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The Potiphar Papers, essay(s) by George William Curtis |
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VI. Kurz Pacha To The King Of Sennaar, Upon Receiving His Letters Of Recall |
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_ (NOW FIRST TRANSLATED.)
I hear and obey. You said to me, Go, and I went. You now say, come, and I am coming, with the readiness that befits a slave, and the cheerfulness that marks the philosopher. Accustomed from my youth to breathe the scented air of Sennaar saloons, and to lounge in listless idleness with young Sennaar, I am weary of the simple purity of manners that distinguishes this people, and long for the pleasing, if pointless frivolities of your court. Coming, as you commanded, to observe and report the social state of the metropolis of a people who, in the presence of the world, have renounced the feudal organization of society, I have found them, as you anticipated, totally free from the petty ambitions, the bitter resolves, and the hollow pretences, that characterize the society of older states. The people of the first fashion unite the greatest simplicity of character with the utmost variety of intelligence, and the most graceful elegance of manner. Knowing that for an American the only nobility is that of feeling; the only grace, generosity; and the only elegance, simplicity; they have achieved a society which is a blithe Arcadia, illustrating to the world the principles they profess, and making the friend of man rejoice. We, who are reputed savages, might well be astonished and fascinated with the results of civilization, as they are here displayed. The universal courtesy and consideration--the gentle charity, which does not consider the appearance but the substance--the republican independence, which teaches foreign lords and ladies the worthlessness of mere rank, by obviously respecting the character and not the title--the eagerness with which foreign habits are subdued, by the positive nature of American manners--the readiness to assist--the total want of coarse social emulation--the absence of ignorance, prejudice and vulgarity, in the selecter circles--the broad, sweet, catholic welcome to all that is essentially national and characteristic, which sends the young American abroad only that he may return eschewing European habits, and with a confidence in man and his country, chastened by experience--these have most interested and charmed me in the observation of this pleasing people. It is here the pride of every man to bear his part in the universal labor. The young men, instead of sighing for other institutions, and the immunities of rank, prefer to deserve, by earning, their own patents of Nobility. They are industrious, temperate, and frugal, as becomes the youth to whom the destinies of so great a nation, and the hopes of the world, are committed. They are proud to have raised themselves from poverty, and they are never ashamed to confess that they are poor. They acknowledge the equal dignity of all kinds of labor, and do not presume upon any social differences between their baker and themselves. Knowing that luxury enervates a nation, they aim to show in their lives, as in their persons, that simplicity is the finest ornament of dress, as health best decorates the body. They are cheerfully obedient to those who command them, and gentle to those they command. Full of charity, and knowing that if every man has some sore weakness, he has also a human soul latent in him, they trust each man as if that soul might, at any moment, look out of his eyes, and acknowledge with tears, the sympathy that unites them. They show in all this social independence and originality, the shrewd common-sense which we have so often heard ascribed to them. For if, by some fatal error, they should undertake a social rivalry, in kind, with the old world and all its splendid accessories of antiquity, wealth and hereditary refinement, the observer would see, what now is never beheld, foolish parvenus frenzied in the pursuit of an elegance which, in its nature, is inaccessible to them. We should see lavish and unmeaning displays. We should see a gaudy ostentation,--serving only as a magnificent frame to the vanity of the subject. We should see the grave and thoughtful, the witty and accomplished, the men and women whose genius fitted them for society, withdrawing from its saloons, and preferring privacy to a vulgar and profuse publicity. We should see society become a dancing school, and men and women degenerated into dull and dandified boys and girls, content with (pardon me, sable sir, but it would be the truth) "style." We should see, as if in an effete civilization, marriages of convenience. We should hear the heirs, or the holders, of great fortunes, called "gentlemanly," if they were dull, and "a little wild" if they were debauched. We should see parents panting to "marry off" their dear daughters to the richest youths, and the richest youths affecting a "jolly" and "stunning" life,--reputed to know the world because they are licentious, and to have seen life because they have tasted foreign dissipation. We should hear insipidity praised as good-humor, and nonchalance as ease. We should have boorishness accounted manliness, and impudence wit. We should gradually lose faith in man as we associated with men, and soon perceive that the only safety for the city was in its constant recruiting from the simplicity and strength of the country. The sharp common-sense of this people prevents so melancholy a spectacle. In fact, you have only to consider that this society does not remind you of the best characteristics of any other, to judge how unique it is. But, for myself, as milk disagrees with my constitution, and my mind tires of this pastoral sweetness, I am too glad to obey your summons. In my younger days when I loved to press the stops of oaten pipes, and--a plaintive swain--fancied every woman what she seemed, and every man my friend,--I should have hailed the prospect of a life in an Arcadia like this. How gladly I should have climbed its Pisgah-peaks of hope, and have looked off into the Future, flowing with milk and honey. I would grieve (if I could) that my sated appetite refuses more,--that I must lay down my crook and play the shepherd no longer. Yet I know well enough that in the perfumed atmosphere of the circle to which I return, I shall recur often, with more than regret, to the humane, polished, intelligent, and simple society I leave behind me,--shall wonder if Miss Minerva Tattle still prattles kindly among the birds and flowers,--if Mrs. Potiphar still leads, by her innate nobility, and not by the accident of wealth, the swarm of gay, and graceful, and brilliant men and women that surround her. I humbly trust, sable son of midnight, my lord and master, that my present report and summary will be found worthy of that implicit confidence immemorially accorded to diplomatic communications. I could ask for it no other reception. Your slave, KURZ PACHA. _ |
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