Delphi Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Illustrated) (197 page)

This is said to be the highest compliment that an Englishman can pay to an American; and doubtless he intends it as such. All the praise and good will that an Englishman ever awards to an American is so far gratifying to the recipient, that it is meant for him individually, and is not to be put down in the slightest degree to the score of any regard to his countrymen generally. So far from this, if an Englishman were to meet the whole thirty millions of Americans, and find each individual of them a pleasant, amiable, well-meaning, and well-mannered sort of fellow, he would acknowledge this honestly in each individual case, but still would speak of the whole nation as a disagreeable people.

As regards Redclyffe being precisely like an Englishman, we cannot but think that the good Warden was mistaken. No doubt, there was a common ground; the old progenitor (whose blood, moreover, was mixed with a hundred other streams equally English) was still there, under this young man's shape, but with a vast difference. Climate, sun, cold, heat, soil, institutions, had made a change in him before he was born, and all the life that he had lived since (so unlike any that he could have lived in England) had developed it more strikingly. In manners, I cannot but think that he was better than the generality of Englishmen, and different from the highest-mannered men, though most resembling them. His natural sensitiveness, a tincture of reserve, had been counteracted by the frank mixture with men which his political course had made necessary; he was quicker to feel what was right at the moment, than the Englishman; more alive; he had a finer grain; his look was more aristocratic than that of a thousand Englishmen of good birth and breeding; he had a faculty of assimilating himself to new manners, which, being his most un-English trait, was what perhaps chiefly made the Warden think him so like an Englishman. When an Englishman is a gentleman, to be sure, it is as deep in him as the marrow of his bones, and the deeper you know him, the more you are aware of it, and that generation after generation has contributed to develop and perfect these unpretending manners, which, at first, may have failed to impress you, under his plain, almost homely exterior. An American often gets as good a surface of manners, in his own progress from youth, through the wear and attrition of a successful life, to some high station in middle age; whereas a plebeian Englishman, who rises to eminent station, never does credit to it by his manners. Often you would not know the American ambassador from a duke. This is often merely external; but in Redclyffe, having delicate original traits in his character, it was something more; and, we are bold to say, when our countrymen are developed, or any one class of them, as they ought to be, they will show finer traits than have yet been seen. We have more delicate and quicker sensibilities; nerves more easily impressed; and these are surely requisites for perfect manners; and, moreover, the courtesy that proceeds on the ground of perfect equality is better than that which is a gracious and benignant condescension, — as is the case with the manners of the aristocracy of England.

An American, be it said, seldom turns his best side outermost abroad; and an observer, who has had much opportunity of seeing the figure which they make, in a foreign country, does not so much wonder that there should be severe criticism on their manners as a people. I know not exactly why, but all our imputed peculiarities — our nasal pronunciation, our ungraceful idioms, our forthputtingness, our uncouth lack of courtesy — do really seem to exist on a foreign shore; and even, perhaps, to be heightened of malice prepense. The cold, unbelieving eye of Englishmen, expectant of solecisms in manners, contributes to produce the result which it looks for. Then the feeling of hostility and defiance in the American must be allowed for; and partly, too, the real existence of a different code of manners, founded on, and arising from, different institutions; and also certain national peculiarities, which may be intrinsically as good as English peculiarities; but being different, and yet the whole result being just too nearly alike, and, moreover, the English manners having the prestige of long establishment, and furthermore our own manners being in a transition state between those of old monarchies and what is proper to a new republic, — it necessarily followed that the American, though really a man of refinement and delicacy, is not just the kind of gentleman that the English can fully appreciate. In cases where they do so, their standard being different from ours, they do not always select for their approbation the kind of man or manners whom we should judge the best; we are perhaps apt to be a little too fine, a little too sedulously polished, and of course too conscious of it, — a deadly social crime, certainly.

CHAPTER XVII.

To return from this long discussion, the Warden took kindly, as we have said, to Redclyffe, and thought him a miraculously good fellow, to have come from the rude American republic. Hitherto, in the little time that he had been in England, Redclyffe had received civil and even kind treatment from the English with whom he had come casually in contact; but still — perhaps partly from our Yankee narrowness and reserve — he had felt, in the closest coming together, as if there were a naked sword between the Englishman and him, as between the Arabian prince in the tale and the princess whom he wedded; he felt as if that would be the case even if he should love an Englishwoman; to such a distance, into such an attitude of self-defence, does English self-complacency and belief in England's superiority throw the stranger. In fact, in a good-natured way, John Bull is always doubling his fist in a stranger's face, and though it be good-natured, it does not always produce the most amiable feeling.

The worthy Warden, being an Englishman, had doubtless the same kind of feeling; doubtless, too, he thought ours a poor, distracted country, perhaps prosperous for the moment, but as likely as not to be the scene of anarchy five minutes hence; but being of so genial a nature, when he came to see the amiableness of his young guest, and how deeply he was impressed with England, all prejudice died away, and he loved him like a treasure that he had found for himself, and valued him as if there were something of his own in him. And so the old Warden's residence had never before been so cheery as it was now; his bachelor life passed the more pleasantly with this quiet, vivacious, yet not troublesomely restless spirit beside him, — this eager, almost childish interest in everything English, and yet this capacity to take independent views of things, and sometimes, it might be, to throw a gleam of light even on things appertaining to England. And so, the better they came to know one another, the greater was their mutual liking.

“I fear I am getting too strong to burden you much longer,” said

Redclyffe, this morning. “I have no pretence to be a patient now.”

“Pooh! nonsense!” ejaculated the Warden. “It will not be safe to leave you to yourself for at least a month to come. And I have half a dozen excursions in a neighborhood of twenty miles, in which I mean to show you what old England is, in a way that you would never find out for yourself. Do not speak of going. This day, if you find yourself strong enough, you shall go and look at an old village church.”

“With all my heart,” said Redclyffe.

They went, accordingly, walking slowly, in consequence of Redclyffe's yet imperfect strength, along the highroad, which was overshadowed with elms, that grew in beautiful shape and luxuriance in that part of England, not with the slender, drooping, picturesque grace of a New England elm, but more luxuriant, fuller of leaves, sturdier in limb. It was a day which the Warden called fine, and which Redclyffe, at home, would have thought to bode rain; though here he had learned that such weather might continue for weeks together, with only a few raindrops all the time. The road was in the finest condition, hard and dry.

They had not long emerged from the gateway of the Hospital, — at the venerable front and gables of which Redclyffe turned to look with a feeling as if it were his home, — when they heard the clatter of hoofs behind them, and a gentleman on horseback rode by, paying a courteous salute to the Warden as he passed. A groom in livery followed at a little distance, and both rode roundly towards the village, whither the Warden and his friend were going.

“Did you observe that man?” asked the Warden.

“Yes,” said Redclyffe. “Is he an Englishman?”

“That is a pertinent question,” replied the Warden, “but I scarcely know how to answer it.”

In truth, Redclyffe's question had been suggested by the appearance of the mounted gentleman, who was a dark, thin man, with black hair, and a black moustache and pointed beard setting off his sallow face, in which the eyes had a certain pointed steeliness, which did not look English, — whose eyes, methinks, are usually not so hard as those of Americans or foreigners. Redclyffe, somehow or other, had fancied that these not very pleasant eyes had been fixed in a marked way on himself, a stranger, while at the same time his salute was evidently directed towards the Warden.

“An Englishman, — why, no,” continued the latter. “If you observe, he does not even sit his horse like an Englishman, but in that absurd, stiff continental way, as if a poker should get on horseback. Neither has he an English face, English manners, nor English religion, nor an English heart; nor, to sum up the whole, had he English birth. Nevertheless, as fate would have it, he is the inheritor of a good old English name, a fine patrimonial estate, and a very probable claim to an old English title. This is Lord Braithwaite of Braithwaite Hall, who if he can make his case good (and they say there is good prospect of it) will soon be Lord Hinchbrooke.”

“I hardly know why, but I should be sorry for it,” said Redclyffe. “He certainly is not English; and I have an odd sort of sympathy, which makes me unwilling that English honors should be enjoyed by foreigners. This, then, is the gentleman of Italian birth whom you have mentioned to me, and of whom there is a slight mention in the County History.”

“Yes,” said the Warden. “There have been three descents of this man's branch in Italy, and only one English mother in all that time. Positively, I do not see an English trait in his face, and as little in his manner. His civility is Italian, such as oftentimes, among his countrymen, has offered a cup of poison to a guest, or insinuated the stab of a stiletto into his heart.”

“You are particularly bitter against this poor man,” said Redclyffe, laughing at the Warden's vehemence. “His appearance — and yet he is a handsome man — is certainly not prepossessing; but unless it be countersigned by something in his actual life, I should hardly think it worth while to condemn him utterly.”

“Well, well; you can forgive a little English prejudice,” said the Warden, a little ashamed. “But, in good earnest, the man has few or no good traits, takes no interest in the country, dislikes our sky, our earth, our people, is close and inhospitable, a hard landlord, and whatever may be his good qualities, they are not such as flourish in this soil and climate, or can be appreciated here.” [Endnote: 1.]

“Has he children?” asked Redclyffe.

“They say so, — a family by an Italian wife, whom some, on the other hand, pronounce to be no wife at all. His son is at a Catholic college in France; his daughter in a convent there.”

In talk like this they were drawing near the little rustic village of Braithwaite, and saw, above a cloud of foliage, the small, low, battlemented tower, the gray stones of which had probably been laid a little after the Norman conquest. Approaching nearer, they passed a thatched cottage or two, very plain and simple edifices, though interesting to Redclyffe from their antique aspect, which denoted that they were probably older than the settlement of his own country, and might very likely have nursed children who had gone, more than two centuries ago, to found the commonwealth of which he was a citizen. If you considered them in one way, prosaically, they were ugly enough; but then there were the old latticed windows, and there the thatch, which was verdant with leek, and strange weeds, possessing a whole botanical growth. And birds flew in and out, as if they had their homes there. Then came a row of similar cottages, all joined on together, and each with a little garden before it divided from its neighbors by a hedge, now in full verdure. Redclyffe was glad to see some symptoms of natural love of beauty here, for there were plants of box, cut into queer shapes of birds, peacocks, etc., as if year after year had been spent in bringing these vegetable sculptures to perfection. In one of the gardens, moreover, the ingenious inhabitant had spent his leisure in building grotto-work, of which the English are rather ludicrously fond, on their little bits of lawn, and in building a miniature castle of oyster-shells, where were seen turrets, ramparts, a frowning arched gateway, and miniature cannon looking from the embrasures. A pleasanter and better adornment were the homely household flowers, and a pleasant sound, too, was the hum of bees, who had their home in several beehives, and were making their honey among the flowers of the garden, or come from afar, buzzing dreamily through the air, laden with honey that they had found elsewhere. Fruit trees stood erect, or, in some instances, were flattened out against the walls of cottages, looking somewhat like hawks nailed
in terrorem
against a barn door. The male members of this little community were probably afield, with the exception of one or two half-torpid great-grandsires, who [were] moving rheumatically about the gardens, and some children not yet in breeches, who stared with stolid eyes at the passers-by; but the good dames were busy within doors, where Redclyffe had glimpses of their interior with its pavement of stone flags. Altogether it seemed a comfortable settlement enough.

“Do you see that child yonder,” observed the Warden, “creeping away from the door, and displaying a vista of his petticoats as he does so? That sturdy boy is the lineal heir of one of the oldest families in this part of England, — though now decayed and fallen, as you may judge. So, you see, with all our contrivances to keep up an aristocracy, there still is change forever going on.”

“There is something not agreeable, and something otherwise, in the thought,” replied Redclyffe. “What is the name of the old family, whose representative is in such a case?”

“Moseby,” said the Warden. “Their family residence stood within three miles of Braithwaite Hall, but was taken down in the last century, and its place supplied by a grand show-place, built by a Birmingham manufacturer, who also originated here.”

They kept onward from this outskirt of the village, and soon, passing over a little rising ground, and descending now into a hollow came to the new portion of it, clustered around its gray Norman church, one side of the tower of which was covered with ivy, that was carefully kept, the Warden said, from climbing to the battlements, on account of some old prophecy that foretold that the tower would fall, if ever the ivy mantled over its top. Certainly, however, there seemed little likelihood that the square, low mass would fall, unless by external violence, in less than as many ages as it had already stood.

Redclyffe looked at the old tower and little adjoining edifice with an interest that attached itself to every separate, moss-grown stone; but the Warden, like most Englishmen, was at once amazed and wearied with the American's enthusiasm for this spot, which to him was uninteresting for the very reason that made it most interesting to Redclyffe, because it had stood there such a weary while. It was too common an object to excite in his mind, as it did in Redclyffe's, visions of the long ago time when it was founded, when mass was first said there, and the glimmer of torches at the altar was seen through the vista of that broad-browed porch; and of all the procession of villagers that had since gone in and come out during nine hundred years, in their varying costume and fashion, but yet — and this was the strongest and most thrilling part of the idea — all, the very oldest of them, bearing a resemblance of feature, the kindred, the family likeness, to those who died yesterday, — to those who still went thither to worship; and that all the grassy and half-obliterated graves around had held those who bore the same traits.

In front of the church was a little green, on which stood a very ancient yew tree, [Endnote: 2] all the heart of which seemed to have been eaten away by time, so that a man could now creep into the trunk, through a wide opening, and, looking upward, see another opening to the sky.

“That tree,” observed the Warden, “is well worth the notice of such an enthusiastic lover of old things; though I suppose aged trees may be the one antiquity that you do not value, having them by myriads in your primeval forests. But then the interest of this tree consists greatly in what your trees have not, — in its long connection with men and the goings of men. Some of its companions were made into bows for Harold's archers. This tree is of unreckonable antiquity; so old, that in a record of the time of Edward IV. it is styled the yew tree of Braithwaite Green. That carries it back to Norman times, truly. It was in comparatively modern times when it served as a gallows for one of James II.'s bloodthirsty judges to hang his victims on after Monmouth's rebellion.”

On one side of this yew was a certain structure which Redclyffe did not recognize as anything that he had before seen, but soon guessed its purpose; though, from appearances, it seemed to have been very long since it had served that purpose. It was a ponderous old oaken framework, six or seven feet high, so contrived that a heavy cross- piece shut down over another, leaving two round holes; in short, it was a pair of stocks, in which, I suppose, hundreds of vagrants and petty criminals had sat of old, but which now appeared to be merely a matter of curiosity.