University of Virginia Library

COUNTRY STRANGERS.

I have already given you a glimpse of the Bostonian,
but he is not the only one among the
strangers in our town who is deserving of particular
mention. The Philadelphian is apt to fancy
himself every whit as good as the Bostonian, and
much better than the New Yorker. He prides
himself overmuch upon the cut of his clothes, and
until within a few years it was currently understood

that the tailor craft in the Quaker city, was
vastly superior to anything this side of the French
capital; but I very much fear that they are losing
ground in this particular, and can now no more
compare their heroes of the needle with our Piercie
Shaftons, than their Fairmount with the Croton, or
Laurel Hill with Greenwood. Still, the Philadelphian
has his claims to superiority; and though he
does not boast now of a United States Bank, or
Nicholas Biddle, he makes up by talk about the
Girard College and Liberty Hall: he is eminently
fond of the fancied European aspect of his streets:
and whoever has talked with a stray Philadelphian
without hearing somewhat of the charms of Chestnut
street, must needs have been `hard of hearing.'
At dinner he is not a little disposed to speak modestly
of the treasures of his market—its poultry,
fruit, and eggs; nor does the Philadelphia lady
once admit that our haberdashers display anything
like so tasty a stock, as may be found at Levy's.

The Philadelphian enjoys, moreover, the consideration—though
he forbears to urge it, and though
he lives in the city of brotherly love—of belonging to
a population capable of more mob enthusiasm, than
any out of sight of the hills which overtop Lyons
upon the Rhone. Following upon this quality,
though how intimately associated with it I do not

know, is his boast of the superior culture in Philadelphia
society: and one might safely imagine from
his conversation—using it in way of testimony,
and not as sample—that the erudition and polish
of a Philadelphia salon was something very hard
to be found, beyond the sound of the trickle of
Fairmount.

He would make it appear that money has little
chance in his city, against the predominating influence
of refinement and breeding; and he will point
out to you our grocer's daughter swimming through
the mazes of the waltz in the top circles of the town,
as an impropriety that would quite shock the sensibilities
of the tonnish ladies upon the Schuylkill.
I find, however, that like the phlegmatic Bostonian,
he is not insensible to the graces of such parvenus;
and that, whether amorous of the money, or the
figure, he is quite content to carry her off to his
city, hush up her origin, and engraft upon her
humble stock the elegancies of his elevated life.
Of course, she thus loses every vulgar taint, and
like the knotted dwarf stocks, on which the Burlington
gardeners set their Flemish scions, is
quite lost under the luxuriant foliage of the new
growth.

The Philadelphians are adepts in whatever relates
to hair-dye, gloves, or perfumery; and you

will be able in four instances out of five to detect
the visitor from that city, either by the dressing of
his hair, the color of his gloves, or the scent of his
trail. You will find his locks most skillfully laid
apart, and rounded up over his ears as daintily as
on the wig-blocks in Chestnut street; while one
of our New York clubmen shall show in his backhair,
such a bristly and agonized parting, as
would shock the worst bred North country buck, in
the Assize-room of York.

The Philadelphian, too, cultivates a gentleness
and softness of manner, which proves quite taking
with our romantic school-girls; and singular as it
may seem, he will preserve this softness and delicacy
up to an advanced age: even the lawyers
are fond of genteel pleas, and the doctors, though
given marvelously to blood-letting, practice with
the softest handling, on the softest pulses in the
world.

The Washingtonian sometimes wanders to our
city, though never unmindful of his majestic
Potomac, and magnificent Capitol. He contrasts,
much to our loss, the unpretending Broadway with
the sweep[1] of his Pennsylvania Avenue. There is

no great peculiarity to distinguish him, unless it
be a certain careless independence, as if he were,
by virtue of his position, a supervisor of the nation.
His dress and manner are of a mixed sort, being
picked up from such vagabond tailors and hair-dressers
as have taken refuge in the District—set
off with careless imitation of Sir Henry Bulwer's
hat or whiskers, and an assumption of the pretty
off-hand airs of an Ambassador's Clerk.

The ladies would be even less distinguishable,
were it not for an extraordinary air of boldness,
which thrives excellently well in our Metropolis.
For dress, they adopt with no little tact, such fashions
of the New York or Philadelphia beauties as
suit their style; and for self-possession, and readiness
of speech, I think they may be safely matched
against any lady that smiles. Indeed, I do not know
a better cure for maidenly diffidence—not that it
is a common failing in our town—than a two
months' residence at Washington.

From time to time, a Member who has decamped,
may be seen in our streets, wearing in an important
way the honors of his position; and looking
out upon our city as only one among his numerous
constituencies. He is, perhaps, a little surprised
that his appearance does not create a stir; more
especially as his arrival has been announced in

the Express, and if a slave-holder—possibly in the
Herald. It is matter very likely of some astonishment
that the dinner invitations do not flow in
upon him by dozens; and that the street-passers
are so very ignorant as they appear to be, of
what manner of man is among them. Nor will
the Member cut a much more important figure in
the ball-room, than in the street. In the dance,
which he cannot in New York as in Washington
avoid, he will find his stiff ungainliness no match
for the little pliant fellows who are fresh from their
Saracco lessons; and his political talk and careless
toilette will be speedily thrust in a corner, or silenced
with the sop of ècarté. Let him win fame, or
fight a duel, and he shall dance `fit for a Duke;'
and he shall kiss in public or private, by proxy or
otherwise, half the ladies of the town.

Some limbs of the army or navy, will from time
to time excite quite a furor among our streetwalkers,
and will carry a flippant, assured manner
that puts them entirely out of the reach of ordinary
civilians. They are said, however, to be respectable,
harmless fellows in their way, and quite
comfortable companions at a supper, or a quiet
rubber of whist.

Here and there about the hotels, you will see
gentlemen of very important aspect, who cannot

conceal their surprise, that everybody is not taking
note of their bigness; whereas very few, not even
the head porter or newspaper boys, are aware of
their importance. They are the judges, or great
men of country towns, excessively admired and
honored in their own parish, renting the most conspicuous
pew in their country church, and possibly
keeping the best gig and brown mare in the whole
township. Probably they have little properties,
which pass with their humble neighbors as `estates;'
but they do not figure largely in our town. It does
not occur to their embarrassed perceptions, that
amid a population of half a million, all bent on
their own affairs, the chances of the great man of a
small town, for making a stir by his entrée, are, to
say the least, very problematical. He should not
take it too much to heart, if the passers-by do not
dock their hats to him, or if his name is omitted
from the personal movements of the Express.

I really entertain serious pity for such misguided
gentlemen;—most of all at table, where
their loud tones, dignified carriage, and patronizing
looks thrown to their opposite neighbors, would
seem to merit a larger share of consideration than
they ever receive. But I am consoled with believing
that, if not admired, their own sense of dignity
does not at all flag; and they are sustained by a

self-approval that is never at fault, and never weary
of working.

Stout youngsters, too, from western cities, perhaps
making first purchases on their own account,
are quite disposed to carry off a good many of the
street honors of the town; and have evidently prevailed
on themselves to believe, that their appearance
at the Opera may create quite a sensation: it
will be perhaps true of their coat, or carriage, but
for the rest they will be doomed in most instances
to severe disappointment. Some individual of
decided western habit and dress, who has imbibed
to the full that pseudo American independence,
which mocks at all forms, and even glories in pertness
and singularity, will stare about him complacently,
as if he were as capable of the highest
art, as of making a stump speech in central Ohio.
And he smokes his cigar, and wears his hat with
very much the air of that Scotch traveler in Switzerland,
of whom Goldsmith speaks:—he had wandered
into a church where all the people were
afflicted with goitres: they of course stared at his
slim neck prodigiously: `I perceive,' said he, rising
to retire, `that I am an odd fellow here, but I
assure you that I am considered a good-looking man
at home.'

I must not forget, Fritz, to give you a portrait or

two of our stranger ladies. An American lady is
not without pride: and if it would not be counted
ungallant, I should say she had more of it, than
any woman in the world beside. Not a few, whom
we may call country fashionables, and who make
semi-annual pilgrimages to the shrine of Mr. Stewart,
are exceedingly anxious to be mistaken for
New Yorkers; and are curiously apprehensive lest
any action, or wry adjustment of dress should make
their provincial character perceptible. They are
mightily observant of dress and gait; and if they
find their country Pythoness has imposed upon
them a mantilla, or hat, the like of which is not to
be seen, they will be sure to carry back with them
a little stock of upbraiding.

Such lady is apt to run to the very verge of fashion,
in her anxiety to meet the demands of provincial
taste, which is somewhat spasmodic in its manifestations:
and she must be well assured that the
lawyer's, or apothecary's wife of her town, will not
outshine her in finery. She is anxious to conceal
any little innocent gaucherie that may pertain to
her, even from the clerks of the trading establishments;
and will assume an easy familiarity with
them, and counterfeit an acquaintance with goods,
and store-keeping generally, that is quite refreshing
to look upon. Nor is she ever ignorant of anything,

which in her view a city lady ought to
know: and she cultivates an abandon, of a caste
rarely to be met with out of the public parlors of
the hotels.

Her conversation is not demure or quiet, but
lively: and she not unfrequently hums (if she
knows it) a snatch of a fashionable Opera. If a
friend calls, to ask when she came up to town, and
how all the `folks' are in Jersey, she blinks him
with very few words; she turns talk as speedily as
possible upon the Opera, and the town topics, and
chats in the glibest possible style of Mesdames
So-and-so, of the spring modes, and fashionable
books. She has no idea of being beaten off into
provincial topics in public places. At the Opera,
she wears the air of one who is not in the least taken
aback by whatever she may see, and as if she understood
the gist of the whole matter, as well as the
keenest of the critics.

Opposed to these in their action, are the timid,
modest ladies from the country, who have not
known enough of the city to be baited by its
assumptions; they dress innocently for breakfast,
and you will meet them at nine in the morning in
brilliant evening attire. Yet withal they are very
fearful that people are looking at them, and very
certain that their dress is a very pretty one. They

are sometimes betrayed in their naïveté into looking
through a shop-window, and blush to find themselves
surrounded by such ungenteel people.

They labor under almost constant alarm about
their purses; and from the stories they have heard,
are disposed to reckon nearly every over-dressed
man either a pickpocket or cut-throat. In this they
are not far from right: still, in broad daylight, upon
Broadway, they may consider themselves comparatively
safe.

They are afraid of theatres; and if from New
England, the fear is accompanied with very zealous
and decided condemnation. The Museum does not
of course come under the same category, and may
be ventured on in virtue of an old moral tradition,
by all those who are too good for the Opera or
Niblo's. If the mother of a family, our good lady
will be very fearful, on her first visits, of the contamination
of her boys; and will look suspiciously
upon every sour, or moustached face, she sees
upon the street. She will mistake even the most
common acts of politeness, for the seductive arts
of unprincipled and designing men.

She is subject to unceasing, and most unnecessary
alarms at sight of any street-gathering, and is
convinced there must be a pickpocket or murderer
in the case; she is afraid of the cabmen, lest she be

cheated or hurried off out of the reach of humanity,
and be lost to herself, her family, and the world.
Of the omnibus drivers, she has but little better
opinion, and an absolute certainty that a pickpocket
is in every stage. She wears her vail down
in passing the Hospital, that she may not become
infected with any town cholera: and is in a distressing
panic at sight of an engine, or at the cry
of fire.

Yet withal, Fritz, these very good women of the
country, who are the butts of city ridicule, will in
nine cases out of ten, rear sons who will take the
lead away, in business, in professional pursuits, or
in the arts, from the most luxurious of the town-bred.
They will prove the efficient and active
movers of our vast body politic, while the sons of
millionaires are contenting themselves with the
empty town distinctions of a dashing coat, or a tawdry
epaulette. Town worthies, who with their brilliant
social strides, entered upon while yet only
half through their grammars, are thinking to
outstrip, and throw into ludicrous insignificance,
the slowly accumulating manhood of provincial
youths, will find realized, to their mortification,
the old fable of the hare and the tortoise. Steady
effort, persevering industry, and right moral teaching,
is even now in obscure corners, laying the basis

of characters, which twenty years hence, will control
the wealth, and the public interests of the
town.

Dress, equipages, perfumery, and the Opera will
always have native, city teachers; but the Pulpit,
the Exchange, Journalism, and the Bar, are drawing
in recruits from the rough sons of hard country
study, and of old-fashioned, rigid, academical education,
whose energy, spirit, and influence, will one
day make the hot-house progeny of the town quiver
in their shoes.

Show me an influential journalist, a rising man
at our bar, a preacher at once profound and practical,
a physician eminent in his profession, a merchant
who is fertile in enterprise, and successful by
honest industry, and I will show you one who
knew little or nothing of the fashionable life of the
town, until his mental and moral character was
already formed. On the other hand, show me a
lawyer rich in political intrigue, a doctor distinguished
by nostrums, a conversationalist fertile in
equivoques, a poetaster fatiguing the language
with his poverty, a merchant who is rich by successive
bankruptcies, or defalcations, and twenty
to one, he has been dandled in the endearing arms
of Fashion, and while yet in his teens, has converted
his feeble art of the grammar, to the crowning
arts of the boudoir.