Journal of a Residence in America. Fanny Kemble

in the post: I practised and needle-worked till dinner-time; after dinner, as I stood at the window looking at the lovely sky and the brilliant earth, a curious effect of light struck me. Within a hundred yards of each other, the Town-Hall lay, with its white walls glowing in the sunset, while the tall grey church-steeple was turning pale in the clear moonlight. That Town Hall is a white-washed anomaly, and yet its effect is not altogether bad. I took a bath at the house behind it, which is very conveniently arranged for that purpose, with a French sort of gallery, all papered with the story of Psyche in lead-coloured paper, that reminded me of the doughy immortals I used to admire so much, at the inns at Abbeville and Montreuil. The house was kept by a foreigner—I knew it. My father proposed to us a walk, and we accordingly sallied forth. We walked to the end of Broadway, a distance of two miles, I should think, and then back again. The evening was most lovely. The moon was lighting the whole upper sky, but every now and then, as we crossed the streets that led to the river, we caught glimpses of the water, and woody banks, and the sky that hung over them; which all were of that deep orange tint, that I never saw but in Claude's pictures. After walking nearly a mile up Broadway, we came to Canal Street: it is broader and finer than any I have yet seen in New York; and at one end of it, a Christian church, copied from some Pagan temple or other, looked exceedingly well, in the full flood of silver light that streamed from heaven. There were many temptations to look around, but the flags were so horribly broken and out of order, that to do so was to run the risk of breaking one's neck:—this is very bad.[3] The street was very much thronged, and I thought the crowd a more civil and orderly one than an English crowd. The men did not jostle or push one another, or tread upon one's feet, or kick down one's shoe heels, or crush one's bonnet into one's face, or turn it round upon one's head, all which I have seen done in London streets. There is this to be said: this crowd was abroad merely for pleasure, sauntering along, which is a thing never seen in London; the proportion of idle loungers who frequent the streets there being very inconsiderable, when compared with the number of people going on business through the town. I observed that the young men to-night invariably made room for women to pass, and many of them, as they drew near us, took the cigar from their mouth, which I thought especially courteous.[4] They were all smoking, to a man, except those who were spitting, which helped to remind me of Paris, to which the whole place bore a slight resemblance. The shops appear to me to make no show whatever, and will not bear a comparison with the brilliant display of the Parisian streets, or the rich magnificence of our own, in that respect. The women dress very much, and very much like French women gone mad; they all of them seem to me to walk horribly ill, as if they wore tight shoes. Came in rather tired, took tea, sang an immensity, wrote journal, looked at the peerless moon, and now will go to bed.

Saturday 8th.

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      Stitching the whole blessed day; and as I have now no maid to look after them, my clothes run some chance of being decently taken care of, and kept in order. Mr. ——and his daughter called; I like him; he appears very intelligent; and the expression of his countenance is clever and agreeable. His daughter was dressed up in French clothes, and looked very stiff; but, however, a first visit is an awkward thing, and nothing that isn't thorough-bred ever does it quite well. When they were gone, Mr. ——called. By the by, of Mr. ——, while he was speaking, he came to the word calculate, and stopping half way, substituted another for it, which made me laugh internally. Mercy on me! how sore all these people are about Mrs. Trollope's book, and how glad I am I did not read it. She must have spoken the truth though, for lies do not rankle so.

      "Qui ne nous touche point ne nous fait pas rougir."

      Worked till dinner-time. ——dined with us: what a handsome man he is; but oh, what a within-and-without actor! I wonder whether I carry such a brand in every limb and look of me; if I thought so, I'd strangle myself. An actor shall be self-convicted, in five hundred. There is a ceaseless striving at effect, a straining after points in talking, and a lamp and orange-peel twist in every action. How odious it is to me! Absolute and unmitigated vulgarity I can put up with, and welcome; but good Heaven defend me from the genteel version of vulgarity! to see which in perfection, a country actor, particularly if he is also manager, and sees occasionally people who bespeak plays, is your best occasion. My dear father, who was a little elated, made me sing to him, which I greatly gulped at. When he was gone, went on playing and singing. Wrote journal, and now to bed. I'm dead of the side-ach.[5]

Sunday, 9th.

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      Rose at eight. While I was dressing, D—— went out of the room, and presently I heard sundry exclamations: "Good God, is it you! How are you? How have you been?" I opened the door, and saw my uncle.

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      After breakfast, went to church with my father: on our way thither-ward met the Doctor, and the Doctor's friend, and Mr. ——, to whom I have taken an especial fancy. The church we went to is situated half way between the Battery and our hotel. It is like a chapel in the exterior, being quite plain, and standing close in among the houses; the interior was large and perfectly simple. The town is filling, and the church was well attended. 'Tis long since I have heard the church service so well read; with so few vices of pronunciation, or vulgarisms of emphasis. Our own clergy are shamefully negligent in this point; and if Chesterfield's maxim be a good one in all cases, which it is, surely in the matter of the service of God's house 'tis doubly so; they lose an immense advantage, too, by their slovenly and careless way of delivering the prayers, which are in themselves so beautiful, so eloquent, so full of the very spirit of devotion; that whereas, now, a congregation seems but to follow their leader, in gabbling them over as they do, were they solemnly, devoutly, and impressively read, many would feel and understand, what they now repeat mechanically, without attaching one idea to the words they utter. There was no clerk to assist in the service, and the congregation were as neglectful of the directions in the prayer-book, and as indolent and remiss in uttering the responses, as they are in our own churches; indeed, the absence of the clerk made the inaudibility of the congregation's portion of the service more palpable than it is with us. The organ and chanting were very good; infinitely superior to the performances of those blessed little parish cherubim, who monopolise the praises of God in our churches, so much to the suffering of all good Christians not favoured with deafness. The service is a little altered—all prayers for our King, Queen, House of Lords, Parliament, etc., of course omitted: in lieu of which, they pray for the President and all existing authorities. Sundry repetitions of the Lord's Prayer, and other passages, were left out; they correct our English, too, substituting the more modern phraseology of those, for the dear old-fashioned them, which our prayer-book uses: as, "spare thou those, O God," instead of "spare thou them, O God, which confess their faults." Wherever the word wealth occurs, too, these zealous purists, connecting that word with no idea but dollars and cents, have replaced it by a term more acceptable to their comprehension—prosperity—therefore they say, "In all time of our prosperity (i.e. wealth), in all time of our tribulation," etc. I wonder how these gentlemen interpret the word commonwealth, or whether, in the course of their reading, they ever met with the word deprived of the final th; and if so, what they imagined it meant.[6] Our prayers were desired for some one putting out to sea; and a very touching supplication to that effect was read, in which I joined with all my heart. The sermon would have been good, if it had been squeezed into half the compass it occupied; it was upon the subject of the late terrible visitations with which God has tried the world, and was sensibly and well delivered, only it had "damnable iteration." The day was like an oven; after church, came home. Mr. ——called, also Mr. ——, the Boston manager, who is longer than any human being I ever saw. Presently after, a visit from "his honour the Recorder," a twaddling old lawyer by the name of——, and a silent young gentleman, his son. They were very droll. The lawyer talked the most; at every half sentence, however, quoting, complimenting, or appealing to "his honour the Recorder," a little, good-tempered, turnippy-looking man, who called me a female; and who, the other assured me, was the