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diff --git a/old/7187-h.htm.2021-01-26 b/old/7187-h.htm.2021-01-26 new file mode 100644 index 0000000..efad635 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7187-h.htm.2021-01-26 @@ -0,0 +1,6007 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + Seven English Cities, by W. D. Howells + </title> + <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + .side { float: right; font-size: 75%; width: 25%; padding-left: 0.8em; + border-left: dashed thin; margin-left: 0.8em; text-align: left; + text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; + font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Seven English Cities, by William Dean Howells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Seven English Cities + +Author: William Dean Howells + + +Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7187] +This file was first posted on March 24, 2003 +Last Updated: August 22, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEVEN ENGLISH CITIES *** + + + + +Produced by Tricia Gilbert, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks, David Widger +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + +</pre> + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + SEVEN ENGLISH CITIES + </h1> + <h2> + By W. D. Howells + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0011}.jpg" alt="{0011}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0011}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0010}.jpg" alt="{0010}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0010}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> A MODEST LIKING FOR LIVERPOOL </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> SOME MERITS OF MANCHESTER </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> IN SMOKIEST SHEFFIELD </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> NINE DAYS’ WONDER IN YORK </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> TWO YORKISH EPISODES </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> A DAY AT DONCASTER AND AN HOUR OUT OF DURHAM + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> THE MOTHER OF THE AMERICAN ATHENS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> ABERYSTWYTH, A WELSH WATERING-PLACE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> LLANDUDNO, ANOTHER WELSH WATERING-PLACE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> GLIMPSES OF ENGLISH CHARACTER </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_ILL" id="link2H_ILL"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ILLUSTRATIONS + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> A VIEW OF MONK BAR <br /> ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LIVERPOOL + <br /> THE WELLINGTON MONUMENT, LIVERPOOL <br /> THE LIVERPOOL DOCKS <br /> + MANCHESTER CATHEDRAL <br /> TOWN HALL, MANCHESTER <br /> THE MANCHESTER + SHIP-CANAL <br /> TOWN HALL, SHEFFIELD <br /> YORK MINSTER—THE + GRANDEST IN ALL ENGLAND <br /> BOOTHAM BAR AND THE MINSTER <br /> WALMGATE + BAR HAS A BARBICAN <br /> ST. MARY’S ABBEY <br /> CLIFFORD’S + TOWER <br /> YORK AS SEEN FROM THE RIVER <br /> DURHAM CATHEDRAL—NORTHWEST + VIEW <br /> FINCHALE PRIORY <br /> DURHAM CATHEDRAL—ITS MATCHLESS SEAT + ON THE BLUFFS OF THE RIVER <br /> THE “STUMP” OF ST. BOTOLPH’S + CHURCH AGAINST THE SKY <br /> THE WORTHY ANCESTRESS OF FANEUIL HALL AND + QUINCY MARKET-PLACES <br /> THE RIVER AT EVENING <br /> LIFTING ITS TOWER + FROM THE BRINK OF THE WITHAM <br /> FISHING-SHIPS AT GREAT GRIMSBY <br /> + THE BEACH, ABERYSTWYTH <br /> ABERYSTWYTH FROM CRAIG GLAS ROCKS <br /> + LLANDUDNO—THE CITY AND HARBOR <br /> LLANDUDNO FROM GREAT ORME’S + NECK <br /> THE GREAT PIER, LLANDUDNO <br /> CONWAY CASTLE <br /> PLAS MAWR + <br /> A PRESENTATION AT COURT <br /> THE ENGLISH HOUSEMAID <br /> LEADS A + LIFE OF GAYETY ON THE SANDS <br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A MODEST LIKING FOR LIVERPOOL + </h2> + <p> + Why should the proud stomach of American travel, much tossed in the + transatlantic voyage, so instantly have itself carried from Liverpool to + any point where trains will convey it? Liverpool is most worthy to be seen + and known, and no one who looks up from the bacon and eggs of his first + hotel breakfast after landing, and finds himself confronted by the + coal-smoked Greek architecture of St. George’s Hall, can deny that + it is of a singularly noble presence. The city has moments of failing in + the promise of this classic edifice, but every now and then it reverts to + it, and reminds the traveller that he is in a great modern metropolis of + commerce by many other noble edifices. + </p> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + Liverpool does not remind him of this so much as the good and true + Baedeker professes, in the dockside run on the overhead railway (as the + place unambitiously calls its elevated road); but then, as I noted in my + account of Southampton, docks have a fancy of taking themselves in, and + eluding the tourist eye, and even when they “flank the Mersey for a + distance of 6-7 M.” they do not respond to American curiosity so + frankly as could be wished. They are like other English things in that, + however, and it must be said for them that when apparent they are + sometimes unimpressive. From my own note-book, indeed, I find that I + pretended to think them “wonderful and almost endless,” and so + I dare say they are. But they formed only a very perfunctory interest of + our day at Liverpool, where we had come to meet, not to take, a steamer. + </p> + <p> + Our run from London, in the heart of June, was very quick and pleasant, + through a neat country and many tidy towns. In the meadows the elms seemed + to droop like our own rather than to hold themselves oakenly upright like + the English; the cattle stood about in the yellow buttercups, knee-deep, + white American daisies, and red clover, and among the sheep we had our + choice of shorn and unshorn; they were equally abundant. Some of the + blossomy May was left yet on the hawthorns, and over all the sky hovered, + with pale-white clouds in pale-blue spaces of air like an inverted lake of + bonnyclabber. We stopped the night at Chester, and the next evening, in + the full daylight of 7.40, we pushed on to Liverpool, over lovely levels, + with a ground swell like that of Kansas plains, under a sunset drying its + tears and at last radiantly smiling. + </p> + <h3> + II + </h3> + <p> + The hotel in Liverpool swarmed and buzzed with busy and murmurous American + arrivals. One could hardly get at the office window, on account of them, + to plead for a room. A dense group of our countrywomen were buying + picture-postals of the rather suave office-ladies, and helplessly fawning + on them in the inept confidences of American women with all persons in + official or servile attendance. “Let me stay here,” one of + them entreated, “because there’s such a draught at the other + window. May I?” She was a gentle child of forty-five or fifty; and I + do not know whether she was allowed to stay in the sheltered nook or not, + tender creature. As she was in every one else’s way there, possibly + she was harshly driven into the flaw at the other window. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0021}.jpg" alt="{0021}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0021}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + The place was a little America which swelled into a larger with the + arrivals of the successive steamers, though the soft swift English trains + bore our co-nationals away as rapidly as they could. Many familiar accents + remained till the morning, and the breakfast-room was full of a nasal + resonance which would have made one at home anywhere in our East or West. + I, who was then vainly trying to be English, escaped to the congenial top + of the farthest bound tram, and flew, at the rate of four miles an hour, + to the uttermost suburbs of Liverpool, whither no rumor of my native + speech could penetrate. It was some balm to my wounded pride of country to + note how pale and small the average type of the local people was. The + poorer classes swarmed along a great part of the tram-line in side streets + of a hard, stony look, and what characterized itself to me as a sort of + iron squalor seemed to prevail. You cannot anywhere have great prosperity + without great adversity, just as you cannot have day without night, and + the more Liverpool evidently flourished the more it plainly languished. I + found no pleasure in the paradox, and I was not overjoyed by the + inevitable ugliness of the brick villas of the suburbs into which these + obdurate streets decayed. But then, after divers tram changes, came the + consolation of beautiful riverside beaches, thronged with people who + looked gay at that distance, and beyond the Mersey rose the Welsh hills, + blue, blue. + </p> + <h3> + III + </h3> + <p> + At the end of the tram-line, where we necessarily dismounted, we rejected + a thatched cottage, offering us tea, because we thought it too thatched + and too cottage to be quite true (though I do not now say that there were + vermin in the straw roof), and accepted the hospitality of a pastry-cook’s + shop. We felt the more at home with the kind woman who kept it because she + had a brother at Chicago in the employ of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, + and had once been in Stratford-on-Avon; this doubly satisfied us as + cultivated Americans. She had a Welsh name, and she testified to a great + prevalence of Welsh and Irish in the population of Liverpool; besides, she + sent us to a church of the Crusaders at Little Crosby, and it was no fault + of hers that we did not find it. We found one of the many old crosses for + which Little Crosby is named, and this was quite as much as we merited. It + stood at the intersection of the streets in what seemed the fragment of a + village, not yet lost in the vast maw of the city, and it calmed all the + simple neighborhood, so that we sat down at its foot and rested a long, + long minute till the tram came by and took us back into the loud, hard + heart of Liverpool. + </p> + <p> + I do not mean to blame it, for it was no louder or harder than the hearts + of other big towns, and it had some alleviation from the many young + couples who were out together half-holidaying in the unusually pleasant + Saturday weather. I wish their complexions had been better, but you cannot + have South-of-England color if you live as far north as Liverpool, and all + the world knows what the American color is. The young couples abounded in + the Gallery of Fine Arts, where they frankly looked at one another instead + of the pictures. The pictures might have been better, but then they might + have been worse (there being examples of Filippo Lippi, Memmi, Holbein, + and, above all, the <i>Dante’s Dream</i> of Rossetti); and in any + case those couples could come and see them when they were old men and + women; but now they had one another in a moment of half-holiday which + could not last forever. + </p> + <p> + In the evening there were not so many lovers at the religious meetings + before the classic edifice opposite the hotel, where the devotions were + transacted with the help of a brass-band; but there were many youths + smoking short pipes, and flitting from one preacher to another, in the + half-dozen groups. Some preachers were nonconformist, but there was one + perspiring Anglican priest who labored earnestly with his hearers, and who + had more of his aspirates in the right place. Many of his hearers were in + the rags which seem a favorite wear in Liverpool, and I hope his words did + their poor hearts good. + </p> + <p> + Slightly apart from the several congregations, I found myself with a + fellow-foreigner of seafaring complexion who addressed me in an accent so + unlike my own American that I ventured to answer him in Italian. He was + indeed a Genoese, who had spent much time in Buenos Ayres and was + presently thinking of New York; and we had some friendly discourse + together concerning the English. His ideas of them were often so parallel + with my own that I hardly know how to say he thought them an improvident + people. I owned that they spent much more on state, or station, than the + Americans; but we neither had any censure for them otherwise. He was of + that philosophic mind which one is rather apt to encounter in the Latin + races, and I could well wish for his further acquaintance. His talk rapt + me to far other and earlier scenes, and I seemed to be conversing with him + under a Venetian heaven, among objects of art more convincing than the + equestrian statue of the late Queen, who had no special motive I could + think of for being shown to her rightly loving subjects on horseback. We + parted with the expressed hope of seeing each other again, and if this + should meet his eye and he can recall the pale young man, with the dark + full beard, who chatted with him between the pillars of the Piazzetta, + forty years before our actual encounter I would be glad of his address. + </p> + <h3> + IV + </h3> + <p> + How strange are the uses of travel! There was a time when the mention of + Liverpool would have conjured up for me nothing but the thought of + Hawthorne, who spent divers dull consular years there, and has left a + record of them which I had read, with the wish that it were cheerfuler. + Yet, now, here on the ground his feet might have trod, and in the very + smoke he breathed, I did not once think of him. I thought as little of + that poor Felicia Hemans, whose poetry filled my school-reading years with + the roar of the wintry sea breaking from the waveless Plymouth Bay on the + stern and rock-bound coast where the Pilgrim Fathers landed on a bowlder + measuring eight by ten feet, now fenced in against the predatory hammers + and chisels of reverent visitors. I knew that Gladstone was born at + Liverpool, but not Mrs. Oliphant, and the only literary shade I could + summon from a past vague enough to my ignorance was William Roscoe, whose + <i>Life of Leo X.</i>, in the Bohn Library, had been too much for my young + zeal when my zeal was still young. My other memories of Liverpool have + been acquired since my visit, and I now recur fondly to the picturesque + times when King John founded a castle there, to the prouder times when Sir + Francis Bacon represented it in Parliament; or again to the brave days + when it resisted Prince Rupert for three weeks, and the inglorious epoch + when the new city (it was then only some four or five hundred years old) + began to flourish on the trade in slaves with the colonies of the Spanish + Main, and on the conjoint and congenial traffic in rum, sugar, and + tobacco. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0027}.jpg" alt="{0027}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0027}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + It will be suspected from these reminiscences that I have been studying a + page of fine print in Baedeker, and I will not deceive the reader. It is + true; but it is also true that I had some wonder, altogether my own, that + so great a city should make so small an appeal to the imagination. In this + it outdoes almost any metropolis of our own. Even in journalism, an + intensely modern product, it does not excel; Manchester has its able and + well-written <i>Guardian</i>, but what has Liverpool? Glasgow has its + Glasgow School of Painting, but again what has Liverpool? It is said that + not above a million of its people live in it; all the rest, who can, + escape to Chester, where they perhaps vainly hope to escape the Americans. + There, intrenched in charming villas behind myrtle hedges, they measurably + do so; but Americans are very penetrating, and I would not be sure that + the thickest and highest hedge was invulnerable to them. As it is, they + probably constitute the best society of Liverpool, which the natives have + abandoned to them, though they do not constitute it permanently, but + consecutively. Every Cunarder, every White Star, pours out upon a city + abandoned by its own good society a flood of cultivated Americans, who + eddy into its hotels, and then rush out of them by every train within + twenty-four hours, and often within twenty-five minutes. They understand + that there are no objects of interest in Liverpool; and they are not met + at the Customs with invitations to breakfast, luncheon, and dinner from + the people of rank and fashion with whom they have come to associate. + These have their stately seats in the lovely neighboring country, but they + are not at the landing-stage, and even the uncultivated American cannot + stay for the vast bourgeoisie of which Liverpool, like the cities of his + own land, is composed. Our own cities have a social consciousness, and are + each sensible of being a centre, with a metropolitan destiny; but the + strange thing about Liverpool and the like English towns is that they are + without any social consciousness. Their meek millions are socially unborn; + they can come into the world only in London, and in their prenatal + obscurity they remain folded in a dreamless silence, while all the + commercial and industrial energies rage round them in a gigantic maturity. + </p> + <h3> + V + </h3> + <p> + The time was when Liverpool was practically the sole port of entry for our + human cargoes, indentured apprentices of the beautiful, the historical. + With the almost immediate transference of the original transatlantic + steamship interests from Bristol, Liverpool became the only place where + you could arrive. American lines, long erased from the seas, and the Inman + line, the Cunard line, the White Star line, and the rest, would land you + nowhere else. Then heretical steamers began to land you at Glasgow; worse + schismatics carried you to Southampton; there were heterodox craft that + touched at Plymouth, and now great swelling agnostics bring you to London + itself. Still, Liverpool remains the greatest port of entry for our + probationers, who are bound out to the hotels and railroad companies of + all Europe till they have morally paid back their fare. The superstition + that if you go in a Cunarder you can sleep on both ears is no longer so + exclusive as it once was; yet the Cunarder continues an ark of safety for + the timid and despairing, and the cooking is so much better than it used + to be that if in contravention of the old Cunard rule against a passenger’s + being carried overboard you do go down, you may be reasonably sure of + having eaten something that the wallowing sea-monsters will like in you. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0031}.jpg" alt="{0031}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0031}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + I have tried to give some notion of the fond behavior of the arriving + Americans in the hotels; no art can give the impression of their exceeding + multitude. Expresses, panting with as much impatience as the disciplined + English expresses ever suffer themselves to show, await them in the + stations, which are effectively parts of the great hotels, and whir away + to London with them as soon as they can drive up from the steamer; but + many remain to rest, to get the sea out of their heads and legs, and to + prepare their spirits for adjustment to the novel conditions. These the + successive trains carry into the heart of the land everywhere, these and + their baggage, to which they continue attached by their very + heart-strings, invisibly stretching from their first-class corridor + compartments to the different luggage-vans. I must say they have very + tenderly, very perfectly imagined us, all those hotel people and railroad + folk, and fold us, anxious and bewildered exiles, in a reassuring and + consoling embrace which leaves all their hands—they are Briarean—free + for the acceptance of our wide, wild tips. You may trust yourself + implicitly to their care, but if you are going to Oxford do not trust the + head porter who tells you to take the London and Northwestern, for then + you will have to change four times on the way and at every junction + personally see that your baggage is unladen and started anew to its + destination. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + SOME MERITS OF MANCHESTER + </h2> + <p> + I will suppose the reader not to be going to Oxford, but, in compliance + with the scheme of this paper, to Manchester, where there is perhaps no + other reason for his going. He will there, for one thing, find the supreme + type of the railroad hotel which in England so promptly shelters and so + kindly soothes the fluttered exile. At Manchester, even more than at + Liverpool, we are imagined in the immense railroad station hotel, which is + indeed perhaps superorganized and over-convenienced after an American + ideal: one does not, for instance, desire a striking, or even a ticking, + clock in the transom above one’s bedroom door; but the like type of + hotel is to be found at every great railroad centre or terminal in + England, and it is never to be found quite bad, though of course it is + sometimes better and sometimes worse. It is hard to know if it is more + hotel or more station; perhaps it is a mixture of each which defies + analysis; but in its well-studied composition you pass, as it were, from + your car to your room, as from one chamber to another. This is putting the + fact poetically; but, prosaically, the intervening steps are few at the + most; and when you have entered your room your train has ceased to be. The + simple miracle would be impossible in America, where our trains, when not + shrieking at the tops of their whistles, are backing and filling with a + wild clangor of their bells, and making a bedlam of their stations; but in + England they + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Come like shadows, so depart,” + </pre> + <p> + and make no sound within the vast caravansary where the enchanted + traveller has changed from them into a world of dreams. + </p> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + These hotels are, next to the cathedrals, perhaps the greatest wonder of + England, and in Manchester the railway hotel is in some ways more + wonderful than the cathedral, which is not so much planned on our native + methods. Yet this has the merit, if it is a merit, of antedating our + Discovery by nearly a century, and pre-historically it is indefinitely + older. My sole recorded impression of it is that I found it smelling + strongly of coal-gas, such as comes up the register when your furnace is + mismanaged; but that is not strange in such a manufacturing centre; and it + would be paltering with the truth not to own a general sense of the beauty + and grandeur in it which no English cathedral is without. The morning was + fitly dim and chill, and one could move about in the vague all the more + comfortably for the absence of that appeal of thronging monuments which + harasses and bewilders the visitor in other cathedrals; one could really + give one’s self up to serious emotion, and not be sordidly and + rapaciously concerned with objects of interest. Manchester has been an + episcopal see only some fifty years; before that the cathedral was simply + T’ Owd Church, and in this character it is still venerable, and is + none the less so because of the statue of Oliver Cromwell which holds the + chief place in the open square before it. Call it an incongruity, if you + will, but that enemy of episcopacy is at least not accused of stabling his + horses in The Old Church at Manchester, or despoiling it of its sacred + images and stained glass, and he merits a monument there if anywhere. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0045}.jpg" alt="{0045}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0045}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + With the constantly passing trams which traverse the square, he is + undoubtedly more significant of modern Manchester than the episcopacy is, + and perhaps of that older Manchester which held for him against the king, + and that yet older Manchester of John Bradford, the first martyr of the + Reformation to suffer death at the stake in Smithfield. Of the still yet + older, far older Manchester, which trafficked with the Greeks of + Marseilles, and later passed under the yoke of Agricola and was a Roman + military station, and got the name of Maen-ceaster from the Saxons, and + was duly bedevilled by the Danes and mishandled by the Normans, there may + be traces in the temperament of the modern town which would escape even + the scrutiny of the hurried American. Such a compatriot was indeed much + more bent upon getting a pair of cotton socks, like those his own + continent wears almost universally in summer, but a series of exhaustive + visits to all the leading haberdashers in Manchester developed the strange + fact that there, in the world-heart of the cotton-spinning industry, there + was no such thing to be found. In Manchester there are only woollen socks, + heavier or lighter, to be bought, and the shopmen smile pityingly if you + say, in your strange madness, that woollen socks are not for summer wear. + Possibly, however, it was not summer in Manchester, and we were misled by + the almanac. Possibly we had been spoiled by three weeks of warm, sunny + rain on the Welsh coast, and imagined a vain thing in supposing that the + end of August was not the beginning of November. + </p> + <h3> + II + </h3> + <p> + I thought Manchester, however, as it shows itself in its public edifices, + a most dignified town, with as great beauty as could be expected of a + place which has always had so much to do besides looking after its figure + and complexion. The very charming series or system of parks, public + gardens, and playgrounds, unusual in their number and variety, had a + sympathetic allure in the gray, cool light, even to the spectator passing + in a hurried hansom. They have not the unity of the Boston or Chicago + parkways, and I will own that I had not come to Manchester for them. What + interested me more were the miles and miles of comfortable-looking little + brick houses in which, for all I knew, the mill-labor dwelt. Very possibly + it did not; the mills themselves are now nearly all, or mostly, outside of + Manchester, and perhaps for this reason I did not find the slums, when + shown them, very slummy, and I saw no such dreadful shapes of rags and + dirt as in Liverpool. We passed through a quarter of large, old-fashioned + mansions, as charming as they were unimagined of Manchester; but these + could not have been the dwellings of the mill-hands, any more than of the + mill-owners. The mill-owners, at least, live in suburban palaces and + villas, which I fancy by this time are not + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + —“pricking a cockney ear,” + </pre> + <p> + as in the time of Tennyson’s “Maud.” + </p> + <p> + What wild and whirling insolences, however, the people who have greatly + made the greatness of England have in all times suffered from their poets + and novelists, with few exceptions! One need not be a very blind devotee + of commercialism or industrialism to resent the affronts put upon them, + when one comes to the scenes of such mighty achievement as Liverpool, and + Manchester, and Sheffield; but how mildly they seem to have taken it all—with + what a meek subordination and sufferance! One asks one’s self + whether the society of such places can be much inferior to that of + Pittsburg, or Chicago, or St. Louis, which, even from the literary attics + of New York, we should not exactly allow ourselves to spit upon. + Practically, I know nothing about society in Manchester, or rather, out of + it; and I can only say of the general type, of richer or poorer, as I saw + it in the streets, that it was uncommonly good. Not so many women as men + were abroad in such weather as we had, and I cannot be sure that the sex + shows there that superiority physically which it has long held morally + with us. One learns in the north not to look for the beautiful color of + the south and west; but in Manchester the average faces were intelligent + and the figures good. + </p> + <h3> + III + </h3> + <p> + With such a journal as the Manchester <i>Guardian</i> still keeping its + high rank among English newspapers, there cannot be question of the + journalistic sort of thinking in the place. Of the sort that comes to its + effect in literature, such as, say, Mrs. Gaskell’s novels, there may + also still be as much as ever; and I will not hazard my safe ignorance in + a perilous conjecture. I can only say that of the Unitarianism which + eventuated in that literature, I heard it had largely turned to + episcopacy, as Unitarianism has in our own Boston. I must not forget that + one of our religions, now a dying faith, was invented in Manchester by Ann + Lee, who brought, through the usual persecutions, Shakerism to such + spiritual importance as it has now lost in these States. Only those who + have known the Shakers, with their good lives and gentle ways, can regret + with me the decline of the celibate communism which their foundress + imagined in her marital relations with the Lancashire blacksmith she left + behind her. + </p> + <p> + I am reminded (or perhaps instructed) by Mr. Hope Moncrieff in Black’s + excellent <i>Guide to Manchester</i> that before Mrs. Gaskell’s + celebrity the fitful fame of De Quincey shed a backward gleam upon his + native place, which can still show the house where he was probably born + and the grammar-school he certainly ran away from. In my forgetfulness, or + my ignorance, that Manchester was the mother of this tricksy master-spirit + of English prose, who was an idol of my youth, I failed to visit either + house. The renown of Cobden and of Bright is precious to a larger world + than mine; and the name of the stalwart Quaker friend of man is dear to + every American who remembers the heroic part he played in our behalf + during our war for the Union. It is one of the amusing anomalies of the + British constitution, that the great city from whose political fame these + names are inseparable should have had no representation in Parliament from + Cromwell’s time to Victoria’s. Fancy Akron, Ohio, or Grand + Rapids, Michigan, without a member of Congress! + </p> + <p> + {Illustration: TOWN HALL, MANCHESTER} + </p> + <p> + The “Manchester school” of political economy has long since + passed into reproach if not obloquy with people for whom a byword is a + potent weapon, and perhaps the easiest they can handle, and I am not + myself so extreme a <i>laissez-faireist</i> as to have thought of that + school with pathos in the city of its origin; but I dare say it was a good + thing in its time. We are only now slowly learning how to apply the + opposite social principles in behalf of the Man rather than the Master, + and we have not yet surmounted all the difficulties or dangers of the + experiment. It is droll how, in a tolerably well-meaning world like this, + any sort of contempt becomes inclusive, and a whole population suffers for + the vice, or it may be the virtue, of a very small majority, or a very + powerful minority. Probably the most liberal and intelligent populations + of Great Britain are those of Manchester and Birmingham, names which have + stood for a hard and sordid industrialism, unrelieved by noble sympathies + and impulses. It is quite possible that a less generous spirit than mine + would have censured the “Manchester school” for the weather of + the place, and found in its cold gray light the effect of the Gradgrind + philosophy which once wrapt a world of fiction in gloom. + </p> + <h3> + IV + </h3> + <p> + I can only be sure that the light, what little there was of it, was very + cold and gray, but it quite sufficed to show the huge lowries, as the + wagons are called, passing through the streets with the cotton fabrics of + the place in certain stages of manufacture: perhaps the raw, perhaps the + finished material. In Manchester itself one sees not much else of “the + cotton-spinning chorus” which has sent its name so far. The cotton + is now spun in ten or twenty towns in the nearer or farther neighborhood + of the great city, as every one but myself and some ninety millions of + other Americans well know. I had seen something of cotton-mills in our + Lowell, and I was eager, if not willing, to contrast them with the mills + of Manchester; but such of these as still remained there were, for my + luckless moment, inoperative. Personal influences brought me within one or + two days of their starting up; one almost started up during my brief stay; + but a great mill, employing perhaps a thousand hands, cannot start up for + the sake of the impression desired by the aesthetic visitor, and I had to + come away without mine. + </p> + <p> + I had to come away without that personal acquaintance with the great + Manchester ship-canal which I almost equally desired. Coming or going, I + asked about it, and was told, looking for it from the car window, there, + <i>there</i> it was! but beyond a glimpse of something very long and very + straight marking the landscape with lines no more convincing than those + which science was once decided, and then undecided, to call canals on the + planet Mars, I had no sight of it. I do not say this was not my fault; and + I will not pretend that the canal, like the mills of Manchester, was not + running. I dare say I was not in the right hands, but this was not for + want of trying to get into them. In the local delusion that it was then + summer, those whose kindness might have befriended the ignorance of the + stranger were “away on their holidays”: that was exactly the + phrase. + </p> + <p> + When, by a smiling chance, I fell into the right hands and was borne to + the Cotton Exchange I did not fail of a due sense of the important scene, + I hope. The building itself, like the other public buildings of + Manchester, is most dignified, and the great hall of the exchange is very + noble. I would not, if I could, have repressed a thrill of pride in seeing + our national colors and emblems equalled with those of Great Britain at + one end of the room, but these were the only things American in the + impression left. We made our way through the momently thickening groups on + the floor, and in the guidance of a member of the exchange found a + favorable point of observation in the gallery. From this the vast space + below showed first a moving surface of hats, with few silk toppers among + them, but a multitude of panamas and other straws. The marketing was not + carried on with anything like the wild, rangy movement of our Stock + Exchange, and the floor sent up no such hell-roaring (there is no other + phrase for it) tumult as rises from the mad but not malign demons of that + most dramatic representation of perdition. The merchants, alike staid, + whether old or young, congregated in groups which, dealing in a common + type of goods, kept the same places till, toward three o’clock, they + were lost in the mass which covered the floor. Even then there was no + uproar, no rush or push, no sharp cries or frenzied shouting; but from the + crowd, which was largely made up of elderly men, there rose a sort of + surd, rich hum, deepening ever, and never breaking into a shriek of + torment or derision. It was not histrionic, and yet for its commercial + importance it was one of the most moving spectacles which could offer + itself to the eye in the whole world. + </p> + <p> + {Illustration: THE MANCHESTER SHIP-CANAL} + </p> + <p> + I cannot pretend to have profited by my visit to that immensely valuable + deposit of books, bought from the Spencer family at Althorp, and dedicated + as the Rylands library to the memory of a citizen of Manchester. Books in + a library, except you have time and free access to them, are as baffling + as so many bottles in a wine-cellar, which are not opened for you, and + which if they were would equally go to your head without final advantage. + I find, therefore, that my sole note upon the Rylands Library is the very + honest one that it smelt, like the cathedral, of coal-gas. The absence of + this gas was the least merit of the beautiful old Chetham College, with + its library dating from the seventeenth century, and claiming to have been + the first free library in England, and doubtless the world. In the + cloistered picturesqueness of the place, its mediaeval memorials, and its + ancient peace, I found myself again in those dear Middle Ages which are + nowhere quite wanting in England, and against which I rubbed off all + smirch of the modernity I had come to Manchester for. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IN SMOKIEST SHEFFIELD + </h2> + <p> + If I had waited a little till I had got into the beautiful Derbyshire + country which lies, or rather rolls, between Manchester and Sheffield, I + could as easily have got rid of my epoch in the smiling agricultural + landscape. I do not know just the measure of the Black Country in England, + or where Sheffield begins to be perhaps the blackest spot in it; but I am + sure that nothing not surgically clean could be whiter than the roads + that, almost as soon as we were free of Manchester, began to climb the + green, thickly wooded hills, and dip into the grassy and leafy valleys. In + the very heart of the loveliness we found Sheffield most nobly posed + against a lurid sunset, and clouding the sky, which can never be certain + of being blue, with the smoke of a thousand towering chimneys. From + whatever point you have it, the sight is most prodigious, but no doubt the + subjective sense of the great ducal mansions and estates which neighbor + the mirky metropolis of steel and iron has its part in heightening the + dramatic effect. + </p> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + The English, with their love of brevity and simplicity, call these proud + seats the Dukeries, but our affair was not with them, and I shall not be + able to follow the footmen or butlers or housekeepers who would so + obligingly show them to the reader in my company. I had a fine + consciousness of passing some of them on my way into the town, and when + there of being, however, incongruously, in the midst of them. Worksop, + more properly than Sheffield, is the plebeian heart of these aristocratic + homes, or sojourns, which no better advised traveller, or less hurried, + will fail to see. But I was in Sheffield to see the capital of the Black + Country in its most characteristic aspects, and I thought it felicitously + in keeping, after I had dined (less well than I could have wished, at the + railway hotel which scarcely kept the promise made for it by other like + hotels) that I should be tempted beyond my strength to go and see that + colored opera which we had lately sent, after its signal success with us, + to an even greater prosperity in England. <i>In Dahomey</i> is a musical + drama not pitched in the highest key, but it is a genuine product of our + national life, and to witness its performance by the colored brethren who + invented it, and were giving it with great applause in an atmosphere quite + undarkened by our racial prejudices, was an experience which I would not + have missed for many Dukeries. The kindly house was not so suffocatingly + full that it could not find breath for cheers and laughter; but I proudly + felt that no one there could delight so intelligently as the sole + American, in the familiar Bowery figures, the blue policemen, the varying + darky types, which peopled a scene largely laid in Africa. The local New + York suggestions were often from Mr. Edward Harrigan, and all the more + genuine for that, but there was a final cake-walk which owed its + inspiration wholly to the genius of a race destined to greater triumphs in + music and art, and perhaps to a kindlier civilization than our ideals have + evolved in yet. It was pleasant to look upon those different shades of + color, from dead black to creamy blond, in their novel relief against an + air of ungrudging, of even respectful, appreciation, and I dare say the + poor things liked it for themselves as much as I liked it for them. At a + fine moment of the affair I was aware of a figure in evening dress, + standing near me, and regarding the stage with critical severity: a young + man, but shrewd and well in hand, who, as the unmistakable manager, was, I + hope, finally as well satisfied as the other spectators. + </p> + <h3> + II + </h3> + <p> + I myself came away entirely satisfied, indeed, but for the lasting pang I + inflicted upon myself by denying a penny to the ragged wretch who + superfluously opened the valves of my hansom for me. My explanation to my + soul was that I had no penny in my pocket, and that it would have been + folly little short of crime to give so needy a wretch sixpence. But would + it? Would it have corrupted him, since pauperize him further it could not? + I advise the reader who finds himself in the like case to give the + sixpence, and if he cares for the peace of my conscience, to make it a + shilling; or, come! a half-crown, if he wishes to be truly handsome. It is + astonishing how these regrets persist; but perhaps in this instance I owe + the permanence of my pang to those frequent appeals to one’s pity + which repeated themselves in Sheffield. As I had noted at Liverpool I now + noted at Sheffield that you cannot have great prosperity without having + adversity, just as you cannot have heat without cold or day without dark. + The one substantiates and verifies the other; and I perceived that + wherever business throve it seemed to be at the cost of somebody; though + even when business pines it is apparently no better. The thing ought to be + looked into. + </p> + <p> + At the moment of my visit to Sheffield, it happened that many works were + running half-time or no time, and many people were out of work. At one + place there was a little oblong building between branching streets, round + which sat a miserable company of Murchers, as I heard them called, on long + benches under the overhanging roof, who were too obviously, who were + almost offensively, out of work. Some were old and some young, some dull + and some fierce, some savage and some imbecile in their looks, and they + were all stained and greasy and dirty, and looked their apathy or their + grim despair. Even the men who were coming to or from their work at + dinner-time looked stunted and lean and pale, with no color of that south + of England bloom with which they might have favored a stranger. Slatternly + girls and women abounded, and little babies carried about by a little + larger babies, and of course kissed on their successive layers of dirt. + There were also many small boys who, I hope, were not so wicked as they + were ragged. At noon-time they hung much about the windows of cookshops + which one would think their sharp hunger would have pierced to the + steaming and smoking dishes within. The very morning after I had denied + that man a penny at the theatre door, and was still smarting to think I + had not given him sixpence, I saw a boy of ten, in the cut-down tatters of + a man, gloating upon a meat-pie which a cook had cruelly set behind the + pane in front of him. I took out the sixpence which I ought to have given + that poor man, and made it a shilling, and put it into the boy’s + wonderfully dirty palm, and bade him go in and get the pie. He looked at + me, and he looked at the shilling, and then I suppose he did as he was + bid. But I ought to say, in justice to myself, that I never did anything + of the kind again as long as I remained in Sheffield. I felt that I owed a + duty to the place and must not go about corrupting the populace for my + selfish pleasure. + </p> + <h3> + III + </h3> + <p> + Between our hotel and the main part of the town there yawned a black + valley, rather nobly bridged, or viaducted, and beyond it in every + direction the chimneys of the many works thickened in the perspectives. It + was really like a dead forest, or like thick-set masts of shipping in a + thronged port; or the vents of tellurian fires, which send up their flames + by night and their smoke by day. It was splendid, it was magnificent, it + was insurpassably picturesque. People must have painted it often, but if + some bravest artist-soul would come, reverently, not patronizingly, and + portray the sight in its naked ugliness, he would create one of the most + beautiful masterpieces in the world. On our first morning the sun, when it + climbed to the upper heavens, found a little hole in the dun pall, and + shone down through it, and tried to pierce through the more immediate + cloud above the works; but it could not, and it ended by shutting the hole + under it, and disappearing. + </p> + <p> + Beyond the foul avenues thridding the region of the works, and smelling of + the decay of market-houses, were fine streets of shops and churches, and I + dare say comely dwellings, with tram-cars ascending and descending their + hilly slopes. The stores I find noted as splendid, and in my pocket-book I + say that outside of the market-house, before you got to those streets, + there are doves and guinea-pigs as well as a raven for sale in cages; and + the usual horrible English display of flesh meats. The trams were one + story, like our trolleys, without roof-seats, and there were plenty of + them; but nothing could keep me, I suppose, till I had seen one of the + works. Each of these stands in a vast yard, or close, by itself, with many + buildings, and they are of all sorts; but I chose what I thought the most + typical, and overcame the reluctance of the manager to let me see it. He + said I had no idea what tricks were played by other makers to find out any + new processes and steal them; but this was after I had pleaded my innocent + trade of novelist, and assured him of my congenital incapability of + understanding, much less conveying from the premises, the image of the + simplest and oldest process. Then he gave me for guide an intelligent man + who was a penknife-maker by trade, but was presently out of work, and glad + to earn my fee. + </p> + <p> + My guide proved a most decent, patient, and kindly person, and I hope it + is no betrayal of confidence to say that he told me the men in these + multitudinous shops work by the piece. The grinders furnish their + grindstones and all their tools for making the knives; there is no dry + grinding, such as used to fill the lungs of the grinders with deadly + particles of steel and stone, and bring them to an early death; but + sometimes a stone, which ordinarily lasts six months, will burst and drive + the grinder through the roof. The blade-makers do their own forging and + hammering, and it is from first to last apparently all hand-work. But it + is head-work and heart-work too, and the men who wrought at it wrought + with such intensity and constancy that they did not once look up or round + where we paused to look on. I was made to know that trade was dull and + work slack, and these fellows were lucky fellows to have anything to do. + Still I did not envy them; and I felt it a distinct relief to pass from + their shops into the cool, dim crypt which was filled with tusks of ivory, + in all sizes from those of the largest father elephant to those of the + babes of the herd; these were milk-tusks, I suppose. They get dearer as + the elephants get scarcer; and that must have been why I paid as much for + a penknife in the glittering showroom as it would have cost me in New + York, with the passage money and the duties added. Because of the price, + perhaps, I did not think of buying the two-thousand-bladed penknife I saw + there; but I could never have used all the blades, now that we no longer + make quill pens. I looked fondly at the maker’s name on the knife I + did buy, and said that the table cutlery of a certain small household + which set itself up forty years ago had borne the same: but the pleasant + salesman did not seem to feel the pathos of the fact so much as I. + </p> + <h3> + IV + </h3> + <p> + There is not only a vast deal of industry in Sheffield, but there is an + unusual abundance of history, as there might very well be in a place that + began life, in the usual English fashion, under the Britons and grew into + municipal consciousness in the fostering care of the Romans and the ruder + nurture of the Saxons, Danes, and Normans. Lords it had of the last, and + the great line of the Earls of Shrewsbury presently rose and led Sheffield + men back to battle in France, where the first earl fell on the bloody + field, and so many of the men died with him in 1453 that there was not a + house in all the region which did not mourn a loss. Which of the Roses + Sheffield held for, White or Red, I am not sure; but we will say that it + duly suffered for one or the other; and it is certain that the great + Cardinal Wolsey rested eighteen days at Sheffield Manor just before he + went to die at Leicester; and Mary Queen of Scots spent fourteen years of + sorrowful captivity, sometimes at the Manor and sometimes in Sheffield + Castle. This hold was taken by the Parliamentarians in the Civil War; but + the famous industries of the place had begun long before; so that Chaucer + could say of one of his pilgrims, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “A Sheffield thwytel bare he in his hose.” + </pre> + <p> + Thwytels, or whittles, figured in the broils and stage-plays of + Elizabethan times, and three gross of them were exported from Liverpool in + 1589, when the Sheffield penknife was already famed the best in the world. + Manufactures flourished there apace when England turned to them from + agriculture, and Sheffield is now a city of four hundred thousand or more. + Apparently it has been growing radical, as the centres of prosperity and + adversity always do, and the days of the Chartist agitation continued + there for ten years, from 1839 till it came as near open rebellion as it + well could in a plot for an armed uprising. Then that cause of the people, + like many another, failed, and liberty there, as elsewhere in England, was + fain to + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “broaden slowly down + From precedent to precedent.” + </pre> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0063}.jpg" alt="{0063}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0063}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + Labor troubles, patient or violent, have followed, as labor troubles must, + but leisure has always been equal to their pacification, and now Sheffield + takes its adversity almost as quietly as its prosperity. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <h3> + V + </h3> + <p> + We were not there, though, for others’ labor or leisure, which we + have plenty of at home; but even before I appeased such conscience as I + had about seeing a type of the works, we went a long drive up out of the + town to that Manor where the poor, brilliant, baddish Scotch queen was + imprisoned by her brilliant, baddish English cousin. In any question of + goodness, there was little to choose between them; both were blood-stained + liars; but it is difficult being a good woman and a queen too, and they + only failed where few have triumphed. Mary is the more appealing to the + fancy because she suffered beyond her deserts, but Elizabeth was to be + pitied because Mary had made it politically imperative for her to kill + her. All this we had threshed out many times before, and had said that, + cat for cat, Mary was the more dangerous because she was the more + feminine, and Elizabeth the more detestable because she was the more + masculine in her ferocity. We were therefore in the right mood to visit + Mary’s prison, and we were both indignant and dismayed to find that + our driver, called from a mews at a special price set upon his + intelligence, had never heard of it and did not know where it was. + </p> + <p> + We reported his inability to the head porter, who came out of the hotel in + a fine flare of sarcasm. “You call yourself a Sheffield man and not + know where the Old Manor is!” he began, and presently reduced that + proud ignoramus of a driver to such a willingness to learn that we thought + it at least safe to set out with him, and so started for the long climb up + the hills that hold Sheffield in their hollow. When we reached their + crest, we looked down and back through the clearer air upon as strange and + grand a sight as could be. It was as if we were looking into the crater of + a volcano, which was sending up its smoke through a thousand vents. All + detail of the works and their chimneys was lost in the retrospect; one was + aware only of a sort of sea of vapor through which they loomed and + gloomed. + </p> + <p> + Our ascent was mostly through winding and climbing streets of little dirty + houses, with frowsy gardens beside them, and the very dirtiest-faced + children in England playing about them. From time to time our driver had + to ask his way of the friendly flat-bosomed slatterns, with babies in + their arms, on their thresholds, or the women tending shop, or peddling + provisions, who were all kind to him, and assured him with varying degrees + of confidence that the Old Manor was a bit, or a goodish bit, beyond. All + at once we came upon the sight of it on an open top, hard by what is left + of the ruins of the real Manor, where Wolsey stayed that little while from + death. The relics are broken walls, higher here, lower there; with some + Tudor fireplaces showing through their hollow windows. What we saw in + tolerable repair was the tower of the Manor, or the lodge, and we drove to + it across a field, on a track made by farm carts, and presently kept by a + dog that showed his teeth in a grin not wholly of amusement at our + temerity. While we debated whether we had not better let the driver get + down and knock, a farmer-like man came to the door and called the dog off. + Then, in a rich North Country accent, he welcomed us to his kitchen + parlor, where his wife was peeling potatoes for their midday dinner, and + so led us up the narrow stone stairs of the tower to the chambers where + Mary miserably passed those many long years of captivity. + </p> + <p> + The rooms were visibly restored in every point where they could have + needed restoration, but they were not ruthlessly or too insistently + restored. There was even an antique chair, but when our guide was put on + his honor as to whether it was one of the original chairs he answered, + “Well, if people wanted a chair!” He was a rather charmingly + quaint, humorous person, with that queer conscience, and he did not + pretend to be moved by the hard inexorable stoniness of the place which + had been a queen’s prison for many years. One must not judge it too + severely, though: bowers and prisons of that day looked much alike, and + Mary Stuart may have felt this a bower, and only hated it because she + could not get out of it, or anyhow break the relentless hold of that Earl + and Countess of Shrewsbury whose captive guest she was, though she never + ceased trying. We went up on the wide flat roof, of lead or stone, whither + her feet must have so often heavily climbed, and looked out over the + lovely landscape which she must have abhorred; and the wind that blew over + it, in late August, was very cold; far colder than the air of the prison, + or the bower, below. + </p> + <p> + The place belongs now to the Duke of Norfolk, the great Catholic duke, and + owes its restoration to his pity and his piety. Our farmer guide was + himself a Protestant, but he spoke well of the duke, with whom he reported + himself in such colloquies as, “I says to Dook,” and, “Dook + says to me.” When he understood that we were Americans he asked + after a son of his who had gone out to our continent twenty years before. + He had only heard from him once, and that on the occasion of his being + robbed of all his money by a roommate. It was in a place called Massatusy; + we suggested Massachusetts, and he assented that such might be the place; + and Mary’s prison-house acquired an added pathos. + </p> + <h3> + VI + </h3> + <p> + We drove back through the beautiful park, the Duke of Norfolk’s gift + to Sheffield, which is plentifully provided, like all English towns, with + public pleasure-grounds. They lie rather outside of it, but within it are + many and many religious and civic edifices which merit to be seen. We + chose as chiefest the ancient Parish Church, of Norman origin and modern + restoration, where we visited the tomb of the Lord and Lady Shrewsbury who + were Mary Stuart’s jailers; or if they were not, a pair of their + family were, and it comes to the same thing, emotionally. The chapel in + which they lie is most beautiful, and the verger had just brushed the + carpet within the chancel to such immaculate dustlessness that he could + not bring himself to let us walk over it. He let us walk round it, and we + saw the chapel as a favor, which we discharged with an abnormal tip after + severe debate whether a person of this verger’s rich respectability + and perfect manner would take any tip at all. In the event it appeared + that he would. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + NINE DAYS’ WONDER IN YORK + </h2> + <p> + Perhaps it would be better to come to York somewhat earlier in the year + than the 2d of September. By that time the English summer has suffered + often if not severe discouragements. It has really only two months out of + the year to itself, and even July and August are not always constant to + it. To be sure, their defection cannot spoil it, but they dispose it to + the slights of September in a dejection from which there is no rise to + those coquetries with October known to our own summer. Yet, having said so + much, I feel bound to add that our nine days in York, from the 2d to the + 12th of September, were more summer than autumn days, some wholly, some + partly, with hours of sunshine keeping the flowers bright which the rain + kept fresh. If you walked fast in this sunshine you were quite hot, and + sometimes in the rain you were uncomfortably warm, or at least you were + wet. If the mornings demanded a fire in the grate, the evenings were so + clement that the lamp was sufficient, and the noons were very well with + neither. + </p> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + The day of our arrival in York began bright at Sheffield, where there was + a man quarrelling so loudly and aimlessly in the station that we were glad + to get away from him, as well as from the mountains of slag surrounding + the iron metropolis. The train ran through a pass in these, and then we + found ourselves in a plain country, and, though the day turned gray and + misty, there seemed a sort of stored sunshine in the fields of wheat which + the farmers were harvesting far and near. One has heard so much of the + decay of the English agriculture that one sees what is apparently the + contrary with nothing less than astonishment. The acreage of these + wheat-fields was large, and the yield heavier than I could remember to + have seen at home. Where the crop had been got in, much ploughing for the + next year had been done already, and where the ploughing was finished the + work of sowing by drill was going steadily forward, in the faith that such + an unprecedented summer as was now passing would return another year. At + all these pleasant labors, of course, the rooks were helping, or at least + bossing. + </p> + <h3> + II + </h3> + <p> + We expected to stay certainly a week, and perhaps two weeks, in York, and + our luck with railway hotels had been so smiling elsewhere that we had no + other mind than to spend the time at the house into which we all but + stepped from our train. But we had reckoned without our host, as he was + represented by one of a half-dozen alert young ladies in the office, who + asked how long we expected to stay, and when we expressed a general + purpose of staying indefinitely, said that all her rooms were taken from + the next Monday by people who had engaged them long before for the races. + I did not choose to betray my ignorance to a woman, but I privately asked + the head porter what races those were which were limiting our proposed + sojourn, and I am now afraid he had some difficulty in keeping a head + porter’s conventional respect for a formal superior in answering + that we had arrived on the eve of Doncaster Week. Then I said, “Oh + yes,” and affected the knowledge of Doncaster Week which I resolved + to acquire by staying somewhere in York till it was over. + </p> + <p> + But as yet, that Friday afternoon, there was no hurry, and, instead of + setting about a search for lodgings at once, we drove up into the town, as + soon as we had tea, and visited York Minster while it was still the gray + afternoon and not yet the gray evening. I thought the hour fortunate, and + I do not see yet how we could have chosen a better hour out of the whole + twenty-four, for the inside or the outside of the glorious fane, the + grandest and beautifulest in all England, as I felt then and I feel now. + If I were put to the question and were forced to say in what its supreme + grandeur and beauty lay, I should perhaps say in its most ample + simplicity. No doubt it is full of detail, but I keep no sense of this + from that mighty interior, with its tree-like, clustered pillars, and its + measureless windows, like breadths of stained foliage in autumnal + woodlands. You want the scale of nature for the Minster at York, and I + cannot liken it to less than all-out-doors. Some cathedrals, like that of + Wells, make you think of gardens; but York Minster will not be satisfied + with less than an autumnal woodland, where the trees stand in clumps, with + grassy levels about them, and with spacious openings to the sky, that let + in the colored evening light. + </p> + <p> + You could not get lost in it, for it was so free of all such architectural + undergrowth as cumbers the perspectives of some cathedrals; besides, the + afternoon of our visit there were so many other Americans that you could + easily have asked your way in your own dialect. We loitered over its + lengths and breadths, and wondered at its windows, which were like the + gates of sunrise and sunset for magnitude, and lingered in a sumptuous + delay from going into the choir, delighting in the gray twilight which + seemed to gather from the gray walls inward, when suddenly what seemed a + metallic curtain was dropped with a clash and the simultaneous up-flashing + of electric bulbs inside it, and we were shut out from the sight but not + the sound of the service that began in the choir. We could not wholly + regret the incident, for as we recalled the like operation of religion in + churches of our Italian travel, we were reminded how equally authoritative + the Church of England and the Church of Home were, and how little they + adjust their ceremonial to the individual, how largely to the collective + worshipper. You could come into the Minster of York as into the basilica + of St. Mark at Venice for a silent prayer amid the religious influences of + the place, and be conscious of your oneness with your Source, as if there + were no other one; but when the priesthood called you as one of many to + your devotions, it was with the same imperative voice in both, and you + must obey or be cut off from your chance. I suppose it is right; but + somehow the down-clashing of that screen of the choir in the Minster at + York seemed to exclude us with reproach, almost with ignominy. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0075}.jpg" alt="{0075}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0075}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + We did what we could to repair our wounded self respect, and did not lay + our exclusion up against the Minster itself, which I find that I noted as + “scatteringly noble outside.” By this I dare say I meant it + had not that artistic unity of which I brought the impression from the + inside. They were doing, as they were always doing, every where, with + English cathedrals, something to one of the towers; but this only enhanced + its scattering nobleness, for it left that greatly bescaffolded tower + largely to the imagination, in which it soared sublimer, if anything, than + its compeer. Most of the streets leading to and from the rather + insufficient, irregular square where the Minster stands are lanes of + little houses of the fifteenth and sixteenth, centuries, which + collectively curved in their line, and not only overhung at their second + stories, but bulged outward involuntarily from the weakness of age. They + were all quite habitable, and some much later dwellings immediately + surrounding the church were the favorite sojourn, apparently, of such + strangers as could have rooms at the hotels only until the Monday of + Doncaster Week. + </p> + <h3> + III + </h3> + <p> + During those limited days of the week before Doncaster, I was constantly + coming back to the Minster, which is not the germ of political York, or + hardly religious York; the brave city was a Romano-British capital and a + Romano-British episcopal see centuries before the first wooden temple was + built on the site of the present edifice in 627. I should like to make + believe that we found traces of that simple church in the crypt of the + Minster when we went the next morning and were herded through it by the + tenderest of vergers. Most of our flock were Americans, and we put our + guide to such question in matters of imagination and information as the + patience of a less amiable shepherd would not have borne. Many a tale, + true or o’ertrue, our verger had, which he told with unction; when + he ascended with us to the body of the church, and said that the stained + glass of the gigantic windows suffered from the depredations of the + mistaken birds which pecked holes in the joints of their panes, I felt + that I had full measure from him, pressed down and running over. I do not + remember why he said the birds should have done this, but it seems + probable that they took the mellow colors of the glass for those of ripe + fruits. + </p> + <p> + For myself, I could not get enough of those windows, in another sort of + famine which ought at this time to have been sated. I was forever + wondering at their grandeur outside and their glory inside. I was glad to + lose my way about the town, for if I kept walking I was sure, sooner or + later, to bring up at the Minster; but the last evening of our stay I made + a purposed pilgrimage to it for a final emotion. It was the clearest + evening we had in York, and at half-past six the sun was setting in a + transparent sky, which somehow it did not flush with any of those glaring + reds which the vulgarer sorts of sunsets are fond of, but bathed the air + in a delicate suffusion of daffodil light, just tinged with violet. This + was the best medium to see the past of the Minster in, and I can see it + there now, if I did not then. I followed, or I follow, its veracious + history back to the beginning of the seventh century, whence you can look + back further still to the earliest Christian temples where the Romans + worshipped with the Britons, whom they had enslaved and converted. But it + was not till 627 that the little wooden chapel was built on the site of + the Minster, to house the rite of the Northumbrian King Eadwine’s + baptism. He felt so happy in his new faith that he replaced the wooden + structure with stone. In the next century it was burned, but rebuilt by + another pious prince, and probably repaired by yet another after the Danes + took the city a hundred years later. It was then in a good state to be + destroyed by that devout William the Conqueror, who came to take the Saxon + world in its sins of guttling and guzzling. The first Norman archbishop + reconstructed or restored the church, and then it began to rise and to + spread in glory—nave, transepts, and choir, and pillars and towers, + Norman and Early English, and Perpendicular and Decorated—till it + found itself at last what the American tourist sees it to-day. It suffered + from two great fires in the nineteenth century, the first set by a lunatic + who had the fancy of seeing it burn, but who had only the satisfaction of + destroying part of the roof. + </p> + <p> + It was never richly painted, but the color wanting in the walls and + fretted vault was more than compensated by the mellowed splendors of the + matchless windows. It was, indeed, fit to be the home of much more secular + history than can be associated with it; but not till the end of the + thirteenth century had the Minster a patron of its own, when St. William + was canonized, and exercised his office, whatever it was, for two brief + centuries. Then the Cromwell of Henry VIII. took possession of it in + behalf of the crown, and the saint’s charge was practically + abolished. He was even deprived of his head, for the relic was encased in + gold and jewels, and was therefore worth the king’s having, who was + most a friend of the reformed religion when it paid best. The later + Cromwell, who beat a later king hard by at Marston Moor, must have somehow + desecrated the Minster, though there is no record of any such fact. A more + authentic monument of the religious difficulties of the times is the + pastoral staff, bearing the arms of Catharine of Braganza, the poor little + wife of Charles II., which was snatched from a Roman Catholic bishop when, + to the high offence of Protestant piety, he was heading a procession in + York in 1688. The verger showing us through the Minster was a good + Protestant, but he held it bad taste in a predecessor of his, who when + leading about a Catholic party of sight-seers took the captive staff from + its place and shook it in their faces, saying, “Don’t you wish + you had it?” + </p> + <h3> + IV + </h3> + <p> + There is no telling to what lengths true religion, may rightly not go. I + rather prize the incident as the sole fact concerning the Minster which I + could make sure of even after repeated visits, and if I am indebted for my + associations with it, long after the event, to Dr. Raine’s scholarly + and interesting sketch of York history, there is no reason why the + better-informed reader should not accompany me in my last visit fully + equipped. I walked slowly all round the structure, and fancied that I got + a new sense of grandeur in the effect of the east window, which was, at + any rate, more impressive than the north window. It was a long walk, + almost the measure of such a walk as one should take after supper for one’s + health, and it had such incidents as many pauses for staring up at the + many restorations going on. From point to point the incomparable + Perpendicular Gothic carried the eye to the old gargoyles of the caves and + towers waiting to be replaced by the new gargoyles, which lay in + open-mouthed grimacing in the grass at the bases of the church. While I + stood noting both, and thinking the chances were that I should never look + on York Minster again, and feeling the luxurious pang of it, a verger in a + skull-cap was so good as to come to a side door and parley long and + pleasantly with a policeman. The simple local life went on around; people + going to or from supper passed me; kind, vulgar noises came from the + little houses bulging over the narrow, neighboring streets; there seemed + to be the stamping of horses in a stable, and there was certainly the + misaspirated talk about them. I could not have asked better material for + the humble emotions I love; and I was more than content on my way home to + find myself one of the congregation at the loud devotions of a detachment + of the Salvation Army. After a battering of drums and a clashing of + cymbals and a shouting of hymns, the worship settled to the prayer of a + weak brother, who was so long in supplication that the head exhorter + covered a yawn with his hand, and at the first sign of relenting in the + supplicant bade the drums and cymbals strike up. Then, after a hymn, a + sister, such a very plain, elderly sister, with hardly a tooth or an aitch + in her head, began to relate her religious history. It appeared that she + had been a much greater sinner than she looked, and that the mercy shown + her had been proportionate. She was vain both of her sins and mercies, + poor soul, and in her scrimp figure, with its ill-fitting uniform, Heaven + knows how long she went on. I was distracted by a clergyman passing on the + outside of the ring of listening women and children, and looking, I chose + to think, somewhat sourly askance at the distasteful ceremonial. I wished + to stop him, on his way to the Minster, if that was his way, and tell him + that so Christianity must have begun, and so the latest form of it must + always begin and work round after ages and ages to the beauty and + respectability his own ritual has. But I now believe this would have been + the greatest impertinence and hypocrisy, for I myself found the + performance before us as tasteless and tawdry as he could possibly have + done. He was going toward the Minster, and it would make him forget it; + but I was going away from it, perhaps, for the last time, and this loud + side-show of religion would make me forget the Minster. + </p> + <h3> + V + </h3> + <p> + Our railway hotel lay a little way out of the town, and after a day’s + sight-seeing we were to meet or mingle with troops of wholesome-looking + workmen whose sturdiness and brightness were a consolation after the pale + debility of labor’s looks in Sheffield. From the chocolate-factories + or the railroad-shops, which are the chief industries of York, they would + be crossing the bridge of the Ouse, the famous stream on which the Romans + had their town, and which suggested to the Anglicans to call their + Eboracum Eurewic—a town on a river. In due time the Danes modified + this name to Yerik, and so we came honestly by the name of our own New + York, called after the old York, as soon as the English had robbed the + Dutch of it, and the King of England had given the province to his brother + the Duke of York. Both cities are still towns on rivers, but the Ouse is + no more an image or forecast of the Hudson than Old York is of New York. + For that reason, the bridge over it is not to be compared to our Brooklyn + Bridge, or even to any bridge which is yet to span the Hudson. The + difference is so greatly in our favor that we may well yield our city’s + mother the primacy in her city wall. We have ourselves as yet no + Plantagenet wall, and we have not yet got a mediaeval gate through which + the traveller passes in returning from the Flatiron Building to his hotel + in the Grand Central Station. + </p> + <p> + We do not begin to have such a hoar antiquity as is articulate in the + mother city, speaking with muted voices from the innumerable monuments + which the earth has yielded from the site of our hotel and its adjacent + railway station. All underground York is doubtless fuller of Home than + even Bath is; and it has happened that her civilization was much more + largely dug up here than elsewhere when the foundations of the spreading + edifices were laid. The relics are mainly the witnesses of pagan Rome, but + Christianity politically began in York, as it has politically ended in New + York, and doubtless some soldiers of the Sixth Legion and many of the + British slaves were religiously Christians in the ancient metropolis + before Constantine was elected emperor there. + </p> + <p> + I have been in many places where history is hospitably at home and is not + merely an unwilling guest, as in our unmemoried land. Florence is very + well, Venice is not so bad, Naples has her long thoughts, and Milan is + mediaeval-minded, not to speak of Genoa, or Marseilles, or Paris, or those + romantic German towns where the legends, if not the facts, abound; but, + after all, for my pleasure in the past, I could not choose any place + before York. You need not be so very definite in your knowledge. The event + of Constantine’s presence and election is so spacious as to leave no + room for particulars in the imagination; and you are so rich in it that + you will even reject them from your thoughts, as you sit in the + close-cropped flowery lawn of your hotel garden (try to imagine a railroad + hotel garden in <i>New</i> York!) on the sunniest of the afternoons before + you are turned out for Doncaster Week, and, while you watch a little + adventurous American boy climbing over a pile of rock-work, realize the + most august, the most important fact in the story of the race as native to + the very air you are breathing! Where you sit you are in full view of the + Minster, which is to say in view of something like the towers and + battlements of the celestial city. Or if you wake very early on a morning + still nearer the fatal Doncaster Week of your impending banishment, and + look out of your lofty windows at the sunrise reddening the level bars of + cloud behind the Minster, you shall find it bulked up against the + pearl-gray masses of the sunny mist which hangs in all the intervening + trees, and solidifies them in unbroken masses of foliage. All round your + hotel spreads a gridiron of railroad, yet such is the force of the English + genius for quiet that you hear no clatter of trains; the expresses whir in + and out of the station with not more noise than humming-birds; and amid + this peace the past has some chance with modernity. The Britons dwell, + unmolested by our latter-day clamor, in their wattled huts and dugouts; + the Romans come and make them slaves and then Christians, and after three + or four hundred years send word from the Tiber to the Ouse that they can + stay no longer, and so leave them naked to their enemies, the Picts and + Scots and Saxons and Angles; and in due course come the ravaging and + burning Danes; and in due course still, the murdering and plundering and + scorning Normans. But all so quietly, like the humming-bird-like + expresses, with a kind of railway celerity in the foreshortened + retrospect; and after the Normans have crushed themselves down into the + mass of the vanquished, and formed the English out of the blend, there + follow the many wars of the successions, of the Roses, of the Stuarts, + with all the intermediate insurrections and rebellions. In the splendid + Histories of Shakespeare, which are full of York, the imagination visits + and revisits the place, and you are entreated by mouth of one of his + princely personages, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “I pray you let us satisfy our eyes + With the memorials and things of fame, + That do renown this city,” + </pre> + <p> + where his Henrys and Richards and Margarets and Edwards and Eleanors abide + still and shall forever abide while the English speech lasts. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0085}.jpg" alt="{0085}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0085}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <h3> + VI + </h3> + <p> + Something of all this I knew, and more pretended, with a mounting + indignation at the fast-coming Doncaster Week which was to turn us out of + our hotel. We began our search for other lodgings with what seemed to be + increasing failure. The failure had consolation in it so far as the sweet + regret of people whose apartments were taken could console. They would + have taken us at other hotels for double the usual price, but, when we + showed ourselves willing to pay, it proved that they had no rooms at any + price. From house to house, then, we went, at first vaingloriously, in the + spaces about the Minster, and then meekly into any side street, wherever + the legend of Apartments showed itself in a transom. At last, the second + day, after being denied at seven successive houses, we found quite the + refuge we wanted in the Bootham, which means very much more than the + ignorant reader can imagine. Our upper rooms looked on a pretty grassy + garden space behind, where there was sun when there was sun, and in front + on the fine old brick dwellings of a most personable street, with a + sentiment of bygone fashion. At the upper end of it was a famous city gate—Bootham + Bar, namely—with a practicable portcullis, which we verified at an + early moment by going up into “the chamber over the gate,” + where it was once worked, and whence its lower beam, set thick with savage + spikes, was dropped. Outside the gate there was a sign in the wall saying + that guards were to be had there to guide travellers through the Forest of + Galtres beyond Bootham, and keep them from the wolves. Now woods and + wolves and guards are all gone, and Bootham Bar is never closed. + </p> + <p> + The upper room is a passageway for people who are walking round the town + on the Plantagenet wall, and one morning we took this walk in sunshine + that befitted the Sabbath. Half the children of York seemed to be taking + it, too, with their good parents, who had stayed away from church to give + them this pleasure, the fathers putting on their frock-coats and top-hats, + which are worn on no other days in the provincial cities of England. For a + Plantagenet wall, that of York is in excellent repair, and it is very + clean, so that the children could not spoil their Sunday best by + clambering on the parapet, and trying to fall over it. There was no + parapet on the other side, and they could have fallen over that without + trouble; but it would not have served the same purpose; for under the + parapet there were the most alluringly ragged little boys, with untidy + goats and delightfully dirty geese. There was no trace of a moat outside + the wall, where pleasant cottages pressed close to it with their gardens + full of bright flowers. At one point there were far-spreading sheep and + cattle pens, where there is a weekly market, and at another the old Norman + castle which cruel Conqueror William built to hold the city, and which has + suffered change, not unpicturesque, into prisons for unluckier criminals, + and the Assize Courts for their condemnation. From time to time the wall + left off, and then we got down, perforce, and walked to the next piece of + it. In these pieces we made the most of the old gates, especially Walmgate + Bar, which has a barbican. I should be at a loss to say why the barbican + should have commended it so; perhaps it was because we there realized, for + the first time, what a barbican was; I doubt if the reader knows, now. + Otherwise, I should have preferred Monk Bar or Micklegate Bar, as being + more like those I was used to in the theatre. But we came back gladly to + Bootham Bar, holding that a portcullis was equal any day to a barbican, + and feeling as if we had got home in the more familiar neighborhood. + </p> + <p> + There were small shops in the Bootham, thread-and-needle stores, newspaper + stores, and provision stores mainly, which I affected, and there was one + united florist’s and fruiterer’s which I particularly liked + because of the conversability of the proprietor. He was a stout man, of a + vinous complexion, with what I should call here, where our speech is + mostly uncouth, an educated accent, though with few and wandering + aspirates in it. Him I visited every morning to buy for my breakfast one + of those Spanish melons which they have everywhere in England, and which + put our native cantaloupes to shame; and we always fell into a little talk + over our transaction of fourpence or sixpence, as the case might be. After + I had confided that I was an American, he said one day, “Ah, the + Americans are clever people.” Then he added, “I hope you won’t + mind my saying it, sir, but I think their ladies are rather harder than + our English ladies, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” I eagerly assented. “How do you mean? Sharper? + Keener?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, not just that, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “More practical? More business-like?” I pursued. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I shouldn’t like to say that, sir. But—they seem + rather harder, sir; at least, judging from what I see of them in York, + sir. Rather harder, sir.” + </p> + <p> + We remained not the less friends with that mystery between us; and I + bought my last melon of him on my last morning, when the early September + had turned somewhat sharply chill. That turn made me ask what the winter + was in York, and he boasted it very cold, with ice and snow aplenty, and + degrees of frost much like our own. But apparently those York women + resisted it and remained of a tenderness which contrasted to their + advantage with the summer hardness of our women. + </p> + <h3> + VII + </h3> + <p> + It was a pleasure, which I should be glad to share with the reader, to + lose one’s self in the streets of York. They were all kinds of + streets except straight, and they seemed not to go anywhere except for the + joke of bringing the wayfarer unexpectedly back to, or near, his + starting-point and far from his goal. The blame of their vagariousness, if + it was a fault, is put upon the Danes, who found York when they captured + it very rectangular, for so the Romans built it, and so the Angles kept + it; but nothing would serve the Danes but to crook its streets and call + them gates, so that the real gates of the city have to be called bars, or + else the stranger might take them for streets. If he asked another + wayfarer, he could sometimes baffle the streets, and get to the point he + aimed at, but, whether he did or not, he could always amuse himself in + them; they would take a friendly interest in him, and show him the old + houses and churches which the American stranger prefers. They abound in + the poorer sorts of buildings, of course, just as they do in the poorer + sorts of people, but in their simpler courts and squares and expanses they + have often dignified mansions of that Georgian architecture which seems + the last word in its way, and which is known here in our older edifices as + there in their newer. Some of them are said to have “richly carved + ceilings, wainscoted, panelled rooms, chimneypieces with paintings framed + in the over-mantel, dentilled cornices, and pedimented doors,” and I + could well believe it, as I passed them with an envious heart. There were + gardens behind these mansions which hung their trees over the spiked + coping of their high-shouldered walls and gates, and sequestered I know + not what damp social events in their flowery and leafy bounds. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0091}.jpg" alt="{0091}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0091}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + At times I distinctly wished to know something of the life of York, but I + was not in the way of it. The nearest to an acquaintance I had there, + besides my critical fruiterer, was the actor whose name I recognized on + his bills as that of a brave youth who had once dramatized a novel of + mine, and all too briefly played the piece, and who was now to come to + York for a week of Shakespeare. Perhaps I could not forgive him the + recrudescence; at any rate, I did not try to see him, and there was no + other social chance for me, except as I could buy in for a few glimpses at + the tidy confectioners’, where persons of civil condition resorted + for afternoon tea. Even to these one could not speak, and I could only do + my best in a little mercenary conversation with the bookseller about York + histories. The bookstores were not on our scale, and generally the shops + in York were not of the modern department type, but were perhaps the + pleasanter for that reason. + </p> + <p> + In my earlier wanderings I made the acquaintance of a most agreeable + market-place, stretching the length of two squares, which on a Saturday + afternoon I found filled with every manner of bank and booth and canopied + counter, three deep, and humming pleasantly with traffic in everything one + could eat, drink, wear, or read; there seemed as many book-stalls as + fruit-stalls. What I noted equally with the prettiness of the abounding + flowers was the mild kindness of the market-people’s manners and + their extreme anxiety to state exactly the quality of the things they had + for sale. They seemed incapable of deceit, but I do not say they really + were so. My own transactions were confined to the purchase of some + golden-gage plums, and I advise the reader rather to buy greengages; the + other plums practised the deception in their looks which their venders + abhorred. + </p> + <h3> + VIII + </h3> + <p> + I wandered in a perfectly contemporary mood through the long ranks and + lanes of the marketplace, and did not know till afterward that at one end + of it, called the Pavement, the public executions used to take place for + those great or small occasions which brought folks to the block or + scaffold in the past. I had later some ado to verify the dismal fact from + a cluster of people before a tavern who seemed to be taking bets for the + Doncaster Week, and I could hardly keep them from booking me for this + horse or that when I merely wanted to know whether it was on a certain + spot the Earl of Northumberland had his head cut off for leading a rising + against Henry IV.; or some such execution. + </p> + <p> + What riches of story has not York to browbeat withal the storyless + New-Yorker who visits her! That Henry IV. was he whom I had lately seen + triumphing near Shrewsbury in the final battle of the Roses, where the Red + was so bloodily set above the White; and it was his poetic fancy to have + Northumberland, when he bade him come to York, pass through the gateway on + which the head of his son, Hotspur Harry, was festering. No wonder the + earl led a rising against his liege, who had first mercifully meant to + imprison him for life, and then more mercifully pardoned him. But there + seems to have been fighting up and down the centuries from the beginning, + in York, interspersed with praying and wedding and feasting. After the + citizens drove out Conqueror William’s garrison, and Earl Waltheof + provided against the Normans’ return by standing at the castle gate + and chopping their heads off with his battle-axe as they came forth, + William efficaciously devastated the city and the country as far as + Durham. His son William gave it a church, and that “worthy peer,” + King Stephen, a hospital. In his time the archbishop and barons of York + beat the Scotch hard by, and the next Scotch king had to do homage to + Henry II. at York for his kingdom. Henry III. married his sister at York + to one Scotch king and his daughter to that king’s successor. Edward + I. and his queen Eleanor honored with their presence the translation of + St. William’s bones to the Minster; Edward II. retreated from his + defeat at Bannockburn to York, and Edward III. was often there for a king’s + varied occasions of fighting and feasting. Weak Henry VI. and his wilful + Margaret, after their defeat at Towton by Edward IV., escaped from the + city just in time, and Edward entered York under his own father’s + head on Micklegate Bar. Richard III. was welcomed there before his rout + and death at Bosworth, and was truly mourned by the citizens. Henry VII. + wedded Elizabeth, the “White Rose of York,” and afterward + visited her city; Mary, Queen of Scots, was once in hiding there, and her + uncouth son stayed two nights in York on his way to be crowned James I. in + London. His son, Charles I., was there early in his reign, and touched + many for the king’s evil; later, he was there again, but could not + cure the sort of king’s evil which raged past all magic in the + defeat of his followers at Marston Moor by Cromwell. The city yielded to + the Puritans, whose temperament had already rather characterized it. James + II., as Duke of York, made it his brief sojourn; “proud Cumberland,” + returning from Culloden after the defeat of the Pretender, visited the + city and received its freedom for destroying the last hope of the Stuarts; + perhaps the twenty-two rebels who were then put to death in York were + executed in the very square where those wicked men thought I was wanting + to play the horses. The reigning family has paid divers visits to the + ancient metropolis, which was the capital of Britain before London was + heard of. The old prophecy of her ultimate primacy must make time if it is + to fulfil itself and increase York’s seventy-two thousand beyond + London’s six million. + </p> + <h3> + IX + </h3> + <p> + I should be at a loss to say why its English memories haunted my York less + than the Roman associations of the place. They form, however, rather a + clutter of incidents, whereas the few spreading facts of Hadrian’s + stay, the deaths of Severus and Constantius, and the election of + Constantine, his son, enlarge themselves to the atmospheric compass of the + place, but leave a roominess in which the fancy may more commodiously orb + about. I was on terms of more neighborly intimacy with the poor Punic + emperor than with any one else in York, doubtless because, when he fell + sick, he visited the temple of Bellona near Bootham Bar, and paid his + devotions unmolested, let us hope, by any prevision of the misbehavior of + his son Caracalla (whose baths I had long ago visited at Rome) in killing + his other son Geta. Everywhere I could be an early Christian, in company + with Constantine, in whom the instinct of political Christianity must have + begun to stir as soon as he was chosen emperor. But I dare say I heard the + muted tramp of the Sixth Legion about the Yorkish streets above all other + martial sounds because I stayed as long as Doncaster Week would let me in + the railway hotel, which so many of their bones made room for when the + foundations of it were laid, with those of the adherent station. Their + bones seem to have been left there, after the disturbance, but their + sepulchres were respectfully transferred to the museum of the + Philosophical Society, in the grounds where the ruins of St. Mary’s + Abbey rise like fragments of pensive music or romantic verse, inviting the + moonlight and the nightingale, but, wanting these, make shift with the + noonday and the babies in perambulators neglected by nurse-girls reading + novels. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0097}.jpg" alt="{0097}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0097}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + The babies and the nurses are not allowed in the museum of antiquities, + which is richer in Roman remains than any that one sees outside of Italy. + There are floors of mosaic, large and perfect, taken from the villas which + people are always digging up in the neighborhood of York, and, from the + graves uncovered in the railway excavations, coffins of lead and stone for + civilians, and of rude tiles for the soldiers of the Sixth Legion; the + slaves were cast into burial-pits of tens and twenties and left to + indiscriminate decay till they should be raised in the universal + incorruption. Probably the slaves were the earliest Christians at York; + certainly the monuments are pagan, as the inmates of the tombs must have + been. Some of the monuments bear inscriptions from loving wives and + husbands to the partners they have lost, and some of the stone coffins are + those of children. It is all infinitely touching, and after two thousand + years the heart aches for the fathers and mothers who laid their little + ones away in these hard cradles for their last sleep. Faith changes, but + constant death remains the same, and life is not very different in any + age, when it comes to the end. The Roman exiles who had come so far to + hold my British ancestors in subjection to their alien rule seemed + essentially not only of the same make as me, but the same civilization. + Their votive altars and inscriptions to other gods expressed a human piety + of like anxiety and helplessness with ours, and called to a like + irresponsive sky. A hundred witnesses of their mortal state—jars and + vases and simple household utensils—fill the shelves of the museum; + but the most awful, the most beautiful appeal of the past is in that mass + of dark auburn hair which is kept here in a special urn and uncovered for + your supreme emotion. It is equally conjectured to be the hair of a Roman + lady or of a British princess, but is of a young girl certainly, dressed + twenty centuries ago for the tomb in which it was found, and still faintly + lucent with the fashionable unguent of the day, and kept in form by pins + of jet. One thinks of the little, slender hands that used to put them + there, and of the eyes that confronted themselves in the silver mirror + under the warm shadow that the red-gold mass cast upon the white forehead. + This sanctuary of the past was the most interesting place in that most + interesting city of York, and the day of our first visit a princess of New + York sat reading a book in the midst of it, waiting for the rain to be + over, which was waiting for her to come out and then begin again. We knew + her from having seen her at the station in relation to some trunks bearing + her initials and those of her native city; and she could be about the age + of the York princess or young Roman lady whose hair was kept in the urn + hard by. + </p> + <h3> + X + </h3> + <p> + There is in York a little, old, old church, whose dear and reverend name I + have almost forgotten, if ever I knew it, but I think it is Holy Trinity + Goodramgate, which divides the heart of my adoration with the Minster. We + came to it quite by accident, one of our sad September afternoons, after + we had been visiting the Guildhall, Venetianly overhanging the canal calm + of the Ouse, and very worthy to be seen for its York histories in stained + glass. The custodian had surprised us and the gentlemen of the committee + by taking us into the room where they were investigating the claims of the + registered voters to the suffrage; and so, much entertained and + instructed, we issued forth, and, passing by the church in which Guy + Fawkes was baptized, only too ineffectually, we came quite unexpectedly + upon Holy Trinity Goodramgate, if that and not another is indeed its name. + </p> + <p> + It stands sequestered in a little leafy and grassy space of its own, with + a wall hardly overlooked on one side by low stone cottages, the immemorial + homes of rheumatism and influenza. The church had the air of not knowing + that it is of Perpendicular and Decorated Gothic, with a square, + high-shouldered tower, as it bulks up to a very humble height from the + turf to the boughs overhead, or that it has a nice girl sketching its + doorway, where a few especially favored weddings and funerals may enter. + It is open once a year for service, and when the tourist will, or can, for + the sight of the time-mellowed, beautiful stained glass of its eastward + window. The oaken pews are square and high-shouldered, like the low church + tower; and, without, the soft yellow sandstone is crumbling away from the + window traceries. The church did not look as if it felt itself a thousand + years old, and perhaps it is not; but I never was in a place where I + seemed so like a ghost of that antiquity. I had a sense of haunting it, in + the inner twilight and the outer sunlight, where a tender wind was + stirring the leaves of its embowering trees and scattering them on the + graves of my eleventh and twelfth century contemporaries. + </p> + <h3> + XI + </h3> + <p> + We chose the sunniest morning we could for our visit to Clifford’s + Tower, which remains witness of the Norman castle the Conqueror built and + rebuilt to keep the Danish-Anglian-Roman-British town in awe. But the + tower was no part of the original castle, and only testifies of it by + hearsay. That was built by Roger de Clifford, who suffered death with his + party chief, the Earl of Lancaster, when Edward of York took the city, and + it is mainly memorable as the refuge of the Jews whom the Christians had + harried out of their homes. They had grown in numbers and riches, when the + Jew-hate of 1190 broke out in England, as from time to time the Jew-hate + breaks out in Russia now, to much the same cruel effect. They were + followed and besieged in the castle, and, seeing that they must be + captured, they set fire to the place, and five hundred slew themselves. + Some that promised to be Christians came out and were killed by their + brethren in Christ. In New York the Christians have grown milder, and now + they only keep the Jews out of their clubs and their homes. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0103}.jpg" alt="{0103}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0103}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + The Clifford Tower leans very much to one side, so that as you ascend it + for the magnificent view from the top you have to incline yourself the + other way, as you do in the Tower of Pisa, to help it keep its balance. + The morning of our visit, so gay in its forgetfulness of the tragical + past, we found the place in charge of an old soldier, an Irishman who had + learned, as custodian, a professional compassion for those poor Jews of + nine hundred years ago, and, being moved by our confession of our + nationality, owned to three “nevvies” in New Haven. So small + is the world and so closely knit in the ties of a common humanity and a + common citizenship, native and adoptive! + </p> + <p> + The country around York looked so beautiful from Clifford’s Tower + that we would not be satisfied till we had seen it closer, and we chose a + bright, cool September afternoon for our drive out of the town and over + the breezy, high levels which surround it. The first British capital could + hardly have been more nobly placed, and one could not help grieving that + the Ouse should have indolently lost York that early dignity by letting + its channel fill up with silt and spoil its navigation. The Thames managed + better for York’s upstart rival London, and yet the Ouse is not + destitute of sea or river craft. These were of both steam and sail, and I + myself have witnessed the energy with which the reluctance of the indolent + stream is sometimes overcome. I do not suppose that anywhere else, when + the wind is low, is a vessel madly hurled through the water at a mile an + hour by means of a rope tied to its mast and pulled by a fatherly old + horse under the intermittent drivership of two boys whom he could hardly + keep to the work. I loved the banks of a stream where one could see such a + triumph of man over nature, and where nature herself was so captivating. + All that grassy and shady neighborhood seemed a public promenade, where on + a Sunday one could see the lower middle classes in their best and + brightest, and it had for all its own the endearing and bewitching name of + Ings. Why cannot we have Ings by the Hudson side? + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + TWO YORKISH EPISODES + </h2> + <p> + Certainly I had not come to York, as certainly I would not have gone + anywhere, for battle-fields, but becoming gradually sensible in that city + that the battle of Marston Moor was fought a few miles away, and my enemy + Charles I. put to one of his worst defeats there, I bought a third-class + ticket and ran out to the place one day for whatever emotion awaited me + there. + </p> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + At an English station you are either overwhelmed with transportation, or + you are without any except such as you were born with, and at the station + for Marston Moor I asked for a fly in vain. But it was a most walkable + afternoon, and the pleasant road into the region which the station-master + indicated as that I was seeking invited the foot by its level stretch, + sometimes under wayside trees, but mostly between open fields, newly + reaped and still yellow with their stubble, or green with the rowen + clover. Sometimes it ran straight and sometimes it curved, but it led so + rarely near any human habitation that one would rather not have met any + tramps beside one’s self on it. Presently I overtook one, a gentle + old farm-wife, a withered blonde, whom I helped with the bundles she bore + in either hand, in the hope that she could tell me whether I was near + Marston Moor or not. But she could tell me only, what may have been of + higher human interest, that her husband had the grass farm of a hundred + and fifty acres, which we were coming to, for seventy-five pounds a year; + and they had their own cattle, sheep, and horses, and were well content + with themselves. She excused herself for not knowing more than vaguely of + the battle-field, as not having been many years in the neighborhood; and + being now come to a gate in the fields, she thanked me and took her way up + a grassy path to the pleasant farmhouse I saw in the distance. + </p> + <p> + It must have been about this time that it rained, having shone long enough + for English weather, and it hardly held up before I was overtaken by a + friendly youth on a bicycle, whom I stayed with the question uppermost in + my mind. He promptly got off his wheel to grapple with the problem. He was + a comely young fellow, an artisan of some sort from a neighboring town, + and he knew the country well, but he did not know where my lost + battle-field was. He was sure that it was near by: but he was sure there + was no monument to mark the spot. Then we parted friends, with many polite + expressions, and he rode on and I walked on. + </p> + <p> + For a mile and more I met no other wayfarer, and as I felt that it was + time to ask for Marston Moor again, I was very glad to be overtaken by a + gentleman driving in a dog-cart, with his pretty young daughter on the + wide seat with him. He halted at sight of the elderly pilgrim, and + hospitably asked if he could not give him a lift, alleging that there was + plenty of room. He was interested in my search, which he was not able + definitely to promote, but he believed that if I would drive with him to + his place I could find the battle-field, and, anyhow, I could get a trap + back from the The Sun. I pleaded the heat I was in from walking, and the + danger for an old fellow of taking cold in a drive through the cool air; + and then, as old fellows do, we bantered each other about our ages, each + claiming to be older than the other, and the kind, sweet young girl sat + listening with that tolerance of youth for the triviality of age which is + so charming. When he could do no more, he said he was sorry, and wished me + luck, and drove on; and I being by this time tired with my three miles’ + tramp, took advantage of a wayside farmhouse, the first in all the + distance, and went in and asked for a cup of tea. + </p> + <p> + The farm-wife, who came in out of her back garden to answer my knock, + pleaded regretfully that her fire was down; but she thought I could get + tea at the next house; and she was very conversable about the + battle-field. She did not know just where it was, but she was sure it was + quite a mile farther on; and at that I gave up the hope of it along with + the tea. This is partly the reader’s loss, for I have no doubt I + could have been very graphic about it if I had found it; but as for + Marston Moor, I feel pretty certain that if it ever existed it does not + now. A moor, as I understand, implies a sort of wildness, but nothing + could be more domestic than the peaceful fields between which I had come + so far, and now easily found my way back to the station. Easily, I say, + but there was one point where the road forked, though I was sure it had + not forked before, and I felt myself confronted with some sort, any sort, + of exciting adventure. By taking myself firmly in hand, and saying, + “It was yonder to the left where I met my kind bicycler, and we + vainly communed of my evanescent battle-field,” and so keeping on, I + got safely to the station with nothing more romantic in my experience than + a thrilling apprehension. + </p> + <h3> + II + </h3> + <p> + I quite forgot Marston Moor in my self-gratulation and my recognition of + the civility from every one which had so ineffectively abetted my search. + Simple and gentle, how hospitable they had all been to my vain inquiry, + and how delicately they had forborne to visit the stranger with the irony + of the average American who is asked anything, especially anything he does + not know! I went thinking that the difference was a difference between + human nature long mellowed to its conditions, and human nature rasped on + its edges and fretted by novel circumstances to a provisional harshness. I + chose to fancy that unhuman nature sympathized with the English mood; in + the sheep bleating from the pastures I heard the note of Wordsworth’s + verse; and by the sky, hung in its low blue with rough, dusky clouds, I + was canopied as with a canvas of Constable’s. + </p> + <p> + It was the more pity, then, that at the station a shooting party, + approaching from the other quarter with their servants and guns and dogs, + and their bags of hares and partridges, should have given English life + another complexion to the wanderer so willing to see it always rose color. + The gunners gained the station platform first, and at once occupied the + benches, strewing all the vacant places with their still bleeding prey. I + did not fail of the opportunity to see in them the arrogance of class, + which I had hitherto so vainly expected, and I disabled their looks by + finding them as rude as their behavior. How different they were from the + kind bicycler, or the gentleman in the dog-cart, or either one of the + farm-wives who sorrowed so civilly not to know where my lost battle-field + was! + </p> + <p> + In England, it is always open to the passenger to enforce a claim to his + share of the public facilities, but I chose to go into the licensed + victualler’s next the station and sit down to a peaceable cup of tea + rather than contest a place on that bloody benching; and so I made the + acquaintance of an interior out of literature, such as my beloved Thomas + Hardy likes to paint. On a high-backed rectangular settle rising against + the wall, and almost meeting in front of the comfortable range, sat a + company of rustics, stuffing themselves with cold meat, washed down with + mugs of ale, and cozily talking. They gained indefinitely in my interest + from being served by a lame woman, with a rhythmical limp, and I hope it + was not for my demerit that I was served apart in the chillier parlor, + when I should have liked so much to stay and listen to the rustic tale or + talk. The parlor was very depressingly papered, but on its walls I had the + exalted company of his Majesty the King, their Royal Highnesses the Prince + and Princess of Wales, the late Premier, the Marquis of Salisbury, and, + for no assignable reason except a general fitness for high society, the + twelve Apostles in Da Vinci’s <i>Last Supper</i>, together with an + appropriate view of York Minster. + </p> + <h3> + III + </h3> + <p> + I do not pretend this search for the battle-field of Marston Moor was the + most exciting episode of my stay in York. In fact, I think it was much + surpassed in a climax of dramatic poignancy incident to our excursion to + Bishopsthorpe, down the Ouse, on one of the cosey little steamers which + ply the stream without unreasonably crowding it against its banks. It was + a most silvery September afternoon when we started from the quay at York, + and after escaping from embarkment on a boat going in the wrong direction, + began, with no unseemly swiftness, to scuttle down the current. It was a + perfect voyage, as perfect as any I ever made on the Mississippi, the + Ohio, the St. Lawrence, or the Hudson, on steamers in whose cabins our + little boat would have lost itself. We had a full but not crowded company + of passengers, overflowing into a skiff at our stern, in which a father + and mother, with three women friends, preferred the high excitement of + being towed to Bishopsthorpe, where it seemed that the man of the party + knew the gardener. With each curve of the river and with each remove we + got the city in more and more charming retrospective, till presently its + roofs and walls and spires and towers were lost in the distance, and we + were left to the sylvan or pastoral loveliness of the low shores. Here and + there at a pleasant interval from the river a villa rose against a + background of rounded tree tops, with Lombardy poplars picking themselves + out before it, but for the most part the tops of the banks, with which we + stood even on our deck, retreated from the waterside willows in levels of + meadow-land, where white and red cows were grazing, and now and then young + horses romping away from groups of their elders. It was all dear and kind + and sweet, with a sort of mid-Western look in its softness (as the English + landscape often has), and the mud-banks were like those of my native Ohio + Valley rivers. The effect was heightened, on our return, by an aged and + virtuously poor (to all appearance) flageolet and cornet band, playing <i>‘Way + down upon the Suwanee River</i>, while the light played in “ditties + no-tone” over the groves and pastures of the shore, and the shadows + stretched themselves luxuriously out as if for a long night’s sleep. + There has seldom been such a day since I began to grow old; a soft + September gale ruffled and tossed the trees finely, and a subtle Italian + quality mixed with the American richness of the sunshiny air; so that I + thought we reached Bishopsthorpe only too soon, and I woke from a pleasant + reverie to be told that the steamer could not land with us, but we must be + taken ashore in the small boat which we saw putting out for us from its + moorings. To this day I do not know why the steamer could not land, but + perhaps the small boat had a prescriptive right in the matter. At any + rate, it was vigorously manned by a woman, who took tuppence from each of + us for her service, and presently earned it by the interest she showed in + our getting to the Archbishop’s palace, or villa, the right way. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0116}.jpg" alt="{0116}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0116}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + So we went round by an alluring road to its forking, where, looking up to + the left, we could see a pretty village behind Lombardy poplars, and + coming down toward us in a victoria for their afternoon drive, two + charmingly dressed ladies, with bright parasols, and looking very + county-family, as we poor Americans imagine such things out of English + fiction. We entered the archiepiscopal grounds through a sympathetic + Gothic screen, as I will call the overture to the Gothic edifice in my + defect of architectural terminology, though perhaps gateway would be + simpler; and found ourselves in the garden, and in the company of those + people we had towed down behind our steamer. They were with their friend, + the gardener, and, claiming their acquaintance as fellow-passengers, we + made favor with him to see the house. The housekeeper, or some understudy + of hers, who received us, said the family were away, but she let us follow + her through. That is more than I will let the reader do, for I know the + duty of the cultivated American to the intimacies of the gentle English + life; it is only with the simple life that I ever make free; there, I own, + I have no scruple. But I will say (with my back turned conscientiously to + the interior) that nothing could be lovelier than the outlook from the + dining-room, and the whole waterfront of the house, on the wavy and + willowy Ouse, and that I would willingly be many times an archbishop to + have that prospect at all my meals. + </p> + <h3> + IV + </h3> + <p> + We despatched our visit so promptly that we got back to our boat-woman’s + cottage a full hour before our steamer was to call for us. She had an + afternoon fire kindled in her bright range, from the oven of which came + already the odor of agreeable baking. Upon this hint we acted, and asked + if tea were possible. It was, and jam sandwiches as well, or if we + preferred buttered tea-cake, with or without currants, to jam sandwiches, + there would be that presently. We preferred both, and we sat down in that + pleasant parlor-kitchen, and listened, till the tea-cake came out of the + oven and was split open and buttered smoking hot, to a flow of delightful + and instructive talk. For our refection we paid sixpence each, but for our + edification we are still, and hope ever to be, in debt. Our hostess was of + a most cheerful philosophy, such as could not be bought of most modern + philosophers for money. The flour for our tea-cakes, she said, was a + shilling fivepence a stone, “And not too much for growing and + grinding it, and all.” Every week-day morning she rose at half-past + four, and got breakfast for her boys, who then rode their bicycles, or, in + the snow, walked, all the miles of our voyage into York, where they worked + in the railway shops. No, they did not belong to any union; the railway + men did not seem to care for it; only a “benefit union.” + </p> + <p> + She kept the house for her family, and herself ready to answer every hail + from the steamer; but in her mellow English content, which was not stupid + or sodden, but clever and wise, it was as if it were she, rather than the + archbishop, whose nature expressed itself in a motto on one of the palace + walls, “Blessed be the Lord who loadeth us with blessings every day.” + </p> + <p> + When the range, warming to its work, had made her kitchen-parlor a little + too hot to hold us, she hospitably suggested the river shore as cooler, + where she knew a comfortable log we could sit on. Thither she presently + followed when the steamer’s whistle sounded, and held her boat for + us to get safely in. The most nervous of our party offered the reflection, + as she sculled us out into the stream to overhaul the pausing steamer, + that she must find the ferry business very shattering to the nerves, and + she said, + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but it’s nothing to a murder case I was on, once.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, what murder, what murder?” we palpitated back; and both + of us forgot the steamer, so that it almost ran us down, while our + ferrywoman began again: + </p> + <p> + “A man shot a nurse—There! Throw that line, will you?” + </p> + <p> + But he, who ought to have thrown the line for her, in his distraction let + her drop her oar and throw the line herself, and then we scrambled aboard + without hearing any more of the murder. + </p> + <p> + This is the climax I have been working up to, and I call it a fine one; as + good as a story to be continued ever ended an instalment with. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A DAY AT DONCASTER AND AN HOUR OUT OF DURHAM + </h2> + <p> + The Doncaster Races lured us from our hotel at York, on the first day, as + I had dimly foreboded they would. In fact, if there had been no lure, I + might have gone in search of temptation, for in a world where sins are apt + to be ugly, a horse-race is so beautiful that if one loves beauty he can + practise an aesthetic virtue by sinning in that sort. So I made myself a + pretence of profit as well as pleasure, and in going to Doncaster I + feigned the wish chiefly to compare its high event with that of Saratoga. + I had no association with the place save horse-racing, and having missed + Ascot and Derby Day, I took my final chance in pursuit of knowledge—I + said to myself, “Not mere amusement”—and set out for + Doncaster unburdened by the lightest fact concerning the place. + </p> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + I learned nothing of it when there, but I have since learned, from divers + trustworthy sources, that Doncaster is the Danum of Antoninus and the Dona + Ceaster of the Saxons, and that it is not only on the line of the + Northeastern Railway, but also on that famous Watling Street which from + the earliest Saxon time has crossed the British continent from sea to sea, + and seems to impress most of the cities north and south into a conformity + with its line, like a map of the straightest American railway routes. + </p> + <p> + Unless my ignorance has been abused, nothing remarkable has happened at + Doncaster in two thousand years, but this is itself a distinction in that + eventful England where so many things have happened elsewhere. It is the + market town of a rich farming region, and has notable manufactures of iron + and brass, of sacking and linen, of spun flax and of agricultural machines + and implements. Otherwise, it is important only for its races, which began + there three hundred years ago, and especially for its St. Leger Day, of + which Lieutenant-General St. Leger became the patron saint in 1778, though + he really established his Day two years earlier. + </p> + <p> + Doncaster is a mighty pleasant, friendly, rather modern, and commonplacely + American-looking town, with two-story trams gently ambling up and down its + chief avenues, in the leisurely English fashion, and all of more or less + arrival and departure at the race-grounds. In our company the reader will + have our appetites for lunch, and if he will take his chance with us in + the first simple place away from the station, he will help us satisfy them + very wholesomely and agreeably at boards which seem festively set up for + the occasion, and spread with hot roast-beef and the plain vegetables + which accompany the national dish in its native land; or he can have the + beef cold, or have cold lamb or chicken cold. His fellow-lunchers will be, + as he may like well enough to fancy, of somewhat lower degree than + himself, but they will all seem very respectable, and when they come out + together, they will all be equalized in the sudden excitement which has + possessed itself of the street, and lined the curbstones up and down with + spectators, their bodies bent forward, and their faces turned in the + direction of the station. + </p> + <h3> + II + </h3> + <p> + The excitement is caused by the coming of the King; and I wish that I + could present that event in just its sincere unimpressiveness. I have + assisted at several such events on the Continent, where, especially in + Germany, they are heralded as they are in the theatre, with a blare of + trumpets, and a sensation in the populace and the attendant military + little short of an ague fit. There, as soon as the majesties mount into + their carriages from the station, they drive off as swiftly as their + horses can trot, and their subjects, who have been waiting for hours to + see them, make what they can of a meagre half-minute’s glimpse of + them. But how different was the behavior of that easy-going Majesty of + England! As soon as I heard that he was coming, I perceived how anxious I + had been in the half-year of my English sojourn to see him, and how + bitterly I should have been disappointed to leave his realms without it. + All kings are bad, I knew that well enough; but I also knew that some + kings are not so bad as others, and I had been willing to accept at their + face the golden opinions of this King, which, almost without exception, + his lieges seemed to hold. Of course it is not hard to think well of a + king if you are under him, just as it is not hard to think ill of him if + you are not under him; but there is no use being bigotedly republican when + there is nothing to be got by it, and I own the fact that his subjects + like him willingly. Probably no man in his kingdom understands better than + Edward VII. that he is largely a form, and that the more a form he is the + more conformable he is to the English ideal of a monarch. But no + Englishman apparently knows better than he when to leave off being a form + and become a man, and he has endeared himself to his people from time to + time by such inspirations. He is reputed on all hands to be a man of great + good sense; if he is ever fooled it is not by himself, but by the system + which he is no more a part of than the least of his subjects. If he will + let a weary old man or a delicate woman stand indefinitely before him, he + is no more to blame for that than for speaking English with a trace of + German in his <i>th</i> sounds; he did not invent his origins or his + traditions. Personally, having had it out with life, he is as amiable and + as unceremonious as a king may be. He shares, as far as he can, the great + and little interests of his people. He has not, so far as noted, the gifts + of some of his sisters, but he has much of his mother’s steadfast + wisdom, and his father’s instinct for the right side in considerable + questions; and he has his father’s prescience of the psychological + moment for not bothering. Of course, he is a fetish; no Englishman can + deny that the kingship is an idolatry; but he is a fetish with an uncommon + share of the common man’s divinity. The system which provides him + for the people provides them the best administration in the world, always + naturally in the hands of their superiors, social and political; but we + could be several times rottener than we administratively are, and still be + incalculably reasonabler, as republicans, than those well-governed + monarchists. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0126}.jpg" alt="{0126}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0126}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + Some of us are apt to forget the immense advantage which we have of the + monarchical peoples in having cast away the very name of King, for with + the name goes the nature of royalty and all that is under and around it. + But because we are largely a fond and silly folk, with a false conceit of + ourselves and others, we like to make up romances about the favor in which + thrones, municipalities, and powers hold us. Once it was the Tsar of + Russia who held us dear, and would do almost anything for Americans; now + it is the King of England who is supposed rather to prefer us to his own + people, and to delight to honor us. We attribute to him a feeling which a + little thought would teach, us was wholly our own, and which would be out + of nature if not out of reason with him. He is a man of sense, and not of + sentiment, and except as a wise politician he could have no affection for + a nation whose existence denies him. He is very civil to Americans; it is + part of a constitutional king’s business to be civil to every one; + but he is probably not sentimental about us; and we need not be + sentimental about him. + </p> + <p> + He looked like a man of sense, and not like a man of sentiment, that day + as he drove through the Doncaster street on his way to the sport he loves + beyond any other sport. He sat with three other gentlemen on the sidewise + seats of the trap, preceded by outriders, which formed the simple turnout + of the greatest prince in the world. He was at the end on the right, and + he showed fully as stout as he was, in the gray suit he wore, while he + lifted his gray top-hat now and then, bowing casually, almost absently, to + the spectators fringing, not too deeply, the sidewalks. He was very, very + stout, even after many seasons of Marienbad, and after the sufferings he + had lately undergone, and he was quite like the pictures and effigies of + him, down to those on the postage-stamps. He has a handsome face, still + bearded in the midst of a mostly clean-shaving nation, and with the white + hairs prevalent on the cheeks and temples; his head is bald atop, though + hardly from the uneasiness of wearing a crown. + </p> + <p> + It was difficult to realize him for what he was, and in the unmilitary + keeping of a few policemen, he was not of the high histrionic presence + that those German majesties were. The good-natured crowd did not strain + itself in cheering, though it seemed to cheer cordially; and it did not + stay long after the trap tooled comfortably away. I then addressed myself + to a little knot of railway servants who lingered talking, and asked them + what some carriages were still waiting for at the door of the station, and + one of them answered with a lightness you do not expect in England, + “Oh, Lord This, and Lady That, and the Hon. Mr. I-don’t-know-what’s-his-name.” + The others laughed at this ribald satire of the upper classes, and I + thought it safer to follow the King to the races lest I should hear worse + things of them. + </p> + <h3> + III + </h3> + <p> + The races were some miles away, and when we got to the tracks we did not + find their keeping very different from that of the Saratoga tracks, + although the crowd was both smarter and shabbier, and it had got to the + place through a town of tents and sheds, and a population of hucksters and + peddlers, giving an effect of permanency to the festivity such as a + solemnity of ours seldom has. When we bought our tickets we found, in the + familiarity with the event expected of us, that there was no one to show + us to our places; but by dint of asking we got to the Grand Stand, and + mounted to our seats, which, when we stood up from them, commanded a + wholly satisfactory prospect of the whole field. + </p> + <p> + I do not know the dimensions of the Doncaster track, or how far they + exceed those of the Saratoga track. Possibly one does not do its extent + justice because there is no track at Doncaster: there is nothing but a + green turf, with a certain course railed off on it. I hope the reader will + be as much surprised as I was to realize that the sport of horse-racing in + England gets its name of Turf from the fact that the races are run on the + grass, and not on the bare ground, as with us. We call the sport the Turf, + too, but that is because in this, as in so many other things, we lack + incentive and invention, and are fondly colonial and imitative; we ought + to call it the Dirt, for that is what it is with us. As a spectacle, the + racing lacks the definition in England which our course gives, and when it + began, I missed the relief into which our track throws the bird-like sweep + of the horses as they skim the naked earth in the distance. + </p> + <p> + I missed also the superfluity of jockeying which delays and enhances the + thrill of the start with us, and I thought the English were not so + scrupulous about an even start as we are. But, above all, I missed the + shining faces and the gleaming eyes of the black jockeys, who lend so much + gayety to our scene, where they seem born to it, if not of it. The crowd + thickened in English bloom and bulk, which is always fine to see, and + bubbled over with the babble of multitudinous voices, crossed with the + shouts of the book-makers. Having failed to enter any bets with the + book-makers of The Pavement in York, I did not care to make them here. + With all my passion for racing, I never know or care which horse wins; but + I tried to enter into the joy of a diffident young fellow near me at the + Grand Stand rail, who was so proud of having guessed as winner the horse + next to the winner at the first race; it was coming pretty close. By the + end of the third or how far they exceed those of the Saratoga track. + Possibly one does not do its extent justice because there is no track at + Doncaster: there is nothing but a green turf, with a certain course railed + off on it. I hope the reader will be as much surprised as I was to realize + that the sport of horse-racing in England gets its name of Turf from the + fact that the races are run on the grass, and not on the bare ground, as + with us. We call the sport the Turf, too, but that is because in this, as + in so many other things, we lack incentive and invention, and are fondly + colonial and imitative; we ought to call it the Dirt, for that is what it + is with us. As a spectacle, the racing lacks the definition in England + which our course gives, and when it began, I missed the relief into which + our track throws the bird-like sweep of the horses as they skim the naked + earth in the distance. + </p> + <p> + I missed also the superfluity of jockeying which delays and enhances the + thrill of the start with us, and I thought the English were not so + scrupulous about an even start as we are. But, above all, I missed the + shining faces and the gleaming eyes of the black jockeys, who lend so much + gayety to our scene, where they seem born to it, if not of it. The crowd + thickened in English bloom and bulk, which is always fine to see, and + bubbled over with the babble of multitudinous voices, crossed with the + shouts of the book-makers. Having failed to enter any bets with the + book-makers of The Pavement in York, I did not care to make them here. + With all my passion for racing, I never know or care which horse wins; but + I tried to enter into the joy of a diffident young fellow near me at the + Grand Stand rail, who was so proud of having guessed as winner the horse + next to the winner at the first race; it was coming pretty close. By the + end of the third race he had softened into something like confidence + toward me; certainly into conversability; such was the effect of my being + a dead-game sport, or looking it. But how account for the trustfulness of + the young woman on my other hand who wore her gold watch outside her + dress, and who turned to the elderly stranger for sympathy in a certain + supreme moment? This was when the crowd below crumpled suddenly together + like the crushing of paper and the sense of something tragically + mysterious in the distance clarified itself as the death of one of the + horses. It had dropped from heart-break in its tracks, as if shot, and + presently a string of young men and boys came dragging to some <i>spoliarium</i> + the long, slender body of the pretty creature over the turf which its + hoofs had beaten a moment before. Then it was that the girl, with the + watch on her breast, turned and asked, “Isn’t it sad?” + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0132}.jpg" alt="{0132}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0132}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <h3> + IV + </h3> + <p> + She was probably not the daughter of a hundred earls, but there must have + been some such far-descended fair among the ladies who showed themselves + from time to time in the royal paddock across a little space from our + Grand Stand. The enclosure has no doubt a more technical name, which I + would call it by if I knew it, for I do not wish to be irreverent; but + paddock is very sporty, and it must serve my occasion. The King never + showed himself there at all, though much craned round for and eagerly + expected. But ladies and gentlemen moved about in the close, and stood and + talked together; very tall people, very easily straight and well set up, + very handsome, and very amiable-looking; they may have been really kind + and good, or they may have looked so to please the King and keep his + spirits up. I did not then, but I do now, realize that these were + courtiers, such as one has always read of, and were of very historical + quality in their attendance on the monarch. I trust it will not take from + the dignity of the fact if I note that several of the courtiers wore derby + hats, and one was in a sack coat and a topper. I am not sure what the + fairer reader will think if I tell that one of the ladies had on a dress + with a white body and crimson skirt and sleeves, and a vast black + picture-hat, and wore it with a charming air of authority. + </p> + <p> + The weather, in the excitement of the races, had not known whether it was + raining or not, but we feared its absent-mindedness, and at the end of the + third race we went away. It is not well to trust an English day too far; + this had begun with brilliant sunshine, but it dimmed as it wore on, and + we could not know that it was keeping for us the surprise of a very + refined sunset. My memory does not serve as to just how we had got out to + the race-ground; I think, from our being set down at the very gate, that + it was by hansom or by fly; but now we promised ourselves to walk back to + town. We did not actually do so; we went back most of the way by tram; but + we were the firmer about walking at the outset, because we presently found + ourselves in a lane of gypsy tents, where there was an alluring sight and + smell of frying fish and potatoes. In the midst of the refection, you + could have your fortune told, very favorably, for a very little money. All + up and down this happy avenue there went girls of several dozen sizes and + ages, crying a particular kind of taffy, proper to the day and place, and + never to be had on any other day in any other place. + </p> + <p> + We had an hour before train-time, and we thought we would go and see the + Parish Church of Doncaster, which we had read was worth seeing. Our belief + was confirmed by a group of disappointed ladies in the churchyard, who + said it was a most beautiful church inside, but that they had not seen it + because it was shut. We proved the fact by trying the door, and then we + came away consoling ourselves with the scoff that it was probably closed + for the races. At the bookseller’s, where we stopped to buy some + photographs of the interior of the church we had not seen, we lamented our + disappointment, and the salesman said, “Perhaps it was closed for + the races.” So our joke seemed to turn earnest, and on reflection it + did not surprise us in that England of close-knit unities where people and + prince are of one texture in their pleasures and devotions, and the Church + is hardly more national than the Turf. + </p> + <h3> + V + </h3> + <p> + At Durham, which was my next excursion from York, I cannot claim, + therefore, that my mission was more serious because it almost solely + concerned the Church, or that it was more frivolous at Doncaster, where it + almost solely concerned the Turf. My train started in a fine mist that + turned to sun, but not before it had shown me with the local color, which + a gray light lends everything, a pack of hounds crossing a field near the + track with two huntsmen at their heels. They were not chasing, but running + leisurely, and with their flower-like, loose spread over the green, and + the pink-coated hunters on their brown mounts, they afforded a picture as + vivid and of as perfect semblance to all my visions of fox-hunting as I + could have asked. I had been hoping that I might see something of the + famous sport, almost as English as the Church or the Turf, and there, + suddenly and all unexpectedly, the sight fully and satisfyingly was. Now, + indeed, I felt that my impression of English society was complete, and + that I might go home and write novels of English high life, and do + something to redeem myself a little from the disgrace I had fallen into + with my fellow-plebeians by always writing of common Americans, like + themselves, and never <i>grandes dames</i> or ideal persons, or people in + the best society. + </p> + <p> + But I did not want to go home at once, or turn back from going to Durham + through that pleasant landscape, where the mist hung between the trees + which seemed themselves only heavier bulks of mist. The wheat in some of + the fields was still uncut, and in others, where it had been gathered into + sheaves, the rooks by hundreds were noisily gleaning in the track of the + reapers. From this conventionally English keeping, I passed suddenly to + the sight of the gaunt, dry, gravelly bed of a wide river, such as I had + known in Central Italy, or the Middle West at home; and I realized once + again that England is no island of one simple complexion, but is a + condensed continent, with all continental varieties of feature in it. You + must cover thousands and thousands of miles in our tedious lengths and + breadths for the beauties and sublimities of scenery which you shall + gather from fewer hundreds in England; I have no doubt they have even + volcanoes there, but I did not see any, probably because the English are + so reticent, and hate to make a display of any sort. + </p> + <h3> + VI + </h3> + <p> + It is because they are so, or possibly because of my ignorance, that I did + not know or at all imagine how magnificent the Cathedral of Durham is, or + what a matchless seat it has on the bluffs of the river, with depths of + woods below its front, tossing in the rich chill of the September wind. As + it takes flight for the heavens, to which its business is to invite the + thought, it seems to carry the earth with it, for if you climb those noble + heights, you find your feet still on the ground, in a most stately space + of open level between the cathedral and its neighbor castle, which alone + could be worthy of its high company. + </p> + <p> + The castle is Tudor, but the cathedral is beyond all other English + cathedrals, I believe, Norman, though to the naked eye it looks so Gothic, + and probably is. Here I will leave the reader with any pictures or + memories of it which he happens to have, for I have always held it a sin + to try describing architecture, or if not a sin, a bore. What chiefly + remains to me of my impression of Durham Cathedral is, strangely enough, + an objection: I did not like those decorated pillars, alternating with the + clustered columns of the interior, and I do not suppose I ever shall: the + spiral furrows, the zigzag and lozenge figures chiselled in their + surfaces, weakened them to the eye and seemed to trifle with their proud + bulk. + </p> + <p> + But to the castle of Durham I have no objection whatever. I should like to + live in it, as I should in all other Tudor houses, great or small, that I + saw, where, as I am constantly saying, a high ideal of comfort is + realized. It is almost as nobly placed as the cathedral, and it is + approached by a very stately courtyard, of like spacious effect with the + cathedral piazza. Inside it there is a kitchen of the sixteenth century, + with a company of neat serving-maids, too comely and young to be, perhaps, + of the same period, that gives the tourist a high sense of the luxury in + which the Bishop of Durham and the Judges of the Assize Courts live when + they are residents in the castle. One sees their apartments, dim and rich, + and darkly furnished, but not gloomily, both where they sleep and where + they eat, and flatteringly envies them in a willingness for the moment to + be a judge or a bishop for the sake of such a fit setting. There is also a + fine crypt, with a fine dining-hall and a black staircase of ancient oak, + and a gallery with classic busts, and other pictures worthy of wonder, let + alone a history from the time of William the Conqueror, who first fancied + a castle where it stands, down to the present day. The memory of such + successive guests as the Empress Matilda and Henry II. her son, King John, + Henry III., Edwards I., II., and III., Queen Philippa, Henry VI., and + James I., and Charles I., and Edward VII., abides in the guidebook, and + may be summoned from its page to the chambers of the beautiful old place + by any traveller intending impressions for literary use from a medieval + environment in perfect repair. + </p> + <h3> + VII + </h3> + <p> + One must be hard to satisfy if one is not satisfied with Durham Castle, + and its interior contented me as fully as the exterior of the Cathedral. I + went a walk, after leaving the castle, for a further feast of the + Cathedral from the paths along the shelving banks of the beautiful Weare. + There, at a certain point, I met a studious-looking gentleman who I am + sure must have been a professor of Durham University hard by; and I asked + him, with due entreaty for pardon, “What river was that.” He + quelled the surprise he must have felt at my ignorance and answered + gently, “The Weare.” “Ah, to be sure! The Weare,” + I said, and thanked him, and longed for more talk with him, but felt + myself so unworthy that I had not the face to prompt him further. He + passed, and then I met a man much more of my own kind, if not probably so + little informed. That rich, chill gale was still tossing and buffeting the + tree tops, and he made occasion of this to say, “This is a cold wynd + a-blowin’, Mister.” “It is, rather,” I assented. + “I was think-in’,” he observed from an apparent + generalization, “that I wished I was at home.” Then he + suddenly added, “Help a poor man!” I was not wholly surprised + at the climax, and I offered him, provisionally, a penny. “Will that + do?” He hesitated perceptibly; then he allowed, with a subtle + reluctance, “Yes, that’ll do,” and so passed on to + satisfy, I hope, the wish he thought he had. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0140}.jpg" alt="{0140}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0140}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + I pursued my own course, as far as the bridge which spans the Weare near a + most picturesque mill, and then I stopped a kindly-looking workman and + asked him whether he thought I could find a fly or cab anywhere near that + would take me into the town. He answered, briefly but consistently with + his looks, “Ah doot,” and as he owned that it was a long way + to town, I let his doubt decide me to go back to the station. + </p> + <p> + I felt that I ought to have driven from there into the town, and seen it, + and taken to York a later train than the one I had in mind. In the + depravity induced by my neglect of this plain duty, I went, with my third + class return ticket conscious in my pocket, into the first class + refreshment room, and had tea there, as if I had been gentry at the very + least, and possibly nobility. Then, having a good deal of time still on my + hands, I loitered over the book-stall of the station, and stole a passage + of conversation with a kindly clergyman whom I found looking at the pretty + shilling editions filling the cases. I said, How nice it was to have + Hazlitt in that green cloth; and he said, Yes, but he held for Gibbon in + leather; and just then his train came in and he ran off to it, and left me + to my guilt in not having gone to see Durham. It was now twilight, and too + late; but there the charming old town still is, and will long remain, I + hope, with its many memories of war and peace, for whoever will visit it. + Certainly there had been no lack of adventures in my ample hour. It was as + charming to weave my conjectures, about the two gentlemen with whom I had + so barely spoken, as to have carried my acquaintance with them further, + and I cannot see how it would have profited me to know more even of that + fellow-man who, in the cold wynd a-blowing, had just been thinking he + wished he was at home. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE MOTHER OF THE AMERICAN ATHENS + </h2> + <p> + It was fit that on our way to Boston we should pause in passing through + Cambridge. That was quite as we should have done at home, and I can only + wish now that we had paused longer, though every moment that kept us from + Boston, if it had been anywhere but in England, would have been a loss. + There, it was all gain, and all joy, the gay September 24th that we went + this divine journey. My companion was that companionable archaeologist who + had guided my steps in search of the American origins in London, and who + was now to help me follow the Pilgrim Fathers over the ground where they + sojourned when they were only the Pilgrim Sons. At divers places on the + way, after we left London, he pointed out some scene associated with + American saints or heroes. We traversed the region that George William + Curtis’ people came from, hard by Roxburgh, and Eliot’s, the + Apostle to the Indians; again we skirted the Ralph Waldo Emerson country, + with its big market town of Bishop’s Stortford; and beyond Ely, + where we stopped for the Cathedral and a luncheon, not unworthy of it, at + the station, he startled me from a pleasant drowse I had fallen into in + our railway carriage, with the cry: “There! That is where Captain + John Smith was born.” “Where? Where?” I implored too + late, looking round the compartment everywhere. “Back where those + chickens were.” + </p> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + That was the nearest I came to seeing one of the most famous Virginian + origins. But you cannot see everything in England; there are too many + things; and if the truth must be known I cared more for the natural + features than the historical facts of the landscape. The country was flat, + and a raw green, as it should be in that raw air, under that dun sky, with + sheep hardily biting the short tough pasturage under the imbrowning oaks + and elms, and the olive-graying willows, beside the full, still streams + scarce wetter than the ground they dreamed through. + </p> + <p> + We did not reach Boston until six o’clock, when the day was already + waning, and the Stump of St. Botolph’s Church stood dim against the + sky. It was a long drive through the suburban streets from the station to + the hotel, which we found full, and which with its crazy floors touched + the fancy as full of something besides guests. But it was well for us so, + because across the market-place, which forms the chief public square of + Boston, was a far better hotel, where we were welcomed to the + old-fashioned ideal of the English inn, such as I did not so nearly + realize anywhere else. The ideal was a little impaired by the electric + light in our bedrooms, but it was not a very brilliant electric light, and + there was a damp cold in the corridors which allowed no doubt of its + genuineness. In the dining-room, which was also the reading-room, there + was an admirable image of a fire in the grate, and a prevailing warmth and + brightness which cheered the heart of exile. When we presently had dinner, + specialized for us by certain differences from that of two other + travellers, there seemed nothing more to ask, except the conversation of + our companions, and this we duly had, quite as if we were four wayfarers + met there in a book. One of these gentlemen proved a solicitor from Bath, + and that made me feel more at home, knowing and loving Bath as I did. It + did not matter that in trying for some mutual acquaintance there we + failed; our good-will was everything; and the solicitor was intelligent + and agreeable. The other gentleman, tall, dark, of urbane stateliness, was + something more, in the touch of Oriental suavity which, more than his + nose, betrayed him; and it appeared, in delightful suggestion of the + old-time commercial intimacy of the Dutch and English coasts, that he was + from Holland, and next morning at breakfast he developed a large valise, + which I now think held samples. If he was a Dutch Jew, he was probably a + Spanish Jew by descent, and what will the difficult reader have more, in + the materials for his romance? Did we gather about the grate after we had + done dinner, and each tell the story of his life, or at least the most + remarkable thing that had ever happened to him? + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0148}.jpg" alt="{0148}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0148}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + I cannot say, but I remember that my friend and I, in my instant hunger + for Boston, which was greater than my hunger for dinner, set forth while + the meal was preparing, and visited the Church of St. Botolph. To reach it + we had to pass through the greater length of the market-place, one of the + most picturesque in England, and the worthy ancestress of Faneuil Hall and + Quincy market-places, which are the most picturesque in America. At one + side of its triangle is the birthplace and dwelling of Jean Ingelow, and + at the point nearest the church is the statue of Herbert Ingram, the less + famous but more locally recognized Bostonian, who founded the <i>Illustrated + London News</i> with the money he made by the invention and sale of Old + Parr’s Pills. He was thrice sent to Parliament from his native town, + and he related it to America, after two centuries, by drowning in Lake + Michigan. “R. N.,” the otherwise anonymous author of a very + intelligent and agreeable <i>Handbook of Boston</i>, relates that in his + first canvass for Parliament Ingram was opposed by a gentleman who, when + he asked the voices of the voters, after the old English fashion, was told + by four of them in succession that they were promised “to their + cousin Ingram,” and who thereupon declared that if he had known + Ingram “was cousin to the whole town” he would, never have + stood against him. Like the Bostonians of Massachusetts, the Bostonians of + Lincolnshire were in fact closely knit together by ties of kinship, owing, + “R. N.” believes, to the isolation of Boston before the + draining of its fens, and not to their conviction that there were no + outsiders worthy to mate with them. + </p> + <h3> + II + </h3> + <p> + The house where the martyrologist John Fox first saw the light was + replaced long ago by a famous old inn, pulled down in its turn; but the + many and many Americans who visit Boston may still visit the house where + Jean Ingelow was born. Whether they may see more than the outside of it I + do not know from experiment or even inquiry. “R. N.” will say + nothing of her but that she was born, and that her father was a banker; + perhaps he thinks that she has spoken sufficiently for herself. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0152}.jpg" alt="{0152}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0152}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + The air of the market-place, as we crossed to the church, was of a + pleasant bleakness, and the Witham was coldly washing under the wall which + keeps St. Botolph from it. In the dimness we could have only a conjecture + of the church’s outward beauty, and of the grandeur of the tower + climbing into the evening, where it has hailed so many myriads of moving + ships, and beckoned them to safety. But within, where it was already + night, the church was cheerfully luminous with Welsbach lights, which + showed it all wreathed and garlanded for a harvest festival, began the day + before, and to be concluded now with some fit religious observance. The + blossoms and leaves were a little wilted and withered, but the fruits and + vegetables were there in sturdy endurance, and together they swathed the + pulpit from which John Cotton used to preach, and all but hid its + structure from view, like flowers of rhetoric softening some hard + doctrine. + </p> + <p> + Apparently, however, Cotton’s doctrine was not anywise too hard, or + even hard enough, for such “a factious people, who were imbued with + the Puritan spirit,” as he found in Boston, when he was first + elected vicar of St. Botolph’s; and it was not till Archbishop Laud’s + ecclesiastical tyrannies began that he came to see “the Sin of + Conformity” and to preach resistance. His conflict with the + authorities went so far that exile to another Boston in another hemisphere + became his only hope. Or, as Lord Dorset intimated, “if he had been + guilty of drunkenness, uncleanness, or any lesser fault, he could have + obtained his pardon, but as he was guilty of Puritanism, and + Non-conformity, the crime was non-pardonable; and therefore he advised him + to flee for his safety.” + </p> + <p> + The Cotton Chapel, so called, was restored mainly with moneys received + from Cotton’s posterity, lineal or lateral, in his city of refuge + overseas, and “the corbels that support the timbered ceiling are + carved with the arms of certain of the early colonists of New England.” + Edward Everett, one of Cotton’s descendants, wrote the dedicatory + inscription in Latin, which “R. N.” has Englished in verse, + and I am the more scrupulous to quote it, because, as I must own with my + usual reluctant honesty, I quite missed seeing the Cotton Chapel. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + That here John Cotton’s memory may survive + Where for so long he labored when alive, + In James’ reign and Charles’, ere it ceased— + A grave, skilled, learned, earnest parish-priest; + Till from the strife that tossed the Church of God + He in a new world sought a new abode, + To a new England, a new Boston came, + (That took, to honor him, that reverend name) + Fed the first flock of Christ that gathered there— + Till death deprived it of its shepherd’s care— + There well resolved all doubts of mind perplext, + Whether with cares of this world or the next; + Two centuries five lustra from the year + That saw the exile leave his labors here, + His family, his townsmen, with delight— + (Whom to the task their English kin invite)— + To the fair fane he served so well of yore, + His name, in two worlds honored, thus restore, + This chapel renovate, this tablet place, + In this, the year of man’s recovered Grace, + 1855. +</pre> + <h3> + III + </h3> + <p> + I missed most of the other memorable things in the church that night, but + I saw fleetingly some of the beautiful tombs for which it is famous; the + effigies of the dead lay in their niches, quietly, as if already tucked + away for the night, in the secular sleep of the dust beneath. The tombs + were more famous than they, and more beautiful, if the faces of some were + true likenesses, but after so many centuries one ought not to require even + women to be pretty. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0156}.jpg" alt="{0156}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0156}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + We had not begun to have enough of Boston yet, and after dinner we went a + long walk up the Witham, away from the parapet before the church, under + which its deep tides are always washing to and fro. In the dimness, after + we had got a little to the outskirts of the town, there seemed shipyards + along the river’s course, but at one place there was a large + building brilliantly lighted, which from certain effects at the windows we + decided to be a printing-office on the scale of those in and near our own + Boston. What was our shame and grief the next morning to find it was a + cigar factory, and to learn that cigar and cigarette making was almost the + chief industry of the mother Boston. There are really two large tobacco + factories there running overtime, and always advertising for more women + and girls to do their work; and in our Boston, not so long ago, smoking in + the street was forbidden! Such are the ironies of life. + </p> + <p> + What the shipyards had turned into by daylight, I do not now remember. The + Witham had turned into a long, deep gash, cut down into the clay twenty + feet from the level of the flood tides. We crossed on a penny ferry which + the current pushed over in the manner of the earliest ferries, near the + tobacco factory, and came back into the heart of the town through streets + of low stone houses, with few buildings of note to dignify their course. + Small craft lay along the steep muddy shores, and at one place a little + excursion steamer was waiting for the tide to come in and float it for the + fulfilment of its promise of sailing at ten o’clock. We idly longed + to make its voyage with it, and if the chance were offering now, I + certainly should not forego it as I did then. But when you are in a + foreign place, no matter how much you have travelled and how well you know + that it will not offer soon again, you reject the most smiling chance + because you think you can take it any time. + </p> + <p> + The morning was soft and warm, with a sun shining amiably on the rather + commonplace old town. I had risen betimes that I might go and get a + Spanish melon for my breakfast, but at eight o’clock I found the + fruiterer’s locked and barred against me. I lingered and hungered + for the melons which I saw in his window, and then I tried other + fruiterers, but none of them was stirring yet. I reflected how different + it would have been in our own Boston; and if it had not been for the + market people coming into the square and beginning to dress their stalls + with vegetables, and fish, and native fruits, such as hard pears and + knotty apples, I do not know how ill I might have come away thinking of + that idle mother Boston. In other squares there were cattle for sale + later, and fish, but I cannot in even my present leniency claim that the + markets were open at the hour which the genteeler commerce of the place + found so indiscreet. They were irregular spaces of a form in keeping with + the general shambling and shapeless character of the town, which, once for + all, I must own was not an impressive place. + </p> + <p> + The best thing in it, and the thing you are always coming back to, is the + beautiful church, to which we paid a second visit early in the forenoon. + We found it where we left it the night before, lifting its tower from the + brink of the Witham, and looking far out over the flat land to a sea no + flatter. The land seems indeed, like so much English coast, merely the sea + come ashore, and turned into fens for the greater convenience of the + fishermen, whom, with the deeper sea sailors, we saw about the town, + lounging through the crooked streets, and hanging bare-armed upon the + parapets of the bridges. Now we found the church had about its foot a + population of Bostonians for whom, under their flat gravestones, it had + been chiming the quarters from its mellow-throated bells, while the + Bostonians on our side had been hustling for liberty, and money, and + culture, and all the good things of this world, and getting them in a + measure that would astonish their namesakes. Within the church we saw + again the beautiful tombs of the night before, and others like them, and + again we saw the pulpit of John Cotton, which we could make out a little + better than at first, because its garlands were a little more withered and + shrunken away. But better than either we realized the perfection of the + church interior as a whole, so ample, so simple, such a comfortable and + just sufficient eyeful. + </p> + <h3> + IV + </h3> + <p> + From other interests in St. Botolph’s you somehow keep always, or + finally, coming to the Stump, as the tower is called somewhat in the humor + of our Boston. It is not so fair within as without; that could not be in + the nature of things; and yet the interior of the tower has a claim upon + the spectator’s wonder, if not his admiration, which, so far as I + know, the interior of no other tower has. It is all treated as a loftier + room of the church, and its ceiling, a hundred and fifty feet from the + ground, is elaborately and allegorically groined. The work was done when + the whole church was restored about half a century ago, and has not the + claim of medieval whim upon the fancy. Not so much pleasure as he might + wish mingles with the marvel of the beholder, who carries a crick in the + neck away from the sight, and yet once, but not more, in a way, it is + worth while to have had the sight. Certainly this treatment of the tower + is unique; there is nothing to compare with it in Boston, Massachusetts, + and cannot be even when the interior of the Old South is groined. + </p> + <p> + When we came out of the church, we found the weather amusing itself as + usual in England, raining with wind, then blowing without rain, and + presently, but by no means decisively, sunning without either wind or + rain. The conditions were favorable to a further exploration of the town, + which seemed to have a passion for old cannon, and for sticking them about + in all sorts of odd nooks and corners. We found one smaller piece over a + gateway, which we were forbidden by a sign-board to enter on pain of + prosecution for trespassing. There was nothing else to prevent our + entering, and we went in, to find ourselves in an alley with nothing but a + Gypsy van in it. Nothing but a Gypsy van! As if that were not the + potentiality of all manner of wild romance! Whether the alley belonged to + Gypsies, or the Gypsies had trespassed by leaving their van in it, I shall + now probably never know, but I commend the inquiry to any reader of mine + whom these pages shall inspire to repeat our pilgrimage. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0162}.jpg" alt="{0162}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0162}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + There was no great token of genteel life in Boston, so far as we saw it, + but perhaps we did not look in the right places. There were good shops, + but not fine or large ones, and I am able to report of the intellectual + status that there are three weekly newspapers, but no dailies, which could + not be the case in any American town of fourteen thousand people. + Concerning society, I can only say that in our wanderings we came at one + point on a vast, high-walled, iron-gated garden, which looked as if it + might have society beyond it, but not being positively forbidden we did + not penetrate it. We did indeed visit the ancient grammar-school, one of + those foundations which in England were meant originally for the poor + deserving of scholarship, but which have nearly all lapsed to the more + deserving rich, careful of the contamination of the lower classes. Being + out of term the school was closed to its pupils, but we found a contractor + there removing the old stoves and putting in a system of hot-water + heating, which he said was better fitted to resist the cold of the Boston + winters. He was not a very conversable man, but so much we screwed out of + him, with the added fact that the tuition of that school was no longer + free. It came to some five guineas a year, no great sum, but perhaps + sufficient to keep the school, with the other influences, select enough + for the patronage to which it had fallen. It was a pleasant place, with a + playground before it, which in the course of generations there must have + been a good deal of schoolboy fun got out of. + </p> + <h3> + V + </h3> + <p> + There remained for us now only the Guildhall to visit, and we had left + that to the last because it was the thing that had mostly brought us to + Boston. It was the scene of the trial and imprisonment of those poor + people of the region roundabout who were trying to escape from their + “dread lord,” James the First, and were arrested for this + crime, and brought to answer for it before the magistrates of the town. + Their dread lord had then lately met some ministers of their faith at + Hampton Court, and there browbeaten, if not beaten, them in argument, so + that he was in no humor to let, these people, who afterward became the + Pilgrim Fathers, get away to Holland, where there was no dread lord, or at + least none of King James’ thinking. + </p> + <p> + But no words can be so good to tell of all this as the words of Governor + Bradford in his <i>Historie of Plymouth Plantation</i>, where he says that + “ther was a large companie of them purposed to get passage at Boston + in Lincolnshire, and for that end had hired a shipe wholy to them selves, + & made agreement with the maister to be ready at a certaine day, and + take them and their goods in, at a conveniente place, wher they + accordingly would all attende in readiness. So after long waiting, & + large expences, though he kepte not day with them, yet he came at length + & tooke them in, in the night. But when he had them & their goods + abord, he betrayed them, haveing before hand complotted with the serchers + & other officers so to doe; who tooke them, and put them into open + boats, & ther rifled and ransaked them, searching them to their shirts + for money, yea even the women furder then became modestie; and then caried + them back into the towne, & made them a spectakle & wonder to the + multitude, which came flocking on all sides to behould them. Being thus + first, by the catchpoule officer, rifled, & stripte of their money, + books, and much other goods, they were presented to the magistrates, and + messengers sente to informe the lords of the Counsell of them; and so they + were comited to ward. Indeed the magistrats used them courteously, and + shewed them what favour they could; but could not deliver them till order + came from the Counsell-table. But the issue was that after a months + imprisonmente, the greatest parte were dismiste, & sent to the places + from whence they came; but 7. of the principall were still kept in prison, + and bound over to the Assises.” + </p> + <p> + My excellent “R. N.” of the <i>Handbook of Boston</i> is + anxious to have his reader, as I in turn am anxious to have mine, + distinguish between these future Pilgrim Fathers and the gentlemen and + scholars who later founded Boston in Massachusetts Bay, and called its + name after that of the town they had dwelt in or often visited before they + left the handsome keeping of the gentler life of Lincolnshire. Such were + Richard Bellingham, Edmund Quincy, Thomas Leverett, John Cotton, Samuel + Whiting, and others, known to our colonial and national history. Not even + Bradford or Brewster, afterward dignified figures in Plymouth colony, were + of the humble band, men, women, and children, that the officers of Boston + took from their vessel. “Pathetic but splendid figures,” my + brave “R. N.” calls them, and he tells how, after a month’s + jail, they were “sent home broken men, to endure the scoffs of their + neighbors and the rigors of ecclesiastical discipline.” + </p> + <h3> + VI + </h3> + <p> + The dungeons which remain to witness of their hardships in Boston are of + thick-walled, iron-grated stone, and the captives were fed on bread and + water within smell of the roasting and broiling of the Guildhall kitchens + immediately beside them. I will not conjecture with “R. N.” + that they were put there “by a refinement of cruelty,” so that + they might suffer the more in that vicinage. “The magistrates” + who had “used them courteously and shewed them what favour they + could,” would not have willed that; but perhaps “the + Counsell-table” did; and it was certainly a hardship that the + dungeons and the kitchens were so close together, as any man may see at + this day. Neither the dungeons nor the kitchens are any longer used; the + spits and grates are rusted where the fires blazed, and the cells where + the Pilgrims suffered are now full of large earthen jars. For no other or + better reason, the large open spaces of the basement outside of them were + scattered about with agricultural implements, ploughs, harrows, and the + like. It was the belief of my companion, founded on I know not what fact, + that the hall in which the Pilgrims were tried was a large upper chamber + which we found occupied by a boys’ school. The door stood partly + ajar, and we could see the master within walking up and down before some + twenty boys, as if waiting for one of them to answer some question he had + put them. Perhaps it was a question of local history, for none of them + seemed able to answer it; presently when a boy came out on some errand, + and we stopped him, and asked him where it was the Pilgrims had been + tried, he did not know, and apparently he had never heard of the Pilgrims. + He was a very nice-looking boy, and otherwise not unintelligent; certainly + he was well-mannered, as nice-looking English boys are apt to be with + their elders; perhaps he had heard too much of the Pilgrims, and had + purposely forgotten them. This might very well have happened in a place + like Boston where such hordes of Americans are coming every year, and + asking so many hard questions concerning an incident of local history not + wholly creditable to the place. He could justly have said that the same or + worse might have happened to the Pilgrims anywhere else in England, under + the dread lord there then was, and in fact something of the same hardship + did befall them afterward at the place a little northeast of Boston, which + we were now to visit for their piteous sake. + </p> + <p> + “The nexte spring after,” as Bradford continues the narrative + of their sorrows, “ther was another attempte made by some of these + & others, to get over at an other place. And so it fell out, that they + light of a Dutchman at Hull, having a ship of his owne belonging to + Zealand; they made agreements with him, and acquainted him with their + condition, hoping to find more faithfullnes in him, then in the former of + their owne nation. He bad them not fear, for he would doe well enough. He + was by appointment to take them in betweene Grimsbe & Hull, where was + a large comone a good way distante from any towne. Now against the + prefixed time, the women & children, with the goods, were sent to the + place in a small barke, which they had hired for that end; and the men + were to meete them by land. But it so fell out, that they were ther a day + before the shipe came, and the sea being rough, and the women very sicke, + prevailed with the seamen to put into a creeke hardby, wher they lay on + ground at lowwater. The nexte morning the shipe came, but they were fast, + & could not stir till about noone. In the mean time, the shipe + maister, perceiveing how the matter was, sente his boate to be getting the + men abord whom he saw ready, walking aboute the shore. But after the first + boat full was gott abord, & she was ready to goe for more, the Mr. + espied a greate company, both horse & foote, with bills, & gunes, + & other weapons; for the countrie was raised to take them. The + Dutchman seeing this swore his countries oath, ‘sacremente,’ + and having the wind faire, waiged his Ancor, hoysed sayles, & away. + But the poore men which were gott abord, were in great distress for their + wives and children, which they saw thus to be taken, and were left + destitute of their helps; and them selves also, not having a cloath to + shifte them with, more then they had on their baks, & some scarce a + peney aboute them, all they had being abord the barke. It drew tears from + their eyes, and any thing they had they would have given to have been a + shore againe; but all in vaine, ther was no remedy, they must thus sadly + part. The rest of the men there were in greatest danger, made shift to + escape away before the troope could surprise them: those only staying that + best might, to be assistante unto the women. But pitifull it was to see + the heavie case of these poore women in this distress: what weeping & + crying on every side, some for their husbands, that were carried away in + the ship as is before related; others not knowing what should become of + them, & their little ones; others again melted in teares, seeing their + poore little ones hanging aboute them, crying for feare, and quaking with + could. Being thus aprehanded, they hurried from one place to another, and + from one justice to another, till in the ende they knew not what to doe + with them; for to imprison so many women & innocent children for no + other cause (many of them) but that they must goo with their husbands, + seemed to be unreasonable and all would crie out of them; and to send them + home againe was as difficult, for they aleged, as the trueth was, they had + no homes to goe to, for they had either sould, or otherwise disposed of + their houses & livings. To be shorte, after they had been thus + turmoyled a good while, and conveyed from one constable to another, they + were glad to be ridd of them in the end upon any termes: for all were + wearied & tired with them. Though in the mean time they (poore soules) + indured miserie enough; and thus in the end necessitie forste a way for + them.” + </p> + <h3> + VII + </h3> + <p> + If there is any more touching incident in the history of man’s + inhumanity to man, I do not know it, or cannot now recall it; and it was + to visit the scene of it near “Grimsbe,” or Great Grimsby, as + it is now called, that we set out, after viewing their prison in Boston, + over wide plains, with flights of windmills alighted on them everywhere. + Here and there one seemed to have had its wings clipped, and we were told + by a brighter young fellow than we often had for a travelling companion + that this was because steam had been put into it as a motive power more + constant than wind, even on that wind-swept coast. There seems to have + been nothing else, so far as my note-book witnesses, to take up our + thoughts in the short run to Great Grimsby, and for all I know now I may + have drowsed by many chicken-yards marking the birthplace of our + discoverers and founders. We got to Great Grimsby in time for a very + lamentable lunch in a hostelry near the station, kept, I think, for such + “poore people” as the Pilgrims were, with stomachs not easily + turned by smeary marble table-tops with a smeary maid having to take their + orders, and her ineffective napkin in her hand. The honesty as well as the + poverty of the place was attested, when, returning to recover a forgotten + umbrella, we were met at the door by this good girl, who had left her bar + to fetch it in anticipation of all question. + </p> + <p> + At Great Grimsby, it seemed, there was no vehicle but a very exceptional + kind of cab,—looking like a herdic turned wrongside fore, and unable + to orient itself aright,—available for the long drive to that + “large comone a good way distante from any towne,” which we + were to make, if we wished to visit the scene of the Pilgrims’ + sufferings in their second attempt to escape from their dread lord. In + this strange equipage, therefore, we set out, and nine long miles we drove + through a country which seemed to rise with increasing surprise at us and + our turnout on each inquiry we made for the way from chance passers. Just + beyond the suburbs of the town we entered the region of a vast, evil smell + which we verified as that of the decaying fish spread upon the fields, for + a fertilizer after they had missed their market in that great fishing + centre. Otherwise the landscape was much the ordinary English landscape of + the flatter parts, but wilder and rougher than in the south or west, and + constantly growing more so as we drove on and on. Our cabman kept a good + courage, as long as the highway showed signs of much travel, but when it + began to falter away into a country road, he must have lost faith in our + sanity, though he kept an effect of the conventional respect for his + nominal betters which English cabmen never part with except in a dispute + about fares and distances. We stayed him as well as we could with some + grapes and pears, which we found we did not want after our lunch, and + which we handed him up through his little trap-door, but a plaintive + quaver grew into his voice, and he let his horse lag in the misgiving + which it probably shared with him. Nothing of signal interest occurred in + our progress except at one point, near a Methodist chapel, where we caught + sight of a gayly painted blue van, lettered over with many texts and + mottoes, which my friend explained as one of the vans intinerantly used by + extreme Protestants of the Anne Askew persuasion to prevent the spread of + Romanism in England. + </p> + <p> + The signs of travel had not only ceased, but a little in front of us the + way was barred by a gate, and beyond this gate there was nothing but a + sort of savage pasture, with many red and brown cattle in it, gathered + questioningly about the barrier, or lifting their heads indifferently from + the grass. Just before we reached the gate we passed a peasant’s + cottage, where he was sociably getting in his winter’s coal, and he + and his wife and children, and the carter, all leaned upon whatever + supports they found next them, and stared at the extraordinary apparition + of two, I hope, personable strangers driving in a hansom of extreme type + into a cow pasture. But we were not going to give ourselves away to their + too probable ignorance by asking if that were the place where the Pilgrims + who founded New England were first stopped from going to Holland. + </p> + <p> + My friend dismounted, and opened the gate, and we drove in among the + cattle, and after they had satisfied a peaceful curiosity concerning us, + they went about their business of eating grass, and we strayed over + “the large comone,” and tried to imagine its looks nearly + three hundred years before. They could not have been very different; the + place could hardly have been much wilder, and there was the “creeke + hardby wher they lay,” the hapless women and children, in their boat + “at lowwater,” while the evening came on, no doubt, just as it + was doing with us, the weather clearing, and the sunset glassy and cold. + Off yonder, away across the solitary moor, was the course of the Humber, + marked for us by the trail of a steamer’s smoke through the fringes + of trees, and for them by the sail of the Dutchman, who, when he saw next + day that “great company, both horse and foote, with bills and gunes, + and other weapons,” coming to harry those poor people, “swore + his countries oath, ‘sacremente,’ and having the wind faire, + waiged his ancor, hoysed sails, and away,” leaving those desolate + women and their little ones lamenting. + </p> + <h3> + VIII + </h3> + <p> + On our way back we stopped at a little country church, so peaceful, so + very peaceful, in the evening light, where it stood, withdrawn from the + highway, Norman and Gothic without, and within all so sweet and bare and + clean, that we could not believe in the old ecclesiasticism which + persecuted the Puritans into the exile whither they carried the + persecuting spirit with them. A pretty child, a little girl, opened the + churchyard gate and held it for us to pass, and her gentleness made me the + more question the history of those dreadful days in the past. When I saw a + young lady, in the modern dress which I had so often lost my heart to at + the Church Parade in Hyde Park, going up a leafy lane, toward the + vicarage, from having been for tennis and afternoon tea at some pleasant + home in the neighborhood, I denied the atrocious facts altogether. She had + such a very charming hat on. + </p> + <p> + The suburbs of Great Grimsby, after you reach them through that zone of + bad smell, are rather attractive, and you get into long clean streets of + small stone houses, like those of Plymouth or Southampton, and presently + you reach the Humber, which is full of the steamers and sail, both fishing + and deep sea, of the prosperous port, with great booms of sawlogs from + Norway, half filling the channel, and with a fringe of tall chimneys from + the sawmills along the shores. Great Grimsby is not only the centre of a + vast distributing trade in coal and lumber, but of a still vaster trade in + fish. It cuts one’s pride, if one has believed that Gloucester, + Massachusetts, is the greatest fishing port in the world, to learn that + Grimsby, with a hundred more fishing sail, is only “<i>one</i> of + the principal fishing ports” of the United Kingdom. What can one do + against those brutal British statistics? We think our towns grow like + weeds, but London seems to grow half such a weed as Chicago in a single + night. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0174}.jpg" alt="{0174}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0174}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + After we were got well into the town, we found ourselves part of an + immense bicycle parade, with bicyclers of both sexes on their wheels, in + masks and costumes, Pierrots, and Clowns, and Harlequins and Columbines, + in a competition for the prettiest and fanciest dress. + </p> + <p> + When we came to start from the station on our run to London, we reflected + that there were a great many of these bicyclers, and that they would + probably crowd us in our third-class compartment. So, as we had bought an + excellent supper in baskets, such as they send you on the trains + everywhere in England, and wished to eat it in quiet, we sought out the + guard who was lurking near for the purpose, and bribed him to shut us into + that compartment, and not let any one else in. There we remained in + darkness, with our curtains drawn, and when, near train-time, the + bicyclers began to swarm about the carriages, we heard them demanding + admittance to our compartment from our faithful guard, if that is the + right way to call him. He turned them away with soft answers, answers so + very soft that we could not make out what he said, but he seemed to be + inviting them into other compartments, which he doubtless pretended were + better. The murmurs would die away, and then rise again, and from time to + time we knew that a baffled bicycler was pulling at our door, or vainly + bumping against it. We listened with our hearts in our mouths; but no one + got in, and the train started, and we opened our baskets and began to eat + and to drink, like two aristocrats or plutocrats. What made our inhuman + behavior worse was that we were really nothing of the kind, but both + professed friends of the common people. The story might show that when it + comes to a question of selfishness men are all alike ready to profit by + the unjust conditions. However, it must be remembered that those people + were only bicyclers. If we could have conceived of them as masses we + should have known them for brothers, and let them in, probably. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ABERYSTWYTH, A WELSH WATERING-PLACE + </h2> + <p> + It is only some six or seven hours by train from London to Aberystwyth, + but if you will look at the names on a map of the Cambrian railways, when + you begin the Welsh part of your journey, you will seem to be in a + stranger and farther country than that of Prester John. Pwllheli, Cerrig y + Drudion, Gwerful Goch, Festiniog, Bryn Eglwys, Llanidloes, Maertwro, + Carnedd Fibast, Clynog Fwr, Llan-y-Mawddwy Machynlleth, Duffws, are a few + out of the hundred names in the hills or along the valleys, giving the + near neighborhood of England an effect of more than mid-Asian remoteness. + The eye starts at their look; but if the jaw aches at the thought of + pronouncing them, it is our own wilful orthographical usage that is at + fault; the words, whose sound the letters faithfully render, are music, + and they largely record a Christian civilization which was centuries old + when the Saxons came to drive the Britons into the western mountains and + to call them strangers in the immemorial home of their race. The Britons + of the Roman conquest, who became the Welsh of the baffled Saxon invaders, + and are the Cymry of their own history and poetry, still stand five feet + four in their stockings, where they have stood from the dawn of time, an + inexpugnable host of dark little men, defying the Saeseneg in their + unintelligible, imperishable speech. + </p> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + Of course, except in the loneliest and farthest places, they speak English + as well as Welsh; and they misplace their aspirates, which they lost under + the Normans as the Saxons did. But this did not happen to them by conquest + as it did to the Saxons; they were beguiled of their h’s when they + were cheated with a Welsh-born prince instead of the Welsh prince they + were promised in the succession of their ancient lines. They had been + devout Christians, after their manner, in the earliest centuries; as the + prefix Llan, or Saint, everywhere testifies, the country abounded in + saints, whose sons inherited their saintship; and at the Reformation they + became Calvinists as unqualifiedly as their kindred, the Bretons, remained + Catholics. They have characterized the English and Americans with their + strong traits in a measure which can be dimly traced in the spread of + their ten or twenty national names, and they have kept even with the most + modern ideals quite to the verge of co-education in their colleges. It is + a fact which no Welshman will deny that Cromwell was of Welsh blood. + Shakespeare was unquestionably of Welsh origin. Henry VII. was that Welsh + Twdwr (or Tudor, as the Saeseneg misspell it), who set aside the + Plantagenet succession, and was the grandsire of “the great + Elizabeth,” not to boast of Bloody Mary or Henry VIII. But if these + are not enough, there is the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. + Lloyd-George, who is now the chief figure of the English cabinet. + </p> + <p> + The bad name which their own half-countryman, Giraldus Cambrensis, gave + the Welsh in the twelfth century, clings to them yet in the superstition + of all Norman-minded and Saxon-minded men, so that the Englishman I met on + the way from Edinburgh was doubtless speaking racially rather than + personally when he said that the Welsh were the prize liars of the + universe. I for my part heard no lies in Wales except those I told myself; + but as I am of Welsh stock, perhaps my experience is not wholly refutive + of that Englishman’s position. I can only urge further the noted + philological fact that the Welsh language is so full of imagery that it is + almost impossible to express in it the brute veracities in which the + English speech is so apt. Otherwise I should say that nowhere have I been + used with a more immediate and constant sincerity than in Wales. The + people were polite and they were almost always amiable, but in English, at + least, they did not say the thing that was not; and their politeness was + without the servile forms from lower to higher which rather weary one in + England. They said “Yes,” and “No,” but as gently + as if they had always added “Sir.” If I have it on my + conscience to except from my sweeping praise of sincerity the expressman + at Aberystwyth who promised that our baggage should be at our lodgings in + an hour, and did not bring it in five, I must add that we arrived on the + last day of a great agricultural fair, when even the New York Transfer + Company might have given a promise of more than wonted elasticity. + </p> + <h3> + II + </h3> + <p> + In the station of Aberystwyth there were about three or four thousand + Welshmen of the national height, volubly waiting for the trains to bear + them away to their farms and villages; but they made way most amiably for + the dismounting travellers, who in our case were led through them by the + most energetic porter I ever knew. They did not stare down upon us from + the unseemly altitude of other national statures, and often during our + stay I saw like crowds of civil men in the street markets who were no + taller, and sometimes there were women who had not scaled the heights + reached by our American girls. They would probably have competed fairly + well with these in the courses of the colleges to which the Welsh send + their daughters as well as their sons; but I will not pretend that the + good looks of either the men or women was of the American average. I + cannot even say that these contemporary ancient Britons had the advantage + of the toothless English peasantry in the prompt dentistry which is our + peculiar blessing. In Great Britain, though I must not say Ireland, for I + have never been there, a few staggering incisors seem a formidable + equipment of the jaw in lower-class middle life and even tender youth. The + difference is a tremendous advantage which, if it does not make for the + highest character in us, will doubtless stand us in good stead in any + close with the well-toothed Japanese, and when we are beaten, our + gold-fillings will go far to pay our indemnity. + </p> + <p> + After all those thousands at the station had departed, there were still + visitors enough left in Aberystwyth to distend the hotels uncomfortably; + and the next morning we set out in the pursuit, always interesting and + alluring, of lodgings. The town seemed to be pretty full of lodgings, but + as it was the middle of August, and the very height of the season, they + were full-up in dismaying measure. We found the only one not kept by a + Welsh woman in the ostensible keeping of an Englishwoman, a veteran + cockney landlady, but behind her tottering throne reigned a Welsh girl, + under whose iron rule we fell as if we had been unworthy Saeseneg instead + of Cymric-fetched Americans. We had rejected other lodgings because, + though their keepers had promised to provision us, it always appeared that + we must go out and do the marketing ourselves. I shall lastingly regret + that we did not submit to this condition, for it would have been one of + the best means of studying the local life. But we held out for the London + custom, and before the Welsh Power, which has so often made itself felt + behind English thrones, could intervene, compliance was promised. After + that it remained for the Welsh Power to make our stay difficult, and our + going easy. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0184}.jpg" alt="{0184}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0184}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + Otherwise the place was delightful; it was in almost the centre of the + long curve of the Victoria Terrace, with windows that looked down upon the + pebbly beach, and over the blue sea to the bluer stretch of the + Pembrokeshire hills on the south, and the Carnarvonshire hills on the + north, holding the lovely waters in their shadowy embrace. There was not + much shipping, and what there was seemed of the pleasure sort that parties + go down to the sea to be sick in. The long parade was filled at most hours + with the English who make the place their resort; whose bathing began + early in the morning and whose flirting continued far into the night, with + forenoon and afternoon dawdling and dozing on the pebbles. At one end of + the Terrace rose a prodigious headland, whose slope was scaled over with + broken slate, like some mammoth heaving from the deep and showing an + elephantine hide of bluish gray. At the other end was the Amusement Pier, + with the co-educational college, which is part of the University of Wales, + and with divers hotels. Somewhat behind and beyond were the ruins of one + of those castles which the Normans planted with a mailed fist at every + vantage in Wales, as their sole means of holding down the swarming, + squirming, fighting little dark people of the country. Even then they + could not do it, for the Welsh, often overrun, were never conquered, as + they will tell you themselves if you ask them. But Wales is now perhaps + the most peaceful country in the world. Its prisons for the most part + stand empty (it is said), and the people, once so turbulent, are as little + given to violence as to vice. In fact, I once heard a great Welsh scholar + declare that in the old times it was not the true Welsh who kept up the + fighting, either on the public or the private scale, but the Scotch and + Irish who had found a home among them. In any case, it is true that after + the Normans had planted their castles in Wales to hold the country, it was + all they could do to hold the castles, and not till their enemies had + imagined having the English King’s son born in one of them did they + bring the Welsh under the English crown at last. Even then that uncertain + people broke from their allegiance now and again; or the Scotch and Irish + among them did. + </p> + <h3> + III + </h3> + <p> + All sorts of sights and sounds might be expected on our Terrace, but that + which especially warmed the heart of exile in us, and pleased the fancy of + other sojourners was the appearance, one evening, of a stately band of + tall men in evening dress and top-hats, with musical instruments in their + grasp, and heads lifted high above their Welsh following. We called the + Power behind the Throne to the window in our question and she gave a glad + cry: “Oh, they’re the Neegurs! They’re the white + Neegurs!” and at sight of our compatriotic faces at the pane, these + beautiful giants took their stand before our house, and burst into the + familiar music of the log-cabin, the stern-wheel steamboat, and the + cornfield, as well as the ragtime melodies of later days. It was a rich + moment, and I know not which joyed in it more, the Welsh Power or the + American Sufferance. + </p> + <p> + But here, before I go farther afield, I must note a main difference + between the Welsh Power and the English slavey to whom she corresponded in + calling and condition. She was so far educated as to know the pseudonym of + the friend who came to see us, and to have read his writings in the <i>Welsh + Gazette</i>, treating our proposed triumph in his distinction with the + fine scorn she used for all our airs. If she had been an old-fashioned + Yankee Help she could not have been more snubbing; but when we had been + taught to know our place she was more tolerant, and finally took leave of + us without rancor. + </p> + <p> + The notion of the general Welsh education which her intelligence gave us + was carried indefinitely farther by the grocer’s boy to whom our + friend presented me one evening, after he had been struggling to make me + understand what an <i>englyn</i> was. I am able now to explain that it is + a polite stanza which the Welsh send with a present of fruit or flowers, + or for a greeting upon any worthy occasion. It is rhymed, sometimes at + both ends of the lines, and sometimes in the middle of them, and it + presents all the difficulties of euphony which the indomitable Welsh glory + in overcoming. But when my friend took me in hand, my ignorance was of so + dense a surface that he could make no impression on it, and he said at + last, “Let us go into this grocery. There’s a boy here who + will <i>show</i> you what an englyn is,” and after I was introduced + the kind youth did so with pleasure, while he sold candles to one + customer, soap to another, cheese to another, and herring to another. He + first wrote the englyn in Welsh, and when I had sufficiently admired it in + that tongue (for which no atavistic knowledge really served me), he said + he would put it into English, and he did so. It was then not rhymed at + both ends or in the middle, but it was rhymed quite enough, and if it had + not the harp-like sweetness of the original, it was still such a musical + stanza that I shall always be sorry to have lost it. What I can never lose + the impression of is the wide-spread literary lore of the common Welsh + people which the incident suggested. I could not fancy even a Boston + grocer’s boy doing the like; and perhaps this was an uncommon boy in + Wales itself. He told me a good deal, which I have mainly forgotten, about + the state of polite learning in his country and in what honor the living + bards were held. It seems that in that rhyming and singing little land, + the poets are still known as of old by their bardic names. As Jones, or + Evans, or Edwards they have no fame beyond other men, but up and down all + Wales they are celebrated as this bard or that, and are honored according + to their poetic worth. + </p> + <h3> + IV + </h3> + <p> + After the appearance of the White Neegurs on the Terrace, I could hardly + have expected any livelier appeal to my American pride, and yet it came, + one day, when I learned that the line of carriages which I saw passing our + windows were the vehicles bearing to some public function the members of + the British Chautauqua. How far the name and idea of Chautauqua have since + spread there is no saying, but it was the last of our national inventions + which I should have expected to find in Aberystwyth, though Welsh culture + was reasonably in its line, and the Eisteddfod was not out of keeping with + the summer conferences held beside our lovely up-State lake. The British + Chautauqua, as I saw it, was a group of people from all parts of the + United Kingdom joined in the pursuit of improvement and enjoyment, and + they were now here on one of their summer outings. They had been invited + to a gentleman’s place not far from Aberystwyth to view as + indubitable a remnant of the Holy Grail as now exists, and it was my very + good fortune through the kind offices of that friend of ours to be invited + with them. + </p> + <p> + It was a blamelessly rainless afternoon, of a sort commoner on the western + Welsh coast than on other shores of the “rainy isles,” but not + too common even there; and we drove out of the town through the prettiest + country of hillside fields and valleys opening to the sea, on a road that + was fairly dusty in the hot sun. There were cottages, grouped and + detached, all the way, with gray stone walls and blue slate roofs, and in + places the children ran out from them with mercenary offerings of flowers + and song, or with frank pleas for charity direct. I yielded with + reluctance to the instruction of a Manchester economist in my carriage, + and denied them, when I would so much rather have abetted them in their + wicked attempts on our pockets. I remember ruefully still that they had + voices as sweet and eyes as dark as the children who used to chase our + wheels in Italy, and I have no doubt they deserved quite as well of us as + those did. + </p> + <p> + I got back my spirits when we left our carriages, and I found myself + walking up a pleasant avenue of wilding trees, with a young Chautauquan + from Australia who looked as if he might be a young Chautauquan from + Alabama, tall, and lean, and brown. We fell into talk about the trees, and + he said how they differed in their green from the sombre gray of his + native forests; and then he, from that vast far continent of his, spoke of + the little island where we were, as Home. That has always a strange effect + for us self-outcasts from the great British roof, and whether it makes us + smile, or makes us sigh, it never fails to startle us when we hear it from + colonial lips. The word holds in common kindness Canada and India and + South Africa and Australia, and it has its pathos in the fact that the old + mother of these mighty children seems to leave solely to them the + tenderness that draws them to her in that notion of home. + </p> + <h3> + V + </h3> + <p> + There were about fifty of those British Chautauquans, and when they had + ranged themselves on the grass before the shrubbery of a pleasant lawn, + backed by a wooded slope, the dignified lady of the house came out with a + casket in her hand, and put it on a table, and the exercises began. Fitly, + if the casket really held the sacred relic, they began with prayer; then a + Welsh soloist followed with a hymn, but whether she sang in Welsh or + English, I do not remember; I am only sure she sang divinely; and then + came the speeches. The first of the speeches was by our friend, who was + the local Unitarian minister, and of a religious body not inconsiderable + in that Calvinistic Wales. He told us how the Holy Grail had been + deposited with the monks of Strata Florida, the famous old abbey near + Aberystwyth; but I forgot who made them this trust, unless it was King + Arthur’s knights, and I am not sure whether the fact is matter of + legend or history. What I remember is that when the abbey was suppressed + by Henry VIII., certain of the escaping monks came with the relic to the + gentle house where we then were, and placed it in the keeping of the + family who have guarded it ever since. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0192}.jpg" alt="{0192}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0192}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + After our friend, the lady of this house took up the tale, and told in + words singularly choice and simple the story of the sacred relic as the + family knew it. I had only once before heard a woman speak, no less a + woman than our great and dear Julia Ward Howe, and it seemed to me that + she spoke better than any man; and I must say of the Chautauquans’ + hostess, that day, that if ever the Englishwomen come into their full + political rights, as they seem sure to do, the traditions of good sense + and good taste in English public speaking will not pass, but will prosper + on through their orators. There were touches of poetry, nationally Welsh, + in what she said, and touches of humor perhaps personally Welsh. It seems + that the cup had been famed throughout the countryside for the miraculous + property by which whoever drank from it was cured of his or her malady, + and it had been passed freely round to all sufferers ever since it came + into her family’s keeping. That they might make doubly sure of the + miracle, it was the custom of the sick not only to empty the cup, but to + nibble a little bit of the wood, and swallow that, so that in whatever + state the monks of Strata Florida had confided it, the vessel was now in + the state we saw. Saying this the lady opened the casket holding it, and + showed us the crescent-shaped rim of a wooden bowl, about the bigness of a + cocoanut shell; all the rest had been consumed by the pious sufferers whom + it had restored to health. + </p> + <p> + I am sorry, after all, to own that this cup is said by some authorities + not to be the Holy Grail, but a vessel like it carved out of the true + cross. But even so subordinate a relic is priceless, and as it is no + longer possible to drink from it, we may hope that the fragment will + remain indefinitely to after time. When they had wondered at the sight of + it the Chautauquans and their friend were made free of the charming + seventeenth-century house, which would be old for this country, but which + in the taste of that time was rather modern, and looked like the casino of + some Italian villa. It abounded, as such houses in England do, in the + pictured faces of the past, and in the memorials which only the centuries + can leave behind them, but was too graceful to seem rich. “A home of + ancient peace,” it looked, in its mild gray stone amidst its lawns + and shrubberies, the larger hold of the gardens and pleasaunces through + which the Chautauquans followed from it. + </p> + <h3> + VI + </h3> + <p> + At Aberystwyth, and elsewhere in Wales, one of the things I noticed was + the difference of the people from the people over the English border in + their attitude toward their betters. They might stand only five feet in + their stockings, but they stood straight, and if they were respectful, + they were first self-respectful. In our run from Shrewsbury, their + language first made itself generally heard at Newport, and it increased in + the unutterable names of the stations westward, the farther we passed into + their beautiful country, but they had always English enough to be civil, + though never servile. The country is beautiful in the New England measure, + but it is of a softer and smaller beauty; it looks more caressable; it is + like Vermont rather than New Hampshire, and it is more like New England + than Old England in the greater number of isolated farm-houses, from which + the girls as well as the boys come to the university colleges for learning + undreamt of by English farm villagers. + </p> + <p> + The air was fresh and sweet, and though it seemed to shower wherever we + stopped to let another train go by on a siding of our single track, there + was a very passable sense of summer sun. The human type as we began to + observe it and as we saw it afterward throughout the land was not only + diminutive, but rather plain and mostly dark, in the men; as to the women + they were, as they are everywhere, charming, with now and then a face of + extraordinary loveliness, and nearly always the exquisite West of England + complexion. In their manners the people could not be more amiable than the + English, who are as amiable as possible, but they seemed brighter and + gayer. This remained their effect to the last in Aberystwyth, and when one + left the Terrace where the English visitors superabounded, the Welsh had + the whole place to themselves. I would not push my conjecture, but it + seemed to me that there was an absence of the cloying loyalty which makes + sojourn in England afflictive to the republican spirit; I remember but one + shop dedicated to the King’s Majesty, with the royal arms over the + door, though there may have been many others; I am always warning the + reader not to take me too literally. + </p> + <p> + Though I was about the streets by day and by dark, I saw no disorderly + behavior of any kind in the town away from the beach; I do not mean there + was any by the sea, unless some athletic courtship among the young people + of the watering-place element was to be accounted so. There was not much + fashion there, except in a few pretty women who recalled the church parade + of Hyde Park in their flowery and feathery costumes. Back in the town + there was no fashion at all, but a general decency and comfort of dress. + The Welsh costume survives almost solely in the picture-postal cards, + though perhaps in the hilly fastnesses the women still wear the + steeple-crowned hats which we associate with the notion of witches; when + they come to market in Aberystwyth they wear hard, shiny black straw hats + like the men’s. Amongst the throng of Saturday-night shoppers I saw + none of the drunkenness that one sees so often in Scottish streets, and in + English cities, and, I grieve to say, even in some New England towns. In + the Welsh quarter Sunday was much more the Sabbath than it was on the + Terrace, where indeed it seemed a day of pleasure rather than praise. + </p> + <h3> + VII + </h3> + <p> + All the week I had the best intention of hearing the singing in some of + the Welsh churches, but my goodwill could not carry the day against the + fear of a sermon which I should not understand. A chance sermon would + probably have touched upon the education act which was then stirring all + Dissenting England and Wales to passive resistance, and from Lincolnshire + to Carnarvonshire was causing the distraint of tables and chairs, tools, + hams, clocks, clothing, poultry, and crops for the payment of such part of + the Dissenters’ taxes as would go to the support of the Church + schools. Possibly it might also have referred to the Walk Out of the Welsh + Members of Parliament; this was an incident which I heard mentioned as of + imperial importance, though what caused it or came of it I do not know. + </p> + <p> + Instead of going to church, I strolled up and down the Terrace and + observed the watering-place life. The town was evidently full, or at least + all the lodging-houses were, and as it is with the English everywhere in + their summer resorts, there were men enough to go round, so that no poor + dear need pine for a mate on that pleasant beach. Aberystwyth is therefore + to be commended to our overflow of girls, though whether there are many + eligible noblemen among those youth I have not the statistics for saying. + All the visitors may have been people of rank; I only know that I was told + they were mostly from the midland cities, and they seemed to be having the + good time which people of brief outings alone have. The bathing began, as + I have noted, very early in the day with the men in the briefest possible + tights; the women, for compensation, wore long trousers with their + bathing-skirts, and they enhanced the modesty of their effect by the + universal use of bathing-machines, pushed well away from the curious + shore. There was not much variety in the visiting English type, but there + was here and there a sharp imperial accent, as in the two pale little, + spindle-legged Anglo-Indian boys, with their Hindu ayah, very dark, with + sleek dark hair, and gleaming eyes in a head not much bigger than a black + walnut. + </p> + <p> + The crescent of the beach was a serried series of hotels and + lodging-houses, from tip to tip, but back of these were streets of + homelike, smallish dwellings, that broke rank farther away, and scattered + about in suburban villas, with trees and flowers and grass around them. + Beyond stretched, as well as it could stretch among its hills, the + charming country of fields, and woods, and orchards. + </p> + <h3> + VIII + </h3> + <p> + I suppose I did not quite do my duty by the ruins of the Norman castle, + and I feel that it is now too late to repair my neglect. The stronghold + was more than once attempted by the Welsh in those wars which make their + history a catalogue of battles, but it held out Norman till the Normans + turned English. Owen Glendover took it in 1402, when it was three hundred + years old, though not yet feeble with age, and in due time one of Cromwell’s + lieutenants destroyed it. Some very picturesque fragments remain to attest + the grace and strength of the ancient hold. It is near the University + College and the Amusement Pier, so that the mere sight-seers can do all + the ordinary objects of interest at Aberystwyth in half a day or half an + hour. But we were none of these. We had fallen in love with the place, and + we would fain have stayed on after the week was up for which we had taken + our lodging. It appeared from a house-to-house canvass, that there was no + other lodging to be had in all that long crescent of the Terrace; or, if + this is incredible, there was none we would have. Our successors were + impending; and though I think our English landlady might have invented + something for us at the last moment, the Welsh Power was inexorable. Her + ideal was lodgers who would go out and buy their own provisions, and we + had set our faces against that. Some one must yield, and the Welsh Power + could not; it was not in her nature. We were therefore in a manner + expelled from Aberystwyth, but our banishment was not from all Wales, and + this was how we went next to Llandudno. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + LLANDUDNO, ANOTHER WELSH WATERING-PLACE + </h2> + <p> + Froissart’s saying, if it was Froissart’s, that the English + amuse themselves sadly antedates that notion of Merry England which is now + generally rejected by serious observers. I should myself prefer the + agnostic position, and say that I did not know whether the English were + glad or not when they looked gay. What I seem to be certain of, but I do + not say that I am certain, is that they look gayer in their places of + amusement than we do. I do not mean theatres, or parliaments, or + music-halls, or lecture-rooms, by places of amusement, but what we call + summer resorts a little more largely than those resorts which the English + call watering-places. Of these I should like to take as a type the + charming summer resort on the coast of North Wales which is called + Llandudno in print, and in speech several different ways. + </p> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + The English simply and frankly, after their blunt nature, call the place + Landudno, but the Welsh call it, according to one superstition of their + double <i>l</i> and their French <i>u</i>, Thlandidno. According to + another, we cannot spell it in English at all; but it does not much + matter, for the last superstition is the ever-delightful but ever-doubtful + George Borrow’s, who says that the Welsh <i>ll</i> is the same as + the Spanish <i>ll</i>, but who is probably mistaken, most other + authorities agreeing that if you pronounce it <i>lhl</i> you will come as + near it as any Saeseneg need. It is a constantly besetting question in + Wales, where the prefix <i>Llan</i> speckles the map all over, owing to + that multitude of Saints who peopled the country in the times when a Saint’s + sons were every one saints, and none was of particularly holy, or even + good life, because he was known for a saint. Like a continental noble, he + inherited his title equally with all his brothers. + </p> + <p> + But through whatever orthoepic mazes you search it, Llandudno has every + claim on your regard and admiration. Like Aberystwyth, its sea front is a + shallow crescent, but vaster, with a larger town expanding back of it, and + with loftier and sublimer headlands, at either end, closing it in a more + symmetrical frame. But I should say that its sea was not so blue, or its + sky either, and its air was not so soft or dry. Morally it is more + constantly lively, with a greater and more insistent variety of + entertainments. For the American its appeal might well have begun with the + sight of his country’s flag floating over a tennis-ground at the + neighboring watering-place and purer Welsh town of Rhyl. The approach to + his affections was confirmed by another American flag displayed before one + of the chief hotels in Llandudno itself. I learned afterward of the + landlord that this was because there were several Chicago families in his + house, and fifteen Americans in all; but why the tennis-ground of Rhyl + flew our national banner, I do not know to this day. It was indeed that + gentle moment when our innocent people believed themselves peculiarly dear + to the English, and might naturally suppose, if from Chicago, or Boston, + or Denver, that the English would wish to see as often as possible the + symbol of our successful revolt from the princes and principles to which + they have religiously adhered. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0204}.jpg" alt="{0204}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0204}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + Both that home of the patriotic Chicago families, and the other best hotel + were too full for us, and after a round of the second-best we decided for + lodgings, hoping as usual that they would bring us nearer the native life. + The best we could get, facing the sea midway of the crescent, were not + exactly Welsh in their keeping. The landladies were, in fact, two elderly + Church-of-England sisters from Dublin, who had named their house out of a + novel they had read. They said they believed the name was Italian, and the + reader shall judge if it were so from its analogue of Osier Wood. The + maids in the house, however, were very truly and very wickedly Welsh: two + tough little ponies of girls, who tied their hair up with shoe-strings, + and were forbidden, when about their work, to talk Welsh together, lest + they should speak lezing of those Irish ladies. The rogues were half + English, but the gentle creature who served our table was wholly Welsh; + small, sweet-voiced, dark-eyed, intelligent, who suffered from the + universal rheumatism of the British Isles, but kept steadily to her duty, + and accepted her fate with patience and even cheerfulness. She waited on + several other tables, for the house was full of lodgers, all rather less + permanent than ourselves, who were there for a fortnight; we found our + landladies hoping, when we said we were going, to have had us with them + through the winter. + </p> + <h3> + II + </h3> + <p> + Our fellow-lodgers were quiet people of divers degrees, except perhaps the + highest, unless the nobility bring boiled hams with them when they visit + the seaside. The boiled ham of the drawing-room floor was frankly set out + on the hall table, where it seemed to last a week, or at least till the + lodgers went away. There was much coming and going, for it was the height + of the season, with the prices at flood tide. We paid six guineas a week + for three bedrooms and a sitting-room; but our landladies owned it was + dear. An infirm and superannuated sideboard served for a dressing-table in + one room; in others the heavier pieces of furniture stood sometimes on + four legs, sometimes on three. We had the advantage of two cats on the + back fence, and a dog in the back yard; but if the controversy between + them was carried on in Welsh, it is no wonder we never knew what it was + about. + </p> + <p> + Our hostesses said the Welsh were dirty housekeepers: “At least <i>we</i> + think so,” but I am bound to say their own cooking was very good; + and not being Welsh our hostesses consented to market for us, except in + the article of Spanish melons: these I bought myself of increasing cost + and size. When I alleged, the second morning, that the melon then sold me + for sixpence had been sold me by another boy for fourpence the day before, + my actual Cymric youth said, “Then he asked you too little,” + which seemed a <i>non sequitur</i> but was really an unexpected stroke of + logic. + </p> + <p> + It was the utmost severity used with me by my co-racials in Llandudno. + They were in the great majority of the permanent inhabitants, but they + were easily outnumbered among the pleasurers by the Saeseneg, whose + language prevailed, so that a chance word of Welsh now and then was all + that I heard in the streets. Some faint stirrings of ambition to follow + the language as far as a phrase-book would lead were not encouraged by the + kindly bookseller who took my money for it; and I did not go on. It is a + loss for me in literature which translation cannot supply, for the English + lovers of Welsh poetry, after praising it to the skies, are never able to + produce anything which is not direly mechanical and vacuous. The native + charm somehow escapes them; the grace beyond the reach of art remains with + the Cymric poets who have resources for its capture unknown to their + English admirers. George Borrow seems the worst failure in this sort, and + the worst offender in giving his reader the hopes he never fulfils, so + that his <i>Wild Wales</i> is a desert of blighted literary promises. I + believe that the merit of Welsh poetry dwells largely, perhaps + overlargely, in its intricate technique, and in the euphonic changes which + leave the spoken word ready for singing almost without the offices of the + composer. + </p> + <h3> + III + </h3> + <p> + One of the great musical contests, the yearly national Eisteddfod, was + taking place that year at the neighboring town of Rhyl, but I did not go + to hear it, not being good for a week’s music without intermission. + At Llandudno there was only the music of the Pierrots and the Niggers, + which those simple-hearted English have borrowed, the one from France and + the other from these States. Their passion for our colored minstrelsy is, + in fact, something pathetic. They like Pierrots well enough, and Pierrots + <i>are</i> amusing, there is no doubt of it; but they dote upon Niggers, + as they call them with a brutality unknown among us except to the + vulgarest white men and boys, and the negroes themselves in moments of + exasperation. Negro minstrelsy is almost extinct in the land of its birth, + but in the land of its adoption it flourishes in the vigor of undying + youth: no watering-place is genuine without it. Bands of Niggers haunt the + streets and suburbs of London, and apparently every high day or holiday + throughout the British Islands requires the stamp of their presence as a + nostrum requires the name of the patentee blown in the bottle. The decay + of their gay science began among us with the fall of slavery, and the + passing of the old plantation life; but as these never existed in Great + Britain the English version of negro minstrelsy is not affected by their + disappearance. It is like the English tradition of the Red Skins, which + has all but vanished from our superstition, but remains as powerful as + ever in the constant fancy of those islanders. + </p> + <p> + The English like their Niggers very, very black, and as their Niggers are + English they know how to gratify the national preference: such a spread of + scarlet lips over half the shining sable face is known nowhere else in + nature or art; and it must have been in despair of rivalling their + fellow-minstrels that the small American troupe we saw at Aberystwyth went + to the opposite extreme and frankly appeared as the White Neegurs. At + Llandudno the blackness of the Niggers was absolute, so that it almost + darkened the day as they passed our lodging, along the crescent of the + beach on their way to their open-air theatre beyond it. They were followed + by a joyous retinue of boys and girls, tradesmen’s apprentices, + donkeys, bath-chairs, and all the movable gladness of the watering-place, + to the music of their banjos and the sound of their singing. They were + going to a fold of the foot-hills called the Happy Valley, bestowed on the + public for such pleasures by the local nobleman whose title is given to a + principal street, and to other points and places, I suppose out of the + public pride and gratitude. It is a charming amphitheatre overlooked by + the lofty tops around, and there on the green slope the Niggers had set up + their stage, and ranged the spectators’ chairs in the classification + of first, second, and third so dear to the British soul. There they + cracked their jokes, and there they sang their songs; the songs were newer + than the jokes, but they were both kinds delivered with a strong Cockney + accent, and without an aspirate in its place. But it was all richly + acceptable to the audience, who laughed and cheered and joined in the + chorus when asked. Here, as everywhere, the crowd delighted equally in + songs of the sloppiest sentimentality and of humor nighest indecency. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0210}.jpg" alt="{0210}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0210}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + On the afternoon of our visit the good lady next me could not contain her + peculiar pride in the entertainment, and confided that she knew the leader + of the troupe, who was an old friend of her husband’s. It was indeed + a time and place that invited to expansion. Nothing could have been + friendlier and livelier than the spectacle of the spectators spread over + the grassy slope, or sublimer than the rise of the hills around, or more + enchanting than the summer sea, with the large and little shipping on it, + and the passenger-steamers going and coming from Liverpool and all the + points in the region round. The two headlands which mark the limits of the + beautiful beach, Great Orme’s Head, and Little Orme’s Head, + are both of a nobleness tempered to kindliness by the soft and manageable + beauty of their forms. I never got quite so far as Little Orme’s + Head, for it was full two miles from our lodging, and a fortnight was not + long enough for the journey, but with Great Orme’s Head I was on + terms of very tolerable intimacy. A road of the excellence peculiar to + England passes round on the chin, so to speak, and though I never went the + length of it, I went far enough to know the majesty of the seaward + prospect. From the crown of the Head there is a view of perhaps all the + mountains in Wales, which from this point appears entirely composed of + mountains, blue, blue and enchantingly fair. On the townward side you may + descend into the Happy Valley, as we did, and find always a joyous crowd + listening to the Niggers. If, after some doubt of your way, you have the + favor of a nice boy and an intelligent collie dog, whom the boy is helping + herd home the evening cows of a pleasant farm, you will have a charming + glimpse of the local civilization; and perhaps you will notice that the + cows do not pay much attention to the boy, but obey the dog implicitly; it + is their Old World convention. + </p> + <h3> + IV + </h3> + <p> + From another side we had ascended the mountain by the tram line which + climbs it to the top, and at every twist and turn lavishes some fresh + loveliness of landscape upon your vision. Near by, we noticed many + depressions and sinkages in the ground, and a conversable man in + well-oiled overalls who joined us at a power-house, said it was from the + giving way of the timbers in the disused copper-mines. Were they very old, + we asked, and he said they had not been worked for forty years; but this, + when you come to think of the abandoned Roman mines yet deeper in the + hill, was a thing of yesterday. The man in the oily overalls had evidently + not come to think of it, but he was otherwise a very intelligent mechanic, + and of a hospitable mind, like all the rest of our chance acquaintance in + Great Britain. I do not know that I like to think of those Roman mines + myself, where it is said the sea now surges back and forth: they must have + been worked by British slaves, who may be fancied climbing purblindly out + when the legions left Britain, and not joining very loudly in the general + lamentation at their withdrawal, but probably tempering the popular grief + with the reflection that the heathen Saxons could not be much worse. + </p> + <p> + The hill-top was covered with the trippers who seem perpetually holidaying + on their island, and who were always kind to their children when they had + them, and to each other when they had not. They were commonly in couples, + very affectionate and inoffensively young. They wandered about, and from + time to time went and had tea at one of the tea-houses which are always at + hand over there. Except the view there was not much to see; the ways were + rough; now and then you came to a pink cottage or a white one where the + peasantry, again, sold tea. At one place in our walk over the occiput of + Great Orme’s Head into the Happy Valley in its bosom, we fell a prey + to a conspiracy of boys selling mignonette: it appeared to be a mignonette + trust, or syndicate, confining its commerce to that flower. + </p> + <p> + I have no other statistics to offer concerning business on Great Orme’s + Head, or indeed in all Llandudno. One of the chief industries seemed to be + coaching, for a score of delightful places are to be easily reached by the + stages always departing from the hotels on the Parade. There was no + particularly noticeable traffic in leek, though I suppose that as I did + not see the national emblem in any Welshman’s hat—to be sure, + it was not St. David’s Day—it must have been boiling in every + Welshman’s pot. I am rather ashamed to be joining, even at this + remove, in the poor English joking which goes on about the Welsh, quite as + much as about the Scotch, the Irish having become too grave a matter for + joking. There are little burlesque manuals making merry with the language + and its agglutinative prolixity, which I shall certainly not quote; and + there are postal-cards representing Welsh dames drinking tea in tall + witch-hats, with one of them saying: “I wass enjoying myself + shocking, look you.” There was, of course, nothing serious in this + joking; the Welsh, who have all the small commerce in their hands, gladly + sold the manuals and postals, and I did not see one Englishman laughing + over them. + </p> + <p> + The Saeseneg visitors rather amused themselves with the sea and the + resources of the beach and the bathing. As contrasted with the visitors at + Aberystwyth, so distinctly in the earlier and later stages of love-making, + I should say those at Llandudno were domestic: fathers and mothers who + used the long phalanx of bathing-machines appointed to their different + sexes, and their children who played in the sand. I thought the children + charming, and I contributed tuppence to aid in the repair of the sand + castle of two nice little boys which had fallen down; it now seems strange + that I should have been asked for a subscription, but in England + subscriptions spare nobody; though I wonder if two such nice little boys + would have come to me for money in America. Besides the entertainment of + lying all afternoon on the beach, or sitting beside it in canopied penny + chairs, there was more active diversion for all ages and sexes in the + circus prevailing somewhere in the background, and advertising itself + every afternoon by a procession of six young elephants neatly carrying + each in his trunk the tail of the elephant before him. There were also the + delightful shows of the amusement pier where one could go and see Pierrots + to one’s heart’s content, if one can ever get enough of + Pierrots; I never can. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0216}.jpg" alt="{0216}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0216}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + Besides all these daytime things there were two very good theatres, at one + of which I saw Mr. Barrie’s <i>Little Mary</i> given better than in + New York (that was easy), and at the other a comic opera, with a bit of + comedy or tragedy in a stage-box, not announced in the bills. The audience + was otherwise decorous enough to be composed of Welsh Baptist elders and + their visiting friends, but in this box there were two young men in + evening dress, scuffling with a young woman in dinner décolletée, and what + appeared to be diamonds in her ears. They were trying, after what seems + the convention of English seaside flirtation, to get something out of her + hand, and allowing her successfully to resist them; and their playful + contest went on through a whole act to the distraction of the spectators, + who did not seem greatly scandalized. It suggested the misgiving that + perhaps bad people came to Llandudno for their summer outing as well as + good; but there was no interference by the police or the management with + this robust side-show. Were the actors in the scene, all or any of them, + too high in rank to be lightly molested in their lively event; or were + they too low? Perhaps they were merely tipsy, but all the same their + interlude was a contribution to the evening’s entertainment which + would not have been so placidly accepted in, say, Atlantic City, or Coney + Island, or even Newport, where people are said to be more accustomed to + the caprices of society persons, and more indulgent of their whims. + </p> + <h3> + V + </h3> + <p> + A more improving, and on the whole more pleasing, phase of the indigenous + life, and also more like a phase of our own, showed itself the day of our + visit to Conway, a little way from Llandudno. There, on our offering to + see the ruins of the wonderful and beautiful old castle, we were met at + the entrance with a demand for an exceptional shilling gate money, because + of the fair for the local Wesleyan Chapel which was holding in the + interior. What seemed at first a hardship turned out a chance which we + would not have missed on any account. There was a large tent set up in the + old castle court, and a table spread with home-made dainties of many + sorts, and waited upon by gentle maids and matrons who served one with tea + or whatever else one liked, all for that generously inclusive shilling. + They were Welsh, they told us, and they were speaking their language to + right and left of us, while they were so courteous to us in English. It + was quite like a church fair in some American village, where, however, it + could not have had the advantage of a ruined Norman castle for its scene, + and where it would not have provided a range for target practice with + air-guns, or grounds for running and jumping. + </p> + <p> + The place was filled with people young and old who were quietly amusing + themselves and were more taken up with the fair than with the castle. I + must myself comparatively slight the castle in the present study of people + rather than places, though I may note that if there is any more + interesting ruin in the world, I am satisfied with this which it + surpasses. Besides its beauty, what strikes one most is its perfect + adaptation to the original purpose of palace and fortress for which the + Normans planned their strongholds in Wales. The architect built not only + with a constant instinct of beauty, but with unsurpassable science and + skill. The skill and the science have gone the way of the need of them, + but the beauty remains indelible and as eternal as the hunger for it in + the human soul. Conway castle is not all a ruin, even as a fortress, + however. Great part of it still challenges decay, and is so entire in its + outward shape that it has inspired the railway running under its shoulder + to attempt a conformity of style in the bridge approaching it, but without + enabling it to an equal effect of grandeur. One would as soon the bridge + had not tried. + </p> + <p> + All Conway is worthy, within its ancient walls, of as much devotion as one + can render it in the rain, which begins as soon as you leave the castle. + The walls climb from the waters to the hills, and the streets wander up + and down and seem to the stranger mainly to seek that beautiful old Tudor + house, Plas Mawr, which like the castle is without rival in its kind. It + was full of reeking and streaming sight-seers, among whom one could easily + find one’s self incommoded without feeling one’s self a part + of the incommodation, but in spite of them there was the assurance of + comfort as well as splendor in the noble old mansion, such as the + Elizabethan houses so successfully studied. In the dining-room a corner of + the mantel has its sandstone deeply worn away, and a much-elbowed + architect, who was taking measurements of the chimney, agreed that this + carf was the effect of the host or the butler flying to the place and + sharpening his knife for whatever haunch of venison or round of beef was + toward. It was a fine memento of the domestic past, and there was a secret + chamber where the refugees of this cause or that in other times were + lodged in great discomfort. Besides, there was a ghost which was fairly + crowded out of its accustomed quarters, where so far from being able to + walk, it would have had much ado to stand upright by flattening itself + against the wall. + </p> + <h3> + VI + </h3> + <p> + In fact, there was not much more room that day in the Plas Mawr, than in + the Smallest House in the World, which is the next chiefest attraction of + Conway. This, too, was crammed with damp enthusiasts, passionately eager + to sign their names in the guest-book. They scarcely left space in the + sitting-room of ten by twelve feet for the merry old hostess selling + photographs and ironically inviting her visitors’ guests to a + glimpse of the chamber overhead, or so much of it as the bed allowed to be + seen. She seemed not to believe in her abode as a practicable tenement, + and could not be got to say that she actually lived in it; as to why it + was built so small she was equally vague. But there it was, to like or to + leave, and there, not far off, was the “briny beach” where the + Walrus and the Carpenter walked together,— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “And wept like anything to see + Such quantities of sand.” + </pre> + <p> + For it was in Conway, as history or tradition is, that <i>Through the + Looking-Glass</i> was written. + </p> + <p> + There are very few places in those storied British Isles which are not + hallowed by some association with literature; but I suppose that Llandudno + is as exempt as any can be, and I will not try to invoke any dear and + honored shade from its doubtful obscurity. We once varied the even tenor + of our days there by driving to Penmaenmawr, and wreaking our love of + literary associations so far as we might by connecting the place with the + memory of Gladstone, who was literary as well as political. We thought + with him that Penmaenmawr was “the most charming watering-place in + Wales,” and as you drive into the place, the eye of faith will + detect the house, on the right, in which he spent many happy summers. We + contented ourselves with driving direct to the principal hotel, where I + know not what kept us from placing ourselves for life. We had tea and jam + en the pretty lawn, and the society of a large company of wasps of the + yellow-jacket variety, which must have been true Welsh wasps, as peaceful + as they were musical, and no interloping Scotch or Irish, for they did not + offer to attack us, but confined themselves altogether to our jam: to be + sure, we thought best to leave it to them. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0222}.jpg" alt="{0222}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0222}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + It is said that the purple year is not purpler at any point on the + southernmost shores of England than it is at Llandudno. In proof of the + mildness of its winter climate, the presence of many sorts of tender + evergreens is alleged, and the persistence of flowers in blooming from + Christmas to Easter. But those who have known the deceitful habits of + flowers on the Riviera, where they bloom in any but an arctic degree of + cold, will not perhaps hurry to Llandudno much later than November. All + the way to Penmaenmawr the flowers showed us what they could do in summer, + whether in field or garden, and there was one beautiful hill on which + immense sweeps and slopes of yellow gorse and purple heather boldly + stretched separately, or mingled their dyes in the fearlessness of nature + when she spurns the canons of art. I suppose there is no upholsterer or + paperhanger who would advise mixing or matching yellow and purple in the + decoration of a room, but here the outdoor effect rapt the eye in a + transport of delight. It was indeed a day when almost any arrangement of + colors would have pleased. + </p> + <h3> + VII + </h3> + <p> + It is not easy in that much summer-resorted region to get at the country + in other than its wilder moods; it is either town or mountain; but now and + then one found one’s self among harvest-fields, where the yield of + wheat and oats was far heavier than with us, either because the soil was + richer or the tilth thorougher. The farms indeed looked very fertile, and + the farmhouses very alluringly clean and neat, at least on the outside. + They were not gray, as in the West of England, or brick as in the + Southeast, but were of stone whitewashed, and the roofs were of slate, and + not thatch or tile. As I have noted, they were not so much gathered into + villages as in England, and again, as I have noted, it is out of such + houses that the farmers’ boys and girls go to the co-educational + colleges of the Welsh University. It is still the preference of the + farmers that their sons should be educated for the ministry, which in that + country of multiplied dissents has pulpits for every color of + contrary-mindedness, as well as livings of the not yet disestablished + English Church. It is not indeed the English Church in speech. The Welsh + will have their service and their sermon in their own tongue, and when an + Oxford or Cambridge man is given a Welsh living, he must do what he can to + conform to the popular demand. It is said that in one case, where the + incumbent long held out against the parish, he compromised by reading the + service in Welsh with the English pronunciation. But the Welsh churches + are now supplied with Welsh-speaking clergy, though whether it is well for + the Welsh to cling so strongly to their ancient speech is doubted by many + Welshmen. These hold that it cramps and dwarfs the national genius; but in + the mean time in Ireland the national genius, long enlarged to our + universal English, offers the strange spectacle of an endeavor to climb + back into its Gaelic shell. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0226}.jpg" alt="{0226}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0226}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + I do not know whether an incident of my experience in coming from Chester + to Llandudno is to be offered as an illustration of Welsh manners or of + English manners. A woman of the middle rank, certainly below gentlewoman, + but very personable and well dressed, got into our carriage where there + was no seat for her. She was no longer young, but she was not so old as + the American who offered her his seat. She refused it, but consented to + sit on the hand-bag and rug which he arranged for her, and so remained + till she left the train, while a half-grown boy and several young men kept + their countenances and their places, not apparently dreaming of offering + her a seat, or if they thought of her at all, thought she was well + punished for letting the guard crowd her in upon us. By her stature and + complexion she was undoubtedly Welsh, and these youth from theirs were as + undoubtedly English. Perhaps, then, the incident had better be offered as + an illustration of Welsh and English manners combined. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + GLIMPSES OF ENGLISH CHARACTER + </h2> + <p> + Nothing is so individual in any man as the peculiar blend of + characteristics which he has inherited from his racial ancestries. The + Englishman, who leaves the stamp of the most distinct personality upon + others, is the most mixed, the most various, the most relative of all men. + He is not English except as he is Welsh, Dutch, and Norman, with “a + little Latin and less Greek” from his earliest visitors and + invaders. This conception of him will indefinitely simplify the study of + his nature if it is made in the spirit of the frank superficiality which I + propose to myself. After the most careful scrutiny which I shall be able + to give him, he will remain, for every future American, the contradiction, + the anomaly, the mystery which I expect to leave him. + </p> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + No error of the Englishman’s latest invader is commoner than the + notion, which perhaps soonest suggests itself, that he is a sort of + American, tardily arriving at our kind of consciousness, with the + disadvantages of an alien environment, after apparently hopeless arrest in + unfriendly conditions. The reverse may much more easily be true; we may be + a sort of Englishmen, and the Englishman, if he comes to us and abides + with us, may become a sort of American. But that is the affair of a + possible future, and the actual Englishman is certainly not yet any sort + of American, unless, indeed, for good and for bad, he is a better sort of + Bostonian. He does not even speak the American language, whatever + outlandish accent he uses in speaking his own. It may be said, rather too + largely, too loosely, that the more cultivated he is, the more he will + speak like a cultivated American, until you come to the King, or the Royal + Family, with whom a strong German accent is reported to prevail. The + Englishman may write American, if he is a very good writer, but in no case + does he spell American. He prefers, as far as he remembers it, the Norman + spelling, and, the Conqueror having said “<i>geôle</i>,” the + Conquered print “gaol,” which the American invader must + pronounce “jail,” not “gayol.” + </p> + <p> + The mere mention of the Royal Family advances us to the most marked of all + the superficial English characteristics; or, perhaps, loyalty is not + superficial, but is truly of the blood and bone, and not reasoned + principle, but a passion induced by the general volition. Whatever it is, + it is one of the most explicitly as well as the most tacitly pervasive of + the English idiosyncrasies. A few years ago—say, fifteen or twenty—it + was scarcely known in its present form. It was not known at all with many + in the time of the latest and worst of the Georges, or the time of the + happy-go-lucky sailor William; in the earlier time of Victoria, it was a + chivalrous devotion among the classes, and with the masses an affection + which almost no other sovereign has inspired. I should not be going + farther than some Englishmen if I said that her personal character saved + the monarchy; when she died there was not a vestige of the republican + dream which had remained from a sentiment for “the free peoples of + antiquity” rather than from the Commonwealth. Democracy had indeed + effected itself in a wide-spread socialism, but the kingship was safe in + the hearts of the Queen’s subjects when the Prince of Wales, who was + the first of them, went about praising loyalty as prime among the civic + virtues and duties. The notion took the general fancy, and met with an + acceptance in which the old superstition of kings by divine right was + resuscitated with the vulgar. One of the vulgar lately said to an American + woman who owned that we did not yield an equal personal fealty to all our + Presidents, “Oh yes, but you know that it is only your <i>people</i> + that choose the President, but <i>God</i> gave us the King.” Nothing + could be opposed to a belief so simple, as in the churches of the eldest + faith the humble worshipper could not well be told that the picture or the + statue of his adoration was not itself sacred. In fact, it is not going + too far, at least for a very adventurous spirit, to say that loyalty with + the English is a sort of religious principle. What is with us more or less + a joke, sometimes bad, sometimes good, namely, our allegiance to the + powers that be in the person of the Chief Magistrate, is with them a most + serious thing, at which no man may smile without loss. + </p> + <p> + I was so far from wishing myself to smile at it, that I darkled most + respectfully about it, without the courage to inquire directly into the + mystery. If it was often on my tongue to ask, “What is loyalty? How + did you come by it? Why are you loyal?”—I felt that it would + be embarrassing when it would not be offensive, and I should vainly plead + in excuse that this property of theirs mystified me the more because it + seemed absolutely left out of the American nature. I perceived that in the + English it was not less really present because it was mixed, or used to be + mixed, with scandal that the alien can do no more than hint at. That sort + of abuse has long ceased, and if one were now to censure the King, or any + of the Royal Family, it would be felt to be rather ill bred, and quite + unfair, since royalty is in no position to reply to criticism. Even the + Socialists would think it ill-mannered, though in their hearts, if not in + their sleeves, they must all the while be smiling at the notion of + anything sacred in the Sovereign. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0236}.jpg" alt="{0236}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0236}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <h3> + II + </h3> + <p> + Loyalty, like so many other things in England, is a convention to which + the alien will tacitly conform in the measure of his good taste or his + good sense. It is not his affair, and in the mean time it is a most + curious and interesting spectacle; but it is not more remarkable, perhaps, + than the perfect acquiescence in the aristocratic forms of society which + hedge the King with their divinity. We think that family counts for much + with ourselves, in New England or in Virginia; but it counts for nothing + at all in comparison with the face value at which it is current in + England. We think we are subject to our plutocracy, when we are very much + out of humor or out of heart, in some such measure as the commoners of + England are subject to the aristocracy; but that is nonsense. A very rich + man with us is all the more ridiculous for his more millions; he becomes a + byword if not a hissing; he is the meat of the paragrapher, the awful + example of the preacher; his money is found to smell of his methods. But + in England, the greater a nobleman is, the greater his honor. The American + mother who imagines marrying her daughter to an English duke, cannot even + imagine an English duke—say, like him of Devonshire, or him of + Northumberland, or him of Norfolk—with the social power and state + which wait upon him in his duchy and in the whole realm; and so is it in + degree down to the latest and lowest of the baronets, and of those yet + humbler men who have been knighted for their merits and services in + medicine, in literature, in art. The greater and greatest nobles are + established in a fear which is very like what the fear of God used to be + when the common people feared Him; and, though they are potent political + magnates, they mainly rule as the King himself does, through the secular + reverence of those beneath them for their titles and the visible images of + their state. They are wealthy men, of course, with so much substance that, + when one now and then attempts to waste it, he can hardly do so; but their + wealth alone would not establish them in the popular regard. His wealth + does no such effect for Mr. Astor in England; and mere money, though it is + much desired by all, is no more venerated in the person of its possessor + than it is with us. It is ancestry, it is the uncontested primacy of + families first in their place, time out of mind, that lays its resistless + hold upon the fancy and bows the spirit before it. By means of this comes + the sovereign effect in the political as well as the social state; for, + though the people vote into or out of power those who vote other people + into or out of the administration, it is always—or so nearly always + that the exception proves the rule—family that rules, from the King + down to the least attaché of the most unimportant embassy. No doubt many + of the English are restive under the fact; and, if one had asked their + mind about it, one might have found them frank enough; but, never asking + it, it was with amusement that I heard said once, as if such a thing had + never occurred to anybody before, “Yes, isn’t it strange that + those few families should keep it all among themselves!” It was a + slender female voice, lifted by a young girl with an air of pensive + surprise, as at a curious usage of some realm of faery. + </p> + <h3> + III + </h3> + <p> + England is in fact, to the American, always a realm of faery, in its + political and social constitution. It must be owned, concerning the + government by family, that it certainly seems to work well. That justifies + it, so far as the exclusion of the immense majority from the + administration of their own affairs can be justified by anything; though I + hold that the worst form of graft in office is hardly less justifiable: + that is, at least, one of the people picking their pockets. But it is the + universal make-believe behind all the practical virtue of the state that + constitutes the English monarchy a realm of faery. The whole population, + both the great and the small, by a common effort of the will, agree that + there is a man or a woman of a certain line who can rightfully inherit the + primacy amongst them, and can be dedicated through this right to live the + life of a god, to be so worshipped and flattered, so cockered about with + every form of moral and material flummery, that he or she may well be more + than human not to be made a fool of. Then, by a like prodigious stroke of + volition, the inhabitants of the enchanted island universally agree that + there is a class of them which can be called out of their names in some + sort of title, bestowed by some ancestral or actual prince, and can + forthwith be something different from the rest, who shall thenceforth do + them reverence, them and their heirs and assigns, forever. By this amusing + process, the realm of faery is constituted, a thing which could not have + any existence in nature, yet by its existence in fancy becomes the most + absolute of human facts. + </p> + <p> + It is not surprising that, in the conditions which ensue, snobbishness + should abound; the surprising thing would be if it did not abound. Even + with ourselves, who by a seven years’ struggle burst the faery dream + a century ago, that least erected spirit rears its loathly head from the + dust at times, and in our polite press we can read much if we otherwise + see nothing of its subtle influence. But no evil is without its + compensating good, and the good of English snobbishness is that it has + reduced loyalty, whether to the prince or to the patrician, from a + political to a social significance. That is, it does so with the upper + classes; with the lower, loyalty finds expression in an unparalleled + patriotism. An Englishman of the humble or the humbler life may know very + well that he is not much in himself; but he believes that England stands + for him, and that royalty and nobility stand for England. Both of these, + there, are surrounded by an atmosphere of reverence wholly inconceivable + to the natives of a country where there are only millionaires to revere. + </p> + <h3> + IV + </h3> + <p> + The most curious thing is that the persons in the faery dream seem to + believe it as devoutly as the simplest and humblest of the dreamers. The + persons in the dream apparently take themselves as seriously as if there + were or could be in reality kings and lords. They could not, of course, do + so if they were recently dreamed, as they were, say, in the France of the + Third Empire. There, one fancies, these figments must have always been + smiling in each other’s faces when they were by themselves. But the + faery dream holds solidly in England because it is such a very old dream. + Besides, the dream does not interfere with the realities; it even honors + them. If a man does any great thing in England, the chief figure of the + faery dream recognizes his deed, stoops to him, lifts him up among the + other figures, and makes him part of the dream forever. After that he has + standing, such as no man may have with us for more than that psychological + moment, when all the papers cry him up, and then everybody tries to forget + him. But, better than this, the dream has the effect, if it has not the + fact, of securing every man in his place, so long as he keeps to it. + Nowhere else in the world is there so much personal independence, without + aggression, as in England. There is apparently nothing of it in Germany; + in Italy, every one is so courteous and kind that there is no question of + it; in the French Republic and in our own, it exists in an excess that is + molestive and invasive; in England alone does it strike the observer as + being of exactly the just measure. + </p> + <p> + Very likely the observer is mistaken, and in the present case he will not + insist. After all, even the surface indications in such matters are slight + and few. But what I noted was that, though the simple and humble have to + go to the wall, and for the most part go to it unkicking, in England they + were, on their level, respectfully and patiently entreated. At a railroad + junction one evening, when there was a great hurrying up stairs and down, + and a mad seeking of wrong trains by right people, the company’s + servants who were taking tickets, and directing passengers this way and + that, were patiently kind with futile old men and women, who came up, in + the midst of their torment, and pestered them with questions as to the + time when trains that had not arrived would leave after they did arrive. I + shuddered to think what would have at least verbally happened to such + inquirers with us; but, there, not only their lives but their feelings + were safe, and they could go away with such self-respect as they had quite + intact. + </p> + <h3> + V + </h3> + <p> + In no country less good-hearted than England could anything so + wrong-headed as the English baggage system be suffered. But, there, + passengers of all kinds help the porters to sort their trunks from other + people’s trunks, on arrival at their stations, and apparently think + it no hardship. The porters, who do not seem especially inspired persons, + have a sort of guiding instinct in the matter, and wonderfully seldom fail + to get the things together for the cab, or to get them off the cab, and, + duly labelled, into the luggage-van. Once, at a great junction, my porter + seemed to have missed my train, and after vain but not unconsidered + appeals to the guard, I had to start without it. At the next station, the + company telegraphed back at its own cost the voluminous message of my + anxiety and indignation, and I was assured that the next train would bring + my valise from Crewe to Edinburgh. When I arrived at Edinburgh, I casually + mentioned my trouble to a guard whom I had not seen before. He asked how + the bags were marked, and then he said they had come with us. My porter + had run with them to my train, but in despair of getting to my car with + his burden, had put them into the last luggage-van, and all I had to do + was now to identify them at my journey’s end. + </p> + <p> + Why one does not, guiltily or guiltlessly, claim other people’s + baggage, I do not know; but apparently it is not the custom. Perhaps in + this, the deference for any one within his rights, peculiar to the faery + dream, operates the security of the respective owners of baggage that + could otherwise easily be the general prey. While I saw constant regard + paid for personal rights, I saw only one case in which they were + offensively asserted. This was in starting from York for London, when we + attempted to take possession of a compartment we had paid for from the + nearest junction, in order to make certain of it. We found it in the + keeping of a gentleman who had turned it from a non-smoking into a smoking + compartment, and bestrewn it with his cigar ashes. When told by the + porters that we had engaged the compartment, he refused to stir, and said + that he had paid for his seat, and he should not leave it till he was + provided with another. In vain they besought him to consider our hard + case, in being kept out of our own, and promised him another place as good + as the one he held. He said that he would not believe it till he saw it, + and as he would not go to see it, and it could not be brought to him, + there appeared little chance of our getting rid of him. I thought it best + to let him and the porters fight it out among themselves. When a force of + guards appeared, they were equally ineffective against the intruder, who + could not, or did not, say that he did not know the compartment was + engaged. Suddenly, for no reason, except that he had sufficiently stood, + or sat, upon his rights, he rose, and the others precipitated themselves + upon his hand-baggage, mainly composed of fishing-tackle, such as a + gentleman carries who has been asked to somebody’s fishing, and bore + it away to another part of the train. They left one piece behind, and the + porter who came back for it was radiantly smiling, as if the struggle had + been an agreeable exercise, and he spoke of his antagonist without the + least exasperation; evidently, he regarded him as one who had justly + defended himself from corporate aggression; his sympathies were with him + rather than with us, perhaps because we had not so vigorously asserted + ourselves. + </p> + <h3> + VI + </h3> + <p> + A case in which a personal wrong rather than a personal right was + offensively asserted, was that of a lady, young and too fair to be so + unfair, in a crowded train coming from the Doncaster Races to York. She + had kept a whole first-class compartment to herself, putting her maid into + the second-class adjoining, and heaping the vacant seats with her + hand-baggage, which had also overflowed into the corridor. At the time the + train started she was comforting herself in her luxurious solitude with a + cup of tea, and she stood up, as if to keep other people out. But, after + waiting, seven of us, in the corridor, until she should offer to admit us, + we all swarmed in upon her, and made ourselves indignantly at home. When + it came to that she offered no protest, but gathered up her belongings, + and barricaded herself with them. Among the rest there was a + typewriting-machine, but what manner of young lady she was, or whether of + the journalistic or the theatrical tribe, has never revealed itself to + this day. We could not believe that she was very high-born, not nearly so + high, for instance, as the old lady who helped dispossess her, and who, + when we ventured the hope that it would not rain on the morrow, which was + to be St. Leger Day, almost lost the kindness for us inspired by some + small service, because we had the bad taste to suggest such a possibility + for so sacred a day. + </p> + <p> + I never saw people standing in a train, except that once which I have + already noted, when in a very crowded car in Wales, two women, decent + elderly persons, got in and were suffered to remain on foot by the young + men who had comfortable places; no one dreamed, apparently, of offering to + give up his seat. But, on the other hand, a superior civilization is shown + in what I may call the manual forbearance of the trolley and railway folk, + who are so apt to nudge and punch you at home here, when they wish your + attention. The like happened to me only once in England, and that was at + Liverpool, where the tram conductor, who laid hands on me instead of + speaking, had perhaps been corrupted by the unseen American influences of + a port at which we arrive so abundantly and indiscriminately. I did not + resent the touch, though it is what every one is expected to do, if + aggrieved, and every one else does it in England. Within his rights, every + one is safe; though there may be some who have no rights. If there were, I + did not see them, and I suppose that, as an alien, I might have refused to + stand up and uncover when the band began playing <i>God Save the King</i>, + as it did at the end of every musical occasion; I might have urged that, + being no subject of the King, I did not feel bound to join in the general + prayer. But that would have been churlish, and, where every one had been + so civil to me, I did not see why I should not be civil to the King, in a + small matter. In the aggregate indeed, it is not a small matter, and I + suppose that the stranger always finds the patriotism of a country + molestive. Patriotism is, at any rate, very disagreeable, with the sole + exception of our own, which we are constantly wishing to share with other + people, especially with English people. We spare them none of it, even in + their own country, and yet many of us object to theirs; I feel that I am + myself being rather offensive about it, now, at this distance from them. + Upon the whole, not caring very actively for us, one way or the other, + they take it amiably; they try to get our point of view, and, as if it + were a thorn, self-sacrificially press their bosoms against it, in the + present or recent <i>entente cordiale</i>. None of their idiosyncrasies is + more notable than their patience, their kindness with our divergence from + them; but I am not sure that, having borne with us when we are by, they do + not take it out of us when we are away. + </p> + <p> + We are the poetry of a few, who, we like to think, have studied the most + deeply into the causes of our being, or its excuses. But you cannot always + be enjoying poetry, and I could well imagine that our lovers must + sometimes prefer to shut the page. The common gentleness comes from the + common indifference, and from something else that I will not directly + touch upon. What is certain is that, with all manner of strangers, the + English seem very gentle, when they meet in chance encounter. The average + level of good manners is high. My experience was not the widest, and I am + always owning it was not deep; but, such as it was, it brought me to the + distasteful conviction that in England I did not see the mannerless + uncouthness which I often see in America, not so often from high to low, + or from old to young, but the reverse. There may be much more than we + infer, at the moment, from the modulated voices, which sweetens casual + intercourse, but there are certain terms of respect, almost unknown to us, + which more obviously do that effect. It is a pity that democracy, being + the fine thing it essentially is, should behave so rudely. Must we come to + family government, in order to be filial or fraternal in our bearing with + one another? Why should we be so blunt, so sharp, so ironical, so brutal + in our kindness? + </p> + <h3> + VII + </h3> + <p> + The single-mindedness of the English is beautiful. It may not help to the + instant understanding of our jokes; but then, even we are not always + joking, and it does help to put us at rest and to make us feel safe. The + Englishman may not always tell the truth, but he makes us feel that we are + not so sincere as he; perhaps there are many sorts of sincerity. But there + is something almost caressing in the kindly pause that precedes his + perception of your meaning, and this is very pleasing after the sense of + always having your hearer instantly onto you. When, by a chance + indefinitely rarer than it is with us at home, one meets an Irishman in + England, or better still an Irishwoman, there is an instant lift of the + spirit; and, when one passes the Scotch border, there is so much lift + that, on returning, one sinks back into the embrace of the English + temperament, with a sigh for the comfort of its soft unhurried expectation + that there is really something in what you say which, will be clear + by-and-by. + </p> + <p> + Having said so much as this in compliance with the frequent American + pretence that the English are without humor, I wish to hedge in the + interest of truth. They certainly are not so constantly joking as we; it + does not apparently seem to them that fate can be propitiated by a habit + of pleasantry, or that this is so merry a world that one need go about + grinning in it. Perhaps the conditions with most of them are harder than + the conditions with most of us. But, thinking of certain Englishmen I have + known, I should be ashamed to join in the cry of those story-telling + Americans whose jokes have sometimes fallen effectless. It is true that, + wherever the Celt has leavened the doughier Anglo-Saxon lump, the + expectation of a humorous sympathy is greater; but there are subtile + spirits of Teutonic origin whose fineness we cannot deny, whose delicate + gayety is of a sort which may well leave ours impeaching itself of a + heavier and grosser fibre. + </p> + <p> + No doubt you must sometimes, and possibly oftenest, go more than half-way + for the response to your humorous intention. Those subtile spirits are + shy, and may not offer it an effusive welcome. They are also of such an + exquisite honesty that, if they do not think your wit is funny, they will + not smile at it, and this may grieve some of our jokers. But, if you have + something fine and good in you, you need not be afraid they will fail of + it, and they will not be so long about finding it out as some travellers + say. When it comes to the grace of the imaginative in your pleasantry, + they will be even beforehand with you. But in their extreme of + impersonality they will leave the initiative to you in the matter of humor + as in others. They will no more seek out your peculiar humor than they + will name you in speaking with you. + </p> + <h3> + VIII + </h3> + <p> + Nothing in England seeks you out, except the damp. Your impressions, you + have to fight for them. What you see or hear seems of accident. The sort + of people you have read of your whole life, and are most intimate with in + fiction, you must surprise. They no more court observance than the birds + in whose seasonable slaughter society from the King down delights. In + fact, it is probable that, if you looked for both, you would find the + gunner shyer than the gunned. The pheasant and the fox are bred to give + pleasure by their chase; they are tenderly cared for and watched over and + kept from harm at the hands of all who do not wish to kill them for the + joy of killing, and they are not so elusive but they can be seen by easy + chance. The pheasant especially has at times all but the boldness of the + barnyard in his fearless port. Once from my passing train, I saw him + standing in the middle of a ploughed field, erect, distinct, like a statue + of himself, commemorative of the long ages in which his heroic death and + martyr sufferance have formed the pride of princes and the peril of + poachers. But I never once saw him shot, though almost as many gunners + pursue him as there are pheasants in the land. This alone shows how shy + the gunners are; and when once I saw the trail of a fox-hunt from the same + coign of vantage without seeing the fox, I felt that I had almost + indecently come upon the horse and hounds, and that the pink coats and the + flowery spread of the dappled dogs over the field were mine by a kind of + sneak as base as killing a fox to save my hens. + </p> + <h3> + IX + </h3> + <p> + Equally with the foxes and the pheasants, the royalties and nobilities + abound in English novels, which really form the chief means of our + acquaintance with English life; but the chances that reveal them to the + average unintroduced, unpresented American are rarer. By these chances, I + heard, out of the whole peerage, but one lord so addressed in public, and + that was on a railroad platform where a porter was reassuring him about + his luggage. Similarly, I once saw a lady of quality, a tall and girlish + she, who stood beside her husband, absently rubbing with her glove the + window of her motor, and whom but for the kind interest of our cabman we + might never have known for a duchess. It is by their personal uninsistence + largely, no doubt, that the monarchy and the aristocracy exist; the + figures of the faery dream remain blent with the background, and appear + from it only when required to lay cornerstones, or preside at races, or + teas or bazars, or to represent the masses at home and abroad, and + invisibly hold the viewless reins of government. + </p> + <p> + Yet it must not be supposed that the commoner sort of dreamers are never + jealous of these figments of their fancy. They are often so, and rouse + themselves to self-assertion as frequently as our Better Element flings + off the yoke of Tammany. At a fair, open to any who would pay, for some + forgotten good object, such as is always engaging the energies of society, + I saw moving among the paying guests the tall form of a nobleman who had + somehow made himself so distasteful to his neighbors that they were not + his friends, and regularly voted down his men, whether they stood for + Parliament or County Council, and whether they were better than the + popular choice or not. As a matter of fact, it was said that they were + really better, but the people would not have them because they were his; + and one of the theories of English manliness is that the constant pressure + from above has toughened the spirit and enabled Englishmen to stand up + stouter and straighter each in his place, just as it is contended + elsewhere that the aesthetic qualities of the human race have been + heightened by its stresses and deprivations in the struggle of life. + </p> + <p> + For my own part, I believe neither the one theory nor the other. People + are the worse for having people above them, and are the ruder and coarser + for having to fight their way. If the triumph of social inequality is such + that there are not four men in London who are not snobs, it cannot boast + itself greater than the success of economic inequality with ourselves, + among whom the fight for money has not produced of late a first-class + poet, painter, or sculptor. The English, if they are now the manliest + people under the sun, have to thank not their masters but themselves, and + a nature originally so generous that no abuse could lastingly wrong it, no + political absurdity spoil it. But if this nature had been left free from + the beginning, we might see now a nation of Englishmen who, instead of + being bound so hard and fast in the bonds of an imperial patriotism, would + be the first in a world-wide altruism. Yet their patriotism is so devout + that it may well pass itself off upon them for a religious emotion, + instead of the superstition which seems to the stranger the implication of + an England in the next world as well as in this. + </p> + <h3> + X + </h3> + <p> + We fancy that, because we have here an Episcopal Church, with its + hierarchy, we have something equivalent to the English Church. But that is + a mistake. The English Church is a part of the whole of English life, as + the army or navy is; in English crowds, the national priest is not so + frequent as the national soldier, but he is of as marked a quality, and as + distinct from the civil world, in uniform, bearing, and aspect; in the + cathedral towns, he and his like form a sort of spiritual garrison. At + home here you may be ignorant of the feasts of the Episcopal Church + without shame or inconvenience; but in England you had better be versed in + the incidence of all the holy days if you would stand well with other men, + and would know accurately when the changes in the railroad time-tables + will take place. It will not do to have ascertained the limits of Lent; + you must be up in the Michaelmases and Whitmondays, and the minor saints’ + days. When once you have mastered this difficult science, you will realize + what a colossal transaction the disestablishment of the English Church in + England would be, and how it would affect the whole social fabric. + </p> + <p> + But, even when you have learned your lesson, it will not be to you as that + knowledge which has been lived, and which has no more need ever to + question itself than the habitual pronunciation of words. If one has moved + in good English society, one has no need ever to ask how a word is + pronounced, far less to go to the dictionary; one pronounces it as one has + always heard it pronounced. The sense of this gives the American a sort of + despair, like that of a German or French speaking foreigner, who perceives + that he never will be able to speak English. The American is rather worse + off, for he has to subdue an inward rebellion, and to form even the wish + to pronounce some English words as the English do. He has, for example, + always said “financier,” with the accent on the last syllable; + and if he has consulted his Webster he has found that there was no choice + for him. Then, when he hears it pronounced at Oxford by the head of a + college with the accent on the second syllable, and learns on asking that + it is never otherwise accented in England, his head whirls a little, and + he has a sick moment, in which he thinks he had better let the verb + “to be” govern the accusative as the English do, and be done + with it, or else telegraph for his passage home at once. Or stop! He must + not “telegraph,” he must “wire.” + </p> + <h3> + XI + </h3> + <p> + As for that breathing in the wrong place which is known as dropping one’s + aitches, I found that in the long time between the first and last of my + English sojourns, there had arisen the theory that it was a vice purely + cockney in origin, and that it had grown upon the nation through the + National Schools. It is grossly believed, or boldly pretended, that till + the National School teachers had conformed to the London standard in their + pronunciation the wrong breathing was almost unknown in England, but that + now it was heard everywhere south of the Scottish border. Worse yet, the + teachers in the National Schools had scattered far and wide that peculiar + intonation, that droll slip or twist of the vowel sounds by which the + cockney alone formerly proclaimed his low breeding, and the infection is + now spread as far as popular learning. Like the wrong breathing, it is + social death “to any he that utters it,” not indeed that swift + extinction which follows having your name crossed by royalty from the list + of guests at a house where royalty is about to visit, but a slow, + insidious malady, which preys upon its victim, and finally destroys him + after his life-long struggle to shake it off. It is even worse than the + wrong breathing, and is destined to sweep the whole island, where you can + nowhere, even now, be quite safe from hearing a woman call herself “a + lydy.” It may indeed be the contagion of the National School + teacher, but I feel quite sure, from long observation of the wrong + breathing, that the wrong breathing did not spread from London through the + schools, but was everywhere as surely characteristic of the unbred in + England as nasality is with us. Both infirmities are of national origin + and extent, and both are individual or personal in their manifestation. + That is, some Americans in every part of the Union talk through their + noses; some Englishmen in every part of the kingdom drop their aitches. + </p> + <p> + The English-speaking Welsh often drop their aitches, as the + English-speaking French do, though the Scotch and Irish never drop them, + any more than the Americans, or the English of the second generation among + us; but the extremely interesting and great little people of Wales are + otherwise as unlike the English as their mother-language is. They seem + capable of doing anything but standing six feet in their stockings, which + is such a very common achievement with the English, but that is the fault + of nature which gave them dark complexions and the English fair. Where the + work of the spirit comes in, it effects such a difference between the two + peoples as lies between an Eisteddfod and a horse-race. While all the + singers of Wales met in artistic emulation at their national musical + festival at Rhyl, all the gamblers of England met in the national pastime + of playing the horses at Doncaster. More money probably changed hands on + the events at Doncaster than at Rhyl, and it was characteristic of the + prevalent influence in the common civilization (if there is a civilization + common to both races) that the King was at Doncaster and not at Rhyl. But + I do not say this to his disadvantage, for I was myself at Doncaster and + not at Rhyl. You cannot, unless you have a very practised ear, say which + is the finer singer at an Eisteddfod, but almost any one can see which + horse comes in first at a race. + </p> + <h3> + XII + </h3> + <p> + What is most striking in the mixture of strains in England is that it + apparently has not ultimately mixed them; and perhaps after a thousand + years the racial traits will be found marking Americans as persistently. + We now absorb, and suppose ourselves to be assimilating, the different + voluntary and involuntary immigrations; but doubtless after two thousand + years the African, the Celt, the Scandinavian, the Teuton, the Gaul, the + Hun, the Latin, the Slav will be found atavistically asserting his origin + in certain of their common posterity. The Pennsylvania Germans have as + stolidly maintained their identity for two centuries as the Welsh in Great + Britain for twenty, or, so far as history knows, from the beginning of + time. The prejudices of one British stock concerning another are as lively + as ever, apparently, however the enmities may have worn themselves away. + One need not record any of these English prejudices concerning the Scotch + or Irish; they are too well known; but I may set down the opinion of a + lively companion in a railroad journey that the Welsh are “the prize + liars of the universe.” He was an expert accountant by profession, + and his affairs took him everywhere in the three Kingdoms, and this was + his settled error; for the Welsh themselves know that, if they sometimes + seem the prey of a lively imagination, it is the philologically noted + fault of their language, which refuses to lend itself to the accurate + expression of fact, but which would probably afford them terms for + pronouncing the statement of my accountant inexact. He was perhaps a man + of convictions rather than conclusions, for, though he was a bright + intelligence, of unusually varied interests, there were things that had + never appealed to him. We praised together the lovely September landscape + through which we were running, and I ventured some remark upon the large + holdings of the land: a thing that always saddened me in the face of + nature with the reflection that those who tilled the soil owned none of + it; though I ought to have remembered the times when the soil owned them, + and taken heart. My notion seemed to strike him for the first time, but he + dismissed the fact as a necessary part of the English system; it had never + occurred to him that there could be question of that system. There must be + many Englishmen to whom it does occur, but if you do not happen to meet + them you cannot blame the others. + </p> + <p> + I fancied that one of the Englishmen to whom it might have occurred was he + whom I met in Wales at Aberystwyth, where we spoke together a moment in + the shadow of the co-educational University there, and who seemed at least + of a different mind concerning the Welsh. “These Welsh farmers,” + he said, “send their sons and daughters to college as if it were + quite the natural thing to do. But just imagine a Dorsetshire peasant + sending his boy to a University!” + </p> + <p> + We suppose that the large holdings of land are the effect of wrongs and + abuses now wholly in the past, and that the causes for their increase are + no longer operative, but are something like those geological laws by which + the strata under them formed themselves. Once, however, in driving through + the most beautiful part of England, which I will not specify because every + part of England is the most beautiful, I came upon an illustration of the + reverse, as signal as the spectacle of a landslide. It was the + accumulation, not merely within men’s memories, but within the + actual generation, of vast bodies of land in the hold of a great nobleman + who had contrived a title in them by the simple device of enclosing the + people’s commons. It was a wrong, but there was no one of the + wronged who was brave enough or rich enough to dispute it through the + broken law, and no witness public-spirited enough to come to their aid. + Such things make us think patiently, almost proudly, of our national + foible of graft, which may really be of feudal origin. Doubtless the + aggression was attacked in the press, but we all know what the attacks of + the press amount to against the steadfast will of a powerful corporation, + and a great nobleman in England is a powerful corporation. In this + instance he had not apparently taken the people’s land without some + wish to make them a return for it. He had built a handsome road through + their property, which he maintained in splendid condition, and he allowed + them to drive over his road, and to walk freely in certain portions of + their woods. He had also built a magnificent hospital for them, and it + seemed rather hard, then, to hear that one of the humblest of them had + been known to speak of him in whispered confidence as a “Upas tree.” + </p> + <h3> + XIII + </h3> + <p> + Probably he was not personally a Upas tree, probably the rancor toward him + left from being bawled after by one of his gatemen at a turning we had + taken in his enclosure, “That’s a private path!” was + unjust. There was no sign, such as everywhere in England renders a place + secure from intrusion. The word “Private” painted up anywhere + does the effect of bolts and bars and of all obsolete man-traps beyond it, + and is not for a moment that challenge to the wayfaring foot which it + seems so often with us; but the warnings to the public which we make so + mandatory, the English language with unfailing gentleness. You are not + told to keep your foot or your wheel to a certain pathway; you are “requested,” + and sometimes even “kindly requested”; I do not know but once + I was “respectfully requested.” Perhaps that nobleman’s + possession of these lands was so new that his retainers had to practise + something of unwonted rudeness in keeping it wholly his where he chose. At + any rate, the rule of civility is so universal that the politeness from + class to class is, for what the stranger sees, all but unfailing. I dare + say he does not see everything, even the Argus-eyed American, but + apparently the manners of the lower class, where they have been touched by + the upper, have been softened and polished to the same consistence and + complexion. When it comes to the proffers, and refusals, and insistences, + and acceptances between people of condition, such as I witnessed once in a + crowded first-class carriage from London on an Oxford holiday, nothing + could be more gently urgent, more beautifully forbearing. If the writers + of our romantic novels could get just those manners into their fiction, I + should not mind their dealing so much with the English nobility and + gentry; for those who intend being our nobility and gentry, by-and-by, + could not do better than study such high-breeding. + </p> + <p> + If we approach the morals of either superiors or inferiors, we are in a + region where it behooves us to tread carefully. To be honest, I know + nothing about them, and I will not assume to know anything. I heard from + authority which I could not suspect of posing for omniscience that the + English rustics were apt to be very depraved, but they may on the other + hand be saints for all that I can prove against them. They are + superstitious, it is said, and there are few villages or old houses that + have not their tutelary spectres. The belief in ghosts is almost universal + among the people; as I may allow without superiority, for I do not know + but I believe in them myself, and there are some million of American + spiritualists who make an open profession of faith in them. It is said + also that the poor in England are much spoiled by the constant aid given + them in charity. This is supposed to corrupt them, and to make them + dependent upon the favors of fortune, rather than the sweat of their + brows. On the other hand, they often cannot get work, as I infer from the + armies of the unemployed, and, in these cases, I cannot hold them greatly + to blame if they bless their givers by their readiness to receive. If one + may infer from the incessant beneficences, and the constant demands for + more and more charities, one heaped upon another, there are more good + objects in England than anywhere else under the sun, for one only gives to + good objects, of course. The oppression of the subscriptions is tempered + by the smallness of the sum which may satisfy them. “Five shillings + is a subscription,” said a friend who was accused of really always + giving five pounds. + </p> + <h3> + XIV + </h3> + <p> + The English rich do not give so spectacularly as our rich do—that + is, by handfuls of millions, but then the whole community gives more, I + think, than our community does, and when it does not give, the necessary + succor is taxed out of its incomes and legacies. I do not mean that there + is no destitution, but only that the better off seem to have the worse off + more universally and perpetually in mind than with us. All this is + believed to be very demoralizing to the poor, and doubtless the certainty + of soup and flannel is bad for the soul of an old woman whose body is + doubled up with rheumatism. The Church seems to blame for much of the evil + that ensues from giving something to people who have nothing; but I dare + say the Dissenters are also guilty. + </p> + <p> + Just how much is wanted to stay the stomach of a healthy pauper, it would + be hard to say; but now and then the wayfarer gets some hint of the + frequency if not the amount of feeding among the poor who are able to feed + themselves. One day, in the outskirts—they were very tattered and + draggled—of Liverpool, we stopped at a pastry-shop, where the kind + woman “thought she could accommodate” us with a cup of tea, + though she was terribly pressed with custom from all sorts of minute maids + and small boys coming in for “penn’orths” of that + frightful variety of tart and cake which dismays the beholder from + innumerable shop windows in England. When we were brought our safer + refection, we noted her activities to the hostess, and she said, “Yes, + they all want a bit of cake with their tea, even the poorest”; and + when we ventured our supposition that they made their afternoon tea the + last meal of the day, she laughed at the notion. “Last meal! They + have a good supper before they go to bed. Indeed, they all want their four + meals a day.” + </p> + <p> + Another time, thriftily running in a third-class carriage from Crewe to + Chester, I was joined by a friendly man who addressed me with the frank + cordiality of the lower classes in recognizing one of their sort. “They + don’t know how to charge!” he said, with an irony that + referred to the fourpence he had been obliged to pay for a cup of station + tea; and when I tried to allege some mitigating facts in behalf of the + company, he readily became autobiographical. The transition from tea to + eating generally was easy, and he told me that he was a plumber, going to + do a job of work at Llandudno, where he had to pay fourteen bob, which I + knew to be shillings and mentally translated into $3.50, a week for his + board. His wages were $1.50 a day, which the reader who multiplies + fourpence by twenty, to make up the difference in money values, will find + to be the wages of a good mechanic in the first Edward’s time, five + hundred years ago. On this he professed to live very well. He rose every + morning at half-past four, and at six he had a breakfast of bread, butter, + and coffee; at nine he had porridge and coffee; at one, he had soup, meat, + and eggs, and perhaps beer; at night, after he got home from work, he had + a stew and a bit of meat, and perhaps beer, with Mother. He thought that + English people ate too much, generally, and especially on Sunday, when + they had nothing else to do. Most men never came home without asking, + “Well, Mother, what have you got for me to eat now?” When I + remembered how sparely our farm people and mechanics fared, I thought that + he was right, or they were wrong; for the puzzling fact remained that they + looked gaunt and dyspeptic, and he hale and fresh, though the difference + may have had as much to do with the air as the food. I liked him, and I + cannot leave him without noting that he was of the lean-faced, slightly + aquiline British type, with a light mustache; he was well dressed and well + set up, and he spoke strongly, as North Britons do, with nothing of our + people’s husky whine. I found him on further acquaintance of + anti-Chamberlain politics, pro-Boer as to the late war, and rather + socialistic. He blamed the labor men for not choosing labor men to office + instead of the gentry who offered themselves. He belonged to a plumbers’ + union, and he had nothing to complain of, but he inferred that the + working-man was better off in America, from the fact that none of his + friends who had gone to the States ever came home to stay, though they + nearly all came home for a holiday, sooner or later. He differed from my + other friend, the accountant, in being very fond of the Welsh; it must be + owned their race seemed to have acquired merit with him through the tip of + two sovereigns which his last employer in Llandudno had given him. On the + other hand, he had no love for the Italians who were coming in, especially + at Glasgow. In Glasgow, he said, there were more drunken women than + anywhere else in the world, though there was no public-house drinking with + them as in London. This, so far as I got at it, formed his outlook on + life, but I dare say there was more of it. + </p> + <h3> + XV + </h3> + <p> + I was always regretting that I got at the people so little, and that only + chance hints of what they were thinking and feeling reached me. Now and + then, a native observer said something about them which seemed luminous. + “We are frightfully feudal,” such an observer said, “especially + the poor.” He did not think it a fault, I believe, and only used his + adverb intensifyingly, for he was of a Tory mind. He meant the poor among + the country people, who have at last mastered that principle of the feudal + system which early enabled the great nobles to pay nothing for the + benefits they enjoyed from it. But my other friend, the plumber, was not + the least feudal, or not so feudal as many a lowly ward-heeler in New + York, who helps to make up the muster of some captain of politics, under + the lead of a common boss. The texture of society, in the smarter sense, + the narrower sense, is what I could not venture to speak of more + confidently. Once I asked a friend, a very dear and valued friend, whether + a man’s origin or occupation would make any difference in his social + acceptance, if he were otherwise interesting and important. He seemed not + to know what I would be at, and, when he understood, he responded with + almost a shout of amazement, “Oh, not the least in the world!” + But I have my doubts still; and I should say that it might be as difficult + for a very cultivated and agreeable man servant to get on in London + society, as for an artist or poet to feel at home in the first circles of + New York. Possibly, however, London society, because of its almost + immeasurable vastness, can take in more of more sorts of people, without + the consciousness of differences which keeps our own first circles so + elect. I venture, somewhat wildly, somewhat unwarrantably, the belief that + English society is less sensitive to moral differences than ours, and that + people with their little <i>taches</i> would find less anxiety in London + than in New York lest they should come off on the people they rubbed + against. Some Americans, who, even with our increasing prevalence of + divorces, are not well seen at home, are cheerfully welcomed in England. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps, there, all Americans, good and bad, high and low, coarse and + fine, are the same to senses not accustomed to our varying textures and + shades of color; that is a matter I should be glad to remand to the + psychologist, who will have work enough to do if he comes to inquire into + such mysteries. One can never be certain just how the English take us, or + how much, or whether they take us at all. Oftenest I was inclined to think + that we were imperceptible to them, or that, when we were perceptible, + they were aware of us as Swedenborg says the most celestial angels are + aware of evil spirits, merely as something angular. Americans were + distressful to their consciousness, they did not know why; and then they + tried to ignore us. But perhaps this is putting it a little fantastically. + What I know is that one comes increasingly to reserve the fact of one’s + nationality, when it is not essential to the occasion, and to become as + much as possible an unknown quality, rather than a quality aggressive or + positive. Sometimes, when I could feel certain of my ground, I ventured my + conviction that Englishmen were not so much interested in Americans as + those Americans who stayed at home were apt to think; but when I once + expressed this belief to a Unitarian minister, whom I met in the West of + England, he received it with surprise and refusal. He said that in his own + immediate circle, at least, his friends were interested and increasingly + interested in America, what she was and what she meant to be, and still + looked toward her for the lead in certain high things which Englishmen + have ceased to expect of themselves. My impression is that most of the + most forward of the English Sociologists regard America as a back number + in those political economics which imply equality as well as liberty in + the future. They do not see any difference between our conditions and + theirs, as regards the man who works for his living with his hands, except + that wages are higher with us, and that physically there is more + elbow-room, though mentally and morally there is not. Save a little in my + Unitarian minister, and this only conjecturally, I did not encounter that + fine spirit which in Old England used to imagine the New World we have not + quite turned out to be; but once I met an Englishman who had lived in + Canada, and who, gentleman-bred as he was, looked back with fond + homesickness to the woods where he had taken up land, and built himself a + personable house, chiefly with his own hands. He had lived himself out of + touch with his old English life in that new country, and had drawn breath + in an opener and livelier air which filled his lungs as the home + atmosphere never could again. + </p> + <h3> + XVI + </h3> + <p> + Yet he was standing stiffly up for himself, and strewing his convictions + and opinions broadcast as the English all do when pressed by circumstance, + while we, with none of their shyness, mostly think our thoughts to + ourselves. I suppose we do it because we like better than they to seem of + one effect with the rest of our kind. In England one sees a variety of + dress in men which one rarely sees at home. They dress there not only in + keeping with their work and their play, but in the indulgence of any freak + of personal fancy, so that in the street of a provincial town, like Bath, + for instance, you will encounter in a short walk a greater range of + trousers, leggings, caps, hats, coats, jackets, collars, scarfs, boots and + shoes, of tan and black, than you would meet at home in a month of + Sundays. The differences do not go to the length of fashions, such as + reduce our differences to uniformity, and clothe, say, our legs in + knickerbockers till it is found everybody is wearing them, when + immediately nobody wears them. Only ladies, of fashions beyond men’s, + gratify caprices like ours, and even these perhaps not voluntarily. In the + obedience they show to the rule that they must never wear the same dinner + or ball gown twice, it was said (but who can ever find out the truth of + such things?) that they sometimes had sent home from the dressmaker’s + a number of dresses on liking, and wore them in succession, only to return + them, all but one at least, as not liked, the dressmaker having found her + account in her work being shown in society. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0266}.jpg" alt="{0266}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0266}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <p> + I do not know just what is to be inferred from a social fact or statement + like this, but I may say that the devotion to an ideal of social position + is far deeper with the English than with us. Whether we spend more or not, + I believe that the English live much nearer their incomes than Americans + do. I think that we save more out of our earnings than they out of theirs, + and that in this we are more like the Continental peoples, the French or + the Italians. They spend vastly more on state than we do, because, for one + thing, they have more state to spend on. A man may continue to make money + in America, and not change his manner of living till he chooses, and he + may never change it. Such a thing could not happen to an Englishwoman as + happened to the elderly American housewife who walked through the + magnificent house which her husband had bought to surprise her, and sighed + out at last, “Well, now I suppose I shall have to keep a girl!” + The girl would have been kept from the beginning of her husband’s + prosperity, and multiplied, till the house was full of servants. If you + have the means of a gentleman in England, you must live like a gentleman, + apparently; you cannot live plainly, and put by, and largely you must + trust to your life-insurance as the fortune you will leave your heirs. It + cannot be denied that the more generous expenditure of the English adds to + the grace of life, and that they are more hospitable according to their + means than we are; or than those Continental peoples who are not + hospitable at all. + </p> + <p> + A thing that one feels more and more irritatingly in England is that, + while with other foreigners we stand on common ground, where we may be as + unlike them as we choose, with the English we always stand on English + ground, where we can differ only at our peril, and to our disadvantage. A + person speaking English and bearing an English name, had better be + English, for if he cannot it shows, it proves, that there is something + wrong in him. Our misfortune is that our tradition, and perhaps our + inclination, obliges us to be un-English, whereas we do not trouble + ourselves to be un-French, or un-Italian, for we are so by nature. The + effort involved in distinguishing ourselves breeds a sort of annoyance, or + call it no more than uneasiness, which is almost as bad as a bad + conscience; and in our sense of hopeless perdition we turn vindictively + upon our judge. But that is not fair and it is not wise; he does not mean + to be our judge, except when he comes to us for the purpose; in his own + house, he is civilly unaware of putting us to any test whatever. If you + ask him whether he likes this thing or that of ours, he will tell you + frankly; he never can see why he should not be frank; he has a kind of + helplessness in always speaking the truth; and he does not try to make it + palatable. + </p> + <h3> + XVII + </h3> + <p> + An English Radical, who would say of his King no more than that he was a + good little man, and most useful in promoting friendship with France, was + inclined to blame us because we did not stay by at the time of our + Revolution, and help them fight out as Englishmen the fight for English + freedom. He had none of the loyalty of sentiment which so mystifies the + American, but plenty of the loyalty of reason, and expected a Utopia which + should not be of political but of economical cast. But one was always + coming upon illustrations of the loyalty of sentiment with which of course + one could have no quarrel, for their patriotism seldom concerned us, + except rather handsomely to include us. The French have ceased to be the + hereditary enemy, and the Russians have now taken their place in the + popular patriotism. I always talked with the lower classes when I could, + perhaps because I felt myself near them in my unworthy way, and one + evening in a grassy lane I made the acquaintance of a friendly man letting + his horse browse the wayside turf. He was in the livery-stable line, but + he had been a soldier many years. Upon this episode he became freely + autobiographical, especially concerning his service in India. He + volunteered the declaration that he had had enough of war, but he added, + thoughtfully, “I should like to go out for a couple of years if + there was any trouble with Russia.” + </p> + <p> + The love of England comes out charmingly in the swarming of English + tourists in every part of their country. Americans may sometimes outnumber + them at the Continental shrines, but we are in a pitiful minority at the + memorable places in England; in fact, we are nowhere beside the natives. I + liked their fondness for their own so much that I never could feel the + fine scorn for “trippers” which I believe all persons of + condition ought to assume. Even when the trippers did not seem very + intelligently interested in what they saw, they were harmlessly employed, + for a scene of beauty, or of historic appeal, could not be desecrated by + the courtships which are constantly going on all over England, especially + at the holiday seasons. + </p> + <p> + The English are, indeed, great holiday-makers, even when past the age of + putting their arms around one another’s waists. The many and many + seaside resorts form the place of their favorite outings, where they try + to spend such days and weeks of the late summer as their savings will pay + for. It is said that families in very humble station save the year round + for these vacations, and, having put by twelve or fifteen pounds, repair + to some such waterside as Blackpool, or its analogue in their + neighborhood, and lavish them upon the brief joy of the time. They take + the cheaper lodgings, and bring with them the less perishable provisions, + and lead a life of resolute gayety on the sands and in the sea, and at the + pier-ends where the negro minstrels and the Pierrots, who equally abound, + make the afternoons and evenings a delight which no one would suspect from + their faces to be the wild thing it is. If they go home at the end “high + sorrowful and cloyed,” there is no forecast of it in their demeanor, + which is as little troubled as it is animated. The young people are even + openly gay, and the robustness of their flirtations adds sensibly to the + interest of the spectator. Our own public lovers seem of a humbler sort, + and they mostly content themselves with the passive embraces of which + every seat in our parks affords an example; but in England such lovers add + playful struggles. A favorite pastime seemed to be for one of them to hold + something in the hand, and for the other to try prying it open. When it + was the young man who kept his hand shut, the struggle could go on almost + indefinitely. I suppose it led to many engagements and marriages. + </p> + <p> + When the young people were not walking up and down, or playfully + scuffling, they were reading novels; in fact, I do not imagine that + anywhere else in the world is there a half, or a tenth part, so much + fiction consumed as in the English summer resorts. It is probably of the + innutritious lightness of pop-corn; I had never the courage to look at the + volumes which I could so easily have overlooked; but I am sure it was all + out of the circulating library. As there were often several young women to + one man, most of the girls had to content themselves with the flirtations + in the books, where, I dare say, the heroines were always prying the + heroes’ hands open. On every seat one found them poring upon the + glowing page, and met them in every walk with a volume under the arm, and + another clasped to the heart. At places where the hand played, and they + were ostensibly listening to the music, they were bowed upon their books, + and the flutter of the turning leaves almost silenced the blare of the + horns. By what inspiration they knew when <i>God Save the King</i> was + coming, and rose with a long sigh heaved in common, I should not be able + to say. Perhaps they always reached the end of a story at the time the + band came to that closing number, or perhaps they felt its imminence in + their nerves. The fiction was not confined to the young girls, however. + Both sexes and all ages partook of it; I saw as many old girls as young + girls reading novels, and mothers of families were apparently as much + addicted to the indulgence. I suppose they put by their books when they + took tea, which is the other most noticeable dissipation in England. But I + cannot enter upon that chapter; it is too large a theme; I will say, + merely, that as the saloons are on Sixth Avenue, so the tearooms are in + every part of the island. + </p> + <p> + </p> + <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> + <img src="images/{0272}.jpg" alt="{0272}" width="100%" /><br /> + </div> + <h5> + <a href="images/{0272}.jpg"> <img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> + </h5> + <h3> + XVIII + </h3> + <p> + It had seemed to me in former visits to England that the Christian Sabbath + was a more depressing day there than here, but from the last I have a more + cheerful memory of it. I still felt it dispiriting in London, where as + many fled from it as could, and where the empty streets symbolized a world + abandoned to destruction; but this was mainly in the forenoon. Even then, + the markets and fairs in the avenues given up to them were the scenes of + an activity which was not without gayety, and certainly not without noise; + and when the afternoon came, the lower classes, such as had remained in + town, thronged to the public houses, and the upper classes to the evening + parade in the Park. As to the relative amount of church-going, I will not + even assume to be sure; but I have a fancy that it is a rite much less + rigorous than it used to be. Still, in provincial places, I found the + churches full on a Sunday morning, and all who could afford it hallowed + the day by putting on a frock-coat and a top-hat, which are not worn + outside of London on week-days. The women, of course, were always in their + best on Sunday. Perhaps in the very country the upper classes go to church + as much as formerly, but I have my doubts whether they feel so much + obliged to it in conformity to usage, or for the sake of example to their + inferiors. Where there are abbeys and minsters and cathedrals, as there + are pretty well everywhere in England, religion is an attractive + spectacle, and one could imagine people resorting to its functions for + aesthetic reasons. + </p> + <p> + But, in these guesses, one must remember that the English who remained at + home were never Puritanized, never in such measure personally conscienced, + as those who came to America in the times of the successive Protestant + fervors; and that is a thing which we are apt to forget. The home-keeping + English continued, with changes of ritual, much like the peoples who still + acknowledged as their head “the Bishop of Rome.” Their greater + morality, if it was greater, was temperamental rather than spiritual, and, + leaving the church to look after religion much more than our Puritans did, + they kept a simplicity of nature impossible to the sectaries always taking + stock of their souls. In fact, the Calvinists of New England were almost + essentially different from the Calvinists of Holland, of France, even of + Scotland. If our ancestors were the children of light, as they trusted, + they were darkened by the forest, into which they plunged, to certain + reasons which the children of darkness, as the Puritans believed the + non-Puritans to be, saw by the uncertain glimmers from the world about + them. There is no denying that with certain great gains, the American + Puritans became, in a worldly sense, provincialized, and that if they + lived in the spirit, they lived in it narrowly, while the others, who + lived in the body, lived in it liberally, or at any rate handsomely. From + our narrowness we flattered ourselves that we were able to imagine a life + more broadly based than theirs, or at least a life from which theirs must + look insufficient and unfinal, so long as man feels within himself the + prompting to be something better or higher than he is. Yet the English + life is wonderfully perfected. With a faery dream of a king supported in + his preeminence by a nobility, a nobility supported in turn by a + commonalty, a commonalty supported again by a proletariat resting upon + immeasurable ether; with a system of government kept, by assent so general + that the dissent does not matter, in the hands of a few families reared, + if not trained, to power; with a society so intimately and thoroughly + self-acquainted that one touch of gossip makes its whole world kin, and + responsive to a single emotion; with a charity so wisely studied, and so + carefully applied, that restive misery never quite grows rebellious; with + a patriotism so inborn and ingrained that all things English seem + righteous because English; with a willingness to share the general + well-being quite to the verge, but never beyond the verge, of public + control of the administration—with all this, the thing must strike + the unbelieving observer as desperately perfect. “They have got it + down cold,” he must say to himself, and confirm himself in his + unfaith by reflecting that it is very cold. + </p> + <h3> + XIX + </h3> + <p> + The best observer of England that ever was, he whose book about the + English makes all other comment seem idle and superfluous palaver, that + Ralph Waldo Emerson whom we always find ahead of us when we look back for + him, was once, as he relates in a closing chapter of English Traits, + brought to bay by certain great English friends of his, who challenged him + to say whether there really were any Americans with an American idea, and + a theory of our future. “Thus challenged, I bethought myself neither + of Congress, neither of President nor of Cabinet Ministers, nor of such as + would make of America another Europe.... I opened the dogma of + no-government and non-resistance, and anticipated the objections and the + fun, and procured a kind of hearing for it. I said, It is true that I have + never yet seen in any country a man of sufficient valor to stand for this + truth, and yet ... ‘tis certain, as God liveth, the gun that does + not need another gun, the law of love and justice alone, can effect a + clean revolution.... I insisted ... that the manifest absurdity of the + view to English feasibility could make no difference to a gentleman; that + as to our secure tenure of our mutton-chop and spinach in London or in + Boston, the soul might quote Talleyrand, ‘<i>Messieurs, je n’en + vois pas la nécessité</i>.’” In other words, Emerson laid + before his great English friends a programme, as nearly as might then be, + of philosophical anarchism, and naturally it met with no more acceptance + than it would if now presented to the most respectable of his American + readers. Yet it is never to be forgotten that it was the English who, with + all their weight of feudal tradition, and amidst the nightmares to which + their faery dream seemed so long subject, invented the only form of + Democratic Christianity the world has yet known, unless indeed the German + Mennonites are the same as the earlier English Quakers were in creed and + life. In the pseudo-republic of the Cromwellian commonwealth the English + had a state as wholly without liberty, equality, and fraternity as in the + king-capped oligarchy they had before and have had ever since. We may be + sure that they will never have such another commonwealth, or any + resembling ours, which can no longer offer itself as an eminent example. + </p> + <p> + The sort of Englishmen, of whose respect Americans can make surest are + those English thick-and-thin patriots who admire force and strength, and + believe that it is the Anglo-Saxon mission to possess the earth, and to + profit by its weaker peoples, not cruelly, not unkindly, yet + unquestionably. The Englishmen of whose disrespect we can make surest are + those who expect to achieve liberty, equality, and fraternity in the + economic way, the political way having failed; who do not care whether the + head of the state is born or elected, is called “King” or + called “President,” since he will presently not be at all; who + abhor war, and believe that the meek shall inherit the earth, and these + only if they work for a living. They have already had their will with the + existing English state, until now that state is far more the servant of + the people in fetching and carrying, in guarding them from hard masters + and succoring them in their need, than the republic which professes to + derive its just powers from the consent of the governed. When one + encounters this sort of Englishman, one thinks silently of the child labor + in the South, of the monopolies in the North, of the companies which + govern while they serve us, and one hopes that the Englishman is not + silently thinking of them too. He is probably of the lower classes, and + one consoles one’s self as one can by holding one’s head + higher in better company, where, without secret self-contempt, one can be + more openly proud of our increasing fortunes and our increasing territory, + and our warlike adequacy to a first position among the nations of the + world. There is no fear that in such company one’s national + susceptibilities will be wounded, or that one will not be almost as much + admired for one’s money as at home. I do not say quite, because + there are still things in England even more admired than money. Certainly + a very rich American would be considered in such English society, but + certainly he would not be so much considered as an equally rich Englishman + who was also a duke. + </p> + <p> + I cannot name a nobleman of less rank, because I will not belittle my rich + countryman, but perhaps the English would think differently, and would + look upon him as lower than the latest peer or the newest knight of the + King’s creation. The King, who has no power, can do almost anything + in England; and his touch, which is no longer sovereign for scrofula, can + add dignity and give absolute standing to a man whose achievements merit + it, but who with us would fail of anything like it. The English system is + more logical than ours, but not so reasonable. The English have seen from + the beginning inequality and the rule of the few. We can hardly prove that + we see, in the future, equality and the rule of the many. Yet our vision + is doubtless prophetic, whatever obliquities our frequent astigmatism may + impart to it. Meantime, in its ampler range there is room for the play of + any misgiving short of denial; but the English cannot doubt the justice of + what they have seen without forming an eccentric relation to the actual + fact. The Englishman who refuses the formal recognition of his distinction + by his prince is the anomaly, not the Englishman who accepts it. Gladstone + who declines a peerage is anomalous, not Tennyson who takes it. As part of + the English system, as a true believer in the oligarchically administered + monarchy, Gladstone was illogical, and Tennyson was logical. + </p> + <h3> + THE END + </h3> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s Seven English Cities, by William Dean Howells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEVEN ENGLISH CITIES *** + +***** This file should be named 7187-h.htm or 7187-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/1/8/7187/ + +Produced by Tricia Gilbert, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks, David Widger +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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