A Frenchman in America Part 15
"P.S.--I shall not tell any one in the town that you have gone to America."
This explains why I still dare show my face in my little native town.
The typical American!
First of all, does he exist? I do not think so. As I have said elsewhere, there are Americans in plenty, but _the_ American has not made his appearance yet. The type existed a hundred years ago in New England. He is there still; but he is not now a national type, he is only a local one.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TYPICAL AMERICAN.]
I was talking one day with two eminent Americans on the subject of the typical American, real or imaginary. One of them was of opinion that he was a taciturn being; the other, on the contrary, maintained that he was talkative. How is a foreigner to dare decide, where two eminent natives find it impossible to agree?
In speaking of the typical American, let us understand each other. All the civilized nations of the earth are alike in one respect; they are all composed of two kinds of men, those that are gentlemen, and those that are not. America is no exception to this rule. Fifth Avenue does not differ from Belgravia and Mayfair. A gentleman is everywhere a gentleman. As a type, he belongs to no particular country, he is universal.
When the writer of some "society" paper, English or American, reproaches a sociologist for writing about the ma.s.ses instead of the cla.s.ses, suggesting that "he probably never frequented the best society of the nation he describes," that writer writes himself down an a.s.s.
In the matters of feeling, conduct, taste, culture, I have never discovered the least difference between a gentleman from America and a gentleman from France, England, Russia, or any other country of Europe--including Germany. So, if we want to find a typical American, it is not in good society that we must search for him, but among the ma.s.s of the population.
Well, it is just here that our search will break down. We shall come across all sorts and conditions of Americans, but not one that is really typical.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE AMERICAN OF A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.]
A little while ago, the _Century Magazine_ published specimens of composite photography. First, there was the portrait of one person, then that of this same face with another superposed, then another containing three faces blended, and so on up to eight or nine. On the last page the result was shown. I can only compare the typical American to the last of those. This appears to me the process of evolution through which the American type is now going. What it will be when this process of evolution is over, no one, I imagine, can tell. The evolution will be complete when immigration shall have ceased, and all the different types have been well mixed and a.s.similated. While the process of a.s.similation is still going on, the result is suspended, and the type is incomplete.
But, meanwhile, are there not certain characteristic traits to be found throughout almost all America? That is a question much easier to answer.
Is it necessary to repeat that I put aside good society and confine myself merely to the people?
Nations are like individuals: when they are young, they have the qualities and the defects of children. The characteristic trait of childhood is curiosity. It is also that of the American. I have never been in Australia, but I should expect to find this trait in the Australian.
Look at American journalism. What does it live on? Scandal and gossip.
Let a writer, an artist, or any one else become popular in the States, and the papers will immediately tell the public at what time he rises and what he takes for breakfast. When any one of the least importance arrives in America, he is quickly beset by a band of reporters who ask him a host of preposterous questions and examine him minutely from head to foot, in order to tell the public next day whether he wears laced, b.u.t.toned, or elastic boots, enlighten them as to the cut of his coat and the color of his trowsers, and let them know if he parts his hair in the middle or not.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CURIOSITY IN AUSTRALIA.]
Every time I went into a new town to lecture I was interviewed, and the next day, besides an account of the lecture, there was invariably a paragraph somewhat in this style:
The lecturer is a man of about forty, whose cranium is getting visible through his hair. He wears a double eye-gla.s.s, with which he plays while talking to his audience. His handkerchief was black-bordered. He wore the regulation patent leather shoes, and his shirt front was fastened with a single stud. He spoke without effort or pretension, and often with his hands in his pockets, etc.
A few days ago, on reading the morning papers in a town where I had lectured the night before, I found, in one of them, about twenty lines consecrated to my lecture, and half a column to my hat.
I must tell you that this hat was brown, and all the hats in America are black. If you wear anything that is not exactly like what Americans wear, you are gazed at as if you were a curious animal. The Americans are as great _badauds_ as the Parisians. In London, you may go down Regent Street or Piccadilly got up as a Swiss admiral, a Polish general, or even a Highlander, and n.o.body will take the trouble to look at you.
But, in America, you have only to put on a brown hat or a pair of light trowsers, and you will become the object of a curiosity which will not fail very promptly to bore you, if you are fond of tranquility, and like to go about unremarked.
I was so fond of that poor brown hat, too! It was an incomparably obliging hat. It took any shape, and adapted itself to any circ.u.mstances. It even went into my pocket on occasions. I had bought it at Lincoln & Bennett's, if you please. But I had to give it up. To my great regret, I saw that it was imperative: its popularity bid fair to make me jealous. Twenty lines about me, and half a column about that hat! It was time to come to some determination. It was not to be put up with any longer. So I took it up tenderly, smoothed it with care, and laid it in a neat box which was then posted to the chief editor of the paper with the following note:
DEAR SIR:
I see by your estimable paper that my hat has attracted a good deal of public attention during its short sojourn in your city. I am even tempted to think that it has attracted more of it than my lecture. I send you the interesting headgear, and beg you will accept it as a souvenir of my visit, and with my respectful compliments.
A citizen of the Great Republic knows how to take a joke. The worthy editor inserted my letter in the next number of his paper, and informed his readers that my hat fitted him to a nicety, and that he was going to have it dyed and wear it. He further said, "Max O'Rell evidently thinks the song, 'Where did you get that hat?' was specially written to annoy him," and went on to the effect that "Max O'Rell is not the only man who does not care to tell where he got his hat."
Do not run away with the idea that such nonsense as this has no interest for the American public. It has.
American reporters have asked me, with the most serious face in the world, whether I worked in the morning, afternoon, or evening, and what color paper I used (_sic_). One actually asked me whether it was true that M. Jules Claretie used white paper to write his novels on, and blue paper for his newspaper articles. Not having the honor of a personal acquaintance with the director of the Comedie-Francaise, I had to confess my inability to gratify my amiable interlocutor.
Look at the advertis.e.m.e.nts in the newspapers. There you have the bootmaker, the hatter, the traveling quack, publishing their portraits at the head of their advertis.e.m.e.nts. Why are those portraits there, if it be not to satisfy the curiosity of customers?
The ma.s.s of personalities, each more trumpery than the other, those details of people's private life, and all the gossip daily served up in the newspapers, are they not proof enough that curiosity is a characteristic trait of the American?
This curiosity, which often shows itself in the most impossible questions, gives immense amus.e.m.e.nt to Europeans. Unhappily, it amuses them at the expense of well-bred Americans--people who are as innocent of it as the members of the stiffest aristocracy in the world could be.
The English, especially, persist in not distinguishing Americans who are gentlemen from Americans who are not.
And even that easy-going American _bourgeois_, with his childish but good-humored nature, they often fail to do justice to. They too often look at his curiosity as impertinence and ill-breeding, and will not admit that, in nine cases out of ten, the freedom he uses with you is but a show of good feeling, an act of good-fellowship.
Take, for instance, the following little story:
An American is seated in a railway carriage, and opposite him is a lady in deep mourning, and looking a picture of sadness; a veritable _mater dolorosa_.
"Lost a father?" begins the worthy fellow.
"No, sir."
"A mother, maybe?"
"No, sir."
"Ah! a child then?"
"No, sir; I have lost my husband."
"Your husband! Ah! Left you comfortable?"
The lady, rather offended, retires to the other end of the car, and cuts short the conversation.
"Rather stuck up, this woman," remarks the good Yankee to his neighbor.
The intention was good, if the way of showing it was not. He had but wanted to show the poor lady the interest he took in her.
After having seen you two or three times, the American will suppress "Mr." and address you by your name without any handle to it. Do not say that this is ill placed familiarity; it is meant as an act of good-fellowship, and should be received by you as such.
If you are stiff, proud, and stuck-up, for goodness' sake, never go to America; you will never get on there. On the contrary, take over a stock of simple, affable manners and a good temper, and you will be treated as a friend everywhere, feted, and well looked after.
In fact, try to deserve a certificate of good-fellowship, such as the Clover Club, of Philadelphia, awards to those who can sit at its hospitable table without taking affront at the little railleries leveled at them by the members of that lively a.s.sociation. With people of refinement who have humor, you can indulge in a joke at their expense.