Teresina in America

Front matter

TERESINA IN AMERICA. BS THERESE YELVERTON (VISCOUNTESS AVONMORE). IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON : RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON. 1875. (All rights reserved.) CONTENTS OF VOL I. CHAPTER PAQE INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER . . . .V I. NEW YORK : . . . .1 n. HORACE GREELEY . . . .8 EŒ. BROWN STONE FRONTS . . . .12 TV. THE AMERICAN CHARACTER . i .21 V. CHARLESTON, S. CAROLINA . . .43 VI. THE NEGRO QUESTION . . . .64 VII. HOME FOR CONSUMPTIVES . . .81 VHI. THE BROADEST STREET IN THE WORLD . 88 IX. THE SAVANNAH RIVER . . . .94 X. THE CITY OF CAMELIAS .... 102 XI. FROM SAVANNAH TO FERNANDINA . .109 XII. THE LAND OF ETERNAL YOUTH , .116 XIH. THE ANIMAL-MAN : 144 XTV. BELOW THE SURFACE . . . .156 XV. THE ATHENS OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION .162 XVI. THE VALIANT WARRIORS BOWED . .174 XVII. BENIGHTED IN THE CORN . . .184 CONTENTS.

IV CHAPTER PAGL' XVUI. ATLANTA, GEORGIA — A DUEL A TROIS . .198 XIX. A CITY IN ADAMANT .... 224 XX. FROM CHATTANOOGA TO NASHVILLE . . 240 XXI. NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE. — HIDDEN BEHIND THE DOOR. ..... 244 XXII. AMERICAN CHILDREN .... 2G3 XXIII. AMERICAN HOTELS, AND WHAT OCCURS THEREIN 27G XXIV. MAN'S GALLANTRY AND WOMAN'S FREEDOM .306 INE great difficulty in writing about America is the almost utter impos sibility of clearly defining the moral and physical characteristics of the inhabitants of that vast territory. They are so various, they cannot be generalized, and it is not easy to classify them. For instance — the Northerner is in no respect like the Southerner. They are distinct peoples, with differences far more strongly marked than any that exist between the English and the Scotch. The Western man, again, is, in his habits, thoughts, and appear ance, unlike either Northerner or Southerner.

These three grand divisions include numerous minor ones, each clear and distinct, and, to a traveller, only moderately observant, very striking. The Californian presents a curious contrast to the rest of his countrymen, and has a very VI prominent character of his own. He is made up of a score of nationalities ; is most positive, too, in his assertion of that fact, and he has no love for the Down-Easter or New England man. Then there are the Louisianians ; French in their manners, and still retaining much of their ancestors' national feeling of animosity towards the English. The Floridans, also, who came from Spain and Minorca, and yet preserve many of the habits peculiar to those countries. The Germans are very persistent, too, in keeping up in their adopted home the old customs and practices of the Fatherland.

Chapter I. New York

||EW York has been often described, so often indeed, that it seems almost needless to say anything about it now-a-days. But a series of sketches of America cannot be considered complete that does not notice, more or less fully, the " Empire City," — as the idol of America is called. As " the eye of the maiden is to the hand of her mistress," so is the heart of the American to the city of New York, for is it not the Temple of Mammon the Great ? Is it not the city of his altars, the well-beloved seat of the " Almighty Dollar ?" And is it not crowded with his eager worshippers ? Is it not there that marble temples commemorate his bounties, and " brown stone fronts," in countless avenues, propitiate VOL. I. him and his high priests ? Talk not to me of Juggernaut : men may lay their puny bodies on the burning sand and have them crushed into shapeless masses by his ponderous wheels, but here, men lay their souls, as well as their bodies, in the path of Mammon, and meet their double death with smiles of joy — for are not his wheels of gold, of solid yellow shining gold ?

His mark is stamped not on the forehead only, but glows in the eyes, on the lips, and on every feature. The hand sympathises with it, and every gesture is en rapport with the fire which burns within the soul of the eager devotee. The light of Mammon gleams on nearly every face in Broadway and Wall Street, as the " light of battle " illumines the faces down the long line, when the batteries open on it and the officers wave it on. All is earnestness in New York ; there is no dilly-dallying or loitering there. Every man presses on with steady eye towards his goal, and at the end of the day he wends his way homeward, with eyes fixed and thoughts intent on how he shall force his way through the crowd on the morrow, and flinging himself before his advancing god, receive his deadly favours. What is the frenzy of the most enthusiastic fanatics to the fever which can thus whirl thou sands and thousands of men and women, day after day, through years of anxious toil ; which can make work seem pleasure ; degradation, honour ; and ruin, both of mind and body, suc cess ?

Which can thus fix, on a whole city of a million inhabitants, a stamp so indelible and a character so distinct, that the cry, " worshippers of money!" rises, instinctively, to the lips of every inteUigent stranger. Behold the buildings of magnificent front — lofty and imposing in their wealth of precious marble ; behold the silks and velvets — meant only for the drawing-room or barouche, dragged through mire and dust with sweeping indiffer ence ; and, if you are a worshipper of gold, fall down and do homage, for all these are the ensigns of the God of America. But if you are a worshipper of solid worth, pause ; for the buildings are only veneered ; the wearers of silk will be penniless in a few years, perhaps in a few months, and ere long will become common clay, forgotten by all the world, because they will have done nothing for it to remember, and have built nothing which will outlive them selves.

These people, when they commenced their career had but one object in view, and have had but one design throughout their lives, viz., to win favours from their God. If the)- have won them, shall they not display them ? or if they have not, shall they not feign that they 1—2 have ? as the pretence will bring them for awhile the power and reverence they have striven for. How often in passing along an English thoroughfare would the word " pounds " strike the ear ? once, perhaps, but more likely, not even once. But walk up Broadway and observe how many times the word " dollars " will ring out, and you will then have the key to the manners, customs, thoughts, and actions of the inhabitants of New York. To describe the public buildings of New York, its park, its Fifth Avenue, and its caravansary of caravansaries, its darling Fifth Avenue Hotel, would only be doing what has been done scores of times before — truthfully and untruthfully ; in the latter case perhaps in the most interesting manner.

In point of public buildings it is far behind Philadelphia : its streets and pave ments are not to be compared with those of St. Louis, New Orleans, or Philadelphia; its churches are surpassed by many in the cities just named; its wharves and landing stages are admitted by its owncitizensto be a disgrace. Of New York morals, both public and private, perhaps the less said the better — vide the public prints and Congress — but in the matter of dollars it reigns supreme — and nothing more is needed to make it the worshipped of all worshippers, the sun and centre of American life. But although in this respect New York sets the example and furnishes the model for nearly the whole of the United States, it is less Ameri can, and more cosmopolitan in its feelings and habits than any other city of the Union.

With a population half of which is foreign-born, this can hardly fail to be the case ; as national characteristics are slow to fade out, and many of them are very infectious. New York is New York and nothing else. Although in America, it is not American ; although including in its population more Germans than any city in the world, except Berlin and Vienna, it is not Ger man ; and, although controlled in its municipal affairs by Irishmen, it is not Irish. Its magnates are of all nations, American, Irish, Scotch, Ger man, Dutch, and French, and its customs partake of the same mixed character. Of late, a rage for everything European has seized the New Yorkers, and through them, of course, the rest of America. Hotels, on the European plan, and clubs, as nearly as possible -on the Pall Mall plan, have been inaugurated, and both have found favour, but more particularly the latter.

For Hotels " on the European plan " do not afford so much opportunity for public displays of toilet, and are therefore not likely to be as popular as the hotels on the old plan. " Our aristocratic circles " is now a favourite expression with the newspapers ; liveried servants are to be seen on Fifth Avenue, and some of the more advanced spirits among the New Yorkers have really succeeded in persuading themselves that they are aristo crats. In military matters New York inclines to the French style ; her volunteer corps being as Frenchy as a total absence of anything French will admit of; while in civilian dress the extreme English is affected. Whether NewT York will ever strike out an independent course for her self remains to be seen, but at present she is " blown about by every wind of doctrine," and pays the penalty of being cosmopolitan by being unable to call anything her own.

A visitor to New York may pass a few weeks there very pleasantly, provided the amount of money he will have to spend is a matter of in difference to him. He may see the American hotel system in its glory at the Fifth Avenue, and at the St. Nicholas ; he will see New York theatres, New York " mansions," New York men and women, and New York manners ; but if he forthwith returns to Europe, he will carry with him a very erroneous idea of the Ameri cans, and American life generally. To acquire a knowledge of the latter, he must wander through the length and breadth of the United States. I say "wander," advisedly, for he must not hurry, and when North, South, East, and West have been thoroughly explored, he will be able to form for himself, if not for other people, some idea of what that wonderful conglomeration called America really is.

Chapter II. Horace Greeley

HE first person who called upon me in New York was Horace Greeley, and, as he has left us "for the better land," as he himself would phrase it, I cannot refrain from penning this slight sketch of him. It is not usual in America to carry printed visiting cards, but to write the name on a blank one, with which any hotel or stationer will supply you. The waiter having presented me with a card, upon which were some curious hieroglyphics, as though a couple of flies had disported themselves thereon, I turned it in all directions, thinking it might perhaps be Chinese, and required to be read backwards, or that it was some curious acrostic, which should be read at right angles, or from corner to corner. All these attempts, however, failing to en lighten me, I said to the waiter — " What does this mean ?

Have the flies been crawling over the paper, or is it Sanscrit V HORACE GREELEY. 9 "It is the signature of Horace Greeley," he replied, with a grin ; "he is waiting to see you." The waiter evidently enjoyed the joke. No doubt he had often seen persons as perplexed as myself. But he went down and told the clerk of my dilemma, who forthwith began talk ing of it to his customers at the bar ; and the next morning there was a full account of it in all the opposition newspapers. Horace Greeley was one of the old-school Americans, of whom so few are now left. He was of that stock which made the country's greatness — men who were patriotic, earnest, be nevolent, simple, consistent — -he was in mind and person the model for a patriarch. Long white flowing hair surrounded a finely shaped head, and a white beard fringed a frank, healthful face of womanly sweetness.

His eyes, which had no merit of form or colour, were yet the windows of his soul through which his every feeling gleamed. His features were too small to be handsome, but beauty radiated over them. He usually wore a light-coloured coat, which, how ever, he seldom succeeded in getting thoroughly into ; and lace-up shoes, that rarely were laced. I think it probable that he affected also long white stockings, which had a general tendency to come down. His bruised white hat was generally placed so far back on his head, that it HORACE GREELEY. was believed it stuck there by some marvellous interposition of Providence. Yet, withal, he was a personage one could not help loving even at first sight — virtue and good nature being so apparent in his pleasant countenance. Sad it is to think that such a man was " done to death " by the revelations that must at length have forced conviction upon him of the selfishness of his country, and its utter want of principle.

He could not see- — and scarcely could understand — evil. When, firm in his inmost desire to be the Father of his country, he was in duced to stand for the Presidency, the fearfully villainous machinations, deceits, egotism, pecu lations, frauds, briberies, &e, which the elec tions periodically bring forth, were thrust upon him individually. This overpowered one of the finest brains the country can boast of, and broke that great, glowing heart ! Few Horace Gree leys in the United States now, I fear ! For some years past he had practically sepa rated himself from The Tribune, though he kept the superintendence of it. He devoted himself chiefly to writing letters, addressed to young men, and reading them at the various institutes. It was a moral and intellectual treat to hear him, though he had but little elocutionary power, and but a poor voice.

But he possessed the eloquence of truth and sincerity, which HORACE GREELEY. 11 touched every heart, and a logic which appealed to every brain. He was a man who excited almost universal love and veneration ; so that when, during the course of the presidential election, he found that, from pecuniary motives, he was reviled, ridiculed, spat upon — despised he could never be — and that contumely and insult were heaped upon him, the vile calumnies seemed to fall too hardly. They burnt into his breast and festered there, until the noble, guile less heart burst asunder with the agonizing bitterness, of unjust ignominy. Like King Lear, he tore his silver locks, and exclaimed — " Ingra titude ! thou marble-hearted fiend, more hide ous, when thou show'st thee in a child, than the sea-monster !" His colossal intellect was shattered to its base, even before the mighty Reaper could gather him to his rest.

The disappointment of his life's work was too ap palling, and madness fell upon him ! Horace Greeley had been the patriotic father of his country — of the broad lands which ex tend from the Atlantic to the Pacific. His opponent, Ulysses Grant, was the scourge of one half of it. The scourge was raised on high — the friend was sent into the gutter ! Let it not be supposed that I would depreciate the many fine qualities of the President of the United States : I merely relate what occurred, and lament.

Chapter III. Brown Stone Fronts

HE worst symptom in American life is its superficiality, morally and socially. In the go-ahead class of Americans there is a desperate love of ostentation, of show, of sham and make-believe ; and a corresponding ■disregard of reality, worth, solidity, and earnest ness. In New York, where this characteristic is especially conspicuous, most men's ambition is to live in a house with a " brown stone front." It is called brown stone, but is of a reddish chocolate colour, and is one of the handsomest stones I know. No matter what the rest of the house is built of — wood, brick, or plaster and daub — it must have a stone front, and look like a stone building. If it cannot be actually veneered with " brown stone," it must at least be plastered to resemble it. Houses are advertised, without any other recommendation than that they have a brown stone front.

That is con sidered the ne plus idtra of earthly habitations - — the summit of all desires — the crowning effort of the love of make-believe. If his house looks like a nobleman's mansion in front — and you could not pay him a greater compliment than to tell him it does — the New Yorker is satisfied. A lady about to marry would make any sacri fice of herself, if a brown stone front were only thrown into the matrimonial bargain. Speak ing with a gentleman of the various lots in life one would like to have chosen, I said I .should like to have been a sea-captain and live always at sea ; he said he would like to have a comfortable income and live " in a brown stone front, on Fifth Avenue." An American lady, a mere casual acquaintance, lamenting to me over her own unhappy married lot, complained that her husband was twice her own age.

I remarked — "You must have been aware of that before marriage." " Oh, yes," she replied ; " but ten years make a great difference in a man turned of fifty ; and besides, when I married him he lived in a brown stone front, while my lover, who was young, had not then made a position, and there was no knowing when he would, so I married — • — " " The ' brown stone front,' " I interposed. She laughed and said, " If he only had it now j should be content, in spite of his age." The "brown stone front" being obtained, the next object seems to be so to furnish th6 house that it may resemble, as nearly as possible, a royal residence. But every article is painted and varnished to look like what it is not. What is apparently massive oak carving betrays itself as deal ; enormous mirrors reflect one foreshortened in a most singular way.

The very "Utrecht velvet" — with which even a New York washerwoman, so great and so general is the love of display, will have her chairs seated — is a compound of some trash that Utrecht would scorn to recognize. Most of this ostentatious class go to Europe for no better purpose than to say they have been, or to gather ideas for making the grandest display on their return home. Numbers of ladies visit Paris with no desire beyond that of seeing the fashions, and taking home something newer than their neighbours have got. To endeavour to dress like a Frenchwoman is laudable enough, but the first two essentials of her dress — appropriateness and unpretentiousness — are always conspicuously absent in the American ladies' toilette. When in Europe they go to state balls and concerts, attend drawing-rooms and aristocratic reunions ; they see and hear of princesses, duchesses, and other women of fashion, who are clothed in purple and fine linen, ermine, velvets and satin, with diamonds, emeralds, pearls, &e, ad libitum ■ — all delicious for a woman to contemplate — and straightway on their returning to their country come down dressed up to this mark, as nearly as circumstances will allow, to the breakfast tables of a common restaurant, having partly ruined their husbands to effect their display.

American husbands, by-the-way, are models in this respect. They do not complain at extra vagance if it only makes a show. On the con trary, the more recklessly money is lavished the more they exult over that fact. " You will find my wife a smart woman," said a husband, glori fying himselfi and his better half; "quite an elegant lady. These sixteen boxes are her lug gage. She spent in Europe thirty thousand dollars on dress." I could have sworn that they lived in a " brown stone front," and that the wife would display her diamonds at the cabin dinner, and so it turned out. Of course there are Americans — both men and women — of talent and genius who visit European cities for the study of art and of science, and who wish to contemplate the marvellous works of bygone ages, while others seek general improvement or the mere excitement of travel.

The greater part, however, visit Europe for the "say" of the thing, and because it denotes that they have wealth to squander. This disposition to ostentation throws an air of flimsiness over all their undertakings. Their buildings have all the same showy, meretricious appearance. Many of their pretentious " white marble" buildings are only veneered to the depth of a few inches. If an earthquake could shake America, they would all fall down like a tower of cards ; or if the nation were to decay like the Roman Empire, there would not remain a vestige in half a century to mark the spot where her cities had stood. There are some substantial blocks of buildings in Broadway and other parts of New York for warehousing purposes, such as we find in Liverpool, Manchester, and Glasgow. The churches are mostly pretty, tasteful structures, but there is not a cathedral to compare with those of the French, German, and Italian cities.

The cathedral in New Orleans — the finest religious monument in the country — was built by the Spaniards. There is, in fact, nothing grand or splendid in point of architecture, solidity, or size. The capitol at Washington has a very shabby back or front (or whatever it is) of brick, the entrance to which is by a small, mean door at the top of an ordinary flight of steps. The Fifth Avenue, where are congregated the much-coveted "brown stone fronts," is, in front — a very handsome looking street — the rich colour of the stone being in itself a beauty unrivalled by any building material as yet in use. If New York were built of that stone entirely, as Aberdeen is of granite and Bath of white stone, it would, in deed, be superb. But the houses behind the stone fronts are mere shells ; and it is only in Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue that these stone fronts even predominate.

There are, how ever, some few exceptions to the general want of substantiality. One is a real stone and marble mansion, back, front, sides, and all, which a Scotch capitalist is building for himself. This mansion is called a palace — saute de mieux — for ostentation extends even to the naming of the most ordinary things — the "Silver Palace Sleep ing Car," to wit. How mellifluous that sounds, but what a horrid place of torture is the reality ! The class of people I have been describing would, I am aware, be termed " shoddy" by every American. You would be told they were merely parvenus, a "fungus-growth of the war," and that you had not seen " our best people." You might reply that you had had letters to senators, judges, admirals, generals, governors, &c, and the answer would be that they were " the wrong ones."

Where, then, are you to look for the right ones ? — there being no inde pendent gentlemen living on their incomes as in other countries. Individuals and families — vol. I. "our best people" — may, indeed, sometimes be met with ; not in society, for there is none, but quite promiscuously, in all sorts of company, there being: no exclusiveness in America. If a woman can afford to wear a good dress and sit at the same table, she will consider her self the equal of whoever may be present ; and there is no conventionalism to put her down or to subdue her. She may eat with her knife, and stretch with it afterwards into the butter at arm's length, without attracting any sort of notice. Indeed, I never heard of a woman being silently tabooed in this country for being vulgar and ill-bred, nor could such ostracism be resorted to ; for the few could not control the many, and refinement and good-breeding in America are the exception and not the rule.

And so it must necessarily be when the presi dential chair can be occupied by men taken from field labour and tailors' shops, and their wives from the kitchen. Society must have a nucleus somewhere, and if that be not in high places, where power and wealth congregate, it is use less to look for it lower down the ladder ; un less, perhaps, among artists and literati, and their number is so small in America, that they do not form a society, but merely, as in Boston, a coterie. Rarely does an American possess a " country seat ;" for, as all the wealthy people are in busi ness, they congregate in the cities. The great showman, Barnum, however, has gone on the European system, and built himself a handsome country home, to which he retires to enjoy his otium cum dignitate. And no doubt the little Bar nums, if there are any, are destined to form the American aristocracy of the future, and might appropriately assume the title of "Princes of Humbug."

There are houses of the "villa" description in the suburbs of most towns ; generally they are of wood, and in a semi-Swiss or Italian style. Although aspiring to be, in the future, the greatest nation on the earth, the Americans are too impetuous, too hasty, to do much for pos terity. Their efforts are too diffused, and their results too ephemeral. They think more about themselves than about their children. They change the old adage, " Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," into " Sufficient unto the day is the good thereof ;" let those that follow pick up the scraps or make for themselves. They build their railroads to carry them, per haps, as long as they live, if they do not live too long. Thus, throughout the country, wherever wooden sheds can be run up to serve for the time, not a decent' station is ever made.

The railroads barely suffice to carry the train along ; 2—2 and it has not unfrequently happened that the passengers have had to turn out in a body to repair the line ere they could proceed. Ameri cans being ever in a state of eager hurry, admire nothing so much as what they call "smartness." Keenness, quickness, sharpness, activity, seem to them the most desirable of all qualities, and they are doubtless the chief characteristics of the American. Fulton launched the first steam-ship on the Hudson, but Papin, a German, first patiently and toilsomely worked out all its intricacies. Professor Moss is said to have been the first who made electricity speak intelligibly ; but much study and "mid night oil " had been devoted to it by others, ere this discovery could be brought to bear fruit. I assume that Americans are more rapid than profound, more ingenious to apply than studious to discover.

They have endeavoured, by a sud den jerk, to invest their new country with all the results attained by the mother countries only after centuries of toil, industry, patient thought, and experience ; but their haste has been in a great degree fatal to their project.

Chapter IV. The American Character

T may seem superfluous, in these days of intimate relations and rapid com munication with the United States, to discourse upon or describe the American character. But probably there are still many whose ideas on the subject are as limited and imperfect as were those of the author herself, before visiting the country. For, com paratively few English men or women go to America, for the mere purposes of travel and observation ; and even those few remain too short a time, and are too strictly enclosed by the conventionalities of visiting and organized sight-seeing, to be able to take a comprehensive and unprejudiced view of the vast and varied field of American character. Charles Dickens and Lord and Lady Amberley were the only compatriots, as mere travellers, the author met with, on her journeyings North, South, and West.

Those who go to America, in most instances, go to make it their home. With Americans it is quite the reverse. Their first and strongest desire is to travel ; and the next is, to travel in Europe. It is with them a passion, a mania, a kind of craving necessity. It is a desire without a reason. " I must see Europe before I die " is its audible expression, over and over again repeated. The fact of having been is what they wish to accomplish, and nothing else. I have heard some Americans say they would so like to see something " very old," which is but a vague idea, at best, for a voyage to Europe. But whatever the motive, it is the desire of every man, woman, and child in America ; and timid women, who would not have dared to enter a street-car alone, and who have never been a hundred yards from their door-sills un attended, have been known, upon having saved enough money for their purpose, to set out on the European tour with all the confidence of "our special correspondent."