A Frenchman in America: Recollections of Men and Things

CHAPTER XXIV

St. Paul and Minneapolis, the Sister Cities – Rivalries and Jealousies between Large American Cities – Minnehaha Falls – Wonderful Interviewers – My Hat gets into Trouble Again – Electricity in the Air – Forest Advertisements – Railway Speed in America

St. Paul, Minn., February 20.

Arrived at St. Paul the day before yesterday to pay a professional visit to the two great sister cities of the north of America.

Sister cities! Yes, they are near enough to shake hands and kiss each other, but I am afraid they avail themselves of their proximity to scratch each other’s faces.

If you open Bouillet’s famous Dictionary of History and Geography (edition 1880), you will find in it neither St. Paul nor Minneapolis. I was told yesterday that in 1834 there was one white inhabitant in Minneapolis. To-day the two cities have about 200,000 inhabitants each. Where is the dictionary of geography that can keep pace with such wonderful phantasmagoric growth? The two cities are separated by a distance of about nine miles, but they are every day growing up toward each other, and to-morrow they will practically have become one.

Nothing is more amusing than the jealousies which exist between the different large cities of the United States, and when these rival places are close to each other, the feeling of jealousy is so intensified as to become highly entertaining.

St. Paul charges Minneapolis with copying into the census names from tombstones, and it is affirmed that young men living in either one of the cities will marry girls belonging to the other so as to decrease its population by one. The story goes that once a preacher having announced, in a Minneapolis church, that he had taken the text of his sermon from St. Paul, the congregation walked out en masse.

New York despises Philadelphia, and pokes fun at Boston. On the other hand, Boston hates Chicago, and vice versa. St. Louis has only contempt for Chicago, and both cities laugh heartily at Detroit and Milwaukee. San Francisco and Denver are left alone in their prosperity. They are so far away from the east and north of America, that the feeling they inspire is only one of indifference.

“Philadelphia is a city of homes, not of lodging-houses,” once said a Philadelphian to a New Yorker; “and it spreads over a far greater area than New York, with less than half the inhabitants.” “Ah,” replied the New Yorker, “that’s because it has been so much sat upon.”

“You are a city of commerce,” said a Bostonian to a New York wit; “Boston is a city of culture.” “Yes,” replied the New Yorker. “You spell culture with a big C, and God with a small g.”

Of course St. Paul and Minneapolis accuse each other of counting their respective citizens twice over. All that is diverting in the highest degree. This feeling does not exist only between the rival cities of the New World, it exists in the Old. Ask a Glasgow man what he thinks of Edinburgh, and an Edinburgh man what he thinks of Glasgow!

…

On account of the intense cold (nearly thirty degrees below zero), I have not been able to see much either of St. Paul or of Minneapolis, and I am unable to please or vex either of these cities by pointing out their beauties and defects. Both are large and substantially built, with large churches, schools, banks, stores, and all the temples that modern Christians erect to Jehovah and Mammon. I may say that the Ryan Hotel at St. Paul and the West House at Minneapolis are among the very best hotels I have come across in America, the latter especially. When I have added that, the day before yesterday, I had an immense audience in the People’s Church at St. Paul, and that to-night I have had a crowded house at the Grand Opera House in Minneapolis, it is hardly necessary for me to say that I shall have enjoyed myself in the two great towns, and that I shall carry away with me a delightful recollection of them.

…

Soon after arriving in Minneapolis yesterday, I went to see the Minnehaha Falls, immortalized by Longfellow. The motor line gave me an idea of rapid transit. I returned to the West House for lunch and spent the afternoon writing. Many interviewers called.

The first who came sat down in my room and point-blank asked me my views on contagious diseases. Seeing that I was not disposed to talk on the subject, he asked me to discourse on republics and the prospects of General Boulanger. In fact, anything for copy.

The second one, after asking me where I came from and where I was going, inquired whether I had exhausted the Anglo-Saxons and whether I should write on other nations. After I had satisfied him, he asked me what yearly income my books and lectures brought in.

Another wanted to know why I had not brought my wife with me, how many children I had, how old they were, and other details as wonderfully interesting to the public. By and by I saw he was jotting down a description of my appearance, and the different clothes I had on! “I will unpack this trunk,” I said, “and spread all its contents on the floor. Perhaps you would be glad to have a look at my things.” He smiled: “Don’t trouble any more,” he said; “I am very much obliged to you for your courtesy.”

This morning, on opening the papers, I see that my hat is getting into trouble again. I thought that, after getting rid of my brown hat and sending it to the editor in the town where it had created such a sensation, peace was secured. Not a bit. In the Minneapolis Journal I read the following:

The attractive personality of the man [allow me to record this for the sake of what follows], heightened by his négligé sack coat and vest, with a background of yellowish plaid trowsers, occasional glimpses of which were revealed from beneath the folds of a heavy ulster, which swept the floor [I was sitting of course] and was trimmed with fur collar and cuffs. And then that hat! On the table, carelessly thrown amid a pile of correspondence, was his nondescript headgear. One of those half-sombreros affected by the wild Western cowboy when on dress parade, an impossible combination of dark-blue and bottle-green.

Fancy treating in this off-handed way a $7.50 soft black felt hat bought of the best hatter in New York! No, nothing is sacred for those interviewers. Dark-blue and bottle-green! Why, did that man imagine that I wore my hat inside out so as to show the silk lining?

…

The air here is perfectly wonderful, dry and full of electricity. If your fingers come into contact with anything metallic, like the hot-water pipes, the chandeliers, the stopper of your washing basin, they draw a spark, sharp and vivid. One of the reporters who called here, and to whom I mentioned the fact, was able to light my gas with his finger, by merely obtaining an electric spark on the top of the burner. When he said he could thus light the gas, I thought he was joking.

I had observed this phenomenon before. In Ottawa, for instance.

Whether this air makes you live too quickly, I do not know; but it is most bracing and healthy. I have never felt so well and hearty in my life as in these cold, dry climates.

…

I was all the more flattered to have such a large and fashionable audience at the Grand Opera House to-night, that my causerie was not given under the auspices of any society, or as one of any course of lectures.

I lecture in Detroit the day after to-morrow. I shall have to leave Minneapolis to-morrow morning at six o’clock for Chicago, which I shall reach at ten in the evening. Then I shall have to run to the Michigan Central Station to catch the night train to Detroit at eleven. Altogether, twenty-three hours of railway traveling – 745 miles.

And still in “the neighborhood of Chicago!”

…

In the train to Chicago, February 21.

Have just passed a wonderful advertisement. Here, in the midst of a forest, I have seen a huge wide board nailed on two trees, parallel to the railway line. On it was written, round a daub supposed to represent one of the loveliest English ladies: “If you would be as lovely as the beautiful Lady de Gray, use Gray perfumes.”

Soyez donc belle, to be used as an advertisement in the forests of Minnesota!

…

My lectures have never been criticised in more kind, flattering, and eulogistic terms than in the St. Paul and the Minneapolis papers, which I am reading on my way to Chicago. I find newspaper reading a great source of amusement in the trains. First of all because these papers always are light reading, and also because reading is a possibility in a well lighted carriage going only at a moderate speed. Eating is comfortable, and even writing is possible en route. With the exception of a few trains, such as are run from New York to Boston, Chicago, and half a dozen other important cities, railway traveling is slower in America than in England and France; but I have never found fault with the speed of an American train. On the contrary, I have always felt grateful to the driver for running slowly. And every time that the car reached the other side of some of the many rotten wooden bridges on which the train had to pass, I returned thanks.

CHAPTER XXV

Detroit – The Town – The Detroit “Free Press” – A Lady Interviewer – The “Unco Guid” in Detroit – Reflections on the Anglo-Saxon “Unco Guid.”

Detroit, February 22.

Am delighted with Detroit. It possesses beautiful streets, avenues, and walks, and a fine square in the middle of which stands a remarkably fine monument. I am also grateful to this city for breaking the monotony of the eternal parallelograms with which the whole of the United States are built. My national vanity almost suggests to me that this town owes its gracefulness to its French origin. There are still, I am told, about 25,000 French people settled in Detroit.

I have had to-night, in the Church of Our Father, a crowded and most brilliant audience, whose keenness, intelligence, and kindness were very flattering.

I was interviewed, both by a lady and a gentleman, for the Detroit Free Press, that most witty of American newspapers. The charming young lady interviewer came to talk on social topics, I remarked that she was armed with a copy of “Jonathan and his Continent,” and I came to the conclusion that she would probably ask for a few explanations about that book. I was not mistaken. She took exception, she informed me, to many statements concerning the American girl in the book. I made a point to prove to her that all was right, and all was truth, and I think I persuaded her to abandon the prosecution.

To tell the truth, now the real truth, mind you, I am rather tired of hearing about the American girl. The more I see of her the more I am getting convinced that she is – like the other girls in the world.

…

A friend, who came to have a chat with me after this lecture, has told me that the influential people of the city are signing a petition to the custodians of the museum calling upon them to drape all the nude statues, and intimating their intention of boycotting the institution, if the Venuses and Apollos are not forthwith provided with tuckers and togas.

It is a well-known fact in the history of the world, that young communities have no taste for fine art – they have no time to cultivate it. If I had gone to Oklahoma, I should not have expected to find any art feeling at all; but that in a city like Detroit, where there is such evidence of intellectual life and high culture among the inhabitants, a party should be found numerous and strong enough to issue such a heathen dictate as this seems scarcely credible. I am inclined to think it must be a joke. That the “unco guid” should flourish under the gloomy sky of Great Britain I understand, but under the bright blue sky of America, in that bracing atmosphere, I cannot.

It is most curious that there should be people who, when confronted with some glorious masterpiece of sculpture, should not see the poetry, the beauty of the human form divine. This is beyond me, and beyond any educated Frenchman.

Does the “unco guid” exist in America, then? I should have thought that these people, of the earth earthy, were not found out of England and Scotland.

When I was in America two years ago, I heard that an English author of some repute, talking one day with Mr. Richard Watson Gilder about the Venus of Milo, had remarked that, as he looked at her beautiful form, he longed to put his arms around her and kiss her. Mr. Gilder, who, as a poet, as an artist, has felt only respect mingled with his admiration of the matchless divinity, replied: “I hope she would have grown a pair of arms for the occasion, so as to have slapped your face.”

It is not so much the thing that offends the “unco guid”; it is the name, the reflection, the idea. Unhealthy-minded himself, he dreads a taint where there is none, and imagines in others a corruption which exists only in himself.

Yet the One, whom he would fain call Master, but whose teachings he is slow in following, said: “Woe be to them by whom offense cometh.” But the “unco guid” is a Christian failure, a parvenu.

…

The parvenu is a person who makes strenuous efforts to persuade other people that he is entitled to the position he occupies.

There are parvenus in religion, as there are parvenus in the aristocracy, in society, in literature, in the fine arts, etc.

The worst type of the French parvenu is the one whose father was a worthy, hard-working man called Dubois or Dumont, and who, at his father’s death, dubs himself du Bois or du Mont, becomes a clericalist and the stanchest monarchist, and runs down the great Revolution which made one of his grand-parents a man. M. du Bois or du Mont outdoes the genuine nobleman, who needs make no noise to attract attention to a name which everybody knows, and which, in spite of what may be said on the subject, often recalls the memory of some glorious event in the past.

The worst type of Anglo-Saxon parvenu is probably the “unco guid,” or religious parvenu.

The Anglo-Saxon “unco guid” is seldom to be found among Roman Catholics; that is, among the followers of the most ancient Christian religion. He is to be found among the followers of the newest forms of “Christianity.” This is quite natural. He has to try to eclipse his fellow-Christians by his piety, in order to show that the new religion to which he belongs was a necessary invention.

The Anglo-Saxon “unco guid” is easily recognized. He is dark (all bigots and fanatics are). He is dressed in black, shiny broadcloth raiment. A wide-brimmed felt hat covers his head. He walks with light, short, jaunty steps, his head a little inclined on one side. He never carries a stick, which might give a rather fast appearance to his turn-out. He invariably carries an umbrella, even in the brightest weather, as being more respectable – and this umbrella he never rolls, for he would avoid looking in the distance as if he had a stick. He casts right and left little grimaces that are so many forced smiles of self-satisfaction. “Try to be as good as I am,” he seems to say to all who happen to look at him, “and you will be as happy.” And he “smiles, and smiles, and smiles.”

He has a small soul, a small heart, and a small brain.

As a rule, he is a well-to-do person. It pays better to have a narrow mind than to have broad sympathies.

He drinks tea, but prefers cocoa, as being a more virtuous beverage.

He is perfectly destitute of humor, and is the most inartistic creature in the world. Everything suggests to him either profanity or indecency. The “Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character,” by Dean Ramsay, would strike him as profane, and if placed in the Musée du Louvre, before the Venus of Milo, he would see nothing but a woman who has next to no clothes on.

His distorted mind makes him take everything in ill part. His hands get pricked on every thorn that he comes across on the road, and he misses all the roses.

If I were not a Christian, the following story, which is not as often told as it should be, would have converted me long ago:

Jesus arrived one evening at the gates of a certain city, and he sent his disciples forward to prepare supper, while he himself, intent on doing good, walked through the streets into the marketplace. And he saw at the corner of the market some people gathered together, looking at an object on the ground; and he drew near to see what it might be. It was a dead dog, with a halter round his neck, by which he appeared to have been dragged through the dirt; and a viler, a more abject, a more unclean thing, never met the eyes of man. And those who stood by looked on with abhorrence. “Faugh!” said one, stopping his nose, “it pollutes the air.” “How long,” said another, “shall this foul beast offend our sight?” “Look at his torn hide,” said a third; “one could not even cut a shoe out of it!” “And his ears,” said a fourth, “all draggled and bleeding!” “No doubt,” said a fifth, “he has been hanged for thieving!” And Jesus heard them, and looking down compassionately on the dead creature, he said: “Pearls are not equal to the whiteness of his teeth!”

If I understand the Gospel, the gist of its teachings is contained in the foregoing little story. Love and forgiveness: finding something to pity and admire even in a dead dog. Such is the religion of Christ.

The “Christianity” of the “unco guid” is as like this religion as are the teachings of the Old Testament.

Something to condemn, the discovery of wickedness in the most innocent, and often elevating, recreations, such is the favorite occupation of the Anglo-Saxon “unco guid.” Music is licentious, laughter wicked, dancing immoral, statuary almost criminal, and, by and by, the “Society for the Suggestion of Indecency,” which is placed under his immediate patronage and supervision, will find fault with our going out in the streets, on the plea that under our garments we carry our nudity.

The Anglo-Saxon “unco guid” is the successor of the Pharisee. In reading Christ’s description of the latter, you are immediately struck with the likeness. The modern “unco guid” “loves to pray standing in the churches and chapels and in the corners of the streets, that he may be seen of men.” “He uses vain repetitions, for he thinks that he shall be heard for his much speaking.” “When he fasts, he is of sad countenance; for he disfigures his face, that he may appear unto men to fast.” There is not one feature of the portrait that does not fit in exactly.

The Jewish “unco guid” crucified Christ. The Anglo-Saxon one would crucify Him again if He should return to earth and interfere with the prosperous business firms that make use of His name.

The “unco guid’s” Christianity consists in extolling his virtues and ignoring other people’s. He spends his time in “pulling motes out of people’s eyes,” but cannot see clearly to do it, “owing to the beams that are in his own.” He overwhelms you, he crushes you, with his virtue, and one of the greatest treats is to catch him tripping, a chance which you may occasionally have, especially when you meet him on the Continent of Europe.

The Anglo-Saxon “unco guid” calls himself a Christian, but the precepts of the Gospel are the very opposite of those he practices. The gentle, merciful, forgiving, Man-God of the Gospel has not for him the charms and attractions of the Jehovah who commanded the cowardly, ungrateful, and bloodthirsty people of his choice to treat their women as slaves, and to exterminate their enemies, sparing neither old men, women, nor children. This cruel, revengeful, implacable deity is far more to the Anglo-Saxon “unco guid’s” liking than the Saviour who bade His disciples love their enemies and put up their swords in the presence of his persecutors. The “unco guid” is not a Christian, he is a Jew in all but name. And I will say this much for him, that the Commandments given on Mount Sinai are much easier to follow than the Sermon on the Mount. It is easier not to commit murder than to hold out your right cheek after your left one has been slapped. It is easier not to steal than to run after the man who has robbed us, in order to offer him what he has not taken. It is easier to honor our parents than to love our enemies.

The teachings of the Gospel are trying to human nature. There is no religion more difficult to follow; and this is why, in spite of its beautiful, but too lofty, precepts, there is no religion in the world that can boast so many hypocrites – so many followers who pretend that they follow their religion, but who do not, and very probably cannot.

Being unable to love man, as he is bidden in the Gospel, the “unco guid” loves God, as he is bidden in the Old Testament. He loves God in the abstract. He tells Him so in endless prayers and litanies.

For him Christianity consists in discussing theological questions, whether a minister shall preach with or without a white surplice on, and in singing hymns more or less out of tune.

As if God could be loved to the exclusion of man! You love God, after all, as you love anybody else, not by professions of love, but by deeds.

When he prays, the “unco guid” buries his face in his hands or in his hat. He screws up his face, and the more fervent the prayer is (or the more people are looking at him), the more grimaces he makes. Heinrich Heine, on coming out of an English church, said that “a blaspheming Frenchman must be a more pleasing object in the sight of God than many a praying Englishman.” He had, no doubt, been looking at the “unco guid.”

If you do not hold the same religious views as he does, you are a wicked man, an atheist. He alone has the truth. Being engaged in a discussion with an “unco guid” one day, I told him that if God had given me hands to handle, surely He had given me a little brain to think. “You are right,” he quickly interrupted; “but, with the hands that God gave you you can commit a good action, and you can also commit murder.” Therefore, because I did not think as he did, I was the criminal, for, of course, he was the righteous man. For all those who, like myself, believe in a future life, there is, I believe, a great treat in store: the sight of the face he will make, when his place is assigned to him in the next world. Qui mourra, verra.

Anglo-Saxon land is governed by the “unco guid.” Good society cordially despises him; the aristocracy of Anglo-Saxon intelligence – philosophers, scientists, men of letters, artists – simply loathe him; but all have to bow to his rule, and submit their works to his most incompetent criticism, and all are afraid of him.

In a moment of wounded national pride, Sydney Smith once exclaimed: “What a pity it is we have no amusements in England except vice and religion!” The same exclamation might be uttered to-day, and the cause laid at the Anglo-Saxon “unco guid’s” door. It is he who is responsible for the degradation of the British lower classes, by refusing to enable them to elevate their minds on Sundays at the sight of the masterpieces of art which are contained in the museums, or at the sound of the symphonies of Beethoven and Mozart, which might be given to the people at reduced prices on that day. The poor people must choose between vice and religion, and as the wretches know they are not wanted in the churches, they go to the taverns.

It is this same “unco guid” who is responsible for the state of the streets in the large cities of Great Britain by refusing to allow vice to be regulated. If you were to add the amount of immorality to be found in the streets of Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and the other capitals of Europe, no fair-minded Englishman “who knows” would contradict me, if I said that the total thus obtained would be much below the amount supplied by London alone; but the “unco guid” stays at home of an evening, advises you to do the same, and ignoring, or pretending to ignore, what is going on round his own house, he prays for the conversion – of the French.

The “unco guid” thinks that his own future safety is assured, so he prays for his neighbors’. He reminds one of certain Scots, who inhabit two small islands on the west coast of Scotland. Their piety is really most touching. Every Sunday in their churches, they commend to God’s care “the puir inhabitants of the two adjacent islands of Britain and Ireland.”

A few weeks ago, there appeared in a Liverpool paper a letter, signed “A Lover of Reverence,” in which this anonymous person complained of a certain lecturer, who had indulged in profane remarks. “I was not present myself,” he or she said, “but have heard of what took place,” etc. You see, this person was not present, but as a good “Christian,” he hastened to judge. However, this is nothing. In the letter, I read: “Fortunately, there are in Liverpool, a few Christians, like myself, always on the watch, and ever looking after our Maker’s honor.”

Fortunate Liverpool! What a proud position for the Almighty, to be placed in Liverpool under the protection of the “Lover of Reverence!”

Probably this “unco guid” and myself would not agree on the definition of the word profanity, for, if I had written and published such a letter, I would consider myself guilty, not only of profanity, but of blasphemy.

If the “unco guid” is the best product of Christianity, Christianity must be pronounced a ghastly failure, and I should feel inclined to exclaim, with the late Dean Milman, “If all this is Christianity, it is high time we should try something else – say the religion of Christ, for instance.”