What a day this old » Liberty Belle reminds you of! ,, There, in the Independence Hall, the delegates were gathered. Benjamin Harrison, the ancestor of the present occupier of White House, seized John Hancock, upon whose head a price was set, in his arms, and placing him in the presidential chair, said: »We will show Mother Britain how little we care for her, by making our President a Massachusetts man, whom she has excluded from pardon by public pro- clamation !« and, says Mr. Chauncey M. Depew in one of his beautiful orations, when they were signing the Declaration, and the slender Elbridge Gerry uttered the grim pleasantry, »We must hang together, or surely we will hang separately,* the portly Har- rison responded with the more daring humour, tit will be all over with me in a moment ; but you will be kicking in the air half-an-hour after I am gone.* The National Museum is the auxiliary chamber to Independence Hall, and there you find many most interesting relics of Colonial and Revolutionary days: the silver inkstand used in signing the famous Decla- ration ; Hancock's chair ; the little table upon which the document was signed, and hundreds of souvenirs piously preserved by generations of grateful Americans. It is said that Philadelphia has produced only two successful men, Mr. Wanamaker, the great dry-goods 13 194 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. store man, now a member of President Benjamin Harrison's Cabinet, and Mr. George W. Chiids, proprietor of the Philadelphia Public Ledger, one of the most important and successful newspapers in the United States. I went to Mr. Wanamaker's dry-goods store, an establishment strongly reminding you of the Psiris B071 Marc he or Mr. Whiteley's warehouses in London. By far the most interesting visit was that which I paid to Mr. George W. Chiids in his study at the Public Ledger s offices. It would require a whole volume to describe in detail all the treasures that Mr, Chiids has accumulated : curios of all kinds, rare books, manuscripts and autographs, portraits, china, relics from the celebrities of the world, etc. Mr. Chiids, like the Prussians during their unwelcome visit to F* ranee in 1870, has a strong penchant for clocks. Indeed his collection is the most remarkable in existence. His study is not only a sanctum sanctorum, it is a museum that not only the richest lover of art would be proud to possess, but that any nation would be too glad to acquire, if it could be acquired : but Mr. Chiids is a very wealthy man, and he means to keep it, and, I understand, to hand it over to his successor in the ownership of the Public Ledger. Mr. George W. Chiids is a man of about fifty years of age, short and plump, with a most kind and amiable face. His munificence and philanthropy are well known, and, as I understand his character, I believe he would not think much of my gratitude to him for the kindness he showed me, if I dwelt on them in these pages. Thanks to my kind friends, every minute has been occupied visiting some interesting place, or meeting some interesting people. I shall lecture here next A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. . 195 month, and shall look fonvard to the pleasure of being in Philadelphia again. At the Union League Club I ' met Mr. Rufus E. *: Shapley, who kindly gave me a copy of his clever and witty political satire Solid for Mulhooly^ illus- trated by Mr. Thomas Nast. I should advise anyone, who would understand how Jonathan is ruled muni- cipally, to peruse this little book. It gives the history of Pat's rise from the Irish cabin in Connaught to the City Hall of the large American cities. »When one man,« says Mr. Shapley, »owns and dominates four wards or counties, he becomes a Leader. Half-adozen such Leaders combined con- stitute what is called a Ring. When one Leader is powerful enough to bring three or four such Leaders under his yoke, he becomes a Boss ; and a Boss wields a power almost as absolute, while it lasts, as that of the Czar of Russia or the King of Zululand.« Extracts from this book would not do it justice. It should be read in its entirety. I read it with all the more pleasure that in Jonathan and his Continent I ventured to say : »The English are always won- dering why Americans all seem to be in favour of Home Rule, and ready to back up the cause with their dollars. Why ? I will tell you. Because they are in hopes that, when the Irish recover the posses- sion of Ireland, they will ail go home.« A foreigner, who criticises a nation, is happy to see his opinions shared by the natives. IS* 196 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. CHAPTER XXXn. My Ideas of the State of Texas — Why I Did Not go There — The Story of a Frontier Man. . flem ^orli, 5ti| JHardj. - " V! I HAVE had cold audiences in Maine and Connecticut ; .indifferent ones in several cities, while I have been warmly received in many others. It seems that, if \ went to Texas, I might get it hot. Have received to-day a Texas paper containing a short editorial marked at the four comers in blue pencil. Impossible not to see it. The editorial abuses me from the first line to the last. When there appears in a paper an article, or even only a short paragraph, abusing you, you never run the risk of not seeing it. There always is, somewhere, a kind fHend who will post it to you. He thinks you may be getting a little conceited, and he forwards the article to you, that you may use it as wholesome physic. It does him good, and does you no harm. The article in question begins by charging me with having turned America and the Americans into ridicule, goes on wondering that the Americans can receive me so well every where and, after pitching into me right and left, winds up with a warning that,, if I should go to Texas, I might for a change meet with a hot reception. A shot, perhaps. A shot in Texas ! No, no, no. I won't go to Texas. I should stron^y object to being shot anywhere, but especially in Texas where the event would attract so little public attention. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA.. 1 97 Yet, I should have liked to go to Texas, for was it not from that State that, after the publication oi Jonathan and his Continent^ I received the tsvo following letters, which I have kept amoi^ my treasures? »Dear Sir, — I have read your book on America, and greatly enjoyed it. Please send me your auto- graph. I enclose a ten cent piece. The postage will cost you five cents. Don't trouble about the change.* »My Dear Sir, — I have an album containing the photographs of many well-known people from Europe as well as from America. I should much like to add yours to the number. If you will send it to me, I will send you mine and that of my wife in return, c « • « « And I also imagine that there must be in Texas a delightful primitiveness of manners, good-fellowship. A fri<^nd once related to me the following remi- niscence: V »I arrived one evening in a little Texas town, and asked for a bedroom at the hotel. > , ^ >There was no bedroom to be had, but only a bed in a double-bedded room. - »*Will that suit you?' said the clerk. »'Well, I don't know,* I said hesitatingly. 'Who is the other?* >'0h, that's all right,* said the clerk, 'you may set your mind at rest on that subject.* »'Ver>' well,' I replied, *I will take that bed.' >At about ten o'clock, as I was preparing to go to bed, my bedroom companion entered. It was a frontier man in full uniform : bnffalo Bill hat, leather leggings, a belt accommodating a couple of revolvers — no baggage of any kind. _ _ »I did not like it. ~ »*Hallo, stranger,' said the man, 'how are you?* tTm pretty well,' I replied, without meaning a word of it. 198 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. »The frontier man undressed, that is to say, took off his boots, placed the two revolvers under his pillows, and lay down. »I liked it less arid less. »By-and-by, we both went to sleep. In the mor- ning, we woke at the same time. He rose, dressed, that is to say, put on his boots, and wished me good-morning. »The hall porter came with letters for my com- panion, but none for me. I thought I should like to let that man know I had no money with me ; so I said to him : »I am very much disappointed. I expected some money from New York, and it has not come. »'I hope it will come,* he replied. >I did not like that hope. »In the evening we met again. He undressed — you know, went to sleep, rose early in the morning, dressed — you know. »The porter came again with letters for him and none for me. »'Well, your money has not come,' he said. »*I see it has not. I'm afraid I'm going to be in a fix what to do.' s'l'm going away this morning.' »'Are you?*^ I said, 'I'm sorry to part with you.* »The frontier man took a little piece of paper and wrote something on it. »'Take this, my friend,' he said, 'it may be use- ful to >ou.* »It was a cheque for a hundred dollars. »I could have gone down on my knees, as I refused the cheque, and asked that man*s pardon.* 4c * # * Lectured in Brooklyn to-night, and am off to the West to-morrow mornii^. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 1 99 CHAPTER XXXIII. Cincimiati — The Town — The Suburbs — A German City — ^^Over the Rhine'' — What is a Good Patriot} — An Impressive Funeral — A Great Fire — How it Appeared to Me y a?id how it Appeared to the Newspaper Reporters. Cinnnnati, 7ti) IHantj. * My arrival in Cincinnati this morning was anything but triumphal. On leaving the car, 1 gave my check to a cab- driver, who soon came to inform me that my valise was broken. It was a leather one, and on being thrown from the baggage van on the platform, it burst open, and all the contents were scattered about. In England or in France, half a dozen porters would have immediately come to the rescue, but here the porter is practically unknown. Three or four men, belonging to the company, gathered round ; but, neither out of complaisance nor in the hope of gain, did any of them offer his services. They looked on, laughed, and enjoyed the scene. I daresay the betting was brisk as to whether I should succeed in putting my things together or not Thanks to a leather strap in my bag, I managed to bind the portmanteau and have it placed on the cab that drove me to the Burnett House. Immediately after registering, I went to buy an American trunk — that is to say, an iron-bound trunk — to place my things in safety. I have been told that trunk-makers give a commission to the railway and 2CX) A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. transfer baggage iren who, having broken trunks, recommend their owners to go to such-and-such a place to buy /«ew ones. This goes a long way towards explaining the way in which baggage is treated in America. On arriving in the dining-room I was surprised to see the glasses of all the guests filled with lemonade. »Why,« thought I, >here is actually an hotel which is not like all the other hotels.* The lemonade turned out to be water from the Ohio river. I could not help feeling grateful for a chaise — any change, even that of the colour of water. Anybody who has travelled a great deal in America will appreciate the remark. ^ Cincinnati is built at the bottom of a funnel, from which rise hundreds of chimneys vomiting fire and smoke. From the neighbouring heights, the city looks like a huge furnace; and so it is, a furnace of industry and activity. It reminded me of Glasgow. If the city itself is anything but attractive, the residential parts are perfectly lovely. I have seen nothing in America that surpasses Burnett Wood, situated on the bordering heights of the town, scattered with beautiful villas, and itself a mixture of a wilderness and a lovely park. A kind friend drove me for three hours through the entire neigh- bourhood, giving me in American fashion, the history of the owner of each residence we passed. Here was the house of Mf. A. — or rather Mr. A. B. C, every American having three names. He came to the city twenty years ago without a dollar. Five years later, he had five millions. He speculated and lost all, went to Chicago and made millions, which he afterwards lost. Now again he has several millions, and so on. This is common enough in America. By-and-by, we passed the most beautiful of all the villas of Burnett Woods — the house of the Oil King, A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 20I Mr. Alexander Macdonald, one of those wonderfully successful men, such as Scotland alone can boast all the world over. America has been a great field for the display of Scotch intelligence and industry. After visiting the pretty museum at Eden Park — a museum organised in 1880, in consequence of Mr. Charles W. West's offer to give $150,000 for that purpose, and already in possession of very good works of art and many valuable treasures, we returned to the city and stopped a the Public Library. Over 200,000 volumes, representing all the branches of science and literature, are there, as well as a collection of all the newspapers of the world, placed in chrono- logical order on the shelves and neatly bound. I believe that this collection of newspapers and that of Washington are the two best known. In the public reading-room, hundreds of people are running over the newspapers from Europe and all the principal cities of the United States. My best thanks are due to Mr. Whelpley, the librarian, for his kindness in conducting me all over this interesting place. Upstairs I was shown the room where the members of the Council of Education hold their sittings. The room was all topsy-turvy. Twenty-six desks and twenty-six chairs was about all the furniture of the room. In a comer, piled up together, were the cuspidores. I counted. Twenty-six. Right. After thanking my kind pilot, I returned to the Burnett House to read the evening papers. I read that the next day I was to breakfast with Mr. A., lunch with Mr. B., and dine with Mr. C. The menu was not published. I am of an indulgent disposition, and therefore take it for granted that this piece of intelligence is quite interesting to the readers of Cin- cinnati. . _ ^ The evening being free, I looked at the column of amusements. The first was not tempting, it was this: 202 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. THE KING OF THE SWAMPS, The Only and the Original ENGLISH JACK, The Incomprehensible Frog Man. He makes a frog pond of his slomach by eating living frogs. An app>etite created by life in the swamps. He is so fond of this sort of food that he takes the pretty creatures by the hind legs, and before they can say their prayers they are inside out of the cold. The next advertisement was that of a variety show^ that most stupid form of entertainment so popular in America; the next was the announcement of pugilists, and another one that of a »most sensational drama «, in which »one of the most emotional actresses of America* was to appear, supported by »one of the most powerful casts ever gathered together in the world. « The superlatives, in American advertisements, have long ceased to have any effect upon me. The advertisement of another >Show«; ran thus. I beg to reproduce it in its entirety; indeed, it would be a sacrilege to meddle with it: TO THE PUBLIC. MY Friends and Former Patrons. — I have now been before the public for the past seventeen years, and am, perhaps, too well known to require further evidence of my character and integrity than my past life and record will show. Fifteen years ago I inaugurated the system of dis- pensing presents to the public believing that a fair share of my profits could thus honestly be returned to my patrons. At the outset and ever since it has been my aira to deal honestly towards the multitude who have ffiven me patron- age. Since that time many imitators ha^ undertaken to beguile the public, with but varying success. Many un- principled rascals have also appeared upjon the scene, men without talent, but far-reaching talons, who by specious pro- mises have sought to swindle all whom they could inveigle. This class of scoundrels do not hesitate to make promises that they cannot and never intend to fulfil, and should be frowned down by all honest men. They deceive the public, leave a bad impression, and thus injure legitimate exhibi- 1 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 2Q$ tions. Every promise I make will be faithfully fulfilled, as experience has clearly proven that dealing uprightly with the public brings its sure reward. All who visit my beau- tiful entertainment may rely upon the same fair dealing which has been my life-long policy, and which has always honoured me with crowded houses. New Unique Pastimes New Harmless Mirth. New Costly Wonders. New Famous Artists. New Pleasant Studies. New Innocent Fun. New Popular Music. New Knowledge. Special Notice. — Ladies and Children are Especially Invited to Attend this Entertainment. We Guarantee it to be Chaste, Pure, and as Wholesome and Innocent as it is Amusing and Laughable. Finally, I decided on going to see a German tragedy. I dit not understand it, but the acting seemed very good. Like Milwaukee, Cincinnati possesses a very strong German element. Indeed, a whole district of the city is entirely inhabited by a German popula- tion, and situated on one side of the water. When you cross the bridge in its direction, you are going »over the Rhine «, to use a local expression. To go »over the Rhine « of an evening means to go to one of the many German Brauerei and have sausages and Bavarian beer for supper. The town is a very prosperous one. The Germans in America are liked for their steadiness and industry. An American friend even told me that the Germans were perhaps the best patriots the United States could boast of Patriots! The word sounded strangely to my ears. I may be prejudiced, but I call a good patriot a man who loves his own mother country. You may like the land of your adoption, but you love the land of your birth. Good patriots! I call a good brother a man who loves his sister, not other people's sisters. The Germans apply for their naturalisation papers the day after they have landed. I should admire 204 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. their patriotism much more if they waited a little longer before they changed their own mother for a step-mother. Btti JHardi. Witnessed a most imp/essive ceremony this morning, the funeral of the American Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Berlin, whose body was brought from Germany to his native place a few days ago. No soldiers ordered to accompany the cortege, no uniforms, but thousands of people volun- tarily doing honour to the remains of a talented and respected fellow-citizen and townsman: a truly re- publican ceremony in its simplicity and earnestness. The coffin was taken to the Music Hall, a new and beautiful building capable of accommodating thousands of people, and placed on the platform amidst evergreens and the stars and Siripes. In a few minutes the hall, decorated with taste but with appropriate simplicity, was packed from floor to ceiling. Some notables and friends of the late Minister sat on the platform around the coffin, and the Mayor, in the name of the inhabitants of the city, delivered a speech, a eulogistic funeral oration, on the deceased diplomatist. All parties were repre- sented in the hall, Republicans and Democrats alike had come. America admits no party feeling, no recollection of political differences, to intrude upon the homage she gratefully renders to the memory of her illustrious* dead. The Mayor's speech, listened to by the crowd in respectful silence, was much like all the speeches delivered on such occasions, including the indis- pensable sentence that »he knew he could safely affirm that the deceased had never made any A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 20$ enemies.* When I hear a man spoken of, after his death, as never having made any enemies, as a Christian I admire him, but I also come to the conclusion that he must have been a very insignifi- cant member of the community. But the phrase, I should remember, is a mere piece of flattery to the dead, in a country where death puts a stop to all enmity, political enmety especially. The same would be done in England, and almost everywhere. Not in France, however, where the dead continue to have implacable enemies for many years after they have left the lists. The afternoon was pleasantly spent visiting the town hall, and the remarkable china manufactories, which turn out very pretty, quaint, and artistic pottery. The evening brought to the Odeon a fashionable and most cultivated audience. I am invited to pay a return visit to thiis delightful place. I shall look forward to the pleasure of lecturing here again in April. 9t^ JHfirdj. Spent a most agreeable Sunday in the hospitable house of M. Fredin, the French Consular Agent, and his amiable and talented wife. M. Fredin was kind enough to call on me yerterday at the Bumatt House. As a rule, I never call on the representatives of France in my travels abroad. If I travelled as a tourist, I would ; but travelling as a lecturer, I should be afraid lest the object of my visits might be mis- construed, and taken as a gentle hint to patronise me. One day I had a good laugh with a French consul, in an English town where I came to lecture. On 206 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. arriving at the hall, I found a letter from this dip- lomatic compatriot, in which he expressed his surprise that I had not apprised him of my arrival. The next morning, before leaving the town, I called on him. He welcomed me most gracefully. )>Why did you not let me, your consul, know that }'ou were coming ?« he said. »Well, Monsieur le Consul,* I replied, ^suppose I wrote to you: 'Monsieur le Consul, I shall arrive at N. on Friday,* and suppose — now just suppose — that you answered: 'Sir, I am glad to hear you will arrive here on Friday, but what on earth is that to me?'« He saw the point at once. * * at; «r lOtti IHarilj. I like this land of conjuring. This morning I took the street car to go on the Burnett hills. At the foot of the hill, the car, horses and all, enters a little house. The house climbs the hill vertically by means of cables. Arrived at the top of the mountain, the car comes out of the little house, and goes on its way, just as if absolutely nothing had happened. To return to town, I went down the hill in the same fashion, )»But if the cable should break,* you will exclaim, » where would you be?« Ah, there you are: it does not break. It did once, so now they see that it does not again. In the evening there was nothing to see except variety shows and wrestlers. There was a variety show which tempted me, the Hermann's Vaudevilles. I saw on the list of attractions the name of my friend and compatriot F. Trewey, the famous shadowgraphist, and I concluded that if the other artistes were as good in their lines as he is in his, it would be well worth seeing. The show was very good of its kind, A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA . 20/ and Trewey was admirable; but the audience were not refined, and it was not his most subtle and artistic tricks that they applauded most, but the broader and more striking ones. After the show, he and 1 went »over the Rhine*. You know what it means. lltl) Jflard), 9 a.m. For a long time I had wished to see the wonderful American fire brigades at work. The wish has now been satisfied. At half-past one this morning I was roused from sleep by the galloping of horses and the shouts of people in the street. Huge tongues of fire were licking the windows, and the heat in the room was intense. Indeed, every thing seemed to be in a blaze, and I took it for granted that the Burnett House was on fire. I rose and dressed quickly, put together the few valuables that were in my possession, and prepared to make foi' the street. I soon saw, however, that it was a block of houses opposite that was on fire, or rather the corner house of that block. The guests of the hotel were in the corridors ready for any emergency. Had there been any wind in our direction, the hotel was doomed. The night was calm and wet. As soon as we became aware that no lives were lost or in danger in the burning building, and that it would only be a question of insurance money to be paid by some company, we betook ourselves to admire the magnificent sight. For it was a magnificent sight, this whole large building the prey of names coming in torrents out of every window, the dogged perseverance of the firemen streaming floods of water over the roof and through the windows, the salvage corps men penetrating through the flames into the building in the hope of receiving the next day a commission on all the goods 208 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. and valuables saved. A fierce battle it was between brute element and man. By three o'clock the element was conquered, but only the four walls of the build- ing remained, which proved to me that, with their wonderful promptitude and gallantry, all firemen can do, when flames have got firm hold of a building, is to save the adjoining property. I listened to the different groups of people in the hotel. Some criticised or gave advice as to how the firemen should set about their work. Others described the big fires they had witnessed, a few indulging in the recital of the exploits they performed thereat. There are a few Gascons among the Americans. At four o'clock all danger was over, and we all retired. • » • • I was longing to read the descriptions of the fire in this morning's papers. I have now read them and am not at all disappointed. On the contrary, they are beyond my most sanguine expectations. Wonderful, simply, perfectly wonderful! I am now trying to persuade myself that I really saw all that the reporters saw, and that I really ran great danger last night. For, »at every turn,« it appears, »the noble hotel seemed as if it must* become the prey of the fierce element, and could only be saved by a miracle.* Columns and columns of details most graphically given, sensational, blood-curdling. But all that is nothing. You should read about the panic, and the scenes of wild confusion in the Burnett House, when all the good folks, who had all dressed and were looking quietly at the fire from the windows, are described as a crowd of people in despair; women dishevelled, in their nightdresses, running wild, and throwing themselves in the arms of men to seek protection, and all shrieking and panic-stricken. Such a scene of confusion and terror you can hardly imagine. Wonderful ! A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 209 CHAPTER XXXIV. A Journey if you Like — Terrible Encounter with an American Interviewer. In X\\t Irain to firustioiiir, mt) fHard). Lefi^ Cincinnati this morning at ten o'clock, and shall not arrive at Brushville before seven to-night. I am beginning to learn how to speak American. As I asked for my ticket this morning at the railway office, the clerk said: »C.H.D., or C.C.C., St. L., and St. P..^c »C.H.D.,« I replied with perfect assurance. I happened to hit on the right line for Brushville. By this time I know pretty well all those combi- nations of the alphabet by which the different rail- road lines of America are designated. No hope of comfort or of a dinner to-day. Shall have to change trains three tinr.es, but none of them, I am grieved to hear, have parlour cars or dining cars. There is something democratic about uniform cars for all alike. I am a democrat myself, yet I have a weakness for the parlour cars — and the dining cars. At noon we stopped five minutes at a place which, two years ago, counted six wooden huts. To-day it has more than 5,000 inhabitants, the electric light in the streets, a public library, two hotels, four churches, two banks, a public school, a high school, cuspidores, toothpicks, and all the signs of American civilisation. Changed train at one o'clock at Castle Green Junction. No hotel in the place. I enquired where 14 2IO A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. food could be obtained. A little wooden hut, on the other side of the station, bearing the inscription Lunch Roonty was pointed out to me. Lunch in America has not the meaning that it has in England, as I often experienced to my despair. Lunch-room beware I I entered the place. Several people were eating pies, fruit pics, pies with crust under and crust over — sealed mysteries. »I want something to eat,« I said to a man behind the counter, who was in possession of only one eye, and hailed from Old Oireland. »What'd ye loike?« replied he, winking with the eye that was not there. »Well, what have you got?« »Feach poy, apricot poy, apple poy, and mince poy.« »Is that all?« »And, shure, what more do you want?« I have always suspected something mysterious about mince pies. At home, I eat mince pies. I also trust my friends' cooks. Outside, I pass. I think that mince pies and sausages should be made at home. »! like a little variety, «: I said to the Irishman. »Give me a small slice of apple pie, one of apricot pie, and another of peach pie.« The Irishman stared at me. » What's the mattei with the mince poy?« he said. I could see that he resented the insult offered to his mince pies. I ate my pies and returned on the platform, was told that the train was two hours behind time, and I should be too late to catch the last Brushville train at the next change. I walked and smoked. The three pies began to get acquainted together. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 211 Oh, those pies! At the last change yei:erday, I arrived too late for the Brushville train. A fortune I would have given for a dinner and a t>ed, which now seemed more problematic than ever. The pies were there. I went to the station-master. »Can I have a special train to take me to Brush- iville to-night ?« »A hundred dollars.* »How much for a locomotive alone ?« » Sixty dollars.* >Have you a freight traLi going to Brushville?* »What will you do with it?« > Board it.« > Board it! I can't stop the train.* »ril take my chance. « »Your life is insured?* >Yes — for a great deal more than it is worth.* »Very well,* he said, »ril let you do it for five •dollars.* And he looked as if he was going to enjoy the fim. The freight train arrived, slackened speed, and I boarded, with my portmanteau and my umbrella, a w^gon loaded with timber. I placed my portmanteau on the timber — you know, the one I had when travelling in ithe neighbourhood of Chicago* — sat on it, opened my umbrella, and waved a »ta-ta« to the station-master. It v/as raining fast, and I had a journey of some thirty miles to make at the rate of about twelve miles an hour. Oh, those pies! They now seemed to have re solved to fight it out. Sacrebleu! de bleu I de bleu I! A few miles from Bnishville I had to get out, or U* 212 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. rather, get down, and take a ticket for Brushville oa board a local train. Benumbed with cold, wet through, and famished, I arrived here at eleven o'clock last night. The peach pie, the apple pie, and the apricot pie had settled their differences, and become on friendly and accom- modating terms. I was able, on arriving at the hotel, to enjoy some light refreshments, which I only obtained, at that time of night, thanks to the manager whom I had the pleasure of knowing personally. At midnight I went to bed, or, to use a more proper expression for my Phiiadelphian readers, I retired. I had been »retiring« for about half-an-hour when there came a knock at the door. » Who's there ?« I grumbled from under the bed clothes. »A representative of the Brushville JournaL^ »0h!« said I, »! am very sorry — but I'm asleep. c » Please let me in, I won't detain you very long.« »I guess you won't. Now, please do not insists I am tired, upset, ill, and I want rest. Come to- morrow morning.* »No, I can't do that,* answered the voice behind* the door; »my paper appears in the morning, and I want to put in something about you.« »Now, do go away, « I pleaded, » there's a good fellow, c »I must see you,* insisted the voice. »You go!* I cried; »you go!* For a couple of minutes there was silence, and I thought the interviewer was gone. The illusion was sweet, but short. There was another knock, followed* by a >I really must see you to-night.* Seeing that there would be no peace until I had let the reporter in, I unbolted the door, and jumped back into my^ — you know. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 2l3 It was pitch dark. The door opened, and I heard the reporter's steps in the room. By-and-by, the sound of a pocket being searched was distinct. It was his own. A match was pulled out and struck. The premises examined and reconnoitred. A chandelier with three lights hung in the middle of the room. The reporter, speechless and solemn, lighted one burner, two, three; chose the most comfortable seat, and installed himself in it, looking at me with an air of triumph. I was sitting up, wild and dishevelled, in my * retiring* clothes. *^Que vouleZ'VousF' I wanted to yell, my state of •drowsiness allowing me to think only in French. Instead of translating this query by >What do you •want?« as I should have done if I had been in the complete enjoyment of my intellectual faculties, I shouted to him: »What will you have?€ !»Oh, thanks, I'm not particular,* he calmly re- plied; »ril have a little whisky and soda — rye whisky, please* My face must have been a study as I rang for whisky and soda. The mixture was brought— for two. »I suppose you have no objection to my smoking ?< coolly said the man in the room. »Not at all,« I remarked; »this is perfectly lovely, I begin to enjoy it.« He pulled out his pocket-book and his pencil, crossed his legs, and having drawn a long whiff from his cigar, he said : - . . »I see that you have no lecture to deliver in Brushville, may I ask you what you have come here for?€ »Now,« said I, »what the deuce is that to you? 214 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. If this is the !dnd of questions you have to ask mCr you go.« Here I stopped, and did not suggest any particular place. He pocketed the rebuff, and went on undisturbed: »How are you struck with Brushville?* »I am struck,* said I, » with the cheek of some of the inhabitants. I have driven to this hotel from the station in a closed carriage, and I have seen nothing of your city.« The man wrote down something. »I lecture to-morrow n^ht,* I continued, » before the students of the State University, and I have come here for rest.« He took this down. »A11 this, you see, is very uninteresting; so, good- night. « And I disappeared. The interviewer rose and came to my side. » Really, now that I am here, you may as well let me have a chat with you.« »You wretch !« I exclaimed. » Don't you see that I am dying for sleep? Is there nothing sacred for you? Have you lost all sense of charity? Have you no mother? Don't you believe in future punishment? Are you a man or a demon ?« »Tell me some anecdotes, some of your reminis- cences of the road,* said the man with a sardonic: grin. I made no reply. The imperturbable reporter resumed his seat and smoked. »Are you gone?* I sighed from under the blankets. The answer came in the following words: »I understand, sir, that when you were a young, man « »When I was WHAT?* I interrupted from my pillow. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 21 5 »I understand, sir, that when you were quite a young man,« repeated the interviewer with the sen- tence improved, »that you were an officer in the French army.« »I was,« I murmured in the same position. »I also understand that you fought during the Franco-Prussian war.c »I did.« : ^^^^ »May I ask you to give me some reminiscences of the Franco-Prussian war, just enough to fill about a column ?< I rose and again sat up. sFree citizen of the great American Republic,* said I, » beware, beware! There will be blood shed in this room to-night. « And I seized my pillow. »You are not meaty, « exclaimed the reporter. »May I inquire what the meaning of this strange expression is!« I said, frowning. »I don't speak American fluently. « »It means, « he replied, »that there is very little to be got out of you.* >Are you going?* I said, smiling. »Well, I guess I am.* » Good-night. « » Good-night* I bolted the door, turned out the gas, and re- > retired.* »Poor fellow,* I thought, » perhaps he relied on me to supply him with material for a column. I might have chatted with him. After all, these re- porters have invariably been kind to me. I might as well have obliged him. What is he going to do?« And I dreamed that he was dismissed. I ought to have known better. This morning I opened the Brushville Journal and 10 my stupefaction, saw a column about me. 2l6 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. My impressions of Brushville, that I had no oppor- tunity of looking at, were there. Nay, more. I would blush to record here the exploits I performed during the Franco-Prussian war, as related by this interviewer, especially those which took place at the battle of Gravelotte, where, unfortunately, I was not present. The whole thing was well written. The reference to my military services began thus: »Last night a hero of the great Franco-Prussian War slept under the hospitable roof of Morrison Hotel, in this city. « » Slept I « This was adding insult to injury. * m * * This morning I had the visit of two more reporters. »What do you think of Brushville ?« they said; and, seeing that I would not answer the question, they volunteered information on Brushville , and talked loud on the subject. I have no doubt that the afternoon papers will publish my impressions of Brushville. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 21/ CHAPTER XXXV. The University of Indiana — Indianapolis The Veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic on the Spree — A Marvellous Equilibrist. filoomington, Knit., IStt) |Hard|. Lectured yesterday before the students of the Uni- versity of Indiana, and visited the different buildings this morning. The University is situated on a hill in the midst of a wood, about half-a-mile from the little town of Bloomington. In a few days I shall be at Ann Arbor, the University of Michigan, the largest in America, I am told. I will wait till then to jot down my impressions of University life in thus country. I read in the papers: » Prince Saunders, coloured, was hanged here (Plaquemine, Florida) yesterday. He declared he had made his peace with God, and his sins had been forgiven. Saunders murdered Rnody Walker, his sweetheart, ' last December, a few hours after he had witnessed the execution of Carter Wilkinson.* If Saunders has made hie peace with God, I hope his executioners have made theirs with God and man. What an indictment against man! What an ailment against capital punishment! Here is a man committing a murder on returning from witness- ing an execution. And there are men still to be found who declare that capital punishment deters men from committing murder I 21 8 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. Unllidnapafie, 14tt| |9ard|. Arrived here yesterday afternoon. Met James Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosier poet. Mr. Riley is a man of about thirty, a genuine poet, full of pathos and humour, and a great reciter. No one, I imagine, could give his poetry as he does himself. He is a bom actor, who holds you in suspense, and makes you cry or laugh just as he pleases. I remember, when two years ago Mr. Augustin Daly gave a fare- well supper to Mr. Henry Irving and Miss Ellen Terry at Delmonico's, Mr. Riley recited one of his poems at table. He gave most of us a big lump in our throats, and Miss Terry had tears rolling down her cheeks. The veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic are having a great field-day in Indianapolis. They have come here to attend meetings and ask for pensions, so as to reduce that unmanageable surplus. Indianapolis is full, and the management of Denison House does not know which way to turn. All these veterans have large broad-brimmed soft hats, and are covered all over with badges and ribbons. Their wives and daughters, members of some patriotic association, have come with them. It is a huge picnic. The entrance hall is crowded all day. The spittoons have been replaced by tubs for the occa- sion. Chewing is in favour all over America, but the State of Indiana beats, in that way, everything I have seen before. I went to see Clara Morris in Adolphe Belot's Article 47, at the Opera House, last night. Clara Morris is a powerful actress, but, like most actors and actresses who go » starring* through America, A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 219 badly supported. I watched the audience with great interest. Nineteen mouths out of twenty were chewing — the men tobacco, the women gum im- pregnated with peppermint. All the jaws were going like those of so many ruminants grazing in a field. From the box I occupied the sight was most amusing. On returning to Denison House from the theatre I went to have a smoke in a quiet corner of the hall far from the crowd. By-and-by two men, most smartly dressed, with diamond pins in their cravats, and flowers embroidered on their waistcoats, came and sat opposite. I thought they had chosen the place to have a quiet chat together. Not so. One pushed a cuspidore with his foot, and brought it between the two chairs. There for half- an -hour, without saying one word to each other, they chewed, hawked, and spat, and had a good time before goii^ to bed. Trewey is nowhere as an equilibrist compared to a gallant veteran who breakfasted at my table this morning. Among the different courses brought to him were two boiled eggs, almost raw, poured into a tumbler, according to the American fashion. Without spilling a drop, he managed to eat those eggs with the end of his knife. It was mervellous. I have never seen the like of it, even in Germany, where the knife trick is practised from the tenderest age. « « « • In Europe, swaggering little boys smoke; here they chew and spit, and look at you, as if to say: >See what a big man I amU 220 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. CHAPTER XXXVI. Chicago (second visit) — Vassili VeresichagirC s Exhibi- tion — The *Angelust — Wa^er and Wagnerites — Wanderings about the Big City — / Sit on the Tribunal. Ctiirago, 15ti| J^ardi. Arrived here this morning and put up at the Grand Pacific Hotel. My lecture to-night at the Central Music Hall is advertised as a causerie. My local manager informs me that many people have inquired at the box-office what the meaning of that French word is. As he does not know himself, he could not enlighten them, but he thinks that curiosity will draw a good crowd to-night. This puts me in mind of a little incident which took place about a year ago. I was to make an appearance before an afternoon audience in the fashionable town of Eastbourne. Not wishing to convey the idea of a serious and prosy discourse, I advised the manager to call the entertainment "A Causerie". The room was full and the affair passed off very well. But an old lady, who was a well- known patroness of such entertainments, did not ptrt in an appearance. On being asked next day why she was not present, she replied: »Well, to tell you the truth, when I saw that they had given the entertainment a French name, I was afraid it might be something not quite fit for me to hear.« Dear soul! A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 22 1 16tt| |Hard|. The manager's predictions were realised last night. There was a large audience, one of the keenest, of the most responsive and appreciative I have ever had. I was introduced by Judge Elliott Anthony, of the Superior Court, iri a short, witty, and graceful little speech. He spoke of La Fayette and of the debt of gratitude America owes to France for the help she received at her hands during the War of Independ- ence. Before taking leave of me, Judge Anthony kindly invited me to pay a visit to the Superior Court next Wednesday. ntt| JHardj. Dined yesterday with Mr. James W. Scott, pro- prietor of the Chicago Herald^ one of the most flourishing newspapers in the United States, and in the evening went to see Richard Mansfield in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The play is a repulsive one, but the double impersonation gives the great actor a magnificent opportunity for the display of his histrionic powers. The house was crowded, though it was Sunday. The pick of Chicago society was not there, of course. Some years ago, I was told, a Sunday audience was mainly composed of men. To-day the women go as freely as the men. The > horrible « always has a great fascination for the masses, and Mansfield held his popular audience in a state of breathless suspense. There was a great deal of disappointment written on the faces when the light was turned down on the appearance of »Mr. Hydec, with his horribly distorted features. A woman, sitting in the box next to the one I occupied^ exclaimed as >Hyde« came to explain his terrible secret to the doctor, in the fourth Act: »What a shame, they are turning down the light again I < 222 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 18tt) |Harit|. Spent yesterday in recreation intellectual — and otherwise. I like to see everything, and I have no objection to entering a dime Museum. I went to one yesterday morning, and saw a bearded lady, a calf with two heads, a gorilla (stuffed), a girl with no arms, and other freaks of nature. The bearded lady had very, very masculine features, but honni soil qui mal y pense. J could not help thinking of one of General Horace Porter's good stories. A school-master asks a little boy what his father is. » Please, sir, Papa told me not to tell.« »Oh, never mind, it's all right with me.c »Please, sir, he is the bearded lady at the dime Museum. « From the Museum I went to the Free Library in the City Hall. Dime Museums and free libraries, such is America. The attendance at the free libraries in- creases rapidly every day, and the till at the dime Museums diminishes with proportionate rapidity. After lunch I paid a \nsit to the Exhibition of Vassili Verestch^in's pictures. What on earth could possess the talented Russian artist, whose colouring is so lovely, to expend his labour on such subjects I Pictures like those, which show the horrors of a cam- paign in all their hideousness, may serve a good purpose in creating a detestation of war in all who see them. Nothing short of such a motive in the artist could excuse the portrayal of such infamies. These pictures are so many nightmares which will certainly haunt my eyes and brain for days and nights to come. Battle scenes portrayed with a realism that is revolting because, alas! only too true. The execu- tion of nihilists in a dim, dreary, snowcovered waste. An execution of Sepoys, the doomed rebels tied to the mouth of cannon about to be fired off= Scenes A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 223 of torture, illustrative of the extent to which human suffering can be carried, give you cold shudders in every fibre of your body. One horrid canvas shows a deserted battle field, the snowcovered ground littered with corpses that ravens are tearing and fighting for. But, perhaps worst of all, is a picture of a field, where, in the snow, lie the human remains of a company of Russian soldiers who have been surprised and slain by Turks. Among the bodies, outraged by horrible and nameless mutilations, walks a priest swinging a censer. One seems to be pursued by, and impregnated with, a smell of cadaverous putrefaction. This collection of pictures is installed in a place which has been used for stabling horses in, and is reeking with stable odours and the carbolic acid that has been employed to neutralise them. Your sense of smell is in full sympathy with your horrified sense of sight: both are revolted. Now, behind the three large rooms devoted to the Russian artist's works, was a small one in which hung a single picture. You little guess that that picture was no other than Jean Frangois Millet's »Angelus«. Millet's dear little »Angelus«, that hymn of resignation and peace, alongside of all this roar and carnage of battle! The exhibitor thought, perhaps, that a sedative might be needed after the strong dose of Vassili Verestchagin, but I imagine that no one who went into that little room after the others was in a mood to listen to Millet's message. Yesterday morning I went to see the Richmond Libby Prison, a four-story huge brick building, which has been removed here from Richmond, over a dis- tance of more than a thousand miles, across the mountains of Pennsylvania. This is perhaps, as the 224 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. circular says, an unparalleled feat in the history of the world. The prison hcis been converted into a museum, illustrating the Civil War and African Slavery in America. The visit proved very interesting. In the afternoon I had a drive through the beautiful parks of the city. In the evening I went to see Tannhauser at the Auditorium. Outside, the building looks more like a penitentiary than a place of amusement. A huge pile of masonry, built of great, rough, blacklooking blocks of stone. Inside, it is magnificent. I do not know anything to compare with it for comfort, gran- deur, and beauty. It can hold seven thousand people. The decorations are white and gold. The lighting is done by means of arc electric lights in the enorm- ously lofty roof, lights which can be lowered at will. Mr. Peck kindly took me to see the inner workings of the stage. I should say » stages «, for there are three. The hydraulic machinery for raising and lowering them cost $200,000. Madame Lehmann sang grandly. I imagine that she is the finest lady exponent of Wagner's music alive. She *-ot only sings the parts, but looks them. Built on grand lines, and crowned with masses of blonde hair, she seems, when she gives forth those volumes of clear tones, a Norse goddess strayed into the XDCth century. M. Gounod describes Wagner as an astounding prodigy, an aberration of genius, a dreamer haunted by the colossal. For years I had listened to Wagner's music and, like most of my compatriots, brought up on the tuneful airs of Bellini, Donizetti, F^ossini, Verdi, Auber, etc., entirely failed to appreciate the music of the future. All I could say in its favour was some variation of the sentiment once expressed by Mr. Edgar W. Nye {»Bill Nye») who after giving the subject his mature consideration, said he came to the A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 22$ conclusion that Wagner's music was not so bad as it sounded. But I own that since I went to Bayreuth, and heard and saw the operas as there given, I began not only to see that they are beautiful, but also why they are beautiful.^ Wagnerian opera is a poetical and musical ideali- sation of speech. The fault that I, like many others, had fallen into, was that of listening to the voices instead of listening to the orchestra. The fact is the voices could almost be dispensed with altogether, r The orchestra gives you the beautiful poem in music, and the personages on the stage are really little more than illustrative puppets. They play about the same part in the work that pictures play in a book. Wagner's method was something so new, so different to all we had been accustomed to, that it naturally provoked much indignalion and enmity — not because it was bad, but because it was new. It was the old story of the Classicists and Romanticists over again. If you wanted to write a symphony, illustrative of the pangs and miseries of a sufferer from toothache, you would, if you were a disciple of Wagner, write your orchestral score so that the instruments should convey to the listener the whole gamut of groans, the temporary relief, the return of the pain, the sudden disappearance of it on ringing the bell at the dentist's door, the final wrench of extraction gone through by the poor patient. On the boards you would put a personage who, with voice and contortions, should help you, as pictorial illustrations help an author. Such is the Wagnerian method. After the ply I met a terrible Wagnerite. Most Wagnerites are terrible. They will not admit that anything can be discussed, much less criticised, in the works o{ the Master. They are not admirers, disciples, they are worshippers. To them Wagner's music is 15 226 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. as perfect as America is to many a goodhumoured American. They will tell you that never have horses neighed so realistically as they do in the »Walkure«. Answer that this is almost lowering music to the level of ventriloquism, and they will declare you a profane unworthy to live. My Wagnerite friend said last night that Wagner's work constantly improved till it reached perfection in » Parsifal*. » There, « he said, quite seriously, »the music has reached such a state of perfection that, in the garden scene, you can smell the violets and the roses. « »Well,« I interrupted, »I heard Parsifal in Bay- reuth, and I must confess that it is perhaps the only work of Wagner's that I cannot understand.* » I have heard it thirty-four times, « he said, »and enjoyed it more the thirty-fourth time than I did the thirty-third.* »Then,« I remarked, » perhaps it has to be heard fifty titnes before it can be thoroughly appreciated. In which case, you must own that life is too short to enable one to see an opera fifty times in order to enjoy it as it should really be enjoyed. I don't care what science there is about music, or what labours a musician should have to go through. As one of the public, I say that music is a recreation, and should be understood at once. Auber, for example, with his delightful airs that three generations of men have sung on their way home from the Opera House, has been a greater benefactor to the human race than Wagner. I prefer music written for the heart to music written for the mind.« On hearing me mention Auber's name in one breath with Wagner's, the Wagnerite threw a glance of contempt at me that I shall never forget. »WeIl,« said I to regain his good graces, »I may improve yet^— I will try again. « As a rule, the Wagnerite is a man utterly desti- tute of humour. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 22/ 20t!| IHartti. Yesterday morning I called on Judge Elliott Anthony, at the Superior Court. The Judge invited me to sit by his side on the tribunal, and kindly explained to me the procedure as the cases went on. Certainly kindness is not rare in Europe, but such simplicity in a high official is only to be met with in America. 15* 228 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. CHAPTER XXXVn. Ann Arbor — The University of Michigan — Detroit again — The French out of France — Oberlin College^, Ohio — Black and White — Are all American Citizens Equal? Brtroit 22nti JHardj. One of the most interesting and brilliant audiences that I have yet addressed was the large one which gathered in the lecture hall of the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, last night. Two thousand young bright faces to gaze at from the platform is a sight not to be easily forgotten. I succeeded m pleasing them, and they simply delighted me. The University of Michigan is, I think, the largest in the United States. Picture to yourself one thousand young men and one thousand young women in their early twenties, staying together in the same boarding-houses, studying^ literature, science, and the fine arts in the same class- rooms, living happily and in perfect harmony. They are not married. No restraint of any sort. Even in the boarding- houses, they are allowed to meet in the sitting-rooms. I beHeve that the only restriction is that, at eight o'clock in the evening, or at nine (I forget which), the young ladies have to retire to their private apartments. »But,< some European will exclaim, »do the young^ ladies' parents trust ail these young men?« They do- much better than that, my dear friend, they trust their daughters. During eighteen years, I was told, three accidents happened, but three marriages happily resulted. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 229 The educational system of America engenders the high morality which undoubtedly exists through- out the whole of the United States by accustoming women to the companionship of men from their infancy, first in the public schools, then in the high schools, and finally in the universities. It explains the social life of the country. It accounts for the •delightful manner in which men treat women. It explains the influence of women. Receiving exactly the same education as the men, the women are en- abled to enjoy all the intellectual pleasures of life and to compete with men for all those positions which European men consider their own monopoly. They are not inferior beings intended for mere house- keepers, but women destined to play an important part in all the stations in life. No praise can be too high for a system of edu- cation that places knowledge of the highest order at the disposal of every child born in America, Public schools are free, high schools are free, and the uni- versities,* through the aid that they receive from the United States and uGir* the State in which they are, can offer their privileges, without charge for tuition, to all persons of either sex, who are qualified by loiowledge for admission. The University of Michigan comprises the Depart- ment of Literature, Science, and the Arts, the Depart- ment of Medicine and Sui^ery, the Department of I^w, the School of Pharmacy, the Homoeopathic Me- dical College, and the College of Dental Surgery. Each Department has its special Faculty of Instruction. I count II 8 professors on the staff of the different iaculties. The libmry contains 70,041 volumes, 14,626 un- bound brochures, and 514 maps axid charts. ♦ A fee of ten dollars entitles a student to the priTileges of per- manent membership in the University. 230 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. The University also possesses beautiful laboratories^ museums, an astronomical observatory, collections, workshops of all sorts, a lecture hall capable or accommodating over two thousand people, art studios, etc., etc. Almost every school has a building of its own, so that the University is like a little busy town. No visit that I have ever paid to a public institution interested me so much as the short one which I paid to the University of Michigan yesterday. Dined this evening with Mr. W. H. Brearley,. editor of ♦^he Detroit Journal. Mr. Brearley thinks that the Americans, who received from France such a beautiful present as the statue of » Liberty enlight- ening the World «, ought to present the mother country of Gen. La Fayette with a token of her gratitude and affection, and he has started a national subscription to carry out his idea. He has already received support, moral and substantial. I can assure him that nothing would touch the hearts of the French people mor" than such a tribute of grati- tude and friendship from the other great Republic. « • f: « In the evening I had a crowded house in the large Lecture Hall of the Christian Young Men's Association. After the lecture, I met an interesting Frenchman residing in Detroit. »I was told, a month ago when I paid my first visit to Detroit, that there were twenty-five thousand French people living here,« I said to him. »The number is ex^gerated, I believe, « he replied, »but certainly we are about twenty thousand. c »I suppose you have French Societies, a Frenck Club?« I ventured. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 23 1 He smiled. »The Germans have,* he said, »but we have not. We have tried many times to found French clubs in this city, so as to establish friendly intercourse among our compatriots, but we have always failed.* »How is that?« I asked. »Well, I don't know. They all wanted to be president, or vice-presidents. They quarrelled among themselves. « • »When six Frenchmen meet to start a society,* I said, »one will be president, two vice-presidents, one secretary, and the other assistant-secretary. If the sixth cannot obtain an official position, he will resign and go about abusing the other five. « < »That's just what happened.* It was my turn to smile. Why should the French in Detroit be different from the French all over the world, except perhaps in their own country? A Frenchman out of France is like a fish out of water. He loses his native amiability and becomes a sort of suspicious person, who spends his life in thinking that everybody wants to tread on his corns. »When two Frenchmen meet in a foreign land,« goes an old saying, »there is one too many.« In Chicago, there are two Frenchmen engaged in teaching the natives of the city >»how to speak and write the French language correctly.* The people of Chicago maintain that the streets are too narrow to let these two Frenchmen pass, when they walk in opposite directions. And it appears that one of them has lately started a little French paper — to abuse the other in. I think that all the faults and weaknesses of the French can be accounted for by the presence of a defect — ^jealousy, and the absence of a quality — ' humour. — — - a- * « « ^ 232 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. iBbrriin, IB., 24tlj JHardi. Have to-night given a lecture to the students of Oberlin College, a religious institution founded by the late Rev. Charles Finney, the friend of the slaves, and whose voice, they say, when he preached, shook the earth. The college is open to coloured students; but in an audience of about a thousand young men and women, I could only discover the presence of tA\'o descendants of Kam. Originally, many coloured students attended at Oberlin College, but the number steadily decreased every year, and to-day there are only very few. The coloured student is not officially » boycotted «, but he has probably discovered by this time that he is not wanted in Oberlin College any more than in the orchestra stalls of an American theatre. The Declaration of Independence proclaims that »all men are created|equal«, but I never met a man in America (much less still a woman) who believed this or who acted upon it. The railroad companies have special cars for •coloured people, and the saloons special bars. At Detroit, I was told yesterday that a respectable and •wealthy mulatto resident, who had been refused service in one of the leading restaurants of the town, brought an action against the proprietor, but that, although there was no dispute of the facts, the jury unani- raiously decided against the plaintiff, who was more- over mulcted in costs to a heavy amount. But all this is nothing: the Young Men's Christian Associa- tion, one of the most representative and influential corporations in the United States, refuses to admit coloured youths to membership. t^It is just possible that, in a few years, coloured students will have ceased to study at Oberlin College. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 233 I can perfectly well understand that Jonathan should not care to associate too closely with the coloured people; for, although they do not inspire me with repulsion, still I cannot imagine — well, I cannot understand, for one thing, how the mulatto can exist. I But since the American has to live alongside the negro, would it not be worth his while to treat him politely and honestly, give him his due as an equal, if not in his eyes, at any rate in the eyes of the Law? Would it not be worth his while to remember that the » darkey « cannot be gradually disposed of, like the Indian? for Sambo adapts himself to his sur- roundings, multiplies apace, goes to school, and knows how to read, write, and reckon. Reckon especially. ^, It might be well to remember too that all the greatest, bloodiest revolutions the world has ever seen were set on foot, not to pay off hcU'dships, but as a revenge for injustice. Uncle Tom's Cabin was called a romance, nothing but a romance, by the aristocratic Southerners, but, to use the Carlylian phrase, their skins went to bind the hundreds of editions of that book. Another Uncle Tonis Cabin may yet appear. America will have »to work her thinking machine* seriously on this subject, and that before many years are over. If the next presidental election is not run on the negro question, the succeeding one surely will be. 234 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. CHAPTER XXXVm. Mr. and Mrs. Kendal in New York — Joseph Jefferson — Julian Hawthorne — Miss Ada Reha?i — ^^As You Like It» at Daly's Theatre. iRfm ®orii, 2Btlj Jpardj. The New York papers this morning announce that the » Society of Young Girls of Pure Character on the Stage « give a lunch to Mrs. Kendal to-morrow. Mr. and Mrs. Kendal have conquered America. Their tour is a triumphal march through the United States, a huge success artistically, financially and socially. I am not surprised at it. I went to see them a few days ago in The Ironmaster, and they delighted me. As Claire, Mrs. Kendal was admirable. She almost succeeded in making me forget Madame Jane Hading, who created the part at the Gymnase, in Paris, six years ago. T» ?ff ^ ^ This morning Mr. Joseph Jefferson called on me at the Everett House. The veteran actor, who looks more like a man of fifty than like one of seventy, is now playing with Mr. William Florence in The Rivals, I had never seen him off the stage. I immediately saw that the characteristics of the actor were the characteristics of the man: kindness, naturalness, sim- plicity, bonhomie and finesse. An admirable actor, a great artist, and a lovable man. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 235 At the Down-Town Club, I lunched with the son of Nathaniel Hawthorne, the greatest novelist that America hcis yet produced, Mr. Julian Hawthorne, himself a novelist of repute. Lately he has written a series of sensational novels in collaboration with the famous New York detective, Inspector Byrnes. Mr. Julian Hawthorne is a man of about forty -five, tall, well-proportioned, with an artistic-looking head, crowded with grayish hair, that reminds a Frenchman of Alexandre Dumas and an American of Nathaniel Hawth -me. A charming unaffected man, and a delight- ful causeur. In the evening I went to Daly's theatre, and saw As You Like It. That bewitching queen of actresses, Miss Ada Rehan, played Rosalind. Miss Rehan is so original that it would be perfectly impossible to com- pare her to any of the other great actresses of France and England. She is like nobody else. She is herself. The coaxing drawl of her musical voice, the vivacity of her movements, the whimsical spontaneity tliat seems to direct her acting, her tall handsome figure, her beautiful intellectual face, all tend to make her a unique actress. She fascinates you, and so gets hold of you, that when she is on the stages she entirely fills it. Mr. John Drew as Orlando, and Mr. James Lewis as Touchstone, were admirable. It matters little what the play bill announces at Daly's Theatre. If I have not seen the play, I am sure to enjoy it; if I have seen it already, I am sure to enjoy it again. 236 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. CHAPTER XXXIX. Washington — The City—Willard's Hotel— The Poli- ticians — General Benjamin Harrison, US. President — Washington Society — Baltimore — Philadelphia. ^astiington, Srtt ^prtf. Arrived here the day before yesterday, and put up at Willard's. I prefer this huge hotel to the other more modern houses of the Capital, because it is thoroughly American ; because it is in its rotunda that every evening the leading men of all parties and the notables of the nation may be found; because to meet at Willard's at night is as much the regular thing as to perform any of the official functions of office during the day; because, to use the words of a guide which speaks the truth, it is pleasant to live in this historical place, in apartments where battles have been planned and political parties have been bom or doomed to death, to become familiar with surroundings amid which Presidents have drawn their most important papers, and have chosen their Cabinet Ministers, and where the proud beauties of a century have held their court. « » * » On the subject of Washington hotels, I was told a good story the other day. The most fashionable hotel of tiiis city having out- grown its space, the proprietors sent a note to a lady whose backyard adjoined, to say that, contem- plating still enlarging their hotel, they would be glad A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 237 to know at what price she would sell her yard, and they would hand her the amount without any more discussion. The lady, in^equally Yankee style, replied that she had been contemplating enlarging her backyard, and was going to enquire what they would take for part of their hotel. How beautiful this city of Washington is, with its wide avenues, its parks, and its buildings! Tliat Capitol, in white marble, [standing on elevated ground against a bright blue sky. is a poem, an epic poem. I am never tired of looking at the expanse ot cloudless blue that is almost constantly stretched overhea(j. The sunsets are glorious. The poorest existence would seem bearable under such skies. I am told they are better still further West. I fancy I should enjoy to spend some time in a farm, deep in the country, far from the noisy crowded streets, but I fear I am condemned to see none but the busy haunts of Jonathan. In the evening I went to what is called a Coloured Church. The place was packed with negroes of all shades and ages, the women, some of them, very smartly dressed, and waving scarlet fans. In a pew sat a trio truly gorgeous. Mother in black shiny satin, light brown velvet mantle covered with iridescent beads, bonnet to match. Daughter of fifteen: costume of sky-blue satin, plush mantle scarlet-red, chinchilla fur trimmings, white hat with feathers. Second girl or daughter: light-blue velvet from top to toe, with large hat apple-green and gold. Everyone was intently listening to the preacher, a coloured man, who gave them, in graphic language and 238 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. stentorian voice, the story of the capture of the Jews by Cyrus, their slavery and their delivery. A low accom- paniment of » Yes ! « » Hear, hear ! « » Allelujah ! « » Glory! « from the hearers showed their approbation of the discourse. From time to time there would be a general chuckle or laughter and exclamations of delight from the happy grin-lit mouths, as, for instance, when the preacher described the supper of Belshazzar and the appearance of the writing on the wall in his own droll fashion. » Let's have a fine supper, « said Belshazzar. »Dere's ole Cyrus out dere, but we'll have a good time and enjoy ourselves and never mind him. So he went for de cups dat had come from de temple of Jerusalem, and began carousin'. Dere is Cyrus all de while marchin' his men up de bed ob de river. I see him comin'! I see him!« Then he pictured the state all that wicked party got in at the sight of the writing nobody could read, and by this time the excitement of the congregation was tremendous. The preacher thought this a good oppor- tunity to point a moral. So he proceeded: »Now drink's a poor thing ; dere's too much of it in dis here city. « Here followed a picture of certain darkies who cut a dash with shiny hats and canes, and frequented bars and saloons. »When folks take to drinkin*, somefin's sure to go wrong. « Grins and grunts of approbation culminated in perfect shouts of glee as the preacher said : »01e Belshazzar and the rest of em forgot to shut de city gate, and in came Cyrus and his men.« They went nearly wild with pleasure over the story of the liberation of the Jews, and incidental remarks on their own freeing. »0h, let dem go,« said their masters when they found the game was up, »dey'll soon perish and die out!« Here the preacher laughed loudly and then shouted: »But we don't die out so easy!« (Grins and chuckling.) One old negro was very funny to watch. When something met with his approval, he gave off a little A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 239 iTchsu, tchsu!« and writhed forwards an back on his seat for a moment, apparently in intense enjoyment, then jumped off his seat, turning round once or twice; then he woiild listen intently again, as if afraid to lose a word. »I see dis, I see dat,« said the preacher continually. His listeners seemed to see it too. At ♦■en minutes to twelve yesterday morning, 1 called ac the White House. The President had left the library, but he was kind enough to return, and at twelve I had the honour to spend a few minutes in the company of General Benjamin Harrison. Two years ago I was received by Mr. Grover Cleveland with the same courtesy and the same total absence of ceremony. The President of the United States is a man about fifty-five years old, short, exceedingly neat and even recherche in his appearance. The hair and beard are white, the eyes small and very keen. The face is severe, but lights up with a most gentle and kind smile. General Harrison is a popular President; but the souvenir of Mrs. Cleveland is still haunting the minds of the Washingtonians. They will never forget the most beautiful lady who ever did the honours of the White House, and most of them look forward to the possibility of her returning to Washington in March, 1893- Washington Society moves in circles and sets. The wife of the President and the wives and daughters of the Cabinet Ministers form the fi'st set — Olympus, as it were. The second set is composed of the ladies belonging to the families of the Judges of the Supreme Court. The Senators come next. The army circle 240 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. comes fourth. The House of Representatives supphes the last set. Each circle, a Washington friend teUs me, is controlled by [rigid laws of etiquette. Sena- tors' wives consider themselves much superior to the wives of Congressmen, and the Judges' wives consider themselves much above those of the Senators. But, as a rule, the great lion of Washington Society is the British Minister, especially when he happens to be a real live English lord. AH look up to him; and if a young titled English attache wishes [to marry the richest heiress of the Capital, all he has to do is to throw the handkerchief, the young and the richest natives do not stand the ghost of a chance. Lectured last night in the Congregational Church to a large and most fashionable audience. Senator Hoar took the chair,* 'and introduced me in a short, neat, gracefully worded little speech. In to-day's Washington Star, I find the following remark: »The lecturer was handsomely introduced by Senator Hoar, who combines the dignity of an Englishman, the stur- diness of a Scotchman, the savoir-faire of a French- man, and the culture of a Bostonian. « What a strange mixture! I am trying to find where the compliment comes in, surely not in »the savoir-faire of a Frenchman. « Armed with a kind letter of introduction to Miss Kate Field, I called this morning at the office of this lady, who is characterised by a prominent journalist as »the very brainiest woman in the United States. « Unfortunately she was out of town. I should have liked to make the personal acquaint- ance of this brilliant, witty woman, who speaks, j I am told, as she writes, in clear, caustic, fearless style. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 24 1 My intention was to interview her a bit. A telegram was sent to her in New York from her secretary, and her answer was wired immediately: » Interview him.^ So, instead of interviewing Miss Kate Field, I was interviewed, for her paper, by a young and very pretty lady journalist. iBaitimorr, 4t^ ffprii. Have spent the day here with some friends. Baltimore strikes one as a quiet, solid, somewhat provincial town. It is an eminently middle-class looking city. There is no great wealth in it, no great activity; but, on the other hand, there is little poverty: it is a well-to-do city par excellence. The famous Johns Hopkins University is here ; and I am not sur- prised to learn that Baltimore is a city of culture and refinement. A beautiful forest, a mixture of cultivated park and wilderness, about a mile from the town, must be a source of delight to the inhabitants in summer and during the beautiful months of September and October. I was told several times that Baltimore was famous all over the States for its pretty women. They were not out to-day. And as I have not been invited to lecture in Baltimore, I must be content with hoping to be more lucky next time. -; « * * * * After my lecture in Association Hall to-night, I will return to New York to spend Easter Sunday with my friends. Next Monday, off again to the West, to Cin- cinnati again, to Chicago again, and as far as Madison, the State City of Wisconsin. — ^^ By the time this tour is finished — in about three weeks — 1 shall have travelled something like forty thousand miles. 16 242 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. V The more I think of it, the more I feel the truth of this statement, which I made in Jonathan and his Continent. To form an exact idea of what a lecture tour is in America, just imagine that you lecture to-night in London, to-morrow in Paris, then in Berlin, then in Vienna, then in Constantinople, then in Teheran, then in Bombay, and so forth. With this difference, that if you had to untertake the work in Europe, at the end of a week you would be more dead than alive. But here you are not caged on the railroad lines, you can circulate. There is no fear of cold, no fear of hunger, and if the good, attentive, polite railway conductors of England could be induced to do duty on board the American cars, I would uny time go to America for the mere pleasure of traveUing. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 243 CHAPTER XL. Easter Sunday in New York. fim ^nxh, 5tt| ffpril (lEaatrr ^unHavK This morning I went to Dr. Newton's Church, in Forty-eighth Street. He has the reputation of being one of the best preachers in New York, and the choir «njoys an equally great reputation. The church was literally packed until the sermon began, and then some of the strollers who had come to hear the anthems moved on. Dr. Newton's voice and delivery were not at all to my taste, so I did not sit out his sermon ciliier. He has a big, unctuous voice with the intona- tions and inflections of the showman at the fair. He lias not the flow of ideas that struck me so forcibly -when I heard the late Henry Ward Beecher in London ; lie has not the histrionic powers of Dr. Talmage either. There was more show than beauty about the ^nusic too. A bellowing, shrieking soprano overpowered ^1 the other voices in the choir, including that of a Teally beautiful tenor that deserved to be heard. New York blossoms like the rose on Easter Day. Every woman has a new bonnet, and walks abroad to show it. There are grades in millinery as there are in Society. The imported bonnet takes the proudest rank: it is the aristocrat in the world of hadgear. It does not always come with the conqueror (in one of her numerous trunks), but it always comes to conquer; and a proud, though ephemeral, triumph it enjoys, perched on the dainty head of a New- York belle, and supplemented by a frock from Felix's or Redfem's. 16* 244 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. It is a unique sight, Fifth Avenue on Easter Sunday^ when all the up-town churches have emptied them- selves of their gaily-garbed whorshippers. The »four hundred* have been keeping Lent in polite, if not rigorous, fashion. Who shall say what it has cost them in self-sacrifice to limit themselves to the sober, modest violet for table and bonnet decoration during six whole weeks? These things cannot be lightly judged by the profane. I have even heard of sweet, devout New York girls who limited them- selves to one pound of marrons glaces a week during Lent. Such feminine heroism deserves mention. And have they not been sewing flannel for the- poor once a week, instead of directing the manipu- lation of silk and gauze for their own fair forms all the week long? Who shall gauge the self-control necessary for fasting such as this? But now Dorcas meetings are over, and dances begin again to-morrow. The Easter anthem has been sung, and the imported bonnet takes a turn on Fifth Avenue to salute and to hobnob with Broadway imitations during the hour between church and lunch. To New Yorkers, tliis Easter church parade is as much of an institution in its way as that of Hyde Park during the season is to the Londoners. It was plain that the people saun- tering leisurely on the broad sidewalks, the feminine portion at least, had not come out solely for religious exercise in church, but had every intention to see and to be seen, especially the latter. On my way down, I saw some folks who had not been to church, and only wanted to see, so stood with faces glued to the windows of the big clubs, looking out at the kaleido- scopic procession: old bachelors, I daresay, who hold the opinion that spring bonnets, whether imported or home-grown, ought to be labelled »dangerous€. At all events, they were gazing, as one might gaze at some coveted but out-of-reach fruit, and looking as if A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 245 they dared not fece their fascinating young towns- women in cdl the splendour of their new war-paint. A few perhaps were married men, and this was their ^uiet protest against fifty dollar hats and five hundred dollar gowns. To me the sight was beautiful and one not to be forgotten. In the evening I dined with Colonel Robert G. TngersoU and the members of his family. I noticed something which struck me as novel, but as perfectly <:harming. Each man was placed at table by the side of his wife, including the host and hostess. This costum in the Colonel's family circle (I was the only guest not belonging to it) is another proof that his theories are put into practice in his house. Dinner and time vanished with rapidity in that house, where everything breathes love and happiness. 246 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. CHAPTER XU. / Mount the Pulpit and Preach on the Sabbath, in the- State of Wisconsin — The Audience is Large and Appreciative; but I probably Fail to Please one of the Congregation. J^iimauher, 21st ^pril. To a certain extent I am a believer in climatic influence^ and am inclined to think that Sabbath reformeis reckon without the British climate when they hope to see a Britain full of cheerful Christians. M. Taine^ m his History of English Literature, ascribes the unlo- vable morality of Puritanism to the influence of British climate, i- Pleasure being out of question, « he says^ sunder such a sky, the Briton gave himself up to this forbidding virtuousness. « In other words, being unable to be cheerful, he became moral. This is not alto- gether true. Many Britons are cheerful who don't look it; many Britons are not moral who look it. But how would M. Taine explain the existence of this same puritanic » morality c, which can be found under the lovely, clear, ^right sky of America? All over New England and, indeed, in most parts of America, the same kill-joy, the same gloomy, frown- ing Sabbath-keeper is flourishing, doing his utmost to- blot the sunshine out of ever>' recurring seventh day. Yet, Sabbath-keeping is a Jewish institution that has nothing to do with Protestantism; but there have always been Protestants more Protestant than Martift Luther, and Christians more Christian than Christ. Luther taught that the Sabbath was to» be kept^ not because Moses commanded it, but because Nature teaches us the necessity of the seventh day's rest* A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 247 He says: » If anywhere the day is made holy for the mere day's sake, then I command you to work on it, ride on it, dance on it, do anything that will reprove this encroachment on Christian spirit and liberty.* The old Scotchwoman who »did nae think the betterer on« the Lord for that Sabbath-day walk through the cornfield, is not a solitary type of Anglo-Saxon Christian. But it is when these Puritans judge other nations that they are truly great. Puritan lack of charity and dread of cheerfulness often lead Anglo-Saxon visitors to France to misjudge the French mode of spending Sunday. Americans, as well as English, err in this matter, as I had occasion to find out during my second visit to America. I had been lecturing last Saturday evening in the pretty little town of Whitewater, in Wisconsin, and received an invitation from a minister to address a meeting that was to be held yesterday (Sunday), in the largest church in the place, to discuss the question of how Sunday should be spent. I at first declined, on the ground that it might not be exactly in good taste for a foreigner to advise his hosts how to spend Sunday. However, when it was suggested that J might simply go and tell them how Sunday was spent in France, I accepted the task. The proceedings opened with prayer and an anthem ; and, a hymn in praise of the Jewish Sabbath having been chosen by the moderator, I thought the case looked bad for us French people, and that I was going to cut a poor figure. The first speaker unwittingly came to my rescue by making an onslaught upon the French mode of spending the seventh day. sWith all due respect to the native country of our visitor.* said he, »I am bound to say that on the one Sunday which I spent in Paris I saw a great deal of low immorality, and I could not help coming to the 248 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. conclusion that this was due to the fact of the French not being a Sabbath-keeping people.* He wound up with a strong appeal to his townsmen to beware of any temptation to relax in their obser- vance of the fourth commandment as given by Moses. I was called upon to speak next. With alacrity I stepped forward, a little staggered perhaps at finding myself for the first time in a pulpit, but quite ready for the fray. »I am sorry,* said I, »to hear the remarks made by the speaker who has just sat down. I cannot, however, help thinking that if our friend had spent that Sunday in Paris in respectable places, he would have been spared the sight of any low immorality. No doubt Paris, like every large city in the world, has its black spots, and you can easily discover them if you make proper inquiries as to where they are, and if you are properly directed. Now, let me ask, where did he go? I should very much like to know. Being an old Parisian, I have still in my mind's eye the numerous museums that are open free to the people on Sundays. One of the most edifying sights in the city is that of our peasants and workmen, in their clean Sunday blouses, enjoying themselves with their families, and elevating their tastes among our art treasures. Did our friend go there? I know there are places where for little money the symphonies of Beethoven and other great masters may be, and are, enjoyed by thousands every Sunday. Did our friend go there? Within easy reach of the people, are such places as the Bois de Boulogne, the Garden of Accli- matation where for fifty centimes a delightful day may be spent among the lawns and flower-beds of that Parisian 'Zoo'* Its goat cars, ostrich cars, its camel and elephant drives make it a paradise for children, and one might see whole families there on Sunday afternoon in the summer, the parents refreshing their A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 249 bodies with this contact with Nature and their hearts with the sight of the children's glee. Did our friend go there? We even have churches in Paris, churches that are crammed from six o'clock in the morning till one in the afternoon with worshippers who go on their knees to God. Now, did our friend go to church on that Sunday? Well, where did he go? I am quitting Whitewater to-morrow, and I leave it to his townspeople to investigate the matter. When I first visited New York, stories where told me of strange thin The last two days have vanished rapidly in paying calls. This morning my impresario gave me a farewell breakfast at the Everett House. Edmund Clarence Stedman was there; Mark Twain, George Kennan, General Horace Porter, General Lloyd Bryce, Richard Watson Gilder, and many others sat at table, and joined in wishing me Bon Voyage, Grood-bye, my dear American friends! I shall carry away sweet recollections of you, and, whether I am re-invited to lecture in >our country or not, I wili come again. 27tf| jpprtl. The saloon, on board the Teutonic, is a mass of floral offerings sent by friends to the passengers. Two huge beautiful baskets of lilies and roses are mine. The whistle is heard for the third time. The hands are pressed and the faces kissed, and all those who ai« not passengers leave the boat and go and take up positions on the wharf to wave their handkerchiefs until the steamer is out of sight. A great many among the dense crowd are friendly faces familiar to me. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 255 The huge construction is set in motion, and gently and smoothly glides from the docks to the Hudson RivCT The sun is shining, the weather glorious. The faces on land get less and less distinct. For the last time I wave my hat. Hallo! what is the matter with me? Upon my word I believe I am sad. I go to the library, and, like a child, seize a dozen sheets of note-paper, on which I wnte » Good-bye*. I wiU send them to New York from Sandy Hook. The Teutonic is behaving beautifully. We pass bandy Hook. The sea is perfectly calm. Then I think of my dear ones at home, and the happiest thoughts take the place of my feelings of regret at leaving so many friends. My impresario, Major J. B. Pond, shares a beautiful, well-lighted, airy cabin with me. He Is coming to England to engage Mr. Henry M. Stanley for a lecture m America next season. The company on board is large and choice. In the steerage a few disappointed American statesmen return to Europe. * Oh, this Teutonic I Can anyone imagine anything more grand, more luxurious? She is going at the rate of 450 miles a day. In about five days we shall DC at Queenstown. Xi0prpo0f, 4tlj JBav. My most humble apologies are due to the Atlantic for libelling that Ocean at the beginning of this book, i^or the last six days the sea has been perfectly calm, and the trip has been one of pleasure the whole tame. Here is another crowd on the landing-stage at 256 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. And now, dear Reader, excuse me if I leave you. You were present at the friendly farewell handshakings on the New York side; but on this Liverpool quay I see a face that I have not looked upon for five months, and having a great deal to say to the owner of it, I will politely bow you out first. f h ^l * * s %. "* BRYCE'S LIBRARY * ' < Sent post free to any address en reseipt vf price. ,. WILLIAM BRYCE. Publisher, Tom o, Ca/i^oa, CANADIAN COPYRIGHT 800KS No American Reprints can be lawfully sold in Canar'a. PB»B« 16. LittklLord Fauntleroy. By Francis H. Bamete .w..... ftS 15o. " " " *• •• ** Cloth m 16. The Frozen Pirate. By W. Clark Bussell «..,,. 89 17. Jo's Boys, and How They Turned Out. By Louioa M. Aloofet 80 17c « " " " " *• *• .Cloth 5a 18. Saddle and Sabre. By Hawley Smart i7. ...... 80 19. Prince of the Blood, by James Papn 88 22. Siain«i Pages ; the Story of Anthony Grace. By i3r. Manville Fenn.. 88 23. Lieutenant Barnabas. By Frank Barrett 80 24. The Nun's Curse. By Mrs. J. H. BiddelL 3 80 25. The 1'wln Soul. 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What can She Do. - •* ^i '86 • 210. A Knight of the 19th Century. « ?s « ; ^, -^ ? W 211. Barriers Burned Away; ^^^i^eefi-i * a.,.; i^.i s^li 212. WHhoal a HfM. BjB.rBM •• • « 318. tMibrt Rlwlk «• • «••— • M tl4. A Face momined. ByB.P.Boe IS tU. Driven Back to Edea. " M . «10. ••....••.•••••••••••••••••,«^«a^4., •••••• ••••••••••••••»«»#.i£.;*i^fe — m. Vtfeiitoo^riK(Bn«ilHi)> " J ITiiiMh .•••••••••••••.•.••• « S18. Handy Aad|L BjM.hmm ......•....•^^..„.. 26 119. Rorvratoll^ • • — U fn. Mfetor OTIiltoran. By W. H. Maxwdl J» m. Why Did Ht Marry Htr. By Eli» A. Dnpuy fi «4. Thi ScarW Letttr. By Nftthwdel Hawthorn* 1» SM. Liftit Women. ByL-M.Aloott •• tt7. Tto KrwIiMr Soiiai» By Coont Ijw ToWai 1* S80. Phtntom Rickihtw. " •• m. Timt Mm ii t loil. By J«rome K. Jtroaw •» m. TiM SmI •! Plwm By Gkorgw Ohiw* «• ttt. Tit netaravf D«riu«ray. ByOM^WiU* «• •ML te Arfltfk Htntr. By Oeteva Fwdlkl •• ttf. M^ EitmL By Bdaft Ly»U .•••••••••••..•..•••• V 186. LABOR. By Count Lyof Toliti •* »7. 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