Men and Manners in America. By the Author of Cyril Thornton, Etc, Volume 1W. Blackwood, 1833 |
Common terms and phrases
acquirement admiration advantage afford American apophthegm appearance arrival beauty become Berkeley Berkeley better Boston breakfast CALIFORNIA LIBRARY cells certainly character Charleston circumstances coach Colonel Burr colour comfortable confess constitution conversation conviction countrymen course degradation dinner display duty EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND England English enjoy establishment evidently favour federal Federalist feeling gaoler gentleman honour hour houses hustings imagine influence intelligence interest Jefferson JOSEPH BONAPARTE knowledge labour ladies least legislation length less look manner matters ment moral morning never Newhaven object OBSERVATIONS opinions opulence party passed passengers peculiar perhaps person Philadelphia pilgrim fathers political population portion prejudice present principles prison punishment racter regard republican respect rience SCHOOL DISCIPLINE sion society solitary confinement sort streets talent TARIFF taste thing tical tion traveller truth Union Unitarian United UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA whole York
Popular passages
Page 325 - Democracy was sold some years ago at public auction in New Orleans, and purchased by a society of gentlemen who wished to testify by her liberation their admiration of the statesman, who "Dreamt of freedom in a slave's embrace.
Page 233 - The word clever affords a case in point. It has here no connexion with talent, and simply means pleasant or amiable. Thus a good-natured blockhead in the American vernacular is a clever man, and having had this drilled into me, I foolishly imagined that all trouble with regard to this word, at least, was at an end. It was not long, however, before I heard of a gentleman having moved into a clever house, of another succeeding to a clever sum of money, of a third embarking in a clever ship, and making...
Page 320 - ... if ever the tranquillity of this nation is to be disturbed, and its peace jeopardized, by a struggle for power among themselves, it will be upon this very subject of the choice of a president. This is the question that is eventually to test the goodness, and try the strength of the constitution...
Page 119 - ... column, which it would require at least an acre of mahogany to deploy into line. Plate, it is true, does not contribute much to the splendour of the prospect, but there is quite enough for comfort, though not, perhaps, for display. The lady of the mansion is handed in form to her seat, and the entertainment begins. The domestics, black, white, snuff-coloured, and nankeen, are in motion; plates vanish and...
Page 301 - Parliament, but still they only follow out the principles of their less violent neighbours, and eloquently dilate on the justice and propriety of every individual being equally supplied with food and clothing; on the monstrous iniquity of one man riding in his carriage while another walks on foot, and after his drive discussing a bottle of Champagne, while many of his neighbours are shamefully compelled to be content with the pure element. Only equalize property, they say, and neither would drink...
Page 232 - The word does is split into two syllables, and pronounced do-es. Where, for some incomprehensible reason, is converted into whare, there into thare ; and I remember, on mentioning to an acquaintance that I had called on a gentleman of taste in the arts, he asked, "Whether he shew (showed) me his pictures.
Page 25 - The appearance of the table, under such circumstances, was by no means gracious either to the eye or the fancy. It was strewed thickly with the disjecta membra of the entertainment. Here lay fragments of fish, somewhat unpleasantly odoriferous; there, the skeleton of a chicken; on the right a mustard-pot upset, and the cloth, passim, defiled with stains of 'eggs, coffee, gravy, — but I will not go on with the picture.
Page 367 - ... no symptom of improving taste, or increasing elevation of intellect. On the contrary, the fact has been irresistibly forced on my conviction, that they are altogether inferior to those, whose place, in the course of nature, they are soon destined to occupy. Compared with their fathers, I have no hesitation in pronouncing the younger portion of the richer classes to be less liberal, less enlightened, less observant of the proprieties of life, and certainly far less pleasing in manner and deportment.
Page 131 - In the United States one is strucK with the fact, that there exist certain doctrines and opinions which have descended like heirlooms from generation to generation, and seem to form the subject of a sort of national entail, most felicitously contrived to check the natural tendency to intellectual advancement in the inheritors. The sons succeed to these opinions of their father, precisely as they do to his silver salvers, or gold-headed cane; and...
Page 214 - CHARACTER. will hark back so skilfully on the scent, that you are at length fairly hedged in a corner, and are tempted to exclaim, in the words of the most gifted of female poets, — " The devil damn thy question-asking spirit ; For when thou takest a notion by the skirt, Thou, like an English bull-dog, keepest thy hold, And wilt not let it go.