University of Virginia Library

STREETS AND SERVANTS AT HOME AND ABROAD.

I am fond of streets. If I had the uncontrolled chaperoning of
an intelligent sight-seer, I should begin with the streets of a city,
and thread them thoroughly before I sought out the accredited lions.
Streets have a physiognomy, and very expressive it is. A stranger
feels this directly. The impression is derived from many circumstances,
of course; and these may all be sought out and specified;
but we shall none the less feel that the whole is typical; and we
shall find ourselves lonely or at home, sad or amused, according as
we interpret the general aspect of a place which we visit for the first
time.

It is not easy for a life-denizen to imagine how our goodly city
of New York may strike a strange; but we are often assured by
country friends that the air of bustle is almost terrific, and that the
commercial roar produces a temporary deafness, very confusing to
the new-comer. It is said, too, that our citizens carry their business
in their faces more than is usual: so that those who come for
amusement see at first little prospect of it, or at least little hope of
sympathy in it. Nothing is more common, therefore, than for

strangers to dislike New York at first; while nothing is more certain
than they will become very fond of it in a little while.

It is to be feared that the first striking thing in the aspect of our city
to a stranger must be unswept and jolting pavements. Sad! to feel
that we receive our friends with a dirty face and unseemly costume,
and can hardly hope to do otherwise while our present civic maxims
or no maxims prevail. Since `politics' is given as the cause of this
disgrace, it is no wonder that ill-natured people accuse us of `dirty
politics;' but good-natured visiters turn their eyes and thoughts as
quickly as possible to the substantial elegance of our buildings, and
the richness and abundance of our merchandize, in the principal
streets. Prosperity is the prevailing expression; a life springing
from deep fountains; a grand flowering from golden roots; a hopeful
reaching after more splendid successes; it must be a poor perceptive
faculty that does not feel the influence of these on first
threading our broad thoroughfares. It is perhaps the very sense of
all this that discourages some quiet and modest people who have
been accustomed to take the world easy, and be content with its
humbler gifts and products.

But we are not all hurry and bustle, brick and mortar, carts and
omnibusses. Many a quiet, airy, smooth and comfortable spot may
be found, where there is still a confession of the love we all bear to
green fields and cool waters. Poor and inadequate as our parks
confessedly are, it were ungracious not to count them among the
expressive points of the city. Let us walk in them and try to
appreciate the delicious contrast between the fresh, inimitable works
of God, and the ambitious poverty of man's doings? Look at
those living, waving trees, describing with every passing breeze all
the lines of beauty, the dwellings of the bird and the bee, givers of
cool shadows to the weary; the very sight of them is pleasant to

the soul, bringing back soft memories of early days, when cost
entered not into our estimate of the beautiful, and when the heart's
avenues were open to every simple and natural enjoyment; when
the spring-time was a jubilee for us as well as for the birds and
grasshoppers, because we had as little thought for the morrow.
Then the grass—a velvet that no earthly loom can imitate—how
grateful both to foot and eye—how its moisture tempers the burning
noon, and gives back the parting sunbeam—what a glory it
receives from the contrast of the stony pathway, looking like fresh-hearted
enthusiasm by the side of the hardness of the mere man of
the world!

But as the crown of all—the parent and auxiliary of the trees
and the grass—we must count among our blessings the Fountain—
fit emblem of spontaneous and ungrudging goodness—gentle minister
of music and freshness—unconscious wearer of pearls inumerable,
giving back rainbows to the sunbeams, and breaking into dimples
beneath the shower. Here nature is indeed indebted to man; here
is an offset to the proud piles which would fain crush out her
beauty, and banish her more common aspect from his costly haunts.
In these silver showers—ascending like prayers, to return like them
in silent but life-giving dews—we make compensation for such
slighting of the good gifts of the universal Mother. If we made
as beneficial use of all the materials she so bountifully offers us, we
might appropriate her smiles without self-reproach.

Ignominiously as we treat the face of nature for our own selfish
purposes, hiding it under stones as if it were not fit to be seen—
how beningly she forgets it all, and smiles upon us wherever we
will let her? Not a crevice in the close-rammed flagging but shows
a bright fringe of green after every shower; not a vacant lot but
dresses itself in beauty, though trodden only by chiffoniers and coalsifters,

and used but by the children of vice and misery for the sorting
of their pickings and stealings. The boundless munificence—
the bursting plenty of nature, seems never more striking than in
these manifestations of productive power under every disadvantage.

Speaking of the aspect our city must wear to the eye of a
stranger, reminds me how little we know of it ourselves; how we
thread its avenues on our business and pleasure without a thought
of what they are and what they mean—teeming with human life,
human wants and woes, hopes and achievements. Our ceaseless
habit of pursuit forgets to take cognizance of all but itself. Street
pictures are for strangers only. We who are at home think of our
great thoroughfares only as the means of access to somewhere else,
while to eyes from abroad they are the reflex of ourselves.

We must be allowed to flatter ourselves that they are very good-natured
streets. Can anybody tell of harsh treatment to the wayfarer
who would makes inquiries as he walks—to the little child in
danger from the rush of carriages—to the beggar who sits plaintive
by the way-side? Accidents we have—too many; they are incident
to hurry; but rude behavior is hardly known, certainly not
characteristic. Let us hold fast by this; it is better worth boasting
of than some things of which we hear more. We are a sympathetic
people, at worst.

Few of our readers, perhaps, know anything of the aspect of
summer morning in the city. It is worth getting up to see. I
do not speak of sunrise; it may seem incredible to some, but it is
really day a long time before the sun begins to set the east on fire
with the far-spreading gold that forms so magnificent a back-ground
for chimneys and steeples. And further, there are classes of people
awake and astir hours before the sun, in order that all the breakfast
delicacies may be ready for Miss Julia and her mamma, when they

choose to enhance the day by opening their eyes. One may know
the hour on a clear warm morning, by the earliest rumble of grocers'
and market-mens' carts. It is then three o'clock, as near as may
be, and many of the wheels sound as if they were still very sleepy,
while others dash along with desperate resolution, shaking the windows
as they pass. After this earliest squad—this van-guard of
the industrial army—has passed, there usually occurs a considerable
interval. It seems at first like silence, but after the ear vibration
has subsided a little, one becomes aware of the crowing of innumerable
cocks—public-spirited creatures, who do their best to arouse
the lazy, and apparently nearly split their throats in the service. I
have little doubt they steal a later nap now and then, after waking
all the neighbors. I know several housewives who do this, as soon
as they are sure every soul in the house is afoot. Hunt speaks of
the pleasure of `being in bed at your ease, united with the highest
kind of advantage over the person that is up. `It is a lordly thing,'
he says, `to consider that others are up and nobly doing some duty
or other, with sleepy eyes, while we ourselves are exquisitely shutting
ours.' This is a kind of lordliness enjoyed by many during
the morning hour, but I am by no means sure that they have the
best of it. On the contrary, much observation of the getting-up
class leads me to believe, that in a fine flow of spirits to begin the
day with, they have something of which to boast over those who
are more intentionally luxurious.

The earliest wheeler through the street after daylight is the milkman,
and of all he is the most joyous. Mark the air with which
he clatters up to the kerb-stone, so close that the slope of the street
gives his frail wagon the very last cant it will bear without upsetting
his tall cans and the vehicle together. Then hear the cheery whoop

with which he calls out the sleepy damsel of the kitchen—not a
plaintive semi-tone like the charcoal-man's,
nor a sad minor, like the fruit-womans, nor the octave in which the
anxious mother calls her truant boy, thus:
but a wild, funny, unwriteable howl, expressive at once of haste,
good-humor and good understanding with the cook, who is to pop
up from the area. If she does not come at once—and she seldom
does—liking `lordliness' perhaps, as well as her lady—the jolly
milk-man shouts once more, with the addition of `wide awake!' or,
`all alive now!' or `come, my girl!' though this last is generally
reserved till the papilloted head comes in sight. With the earlier
milk-men this is all; for there is something of a sobering effect in
the cool morning air. But the later ones, warmed with the sun,
and perhaps somewhat exhilarated by much whooping and the sight
of a good many pretty faces, sometimes venture upon little tricks;
like one I witnessed lately. The girl was sweeping the side-walk
when the cart drew up, and she dropt her broom and ran in for the
pitcher. The moment her back was turned, the milk-man jumped
out of his cart, seized the broom, hid it behind a tree, and was in
his seat again in an instant, looking laboriously unconscious. When
the damsel came with the pitcher, she glanced round after her
broom, but said nothing; but, while the milk was lading out, slyly
stole the whip from the station where it hung jauntily outward, and
put it behind her back unobserved. The milk-man handed her the
pitcher before he perceived the theft, but it was only an instant.
And then such a leap, such a flight, such a laugh, such a spilling!

After the milk-man comes the baker—grave and sometimes
crusty, for he has been up a little too long. The oven-heat of his
home, too, has something unnatural and exsiccating about it. Your
baker has his face ploughed in wrinkles, from the solicitude with
which he watches the operation of his leaven; or he is tired with
working the cracker-machine. At any rate he is usually of the
soberest, especially when flour is low, for then he knows people will
expect large loaves; while in times of scarcity he may make them
unlimitedly small, pleading the necessity of the case. He is always
slow to believe in the fluctuation of prices downward, but timid and
easily alarmed when quotations add a shilling to the barrel. He is
interested too in the price of potatoes, and they do say in that of
certain mineral substances; but for particulars we must refer the
reader to “Accum on Culinary Poisons.”

All this time, ash-carts, dirt-carts, grocers' carts and empty carts
have been rumbling along, making such a noise that one can scarcely
hear one's-self think. The sun has risen above the chimneys, and
the rain of yesterday glitters on the oriental-looking boughs of the
ailanthus-trees, as the light breeze makes them tremble. Two forlorn
rag-pickers have already made a minute search through the
neighborhood, especially in a vacant lot at the corner—a sort of
Golgotha, where every body throws every thing that has no particular
destination, and some things that have—coal-ashes for
instance, which rise there in mounds that threaten to rival the (I
forget its name) Hill in Rome, whose foundation is pot-sherds. The
golden sun now glorifies all, however, even the place of rubbish and

stramonium, and makes the long rows of windows in — street
blaze with splendor. The birds, whose twittering song passed
unnoticed during our observation of the carts, now seem newly
wakened, and fill the air with rural-ish sounds—not quite rural, for
one wonders where they live—in what smoke-dried and dust-clogged
evergreens and altheas—for, if they dared build in the street
trees, their twitter would be short. Oh! the grape-vines with
which the yards in the upper part of the city abound, afford them
fine shelter, doubtless, with the aid of the few fruit trees that still
hide their diminished heads, or hang them over the neighbors' fences
low-spiritedly. Much of the singing, at this later hour, must be from
the canaries and other caged birds that begin to show at the open
windows, `striving which can, in most dainty variety, recount their
wrong-caused sorrow.'

The ice-men, chilled, perhaps, by associations belonging to their
craft, do not make demonstrations as early as others. Indeed, it is but
now and then a phenix among them that gives you your ice in time
for breakfast. But when they do come they have a hurrying, jolly
air, that is very pleasant. They spring out, milkmanishly, clinking
the great dangerous-looking tongs, and, grabbing the destined lump
with a decided air, make it swing from side to side. But look into
the cart. What more than grotto-like coolness! One can scarcely
believe that those enormous blocks are `soon to slide into a stream
again,' or that now, rocky as they are, one could split them with a
pin. It must be confessed that, ungainly thing as an ice-cart is,
with its straight, poking, green body, there is none, of all that pass
on a hot morning like this, whose rumble is so musical.

The fruit-woman are all this time chanticleering along, with ever
a sad tone in their screeching. It may be fancy, but I can always
hear in that cry a complaint of some sort. I hardly know how to

interpret it. Perhaps it bespeaks only a less hopeful nature than
animates the gay milkman. Or it may relate to the uncertainty
attached to selling so perishable an article as fruit; or to the remembrance
of domestic affairs suffering at home, while the mother tries
to gain a few pence by toiling through the street, hour after hour.
Here is a case where one may reasonably wish one's toil to be fruitless;
but the poor woman cannot console herself with quibbles.
There goes one who has a chubby daughter with her—one walking
on one side of the street and the other opposite—both screaming,
but alternately, and with a pretty variance. This is not so melancholy;
for misery even on a small scale, loves company.

That stout Irishman, lazily pushing the pine-apple cart, is a contrast
to the anxious fruit-woman. His face expresses, to be sure
great discontent that the world does not better appreciate the merits
of a son of Erin than to allow him to work such hot weather; but
his setting-forth of his wares has a funny sound, and seems to defy
fate. I should like him better, as a fruit-seller, if he had some infirmity
(besides whiskey), for it seems hard that able-bodied men
should usurp the few chances that feeble people and women have
for getting bread.

The sweet song of the chimney-sweep is comparatively rare in
these anthracite days. But what music the dark-skinned people,
who enjoy this profession by prescription, can make. There is one
who passes my door sometimes with an Italian recitative in the
softest tenor voice, yet filling the air with a volume of sound. If
nature had but blanched him he could make his fortune on the stage.
As it is they would not let him sing even Otello.

We put the colored man into funny attempts at livery sometimes
—(American liveries!) and even, for certain purposes, in uniform;
thus allowing him to stand as a representative of the two things we

are said to love best—wealth and military display. In whatever
character he appears, he is always a picturesque, and, to unprejudiced
eyes, an agreeable part of our street panorama. He is so
cheerful by nature that even oppression cannot sadden him, and so
genial and good-natured that the worst training and the most discouraging
circumstances fail to make him morose. I have been
inclined to fancy, at times, that the hatred expressed towards the
race by persons of certain temperament, was only resentment at their
good humor and patience. We do not like to see people so much
better able to make use of whatever of earthly good Providence
allows than ourselves. The disposition to enjoy is Heaven's blessing
to the poor colored man, and it gives a light to his quaint face
hardly ever extinguished, even by hopeless toil and compulsory
degradation.

If prosperity be the expression of New York streets, pride seems
to me that of the great thoroughfares of London, even where commerce
reigns. Our streets suggest the Future, those of London the
Past. London feels that that she has attained, and there is a calmness
even in her bustle. The compulsive Anglo-Saxon element
reduces even foreign things and faces in London to a certain uniformity
with things and faces English. Consciousness of England is
written all over everything and everybody. The Greatness of the
land is a Presence from which none can escape. In Paris one may
feel like a citizen of the world, and as if he had as much right in
the Boulevart and the Champs Elysées as any one; in London he is
always conscious of being a `foreigner,' and only on suffrance. This
accounts for the dislike of London so commonly expressed by
Americans, who are notoriously fond of Paris. It touches an
American in the tenderest point to be made to feel that his absence

would be at least as agreeable as his company, and this he always
feels in England—in London particularly.

The streets of London are London more truly and peculiarly than
the galleries of Art, the showplaces, or even the cathedrals,—for it
is in the streets that we see the people, with their faces full of every-day
expression; all the marks of national bent and habit displayed;
the eagerness of gain, the lassitude of pleasure, the consciousness
of vice, the despair of poverty. Wealth is more fully shown in the
street than in the drawing-room, for the splendors of a night may
be hired, but the grandeur and exquisiteness of an equipage can
hardly fail, to an instructed eye, to represent truly the fortune and
habits of its possessor. English carriages and horses are confessedly
the most elegant and perfect in the world, and these abound at
certain hours in the West-End streets. It is in these that the most
striking difference exists, to the traveller's eye between London
streets and those of our cities. One is ready to conclude that half
the people in London have carriages of their own.

But the countenance and manner of the passers on foot are not
more like those we meet at home than the equipages. The English
are a more natural-mannered, and of course a more individual
people, than we; and they are therefore better worth looking at in
the street. Far from wearing a street face,—a conventional countenance,
which makes palpable reference to the fashion and to the
opinion of the passers-by, one has the impression that English people
look as they feel, or at least just as they have a mind to look.
They do not stare at those they meet; they hardly seem to see you.
There is no rapid, anxious perusal of your dress in passing. Nobody
but the policeman at the corner ever looks you full in the face, as if
he meant to know you again. Except in the Strand, and other
exclusively business-streets, nobody seems in a hurry; and even in

those crowded thoroughfares there are quite enough leisurely-looking
people to remind you that not everybody works, in England. Driving
and walking are both necessarily slow, because of the throng;
and if any unexpected detention occur, people do not immediately
become frantic, as with us. Gentlemen's servants, in undress liveries,
are seen mounted on fine horses, going errands at a very moderate
pace, scarce seeming to see the busy faces on either side, but looking
sedulously languid and abstracted, as if they were thinking of Hyde
Park or St. James's Street, or other regions far removed from vulgar
toil and bustle. Now and then a gentleman on horseback, followed
closely by a servant in drab tights and gaiters with a cockaded hat,
threads his quiet way towards the Bank, his very eye telling you
that he is going only to draw money, not to earn or make it. Now
a great, open, family carriage, with mamma and governess and some
neatly dressed children, stops before a book or toy-shop, and the
footman makes journeys back and forth, and anxious shopmen pass
in and out, while the occupants of the carriage wear the air of the
most enviable tranquility, till the last article is offered and approved;
and the footman, with a slight sign of the hand to the coachman,
jumps to his place, and the perfect equipage rolls onward as if, like
heaven's gates, “on golden hinges turning.” But the most numerous
vehicles are one-horse cabs, which are used by all ranks, the
hackney ones hired at very cheap rates, and private ones very neat
but plain, and popular with those who can do as they like, and like
to be comfortable rather than splendid. London streets set us
an example in this respect which it would be well to consider.

When we explore the West End, with its parks, its palaces, its
magnificent breadths and still more magnificent quietude, we are as
much oppressed with the weight of centuries as at Thebes or
Karnak.

The sense of how long it must have taken to bring these things
to their present pass, adds an element of sublimity to the actual
impression. Every house is so jealously guarded from intrusive
eyes, that any thought of neighborhood or community is precluded.
Doors are attempted only by servants, for no bevies of ladies
are ever seen making morning calls on foot, as with us. Servants
and horses are the only living creatures that move on the pavement,
if we except the mechanics and tradespeople required by those
oyster-like residences. The air is full of silence, rendered all the
deeper by the distant roar of the peopled city, or made striking by
the occasional clatter of hoofs and wheels. There is no hint of
common life at those aristocratic doors. Now and then a footman
lingers a little for a chat with a pied brother, or takes a look up and
down the street before he makes all fast again; but when he
goes in, it is with the air of Robinson Crusoe retreating into
his fortress and drawing the ladder up after him.

The question has sometimes occurred to me, why is a livery-servant
in London so different an object from a livery-servant in
New York? In London, servants in livery are an appropriate and
rather fascinating part of the street panorama. I speak now of
everyday liveries,—those which simply mark the condition of
the wearer, and indicate to the initiated the distinguished family in
whose service he is. State-liveries are quite another affair,—the
most horrid caricatures of human costume; mere grotesque
disguises in the worst taste; the last contortion of ingenious pride;
as silly as the whim of a certain exquisite to personate a game-cock
at a masquerade, with the additional “features” of clapping
his wings and crowing. My Anglo-Saxon blood boils at the
sight of Englishmen degraded enough to be proud of such disguises.
Yet it is not worth while to consider the wearers as men, while they

carry about these strange shells of lace and frippery:—they are
machines; parts of a system; they have for the time no souls of
their own; they are bought and sold, in effect, by virtue of a
contract, signed with the vital current of their minds, to the demon
of this world, the deadly antagonist of the spirit of health and of a
sound mind. The maximum of intelligence to be found under
those liveries is not sufficient to build a shanty in the Western wilds
and provide bread and salt for its inmates. Yet beings of this
grade—as necessary to an aristocracy as dukes and earls—fare
sumptuously every day; are full of secondhand haughtiness; practise
the worst vices of their employers, and look down with contempt
upon the honest tradesman who works for his living.

I do not mean to say that they are of a different class from the
men who ornament London streets in ordinary liveries, for they are
one and the same; but only that, as showing up the thing in
its true character by exhibiting it carried out to extremes, they
suggest deeper and more unpleasing thoughts. English livery-servants
in their everyday costume, unlike their continental brethren,
are rather gentlemanly as well as picturesque-looking men. I do
not mean exactly gentlemanly like the gentleman of to-day in
society; but with an old-fashioned tinge, like the genteel men in
`genteel comedy.' There is an air of antiquity about them, so that
you cannot help, even in the common street, feeling as if they
belonged to a past age, and were only walking about in a sort of
ghostly dream on the pavé of to-day. They are tall and well
made, and somewhat pale and delicate in complexion, owing to late
hours and unwholesome habits; their manners are languid and
indifferent,—a trick caught from their employers, who depend on it
for much stylish effect. Mrs. Browning hits off the studied outside
of the masters well, in her poem of “Lady Geraldine's Courtship:”

It is not wonderful that a footman should reflect that which most
distinguishes his master from the commonalty, for the quality
which makes him rather be a footman than a blacksmith disposes
him to instinctive, indolent imitation. Effeminacy is essentially imitative,
having no energies to expend upon originating. The master's
proudly quiet manners may tacitly refer to the history of a past age,
or to a consciousness of the wealth that can buy everything but history;
but the servant is only a mirror, with nothing better or deeper
than a board to back it; giving the image, but knowing nothing of
the soul of what it reflects.

It would be a curious thing to find out how large the mental
horizon of a regular footman really is. To us he seems less than the
ninth part of a man. He who “sits a' day prickin' at a clout, like a
lassie,” has a house of his own, though it be a poor one; he orders
his own dinner, though potatoes be the only dish; his wife and
children look up to him with a distinct notion of the place he holds
in creation, as being husband (house-band) and father, and holding
a recognized position in society. But a footman has no separate
entity; he is an appendage, a complement, part of another man's
equipage, like a horse or dog, and of just equal importance; a
paltry, gilt frame to an exquisite picture; the padding of a court
coat on which are embroidered grand badges of honor; a piece of
the soft carpet (only the upper side cared for) on which fortunate
men walk daintily up to consideration and higher fortune. He is

the band of no house; if he have children, they are not brought up
in his sight. He has no citizenship, for his interest is merged in
that of his master; if he think of public affairs, it is like a dunce;
if he talk of them, it is like a parrot. His notion of a legislator is
of a gentleman who goes to “the 'Ouse” every evening for a certain
number of weeks, is asked out to dinner and gives dinners in return,
and in September runs down into the country for the shooting season.
He is well versed in the politics of the servants' hall; stands
up manfully against cold meat, and is “above 'peaching” on the
butler's peccadilloes, so long as that official furnishes ale of a proper
strength; but beyond these points he is “in wandering mazes lost,”
—incapacitated even for wishing, with regard to public affairs.

It would be one of the most curious shows imaginable, to see a
thorough-bred footman, and a vivid, untamed backwoodsman, face
to face on a Western prairie. The wild man would look upon his
liveried brother with a wonder tinged with pity and contempt. He
would probably think at first that the strange object must be “some
play-actoring fellow,” or a stray member of the caravan whose show-bills
decorated the village when he last carried wheat to market;
while the poor travestied Anglo-Saxon from the old world would
gaze with timid eye on the rough-rinded farmer, brown and knotty
as one of his own oaks, and secretly conclude him a representative
of the cruel aborigines, but one remove from the scalpers and tomahawkers
of whom he had dimly heard through Canadian emigrants.
Let these two far-divided brethren be compelled to pass the day
together;—the one about his daily business, the other as an inquirer
into the habits of the country and the means of obtaining a livelihood.
How could their minds approach each other? How bridge
over the immense chasms that lie between the life-maxims of a
Western freeman and those of a London footman? How find words

significant to both of the same idea? In the footman's mind, “nice
people” are people that keep their own carriage, while the Western
man applies that term chiefly to neighbors who are willing to lend
everything they have, and never ask to have anything returned.
The Londoner, if he ever happened to have heard the old-fashioned
word “hospitality,” would understand by it giving splendid dinners,
or filling one's country-house with gay company at Christmas; while
our prairie friend would intend no less than accommodating a neighbor
with a night's lodging though the only spare bed were in your
sitting-room, where father, mother and children were already provided
for; or taking in for a few weeks a forlorn family of Irish emigrants,
half of them sick with the ague, and none of them possessed
of a dollar wherewith to help themselves. If the farmer was in high
spirits and inclined to boast of “success,” what would the exotic
from Piccadilly think when he was introduced to a rough and bare
log cabin, standing in the midst of fields disfigured by stumps, and
only half fenced;—the wife, worn with toil, nursing her baby and
churning at the same time; the eldest daughter washing the dishes,
and the little boy cutting his toes instead of splitting kindling-wood, as
he had been attempting to do? We can fancy just how the unhappy
lackey would look and feel, if he were forced to begin life anew in
such circumstances; but we can well believe, nevertheless, that
though it might require many a hard rub to get the nonsense out
of him, yet in the end his good blood would triumph, and he would
learn to be a man among men, and look back to his days of
“flunkeyhood” with a perfect loathing.

It is only just, after this fancy sketch, to imagine our hero of the axe
bewitched into the neighborhood of Belgrave Square or Park Lane,
and required to fill the forsaken shoes of the individual whom we
have just seen adopted by the forest. But the picture cannot possibly

be a true match to the other, for the simple reason that no
earthly power, to say nothing stronger, could ever force the backwoodsman
into the livery of which his English brother was once
proud. And how about the powdered head, of which we have as
yet said nothing? Could a farmer ever consent to such impiety as
the use of wheat—wheat! his grand staple—his daily thought and
nightly dream—his synonyme for plenty—the ladder of his hopes—
we had almost said the god of his idolatry—as an adjunct to the
larded locks of a stander behind other men's chairs? We can fancy
some kitchen friseur attempting to turn his black `fell of hair' piebald
by the application of distinct patches of white flour, according
to the approved standard of Belgravia; but we see also the potent
fists of the neophyte going round like steam-paddles in resistance;
and we should portend woe to the unhappy artist if he carried the
joke too far. Next we stick a very tall cane into Jonathan's hand,
and order him to mount the foot-board and hold on for his life,
ready nevertheless to jump down and offer a gentle elbow to his
mistress, when she alights to cheapen a pair of tweezers at Strudwick's,
or to try a court dress at Miss Mortimer's. Or we place him
on a landing, in the midst of tropical plants and very classical
statues, to call names for several hours—not according to the
thoughts that would arise in his heart, but according to the Red
Book;—`Lady Nims!' `The Right Honorable Henry Algernon
Gulliver!' and so on, while a shoulder-knotted brother at the head
of the stairs echoes him like a mocking-bird, and the gentleman
usher at the drawing-room door repeats the story. Would our
green one call this an easy mode of getting his living? Or would
he long for his plough, his harrow, and his heavy boots; his suppertable,
covered with hot bread and fried pork; and the privilege of
voting at elections, and being himself elected path-master or constable?

I must not, however, hypocritically pretend that I am altogether
of our rustic neighbor's mind and impulses in this matter.
All my Americanism does not prevent me from perceiving and confessing
that livery-servants are a very fascinating and graceful accessory
to grandeur. The grandeur once accepted as right and proper,
liveries are quite in keeping, and livery-servants the most splendid
of human chattels. Those who have never seen this class of
movables, may picture to themselves a number of well-looking men
in militia uniforms, in attendance upon ladies and gentlemen and
horses; elegantly dressed, and sedulously ignoring the existence of
any other kind of people and any other business in life. This
makes, of course, a display of magnificence which is enhanced by a
touch of mystery, since both servants and masters affect to belong
to a world entirely unconnected with our everyday one, (though we
need not say they bear no particular marks of affinity with that
which we are in the habit of designating as a `better' world.)
Liveries are quite as various, as gay, and as ridiculous as the uniforms
of any of our city volunteers. A sky-blue coat, yellow waistcoat,
and scarlet breeches, would be thought no unsuitable conjunction
as a mark of servitude; and, in point of fact, liveries in this
taste are often chosen by parties in whose estimation `quietness' is
the one crowning grace of human costume. There is refinement of
cruelty in this, or rather refinement of haughtiness, for your true
footman-soul believes itself inferior, and is prompted to no cutting
comparisons. The feeling of caste is so sincere and operative in
England, that it not only influences the whole moral life of the
country, but extends beyond the grave, apparently without a misgiving
on the part of master or servant. How many a tomb-stone

bears such an inscription as this: `Erected by Marmaduke Millington,
of B—, in the county of —, Esquire, in memory of
the humble virtues of John Stubbs, for thirty years a faithful SERVANT
in his family.' One's mind passes spontaneously from such an
epitaph to the appearance of the great man and the little man side
by side before a bar where no liveries are recognized, and where the
very same virtues, not a different set, are exacted from servant and
master. But it will not do for us to follow the subject into its most
serious recesses.

English haughtiness differs from American haughtiness in being
sincere, and this brings us back to the thought with which we began—the
different effect, picturesque as well as moral,—between
English and American liveries. The sincerity of haughtiness is impious,
the imitation or affectation of it more simply ridiculous, so
that we should gain nothing by being honest in this matter. But
is it not mortifying that Americans can weakly sell their birthright
for a price too contemptible for valuation? We look down upon
people who, hoping to seem what they are not, condescend to wear
false jewelry and other mockeries of the rich; but what paste diamond
or glass ruby is meaner than pretences at livery in the establishments
of people of yesterday? The only grandeur at which
American society can aim with honor, is that of a bold and true
simplicity of manners; courage which dares to live out its natural
and staple ideas; independence founded on conscious power and
worth, which can afford to be original in small things as in great
ones. The moment we forget this, and seek to mimic, at an
immeasurable distance, the feudal tricks of decaying aristocracy, we
renounce our real, undeniable claims, and get absolutely nothing in
return. We condescend to imitation where equality is impossible,
and confess a longing which Providence has, at our own desire, put

it out of our power to gratify. From so humiliating a position may
all true descendants of our patriot sires be preserved!

There is but one way in which liveries can be made true badges of
American nobility: this is by making them expressive of the origin of
the families they are intended to dignify. The glory of our society is,
that the highest spring from the humblest—and it should, therefore,
be the aim of an enlightened pride to express this great fact—never
generally operative in any other country known to history—in
whatever public manifestations of present prosperity we see fit to
adopt. If there is anything of which we may be excusably vain-glorious,
it is that the son of the humblest mechanic may and does
acquire, by worth and talent, not only wealth, but position and influence:
while mere riches, though they command a certain consideration
from the esprit de corps of the rich, and some servility from
the meanness of the needy, do absolutely nothing towards securing
public respect or esteem. Let us then, if we long for aristocratic
distinctions, boldly seize those which belong to us. If few of us
can trace back to gentlemen who, when they coveted a neighbor's
property, stabbed him and took it, we can claim a far more honorable
descent from honest farmers and carpenters, tailors and hatters.
Surely he who tills the ground in the fear of God is a better man
than he who soaks it with blood for his own selfish ends—he who
builds his house honestly, than he who wrenches it from another
by the strong hand. We may say to the feudal system and all that
belongs to it: `Oh, thou enemy! destructions are come to a perpetual
end.' The spirit of to-day is constructive; and, if we use the
ruins of the past, it must be to build a new plain. Why not, then,
devise badges of our true honor? American liveries would so be
grand, indeed. Alas, that those who adopt something so called
should so often be found ashamed of their honest grandfathers!

The grandfathers doubtless return the compliment if they take cognizance
of such matters.

I have seen as yet no attempt in our country to establish distinguishing
marks of female servitude; but there seems to be no
good reason why we should not humbly imitate England in this, as
well as in putting collars and handcuffs on the men who drive our
carriages or stand behind them. A woman-servant in England is
considered insolent if she appear without a cap; and, in addition
to this, her employers claim the right to enforce sumptuary regulations
as to her general costume. It must indicate her station unmistakeably;
and the slightest direct attempt at imitating those above
her would be deemed insubordinate and ominous of evil. A silk
gown would be `flat burglary' in any servant below the rank of
housekeeper. I ought to except the governess; who, though
considered merely as an upper though peculiarly vexatious and trying
servant, in most English families, is not restricted in the choice
of her costume, except by the smallness of her salary. Shall we
carry our aping throughout consistently? Shall we insist on caps,
frown on silk dresses, and treat the instructors of our children as
inferiors—thus doing our best to make them such?

So small a proportion of those who get their bread by domestic service
in this country are Americans, that we need hardly consider
how outward badges of servitude would sit upon the native
American, or how they might in time affect his character. The
very name of servant is a yoke too heavy for his pride. He is willing
to perform a thousand menial offices under any other name;
call him your friend, and he will act as your slave; call him your
servant, and he will soon show you that he is his own master. He
has not the least objection to the things to be done, but only to the
position he must occupy in doing them; so that while no money

could hire him to put on a gay dress of your choosing, and stand
idle in your entry, he will build stone fence for you, or risk his life
on your roof, with no thought that he lowers himself by performing
labor for your benefit. Work is his glory, servitude his detestation;
there it not the least danger that he will ever, even for the sake of
the `almighty dollar,' become a livery servant; though he may so
far forget himself as to keep one. His transgression of the democratic
(or gospel) principle will never take that form. Our protest
against American liveries regards employers only.

In view of this national feeling against domestic servitude—for
the national objection is awakened far short of liveries—some people
are a good deal concerned as to what we shall do for servants
after the overflow of nations still subject to feudal ideas shall have
ceased, and those who are now hewers of wood and drawers of
water in tolerable contentment, shall have become thoroughly
Americanized in feeling, and at the same time possessed of comfortable
American homes of their own. This would be a very sad
state of things indeed! That there should be no class of people
poor enough to consent to live in our kitchens, and work for us
instead of for themselves, would be `most tolerable and not to be
borne!' It cannot be that Providence means to deal so hardly
with us, as to diffuse the advantages we prize so highly over the
entire body of our citizens. Lord Lyttleton's Flavia says:—

So may we exclaim—
The sense of contrast gives the zest to our advantages. Nobody
ever makes a show in a desert; where admirers are lacking we content
ourselves with substantials. A truly republican plainness of
living would probably be the deplorable result of this hardly supposable
state of things. But, without fearing anything so remote,
would it not be prudent to provide, in some measure, against the
possible evils of universal prosperity? Perhaps if we could make
up our minds to treat our servants as fellow citizens now, the time
when they would be disposed to shake off our service might be
deferred. If we could refrain from enforcing caste in our treatment
of our domestics; if we could engage the services of a cook as we
do those of a shoemaker or a mason, i. e. without assumption on
one side, or a hollow servility on the other, cooking might become
a recognized trade, and our tables be well supplied, even after starvation
no longer threatened a concocter of plum-puddings who
should insist upon being `as good as anybody!' Would it be dangerous
to recognize the soul of a chambermaid? Would it not
rather be apt to make her a better one, and longer content with the
broom and duster, if we consulted her feelings, expressed an interest
in her welfare, and saved her pride as much as possible? At present,
it seems to be supposed that in the agreement as to wages, a
certain amount of contumely is bargained for—not loud, indeed, but
deep—not in words so much as in thoughts, and in the actions that
flow unconsciously from thoughts. While this is the case, we cannot
have American servants, and we ought not to have them. Our
countrymen and countrywomen can do better; and so they forsake a
business which ought to be as comfortable and lucrative as any
other which demands the same grade of ability, and leave us to be
half-served by people whose lack of both principle and capacity is
too often the very reason why they are willing to be servants. The
consequence is, unspeakable wear and tear of temper, and all sorts
of loss and mismanagement in our kitchens; corrupting examples
for our children, and temptation to inhuman prejudice in ourselves.
If we do not learn to consider our servants as human beings, they
will certainly teach us that they are so; and enforced claims are as
mortifying as voluntary concessions are graceful. The English treat
their servants far better, with regard to the national ideas, than we
do ours, considering our profession of democratic principle. We
shall be forced, sooner or later, to harmonize more nearly our political
theory and our social practice; and it will undoubtedly be discovered,
in time, that, the only key to this difficulty, as to others
growing out of our noble theory of life, is to be found in the gospel
of Christ.