03.11. The English People - London

Chapter 11 The English People.

-- The Accent -- "I beg pardon" -- Hotel Waiters -- Rosy Cheeks -- Ecclesiastical Titles -- Bunhill Fields -- City Road Chapel These English people are constantly throwing me into brown studies. So let it be however, for it is good to have the thinking faculties in lively exercise. Dickens was much amused at American manners and customs, and puts down the result of his observations in "American Notes," and "Martin Chuzzlewit." He did not seem to realize that the shield had another side, and that the sword he wielded, called national criticism, had a double edge, and, struck up by an American arm, might be made to fall with tremendous force upon the ways of Old England. If we grant that Great Britain, in its laws, customs, manners, and people has reached perfection, then are we all wrong in Columbia. The great novelist measured us by an English standard; but is the measure a right one? The time is coming when we will have given us by some American child of genius a book called "English Notes," and national criticism will be seen to possess a double edged blade, or more properly, the peculiar back action of the boomerang.

Certainly such a writer, however otherwise he may be embarrassed, will never know the embarrassment of lack of material. And yet even such a book would not prove that we as a people are blameless, but the two books together will teach a fact which is daily being impressed upon me more and more as I pass through the land, and that is that the nations are laughing-stocks to one another. France smiles at Germany, to which the land of the Fredericks responds with a guffaw of reciprocal amusement. England lifts its eyebrows at America, to which the States might reply with a smile that could spread into the neighborhood of both ears. I have more than once felt the twitching of my risible muscles in looking at the garb of some Syrian street peddlers in New Orleans. I little thought that the day was coming when my long linen duster would create greater attention and amusement in certain parts of Switzerland where snow abounds and dust is not an affliction. A great fact underlies in this homely illustration.

All I insist upon is that England shall not feel that she has the laugh to herself. If she knew her faults, she would say: Save me from the American laugh that could arise with the thundering roar of a Niagara, and come rebounding upon me from such sounding-boards as the Alleghenies and the Rocky Mountains. And yet I was told in New York that we have there a host of servile imitators of England, and that the younger part of the community push the matter to such an extreme that if they hear that it is raining in London, at once the young men of New York roll up their pants and hoist an umbrella. In addition to features of greater moment many lesser things struck me while in England.

One was the English accent. To obtain it requires first that a man should contract a bad cold in the head, next that there should be a rigidity if not paralysis, of certain throat muscles and vocal chords; then let him labor for chest notes, banish from the face all appearance of animation, and doing these things he will have the appearance and rejoice in the lingual excellence of the subject of Queen Victoria.

Another thing that immediately arrests attention is the unwearying, perpetual, and everlasting expression, "I beg pardon." If you look at an Englishman hard, he says, "I beg pardon."

If you address him, and he does not catch the sense of the speech his invariable reply is, "I beg pardon," with a rising inflection on the pardon. Whether he hears you or not, and no matter what you ask, before the Britisher gives satisfaction, he draws his little verbal scimitar and plunges it through the ear into the brain centers made exquisitely sensitive by many previous stabs. While in England I had my pardon begged, on the average twenty or thirty times a day, until one unfamiliar with the custom would have supposed that I was the most injured and trampled-upon individual in the land.

I was struck with the way that England thrusts forward her servants; and, in the person of the gentry, retires in the background. In nine cases out of ten the coachmen and footmen are finer looking men than the masters they drive, and always better dressed. The custom of the gentleman driving his own servant, which custom in America we are rapidly imitating, adds to the effectiveness of the picture in a most decided manner. If we look farther we find all the hotel waiters arrayed in black broadcloth, with swallow-tail coat, vest cut low to reveal a great expanse of immaculate shirt, with deep Byronic collar. Most of these waiters wear side whiskers, and the last one of them looks in his dignity and gravity as if he were the Prime Minister of England. By long contact with men of the world they actually acquire an ease of manner that is superior to many of the people they wait upon. Besides this, in all countries there are different table customs and proprieties peculiar to each land. These being often unknown to people thoroughly genteel, and who are perfectly at ease under any circumstances at home, give the waiter the advantage of superior knowledge in one direction at least, over the majority of those whom he serves -- an advantage which he feels and doubtless enjoys.

Now see the conclusion that has strangely thrust itself upon me from viewing these things -- viz., that a stern kind of justice, a leveling fate, or a law of compensation, is at work in the servant world. The man is a servant, but he is better dressed than his employer, has easier manners, and, to crown all, is driven out by his master for an airing every evening. The master is so busy managing the horses that he cannot see anything; but the servant sits back and enjoys the scenery and, in fact, all things.

Another thing to which I must call attention is the rosy cheeks of the women of England and Scotland. The fame of the blooming countenance of females in Northern latitudes has reached us of the South by song, poem, and pen of the traveler. In the innocence of my heart I thought that the rosy cheek was a kind of facial adornment that belonged perhaps to a certain nation -- that it was a beauty monopoly, and that the rose on the face blossomed from certain qualities and excellencies beneath the skin. It was therefore with a certain degree of regard that I noticed the facial bloom around me in landing on the shores of the Old World. But I went across the water to investigate and learn in all directions so I turned upon the phenomena before me the eyes of an honest critic and a truth-loving philosopher. Some are genuine, but in a number of instances I saw that the roses are due to the bleak winds that abound in certain latitudes for half, or more than half, the year; the bloom arises often from a chapped s kin and is rather an external application than a beauty developed from within. The ear, crimsoned by a bleak, north wind, is a quiet illustrator; while repeated Boreal smitings on the cheek irritate or affect in some way the veins and skin and leave a lasting scarlet tinge. All this is for the comfort of the pale-faced daughters of the South.

Again, certain ecclesiastical titles provoke thought. A priest in the Church of England is Reverend, a Bishop is Right Reverend, and an Archbishop is Most Reverend. Ponder the titles, and see in what direction do they point. Is it an increasing or decreasing lustre? Is the last expression in the superlative degree, or is it the abbreviation of the word almost? If I am Reverend, and after that become Right Reverend, am I not losing ground? In a word, according to the titles, are we coming out of the big or the little end of the horn? I listened one Sabbath afternoon to one of these ministers of the Established Church intone the service in Westminster Abbey, and if there had been a half-dozen candles burning I would have supposed that I was in a Roman Catholic church. O what a humiliating conception of Christ’s and the Apostle’s manner of conducting religious services. Here is a rising and failing voice, confining itself to two notes, and with a sound that is a compound of a whine and moan, chosen as a vehicle to bring to my heart and understanding the blessed truth of God. Nor is this all; the rising and falling whine-moan was perfectly unintelligible. For all I could tell, it might have been a collection of the veriest nonsense. Would the soul feed on such food? Could it do so? Think of John or Peter or Paul whining away in the pulpit after such a fashion. May the Lord pour out a spirit of common sense upon certain branches of His Church! Rome patterned after pagan worship, the English Church is modeling after Rome, and certain of the American Churches are drawing from the faded design in England, which is itself a copy of a copy of a copy.

I turn to a pleasanter theme. One of my afternoon trips in London was devoted to a visit to Bunhill Fields and City Road Chapel. I think the place is two or three miles north of the present center of London. The Bunhill Fields Cemetery is on the left hand of City Road as you go out, and the chapel is on the right hand, and directly opposite the cemetery. The latter place, which is a large square enclosed by an iron fence, is white with tombstones. They are of a very plain character, and show the effect of the sun and rain and wind of centuries upon them. The grave of Mrs. Susannah Wesley is near the center. It is marked by a plain slab five feet high, while the grave itself is now even with the earth. In addition, a modern walk passes over a fourth of her grave. Near her resting-place is the tomb of Richard Cromwell, and a little farther the vault of John Bunyan. Across the main dividing walk are the tombs of Isaac Watts and Daniel DeFoe. Very willingly I paused by the graves of these three last-named men. Here I was personally indebted to men whom I never saw. Across the long sweep of years and decades they had stirred and delighted me. DeFoe had charmed my childhood with his "Robinson Crusoe," Bunyan had impressed me religiously in my boyhood, and Watts with his lovely and beautiful hymns had enriched my Christian manhood.

City Road Chapel, so familiar in name and history to the Methodist reader, sets back twenty yards or more from the street, with a few trees of moderate size in front. The sexton admitted me into the plain, unpretentious building. The first impression that was strangely made on me as I looked around was that the brethren prayed long prayers here. Did the reader ever see a church that looked that way? If not, he has an experience or sensation awaiting him. My informant told me that the audience is not a large one, although I could see it was a roomy church, seating doubtless, with its spacious gallery, fifteen hundred people.

I was invited to walk up and stand in the round, lofty pulpit, in which Mr. Wesley used to preach, but I declined with thanks. I have not the morbid desire to sit in the chairs or stand in the pulpits of great men. I saw a dozen men sit in Shakespeare’s chair in Stratford-on-Avon. They also dip by thousands in the chair of Walter Scott. Alas for them that genius does not ascend through and from a leather cushion or a piece of polished plank. The contrast presented to the mind at such a time is damaging to one of the parties. I preferred to stand off and view the place where this holy man of God, full of the Holy Ghost, so preached the gospel that the hearers often fell like dead men around him. O that the purity and piety and power that dwelt in him might abide upon us all at this day. In the rear of the chapel stands the tomb of Mr. Wesley. I bent my steps in that direction.

You approach by a narrow yard on the right side of the church. This yard was bedecked with bed and table linen waving in the wind. I fervently wish that the parties who hung out these household banners had been blessed with a certain amount of proper sentiment, and a realization of the fitness of things. Emerging from this canopied side-yard, I came into the rear of the church, which I found to be a square court about thirty or forty yards each way. The place is filled with tombstones. In the center is that of Mr. Wesley, and near him are the plain tombs of Joseph Benson, Adam Clarke and Richard Watson. I lingered here as long as I could, and as I turned away my thought was that these four truly great men have not such sepulchers as I saw at Westminster covering men who had nothing but their titles; but in the morning of the resurrection there will burst forth a glory from these four graves before which the splendor of Westminster, and the magnificence of London itself, will pale into insignificance. God’s time has not yet come, the day of His people is yet to dawn.

Mr. Wesley’s house is nearer the street than the church, and is on your right hand, as you stand facing the chapel. I was shown several pieces of his furniture, and I was struck with the taste of Mr. Wesley, and the richness and genuineness of these articles themselves. The founder of Methodism seemed to desire but few things, but these few he wanted solid and good. He had but two spoons, but they were both of silver. On the inside of the doors of his desk were the pictures of a dozen of the prominent Methodist ministers of his time. He cut them out of magazines and books, and pasted them with his own hand where he could see them. His room was a back room on the second floor. The front room he gave to his mother. Opening into his bedroom is a closet or dressing-room, in which he had a small writing-table, and where doubtless much of his praying was done. His bedroom is decidedly small, being not over ten feet square, if even that large. I remember noticing that the door could not be fully opened if a bed stood in the corner opposite.

Here stood out to my mind one of the innumerable acts of self-denial that marked his life. The large pleasant front room was given first to his mother, and, after her death, turned over to some one else. I felt that here was holy ground, as, with uncovered head, I paused a few moments in the bedroom. Here he read, and prayed, and composed his sermons; here he thought and planned for Methodism; here he rested from his long, exhausting journeys, and here finally he died. It was in this room that, just before his spirit sped its way to heaven, he uttered the memorable words that have gone all over the world. It was a sentence of pure gold, akin to inspiration, and outweighing the globe with all its values: "The best of all is, God is with us."

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