Martin Chuzzlewit
if a great weight had been taken off their minds by the withdrawal of
the other sex; and who made a plentiful use of the spittoons and their
toothpicks.
It was rather barren of interest, to say the truth; and the greater part
of it may be summed up in one word. Dollars. All their cares, hopes,
joys, affections, virtues, and associations, seemed to be melted down
into dollars. Whatever the chance contributions that fell into the slow
cauldron of their talk, they made the gruel thick and slab with dollars.
Men were weighed by their dollars, measures gauged by their dollars;
life was auctioneered, appraised, put up, and knocked down for its
dollars. The next respectable thing to dollars was any venture having
their attainment for its end. The more of that worthless ballast, honour
and fair-dealing, which any man cast overboard from the ship of his Good
Name and Good Intent, the more ample stowage-room he had for dollars.
Make commerce one huge lie and mighty theft. Deface the banner of the
nation for an idle rag; pollute it star by star; and cut out stripe by
stripe as from the arm of a degraded soldier. Do anything for dollars!
What is a flag to THEM!
One who rides at all hazards of limb and life in the chase of a fox,
will prefer to ride recklessly at most times. So it was with these
gentlemen. He was the greatest patriot, in their eyes, who brawled the
loudest, and who cared the least for decency. He was their champion who,
in the brutal fury of his own pursuit, could cast no stigma upon them
for the hot knavery of theirs. Thus, Martin learned in the five minutes’
straggling talk about the stove, that to carry pistols into legislative
assemblies, and swords in sticks, and other such peaceful toys; to seize
opponents by the throat, as dogs or rats might do; to bluster, bully,
and overbear by personal assailment; were glowing deeds. Not thrusts and
stabs at Freedom, striking far deeper into her House of Life than any
sultan’s scimitar could reach; but rare incense on her altars, having a
grateful scent in patriotic nostrils, and curling upward to the seventh
heaven of Fame.
Once or twice, when there was a pause, Martin asked such questions as
naturally occurred to him, being a stranger, about the national poets,
the theatre, literature, and the arts. But the information which these
gentlemen were in a condition to give him on such topics, did not extend
beyond the effusions of such master-spirits of the time as Colonel
Diver, Mr Jefferson Brick, and others; renowned, as it appeared, for
excellence in the achievement of a peculiar style of broadside essay
called ‘a screamer.’
‘We are a busy people, sir,’ said one of the captains, who was from the
West, ‘and have no time for reading mere notions. We don’t mind ‘em
if they come to us in newspapers along with almighty strong stuff of
another sort, but darn your books.’
Here the general, who appeared to grow quite faint at the bare thought
of reading anything which was neither mercantile nor political, and was
not in a newspaper, inquired ‘if any gentleman would drink some?’ Most
of the company, considering this a very choice and seasonable idea,
lounged out, one by one, to the bar-room in the next block. Thence
they probably went to their stores and counting-houses; thence to the
bar-room again, to talk once more of dollars, and enlarge their minds
with the perusal and discussion of screamers; and thence each man to
snore in the bosom of his own family.
‘Which would seem,’ said Martin, pursuing the current of his own
thoughts, ‘to be the principal recreation they enjoy in common.’ With
that, he fell a-musing again on dollars, demagogues, and bar-rooms;
debating within himself whether busy people of this class were really
as busy as they claimed to be, or only had an inaptitude for social and
domestic pleasure.
It was a difficult question to solve; and the mere fact of its being
strongly presented to his mind by all that he had seen and heard, was
not encouraging. He sat down at the deserted board, and becoming
more and more despondent, as he thought of all the uncertainties and
difficulties of his precarious situation, sighed heavily.
Now, there had been at the dinner-table a middle-aged man with a dark
eye and a sunburnt face, who had attracted Martin’s attention by having
something very engaging and honest in the expression of his features;
but of whom he could learn nothing from either of his neighbours, who
seemed to consider him quite beneath their notice. He had taken no part
in the conversation round the stove, nor had he gone forth with the
rest; and now, when he heard Martin sigh for the third or fourth
time, he interposed with some casual remark, as if he desired, without
obtruding himself upon a stranger’s notice, to engage him in cheerful
conversation if he could. His motive was so obvious, and yet so
delicately expressed, that Martin felt really grateful to him, and
showed him so in the manner of his reply.
‘I will not ask you,’ said this gentleman with a smile, as he rose and
moved towards him, ‘how you like my country, for I can quite anticipate
your feeling on that point. But, as I am an American, and consequently
bound to begin with a question, I’ll ask you how you like the colonel?’
‘You are so very frank,’ returned Martin, ‘that I have no hesitation in
saying I don’t like him at all. Though I must add that I am beholden to
him for his civility in bringing me here--and arranging for my stay,
on pretty reasonable terms, by the way,’ he added, remembering that the
colonel had whispered him to that effect, before going out.
‘Not much beholden,’ said the stranger drily. ‘The colonel occasionally
boards packet-ships, I have heard, to glean the latest information
for his journal; and he occasionally brings strangers to board here, I
believe, with a view to the little percentage which attaches to those
good offices; and which the hostess deducts from his weekly bill. I
don’t offend you, I hope?’ he added, seeing that Martin reddened.
‘My dear sir,’ returned Martin, as they shook hands, ‘how is that
possible! to tell you the truth, I--am--’
‘Yes?’ said the gentleman, sitting down beside him.
‘I am rather at a loss, since I must speak plainly,’ said Martin,
getting the better of his hesitation, ‘to know how this colonel escapes
being beaten.’
‘Well! He has been beaten once or twice,’ remarked the gentleman
quietly. ‘He is one of a class of men, in whom our own Franklin, so
long ago as ten years before the close of the last century, foresaw
our danger and disgrace. Perhaps you don’t know that Franklin, in very
severe terms, published his opinion that those who were slandered
by such fellows as this colonel, having no sufficient remedy in the
administration of this country’s laws or in the decent and right-minded
feeling of its people, were justified in retorting on such public
nuisances by means of a stout cudgel?’
‘I was not aware of that,’ said Martin, ‘but I am very glad to know
it, and I think it worthy of his memory; especially’--here he hesitated
again.
‘Go on,’ said the other, smiling as if he knew what stuck in Martin’s
throat.
‘Especially,’ pursued Martin, ‘as I can already understand that it may
have required great courage, even in his time, to write freely on any
question which was not a party one in this very free country.’
‘Some courage, no doubt,’ returned his new friend. ‘Do you think it
would require any to do so, now?’
‘Indeed I think it would; and not a little,’ said Martin.
‘You are right. So very right, that I believe no satirist could breathe
this air. If another Juvenal or Swift could rise up among us to-morrow,
he would be hunted down. If you have any knowledge of our literature,
and can give me the name of any man, American born and bred, who has
anatomized our follies as a people, and not as this or that party; and
who has escaped the foulest and most brutal slander, the most inveterate
hatred and intolerant pursuit; it will be a strange name in my ears,
believe me. In some cases I could name to you, where a native writer
has ventured on the most harmless and good-humoured illustrations of
our vices or defects, it has been found necessary to announce, that in
a second edition the passage has been expunged, or altered, or explained
away, or patched into praise.’
‘And how has this been brought about?’ asked Martin, in dismay.
‘Think of what you have seen and heard to-day, beginning with the
colonel,’ said his friend, ‘and ask yourself. How THEY came about,
is another question. Heaven forbid that they should be samples of the
intelligence and virtue of America, but they come uppermost, and in
great numbers, and too often represent it. Will you walk?’
There was a cordial candour in his manner, and an engaging confidence
that it would not be abused; a manly bearing on his own part, and a
simple reliance on the manly faith of a stranger; which Martin had
never seen before. He linked his arm readily in that of the American
gentleman, and they walked out together.
It was perhaps to men like this, his new companion, that a traveller
of honoured name, who trod those shores now nearly forty years ago, and
woke upon that soil, as many have done since, to blots and stains upon
its high pretensions, which in the brightness of his distant dreams were
lost to view, appealed in these words--
‘Oh, but for such, Columbia’s days were done;
Rank without ripeness, quickened without sun,
Crude at the surface, rotten at the core,
Her fruits would fall before her spring were o’er!’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MARTIN ENLARGES HIS CIRCLE OF AQUAINTANCE; INCREASES HIS STOCK
OF WISDOM; AND HAS AN EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITY OF COMPARING HIS OWN
EXPERIENCES WITH THOSE OF LUMMY NED OF THE LIGHT SALISBURY, AS RELATED
BY HIS FRIEND MR WILLIAM SIMMONS
It was characteristic of Martin, that all this while he had either
forgotten Mark Tapley as completely as if there had been no such person
in existence, or, if for a moment the figure of that gentleman rose
before his mental vision, had dismissed it as something by no means of
a pressing nature, which might be attended to by-and-bye, and could wait
his perfect leisure. But, being now in the streets again, it occurred to
him as just coming within the bare limits of possibility that Mr Tapley
might, in course of time, grow tired of waiting on the threshold of the
Rowdy Journal Office, so he intimated to his new friend, that if they
could conveniently walk in that direction, he would be glad to get this
piece of business off his mind.
‘And speaking of business,’ said Martin, ‘may I ask, in order that I may
not be behind-hand with questions either, whether your occupation holds
you to this city, or like myself, you are a visitor here?’
‘A visitor,’ replied his friend. ‘I was “raised” in the State of
Massachusetts, and reside there still. My home is in a quiet country
town. I am not often in these busy places; and my inclination to visit
them does not increase with our better acquaintance, I assure you.’
‘You have been abroad?’ asked Martin.
‘Oh yes.’
‘And, like most people who travel, have become more than ever attached
to your home and native country,’ said Martin, eyeing him curiously.
‘To my home--yes,’ rejoined his friend. ‘To my native country AS my
home--yes, also.’
‘You imply some reservation,’ said Martin.
‘Well,’ returned his new friend, ‘if you ask me whether I came back here
with a greater relish for my country’s faults; with a greater fondness
for those who claim (at the rate of so many dollars a day) to be her
friends; with a cooler indifference to the growth of principles among
us in respect of public matters and of private dealings between man and