A Frenchman in America: Recollections of Men and Things

After the lecture I attended one of the “Saturdays” at the Century Club, and met Mr. Kendal, who, with his talented wife, is having a triumphant 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.

CHAPTER XXX

Visit to the Brooklyn Academy of Music – Rev. Dr. Talmage New York, March 2.

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 theater, 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 worship God, but to hear Mr. Talmage.

At the door the programme was distributed. It consisted of six hymns to be interluded with prayers by the doctor. Between the fifth and sixth, he delivered the lecture, or the sermon, if you insist on the name, and during the sixth there was the collection, 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 subdued conversation going on all around, just as there would be at a theater 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 that strange congregation, went on his or her knees to pray. Most of them put one hand in front of the face, and this was as near as they got that morning to an attitude of devotion. Except for this, and the fact that they did not applaud, there was absolutely no difference between them and any other theater audience I ever saw.

The monotonous hymns were accompanied by a cornet-à-piston, which lent a certain amount of life to them, but very little religious harmony. That cornet was the key-note 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 répertoire of the Salvation Army. Judge of them for yourself. Here are three illustrations culled from the programme:

Sing, O sing, ye heirs of glory!Shout your triumphs as you go:Zion’s gates will open for you,You shall find an entrance through.’Tis the promise of God, full salvation to giveUnto him who on Jesus, his Son, will believe.Though the pathway be lonely, and dangerous too, (sic)Surely Jesus is able to carry me thro’.

This is poetry such as you find inside Christmas crackers.

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 to be where Jesus is,To feel, to see him near.O Paradise, O Paradise!I greatly long to seeThe special place my dearest Lord,In love, prepares for me!

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 who 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 the better world, to the “special place” that is prepared for them. If there be a better world, it will be too good for hypocrites.

After hymn the fifth, Dr. Talmage takes the floor. The audience settled in their seats in evident anticipation 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 the voice have been studied with care, no single platform trick was missing.

The doctor comes on the stage, which is about forty feet wide. He begins slowly. 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. Thereupon 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 never misses fire.

Being an old stager of several years’ standing myself, I admire him professionally. Nobody is edified, nobody is regenerated, nobody is improved, but all are entertained. It is not a divine service, but it is a clever performance, and the Americans never fail to patronize 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.

It is not only the Brooklyn public that are treated 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 advertisement of Dr. Talmage’s paper, called:

CHRISTIAN HERALD AND SIGNS OF OUR TIMES

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 subscription list. Address your subscription to Mr. N., treasurer, etc.

“Signs of our times,” indeed!

CHAPTER XXXI

Virginia – The Hotels – The South – I will Kill a Railway Conductor before I leave America – Philadelphia – Impressions of the Old City Petersburg, Va., March 3.

Left New York 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, all 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. I 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 itself. I have just seen a church built on the model of a Greek temple, and surmounted with a pointed spire lately added. Just imagine to yourself Julius Cæsar with his toga and buskin on, and having a chimney-top hat on his head.

The streets seemed deserted, dead.

To my surprise, the Opera House was crowded to-night. The audience was fashionable and appreciative, but very cool, almost as cool as in Connecticut and Maine.

Heaven be praised! a gentleman invited me to have supper at a club after the lecture.

… March 4.

I am sore all over. I 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 much through the nose for what I had through the mouth.

… Philadelphia, March 4.

Before I return to Europe I will kill a railway conductor.

From Petersburg to Richmond I was the only occupant of the parlor 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 parlor 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 after my comfort. If you have not I will look after it myself.” And I rose and closed the window.

“I want the window open,” said the conductor, and he prepared to re-open it, giving me a mute, impudent scowl.

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.” And I prepared for war. The cur sneaked away and made an exit compared to which a whipped hound’s would be majestic.

…

I am at the Bellevue, a delightful hotel. My friend Wilson Barrett is here, and I have come to spend the day with him. He is playing every night to crowded houses, and after each performance he has to make a speech. This is his third visit to Philadelphia. 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 friend who has been over the same ground as yourself. So I was eager to hear Mr. Wilson Barrett’s impressions of his long tour in the States.

Several points we both agreed perfectly 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, magnificent monarchs of the railroad – had awakened in Mr. Barrett much the same feeling as in myself. We Europeans are used to a form of obedience or, at least, deference from our paid servants, and the arrogant attitude of the American wage-earner first amazes, and then enrages us – when we have not enough humor, or good-humor, to get some amusement out it. It is so novel to be tyrannized over by people whom you pay to attend to your comfort! The American keeps his temper under the process, for he is the best-humored fellow in the world. Besides, a small squabble is no more in his line than a small anything else. It is not worth his while. The Westerner may pull out a pistol and shoot you if you annoy him, but neither he nor the Eastern man will wrangle for mastery.

If such was not 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 Lippincott’s 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 the 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 rejoicings. 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 of July, when the motion to adopt the declaration passed the majority of the Assembly, although not signed by all the delegates, the old bell-ringer 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, grandpa, ring; they’ve signed!”

What a day this old “Liberty Bell” reminds you of!

There, in the Independence Hall, the delegates were gathered. Benjamin Harrison, the ancestor of the present occupier of the 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 proclamation,” 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 Harrison responded with more daring humor, “It 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 Declaration; 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-store man, now a member of President Benjamin Harrison’s Cabinet, and Mr. George W. Childs, 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 Paris Bon Marché, or Mr. Whiteley’s warehouses in London.

By far the most interesting visit was that which I paid to Mr. George W. Childs in his study at the Public Ledger’s offices. It would require a whole volume to describe in detail all the treasures that Mr. Childs has accumulated: curios of all kinds, rare books, manuscripts and autographs, portraits, china, relics from the celebrities of the world, etc. Mr. Childs, like the Prussians during their unwelcome visit to France in 1870, has a strong penchant for clocks. Indeed his collection is the most remarkable in existence. His study is a beautiful sanctum sanctorum; it is also 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. Childs 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. Childs 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 month, and shall look forward 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,” illustrated by Mr. Thomas Nast. I should advise any one who would understand how Jonathan is ruled municipally, 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 a dozen such leaders combined constitute 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 wondering why Americans all seem to be in favor 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 possession of Ireland, they will all go home.”

A foreigner who criticises a nation is happy to see his opinions shared by the natives.

CHAPTER XXXII

My Ideas of the State of Texas – Why I Will Not Go There – The Story of a Frontier Man New York, March 5.

Have had cold audiences in Maine and Connecticut; and indifferent ones in several cities, while I have been warmly received in many others. It seems that, if I went to Texas, I might get it hot.

I have received to-day a Texas paper containing a short editorial marked at the four corners 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 friend 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 everywhere, and, after pitching into me right and left, winds up by warning me 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 strongly object to being shot anywhere, but especially in Texas, where the event would attract so little public attention.

…

Yet, I should have liked to go to Texas, for was it not from that State that, after the publication of “Jonathan and His Continent,” I received the two following letters, which I have kept among my treasures?

Dear Sir:

I have read your book on America and greatly enjoyed it. Please to send me your autograph. 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.

…

And I also imagine that there must be in Texas a delightful primitiveness of manners and good-fellowship.

A friend once related to me the following reminiscence:

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?”

“Oh, that’s all right,” said the clerk, “you may set your mind at rest on that subject.”

“Very 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: Buffalo 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?”

“I’m pretty well,” I replied, without meaning a word of it.

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 and less.

By and by, we both went to sleep. In the morning we woke up 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 companion, 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.”

“I’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 useful to you.”

It was a check for a hundred dollars.

I could have gone down on my knees, as I refused the check and asked that man’s pardon.

…

I lectured in Brooklyn to-night, and am off to the West to-morrow morning.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Cincinnati – 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, and How It Appeared to the Newspaper Reporters Cincinnati, March 7.

My arrival in Cincinnati this morning was anything but triumphal.

On leaving the car, I 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 my things 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 I had in my bag, I managed to bind the portmanteau and have it placed on the cab that drove to the Burnet House.

Immediately after registering my name, 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 transfer baggagemen who, having broken trunks, recommend their owners to go to such and such a place to buy new ones. This goes a long way toward 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 change; any change, even that of the color of water. Anybody who has traveled 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 neighboring 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 Burnet 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 neighborhood, giving me, in American fashion, the history of the owner of each residence we passed. Here was the house of Mr. 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 afterward 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 Burnet Wood – the house of the Oil King, 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.