Note 43 — JOURNAL. (continued 3)

When we arrived in America, we brought letters of introduction to several persons in New York: many were civil enough to call upon us: we were invited out to sundry parties, and were introduced into what is there called the first society. I do not wish to enter into any description of it, but will only say that I was most disagreeably astonished; and had it been my fate to have passed through the country as rapidly as most travellers do, I should have carried away a very unfavourable impression of the best society of New York. Fortunately, however, for me, my visits were repeated, and my stay prolonged; and, in the course of time, I became acquainted with many individuals whose manners and acquirements were of a high order, and from whose intercourse I derived the greatest gratification. But they generally did me the favour to visit me; and I still could not imagine how it happened that I never met them at the parties to which I was invited, and in the circles where I visited. I soon discovered that they formed a society among themselves, where all those qualities which I had looked for among the self-styled best were to be found. When I name Miss Sedgwick, Halleck, Irving, Bryant, Paulding, and some of less fame, but whose acquirements rendered their companionship delightful indeed, amongst whom I felt proud and happy to find several of my own name, it will no longer appear singular that they should feel too well satisfied with the resources of their own society, either to mingle in that of the vulgar fashionables, or seek with avidity the acquaintance of every stranger that arrives in New York. It is not to be wondered at that foreigners have spoken as they have of what is termed fashionable society here, or have condemned, with unqualified censure, the manners and tone prevailing in it. Their condemnations are true and just as regards what they see; nor, perhaps, would they be much inclined to moderate them when they found that persons possessing every quality that can render intercourse between rational creatures desirable were held in light esteem, and neglected, as either bores, blues, or dowdies, by those so infinitely their inferiors in every worthy accomplishment. The same separation, or, if any thing, a still stronger one, subsists in Philadelphia between the self-styled fashionables and the really good society. The distinction there is really of a nature perfectly ludicrous. A friend of mine was describing to me a family whose manners were unexceptionable and whose mental accomplishments were of a high order: upon my expressing some surprise that I had never met with them, my informant replied, "Oh, no, they are not received by the Chestnut Street set." If I were called upon to define that society in New York and Philadelphia which ranks (by right of self-arrogation) as first and best, I should say it is a purely dancing society, where a fiddle is indispensable to keep its members awake; and where their brains and tongues seem, by common consent, to feel that they had much better give up the care of mutual entertainment to the feet of the parties assembled; and they judge well. Now, I beg leave clearly to be understood, there is another, and a far more desirable circle; but it is not the one into which strangers find their way generally. To an Englishman, this fashionable society presents, indeed, a pitiful sample of lofty pretensions without adequate foundation. Here is a constant endeavour to imitate those states of European society which have for their basis the feudal spirit of the early ages, and which are rendered venerable by their rank, powerful by their wealth, and refined, and in some degree respectable, by great and general mental cultivation. Of Boston, I have not spoken. The society there is of an infinitely superior order. A very general degree of information, and a much greater simplicity of manners, render it infinitely more agreeable. But of that hereafter.