and refinement, arrogant and unhygienic, creators of a society of 'jarring
tumult and universal degradation'. Her asperity can no doubt be largely
attributed to the ludicrous failure of her stay-at-home husband's schemes
for making a fortune through the emporium she went out to set up in Cin
cinnati and the subsequent discomfort of having to keep herself and several
children afloat for a couple of years in an uncongenial country on very
little money. But her Tory prejudices would have ensured her finding little
to praise in the young Republic even if the income from 'Trollope's Bazaar'
had equalled the lavishness of its Moorish-Grecian-Gothic architecture.
Her book made 'Dame Trol lope' the best-hated woman in America^but made
her fortune in England. Dickens joked about it in Pickwick Papers but a
few years later we find him solemnly reproving another hostile English ana-
tomiser of America for dedicating his book to the Tory Premier, Sir Robert
Peel
'your dedication like Mrs. Trollope's (sic) preface seems to
denote a foregone conclusion My notion is that in going
to a New World one must for the time utterly forget, and put
out of sight the Old one and bring none of its customs or
observance into the comparison - or if you do compare remember
how much brutality you may see (if you choose) in the common
streets and public places of London'.
By the time he wrote this, in October 1841, Dickens was preparing to visit
America himself. For four years he had been looking forward to the event
'I shall be glad to hear', he had written to the Philadelphia publisher,
Lea and Blanchard, in July 1838, 'that Nicholas (Nickleby) is in favor
with our American friends (whom I long to see).' A month later he had
expressed his readiness to write for some American journals but not until
he was actually in the States because then, he said, he would be 'more
independent and free, which will be more in keeping.' 'Independent and
free' - that was how he imagined the American nation and it was a vision
that brought a glow to his Radical heart. In 1840 he told C.E. Lester,
a New York journalist who called on him in London, that 'nothing could be
more gratifying to him than to receive demonstrations of regard from
American readers'. 'American praise', Lester reports him as saying, 'is
the best praise in the world for it is sincere' whereas most British reviews
were written 'under the influence of some personal feeling'. It seems that
he was not above teasing his American admirer, however. When Lester apolo
gised for asking so many questions Dickens told him to ask as many as he
pleased, saying, Lester solemnly records, 'as an American it is one of your
inalienable rights to ask questions; and this, I fancy, is the reason why
Yankees are so intelligent1 (the extreme inquisitiveness of New Englanders
was a stock joke in Victorian Britain
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