Home as Found - James Fenimore Cooper (ebook reader wifi txt) 📗

travel in a balloon, I saw some of the

intermediate places. As for all else, I am obliged to go by report."

 

"It is a pity Mrs. Bloomfield was not with us, this evening, at Mrs.

Jarvis's," said Eve, laughing. "She might then have increased her

knowledge, by listening to a few cantos from the epic of Mr. Dodge."

 

"I have glanced at some of that author's wisdom," returned Mrs.

Bloomfield, "but I soon found it was learning backwards. There is a

never-failing rule, by which it is easy to arrive at a traveller's

worth, in a negative sense, at least."

 

"That is a rule which may be worth knowing," said the baronet, "as it

would save much useless wear of the eyes."

 

"When one betrays a profound ignorance of his own country, it is a

fair presumption that he cannot be very acute in his observation of

strangers. Mr. Dodge is one of these writers, and a single letter

fully satisfied my curiosity. I fear, Miss Effingham, very inferior

wares, in the way of manners, have been lately imported, in large

quantities, into this country, as having the Tower mark on them."

 

Eve laughed, but declared that Sir George Templemore was better

qualified than herself to answer such a question.

 

"We are said to be a people of facts, rather than a people of

theories," continued Mrs. Bloomfield, without attending to the

reference of the young lady, "and any coin that offers passes, until

another that is better, arrives. It is a singular, but a very general

mistake, I believe, of the people of this country, in supposing that

they can exist under the present regime, when others would fail,

because their opinions keep even pace with, or precede the actual

condition of society; whereas, those who have thought and observed

most on such subjects, agree in thinking the very reverse to be the

case."

 

"This would be a curious condition for a government so purely

conventional," observed Sir George, with interest, "and it certainly

is entirely opposed to the state of things all over Europe."

 

"It is so, and yet there is no great mystery in it after all.

Accident has liberated us from trammels that still fetter you. We are

like a vehicle on the top of a hill, which, the moment it is pushed

beyond the point of resistance, rolls down of itself, without the aid

of horses. One may follow with the team, and hook on when it gets to

the bottom, but there is no such thing as keeping company with it

until it arrives there."

 

"You will allow, then, that there is a bottom?'

 

"There is a bottom to every thing--to good and bad; happiness and

misery; hope, fear, faith and charity; even to a woman's mind, which

I have sometimes fancied the most bottomless thing in nature. There

may, therefore, well be a bottom even to the institutions of

America."

 

Sir George listened with the interest with which an Englishman of his

class always endeavours to catch a concession that he fancies is

about to favour his own political predilections, and he felt

encouraged to push the subject further.

 

"And you think the political machine is rolling downwards towards

this bottom?" he said, with an interest in the answer that, living in

the quiet and forgetfulness of his own home, he would have laughed at

himself for entertaining. But our sensibilities become quickened by

collision, and opposition is known even to create love.

 

Mrs. Bloomfield was quick-witted, intelligent, cultivated and shrewd.

She saw the motive at a glance, and, notwithstanding she saw and felt

all its abuses, strongly attached to the governing principle of her

country's social organization, as is almost universally the case with

the strongest minds and most generous hearts of the nation, she was

not disposed to let a stranger carry away a false impression of her

sentiments on such a point.

 

"Did you ever study logic, Sir George Templemore?" she asked, archly.

 

"A little, though not enough I fear to influence my mode of

reasoning, or even to leave me familiar with the terms."

 

"Oh! I am not about to assail you with _sequiturs_ and _non

sequiturs_ dialectics and all the mysteries of _Denk-Lehre,_ but

simply to remind you there is such a thing as the bottom of a

subject. When I tell you we are flying towards the bottom of our

institutions, it is in the intellectual sense, and not, as you have

erroneously imagined, in an unintellectual sense. I mean that we are

getting to understand them, which, I fear, we did not absolutely do

at the commencement of the 'experiment.'"

 

"But I think you will admit, that as the civilization of the country

advances, some material changes must occur; your people cannot always

remain stationary; they must either go backwards or forward."

 

"Up or down, if you will allow me to correct your phraseology. The

civilization of the country, in one sense at least, is retrogressive,

and the people, as they cannot go 'up,' betray a disposition to go

'down.'"

 

"You deal in enigmas, and I am afraid to think I understand you."

 

"I mean, merely, that gallowses are fast disappearing, and that the

people--_le peuple_ you will understand--begin to accept money. In

both particulars, I think there is a sensible change for the worse,

within my own recollection."

 

Mrs. Bloomfield then changed her manner, and from using that light-

hearted gaiety with which she often rendered her conversation

_piquante_, and even occasionally brilliant, she became more grave

and explicit. The subject soon turned to that of punishments, and few

men could have reasoned more sensibly, justly or forcibly, on such a

subject, than this slight and fragile-looking young woman. Without

the least pedantry, with a beauty of language that the other sex

seldom attains, and with a delicacy of discrimination, and a

sentiment that were strictly feminine, she rendered a theme

interesting, that, however important in itself, is forbidding,

veiling all its odious and revolting features in the refinement and

finesse of her own polished mind.

 

Eve could have listened all night, and, at every syllable that fell

from the lips of her friend, she felt a glow of triumph; for she was

proud of letting an intelligent foreigner see that America did

contain women worthy to be ranked with the best of other countries, a

circumstance that they who merely frequented what is called the

world, she thought might be reasonably justified in distrusting. In

one respect, she even fancied Mrs. Bloomfield's knowledge and

cleverness superior to those which she had so often admired in her

own sex abroad. It was untrammelled, equally by the prejudices

incident to a factitious condition of society, or by their reaction;

two circumstances that often obscured the sense and candour of those

to whom she had so often listened with pleasure in other countries.

The singularly feminine tone, too, of all that Mrs. Bloomfield said

or thought, while it lacked nothing in strength, added to the charm

of her conversation, and increased the pleasure of those that

listened.

 

"Is the circle large to which Mrs. Hawker and her friends belong?"

asked Sir George, as he assisted Eve and Grace to cloak, when they

had taken leave. "A town which can boast of half-a-dozen such houses

need not accuse itself of wanting society."

 

"Ah! there is but one Mrs. Hawker in New-York," answered Grace, "and

not many Mrs. Bloomfields in the world. It would be too much to say,

we have even half-a-dozen such houses."

 

"Have you not been struck with the admirable tone of this drawing-

room," half whispered Eve. "It may want a little of that lofty ease

that one sees among the better portion of the old _Princesses et

Duchesses_, which is a relic of a school that, it is to be feared, is

going out; but in its place there is a winning nature, with as much

dignity as is necessary, and a truth that gives us confidence in the

sincerity of those around us."

 

"Upon my word, I think Mrs. Hawker quite fit for a Duchess."

 

"You mean a _Duchesse_" said Eve, "and yet she is without the manner

that we understand by such a word. Mrs. Hawker is a lady, and there

can be no higher term."

 

"She is a delightful old woman," cried John Effingham, "and if twenty

years younger and disposed to change her condition, I should really

be afraid to enter the house."

 

"My dear sir," put in the captain, "I will make her Mrs. Truck to-

morrow, and say nothing of years, if she could be content to take up

with such an offer. Why, sir, she is no woman, but a saint in

petticoats! I felt the whole time as if talking to my own mother, and

as for ships, she knows more about them than I do!"

 

The whole party laughed at the strength of the captain's admiration,

and getting into the carriages proceeded to the last of the houses

they intended visiting that night.

 

Chapter V.

 

"So turns she every man the wrong side out; And never gives to

truth and virtue, that Which simpleness and merit purchaseth."

 

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

 

Mrs. Houston was what is termed a fashionable woman in New-York. She,

too, was of a family of local note, though of one much less elevated

in the olden time than that of Mrs. Hawker. Still her claims were

admitted by the most fastidious on such points, for a few do remain

who think descent indisputable to gentility; and as her means were

ample, and her tastes perhaps superior to those of most around her,

she kept what was thought a house of better tone than common, even in

the highest circle. Eve had but a slight acquaintance with her; but

in Grace's eyes, Mrs. Houston's was the place of all others that she

thought might make a favourable impression on her cousin. Her wish

that this should prove to be the case was so strong, that, as they

drove towards the door, she could not forbear from making an attempt

to prepare Eve for what she was to meet.

 

"Although Mrs. Houston has a very large house for New-York, and lives

in a uniform style, you are not to expect ante-chambers, and vast

suites of rooms, Eve," said Grace; "such as you have been accustomed

to see abroad."

 

"It is not necessary, my dear cousin, to enter a house of four or

five windows in front, to see it is not a house of twenty or thirty.

I should be very unreasonable to expect an Italian palazzo, or a

Parisian hotel, in this good town."

 

"We are not old enough for that yet, Eve; a hundred years hence,

Mademoiselle Viefville, such things may exist here."

 

"_Bien sur. C'est naturel._"

 

"A hundred years hence, as the world tends, Grace, they are not

likely to exist any where, except as taverns, or hospitals, or

manufactories. But what have we to do, coz, with a century ahead of

us? young as we both are, we cannot hope to live that time."

 

Grace would have been puzzled to account satisfactorily to herself,

for the strong desire she felt that neither of her companions should

expect to see such a house as their senses so plainly told them did

not exist in the place; but her foot moved in the bottom of the

carriage, for she was not half satisfied with her cousin's answer.

 

"All I mean. Eve," she said, after a pause, "is, that one ought not

to expect in a town as new as this, the improvements that one sees in

an older state of society."

 

"And have Mademoiselle Viefville, or I, ever been so weak as to

suppose, that New-York is Paris, or Rome, or Vienna?"

 

Grace was still less satisfied, for, unknown to herself, she _had_

hoped that Mrs. Houston's ball might be quite equal to a ball in

either of those ancient capitals; and she was now vexed that her

cousin considered it so much a matter of course that it should not

But there was no time for explanations, as the carriage now

stopped.

 

The noise, confusion, calling out, swearing, and rude clamour before

the house of Mrs. Houston, said little for the out-door part of the

arrangements. Coachmen are nowhere a particularly silent and civil

class; but the uncouth European peasants, who have been preferred to

the honours of the whip in New-York, to the usual feelings of

competition and contention, added that particular feature of humility

which is known to distinguish "the beggar on horseback." The imposing

equipages of our party, however, had that effect on most of these

rude brawlers, which a display of wealth is known to produce on the

vulgar-minded; and the ladies got into the house, through a lane of

coachmen, by yielding a little to a _chevau de frise_ of whips,

without any serious calamity.

 

"One hardly knows which is the most terrific," said Eve,

involuntarily, as soon as the door closed on them--"the noise within,

or the noise without!"

 

This was spoken rapidly, and in French, to Mademoiselle Viefville,

but Grace heard and understood it, and for the