His ideas of English society were very
remarkable. The works of Mr. G. W. M. Reynolds are much favored, it
appears, by the class who believe in Mr. George F. Train's veracity and
eloquence; from these turbid fountains mine honest friend's conceptions
were drawn. I took some trouble to undeceive him, and partially
succeeded, chiefly by insisting upon the fact that--of all living
writers--the ingenious author of the "Mysteries of Everything" was
probably the man least qualified, by personal experience, to discourse
concerning the manners and customs of the upper, or even the educated,
classes. Slowly and reluctantly, the Baltimorean abandoned his cherished
ideal of the British aristocrat--a covert Caligula, with all modern
improvements--varying the monotony of orgies with interludes of murder
and rapine; the instrument of these pleasant vices being always ready in
the shape of a Frankenstein-monster, whose mission it is to tyrannize
perpetually over the guilty lordling or lady whose secret he holds;
doing a steady trade of two assassinations or abductions weekly; and
utterly inviolable by cord, shot, or steel, up to the final blue-fire
_tableau_ of the dreary drama. I believe that my mate is now prepared to
admit, that a certain amount of piety and chastity is not incompatible
with tenure of the highest dignities in the Anglican Church--that a
youth need not necessarily be a savage Sybarite, because he happens to
be heir to a dukedom--that matronly virtue may, with a struggle, be
retained even by a Countess--and that a man may possibly be a kindly
landlord, and even an honest farmer himself (that was the crowning
triumph), though born a belted Earl.
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