unbecoming display. Once or twice it was comically developed, as
in the following case; but this was an amusing incident, and not
the rule, or near it.
I wanted a pair of boots at a certain town, for I had none to
travel in, but those with the memorable cork soles, which were much
too hot for the fiery decks of a steamboat. I therefore sent a
message to an artist in boots, importing, with my compliments, that
I should be happy to see him, if he would do me the polite favour
to call. He very kindly returned for answer, that he would 'look
round' at six o'clock that evening.
I was lying on the sofa, with a book and a wine-glass, at about
that time, when the door opened, and a gentleman in a stiff cravat,
within a year or two on either side of thirty, entered, in his hat
and gloves; walked up to the looking-glass; arranged his hair; took
off his gloves; slowly produced a measure from the uttermost depths
of his coat-pocket; and requested me, in a languid tone, to 'unfix'
my straps. I complied, but looked with some curiosity at his hat,
which was still upon his head. It might have been that, or it
might have been the heat - but he took it off. Then, he sat
himself down on a chair opposite to me; rested an arm on each knee;
and, leaning forward very much, took from the ground, by a great
effort, the specimen of metropolitan workmanship which I had just
pulled off: whistling, pleasantly, as he did so. He turned it
over and over; surveyed it with a contempt no language can express;
and inquired if I wished him to fix me a boot like THAT? I
courteously replied, that provided the boots were large enough, I
would leave the rest to him; that if convenient and practicable, I
should not object to their bearing some resemblance to the model
then before him; but that I would be entirely guided by, and would
beg to leave the whole subject to, his judgment and discretion.
'You an't partickler, about this scoop in the heel, I suppose
then?' says he: 'we don't foller that, here.' I repeated my last
observation. He looked at himself in the glass again; went closer
to it to dash a grain or two of dust out of the corner of his eye;
and settled his cravat. All this time, my leg and foot were in the
air. 'Nearly ready, sir?' I inquired. 'Well, pretty nigh,' he
said; 'keep steady.' I kept as steady as I could, both in foot and
face; and having by this time got the dust out, and found his
pencil-case, he measured me, and made the necessary notes. When he
had finished, he fell into his old attitude, and taking up the boot
again, mused for some time. 'And this,' he said, at last, 'is an
English boot, is it? This is a London boot, eh?' 'That, sir,' I
replied, 'is a London boot.' He mused over it again, after the
manner of Hamlet with Yorick's skull; nodded his head, as who
this boot!'; rose; put up his pencil, notes, and paper - glancing
at himself in the glass, all the time - put on his hat - drew on
his gloves very slowly; and finally walked out. When he had been
gone about a minute, the door reopened, and his hat and his head
reappeared. He looked round the room, and at the boot again, which
was still lying on the floor; appeared thoughtful for a minute; and
then said 'Well, good arternoon.' 'Good afternoon, sir,' said I:
and that was the end of the interview.
There is but one other head on which I wish to offer a remark; and
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that has reference to the public health. In so vast a country,
where there are thousands of millions of acres of land yet
unsettled and uncleared, and on every rood of which, vegetable
decomposition is annually taking place; where there are so many
great rivers, and such opposite varieties of climate; there cannot
fail to be a great amount of sickness at certain seasons. But I
may venture to say, after conversing with many members of the
medical profession in America, that I am not singular in the
opinion that much of the disease which does prevail, might be
avoided, if a few common precautions were observed. Greater means
of personal cleanliness, are indispensable to this end; the custom
of hastily swallowing large quantities of animal food, three times
a-day, and rushing back to sedentary pursuits after each meal, must
be changed; the gentler sex must go more wisely clad, and take more
healthful exercise; and in the latter clause, the males must be
included also. Above all, in public institutions, and throughout
the whole of every town and city, the system of ventilation, and
drainage, and removal of impurities requires to be thoroughly
revised. There is no local Legislature in America which may not
study Mr. Chadwick's excellent Report upon the Sanitary Condition
of our Labouring Classes, with immense advantage.
* * * * * *
I HAVE now arrived at the close of this book. I have little reason
to believe, from certain warnings I have had since I returned to
England, that it will be tenderly or favourably received by the
American people; and as I have written the Truth in relation to the
mass of those who form their judgments and express their opinions,
it will be seen that I have no desire to court, by any adventitious
means, the popular applause.
It is enough for me, to know, that what I have set down in these
pages, cannot cost me a single friend on the other side of the
Atlantic, who is, in anything, deserving of the name. For the
been conceived and penned; and I can bide my time.
I have made no reference to my reception, nor have I suffered it to
influence me in what I have written; for, in either case, I should
have offered but a sorry acknowledgment, compared with that I bear
within my breast, towards those partial readers of my former books,
across the Water, who met me with an open hand, and not with one
that closed upon an iron muzzle.
THE END
POSTSCRIPT
AT a Public Dinner given to me on Saturday the 18th of April, 1868,
in the City of New York, by two hundred representatives of the
Press of the United States of America, I made the following
observations among others:
'So much of my voice has lately been heard in the land, that I
might have been contented with troubling you no further from my
present standing-point, were it not a duty with which I henceforth
charge myself, not only here but on every suitable occasion,
whatsoever and wheresoever, to express my high and grateful sense
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of my second reception in America, and to bear my honest testimony
to the national generosity and magnanimity. Also, to declare how
astounded I have been by the amazing changes I have seen around me
on every side, - changes moral, changes physical, changes in the
&n
bsp; amount of land subdued and peopled, changes in the rise of vast new
cities, changes in the growth of older cities almost out of
recognition, changes in the graces and amenities of life, changes
in the Press, without whose advancement no advancement can take
place anywhere. Nor am I, believe me, so arrogant as to suppose
that in five and twenty years there have been no changes in me, and
that I had nothing to learn and no extreme impressions to correct
when I was here first. And this brings me to a point on which I
have, ever since I landed in the United States last November,
observed a strict silence, though sometimes tempted to break it,
but in reference to which I will, with your good leave, take you
into my confidence now. Even the Press, being human, may be
sometimes mistaken or misinformed, and I rather think that I have
in one or two rare instances observed its information to be not
strictly accurate with reference to myself. Indeed, I have, now
and again, been more surprised by printed news that I have read of
myself, than by any printed news that I have ever read in my
present state of existence. Thus, the vigour and perseverance with
which I have for some months past been collecting materials for,
and hammering away at, a new book on America has much astonished
me; seeing that all that time my declaration has been perfectly
well known to my publishers on both sides of the Atlantic, that no
consideration on earth would induce me to write one. But what I
have intended, what I have resolved upon (and this is the
confidence I seek to place in you) is, on my return to England, in
my own person, in my own journal, to bear, for the behoof of my
countrymen, such testimony to the gigantic changes in this country
as I have hinted at to-night. Also, to record that wherever I have
been, in the smallest places equally with the largest, I have been
received with unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, sweet temper,
hospitality, consideration, and with unsurpassable respect for the
privacy daily enforced upon me by the nature of my avocation here
and the state of my health. This testimony, so long as I live, and
so long as my descendants have any legal right in my books, I shall
cause to be republished, as an appendix to every copy of those two
books of mine in which I have referred to America. And this I will
do and cause to be done, not in mere love and thankfulness, but
because I regard it as an act of plain justice and honour.'
I said these words with the greatest earnestness that I could lay
upon them, and I repeat them in print here with equal earnestness.
So long as this book shall last, I hope that they will form a part
of it, and will be fairly read as inseparable from my experiences
and impressions of America.
CHARLES DICKENS.
MAY, 1868.
Footnotes:
(1) NOTE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION. - Or let him refer to an able,
and perfectly truthful article, in THE FOREIGN QUARTERLY REVIEW,
published in the present month of October; to which my attention
has been attracted, since these sheets have been passing through
the press. He will find some specimens there, by no means
remarkable to any man who has been in America, but sufficiently
striking to one who has not.
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