Recollections of Europe. James Fenimore Cooper
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Controversy at Cowes.—Custom-house Civility.—English Costume.—Fashion
in America.—Quadrilles in New York.—Cowes.—Nautical Gallantry.
English Beauty.—Isle of Wight Butter.—English Scenery.—M'Adamized
Roads.—Old Village Church.—Rural Interment.—Pauper's
Grave.—Carisbrooke Cattle.—Southampton.—Waiter at the Vine.—English
Costume.—Affinity with England.—Netley Abbey.—Southampton Cockneys.
TO MRS. POMEROY, COOPERSTOWN, NEW YORK.
We were no sooner on English ground, than we hurried to one of the two or three small inns of West Cowes, or the principal quarter of the place, and got rooms at the Fountain. Mr. and Mrs. ——had preceded us, and were already in possession of a parlour adjoining our own. On casting an eye out at the street, I found them, one at each window of their own room, already engaged in a lively discussion of the comparative merits of Cowes and Philadelphia! This propensity to exaggerate the value of whatever is our own, and to depreciate that which is our neighbour's, a principle that is connected with the very ground-work of poor human nature, forms a material portion of travelling equipage of nearly every one who quits the scenes of his own youth, to visit those of other people. A comparison between Cowes and Philadelphia is even more absurd than a comparison between New York and London, and yet, in this instance, it answered the purpose of raising a lively controversy between an American wife and a European husband.
The consul at Cowes had been an old acquaintance at school some five-and-twenty years before, and an inquiry was set on foot for his residence. He was absent in France, but his deputy soon presented himself with an offer of services. We wished for our trunks, and it was soon arranged that there should be an immediate examination. Within an hour we were summoned to the store-house, where an officer attended on behalf of the customs. Everything was done in a very expeditious and civil manner, not only for us, but for a few steerage passengers, and this, too, without the least necessity for a douceur, the usual passe-partout of England. America sends no manufactures to Europe; and, a little smuggling in tobacco excepted, there is probably less of the contraband in our commercial connexion with England, than ever before occurred between two nations that have so large a trade. This, however, is only in reference to what goes eastward, for immense amounts of the smaller manufactured articles of all Europe find their way, duty free, into the United States. There is also a regular system of smuggling through the Canadas, I have been told.
While the ladies were enjoying the negative luxury of being liberated from a ship, at the Fountain Inn, I strolled about the place. You know that I had twice visited England professionally before I was eighteen; and, on one occasion, the ship I was in anchored off this very island, though not at this precise spot. I now thought the people altered. There had certainly been so many important changes in myself during the same period, that it becomes me to speak with hesitation on this point: but even the common class seemed less peculiar, less English, less provincial, if one might use such an expression, as applied to so great a nation; in short, more like the rest of the world than formerly. Twenty years before, England was engaged in a war, by which she was, in a degree, isolated from most of Christendom. This insulated condition, sustained by a consciousness of wealth, knowledge, and power, had served to produce a decided peculiarity of manners, and even of appearance. In the article of dress I could not be mistaken. In 1806 I had seen all the lower classes of the English clad in something like costumes. The Channel waterman wore the short dowlas petticoat; the Thames waterman, a jacket and breeches of velveteen, and a badge; the gentleman and gentlewoman, attire such as was certainly to be seen in no other part of the Christian world, the English colonies excepted. Something of this still remained, but it existed rather as the exception than as the rule. I then felt, at every turn, that I was in a foreign country; whereas, now, the idea did not obtrude itself, unless I was brought in immediate contact with the people.
America, in my time, at least, has always had an active and swift communication with the rest of the world. As a people, we are, beyond a question, decidedly provincial; but our provincialism is not exactly one of external appearance. The men are negligent of dress, for they are much occupied, have few servants, and clothes are expensive; but the women dress remarkably near the Parisian modes. We have not sufficient confidence in ourselves to set fashions. All our departures from the usages of the rest of mankind are results of circumstances, and not of calculation—unless, indeed, it be one that is pecuniary. Those whose interest it is to produce changes cause fashions to travel fast, and there is not so much difficulty, or more cost, in transporting anything from Havre to New York, than there is in transporting the same thing from Calais to London; and far less difficulty in causing a new mode to be introduced, since, as a young people, we are essentially imitative. An example or two will better illustrate what I mean.
When I visited London, with a part of my family, in 1823, after passing near two years on the continent of Europe, Mrs. ——was compelled to change her dress—at all times simple, but then, as a matter of course, Parisian—in order not to be the subject of unpleasant observation. She might have gone in a carriage attired as a Frenchwoman, for they who ride in England are not much like those who walk; but to walk in the streets, and look at objects, it was far pleasanter to seem English than to seem French. Five years later, we took London on our way to America, and even then something of the same necessity was felt. On reaching home, with dresses fresh from Paris, the same party was only in the mode; with toilettes a little, and but very little, better arranged, it is true, but in surprising conformity with those of all around them. On visiting our own little retired mountain village, these Parisian-made dresses were scarcely the subject of remark to any but to your connoisseurs. My family struck me as being much less peculiar in the streets of C—— than they had been, a few months before, in the streets of London. All this must be explained by the activity of the intercourse between France and America, and by the greater facility of the Americans in submitting to the despotism of foreign fashions.
Another fact will show you another side of the subject. While at Paris, a book of travels in America, written by an Englishman (Mr. Vigne), fell into my hands. The writer, apparently a well-disposed and sensible man, states that he was dancing dos-à-dos in a quadrille, at New York, when he found, by the embarrassment of the rest of the set, he had done something wrong. Some one kindly told him that they no longer danced dos-à-dos. In commenting on this trifling circumstance, the writer ascribes the whole affair to the false delicacy of our women! Unable to see the connexion between the cause and the effect, I pointed out the paragraph to one of my family, who was then in the daily practice of dancing, and that too in Paris itself, the very court of Terpsichore. She laughed, and told me that the practice of dancing dos-à-dos had gone out at Paris a year or two before, and that doubtless the newer mode had reached New York before it reached Mr. Vigne! These are trifles, but they are the trifles that make up the sum of national peculiarities, ignorance of which leads us into a thousand fruitless and absurd conjectures. In this little anecdote we learn the great rapidity with which new fashions penetrate American usages, and the greater ductility of American society in visible and tangible things, at least; and the heedless manner with which even those who write in a good spirit of America, jump to their conclusions. Had Captain Hall, or Mrs. Trollope, encountered this unlucky quadrille, they would probably have found some clever means of imputing the nez-à-nez tendencies of our dances to the spirit of democracy! The latter, for instance, is greatly outraged by the practice of wearing hats in Congress, and of placing the legs on tables; and, yet, both have been practised in Parliament from time immemorial! She had never seen her own Legislature, and having a set of theories cut and dried for Congress, everything that struck her as novel was referred to one of her preconceived notions. In this manner are books manufactured, and by such means are nations made acquainted with each other!
Cowes resembles a toy-town. The houses are tiny; the streets, in the main, are narrow, and not particularly straight, while everything is neat as wax. Some new