Naturally Enough, I Did Not Suppose Them
To Be Husband And Wife, And When I Discovered That They Were So,
Expressed A Good Deal Of Surprise At Their Difference Of Titles; To
Which She Replied, That She Did Not Wonder We Americans Were Sometimes
Puzzled Among The Number Of Titles.
She seemed quite interested to
inquire into our manner of living and customs, and how they struck me
as compared with theirs.
The letter of Mrs. Tyler was much talked of,
and some asked me if I supposed Mrs. Tyler really wrote it, expressing
a little civil surprise at the style. I told them that I had heard it
said that it must have been written by some of the gentlemen in the
family, because it was generally understood that Mrs. Tyler was a very
ladylike person. Some said, "It does us no harm to be reminded of our
deficiencies; we need all the responsibility that can be put upon us."
Others said, "It is certain we have many defects;" but Lord John
Campbell said, "There is this difference between our evils and those
of slavery: ours exist contrary to law; those are upheld by law."
I did not get any opportunity of conversing with the Archbishop of
Canterbury, though this is the second time I have been in company with
him. He is a most prepossessing man in his appearance - simple,
courteous, mild, and affable. He was formerly Bishop of Chester, and
is now Primate of all England.
It is some indication of the tendency of things in a country to notice
what kind of men are patronized and promoted to the high places of the
church. Sumner is a man refined, gentle, affable, scholarly,
thoroughly evangelical in sentiment; to render him into American
phraseology, he is in doctrine what we should call a moderate New
School man. He has been a most industrious writer; one of his
principal works is his Commentary on the New Testament, in several
volumes; a work most admirably adapted for popular use, combining
practical devotion with critical accuracy to an uncommon degree. He
has also published a work on the Evidences of Christianity, in which
he sets forth some evidences of the genuineness of the gospel
narrative, which could only have been conceived by a mind of peculiar
delicacy, and which are quite interesting and original. He has also
written a work on Biblical Geology, which is highly spoken of by Sir
Charles Lyell and others. If I may believe accounts that I hear, this
mild and moderate man has shown a most admirable firmness and facility
in guiding the ship of the establishment in some critical and perilous
places of late years. I should add that he is warmly interested in all
the efforts now making for the good of the poor.
Among other persons of distinction, this evening, I noticed Lord and
Lady Palmerston.
A lady asked me this evening what I thought of the beauty of the
ladies of the English aristocracy: she was a Scotch lady, by the by;
so the question was a fair one. I replied, that certainly report had
not exaggerated their charms. Then came a home question - how the
ladies of England compared with the ladies of America. "Now for it,
patriotism," said I to myself; and, invoking to my aid certain fair
saints of my own country, whose faces I distinctly remembered, I
assured her that I had never seen more beautiful women than I had in
America. Grieved was I to be obliged to add, "But your ladies keep
their beauty much later and longer." This fact stares one in the face
in every company; one meets ladies past fifty, glowing, radiant, and
blooming, with a freshness of complexion and fulness of outline
refreshing to contemplate. What can be the reason? Tell us, Muses and
Graces, what can it be? Is it the conservative power of sea fogs and
coal smoke - the same cause that keeps the turf green, and makes the
holly and ivy flourish? How comes it that our married ladies dwindle,
fade, and grow thin - that their noses incline to sharpness, and their
elbows to angularity, just at the time of life when their island
sisters round out into a comfortable and becoming amplitude and
fulness? If it is the fog and the sea coal, why, then, I am afraid we
never shall come up with them. But perhaps there may be other causes
why a country which starts some of the most beautiful girls in the
world produces so few beautiful women. Have not our close-heated stove
rooms something to do with it? Have not the immense amount of hot
biscuits, hot corn cakes, and other compounds got up with the acrid
poison of saleratus, something to do with it? Above all, has not our
climate, with its alternate extremes of heat and cold, a tendency to
induce habits Of in-door indolence? Climate, certainly, has a great
deal to do with it; ours is evidently more trying and more exhausting;
and because it is so, we should not pile upon its back errors of dress
and diet which are avoided by our neighbors. They keep their beauty,
because they keep their health. It has been as remarkable as any thing
to me, since I have been here, that I do not constantly, as at home,
hear one and another spoken of as in miserable health, as very
delicate, &c. Health seems to be the rule, and not the exception. For
my part, I must say, the most favorable omen that I know of for female
beauty in America is, the multiplication of water cure establishments,
where our ladies, if they get nothing else, do gain some ideas as to
the necessity of fresh air, regular exercise, simple diet, and the
laws of hygiene in general.
There is one thing more which goes a long way towards the continued
health of these English ladies, and therefore towards their beauty;
and that is, the quietude and perpetuity of their domestic
institutions.
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