University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER IV.

March 20th.—The papers are still full of Sumter and
Pickens. The reports that they are or are not to be relieved
are stated and contradicted in each paper without any regard
to individual consistency. The "Tribune" has an article on
my speech at the St. Patrick's dinner, to which it is pleased
to assign reasons and motives which the speaker, at all events,
never had in making it.

Received several begging letters, some of them apparently
with only too much of the stamp of reality about their tales
of disappointment, distress, and suffering. In the afternoon
went down Broadway, which was crowded, notwithstanding
the piles of blackened snow by the curbstones, and the sloughs
of mud, and half-frozen pools at the crossings. Visited several
large stores or shops—some rival the best establishments
in Paris or London in richness and in value, and far
exceed them in size and splendor of exterior. Some on
Broadway, built of marble, or of fine cut stone, cost from
£6,000 to £8,000 a year in mere rent. Here, from the base
to the fourth or fifth story, are piled collections of all the
world can produce, often in excess of all possible requirements
of the country; indeed I was told that the United States have
always imported more goods than they could pay for. Jewellers'
shops are not numerous, but there are two in Broadway
which have splendid collections of jewels, and of workmanship
in gold and silver, displayed to the greatest advantage in fine
apartments decorated with black marble, statuary, and plate-glass.

New York has certainly all the air of a "nouveau riche."
There is about it an utter absence of any appearance of a
grandfather—one does not see even such evidences of eccentric

taste as are afforded in Paris and London, by the existence
of shops where the old families of a country cast off
their "exuviæ" which are sought by the new, that they may
persuade the world they are old; there is no curiosity shop,
not to speak of a Wardour Street, and such efforts as are made
to supply the deficiency reveal an enormous amount of ignorance
or of bad taste. The new arts, however, flourish; the
plague of photography has spread through all the corners of
the city, and the shop-windows glare with flagrant displays of
the most tawdry art. In some of the large booksellers' shops
—Appleton's for example—are striking proofs of the activity
of the American press, if not of the vigor and originality
of the American intellect. I passed down long rows of shelves
laden with the works of European authors, for the most part,
oh shame! stolen and translated into American type without
the smallest compunction or scruple, and without the least intention
of ever yielding the most pitiful deodand to the authors.
Mr. Appleton sells no less than one million and a half
of Webster's spelling-books a year; his tables are covered
with a flood of pamphlets, some for, others against coercion;
some for, others opposed to slavery,—but when I asked for
a single solid, substantial work on the present difficulty, I was
told there was not one published worth a cent. With such
men as Audubon and Wilson in natural history, Prescott and
Motley in history, Washington Irving and Cooper in fiction,
Longfellow and Edgar Poe in poetry, even Bryant and the
respectabilities in rhyme, and Emerson as essayist, there is no
reason why New York should be a paltry imitation of Leipsig,
without the good faith of Tauchnitz.

I dined with a litterateur well known in England to many
people a year or two ago—sprightly, loquacious, and well informed,
if neither witty nor profound—now a Southern man
with Southern proclivities,—as Americans say; once a Southern
man with such strong anti-slavery convictions, that his expression
of them in an English quarterly had secured him the
hostility of his own people—one of the emanations of American
literary life for which their own country finds no fitting
receiver. As the best proof of his sincerity, he has just now
abandoned his connection with one of the New York papers
on the republican side, because he believed that the course of
the journal was dictated by anti-Southern fanaticism. He is,
in fact, persuaded that there will be a civil war, and that the
South will have much of the right on its side in the contest.

At his rooms were Mons. B—, Dr. Gwin, a Californian ex-senator,
Mr. Barlow, and several of the leading men of a certain
clique in New York. The Americans complain, or assert
that we do not understand them, and I confess the reproach,
or statement, was felt to be well founded by myself at
all events when I heard it declared and admitted that "if
Mons. Belmont had not gone to the Charleston Convention,
the present crisis would never have occurred."

March 22d.—A snow-storm worthy of Moscow or Riga
flew through New York all day, depositing more food for the
mud. I paid a visit to Mr. Horace Greeley, and had a long
conversation with him. He expressed great pleasure at the
intelligence that I was going to visit the Southern States.
"Be sure you examine the slave-pens. They will be afraid
to refuse you, and you can tell the truth." As the capital
and the South form the chief attractions at present, I am
preparing to escape from "the divine calm" and snows of
New York. I was recommended to visit many places before I
left New York, principally hospitals and prisons. Sing-Sing, the
state penitentiary, is "claimed," as the Americans say, to be
the first "institution" of its kind in the world. Time presses,
however, and Sing-Sing is a long way off. I am told a system
of torture prevails there for hardened or obdurate offenders
—torture by dropping cold water on them, torture by
thumbscrews, and the like—rather opposed to the views of
prison philanthropists in modern days.

March 23d.—It is announced positively that the authorities
in Pensacola and Charleston have refused to allow any
further supplies to be sent to Fort Pickens, the United States
fleet in the Gulf, and to Fort Sumter. Everywhere the
Southern leaders are forcing on a solution with decision and
energy, whilst the Government appears to be helplessly drifting
with the current of events, having neither bow nor stern,
neither keel nor deck, neither rudder, compass, sails, or steam.
Mr. Seward has declined to receive or hold any intercourse
with the three gentlemen called Southern Commissioners, who
repaired to Washington accredited by the Government and
Congress of the Seceding States now sitting at Montgomery,
so that there is no channel of mediation or means of adjustment
left open. I hear, indeed, that Government is secretly
preparing what force it can to strengthen the garrison at
Pickens, and to reinforce Sumter at any hazard; but that its
want of men, ships, and money compels it to temporize, lest

the Southern authorities should forestall their designs by a
vigorous attack on the enfeebled forts.

There is, in reality, very little done by New York to support
or encourage the Government in any decided policy, and
the journals are more engaged now in abusing each other, and
in small party aggressive-warfare, than in the performance of
the duties of a patriotic press, whose mission at such a time is
beyond all question the resignation of little differences for the
sake of the whole country, and an entire devotion to its safety,
honor, and integrity. But the New York people must have
their intellectual drams every morning, and it matters little
what the course of Government may be, so long as the aristocratic
democrat can be amused by ridicule of the Great Rail
Splitter, or a vivid portraiture of Mr. Horace Greeley's old
coat, hat, breeches, and umbrella. The coarsest personalities
are read with gusto, and attacks of a kind which would not
have been admitted into the "Age" or "Satirist" in their
worst days, form the staple leading articles of one or two of
the most largely circulated journals in the city. "Slang" in
its worst Americanized form is freely used in sensation headings
and leaders, and a class of advertisements which are not
allowed to appear in respectable English papers, have possession
of columns of the principal newspapers, few, indeed, excluding
them. It is strange, too, to see in journals which
profess to represent the civilization and intelligence of the
most enlightened and highly educated people on the face of
the earth, advertisements of sorcerers, wizards, and fortune-tellers
by the score—"wonderful clairvoyants," "the seventh
child of a seventh child," "mesmeristic necromancers," and
the like, who can tell your thoughts as soon as you enter the
room, can secure the affections you prize, give lucky numbers
in lotteries, and make everybody's fortunes but their own.
Then there are the most impudent quack programmes—very
doubtful "personals" addressed to "the young lady with black
hair and blue eyes, who got out of the omnibus at the corner
of 7th Street"—appeals by "a lady about to be confined"
to "any respectable person who is desirous of adopting a child:"
all rather curious reading for a stranger, or for a family.

It is not to be expected, of course, that New York is a very
pure city, for more than London or Paris it is the sewer of
nations. It is a city of luxury also—French and Italian
cooks and milliners, German and Italian musicians, high prices,
extravagant tastes and dressing, money readily made, a life in

hotels, bar-rooms, heavy gambling, sporting, and prize-fighting
flourish here, and combine to lower the standard of the
bourgeoisie at all events. Where wealth is the sole aristocracy,
there is great danger of mistaking excess and profusion
for elegance and good taste. To-day as I was going down
Broadway, some dozen or more of the most over-dressed men
I ever saw were pointed out to me as "sports;" that is, men
who lived by gambling-houses and betting on races; and the
class is so numerous that it has its own influence, particularly
at elections, when the power of a hard-hitting prize-fighter
with a following makes itself unmistakably felt. Young
America essays to look like martial France in mufti, but the
hat and the coat suited to the Colonel of Carabiniers en retraite
do not at all become the thin, tall, rather long-faced
gentlemen one sees lounging about Broadway. It is true, indeed,
the type, though not French, is not English. The characteristics
of the American are straight hair, keen, bright,
penetrating eyes, and want of color in the cheeks.

March 25th.—I had an invitation to meet several members
of the New York press association at breakfast. Among
the company were—Mr. Bayard Taylor, with whose extensive
notes of travel his countrymen are familiar—a kind of
enlarged Inglis, full of the genial spirit which makes travelling
in company so agreeable, but he has come back as travellers
generally do, satisfied there is no country like his own
—Prince Leeboo loved his own isle the best after all—Mr.
Raymond, of the "New York Times" (formerly Lieutenant-Governor
of the State); Mr. Olmsted, the indefatigable, able,
and earnest writer, whom to describe simply as an Abolitionist
would be to confound with ignorant if zealous, unphilosophical,
and impracticable men; Mr. Dana, of the "Tribune;"
Mr. Hurlbut, of the "Times;" the Editor of the
"Courier des États Unis;" Mr. Young, of the "Albion,"
which is the only English journal published in the States;
and others. There was a good deal of pleasant conversation,
though every one differed with his neighbor, as a matter of
course, as soon as he touched on politics. There was talk de
omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis, such as Heenan and Sayers,
Secession and Sumter, the press, politicians, New York life,
and so on. The first topic occupied a larger place than it
was entitled to, because in all likelihood the sporting editor of
one of the papers who was present expressed, perhaps, some
justifiable feeling in reference to the refusal of the belt to the

American. All admitted the courage and great endurance of
his antagonist, but seemed convinced that Heenan, if not the
better man, was at least the victor in that particular contest.
It would be strange to see the great tendency of Americans
to institute comparisons with ancient and recognized standards,
if it were not that they are adopting the natural mode of
judging of their own capabilities. The nation is like a growing
lad who is constantly testing his powers in competition
with his elders. He is in his youth and nonage, and he is
calling down the lanes and alleys to all comers to look at his
muscle, to run against or to fight him. It is a sign of youth,
not a proof of weakness, though it does offend the old hands
and vex the veterans.

Then one finds that Great Britain is often treated very
much as an old Peninsula man may be by a set of young
soldiers at a club. He is no doubt a very gallant fellow, and
has done very fine things in his day, and he is listened to with
respectful endurance, but there is a secret belief that he will
never do anything very great again.

One of the gentlemen present said that England might dispute
the right of the United States Government to blockade
the ports of her own States, to which she was entitled to
access under treaty, and might urge that such a blockade was
not justifiable; but then, it was argued, that the President
could open and shut ports as he pleased; and that he might
close the Southern ports by a proclamation in the nature of
an Order of Council. It was taken for granted that Great
Britain would only act on sordid motives, but that the well
known affection of France for the United States is to check
the selfishness of her rival, and prevent a speedy recognition.