Americans and Others | Page 2

save only Plato, and he lived in an age of
symmetry and order which we can hardly hope to reproduce. The
shortcomings of youth are so pitilessly, so glaringly apparent. Not a rag
to cover them from the discerning eye. And what a veil has fallen
between us and the years of our offending. There is no illusion so
permanent as that which enables us to look backward with
complacency; there is no mental process so deceptive as the comparing
of recollections with realities. How loud and shrill the voice of the girl
at our elbow. How soft the voice which from the far past breathes its
gentle echo in our ears. How bouncing the vigorous young creatures
who surround us, treading us under foot in the certainty of their
self-assurance. How sweet and reasonable the pale shadows who
smile--we think appealingly--from some dim corner of our memories.
There is a passage in the diary of Louisa Gurney, a carefully reared
little Quaker girl of good family and estate, which is dated 1796, and
which runs thus:--
"I was in a very playing mood to-day, and thoroughly enjoyed being
foolish, and tried to be as rude to everybody as I could. We went on the
highroad for the purpose of being rude to the folks that passed. I do
think being rude is most pleasant sometimes."
Let us hope that the grown-up Louisa Gurney, whenever she felt
disposed to cavil at the imperfections of the rising generation of 1840
or 1850, re-read these illuminating words, and softened her judgment
accordingly.
New York has been called the most insolent city in the world. To make
or to refute such a statement implies so wide a knowledge of contrasted
civilizations that to most of us the words have no significance. It is true
that certain communities have earned for themselves in the course of
centuries an unenviable reputation for discourtesy. The Italians say "as
rude as a Florentine"; and even the casual tourist (presuming his
standard of manners to have been set by Italy) is disposed to echo the
reproach. The Roman, with the civilization of the world at his back, is
naturally, one might say inevitably, polite. His is that serious and

simple dignity which befits his high inheritance. But the Venetian and
the Sienese have also a grave courtesy of bearing, compared with
which the manners of the Florentine seem needlessly abrupt. We can no
more account for this than we can account for the churlishness of the
Vaudois, who is always at some pains to be rude, and the gentleness of
his neighbour, the Valaisan, to whom breeding is a birthright, born, it
would seem, of generosity of heart, and a scorn of ignoble things.
But such generalizations, at all times perilous, become impossible in
the changing currents of American life, which has as yet no quality of
permanence. The delicate old tests fail to adjust themselves to our
needs. Mr. Page is right theoretically when he says that the treatment of
a servant or of a subordinate is an infallible criterion of manners, and
when he rebukes the "arrogance" of wealthy women to "their hapless
sisters of toil." But the truth is that our hapless sisters of toil have
things pretty much their own way in a country which is still broadly
prosperous and democratic, and our treatment of them is tempered by a
selfish consideration for our own comfort and convenience. If they are
toiling as domestic servants,--a field in which the demand exceeds the
supply,--they hold the key to the situation; it is sheer foolhardiness to
be arrogant to a cook. Dressmakers and milliners are not humbly
seeking for patronage; theirs is the assured position of people who can
give the world what the world asks; and as for saleswomen, a class
upon whom much sentimental sympathy is lavished year by year, their
heart-whole superciliousness to the poor shopper, especially if she
chance to be a housewife striving nervously to make a few dollars
cover her family needs, is wantonly and detestably unkind. It is not
with us as it was in the England of Lamb's day, and the quality of
breeding is shown in a well-practised restraint rather than in a sweet
and somewhat lofty consideration.
Eliminating all the more obvious features of criticism, as throwing no
light upon the subject, we come to the consideration of three
points,--the domestic, the official, and the social manners of a nation
which has been roundly accused of degenerating from the high standard
of former years, of those gracious and beautiful years which few of us
have the good fortune to remember. On the first count, I believe that a

candid and careful observation will result in a verdict of acquittal.
Foreigners, Englishmen and Englishwomen especially, who visit our
shores,