1876

Emma is to spend the day with John’s sister, visiting the shops
—or stores, as they call them here. Did they always? Or have I
forgotten? It is plain that I am no longer a New Yorker. But then
this New York is no longer the New York that was.
Restless, the article finished and sealed in its envelope and
addressed to Harper? Monthly, I decided to take Bryant at his
word and pay him a breakfast call. He lives now at 24 West
Sixteenth Street.
Without delight, I entrusted myself to the perpendicular rail-
way. “Fine morning, sir. But near to freezing,” said the operator
who looked to be, at the very least, a commodore in full uniform.

#

In no time at all, Bryant returned, fully clothed and the picture
of, as the British say, rude health. Together we descended to the
drafty downstairs dining room furnished with depressingly “sin-
cere” Eastlake furniture.
We breakfasted alone. Bryant’s wife died ten years ago and “my
daughter ]ulia is out of the city. So I am a bachelor.”
The maid served us hominy with milk, brown bread and but-
ter. I waited for tea, for colfee—in vain.
Bryant was greatly affected by Tweed’s escape from prison.
“Of course he paid his gaolers. They’re all alike, you know.” Who
“they” were he did not specify, but I assume that he meant the
lower orders, the Democrats, the Irish, the enemies of the Repub-
lican Evening Post, which supports the Grant Administration re-
gardless of scandal. The radical crusading spirit is now entirely
dead at the Post. But Bryant is old.
Glumly I chewed brown bread whilst Bryant expressed him-
self at length on the hopeless corruption of New York City until,
bored, I diverted him with an inquiry about his forthcoming
history of the United States.

#

What,” I asked, only because it has been preoccupying me
since my arrival yesterday, “has happened to the American
voice?”
“Voice?” Bigelow was startled by the question; his own is
resonant and clear, like Bryant’s.
“Yes, voice. The way Americans speak.”
“You mean the immigrants? Well, it takes time . . .”
“No, I mean the Americans. Like us. When I lived here, people
spoke like you, like me . . .”
“But you had a Dutch accent, Charlie, which you’ve gone and
lost in Paris!”
I don’t know why that should have made me want to blush, but
it did. In my youth, Dutch-ness was a sort of prickly virtue to us
and an occasion for dull mockery to others.
“Certainly I never . . . we never spoke through our noses. Or
made that curious flat whining sound. One hears it everywhere.
And the women! Is there anything more dreadful than an Ameri-
can woman’s laughter?”
Bigelow was amused. After some thought, he agreed that there
has been a change in the way our countrymen speak. He thinks
it might be the influence of those popular fundamentalist church
groups that go in for “canting”—the word for praying aloud in
a whining nasal voice.
I thought that this might make an interesting article for Har-
per’s, but Bigelow thought not. “No one may criticize American
manners, except at a safe distance like Paris. When do you go
back?”