6583. PEOPLE, European.—
Behold me
at length on the vaunted scene of Europe!
* * * You are, perhaps, curious to know
how this new scene has struck a savage of the
mountains of America. Not advantageously, I
assure you. I find the general fate of humanity
here most deplorable. The truth of Voltaire's
observation offers itself perpetually, that every
man here must be either the hammer or the
anvil. It is a true picture of that country to
which they say we shall pass hereafter, and
where we are to see God and His angels in
splendor, and crowds of the damned trampled
under their feet. While the great mass of the
people are thus suffering under physical and
moral oppression, I have endeavored to examine
more nearly the condition of the great,
to appreciate the true value of the circumstances
in their situation which dazzle the bulk of
spectators, and, especially, to compare it with
that degree of happiness which is enjoyed in
America, by every class of people. Intrigues
of love occupy the younger, and those of ambition,
the elder part of the great. Conjugal
love having no existence among them, domestic
happiness, of which that is the basis, is utterly
unknown. In lieu of this, are substituted pursuits
which nourish and invigorate all our bad
passions, and which offer only moments of
ecstacy amidst days and months of restlessness
and torment. Much, very much inferior, this,
to the tranquil, permanent felicity with which
domestic society in America blesses most of its
inhabitants; leaving them to follow steadily
those pursuits which health and reason approve,
and rendering truly delicious the intervals of
those pursuits.—
To Mr. Bellini. Washington ed. i, 444.
(P.
1785)
