... it is more than petty treason to the Republic, to call a free citizen a servant. The whole class of young women, whose bread depends upon their labour, are taught to believe that the most abject poverty is preferable to domestic service. Hundreds of half-naked girls work in the paper-mills, or in any other manufactory, for less than half the wages they would receive in service; but they think their equality is compromised by the latter, and nothing but the wish to obtain some particular article of finery will ever induce them to submit to it.

Frances Trollope

Categorized in : Thinking Believe Girl

Is it to be imagined ... that women were made for no other purpose than to fabricate sweetmeats and gingerbread, construct shirts, darn stockings, and become mothers of possible presidents? Assuredly not. Should the women of America ever discover what their power might be, and compare it with what it is, much improvement might be hoped for.

Frances Trollope

women mother america

A single word indicative of doubt, that any thing, or every thing, in that country is not the very best in the world, produces an effect which must be seen and felt to be understood. If the citizens of the United States were indeed the devoted patriots they call themselves, they would surely not thus encrust themselves in the hard, dry, stubborn persuasion, that they are the first and best of the human race, that nothing is to be learnt, but what they are able to teach, and that nothing is worth having, which they do not possess.

Frances Trollope

arrogance race country

I heard an Englishman, who had been long resident in America, declare that in following, in meeting, or in overtaking, in the street, on the road, or in the field, at the theatre, the coffee-house, or at home, he had never overheard Americans conversing without the word DOLLAR being pronounced between them. Such unity of purpose ... can ... be found nowhere else, except... in an ant's nest.

Frances Trollope

coffee home america

I very seldom, during my whole stay in the country, heard a sentence elegantly turned, and correctly pronounced from the lips of an American.

Frances Trollope

lips heard country

it is impossible for any mind of common honesty not to be revolted by the contradictions in their principles and practice. They inveigh against the governments of Europe, because, as they say, they favor the powerful and oppress the weak. ... [yet] you will see them with one hand hoisting the cap of liberty, and with the other flogging their slaves. You will see them one hour lecturing their mob on the indefeasible rights of man, and the next driving from their homes the children of the soil, whom they have bound themselves to protect by the most solemn treaties.

Frances Trollope

honesty powerful children

The American spring is by no means so agreeable as the American autumn; both move with faltering step, and slow; but this lingering pace, which is delicious in autumn, is most tormenting in the spring.

Frances Trollope

spring mean moving

The total and universal want of manners, both in males and females, is ... remarkable ... that polish which removes the coarser and rougher parts of our nature is unknown and undreamed of.

Frances Trollope

males female want

Mixed dinner parties of ladies and gentlemenare very rare, which is a great defect in the society; not only as depriving themof the most social and hospitable manner of meeting, but as leading to frequent dinner parties of gentlemen without ladies, which certainly does not conduce to refinement.

Frances Trollope

gentleman party doe

[On New York City:] Were all America like this fair city, and all, no, only a small proportion of its population like the friends we left there, I should say that the land was the fairest in the world.

Frances Trollope

land new-york america

Throughout all ranks of society, from the successful merchant, which is the highest, to the domestic serving man, which is the lowest, they are all too actively employed to read, except at such broken moments as may suffice for a peep at a newspaper. It is for this reason, I presume, that every American newspaper is more or less a magazine.

Frances Trollope

reading successful men

there is less alms-giving in America than in any other Christian country on the face of the globe. It is not in the temper of the people either to give or to receive.

Frances Trollope

christian country america

It is rarely [Americans] dine in society, except in taverns and boarding-houses. Then they eat with the greatest possible rapidity, and in total silence.

Frances Trollope

dine-in silence house

... it was not very unusual at Washington for a lady to take the arm of a gentleman, who was neither her husband, her father, norher brother. This remarkable relaxation of American decorum has been probably introduced by the foreign legations.

Frances Trollope

husband brother father

I have listened to much dull and heavy conversation in America, but rarely to any that I could strictly call silly (if I except the every where privileged class of very young ladies).

Frances Trollope

silly class america

To an American writer, I should think it must be a flattering distinction to escape the admiration of the newspapers.

Frances Trollope

admiration united-states thinking

Whatever may be the talents of the persons who meet together in [American] society, the very shape, form, and arrangement of the meeting is sufficient to paralyze conversation. The women invariably herd together at one part of the room, and the men at the other ... The gentlemen spit, talk of elections and the price of produce, and spit again. The ladies look at each other's dresses till they know every pin by heart.

Frances Trollope

gentleman heart men

I draw from life - but I always pulp my acquaintance before serving them up. You would never recognize a pig in a sausage.

Frances Trollope

acquaintance sausage pigs

All the freedom enjoyed in America, beyond what is enjoyed in England, is enjoyed solely by the disorderly at the expense of the orderly.

Frances Trollope

united-states freedom america

When newspapers are the principal vehicles of the wit and wisdom of a people, the higher graces of composition can hardly be looked for.

Frances Trollope

newspapers grace people

Situated on an island which I think it will one day cover, it rises like Venice from the sea, and like that fairest of cities in the days of her glory, receives into its lap tribute of all the riches of the earth.

Frances Trollope

new-york islands thinking