offensive social tyranny; and, did we not
remember that humanity is one mass of
inconsistancies and contradictions, it would be difficult
to understand how this social despotism could
be made compatible with the existence of an
amount of political liberty never before equalled
in this world. Until 1861, the American citizen
was wholly and entirely free; and now that the
only pretext for the curtailment of his liberties
has disappeared, he will enter upon, it is to be
hoped, a fresh lease of freedom, as whole and
entire as of yore. How far the social tyranny
spoken of has extended, would be almost
incredible to those who have not resided in
America. " Whatever you do," said an American
to me on the first day of my landing in the
States, "don't live in a boarding-house where
you are treated as one of the family. They'll
worry you to death by wanting to take care of
your morals." To have one's morals taken care
of is a very excellent thing; but, as a rule, you
prefer to place the curatorship thereof in the
hands of your parents and guardians, or of your
spiritual director, or, being of mature age, of
yourself. " Taking care of morals" is apt to
degenerate into petty impertinence and espionage.
One of the most eminent of living sculptors in
New York, told me that for many years he
experienced the greatest difficulty in pursuing
the studies incidental to, and indeed essential to,
his attaining excellence in his profession, owing
to the persistent care taken of his morals by the
lady who officiated as housekeeper in the
chambers where he lived. It must be premised that
these chambers formed part of a building specially
erected for the accommodation of artists, and
with a view to their professional requirements.
Our sculptor had frequent need of the assistance
of female models, and the " Janitress," as the
lady housekeeper was called, had a virtuously
indignant objection to young persons who posed
as Venuses or Hebes, in the costume of the
period, for a dollar an hour. She could only
be induced by the threat of dismissal from the
proprietor of the studio building, to grant admission
to the models at all; and even then she
would await their exit at her lodge gate, and
abuse them as they came down-stairs. Much
more acclimatised to models was the good sister
of William Etty, who used to seek out his
Venuses for him; but a transition state of feeling
was that of the wife of Nollekens, the sculptor,
who, whenever her husband had a professional
sitter, and the day was very cold, used to burst
into the studio with a basin in her hand, crying:
"You nasty, good for nothing hussy, here's
some hot mutton broth for you."

To recapitulate a little. Form-sickness is the
unsatisfied yearning for those broken lines,
irregular forms, and infinite gradations of colour—-
reacting as those conditions of form invariably
do on the manners and characteristics of the
people—which are only to be met with in very
old countries. However expensively and
elegantly dressed a man may be, he is apt to feel
uncomfortable in a bran-new hat, a bran-new
coat and continuations, and bran-new boots
and gloves; and I believe that if he were
compelled to put on a bran-new suit every morning,
he would cut his throat before a month
was over. The sensation of entire novelty is
one inseparable from the outward aspect of
America. You can smell the paint and varnish;
the glue is hardly dry. The reasons for this are
very obvious. American civilisation is an
independent self-reliant entity. It has no
connexions, or ties, or foregatherings with any
predecessors on its own soil. It is not the heir
of long entailed patrimony. It is, like Rodolph
of Hapsburg, the first of its race. It has slain
and taken possession. In Great Britain we
have yet Stonehenge and some cairns and
cromlechs to remind us of the ancient Britons' acts;
but in the settled parts of the United States,
apart from the Indian names of some towns and
rivers, there remains not the remotest vestige
to recal the existence of the former possessors
of the soil. There are yet outlying districts,
millions of acres square, where Red Indians hunt,
and fight, and steal, and scalp; but American
civilisation marches up, kills or deports them
—at all events, entirely "improves" them off
the face of the land. They leave no trace
behind, and the bran-new civilisation starts up
in a night, like a mushroom. Where yesterday
was a wigwam, today is a Doric meeting-
house, also a bank, and a grand pianoforte;
where yesterday the medicine-man wove his
incantations, tomorrow an advertising corn-
cutter opens his shop; and in place of a squaw,
embroidering moccasins, and cudgelled by the
drunken brave her spouse, we have a tight-
laced young lady, with a chignon and a hooped
skirt, taking academical degrees, and talking
shrilly about woman's rights. A few years
since, the trapper and pioneer race formed a
transition stage between the cessation of
barbarism and the advent of civilisation. The
pioneer was a simple-minded man, and so soon
as a clearing grew too civilised for him, he
would shoulder his hatchet and rifle, and move
further out into the wilds. I have heard of one
whose signal for departure was the setting up
of a printing press in his settlement. " Those
darned newspapers," he remarked, " made one's
cattle stray so." But railway extension, and
the organisation in the Atlantic cities, of
enormous caravans of emigrants, are gradually
thinning the ranks of the pioneers, in a few
years, Natty Bumppo, Leatherstocking, the
Deerslayer, the Pathfinder, will be legendary.
Civilisation moves now in block. There is
scarcely any advanced guard. Few skirmishers
are thrown out. The main body swoops down
on the place to be occupied, and civilises it in
one decided charge.

It may be advantageous to compare such a
sudden substitution ot a settled community for
a howling wilderness, with the slow and tentative
growth of our home surroundings. European
civilisation resembles the church of St.
Eustache at Paris, in whose exterior Gothic
niches and pinnacles, Byzantine arches,
Corinthian columns, Composite cornices, and