Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 | Page 8

eating and drinking; while there is nothing which
does more to spread in Europe impressions unfavorable to American
civilization than the indifference of Americans, and, we may add, as
regards the progressive portion of American society--cultivated
indifference--to the quality of their meals and the time of eating them.
In no European country is moderate enjoyment of the pleasures of the
table considered incompatible with high moral aims, or even a
sincerely religious character; but a man to whom his dinner was of
serious importance would find his position in an assembly of American
reformers very precarious. The German or Frenchman or Englishman,
indeed, treats a man's views of food, and his disposition or
indisposition to eat it in company with his fellows as an indication of
his place in civilization. Savages love to eat alone, and it has been
observed in partially civilized communities relapsing into barbarism,
that one of the first indications of their decline was the abandonment of
regular meals on tables, and a tendency on the part of the individuals to
retire to secret places with their victuals. This is probably a remnant of
the old aboriginal instinct which we still see in domesticated dogs, and
was, doubtless, implanted for the protection of the species in times
when everybody looked on his neighbor's bone with a hungry eye, and
the man with the strong hand was apt to have the fullest stomach.
Accordingly, there is in Europe, and indeed everywhere, a tendency to
regard the growth of a delicacy in eating, and close attention to the time
and manner of serving meals and their cookery, and the use of them as
promoters of social intercourse, as an indication of moral as well as
material progress. To a large number of people here, on the other hand,

the bolting of food--ten-minute dinners, for instance--and general
unconsciousness of "what is on the table," is a sign of preoccupation
with serious things. It may be; but the German love of food is not
necessarily a sign of grossness, and that "overfed" appearance, of
which the Union spoke, is not necessarily a sign of inefficiency, any
more than leanness or cadaverousness is a sign of efficiency. There is
certainly some power of hard work in King William's army, and,
indeed, we could hardly point to a better illustration of the truth, that all
the affairs of men, whether political, social, or religious, depend for
their condition largely on the state of the digestion.
Honesty, by which we mean that class of virtues which Cicero includes
in the term bona fides, has, to a considerable extent, owing, we think, to
the peculiar humanitarian character which the circumstances of the
country have given to the work of reform, been subordinated in the
United States to brotherly kindness. Now, this right to arrange the
virtues according to a scale of its own, is something which not only
every age, but every nation, has claimed, and, accordingly, we find that
each community, in forming its judgment of a man's character, gives a
different degree of weight to different features of it. Keeping a mistress
would probably, anywhere in the United States, damage a man's
reputation far more seriously than fraudulent bankruptcy; while
horse-stealing, which in New England would be a comparatively
trifling offence, out in Montana is a far fouler thing than murder. But in
the European scale, honesty still occupies the first place. Bearing this in
mind, it is worth any man's while who proposes to pass judgment on
the morality of any foreign country, to consider what is the impression
produced on foreign opinion about American morality by the story of
the Erie Railroad, by the career of Fisk, by the condition of the judicial
bench in the commercial capital of the country, by the charges of
corruption brought against such men as Trumbull and Fessenden at the
time of the impeachment trial; by the comically prominent and beloved
position which Butler has held for some years in our best moral circles,
and by the condition of the civil service.
The truth is that it is almost impossible for anybody to compare one
nation with another fairly, unless he possesses complete familiarity
with the national life of both, and therefore can distinguish isolated
facts from symptomatic facts.

The reason why some of the phenomena of American society which
shock foreigners greatly, do not shock even the best Americans so
much, is not that the latter have become hardened to them--though this
counts for something--but that they know of various counteracting and
compensating phenomena which prevent, or are sure to prevent, them
in the long run from doing the mischief which they seem to threaten. In
other words, they understand the checks and balances of their society as
well as its tendencies. Anybody who considers these