 | The American lounger, or, Tales, sketches, and legends, gathered in sundry journeyings |  |
YANKEE ARISTOCRACY.
“He that hath a trade hath an estate.”
Poor Richard.
Edward Belden was the son of a New England
country merchant. He had ten brothers and sisters,
the majority of whom were younger than himself.
The head and front of these offences was a merchant;
that is, he kept a grocery, next door to the principal
tavern, at the corner of the stage road and Main street
of a certain village in the State of Maine.—All persons
who buy goods to sell again across a counter, are
in New England, styled “Merchants,” not tradesmen
or storekeepers, but emphatically and aristocratically
—merchants. Merchants are gentlemen; therefore
Mr. Belden was a gentleman. In the land of steady
habits, a gentleman is one who is not a mechanic or
operative. Mr. Belden had never soiled his hands
with tools, although he sold eggs and fish-hooks, nuts
and raisins, tea and sugar by the pound, and retailed
at one end of his dark crowded store, rum at three
cents per glass. He would sell oats by the peck and
“strike” the measure himself, whiten his coat by
shoveling flour and meal from the barrel or “bin”
into the scales, and grease his gentlemanly fingers with
the weighing of butter, cheese, and lard. Yet, Mr.
Mrs. Belden was, of course, a lady—her husband
was a merchant! She gave parties, and her entertainments
were the envious gossip of the village.
“Oh,” says Mrs. Belden, confidentially to the lawyer's
lady, who had hinted in a very neighborly way,
that she thought Mrs. Belden was becoming somewhat
extravagant, “oh, my dear Mrs. Edgerton, they don't
cost us nothing at all, hardly—we get 'em all out o'
the store!”
Mrs. Belden never visited mechanics' wives, nor
allowed her children to associate with mechanics' children.
“Marm; what do you think Ned did, comin' home
from school?” shouted a little Belden, bolting into the
door, with his eyes and mouth wide open, his mother's
injunctions fresh in his memory; “he spoke to Bill
Webster, he did, for I seed him!” and the little aristocrat's
eyes were popped two inches further from his
head as he delivered the astounding information.
“Edward! did you speak to that Bill Webster?” inquired
his mother, in a tone of offended dignity, as she
scraped the dough which she was kneading from her
lady-like fingers; “didn't you know his father was a
cabinetmaker, and hasn't I and your pa repeatedly
told you not to speak to such boys?”
“Well, ma, I only asked him about my lesson,”
pleaded the culprit in defence.
“About your lesson!” exclaimed the angry parent;
“and what had Bill Webster to do either with you or
your lesson?”
“Because he's the best scholar in the academy, and
at the head of the class, and even Judge Perkins's
son is glad to get Bill to help him when he's got
stuck.”
“I guess if his father knew it, he'd soon stick him,”
exclaimed the injured parent, “and I shall go right
over after dinner and tell Mrs. Judge Perkins directly.
be allowed to go to the academy and associate with
gentlemen's sons. Here's your father! now we'll see
what he says about it.”
Mr. Belden, a short, stout man, inclined to corpulency,
with half whiskers, bluish gray eyes, and rather
pleasing physiognomy, entered from the store,
which was situated but a few yards distant from his
two story white house, with green blinds, and a front
yard with stone steps, as Mrs. Belden was wont to
describe it. His coat was dusted with flour, and greasy
by contact with various unguinous articles which
his store contained.
“What's the matter, what's the matter, my dear?”
he inquired, in a quick, good-humored tone, seeing the
children grouped around their mother, listening in
timid silence, while the placidity of her features was
considerably disturbed.
“Have the boys been at any of their capers?”
“Capers!” repeated his offended lady; “all I can
do and say, I can't get these children to mind me—I
wish you would take them in hand, Mr. Belden, for
they have tried my patience, till I can't stand it no
longer.” And she looked as if she was the most
aggrieved woman in the world.
“Why, why, what have they done?” inquired the
perplexed husband, still holding the handle of the door
by which he had entered.
“Done! Here's Edward been speaking to that
Bill Webster, when I have told him over and over
again, not to have any thing to say to any such boys,
and expressly told him and all the children, to speak
to no boys nor girls whose fathers an't merchants, like
their'n, nor lawyers, or doctors, or ministers, and they
know it well, too.”
“Well, well, wife, I'll settle it,” replied Mr. Belden,
soothingly and good humoredly, for he had just made
come here to me.”
The culprit came forward and placed himself by his
father, who had taken a chair near the fire, conscious
that reproof or advice comes clothed with more dignity
from one seated than standing.
“Edward, you are now in your fifteenth year,” said
the parent gravely. “In two or three years more you
will enter college, and you should now learn to choose
your associates.”
“Children, listen to your father,” commanded Mrs.
Belden, seeing the turn her husband's remarks were
likely to take; “he speaks to you as well as to Edward.”
“In the first place, my son, you must remember
that your parents are respectable—that is, move in the
first circles, and are not mechanics. Now, in America,
where there is no nobility or titles, to say what is or
what is not `respectable,' why we must have certain
rules by which we can tell who are and who are not
so. Now the only way you, who are a boy, can tell
what boys are `respectable' and what are not, is by
knowing what profession their parents are of. Now,
a mechanic of no kind is respectable; they all belong
to the `lower class.”'
Here his youngest daughter interrupted, “Isn't milliners
and manty-makers `respectable,' pa?”
“No, my child, they are female mechanics, and are
therefore not `respectable.”'
“Well, then, I spoke to Miss (Mrs., generally in
New England, is pronounced Miss,) Miller's little
Jane, and walked most home from school with her to-day.
Oh, I'm so sorry!” The penitent criminal, after
receiving a severe reproof from her mother, retreated
behind a chair, and the father continued.
“The question is, my son, when you wish to select
your companions at school, or at college, first to learn
whether their fathers are rich! for rich men cannot, of
are lawyers, merchants, doctors, or ministers; for in
these four `professions' are included all American gentlemen,
except senators, state officers, and such like,
who are respectable by their office. With no other
families should you associate, for you should at all
times endeavor to keep up the dignity of your family.
Now, my son, you may sit down to your dinner.”
Here the merchant concluded with an emphatic
“ahem,” and was about to turn his chair to take his
seat at the table, when one of his younger boys hesitatingly
inquired, “if a watch maker wath respectable?”
“Why so, my child?” rejoined the self-complacent
parent.
“Coth, if ta'nt no thpectable people ought to thpeak
to you.”
“Come to your dinner, children, and you, you lisping
chit, shall wait, for your forwardness,” exclaimed
the now justly provoked mother, (for Mr. Belden, reader,
was unfortunately the son of a watch-maker!) Edward
laughed in his sleeve; Mr. Belden carved the
joint in silence, and in silence Mrs. Belden helped
round the vegetables. During the recess of that very
afternoon, the aristocratical scion, Edward Belden,
played at catch and toss with that young democrat,
Bill Webster. This brief family scene is not introduced
as affecting, materially, the general interest of
our tale, but to disclose a state of manners and mode
of thinking, by no means uncommon, in New England;
presenting a strange anomaly in the society of
American material that hereafter may afford materials
for a pair of volumes.—Yet it is to such principles
as those we have just heard dictated by a parent to
his child, that the adverse fortunes of that child and a
thousand others of New England's children are to be
referred. The income Mr. Belden derived from his
store, was from eight hundred to two thousand dollars
possibly be very great, as every thing, from the children's
shoes to their spelling books, from the “kitchen
girl's” calico and handkerchief to Mrs. Belden's silks
and laces, besides all the provisions, “came out of the
store.”—How they came into the store never entered
into the brain of Mrs. Belden. She was satisfied her
housekeeping could cost nothing; “never mind, it
came out of the store,” was the coup de grace, by
which she silenced every qualm of conscience or
friendly hint from envious neighbors, upon her own
extravagance in household matters. For Mrs. Belden
sought to keep up appearances, and there were
other merchants' ladies in the neighboring town she
must rival. What with Mrs. Belden's expensive
habits, and Mr. Belden's moderate profits, he seldom
laid by more than two or three hundred dollars a year.
Yet on this small income, without the prospect of having
a dollar to give them when they became of age,
his children must be educated!—gentlemen and ladies!
as if heirs to principalities. Let us see what gentlemen
and ladies he made of them. It will serve briefly
to develope a system of gentility and genteel education,
lamentably prevalent throughout the villages
and small towns of New England.
Amelia, the eldest daughter, grew up tall and well
formed, pale and romantic. She had attended the village
female academy from her youth upward. At
eighteen she left school tolerably well educated. That
is, she was versed in geography, and could tell you
the capitals of every European state more readily
than those of the various States of her own country;
and knew, (so deeply learned was she,) more about
the lives of the kings of England and of Egypt, than
of the Presidents of the United States. She could
paint fruit pieces and mourning pieces, which still
hung over her mantle in testimony of her skill: write
a neat hand, cypher tolerably, and play a little on the
found herself at the age of twenty-seven unmarried,
and, at last, to escape her mother's tongue, which
grew sharper as she grew older, and wagged particularly
against “old maids,” and to find the wherewithal
to purchase dresses, for she had inherited her mother's
love of finery, she accepted an offer to keep the
school (this not being mechanical, except in cases of
flagellation, is therefore “respectable,” and conferring
no disgrace) in a neighboring village, in which delightful
task, peradventure, she is still engaged.
The second child, who was a son, having a natural
mathematical turn, and much mechanical ingenuity,
at the age of seventeen, when his father proposed
taking him into the “store,” pleaded hard to become a
machinist, or go to sea—any thing but to be tied to
the counter of a country grocery. His parents were
shocked at his vulgar tastes. The young man, after
staying behind the counter, three months, during
which time he was placed at the station at the further
end, where rum was retailed, because his careful parent
could trust no one else there, and, after hearing
more oaths and seeing more intemperance than would
have corrupted a Samuel, yielded, disgusted with
his employment, to the offers of an intelligent sea captain,
and amid the tears, groans, and prophecies of his
mother, (for the caste of sea captains is not exactly
comme il faut,) went to sea with him. He is now,
though young, the first officer of a packet ship from
New York, and a gentleman, in spite of his father.
The third son, a fine spirited boy, who wished to
become a jeweler rather than succeed his sea-struck
brother in the store, eventually followed his brother's
example, by eloping, and after various adventures,
during which he lost both health and reputation, became
one of the lowest supernumeraries on the New
York stage. The cholera of 1832 put an end to his
misery, his dissipation and pecuniary wretchedness,
The fourth was apprenticed to a respectable wholesale
dry goods merchant in Boston. When he became
of age, and desired to enter into business on his own
responsibility, his employer, to whom he looked for
assistance, “failed,” and he was at once thrown upon
the world with but a few hundred dollars in his possession.
He again became a clerk to another house,
on a scanty salary, for, although a man of business,
integrity, and industry, he was not a man of capital.
He knows no trade—he is fit for nothing but a merchant's
clerk. He is still clerking, although nearly
thirty years of age, while he finds about him men of
wealth and independence, although mechanics, like
their fathers before them, whom, when at school he was
taught to despise. With what bitter curses upon the
foolish system to which he was a victim, did he contrast
their situations, happy in the bosom of their family,
with his own, a lonely salaried bachelor. “How
much it costs to be a gentleman!” thought he.
The fifth, and next youngest child, who was a
daughter, married a young merchant of her native
village, who failed the following year, died intemperate
the next ensuing, leaving his wife and two children
to the tender mercies of her parents or the
world.
The sixth child, a less intelligent and active boy
than his brothers, his father succeeded in retaining in
the store; this being the portal through which all of
them made their debut into active life. He soon acquired
the habits and tastes of the loungers in the
store; to their language and beastly intoxication he
soon became familiarised; and imperceptibly by commencing
with cordials and sherbets, he acquired a
taste for ardent spirits; and at the age of twenty-five,
after having been for three years a common drunkard,
he died in his father's house of mania a potu.
This, reader, is no fiction. Name and localities are
of many, with the history of a family now almost extinct.
Yet, even without this key, too ready an application
of it may be made to numerous families, within
the observation of every New England reader.
Besides Edward, there were two brothers and a sister,
who fortunately, did not survive long enough to
become either lady or gentleman!
Three years after the conversation recorded above,
Edward entered the sophomore class at Cambridge.
His manners were polished, his address winning, his
talents of a high order. After six weeks he was the
most popular of his class, both with the faculty and
his class-mates; while many young gentlemen of the
upper class sought his acquaintance. His associates
were among the wealthiest in college; his good nature,
gentlemanly air, irresistible wit, and high standing in
his class, rendered his society universally sought after.
The first year, his bills were paid by his father, and
he was allowed fifty dollars during the year for spending
money. This he laid out in books, for he neither
gambled, nor indulged in the expensive habits which
could be afforded by others. When in the height of
his prosperity and scholastic fame, a letter came in
reply to one he had written to his father for a remittance,
to purchase a few necessary books, stating that
“business was dull, his profits small, and that it was
more expensive at college than he supposed it would
be!” After two pages of advice in relation to the
necessity of preserving his standing as a gentleman,
he wound up with the suggestion, “that as he could
not afford to pay such large bills any longer, he had
best work the rest of his way through college by
keeping school during the vacations.” A bank note
for twenty dollars was enclosed, with the intimation
“that he must expect but little more assistance from
him, as he had his two brothers and sisters to educate;
that he was getting old, and times were hard.”
It would be difficult to picture the mortification of
a sensitive, high-minded young man, at such an announcement.
Minor accounts usually liquidated at
the same time, were also unpaid. But these difficulties,
though instantly occurring to his mind, did not
so much affect him as the sudden change this conduct
of his father must produce in his situation. Educated
like a gentleman, his most intimate associates had been
with those young aristocrats of the college who had
wealth to support their pretensions. With the “beneficiaries,”
these noble-minded young men, who seek
science through her most thorny parts, those of poverty
and contumely, he had never associated—they
were a species of literary operatives, whom he had
not yet decided whether to class as mechanics or gentlemen.
He groaned bitterly as he felt he was degraded
to their caste. It was late at night when he
received the letter, and after pacing the room a long
time in mental agitation, he seized his hat and hastened
to the president's room. The usual lamp shone in
the window; he tapped lightly at the door and entered.
The venerable Doctor Kirken, who was engaged
over his desk, raised his head and politely invited
him to be seated.
Edward laid his father's letter upon the desk, saying
hastily, “A letter from my father, sir.”
The president read it, and shook his head, as if displeased
at its contents.
“I sympathise with you, Belden. This is not the
first case of the kind I have met with since my connection
with this institution. This infatuation among
the class to which your father belongs, of making gentlemen
of their sons, when they cannot allow them the
means to sustain the rank of such, has been the ruin
of many promising young men. It is a mistaken notion,
and one fruitful with the most baneful consequences,
that a youth to be made a gentleman of, must
become a member of one of the learned professions;
first pass through college. It is a mischievous error,
and must be eradicated. It is daily doing incalculable
injury to society. Experience must soon teach
such persons the unsoundness of the position they
have assumed, and convince them, that an independent
farmer or mechanic (which all may become who
will) is intrinsically a better gentleman and a far more
useful member of society, than an impoverished lawyer
or doctor, or a minister who has become such that
he may be one in the ranks of (to use an English
term, for which, in America, we neither have or should
have a corresponding word) the `gentry.”'
The president concluded by giving him much judicious
advice for his future conduct in life, and the
young man took his leave and went forth into the
world, alone, friendless, and almost moneyless.
We briefly pass over his short and unhappy career.
He went to New York, where he remained several
weeks, seeking some genteel employment, (for of any
mechanical trade or art, he was totally ignorant.) At
length, a situation offered, after he had spent his last
dollar in paying for an advertisement applying for a
clerkship or tutorship.
The subsequent events in the life of Edward Belden,
(save the mystery that still hangs over the place
of his exile,) are familiar to all who have not forgotten
the tragedy which a short time ago agitated our
great commercial metropolis, and filled the minds of
all men with horror.
This brief outline of what could easily be extended
to volumes, is written to expose the rottenness of a
mischievous custom, founded in vanity and perpetuated
in injustice to its juvenile victims, which reigns all
over New England. Alas, that men should think that
because they give their sons an education, they must of
necessity, make professional men of them, or suppose,
if they wish to make them gentlemen without the
merchants of them!
Let every parent, whether farmer or country merchants,
country doctor, country lawyer, or country parson,
if he have five sons, educate them all well if he
will, but make four of them tillers of the soil or masters
of a trade. He will then be certain of having
four independent sons about him. If he have seven
daughters, let him make seven good milliners and mantua
makers of them, and they will then be independent
of the ordinary vicissitudes of life. Let him do
this, that is, provided he has no fortunes to leave them.
But even if he have, still it would be better for them
that he should do this, than if he should leave it undone.
It is the opposite plan to this, the reaching after
gentility or respectability, as it is termed, for their
children, that throngs our metropolitan streets with
courtezans and inundates all cities from New York to
New Orleans with pennyless adventures.
| The American lounger, or, Tales, sketches, and legends, gathered in sundry journeyings | |