suffer. Of this there can be no doubt; and one
of the causes of the mutual and deep antipathies
which arose from the revolution of 1848,
and the traces of which still remain, lay
perhaps in the forced approachment and artificial
mixture of all classes, in which French
society, where fashion is everything, thought
fit to indulge suddenly and without preparation.
A longer time is needed for the
transformation of manners and habits than of
opinions and principles.

Whenever, in France, people belonging to
different classes find themselves exceptionally
placed side by side under conditions of real
equality, that is to say, in circumstances
unconnected with work, commandment, or business—
they get out of the difficulty very clumsily. The
man of the people, feeling himself constrained,
exaggerates the roughness of his manners, in
order to conceal his embarrassment. The
gentleman tries to do dignity, and frequently does
nothing better than pride. It is not difficult
to guess that if, in the United States, all
social distinctions are habitually confounded
in the practice of a life in common, and if
nobody suffers in consequence of the mixture,
the reason is that distinctive characters are
much less strongly marked there than in
France, and that they disappear beneath a sort
of general level. For this, there are several
causes; in the first place, costume. Is it quite
certain that, for the French themselves, the coat
is not the principal indication of the man to
whom they will offer a chair, as distinguished
from the man whom they will receive standing?
In the United States, these external
signs almost completely disappear in the general
uniformity of the fashion. Wealthy persons
dress very ill, or very simply, if you prefer the
expression. They purchase, in general, ready-
made clothes and shoes, which they wear till
they are worn out, without any change of dress,
and then throw them away, to buy others.
The poor, the artisans, even the labourers
almost all wear the regular black coat and hat.
It is their official costume as American citizens.
They put it on, the moment they can throw off
their working clothes; and the dress which in
France would be considered to belong to the
drawing-room, frequently figures in America,
either complete or incomplete, in the midst of the
most unaristocratic employments. Like habits
prevail amongst the women; they all wear hats,
completely upsetting French ideas of social
propriety.

It will be clear from this, that every assembly
of Americans, although belonging to the most
different conditions, must present to the eye an
aspect of uniformity. If you look deeper,
if you listen to conversation, you are not less
struck with the simple and monotonous character
of the ideas put in circulation, with the
facility afforded to the least cultivated mind for
understanding them and rising to the common
level. The price of cotton or of maize, the internal
affairs of the State (much more frequently
than those of the Federation), discussions
about the personality of the President in
office and of his probable successors, are
almost the invariable theme of American
conversation, whether it take place in the saloon
or the workshop, at the club or in the street, at
the table d'hôte, or the steamer, or in the
railway car. Now, as these simple questions
fill the immeasurable columns of innumerable
journals to satiety and with perpetual repetition,
and as the conscientious study of these
heavy productions is the passion, the daily
bread, of a nation where everybody can read,
and whose almost only amusement is reading,
it follows that everybody has access to the
common fund which feeds the intellectual
movement of society.

The Americans have, therefore, comparatively
weak motives to divide and subdivide themselves
into classes, categories, coteries. Above all,
they are accustomed to live pell-mell, side by
side, in public places, whose analogues in Europe
are separated into boxes and compartments,
enclosed or barricaded. Every one is at his
ease, regardless who may be his neighbour.
The first comer, never mind who, is addressed
as Sir; and a most convenient custom it is.
You are not obliged to hunt, without finding
it, for a proper appellation in each
particular case; for when you doubt whether
you ought to address a person as Monsieur,
and are ignorant of his profession, you are
almost obliged to say, "Eh! l'homme!" "Well,
fellow."

There they were, then, a knot of aristocratic
Frenchmen in the midst of a hundred and fifty
Americans of all possible conditions, ranks, and
trades; wealthy landowners with their wives
and children, parties of young misses taking
care of each other, austere Quaker families,
modest households of artisans, pioneers, miners,
factory people, adventurers and tourists; some
travelling for pleasure, others for business; many
without any precise or determined object, but
rushing forward, in the pursuit of fortune, to
the still virgin tracts of the North and the
West, and leaving to chance, with American
confidence and want of forethought, whether
they should work in mines, clear forests, turn
inn-keepers, merchants, or journalists; or whether
for a few dollars they should purchase an immense
territory, destined one day perhaps to be worth
a kingdom.

And never did they meet, either in France,
England, or the numerous countries they had
visited, with a set of people, somewhat
considerable in number, capable of leading for a
whole week a more calm, decent, and sociable
life, than that led on board the North Star.
"Sociable," however, requires explanation; for
all those people appeared to mix very little
amongst themselves. Everybody lived with his
party, if he had one, or all alone in his corner
(always the same corner), reading his journal
(always the same journal, and probably the same
number). They were neither chatty, nor
communicative, nor inquisitive, nor gay; to be
plain, they had a sad and wearied air. Their