of starch?' and roared with laughing." A highly-colored description of "a
visit to a great Dissenting stronghold, Marbury Park," followed: "I was
immensely curious to see one of these characteristic national
exhibitions of hysteria, ignorance, superstition, and immorality, called
a 'camp-meeting.' to which the Americans of all classes flock annually
by the thousands, so I quite insisted upon being taken to one, though my
friends would have got out of it if they could. I fancy they were very
ashamed of it; and they had need to be. I will not attempt to describe
it in detail here,--you will hear what I have said of it in my
diary,--but a more glaringly vulgar, intensely American performance you
can't fancy. I have made a number of sketches of the grounds, the tents
and tent-life, with the people bathing and dressing and all that in the
most exposed manner; of the pavilion, where the roaring and ranting is
done; and of the great revivalist who was holding forth when I got
there, and who had got such a red face and seemed so excited that it is
my belief he was _regularly screwed_, though my friends denied it, of
course. With such a preacher, you can 'realize,' as they say, what the
people were like. A regular Derby-day crowd having a religious
saturnalia,--that is what it is. It would not be allowed at home, I am
sure. Disgusting! One can't wonder at the state of society in America
when one sees what their religion is. An unpleasant incident occurred to
me while sketching in the pavilion, that shows what I have often pointed
out to you,--the radicalism and odious impertinence of this people. I
was just putting the finishing-touches to my picture of the Rev. (?)
'Galusha Wickers' (the revivalist: such names as these Americans have!),
when I heard a voice behind me saying, 'Lor! Why, that's splendid!
perfectly splendid! Well, I declare, you've got him to a t. Lemmy see.'
And, if you please, a hand was thrust over my shoulder and the sketch
seized, without so much as a 'By your leave.' Can you fancy a more
unwarrantable, insufferable liberty? But they are all alike over here. I