A Frenchman in America Part 39
But how would M. Taine explain the existence of this same puritanic "morality" which can be found under the lovely, clear, bright sky of America? All over New England, and indeed in most parts of America, the same Kill-joy, the same gloomy, frowning Sabbath-keeper is flourishing, doing his utmost to blot the sunshine out of every recurring seventh day.
Yet Sabbath-keeping is a Jewish inst.i.tution that has nothing to do with Protestantism; but there have always been Protestants more Protestant than Martin Luther, and Christians more Christian than Christ.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PURITAN LACK OF CHEERFULNESS.]
Luther taught that the Sabbath was to be kept, not because Moses commanded it, but because Nature teaches us the necessity of the seventh day's rest. He says "If anywhere the day is made holy for the mere day's sake, then I command you to work on it, ride on it, dance on it, do anything that will reprove this encroachment on Christian spirit and liberty."
The old Scotch woman, who "did nae think the betterer on" the Lord for that Sabbath-day walk through the cornfield, is not a solitary type of Anglo-Saxon Christian. But it is when these Puritans judge other nations that they are truly great.
Puritan lack of charity and dread of cheerfulness often lead Anglo-Saxon visitors to France to misjudge the French mode of spending Sunday.
Americans, as well as English, err in this matter, as I had occasion to find out during my second visit to America.
I had been lecturing last Sat.u.r.day evening in the pretty little town of Whitewater, in Wisconsin, and received an invitation from a minister to address a meeting that was to be held yesterday, Sunday, in the largest church of the place to discuss the question, "How Sunday should be spent." I at first declined, on the ground that it might not be exactly in good taste for a foreigner to advise his hosts how to spend Sunday.
However, when it was suggested that I might simply go and tell them how Sunday was spent in France, I accepted the task.
The proceedings opened with prayer and an anthem; and a hymn in praise of the Jewish Sabbath having been chosen by the moderator, I thought the case looked bad for us French people, and that I was going to cut a poor figure.
The first speaker unwittingly came to my rescue by making an onslaught upon the French mode of spending the seventh day. "With all due respect to the native country of our visitor," said he, "I am bound to say that on the one Sunday which I spent in Paris, I saw a great deal of low immorality, and I could not help coming to the conclusion that this was due to the fact of the French not being a Sabbath-keeping people." He wound up with a strong appeal to his townsmen to beware of any temptation to relax in their observance of the fourth commandment as given by Moses.
I was called upon to speak next. I rose in my pew, but was requested to go into the rostrum.
With alacrity I stepped forward, a little staggered, perhaps, at finding myself for the first time in a pulpit, but quite ready for the fray.
"I am sorry," said I, "to hear the remarks made by the speaker who has just sat down. I cannot, however, help thinking that if our friend had spent that Sunday in Paris in respectable places, he would have been spared the sight of any low immorality. No doubt Paris, like every large city in the world, has its black spots, and you can easily discover them, if you make proper inquiries as to where they are, and if you are properly directed. Now, let me ask, where did he go? I should very much like to know. Being an old Parisian, I have still in my mind's eye the numerous museums that are open free to the people on Sundays. One of the most edifying sights in the city is that of our peasants and workmen in their clean Sunday blouses enjoying themselves with their families, and elevating their tastes among our art treasures. Did our friend go there?
I know there are places where for little money the symphonies of Beethoven and other great masters may be and are enjoyed by thousands every Sunday. Did our friend go there? Within easy reach of the people are such places as the Bois de Boulogne, the Garden of Acclimation, where for fifty centimes a delightful day may be spent among the lawns and flower-beds of that Parisian "Zoo." Its goat cars, ostrich cars, its camel and elephant drives make it a paradise for children, and one might see whole families there on Sunday afternoons in the summer, the parents refreshing their bodies with this contact with nature and their hearts with the sight of the children's glee. Did our friend go there? We even have churches in Paris, churches that are crammed from six o'clock in the morning till one in the afternoon with worshipers who go on their knees to G.o.d. Now, did our friend go to church on that Sunday? Well, where did he go? I am quitting Whitewater to-morrow, and I leave it to his townspeople to investigate the matter. When I first visited New York, stories were told me of strange things to be seen there even on a Sunday. Who doubts, I repeat, that every great city has its black spots?
I had no desire to see those of New York, there was so much that was better worth my time and attention. If our friend, our observing friend, would only have done in Paris as I did in New York, he would have seen very little low immorality."
The little encounter at Whitewater was only one more ill.u.s.tration of the strange fact that the Anglo-Saxon, who is so good in his own country, so constant in his attendance at church, is seldom to be seen in a sacred edifice abroad, unless, indeed, he has been led there by Baedeker.
And last night, at Whitewater, I went to bed pleased with myself, like a man who has fought for his country.
When I am in France, I often bore my friends with advice, and find, as usual, that advice is a luxurious gift thoroughly enjoyed by the one who gives it.
"You don't know how to do these things," I say to them; "in England or in America, they are much more intelligent; they do like this and like that." And my friends generally advise me to return to England or America, where things are so beautifully managed.
But, when I am out of France, the old Frenchman is all there, and if you pitch into my mother country, I stand up ready to fight at a minute's notice.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER XLII.
THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN HUMOR AND ITS CHARACTERISTICS--THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE--THE GERMANS AND AMERICAN HUMOR--MY CORPSE WOULD "DRAW,"
IN MY IMPRESARIO'S OPINION.
_Madison, Wis., April 22._
Have been lecturing during the past fortnight in about twelve places, few of which possessed any interest whatever. One of them, however--Cincinnati--I was glad to see again.
This town of Madison is the only one that has really struck me as being beautiful. From the hills the scenery is perfectly lovely, with its wooded slopes and lakes. Through the kindness of Governor h.o.a.rd, I have had a comprehensive survey of the neighborhood; for he has driven me in his carriage to all the prettiest spots, delighting me all the while with his conversation. He is one of those Americans whom you may often meet if you have a little luck: witty, humorous, hospitable, kind-hearted, the very personification of unaffected good-fellowship.
The conversation turned on humor.
I have always wondered what the origin of American humor can be; where is or was the fountain-head. You certainly find humor in England among the cultured cla.s.ses, but the cla.s.s of English people who emigrate cannot have imported much humor into America. Surely Germany and Scandinavia cannot have contributed to the fund, either. The Scotch have dry, quiet, pawky, unconscious humor; but their influence can hardly have been great enough to implant their quaint native "wut" in American soil. Again, the Irish bull is droll, but scarcely humorous. The Italians, the Hungarians, have never yet, that I am aware of, been suspected of even latent humor.
What then, can be the origin of American humor, as we know it, with its nave philosophy, its mixture of the sacred and the profane, its exaggeration and that preposterousness which so completely staggers the foreigner, the French and the German especially?
The mixing of sacred with profane matter, no doubt, originated with the Puritans themselves, and is only an outcome of the cheek-by-jowl, next-door-neighbor fashion of addressing the Higher Powers, which is so common in the Scotch. Many of us have heard of the Scotch minister, whom his zeal for the welfare of missionaries moved to address Heaven in the following manner: "We commend to thy care those missionaries whose lives are in danger in the Fiji Islands ... which, Thou knowest, are situated in the Pacific Ocean." And he is not far removed in our minds from the New England pastor, who preached on the well-known text of St. Paul, and having read: "All things are possible to me," took a five-dollar bill out of his pocket, and placing it on the edge of the pulpit, said: "No, Paul, that is going too far. I bet you five dollars that you can't----"
But continuing the reading of the text: "Through Christ who strengtheneth me," exclaimed, "Ah, that's a very different matter!" and put back the five-dollar bill in his pocket.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MISSIONARY AND THE FIJIS.]
This kind of amalgamation of the sacred and profane is constantly confronting one in American soil, and has a firm foothold in American humor.
Colonel Elliott F. Shepard, proprietor of the New York _Mail and Express_, every morning sends to the editor a fresh text from the Bible for publication at the top of the editorials. One day that text was received, but somehow got lost, and by noon was still unfound. I was told that "you should have heard the compositors' room ring with: 'Where can that d----d text be?'" Finally the text was wired and duly inserted.
These men, however, did not intend any religious disrespect. Such a thing was probably as far from their minds as it was from the minds of the Puritan preachers of old. There are men who swear, as others pray, without meaning anything. One is a bad habit, the other a good one.
All that nave philosophy, with which America abounds, must, I fancy, be the outcome of hardship endured by the pioneers of former days, and by the Westerner of our own times.
The element of exaggeration, which is so characteristic of American humor, may be explained by the rapid success of the Americans and the immensity of the continent which they inhabit. Everything is on a grand scale, or suggests hugeness. Then negro humor is mainly exaggeration, and has no doubt added its quota to the compound which, as I said just now, completely staggers certain foreigners.
Governor h.o.a.rd was telling me to-day that a German was inclined to be offended with him for saying that the Germans, as a rule, were unable to see through an American joke, and he invited Governor h.o.a.rd to try the effect of one upon him. The governor, thereupon told him the story of the tree, "out West," which was so high that it took two men to see to the top. One of them saw as far as he could, then the second started from the place where the first stopped seeing, and went on. The recital did not raise the ghost of a smile, and Governor h.o.a.rd then said to the German: "Well, you see, the joke is lost upon you; you can't see American humor."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "THAT'S A TAMNT LIE!"]
"Oh, but," said the German, "that is not humor, that's a _tamnt_ lie!"
And he is still convinced that he can see through an American joke.
_Grand Rapids, April 24._
Have had to-day a lovely, sublime example of that preposterousness which so often characterizes American humor.
Arrived here this morning from Chicago. At noon, the Grand Rapidite who was "bossing the show" called upon me at the Morton House, and kindly inquired whether there was anything he could do for me. Before leaving, he said: "While I am here, I may as well give you the check for to-night's lecture."
"Just as you please," I said; "but don't you call that risky?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I may die before the evening."