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intermediate places. As for all else, I am obliged to go by report."
"It is a pity Mrs. Bloomfield was not with us, this evening, at Mrs.
Jarvis's," said Eve, laughing. "She might then have increased her
knowledge, by listening to a few cantos from the epic of Mr. Dodge."
"I have glanced at some of that author's wisdom," returned Mrs.
Bloomfield, "but I soon found it was learning backwards. There is a
never-failing rule, by which it is easy to arrive at a traveller's
worth, in a negative sense, at least."
"That is a rule which may be worth knowing," said the baronet, "as it
would save much useless wear of the eyes."
"When one betrays a profound ignorance of his own country, it is a
fair presumption that he cannot be very acute in his observation of
strangers. Mr. Dodge is one of these writers, and a single letter
fully satisfied my curiosity. I fear, Miss Effingham, very inferior
wares, in the way of manners, have been lately imported, in large
quantities, into this country, as having the Tower mark on them."
Eve laughed, but declared that Sir George Templemore was better
qualified than herself to answer such a question.
"We are said to be a people of facts, rather than a people of
theories," continued Mrs. Bloomfield, without attending to the
reference of the young lady, "and any coin that offers passes, until
another that is better, arrives. It is a singular, but a very general
mistake, I believe, of the people of this country, in supposing that
they can exist under the present regime, when others would fail,
because their opinions keep even pace with, or precede the actual
condition of society; whereas, those who have thought and observed
most on such subjects, agree in thinking the very reverse to be the
case."
"This would be a curious condition for a government so purely
conventional," observed Sir George, with interest, "and it certainly
is entirely opposed to the state of things all over Europe."
"It is so, and yet there is no great mystery in it after all.
Accident has liberated us from trammels that still fetter you. We are
like a vehicle on the top of a hill, which, the moment it is pushed
beyond the point of resistance, rolls down of itself, without the aid
of horses. One may follow with the team, and hook on when it gets to
the bottom, but there is no such thing as keeping company with it
until it arrives there."
"You will allow, then, that there is a bottom?'
"There is a bottom to every thing--to good and bad; happiness and
misery; hope, fear, faith and charity; even to a woman's mind, which
I have sometimes fancied the most bottomless thing in nature. There
may, therefore, well be a bottom even to the institutions of
America."
Sir George listened with the interest with which an Englishman of his
class always endeavours to catch a concession that he fancies is
about to favour his own political predilections, and he felt
encouraged to push the subject further.
"And you think the political machine is rolling downwards towards
this bottom?" he said, with an interest in the answer that, living in
the quiet and forgetfulness of his own home, he would have laughed at
himself for entertaining. But our sensibilities become quickened by
collision, and opposition is known even to create love.
Mrs. Bloomfield was quick-witted, intelligent, cultivated and shrewd.
She saw the motive at a glance, and, notwithstanding she saw and felt
all its abuses, strongly attached to the governing principle of her
country's social organization, as is almost universally the case with
the strongest minds and most generous hearts of the nation, she was
not disposed to let a stranger carry away a false impression of her
sentiments on such a point.
"Did you ever study logic, Sir George Templemore?" she asked, archly.
"A little, though not enough I fear to influence my mode of
reasoning, or even to leave me familiar with the terms."
"Oh! I am not about to assail you with _sequiturs_ and _non
sequiturs_ dialectics and all the mysteries of _Denk-Lehre,_ but
simply to remind you there is such a thing as the bottom of a
subject. When I tell you we are flying towards the bottom of our
institutions, it is in the intellectual sense, and not, as you have
erroneously imagined, in an unintellectual sense. I mean that we are
getting to understand them, which, I fear, we did not absolutely do
at the commencement of the 'experiment.'"
"But I think you will admit, that as the civilization of the country
advances, some material changes must occur; your people cannot always
remain stationary; they must either go backwards or forward."
"Up or down, if you will allow me to correct your phraseology. The
civilization of the country, in one sense at least, is retrogressive,
and the people, as they cannot go 'up,' betray a disposition to go
'down.'"
"You deal in enigmas, and I am afraid to think I understand you."
"I mean, merely, that gallowses are fast disappearing, and that the
people--_le peuple_ you will understand--begin to accept money. In
both particulars, I think there is a sensible change for the worse,
within my own recollection."
Mrs. Bloomfield then changed her manner, and from using that light-
hearted gaiety with which she often rendered her conversation
_piquante_, and even occasionally brilliant, she became more grave
and explicit. The subject soon turned to that of punishments, and few
men could have reasoned more sensibly, justly or forcibly, on such a
subject, than this slight and fragile-looking young woman. Without
the least pedantry, with a beauty of language that the other sex
seldom attains, and with a delicacy of discrimination, and a
sentiment that were strictly feminine, she rendered a theme
interesting, that, however important in itself, is forbidding,
veiling all its odious and revolting features in the refinement and
finesse of her own polished mind.
Eve could have listened all night, and, at every syllable that fell
from the lips of her friend, she felt a glow of triumph; for she was
proud of letting an intelligent foreigner see that America did
contain women worthy to be ranked with the best of other countries, a
circumstance that they who merely frequented what is called the
world, she thought might be reasonably justified in distrusting. In
one respect, she even fancied Mrs. Bloomfield's knowledge and
cleverness superior to those which she had so often admired in her
own sex abroad. It was untrammelled, equally by the prejudices
incident to a factitious condition of society, or by their reaction;
two circumstances that often obscured the sense and candour of those
to whom she had so often listened with pleasure in other countries.
The singularly feminine tone, too, of all that Mrs. Bloomfield said
or thought, while it lacked nothing in strength, added to the charm
of her conversation, and increased the pleasure of those that
listened.
"Is the circle large to which Mrs. Hawker and her friends belong?"
asked Sir George, as he assisted Eve and Grace to cloak, when they
had taken leave. "A town which can boast of half-a-dozen such houses
need not accuse itself of wanting society."
"Ah! there is but one Mrs. Hawker in New-York," answered Grace, "and
not many Mrs. Bloomfields in the world. It would be too much to say,
we have even half-a-dozen such houses."
"Have you not been struck with the admirable tone of this drawing-
room," half whispered Eve. "It may want a little of that lofty ease
that one sees among the better portion of the old _Princesses et
Duchesses_, which is a relic of a school that, it is to be feared, is
going out; but in its place there is a winning nature, with as much
dignity as is necessary, and a truth that gives us confidence in the
sincerity of those around us."
"Upon my word, I think Mrs. Hawker quite fit for a Duchess."
"You mean a _Duchesse_" said Eve, "and yet she is without the manner
that we understand by such a word. Mrs. Hawker is a lady, and there
can be no higher term."
"She is a delightful old woman," cried John Effingham, "and if twenty
years younger and disposed to change her condition, I should really
be afraid to enter the house."
"My dear sir," put in the captain, "I will make her Mrs. Truck to-
morrow, and say nothing of years, if she could be content to take up
with such an offer. Why, sir, she is no woman, but a saint in
petticoats! I felt the whole time as if talking to my own mother, and
as for ships, she knows more about them than I do!"
The whole party laughed at the strength of the captain's admiration,
and getting into the carriages proceeded to the last of the houses
they intended visiting that night.
Chapter V.
"So turns she every man the wrong side out; And never gives to
truth and virtue, that Which simpleness and merit purchaseth."
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Mrs. Houston was what is termed a fashionable woman in New-York. She,
too, was of a family of local note, though of one much less elevated
in the olden time than that of Mrs. Hawker. Still her claims were
admitted by the most fastidious on such points, for a few do remain
who think descent indisputable to gentility; and as her means were
ample, and her tastes perhaps superior to those of most around her,
she kept what was thought a house of better tone than common, even in
the highest circle. Eve had but a slight acquaintance with her; but
in Grace's eyes, Mrs. Houston's was the place of all others that she
thought might make a favourable impression on her cousin. Her wish
that this should prove to be the case was so strong, that, as they
drove towards the door, she could not forbear from making an attempt
to prepare Eve for what she was to meet.
"Although Mrs. Houston has a very large house for New-York, and lives
in a uniform style, you are not to expect ante-chambers, and vast
suites of rooms, Eve," said Grace; "such as you have been accustomed
to see abroad."
"It is not necessary, my dear cousin, to enter a house of four or
five windows in front, to see it is not a house of twenty or thirty.
I should be very unreasonable to expect an Italian palazzo, or a
Parisian hotel, in this good town."
"We are not old enough for that yet, Eve; a hundred years hence,
Mademoiselle Viefville, such things may exist here."
"_Bien sur. C'est naturel._"
"A hundred years hence, as the world tends, Grace, they are not
likely to exist any where, except as taverns, or hospitals, or
manufactories. But what have we to do, coz, with a century ahead of
us? young as we both are, we cannot hope to live that time."
Grace would have been puzzled to account satisfactorily to herself,
for the strong desire she felt that neither of her companions should
expect to see such a house as their senses so plainly told them did
not exist in the place; but her foot moved in the bottom of the
carriage, for she was not half satisfied with her cousin's answer.
"All I mean. Eve," she said, after a pause, "is, that one ought not
to expect in a town as new as this, the improvements that one sees in
an older state of society."
"And have Mademoiselle Viefville, or I, ever been so weak as to
suppose, that New-York is Paris, or Rome, or Vienna?"
Grace was still less satisfied, for, unknown to herself, she _had_
hoped that Mrs. Houston's ball might be quite equal to a ball in
either of those ancient capitals; and she was now vexed that her
cousin considered it so much a matter of course that it should not
But there was no time for explanations, as the carriage nowstopped.
The noise, confusion, calling out, swearing, and rude clamour before
the house of Mrs. Houston, said little for the out-door part of the
arrangements. Coachmen are nowhere a particularly silent and civil
class; but the uncouth European peasants, who have been preferred to
the honours of the whip in New-York, to the usual feelings of
competition and contention, added that particular feature of humility
which is known to distinguish "the beggar on horseback." The imposing
equipages of our party, however, had that effect on most of these
rude brawlers, which a display of wealth is known to produce on the
vulgar-minded; and the ladies got into the house, through a lane of
coachmen, by yielding a little to a _chevau de frise_ of whips,
without any serious calamity.
"One hardly knows which is the most terrific," said Eve,
involuntarily, as soon as the door closed on them--"the noise within,
or the noise without!"
This was spoken rapidly, and in French, to Mademoiselle Viefville,
but Grace heard and understood it, and for the
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