University of Virginia Library

I hear and obey. You said to me, Go, and I
went. You now say, come, and I am coming,
with the readiness that befis a slave, and the
cheerfulness that marks the philosopher.

Accustomed from my youth to breathe the
scented air of Sennaar saloons, and to lounge in
listless idleness with young Sennaar, I am weary
of the simple purity of manners that distinguishes
this people, and long for the pleasing, if pointless,
frivolities of your court.

Coming, as you commanded, to observe and
report the social state of the metropolis of a
people who, in the presence of the world, have

renounced the feudal organization of society, I
have found them, as you anticipated, totally free
from the petty ambitions, the bitter resolves, and
the hollow pretences, that characterize the society
of older states.

The people of the first fashion unite the greatest
simplicity of character with the utmost variety of
intelligence, and the most graceful elegance of
manner. Knowing that for an American the only
nobility is that of feeling; the only grace, generosity;
and the only elegance, simplicity; they
have achieved a society which is a blithe Arcadia,
illustrating to the world the principles they profess,
and making the friend of man rejoice.

We, who are reputed savages, might well be
astonished and fascinated with the results of
civilization, as they are here displayed. The
universal courtesy and consideration—the gentle
charity, which does not consider the appearance
but the substance—the republican independence,
which teaches foreign lords and ladies the worthlessness
of mere rank, by obviously respecting
the character and not the title—the eagerness with
which foreign habits are subdued, by the positive

nature of American manners—the readiness to
assist—the total want of coarse social emulation—
the absence of ignorance, prejudice and vulgarity,
in the selecter circles—the broad, sweet, catholic
welcome to all that is essentially national and
characteristic, which sends the young American
abroad only that he may return eschewing European
habits, and with a confidence in man and
his country, chastened by experience—these have
most interested and charmed me in the observation
of this pleasing people.

It is here the pride of every man to bear his
part in the universal labor. The young men, instead
of sighing for other institutions, and the
immunities of rank, prefer to deserve, by earning,
their own patents of Nobility. They are industrious,
temperate, and frugal, as becomes the youth
to whom the destinies of so great a nation, and
the hopes of the world, are committed. They
are proud to have raised themselves from poverty,
and they are never ashamed to confess that
they are poor. They acknowledge the equal
dignity of all kinds of labor, and do not presume
upon any social differences between their baker

and themselves. Knowing that luxury enervates
a nation, they aim to show in their lives, as in
their persons, that simplicity is the finest ornament
of dress, as health best decorates the body.
They are cheerfully obedient to those who command
them, and gentle to those they command.
Full of charity, and knowing that if every man
has some sore weakness, he has also a human
soul latent in him, they trust each man as if that
soul might, at any moment, look out of his eyes,
and acknowledge with tears, the sympathy that
unites them.

They show in all this social independence and
originality, the shrewd common-sense which we
have so often heard ascribed to them. For if, by
some fatal error, they should undertake a social
rivalry, in kind, with the old world and all
its splendid accessaries of antiquity, wealth and
hereditary refinement, the observer would see,
what now is never beheld, foolish parvenus
frenzied in the pursuit of an elegance which, in
its nature, is inaccessible to them. We should
see lavish and unmeaning displays. We should
see a gaudy ostentation,—serving only as a

magnificent frame to the vanity of the subject.
We should see the grave and thoughtful, the
witty and accomplished, the men and women
whose genius fitted them for society, withdrawing
from its saloons, and preferring privacy to
a vulgar and profuse publicity. We should see
society become a dancing school, and men and
women degenerated into dull and dandified boys
and girls, content with (pardon me, sable sir,
but it would be the truth) “style.” We should
see, as in an effete civilization, marriages of convenience.
We should hear the heirs, or the
holders of great fortunes, called “gentlemanly”
if they were dull, and “a little wild” if they
were debauched. We should see parents panting
to marry off” their dear daughters to the
richest youths, and the richest youths affecting
a “jolly” and “stunning” life,—reputed to know
the world because they were licentious, and to
have seen life because they had tasted foreign
dissipation. We should hear insipidity praised
as good-humor, and nonchalance as ease. We
should have boorishness accounted manliness,
and impudence wit. We should gradually lose
faith in man as we associated with men, and
soon perceive that the only safety for the city
was in its constant recruiting from the simplicity
and strength of the country.

The sharp common-sense of this people prevents
so melancholy a spectacle. In fact, you
have only to consider that this society does not
remind you of the best characteristics of any
other, to judge how unique it is.

But, for myself, as milk disagrees with my
constitution, and my mind tires of this pastoral
sweetness, I am too glad to obey your summons.
In my younger days when I loved to press the
stops of oaten pipes, and—a plaintive swain—
fancied every woman what she seemed, and every
man my friend,—I should have hailed the prospect
of a life in an Arcadia like this. How gladly
I should have climbed its Pisgah-peaks of hope,
and have looked off into the Future, flowing with
milk and honey. I would grieve (if I could) that
my sated appetite refuses more,—that I must lay
down my crook and play the shepherd no longer.
Yet I know well enough that in the perfumed
atmosphere of the circle to which I return, I shall

recur, often, with more than regret, to the humane,
polished, intelligent, and simple society I
leave behind me,—shall wonder if Miss Minerva
Tattle still prattles kindly among the birds and
flowers,—if Mrs. Potiphar still leads, by her
innate nobility, and not by the accident of
wealth, the swarm of gay, and graceful, and
brilliant men and women that surround her.

I humbly trust, sable son of midnight, my lord
and master, that my present report and summary
will be found worthy of that implicit confidence
immemorially accorded to diplomatic communications.
I could ask for it no other reception.