The first thing I saw this morning, after a vision of a
waiter pretending to brush my clothes with a feeble twitch composed of fine
fibre had vanished, was a procession of men, forty or fifty perhaps, preceded
by a small band (by no excess of compliment can I say, of music), trudging
through the cold and slush two and two: they wore shamrocks, or the best
resemblance thereto which the American soil can produce, in their hats, and
green silk sashes emblazoned with crownless harp upon their coats, but it
needed these insignia to tell they were Irishmen, and their solemn mien
indicated that they were going to mass. It was agreeable to see them so well
clad and respectable looking, though occasional hats seemed as if they had just
recovered from severe contusions, and others had the picturesque irregularity
of outline now and then observable in the old country. The aspect of the street
was irregular, and its abnormal look was increased by the air of the
passers-by, who at that hour were domestics — very finely dressed negroes,
Irish, or German. The colored ladies made most ‘elaborate’ toilets and as they
held up their broad crinolines over the mud looked not unlike double-stemmed
mushrooms. “They're concayted poor craythures them niggirs, male and faymale,” was
the remark of the waiter as he saw me watching them. “There seem to be no
sparrows in the streets,” said I. “Sparras!” he exclaimed; “and then how did
you think a little baste of a sparra could fly across the ochean?” I felt
rather ashamed of myself.
And so down-stairs where there was a table d'hôte room, with great
long tables covered with cloths, plates, and breakfast apparatus, and a smaller
room inside, to which I was directed by one of the white-jacketed waiters.
Breakfast over, visitors began to drop in. At the “office” of the hotel, as it
is styled, there is a tray of blank cards and a big pencil, whereby the
cardless man who is visiting is enabled to send you his name and title. There
is a comfortable “reception room,” in which he can remain and read the papers,
if you are engaged, so that there is little chance of your ultimately escaping
him. And, indeed, not one of those who came had any but most hospitable
intents.
Out of doors the weather was not tempting. The snow lay in
irregular layers and discolored mounds along the streets, and the gutters
gorged with “snow-bree” flooded the broken pavement. But after a time the
crowds began to issue from the churches, and it was announced as the necessity
of the day, that we were to walk up and down the Fifth Avenue and look at each
other. This is the west-end of London — its Belgravia and Grosvenoria
represented in one long street, with offshoots of inferior dignity at right
angles to it. Some of the houses are handsome, but the greater number have a compressed,
squeezed-up aspect, which arises from the compulsory narrowness of frontage in
proportion to the height of the building, and all of them are bright and new,
as if they were just finished to order, — a most astonishing proof of the rapid
development of the city. As the ball-door is made an important feature in the
residence, the front parlor is generally a narrow, lanky apartment, struggling
for existence between the hall and the partition of the next house. The outer
door, which is always provided with fine carved panels and mouldings, is of
some rich varnished wood, and looks much better than our painted doors. It is
generously thrown open so as to show an inner door with curtains and plate glass.
The windows, which are double on account of the climate, are frequently of
plate glass also. Some of the doors are on the same level as the street, with a
basement story beneath; others are approached by flights of steps, the basement
for servants having the entrance below the steps, and this, I believe, is the
old Dutch fashion, and the name of “stoop” is still retained for it.
No liveried servants are to be seen about the streets, the
door-ways, or the area-steps. Black faces in gaudy caps, or an unmistakable “Biddy”
in crinoline are their substitutes. The chief charm of the street was the
living ornature which moved up and down the trottoirs. The costumes of
Paris, adapted to the severity of this wintry weather, were draped round
pretty, graceful figures which, if wanting somewhat in that rounded fulness of
the Medicean Venus, or in height, were svelte and well poised. The
French boot has been driven off the field by the Balmoral, better suited to the
snow; and one must at once admit — all prejudices notwithstanding — that the
American woman is not only well shod and well gloved, but that she has no
reason to fear comparisons, in foot or hand with any daughter of Eve, except,
perhaps, the Hindoo.
The great and most frequent fault of the stranger in any
land is that of generalizing from a few facts. Every one must feel there are “pretty
days” and “ugly days” in the world, and that his experience on the one would
lead him to conclusions very different from that to which he would arrive on
the other. To-day I am quite satisfied that if the American women are deficient
in stature and in that which makes us say, “There is a fine woman,” they are
easy, well formed, and full of grace and prettiness. Admitting a certain pallor
— which the Russians, by the by, were wont to admire so much that they took
vinegar to produce it — the face is not only pretty, but sometimes of
extraordinary beauty, the features fine, delicate, well defined. Ruby lips, indeed,
are seldom to be seen, but now and then the flashing of snowy-white evenly-set
ivory teeth dispels the delusion that the Americans are — though the excellence
of their dentists be granted — naturally ill provided with what they take so
much pains, by eating bon-bons and confectionery, to deprive of their purity
and color.
My friend R–––, with whom I was walking, knew every one in
the Fifth Avenue, and we worked our way through a succession of small talk
nearly as far as the end of the street; which runs out among divers places in
the State of New York, through a debris of unfinished conceptions in
masonry The abrupt transition of the city into the country is not unfavorable
to an idea that the Fifth Avenue might have been transported from some great
workshop, where it had been built to order by a despot, and dropped among the
Red men: indeed, the immense growth of New York in this direction, although far
inferior to that of many parts of London, is remarkable as the work of eighteen
or twenty years, and is rendered more conspicuous by being developed in this elongated
street, and its contingents. I was introduced to many persons to-day, and was
only once or twice asked how I liked New York; perhaps I anticipated the
question by expressing my high opinion of the Fifth Avenue. Those to whom I
spoke had generally something to say in reference to the troubled condition of
the country, but it was principally of a self-complacent nature. “I suppose,
sir, you are rather surprised, coming from Europe, to find us so quiet here in
New York: we are a peculiar people, and you don't understand us in Europe.”
In the afternoon I called on Mr. Bancroft, formerly minister
to England, whose work on America must be rather rudely interrupted by this
crisis. Anything with an "ex" to it in America is of little weight —
ex-presidents are nobodies, though they have had the advantage, during their
four years' tenure of office, of being prayed for as long as they live. So it
is of ex-ministers, whom nobody prays for at all. Mr. Bancroft conversed for
some time on the aspect of affairs, but he appeared to be unable to arrive at
any settled conclusion, except that the republic, though in danger, was the
most stable and beneficial form of government in the world, and that as a Government
it had no power to coerce the people of the South or to save itself from the
danger. I was indeed astonished to hear from him and others so much
philosophical abstract reasoning as to the right of seceding, or, what is next
to it, the want of any power in the Government to prevent it.
Returning home in order to dress for dinner, I got into a
street-railway-car, a long low omnibus drawn by horses over a strada ferrata
in the middle of the street. It was filled with people of all classes, and
at every crossing some one or other rang the bell, and the driver stopped to
let out or to take in passengers, whereby the unoffending traveller became
possessed of much snow-droppings and mud on boots and clothing. I found that by
far a greater inconvenience caused by these street-railways was the destruction
of all comfort or rapidity in ordinary carriages.
I dined with a New York banker, who gave such a dinner as
bankers generally give all over the world. He is a man still young, very
kindly, hospitable, well-informed, with a most charming household — an American
by theory, an Englishman in instincts and tastes — educated in Europe, and
sprung from British stock. Considering the enormous interests he has at stake,
I was astonished to perceive how calmly he spoke of the impending troubles. His
friends, all men of position in New York society, had the same dilettante tone,
and were as little anxious for the future, or excited by the present, as a
party of savans chronicling the movements of a “magnetic storm.”
On going back to the hotel, I heard that Judge Daly and some
gentlemen had called to request that I would dine with the Friendly Society of
St. Patrick to-morrow at Astor House. In what is called “the bar,” I met several
gentlemen, one of whom said, “the majority of the people of New York, and all
the respectable people, were disgusted at the election of such a fellow as
Lincoln to be President, and would back the Southern States, if it came to a
split.”
SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and
South, p. 10-14
