Rambles in Womanland Part 33

'Quite sure.'

'Perhaps you left it at the other party, where you went first.'

'No, no; that's where I got it.'

CHAPTER XXV

SOME AMERICAN TOPICS

As I sit quietly thinking over my seventh visit to the United States, some impressions take a definite shape. I may here repeat a phrase which I used yesterday while speaking to the representative of an English newspaper who had called to interview me:

'This last visit has left me more than ever impressed with the colossal greatness of the American people.'

The progress they have made during the last five years is perfectly astounding--progress in commerce and industry, progress in art and science, progress in architecture. The whole thing is simply amazing.

And the ingenuity displayed in the smallest things!

Really, this morning I was pitying from the bottom of my heart a poor English carman, who was emptying sacks of coal into a hole made in the pavement, as in New York, in front of a house.

He had to go and fetch every sack of coal, put it on his back, carry it with his bent body, and then aim at the hole as best he could. In New York the cart is lifted one side by means of a handle, an inclined tray is placed at the bottom of the cart, with its head over the hole, and down goes the coal as the man looks at the work done for him.

It is in thousands of little things like this that you understand how the American mind is constantly at work. I do not know whether America makes more inventions than other nations (I believe that France is still leading), but there is no country where so many inventions are perfected.

In a great measure I attribute the commercial prosperity of the Americans to the soundness and practicability of their principles in the matter of the commercial education of their youth. It is partly due to the existence of the 'business college,' which has no counterpart in England, but which is as great and powerful an inst.i.tution in the States as public schools are in England. Until Europe has such colleges, she will never breed leaders of commerce and industry as they are bred in America.

France possesses the best artisans in the world--gla.s.s-cutters, cabinet-makers, book-binders, gardeners--simply because boys of the working cla.s.ses choose their trade early, work long apprenticeships, and study.

The English boy of these cla.s.ses becomes a plumber at thirteen, then he tries everything afterward. He is in turn a mason, a gardener, anything you like 'for a job.' In America it is the mind of boys which is prepared for commerce in the business colleges. At twenty they are practical men.

Of course, my mind is full of trusts. Is it possible that in a few years all the great industries of America--its mines, its railroads, its telegraphic and telephonic systems, its land, its land produce--will all be amalgamated and transformed into trusts?

I am not inclined to look on this great system of trusts in too pessimistic a fashion. In my view, they may eventually lead to the nationalization of those gigantic enterprises, and in this way bring about the greatest good for the greatest number, by the simple reason that it will be much easier for the State to deal with all those different trusts than with thousands of different companies and individuals.

One day the earth will belong to its inhabitants, not to a privileged few. Trusts may lead to the solution of the question.

Another impression deeply confirmed more than ever: the English may talk of the 'blood-thicker-than-water' theory, but it will never stand the test of a political crisis.

Of course, there are the '400' of New York who are entirely pro-English, and half apologetic for being American; but the population of Greater New York is 4,000,000. If out of 4,000,000 you take 400, there still remain some Americans. And these have no love lost for England.

CHAPTER XXVI

SOME AMERICANS I OBJECT TO

An American was one day travelling with an Englishman friend of mine in the same railway compartment from Dieppe to Paris. During the conversation, the American did not care to own that he hailed from America, but went as far as to confess that he came from Boston, which, he thought, would no doubt atone for his being American in the eyes of his English companion.

'And where are you going to put up in Paris?' inquired the Englishman.

'Well,' replied the Bostonian, 'I was thinking of staying at Meurice's; but it's so full of d----d Americans! Where are you going to stop yourself?' 'H'm,' said the Englishman; 'I was thinking of stopping at Meurice's myself, but the place is so full of d----d English people!'

I object to the American who tells you that he spends the summer in Europe because America does not possess a summer resort fit to visit, and who regrets being unable to spend the winter in the South of France because there is not in the United States a decent place where to spend the winter months, who a.s.sures you that America does not possess a single spot historically interesting. In my innocence I thought that an American might be interested to visit the Independence Hall of Philadelphia, Mount Vernon in Virginia, Lexington, Bunker's Hill, Yorktown, Chattanooga, Gettysburg, and a few other places where his ancestors made America what she is now.

I thought that the Hudson River compared favourably with the Thames and the Seine, the Rocky Mountains with the Alps and the Pyrenees, the Sierras with Switzerland, and that Europe had nothing to offer to be mentioned in the same breath with the Indian summer of America, when the country puts on her garb of red and gold.

When you meet that American in Europe, he asks you if you have met Lord Fitz-Noodle, Lady Ginger, and the Marquis de la Roche-Trompette. When you confess to him that you never had the pleasure of meeting those European worthies, he throws at you a patronizing glance, a mixture of pity and contempt, which seems to say: 'Good gracious! who on earth can you be? In what awful set do you move?'

At fashionable places, on board steamers, he avoids his compatriots and introduces himself into the aristocracy, always glad to patronize people who have money. He makes no inquiry about the private character of those t.i.tled people before he allows his wife and daughters to frequent them.

They are t.i.tled, and, in his eyes, that sanctifies everything. On board a steamer he works hard with the purser and the chief steward in order to be given a seat at the same table with a travelling lord. You never see him in anybody else's company.

A favourite remark of his is: 'The Americans one meets in Europe make me feel ashamed of my country and of my compatriots.'

How I do prefer to that American sn.o.b the good American who has never left the States, and who is perfectly convinced that America is the only country fit for a free man to live in--G.o.d's own country! At any rate, he is a good patriot, proud of his motherland. I even prefer to him that American (often to be met abroad) who d.a.m.ns everything in Europe; who prefers the Presbyterian church of his little city to Notre Dame, Westminster Abbey, and the cathedrals of Rouen, Cologne, and Milan; who thinks that England is such a tight little island that he is afraid of going out at night for fear of falling into the water; who thinks that French politeness and manners are much overrated, and who, when being asked if he likes French cuisine, replies: 'No; nor their cookery either.'

I love the man who sees only things to admire in his mother and his own country; and in America that man has his choice--_une abondance de biens_.

CHAPTER XXVII

PATIENCE--AN AMERICAN TRAIT

For power of endurance, give me the Americans. They are angels of patience. The best ill.u.s.tration is what they can put up with at their Custom House when they return home. Foreigners are more leniently dealt with, but if the American and his wife return from a trip to Europe and have with them twelve trunks and ten bags, these twelve trunks and ten bags have to be opened and thoroughly searched, and that although the said American has already signed a paper that he has nothing dutiable with him.

In every civilized nation of the world, there is a Custom House officer to inquire of the foreign visitor or the returning native whether he has anything to declare. He is not required to sign anything. He is asked the question on presenting himself with his baggage.

Never more than one piece of luggage is opened, and when the owner is a lady alone she is allowed to pa.s.s without having anything opened, unless, of course, she appears to be a suspicious character.

Everywhere in Europe any decent-looking man or woman who declares that he or she has nothing dutiable has one piece of luggage examined and no more. But in America not only is every trunk, every bag, opened, but everything in it most searchingly examined.

'Have you worn this?' says the man.

I knew a gentleman who had had ten trunks examined from top to bottom, but could not find the key to his hat-box, a light piece of luggage which, by its weight, was labelled innocent. The Custom House officer took a hatchet and smashed it.

I allowed myself to be told that the gentleman in question could obtain no redress against the man in authority. A lady, for that matter, would have been treated in exactly the same way. No respect for her s.e.x, no consideration for the pretty things she had had so carefully packed; everything is taken out, felt, and replaced topsy-turvy.

When a favourite steamer arrives in New York, with 500 first and second cla.s.s pa.s.sengers, it means about 5,000 pieces of luggage to open and examine. If you have no servants to see it done for you, the odds are that you will be five hours on the wharf before you are able to proceed to your hotel.

The Americans grumble, but patiently endure the nuisance, as if they were not masters in their own home and able to put a stop to it. No Englishman would stand it a day. If it was a special order, it would be repealed at once. The only time when the thing was done in England was during the period of scare produced by the Irish dynamitards some twenty-five years ago.

To some American millionairesses fifty new dresses are less extravagant than two or three for other women; besides, if they are extravagant, that's their business. What does it matter so long as it is not some materials for sale or any other commercial purpose?