A Frenchman in America Part 38
Lectured last night, in the Congregational Church, to a large and most fashionable audience. Senator h.o.a.r took the chair, and introduced me in a short, neat, gracefully worded little speech. In to-day's Washington _Star_, I find the following remark:
The lecturer was handsomely introduced by Senator h.o.a.r, who combines the dignity of an Englishman, the st.u.r.diness of a Scotchman, the _savoir faire_ of a Frenchman, and the culture of a Bostonian.
What a strange mixture! I am trying to find where the compliment comes in, surely not in "the _savoir faire_ of a Frenchman!"
Armed with a kind letter of introduction to Miss Kate Field, I called this morning at the office of this lady, who is characterized by a prominent journalist as "the very brainiest woman in the United States."
Unfortunately she was out of town.
I should have liked to make the personal acquaintance of this brilliant, witty woman, who speaks, I am told, as she writes, in clear, caustic, fearless style. My intention was to interview her a bit. A telegram was sent to her in New York from her secretary, and her answer was wired immediately: "Interview _him_." So, instead of interviewing Miss Kate Field, I was interviewed, for her paper, by a young and very pretty lady journalist.
_Baltimore, April 4._
I have spent the day here with some friends.
Baltimore strikes one as a quiet, solid, somewhat provincial town. It is an eminently middle-cla.s.s looking city. There is no great wealth in it, no great activity; but, on the other hand, there is little poverty; it is a well-to-do city _par excellence_. The famous Johns Hopkins University is here, and I am not surprised to learn that Baltimore is a city of culture and refinement.
A beautiful forest, a mixture of cultivated park and wilderness, about a mile from the town, must be a source of delight to the inhabitants in summer and during the beautiful months of September and October.
I was told several times that Baltimore was famous all over the States for its pretty women.
They were not out to-day. And as I have not been invited to lecture in Baltimore, I must be content with hoping to be more lucky next time.
_Philadelphia, April 5._
After my lecture in a.s.sociation Hall to-night, I will return to New York to spend Easter Sunday with my friends. Next Monday off again to the West, to Cincinnati again, to Chicago again, and as far as Madison, the State city of Wisconsin.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A BALTIMORE WOMAN.]
By the time this tour is finished--in about three weeks--I shall have traveled something like thirty thousand miles.
The more I think of it, the more I feel the truth of this statement, which I made in "Jonathan and His Continent": To form an exact idea of what a lecture tour is in America, just imagine that you lecture to-night in London, to-morrow in Paris, then in Berlin, then in Vienna, then in Constantinople, then in Teheran, then in Bombay, and so forth.
With this difference, that if you had to undertake the work in Europe, at the end of a week you would be more dead than alive.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE GOOD, ATTENTIVE, POLITE CONDUCTOR OF ENGLAND."]
But here you are not caged on the railroad lines, you can circulate.
There is no fear of cold, no fear of hunger, and if the good, attentive, polite railway conductors of England could be induced to do duty on board the American cars, I would anytime go to America for the mere pleasure of traveling.
CHAPTER XL.
EASTER SUNDAY IN NEW YORK.
_New York, April 6 (Easter Sunday.)_
[Ill.u.s.tration: A BELLOWING SOPRANO.]
This morning I went to Dr. Newton's church in Forty-eighth Street. He has the reputation of being one of the best preachers in New York, and the choir enjoys an equally great reputation. The church was literally packed until the sermon began, and then some of the strollers who had come to hear the anthems moved on. Dr. Newton's voice and delivery were not at all to my taste, so I did not sit out his sermon either. He has a big, unctuous voice, with the intonations and inflections of a showman at the fair. He has not the flow of ideas that struck me so forcibly when I heard the late Henry Ward Beecher in London; he has not the histrionic powers of Dr. Talmage, either. There was more show than beauty about the music, too. A bellowing, shrieking soprano overpowered all the other voices in the choir, including that of a really beautiful tenor that deserved to be heard.
New York blossoms like the rose on Easter Day. Every woman has a new bonnet and walks abroad to show it.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SOME EASTER BONNETS.]
There are grades in millinery as there are in society. The imported bonnet takes the proudest rank; it is the aristocrat in the world of headgear. It does not always come with the conqueror (in one of her numerous trunks), but it always comes to conquer, and a proud, though ephemeral triumph it enjoys, perched on the dainty head of a New York belle, and supplemented by a frock from Felix's or Redfern's.
It is a unique sight, Fifth Avenue on Easter Sunday, when all the up-town churches have emptied themselves of their gayly garbed worshipers.
[Ill.u.s.tration: KEEPING LENT.]
The "four hundred" have been keeping Lent in polite, if not rigorous, fashion. Who shall say what it has cost them in self-sacrifice to limit themselves to the sober, modest violet for table and bonnet decoration during six whole weeks? These things cannot be lightly judged by the profane. I have even heard of sweet, devout New York girls who limited themselves to one pound of _marrons glaces_ a week during Lent. Such feminine heroism deserves mention.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A CLUB WINDOW.]
And have they not been sewing flannel for the poor, once a week, instead of directing the manipulation of silk and gauze for their own fair forms, all the week long? Who shall gauge the self-control necessary for fasting such as this? But now Dorcas meetings are over, and dances begin again to-morrow. The Easter anthem has been sung, and the imported bonnet takes a turn on Fifth Avenue to salute and to hob-n.o.b with Broadway imitations during the hour between church and lunch. To New Yorkers this Easter Church parade is as much of an inst.i.tution in its way as those of Hyde Park during the season are to the Londoners. It was plain that the people sauntering leisurely on the broad sidewalks, the feminine portion at least, had not come out solely for religious exercise in church, but had every intention to see and to be seen, especially the latter. On my way down, I saw some folks who had not been to church, and only wanted to see, so stood with faces glued to the windows of the big clubs, looking out at the kaleidoscopic procession: old bachelors, I daresay, who hold the opinion that spring bonnets, whether imported or home-grown, ought to be labeled "dangerous." At all events they were gazing as one might gaze at some coveted but out-of-reach fruit, and looking as if they dared not face their fascinating young townswomen in all the splendor of their new war paint.
A few, perhaps, were married men, and this was their quiet protest against fifty-dollar hats and five-hundred-dollar gowns.
The sight was beautiful and one not to be forgotten.
In the evening I dined with Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll and the members of his family. I noticed something which struck me as novel, but as perfectly charming. Each man was placed at table by the side of his wife, including the host and hostess. This custom in the colonel's family circle (I was the only guest not belonging to it) is another proof that his theories are put into practice in his house. Dinner and time vanished with rapidity in that house, where everything breathes love and happiness.
CHAPTER XLI.
I MOUNT THE PULPIT, AND PREACH ON THE SABBATH, IN THE STATE OF WISCONSIN--THE AUDIENCE IS LARGE AND APPRECIATIVE; BUT I PROBABLY FAIL TO PLEASE ONE OF THE CONGREGATION.
_Milwaukee, April 21._
To a certain extent I am a believer in climatic influence, and am inclined to think that Sabbath reformers reckon without the British climate when they hope to ever see a Britain full of cheerful Christians. M. Taine, in his "History of English Literature," ascribes the unlovable morality of Puritanism to the influence of the British climate. "Pleasure being out of question," he says, "under such a sky, the Briton gave himself up to this forbidding virtuousness." In other words, being unable to be cheerful, he became moral. This is not altogether true. Many Britons are cheerful who don't look it, many Britons are not moral who look it.