Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-03-28
AMERICA CRITICISED.
An English View of the Aspects of Life
in the United States.

in the United States.
What is simply the plutocratic spirit
here, says the London World, becomes the
blind devotion to Mammon there. In Eng
land wealth goes for a good deal. In
America Wordsworth's line. 'The
wealthiest man among US is the best is
literally true. In London we are tolera-
bly, fond of display, but the splendor of
Belgravia or Mayfair is completetely
eclpsed by the aggressively ostentatious
prodigality of New York The life of
American towns of any pretensions is in
fected by the most fragrant vices, while it
may present some Of the idiosyncratic
merits of old and new civilizations. Cor
ruptiOn and magnifcence go hand in hand.
Side by side with moral depravity there is
glittering and shameless cynicism, a
boundless profusion and an illimitable
cupidltY. Imagine the mingled horror
and contempt with which the simple, God
fearing Washington would have gazed
upon the group of carpet-baggers, specula-
tors, hbertines, lobbyists, milliOnaires,
who are the chief persOnageSin Ameri-
can society to-day. Washington was the
father of American independence, and in
this sense the father of a great nation,
but he may also be said to have laid the
foundation-stOne OF a vast human hot
house. He could not foresee the vast "a
pidity Of growth which would mark the
stock it contains-the more than tropical
luXuriance of the foliage, the monstrous
dimensions to which seemliness and I'M
seemliness, beauty and deformity, vice
and virtue, would both be carried. Libya,
writes Tacitus, is always producing some
thing new. What Africa was in the days
of the historian, America is now. 1t is
the region of pOrtents and prOdigies, of big
bOOms and gigantic frauds, of ''rings" of
terrific girth, and Of motives and actions
of extraordinary littleness; of incomes
exceeding the dreams of Asiatic pOten-
tates, and of vice and misery unspeaka-
BILE; of mOnstrOus births, two-headed
nightingales, appalling twins. giants, pig
mics, bearded women, and all of the other
denominations which can claim kindred
with humanity.
The polite and travelled American, as
we meet with him in the best society of
London or Paris, is simpering dandy or
an effete buck. He is a collector of artis-
tic gems, of bric-a-5rac, of pictures; he
affects an inordinate love of Venice; he
writes the dainty English of the new 9s-
thetic school; he finds Thackeray and
Dickens too full-flavored to suit his taste !;
and-as the weak-headed academic eX-
quisite, heaVes a sigh of disgust at the
very idea of cOmmOn-rOom port and can
drink only the lightest of Rhenish wine,
largely tempered by ApOllinaris-he pro-
tests feebly that the purity of his taste is
such that he can only tolerate Mr.. Henry
James or Mr.. w. ID. Howells. His mine
ing manner reproduces the inanities and
Alterations of all the countries of which
he has had experience. His twang is his
own; his bearing and presence are a COM
promise between the Paris muscadin and
the London masher. Yet, though he NAV
devote his existence to wandering over
the European world, he is seldom able TO
divest himself of an innate prOvincialism.