A Frenchman in America Part 24
The air here is perfectly wonderful, dry and full of electricity. If your fingers come into contact with anything metallic, like the hot-water pipes, the chandeliers, the stopper of your washing basin, they draw a spark, sharp and vivid. One of the reporters who called here, and to whom I mentioned the fact, was able to light my gas with his finger, by merely obtaining an electric spark on the top of the burner. When he said he could thus light the gas, I thought he was joking.
I had observed this phenomenon before. In Ottawa, for instance.
Whether this air makes you live too quickly, I do not know; but it is most bracing and healthy. I have never felt so well and hearty in my life as in these cold, dry climates.
I was all the more flattered to have such a large and fashionable audience at the Grand Opera House to-night, that my _causerie_ was not given under the auspices of any society, or as one of any course of lectures.
I lecture in Detroit the day after to-morrow. I shall have to leave Minneapolis to-morrow morning at six o'clock for Chicago, which I shall reach at ten in the evening. Then I shall have to run to the Michigan Central Station to catch the night train to Detroit at eleven.
Altogether, twenty-three hours of railway traveling--745 miles.
And still in "the neighborhood of Chicago!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: AN ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nT.]
_In the train to Chicago, February 21._
Have just pa.s.sed a wonderful advertis.e.m.e.nt. Here, in the midst of a forest, I have seen a huge wide board nailed on two trees, parallel to the railway line. On it was written, round a daub supposed to represent one of the loveliest English ladies: "If you would be as lovely as the beautiful Lady de Gray, use Gray perfumes."
_Soyez donc belle_, to be used as an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the forests of Minnesota!
[Ill.u.s.tration: "I RETURNED THANKS."]
My lectures have never been criticised in more kind, flattering, and eulogistic terms than in the St. Paul and the Minneapolis papers, which I am reading on my way to Chicago. I find newspaper reading a great source of amus.e.m.e.nt in the trains. First of all because these papers always are light reading, and also because reading is a possibility in a well lighted carriage going only at a moderate speed. Eating is comfortable, and even writing is possible _en route_. With the exception of a few trains, such as are run from New York to Boston, Chicago, and half a dozen other important cities, railway traveling is slower in America than in England and France; but I have never found fault with the speed of an American train. On the contrary, I have always felt grateful to the driver for running slowly. And every time that the car reached the other side of some of the many rotten wooden bridges on which the train had to pa.s.s, I returned thanks.
CHAPTER XXV.
DETROIT--THE TOWN--THE DETROIT "FREE PRESS"--A LADY INTERVIEWER--THE "UNCO GUID" IN DETROIT--REFLECTIONS ON THE ANGLO-SAXON "UNCO GUID."
_Detroit, February 22._
Am delighted with Detroit. It possesses beautiful streets, avenues, and walks, and a fine square in the middle of which stands a remarkably fine monument. I am also grateful to this city for breaking the monotony of the eternal parallelograms with which the whole of the United States are built. My national vanity almost suggests to me that this town owes its gracefulness to its French origin. There are still, I am told, about 25,000 French people settled in Detroit.
I have had to-night, in the Church of Our Father, a crowded and most brilliant audience, whose keenness, intelligence, and kindness were very flattering.
I was interviewed, both by a lady and a gentleman, for the Detroit _Free Press_, that most witty of American newspapers. The charming young lady interviewer came to talk on social topics, I remarked that she was armed with a copy of "Jonathan and his Continent," and I came to the conclusion that she would probably ask for a few explanations about that book. I was not mistaken. She took exception, she informed me, to many statements concerning the American girl in the book. I made a point to prove to her that all was right, and all was truth, and I think I persuaded her to abandon the prosecution.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LADY INTERVIEWER.]
To tell the truth, now the real truth, mind you, I am rather tired of hearing about the American girl. The more I see of her the more I am getting convinced that she is--like the other girls in the world.
A friend, who came to have a chat with me after this lecture, has told me that the influential people of the city are signing a pet.i.tion to the custodians of the museum calling upon them to drape all the nude statues, and intimating their intention of boycotting the inst.i.tution, if the Venuses and Apollos are not forthwith provided with tuckers and togas.
It is a well-known fact in the history of the world, that young communities have no taste for fine art--they have no time to cultivate it. If I had gone to Oklahoma, I should not have expected to find any art feeling at all; but that in a city like Detroit, where there is such evidence of intellectual life and high culture among the inhabitants, a party should be found numerous and strong enough to issue such a heathen dictate as this seems scarcely credible. I am inclined to think it must be a joke. That the "unco guid" should flourish under the gloomy sky of Great Britain I understand, but under the bright blue sky of America, in that bracing atmosphere, I cannot.
It is most curious that there should be people who, when confronted with some glorious masterpiece of sculpture, should not see the poetry, the beauty of the human form divine. This is beyond me, and beyond any educated Frenchman.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DRAPED STATUES.]
Does the "unco guid" exist in America, then? I should have thought that these people, of the earth earthy, were not found out of England and Scotland.
When I was in America two years ago, I heard that an English author of some repute, talking one day with Mr. Richard Watson Gilder about the Venus of Milo, had remarked that, as he looked at her beautiful form, he longed to put his arms around her and kiss her. Mr. Gilder, who, as a poet, as an artist, has felt only respect mingled with his admiration of the matchless divinity, replied: "I hope she would have grown a pair of arms for the occasion, so as to have slapped your face."
It is not so much the thing that offends the "unco guid"; it is the name, the reflection, the idea. Unhealthy-minded himself, he dreads a taint where there is none, and imagines in others a corruption which exists only in himself.
Yet the One, whom he would fain call Master, but whose teachings he is slow in following, said: "Woe be to them by whom offense cometh." But the "unco guid" is a Christian failure, a _parvenu_.
The _parvenu_ is a person who makes strenuous efforts to persuade other people that he is ent.i.tled to the position he occupies.
There are _parvenus_ in religion, as there are _parvenus_ in the aristocracy, in society, in literature, in the fine arts, etc.
The worst type of the French _parvenu_ is the one whose father was a worthy, hard-working man called _Dubois_ or _Dumont_, and who, at his father's death, dubs himself _du Bois_ or _du Mont_, becomes a clericalist and the stanchest monarchist, and runs down the great Revolution which made one of his grand-parents a man. M. _du Bois_ or _du Mont_ outdoes the genuine n.o.bleman, who needs make no noise to attract attention to a name which everybody knows, and which, in spite of what may be said on the subject, often recalls the memory of some glorious event in the past.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PARVENU.]
The worst type of Anglo-Saxon _parvenu_ is probably the "unco guid," or religious _parvenu_.
The Anglo-Saxon "unco guid" is seldom to be found among Roman Catholics; that is, among the followers of the most ancient Christian religion. He is to be found among the followers of the newest forms of "Christianity." This is quite natural. He has to try to eclipse his fellow-Christians by his piety, in order to show that the new religion to which he belongs was a necessary invention.
The Anglo-Saxon "unco guid" is easily recognized. He is dark (all bigots and fanatics are). He is dressed in black, shiny broadcloth raiment. A wide-brimmed felt hat covers his head. He walks with light, short, jaunty steps, his head a little inclined on one side. He never carries a stick, which might give a rather fast appearance to his turn-out. He invariably carries an umbrella, even in the brightest weather, as being more respectable--and this umbrella he never rolls, for he would avoid looking in the distance as if he had a stick. He casts right and left little grimaces that are so many forced smiles of self-satisfaction.
"Try to be as good as I am," he seems to say to all who happen to look at him, "and you will be as happy." And he "smiles, and smiles, and smiles."
He has a small soul, a small heart, and a small brain.
As a rule, he is a well-to-do person. It pays better to have a narrow mind than to have broad sympathies.
He drinks tea, but prefers cocoa, as being a more virtuous beverage.
He is perfectly dest.i.tute of humor, and is the most inartistic creature in the world. Everything suggests to him either profanity or indecency.
The "Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character," by Dean Ramsay, would strike him as profane, and if placed in the Musee du Louvre, before the Venus of Milo, he would see nothing but a woman who has next to no clothes on.
His distorted mind makes him take everything in ill part. His hands get p.r.i.c.ked on every thorn that he comes across on the road, and he misses all the roses.
If I were not a Christian, the following story, which is not as often told as it should be, would have converted me long ago: