Jonathan and His Continent Part 4

As in London, hundreds of churches and taverns (called beer saloons): it is the same ign.o.ble Anglo-Saxon mixture of bible and beer, of the spiritual and the spirituous.

New York is probably the most cosmopolitan city in the world. To give an idea of it, I may tell you that there are newspapers published there in English, French, German, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Dutch, Hungarian, Chinese, and Hebrew.

I received one day a circular of a meeting of the "Knights of Labour."

It was printed in six different languages.

The streets are wide, bright, and animated; the shops handsome. In Broadway and Union Square the jewellers and confectioners flourish, pretty flower-shops abound: it is Paris, rather than London, without, however, being one or the other.

As I said before, there are no grand buildings to to invite one's gaze to rest; to rejoice the eyes, one must penetrate into the houses of the rich.

There is a small collection of pictures in the Museum in the Central Park; but most of the art treasures of America are to be found in private collections.

Boston (p.r.o.nounced _Boast'on_) is quite an English city, handsomely and solidly built. It has a public garden in the centre, the effect of which at night is enchanting.

It is the most scholarly city of the United States--one of the greatest centres of erudition in the world.

Boston Society is less showy than that of New York, the women have, perhaps, less _chic_, but they have more colour in their faces and more repose in their manner.

Nothing is more diverting than to hear the dwellers in each great American town criticise the dwellers in the others. All these societies, each almost in its infancy as yet, are jealous one of another. At Boston, for instance, you will be told that the Chicago people are all pig-stickers and pork-packers. In Chicago, you will hear that Boston is composed of nothing but prigs and _precieuses ridicules_.

Allow for a large amount of exaggeration, and there remains a certain foundation of truth.

The English spoken in Boston is purer than any to be heard elsewhere in the North. The voices are less harsh and nasal, the language ceases to be _vurry, vurry Amurracan_. If you think yourself in England, as you walk along the streets, the illusion becomes complete when you hear the well-bred people speak.

All the anecdotes told in America on the subject of Boston are satires upon the presumptuous character of the Bostonian, who considers Boston the centre of the universe.

Here is one of the many hundreds I heard:

A Boston man has lost his wife. As soon as telephonic communication is established between that city and Paradise, he rings and cries:

"h.e.l.lo!"

"h.e.l.lo!" from the other end.

"Is that you, Artemisia?"

"Yes, dear."

"Well, my love, and how do you like it up there?"

"Oh, it is very nice of course----but it isn't Boston."

Another, equally quiet, is this:

Two ladies walking along the road, in the environs of Boston, came to a mile-stone bearing the inscription:

I M FROM BOSTON.

"How simple! how touching!" exclaimed one of the ladies, taking it for a grave-stone; "nothing but these words: 'I'm from Boston.'"

Boston, and the whole State of Ma.s.sachussets, of which it is the chief city, are the homes of most of the literary celebrities of America.

Longfellow lived there; Whittier, Lowell, and Holmes live there still; Mr. Howells and Henry James are Boston men, I believe.

Before leaving Boston, I had the pleasure of seeing Oliver Wendell Holmes at home.

The Doctor received me in his study, a fine room well lined with books, and having large windows overlooking the river Charles and facing his Harvard University. Lit by the setting sun, the picture from the windows was alone worth going to see. The Doctor's reception was most cordial.

He is a small man, looking about seventy-five; but the expression of his face is young, and will always be so, I imagine. His smile is clever-looking, sweet, and full of contagious gaiety. Thick bushy grey eyebrows, which stand out, and a protruding under-lip, make his profile odd looking. The eyes are twinkling with humour--and good humour.

Philosopher, poet, and humorist are written plainly on the face.

The Doctor was soon chatting about his last trip to Europe, and how, though it was August, he went over to Paris to revisit the haunts of his youth, where he had studied medicine (he was lecturer on anatomy in Boston Hospital up to four years ago); how he found it a desert void of all the "old familiar faces;" but his daughter shopped to her satisfaction.

Then turning to modern French literature:

"Who will ever say again that France has no humorists?" remarked the Doctor. "I have been delighting in Daudet's _Tartarin_."

At the very thought of the Tarasconnais' droll adventures, he laughed.

The Autocrat's laugh is, as I said, infectious. It is quick, merry, hearty; he shakes over it in a way not common with any but stout people.

Skipping past other light literature, he stopped to say a word of admiration for Zola's wonderful descriptions of Paris--in fact, for the artist that is in him--but regretted, as everyone does, that such a great writer should prost.i.tute his genius.

Hung upon the wall in a corner was a caricature of "the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," one of the _Vanity Fair_ series. Upon my espying it, the dear old Doctor said, with his merry laugh: "There, you see, I am not a vain man, or I should hide that away."

Vain, no, Oliver Wendell Holmes is the personification of simplicity and good humour; a sunny-hearted man, with a lively enjoyment still of the pleasures of society.

A lady friend told me that, meeting him one day after he had had an ovation somewhere, she asked him:

"Well, Doctor, and are you not getting a little tired of all this cheering and applause?"

"Not a bit," replied he; "they never greet me loud enough, or clap long enough, to please me."

Was.h.i.+ngton is the sole American city which has monuments that can strike the European with admiration for their beauty. The Capitol, the Government buildings, the museums, built in the midst of handsome gardens, all arrest the eye of the visitor.

The Capitol, 751 feet long, built of white marble, with a superb dome and majestic flights of steps, is one of the grandest, most imposing-looking, edifices in the world. The souvenirs attached to it, and the treasures it contains, render it dear to the Americans: it is a monument which recalls to their minds the glories of the past, and keeps alight the flame of patriotism.

A general, who served through the great Civil War, told me he had seen strong men, soldiers brought up in remote States, sit down and weep with emotion at seeing the Capitol for the first time.

At one end of the building there is the House of Representatives; in the other wing, the Senate. As for the national treasures contained in the Capitol, I refer the reader to guide-books for them.

The Americans, determined for once to be beyond suspicion in employing an adjective in the superlative degree, followed by the traditional "in the world," have erected, to the memory of General Was.h.i.+ngton, an obelisk 555 feet high. It is therefore the highest in the world, without any inverted commas.

The town is prettily laid out, somewhat in the form of a spider's web.