Nuts and Nutcrackers

A NUT FOR DIPLOMATISTS

Man is the most imitative of all animals: nothing can surpass the facility he possesses of simulating his neighbour; and I question much if the press, in all the plentitude of its power, has done as much for the spread of good or evil, as the spirit of mimicry so inherent in mankind. The habits of high life are transmitted through every grade of society: and the cheesemonger keeps his hunters, and damns his valet, like my lord; while his wife rolls in her equipage, and affects the graces of my lady. So long as wealth is present, die assumption of the tastes and habitudes of a different class, can merely be looked upon as one of those outbreaks of vanity in which rich but vulgar people have a right, if they like, to indulge. Why shouldn’t they have a villa at Twickenham – why not a box at the opera – a white bait dinner at Blackwall – a yacht at Southampton Î They have the money to indulge their caprice, and it is no one’s affair but their own. They make themselves ridiculous, it is true; but the pleasure they experience counterbalances the ridicule, and they are the best judges on which side lies the profit. Wealth is power: and although the one may be squandered, and the other abused, yet in their very profusion, there is something that demands a kind of reverence from the world; and we have only to look to France to see, that when once you abolish an hereditary noblesse, your banker is then your great man.

We may smile, if we please, at the absurd pretension of the wealthy alderman and his lady, whose pompous mansion and splendid equipage affect a princely grandeur; yet, after all, the knowledge that he is worth half a million of money, that his name alone can raise the credit of a new colony, or call into existence the dormant energy of a new region of the globe, will always prevent our sarcasm degenerating into contempt. Not so, however, when poverty unites itself to these aspirings, you feel in a moment that the poor man has nothing to do with such vanities; his poverty is a scanty garment, that, dispose it as he will, he can never make it hang like a toga; and we have no compassion for him, who; while hunger gnaws his vitals, affects a sway and dominion his state has denied him. Such a line of conduct will often be offensive – it will always be absurd – and the only relief presented by its display, is in the ludicrous exhibition of trick and stratagem by which it is supported. Jeremy Diddler, after all, is an amusing person; but the greater part of the pleasure he affords us is derived from the fact; that, cunning as he is in all his efforts to deceive us, we are still more so, for we have found him out.

Were I to characterise the leading feature of the age, I should certainly say it is this pretension. Like the monkeys at Exeter ‘Change, who could never bear to eat out of their own dish, but must stretch their paws into that if their neighbour, so every man now-a-days wishes to be in that place most unsuitable to him by all his tastes, habits, and associations, and where once having attained to, his life is one of misery and constraint. The hypocrisy of simulating manners he is not used to, is not more subversive of his self-respect, than his imitation is poor, vulgar, and unmeaning.

Curran said that a corporation was, a “thing that had neither a body to be kicked, nor a soul to be damned.” And, verity, I begin to think that masses of men are even more contemptible than individuals. A nation is a great household; and if it have not all the prestige of rank, wealth, and power, it is a poor and miserable thing. England and France, Germany and Russia, are the great of the earth; and we look up to them in the political world, as in society we do to those whose rank and station are the guarantees of their power. Many other countries of Europe have also their claims upon us, but still smaller in degree. Italy, with all its association of classical elegance – Spain, whose history shines with the solemn splendour of an illuminated missal, where gold and purple are seen blending their hues, scarce dimmed by time; but what shall we say of those newly-created powers, which springing up like mushroom families, give themselves all the airs of true nobility, and endeavour by a strange mockery of institutions and customs of their greater neighbours, to appear of weight and consequence before the world. Look, for instance, to Belgium the bourgeois gentilhomme of politics, which, having retired from its partnership with Holland, sets up for a gentleman on its private means. What can be more ludicrous than its attempts at high-life, its senate, its ministry, its diplomacy; for strange enough the ridicule of the individual can be traced extending to a nation, and when your city lady launched into the world, displays upon her mantelpiece the visiting cards of her high neighbours, so the first act of a new people is, to open a visiting acquaintance with their rich neighbours, and for this purpose the first thing they do is to establish a corps of diplomacy.

Now your city knight may have a fat and rosy coachman, he may have a tall and portly footman, a grave and a respectable butler; but whatever his wealth, whatever his pretension, there is one functionary of a great household he can never attain to – he can never have a groom of the chambers. This, like the “chasseur” abroad, is the appendage of but one class, by constant association with whom its habits are acquired, its tastes engendered, and it would be equally absurd to see the tall Hungarian in all the glitter of his hussar costume, behind the caleche of a pastrycook, as to hear the low-voiced and courteous minion of Devonshire House announce the uncouth, un-syllabled names, that come east of St. Dunstan’s.

So, in the same way, your new nations may get up a king and a court, a senate, an army, and a ministry, but let them not meddle with diplomacy – the moment they do this they burn their fingers: your diplomate is like your chasseur, and your groom of the chambers; if he be not well done, he is a miserable failure. The world has so many types to refer to on this head, there can be no mistake. Talleyrand, Nesselrode, Metternich, Lord Whitworth, and several more, have too long given the tone to this peculiar walk to admit of any error concerning it; however, your little folk will not be denied the pleasures of their great acquaintance. They will have their diplomacy, and they will be laughed at: look at the Yankees. There is not a country in Europe, there is not a state however small, there is not a Coburgism with three thousand inhabitants and three companies of soldiers, where they haven’t a minister resident with plenipotentiary powers extending to every relation political and commercial, although all the while the Yankees would be sorely puzzled to point out on the map the locale of their illustrious ally, and the Germans no less so to find out a reason for their embassy. Happily on this score, the very bone and marrow of diplomacy is consulted, and secrecy is inviolable; for, as your American knows no other tongue save that spoken on the Alleghanies, he keeps his own counsel and theirs also.

Have you never in the hall of some large country house, cast your eye, on leave-taking, at the strange and motley crew of servants awaiting their masters – some well fed and handsomely clothed, with that look of reflected importance my lord’s gentleman so justly wears; others, in graver, but not less respectable raiment, have that quiet and observant demeanour so characteristic of a well-managed household. While a third class, strikingly unlike the other two, wear their livery with an air of awkwardness and constraint, blushing at themselves even a deeper colour than the scarlet of their breeches. They feel themselves in masquerade – they were at the plough but yesterday, though they are in powder now. With the innate consciousness of their absurdity, they become fid-getty and uneasy, and would give the world for “a row” to conceal the defaults of their breeding. Just so, your petty “diplomate” suffers agony in all the quiet intercourse of life. The limited opportunities of small states have circumscribed his information. He is not a man of the world, nor is he a political character, for he represents nothing; nothing, therefore, can save him from oblivion or contempt, save some political convulsion where any meddler may become prominent; he has thus a bonus on disturbance: so long as the company behave discreetly, he must stay in his corner, but the moment they smash the lamps and shy the decanters, he emerges from his obscurity and becomes as great as his neighbour. For my part, I am convinced that the peace and quietness of Europe as much depends on the exclusion of such persons from the councils of diplomacy, as the happiness of everyday life does upon the breeding and good manners of our associates.

And what straits, to be sure, are they reduced to, to maintain this absurd intercourse, screwing the last shilling from the budget to pay a Charge d’affaires, with an embroidered coat, and a decoration in his button-hole.

The most amusing incidents might be culled from such histories, if one were but disposed to relate them.

Balzac mentions, in one of his novels, the story of a physician who obtained great practice, merely by sending throughout Paris a gaudily-dressed footman, who rang at every door, as it were, in search of his master; so quick were the fellow’s movements, so rapid his transitions, from one part of the city to the other, nobody believed that a single individual could ever have sufficed for so many calls; and thus, the impression was, not only that the doctor was greatly sought after, but that his household was on a splendid footing. The Emperor of the Brazils seems to have read the story, and profited by the hint, for while other nations are wasting their thousands in maintaining a whole corps of diplomacy, he would appear like the doctor to have only one footman, whom he keeps moving about Europe without ceasing: thus The Globe tells us one day that the Chevalier de L – , the Brazilian ambassador, has arrived in London to resume his diplomatic functions; The Handelsbad of the Hague mentions his departure from the Dutch Court; The Algeimeine Zeitung announces the prospect of his arrival at Vienna, and The Moniteur Parisien has a beautiful article on the prosperity of their relations with Mexico, under the auspices of the indefatigable Chevalier: “non regio terræ,” exempt from his labours. Unlike Sir Boyle Roche, he has managed to be not only in two, but twenty places at once, and I should not be in the least surprised to hear of his negotiations for sulphur at Naples, at the same moment that he was pelting snowballs in Norway. Whether he travels in a balloon or on the back of a pelican, he is a wonderful man, and a treasure to his government.

The multiplicity of his duties, and the pressing nature of his functions, may impart an appearance of haste to his manner, but it looks diplomatic to be peremptory, and he has no time for trifling.

Truly, Chevalier de L – , thou art a great man – the wandering Jew was but a type of thee.

A NUT FOR FOREIGN TRAVEL

Of all the popular delusions that we labour under in England, I scarcely know of one more widely circulated, and less founded in fact, than the advantages of foreign travel. Far be it from me to undervalue the benefits men of education receive by intercourse with strangers, and the opportunities of correcting by personal observation the impressions already received by study. No one sets a higher price on this than I do; no one estimates more fully the advantages of tempering one’s nationality by the candid comparison of our own institutions with those of other countries; no one values more highly the unbiassed frame of mind produced by extending the field of our observation, and, instead of limiting our experience by the details of a book, reading from the wide-spread page of human nature itself. So conscious, indeed, am I of the importance of this, that I look upon his education as but very partial indeed who has not travelled. It is not, therefore, against the benefits of seeing the world I would inveigh – it is rather against the general application of the practice to the whole class of our countrymen and countrywomen who swarm on the continent. Unsuited by their tastes – unprepared by previous information-deeming a passport and a letter of credit all-sufficient for their purpose – they set out upon their travels. From their ignorance of a foreign language, their journey is one of difficulty and embarrassment at every step. They understand little of what they see, nothing of what they hear. The discomforts of foreign life have no palliation, by their being enabled to reason on, and draw inferences from them. All the sources of information are hermetically sealed against them, and their tour has nothing to compensate for its fatigue, and expense, save the absurd detail of adventure to which their ignorance has exposed them.

It is not my intention to rail in this place against the injury done to the moral feeling of our nation, by intimate association with the habits of the Continent. Reserving this for a more fitting time, I shall merely remark at present, that, so far as the habits of virtue are concerned, more mischief is done among the middle class of our countrymen, than those of a more exalted sphere.

Scarcely does the month of May commence, when the whole tide of British population sets in upon the coast of France and Flanders. To watch the crowded steamers as they arrive in Antwerp, or Boulogne, you would say that some great and devastating plague had broken out in London, and driven the affrighted inhabitants from their homes. Not so, however: they have come abroad for pleasure. With a credit on Coutts, and the inestimable John Murray for a guide, they have devoted six weeks to France, Belgium, and the Rhine, in which ample time they are not only to learn two languages, but visit three nations, exploring into cookery, customs, scenery, literature, and the arts, with the same certainty of success that they would pay a visit to Astley’s. Scarcely are they launched upon their travels when they unite into parties for personal protection and assistance. The “morgue Britannique” so much spoken of by foreigners, they appear to have left behind them; and sudden friendships, and intimacies, spring up between persons whose only feeling in common is that of their own absurd position. Away they go sight-seeking in clusters. They visit cathedrals, monuments, and galleries; they record in their journals the vulgar tirades of a hired commissionaire; they eat food they detest, and they lie down to sleep discontented and unhappy. The courteous civility of foreigners, the theme of so much eulogy in England, they now find out to be little more than selfishness, libertinism, and impertinence. They see the country from the window of a diligence, and society from a place at the table d’hôte, and truly both one and the other are but the vulgar high roads of life. Their ignorance of the language alone protects them from feeling insulted at the impertinences directed at themselves and their country; and the untutored simplicity of their nature saves them the mortification of knowing that the ostentatious politeness of some moustached acquaintance is an exhibition got up by him for the entertainment of his friends.

Poor John Bull, you have made great sacrifices for this tour. You have cut the city, and the counting-house, that your wife may become enamoured of dress, and your daughter of a dancing-master – that your son may learn to play roulette and smoke cigars, and that you yourself may ramble some thousand miles over paved roads, without an object to amuse, without an incident to attract you. While this is a gloomy picture enough, there is another side to the medal still worse. John Bull goes home generally sick of what he has seen, and much more ignorant of the Continent than when he set out. His tour, however, has laid in its stock of foreign affectation, that renders his home uncomfortable; his daughters pine after the flattering familiarities of their whiskered acquaintances at Ems, or Wiesbaden; and his sons lose all zest for the slow pursuit of competence, by reflecting on the more decisive changes of fortune, that await on rouge et noir. Yet even this is not the worst. What I deplore most of all, is the false and erroneous notions continental nations procure of our country, and its habits, from such specimens as these. The Englishman who, seen at home, at the head of his counting-house, or in the management of his farm, presents a fine example of those national traits we are so justly proud of – honest, frank, straightforward in all his dealings, kind and charitable in his affections; yet see him abroad, the sphere of his occupations exists no longer – there is no exercise for the manly habits of his nature: his honesty but exposes him to be duped; his frankness degenerates into credulity; the unsuspecting openness of his character makes him the butt of every artful knave he meets with; and he is laughed at from Rotterdam to Rome for qualities which, exercised in their fitting sphere, have made England the greatest country of the universe. Hence we have the tone of disparagement now so universally maintained about England, and Englishmen, from one end of the Continent to the other. It is not that our country does not send forth a number of men well qualified to induce different impressions of their nation; but unfortunately, such persons move only in that rank of foreign society where these prejudices do not exist; and it is among a different class, and unhappily a more numerous one also, that these undervaluing opinions find currency and belief. There is nothing more offensive than the continual appeal made by Frenchmen, Germans, and others, to English habits, as seen among this class of our countrymen. It is in vain that you explain to them that these people are neither among the more educated nor the better ranks of our country. They cannot comprehend your distinction. The habits of the Continent have produced a kind of table-land of good-breeding, upon which all men are equals. Thus, if you rarely meet a foreigner ignorant of the every-day convenances of the world, you still more rarely meet with one unexceptionably well-bred. The table d’hôte, like the mess in our army, has the effect of introducing a certain amount of decorum that is felt through every relation of life; and, although the count abroad is immeasurably beneath the gentleman at home, here, I must confess, that the foreign cobbler is a more civilized person than his type in England. This is easily understood: foreign breeding is not the outward exhibition of an inward principle – it is not the manifestation of a sense of mingled kindness, good taste, and self-respect – it is merely the rigid observance of a certain code of behaviour that has no reference whatever to any thing felt within; it is the mere popery of politeness, with its saint-worship, its penances, and its privations. An Englishman makes way for you to accommodate your passage; a foreigner – a Frenchman I should say – does so for an opportunity to flourish his hat or to exhibit an attitude. The same spirit pervades every act of both; duty in one case, display in the other, are the ruling principles of life; and, where persons are so diametrically different, there is little likelihood of much mutual understanding or mutual esteem. To come back, however, the great evil of this universal passion for travelling lies in the opportunity afforded to foreigners, of sneering at our country, and ridiculing our habits. It is in vain that our institutions are models of imitation for the world – in vain that our national character stands pre-eminent for good-faith and fidelity – in vain the boast that the sun never sets upon a territory that girths the very globe itself, so long as we send annually our tens of thousands out upon the Continent, with no other failing than mere unfitness for foreign travel, to bring down upon us the sneer, and the ridicule, of every ignorant and unlettered Frenchman, or Belgian, they meet with.

A NUT FOR DOMESTIC HAPPINESS

Our law code would, were its injunctions only carried out in private life, effect most extraordinary reformations in our customs and habits. The most singular innovations in our tastes and opinions would spring out of the statutes. It was only a few days ago where a man sought reparation for the greatest injury one could inflict on another, the great argument of the defendant’s counsel was based on the circumstance that the plaintiff and his wife had not been proved to have lived happily together, except on the testimony of their servants. Great stress was laid upon this fact by the advocate; and such an impression did it make on the minds of the jury, that the damages awarded were a mere trifle. Now, only reflect for a moment on the absurdity of such a plea, and think how many persons there are whose quiet and unobtrusive lives are unnoticed beyond the precincts of their own door – nay, how many estimable and excellent people who live less for the world than for themselves, and although, probably for this very reason, but little exposed to the casualty in question, would yet deem the injustice great that placed them beyond the pale of reparation because they had been homely and domestic.

Civilisation and the march of mind are fine things, and doubtless it is a great improvement that the criminal is better lodged, and fed, in the prison, than the hungry labourer in the workhouse. It is an admirable code that makes the debt of honour, the perhaps swindled losses of the card-table, an imperative obligation, while the money due to toiling, working industry, may be evaded or escaped from. Still, it is a bold step to invade the privacy of domestic life, to subvert the happiness we deem most national, and to suggest that the world has no respect for, nor the law no belief in, that peaceful course in life, which, content with its own blessings, seeks neither the gaze of the crowd, nor the stare of fashion. Under the present system, a man must appear in society like a candidate on the hustings – profuse in protestations of his happiness and redolent of smiles; he must lead forth his wife like a blooming débutante, and, while he presents her to his friends, must display, by every endeavour in his power, the angelic happiness of their state. The coram publico endearments, so much sneered at by certain fastidious people, are now imperative; and, however secluded your habits, however retiring your tastes, it is absolutely necessary you should appear a certain number of times every year before the world, to assure that kind-hearted and considerate thing, how much conjugal felicity you are possessed of.