From Beacon Hill to the Crystal Palace: The 1851 Travel Diary of a Working-Class Woman

From Beacon Hill to the Crystal Palace

Edited by Karen L. Kilcup

From Beacon Hill to the Crystal Palace The 1851 Travel Diary of a Working-Class Woman by Lorenza Stevens Berbineau

University of Iowa Press

Iowa City

University of Iowa Press, Iowa City 52242 Copyright © 2002 by the University of Iowa Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Design by Ellen McKie http://www.uiowa.edu/~uipress No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. All reasonable steps have been taken to contact copyright holders of material used in this book. The publisher would be pleased to make suitable arrangements with any whom it has not been possible to reach. The publication of this book was generously supported by the University of Iowa Foundation. Printed on acid-free paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Berbineau, Lorenza Stevens. From Beacon Hill to the Crystal Palace: the 1851 travel diary of a working-class woman / by Lorenza Stevens Berbineau; edited by Karen L. Kilcup. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-87745-794-8 (cloth) 1. Europe—Description and travel. 2. Berbineau, Lorenza Stevens—Diaries. 3. Lowell family. 4. Working class women— Massachusetts—Boston—Diaries. 5. Women travelers—Europe— History—19th century. I. Kilcup, Karen L. d919.b47 2002 914.04⬘285— dc21 2001052281 02 03 04 05 06 c 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Acknowledgments

vii

Note on the Diary and Text

ix

Introduction 1 A Working-Class Woman’s View of Europe

The Diary “We are haveing a Pleasent time” 53 The Voyage Out “A Beautifull prospect” 57 Enjoying England “Every body seems happy & independent” 71 To Paris and Beyond “The bells are Chimeing among the mountains” 81 Switzerland and Italy “All the liveing is very good indeed” 95 Germany and Holland “Every body seems happy and gay” 105 Belgium and the Return to Paris “I sat for a long time wr aped up in thoughts” 116 The Return Home Af terword

125

Notes to the Diary Works Cited Index

145

139

129

Acknowledgments

Generous support for this recovery project from various sources has ensured the edition’s completion. I am grateful for an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship at the Massachusetts Historical Society and a Summer Excellence Research Award and Major Faculty Grant from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The Massachusetts Historical Society and its excellent staff offered not only research support but also the intellectual environment that enables such work to flourish. The consulting readers for the University of Iowa Press offered generous readings and excellent suggestions for improving the manuscript. I appreciate the wonderful people at the press: my editors, Holly Carver, who recognized the value of the project and advanced it in the initial stages, and Prasenjit Gupta, who has seen it through the final steps; and my perceptive copyeditor, Jessie Dolch. The initial impetus for the project, however, came from my former colleague at the University of Hull in England, Professor Emeritus P. A. M. Taylor, an exemplary scholar and fine lunch companion, who did the difficult initial work on Berbineau and to whom I appreciatively dedicate this volume. Grateful acknowledgement is made to the Massachusetts Historical Society for permission to publish the diaries and to quote from the Francis Cabot Lowell II Papers and the Lamb Family Papers. Portions of the introduction were published first as “The Domestic Abroad: Cross-Class (Re)Visions of Europe and America,” Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers 16.1 (1999): 22–36. I am grateful to the University of Nebraska Press for granting permission to use this material here. vii

Note on the Diary and Text

Lorenza Berbineau’s diary of her travels in 1851 is part of the Francis Cabot Lowell II Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society. The three volumes (numbers 117–19) form part of Berbineau’s larger work, which extends from volume 120 to volume 128 (1851, 1852, 1853, 1854, 1858, 1866, 1867, 1868, and part of 1869); a portion of volume 120 overlaps with the time period and repeats, in much less discursive form, the information in the travel diary. The volumes are all what Philip Taylor calls “pocket journals” (90), in size approximately six by four inches (volumes 117 and 118) or six by eight (volume 119). Volume 117 is bound in brown calf leather and volume 118, in green embossed leather. The last of the three, with a marbleized cover and leather binding, carries an inscription on the first page: “Lorenza Berbineau [new line] Boston June 1851,” suggesting that Berbineau purchased all of the volumes before her departure. Included inside the cover of the first travel volume is a pressed flower from the garden at Blenheim Palace and another from the “mountains,” with the penciled details illegible. In order to retain the energy and flavor of Berbineau’s diary, I neither altered her spelling nor added punctuation, representing the text in a version as close as possible to Berbineau’s original. She appears to have followed no regular principles of capitalization or punctuation. For example, many proper words are lowercased, and some ordinary words are capitalized; sometimes she uses the same word with and without capital letters. Her capitalization is difficult to distinguish at times, and I made the best guess based on repeated instances of an individual letter. Periods appear infrequently, and the original text runs virtually all the entries together. I followed the author’s dating exactly and in the superscripted form that she nearly always preferred, adding ix

Note on the Diary and Te x t

a few dates or places in brackets where she omitted them but following her form. To make her work more accessible to contemporary readers, I have divided the narrative into sections, each with a brief outline of her itinerary and some noteworthy features. I have also separated daily entries with line spaces. I deleted a very few repeated words because Berbineau herself made this correction when she had time, and I have indicated where the handwriting is obscure or a place name is uncertain with a bracketed question mark; sometimes I include a possible word with the question mark. On a very few occasions I have added a bracketed word where the narrative has a significant gap that might hinder the reader. My goal throughout has been to be as unobtrusive as possible. It is unfeasible to reproduce exactly in printed form a text as variegated and rich as Berbineau’s travel diary, which is included here in its entirety. For an understanding of the full complexity and vigor of Berbineau’s narrative— complete with corrections, blots, and additions—readers should view the original at the Massachusetts Historical Society.

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From Beacon Hill to the Crystal Palace

Introduction A Working-Class Woman’s View of Europe In the antebellum United States, travel was principally a perquisite of wealth and privilege (Dulles 66). Servants sometimes accompanied their families to Europe, but they were characteristically too busy or lacked the education to write about their experiences. Unlike the many nineteenth-century American women writers who became literary laborers by virtue of a reversal of family fortunes, Lorenza Stevens Berbineau was a lifelong member of the working class, occupying the position of household manager for the wealthy Francis Cabot Lowell II family of Beacon Hill in Boston. In July of 1851, Lowell journeyed to Europe with his family, which included his wife and their daughters, eighteen-year-old Mary and fifteen-year-old Georgina, and their fiveyear-old son, Edward Jackson.1 One of the more than thirty thousand Americans who annually traveled abroad by midcentury (Dulles 1, Schriber 13),2 Berbineau accompanied them, staying in grand hotels, caring for her young charge Eddie, and commenting in her travel diary about the people, places, and things she saw in England, France, Switzerland, and Germany before her departure for New England. Clearly writing in haste and with a delightful disregard of orthographic and stylistic conventions, Berbineau offers a discerning perspective that is as appealing and informative to today’s reader as it no doubt was to her fellow domestics in the Lowell household, to whom she read portions of her writing upon her return home to Boston (Taylor 95). We can imagine the excitement among the servants, perhaps, if we consider Berbineau’s managerial role in the household, which included at various times a “coachman, footman, governess, cook . . . and probably three maids (usually with Irish names) in addition to Lorenza herself ” (Taylor 96). She also supervised the frequent visits of outside help. 1

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Hence, her leadership role as what Philip Taylor calls “a trusted veteran” would likely have generated for her reading an atmosphere of anticipation for a memorable event.3 During her visit to Switzerland, Lorenza affirms, “I am neither Painter nor Poet,” yet her narrative offers an American working-class woman’s view of Europe—possibly unique in the period—particularly of such matters as servants and working individuals, Europe’s aesthetic pleasures and oddities, the delights and difficulties of travel, and religious differences. Because prior studies of American women’s travel writing have focused exclusively on middle-class and wealthy travelers—and have often relied principally on published accounts—it has been difficult to assess the genre and its participants in a holistic fashion. While focusing on Berbineau’s narrative in this introduction, then, I will use as a primary touchstone the European travel writing of Harriet Beecher Stowe (Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, 1854). Several reasons suggest this choice: Stowe’s visibility, the contemporaneity of her report with Berbineau’s, their proximity in age (Stowe was forty-three at the time of her trip, Berbineau about forty-five), their frequently common itineraries, their shared identities as New Englanders, the possibility that Stowe’s credentials as a social reformer might make her more alert than others to class hierarchies, and her personal experience with household labor, especially before the success of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.4 Despite such differences as Stowe’s avowed intention to present her trip from a rosy perspective (Stowe, Sunny Memories, 1:iii–iv), these characteristics invite a preliminary discussion of crossclass perspectives in nineteenth-century American women’s travel writing. This introduction pursues this analysis in four (sometimes overlapping) parts: first, a discussion of personal and historical contexts; second, an elaboration of women travelers’ views of traveling itself; third, an account of how European travel influenced their views of America as “home”; and finally, an analysis of how the formal and “aesthetic” features of Berbineau’s work compare with those of Stowe’s narrative and other accounts by affluent and working-class peers. Travel literature represents an especially useful medium in which to explore the permutations of class because “home” is central both to travel writing as a genre and to working-class women’s particular expe2

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rience. For the travel writer, “ ‘home’ and ‘abroad’ are the polarities from which travelers construct meaning” (Schriber 134; see Caesar, Amy Kaplan). In the case of middle-class antebellum women travelers, many of whom cast themselves as helpers in a marriage partnership, the imperative to maintain the norms of domesticity often influenced the content and style of their narratives; at the same time, because of their deviation from these norms by virtue of their movement outside the home, such women suggested (explicitly or implicitly) an increased scope of activity and influence (Schriber 27). For workingclass women, “home” was a more tenuous affair, potentially in flux and not necessarily the haven from worldly care that middle-class ideology imagined it. A woman domestic, responsible for making another woman’s home, sometimes lived with her (employer’s) “family” or occupied pinched rented accommodations either alone or with her own family. A home of one’s own, to revise Virginia Woolf ’s famous phrase, might not be attainable in literal terms or, once gained, might be easily lost. As Janet Zandy points out, “home” also possesses a psychic dimension; not merely a literal place, it is also “an idea: an inner geography where the ache to belong finally quiets, where there is no sense of ‘otherness,’ where there is, at last, a community” (1).5 At the intersection of these two perspectives, the woman traveler and the working-class woman, we find a complicated negotiation of work and leisure, the quotidian and the quirky, and finally, an indirect representation of America itself as “home.” In the case of Berbineau, class and gender form a matrix in which “home” travels; responsibilities and relationships, although possibly altered abroad, do not disappear. In addition, cultural gender norms are often subsumed by expectations for a person of her class, sometimes “ungendering” her, in the sense that her work necessitated transgressing norms for middle-class femininity. Ultimately, “the domestic” is transformed by the perspective of a “domestic” abroad.

Contexts Biographical details for Berbineau are sparse. A devout Congregationalist from Maine, she came to work for the Lowell family in 1830; she 3

Introduct ion

appears to have been employed by them for virtually her entire career, until her death in 1869. In 1842 she married Henri Berbineau, perhaps hoping, like many of her peers, to escape service, but her husband seems to have disappeared.6 Although we know that she occupied a position that we might call household manager, organizing and overseeing other servants and caring for the children (and later, their children), we know only imprecisely how much she was paid.7 We can surmise that like most of her contemporaries she lived in an unheated attic in the Lowell’s Boston house (Taylor 96). She also shared with her peers a close connection, emotional and financial, with her family, which she left behind in Maine; she visited them as regularly as her duties permitted, and, “just as if she had been a European immigrant sending home remittances,” she frequently sent money to her relatives there (Taylor 99).8 In many respects, however, Berbineau’s life and career varied radically from that of her counterparts in other households. The lengthy term of her service with one family was extremely rare. It was not uncommon for servants to stay in a position for only a few weeks or months because of either their dissatisfaction with their wages (and sometimes a better offer elsewhere) or their employers’ excessively high expectations, desire to find a better worker for less money, or unhappiness with the quality of their work (Sutherland 141, Dudden 44– 103). The relationship between the Lowell family and Berbineau was one of unusual trust and affection. Francis Lowell not only supported her long after her useful career was over and her health was failing, he also showed considerable generosity toward her relatives after her death (Taylor 103– 4). Even during the European journey, when she became ill he assured the attendance of a physician and later sent her home early, first class, because of continued concerns about her health. In addition, although Berbineau clearly worked hard, the family provided her with opportunities for enjoyment. Perhaps the most striking evidence of her distinctive status, however, comes from her affectionate diary entries about the family, especially the young Eddie Lowell, as well as her letters to them. As Taylor details, the relationships sketched in the diary were affectionate and continued over a long time (97, 103– 8). When Mary 4

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married a successful physician, Dr. Algernon Coolidge, in 1854, Berbineau occasionally came to help them; for example, Berbineau records her assistance with mounting curtains and caring for an older child on the birth of a new one. Her relationship with Georgina, who remained at home until Berbineau’s death, was also warm and sustained; she shared news with Georgina of her own family’s noteworthy events and paid as much as seven dollars (an enormous amount at the time) for a birthday present of a silver napkin ring in 1866. In addition to supervising most of the household cares for Mrs. Lowell, including hiring new servants, she cared for her employer during extended periods of illness; and shortly after her return home, she signed three 1852 letters to Mrs. Lowell “Aff. [Affectionately] yours.” We can assess the degree of her intimacy with Mrs. Lowell, and her proximity to both Eddie and the rest of the family, from a passage in another letter: Dear little Edie how does he do bess him & kiss him for Enza O I suppose I must not call him baby now. precious one I often look at [h]is picture Daguerreotype & kiss it. I hear you say Silly Enza but I cant help it I have Mr George’s picture to I wish I had one of you all Dear Mary and Nina how do they look I suppose you all will look Italion and french.9 As the passage suggests, she was especially devoted to Eddie, even as he moved from childhood to attending Harvard to eventually become a husband (in 1868) and father. References to him recur throughout the later diary volumes as well as the European travel narratives, including notes about presents that she bought him. As a measure of their intimacy, not only did Berbineau attend Eddie’s wedding, he also “wrote to her while on his honeymoon in New York City” (Taylor 107). In addition to her accounts in the diary, we have letters from Berbineau to various members of the Lowell family, written during her periodic trips to visit family in Maine or when one of the Lowells was away; perhaps even more remarkable than their content, given her position as an employee, is the fact that the family preserved them at all. In what sense, we might ask, is Berbineau a “working-class writer”? What do we mean by “working-class” in this time period? 5

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Such questions provoke a densely textured web of responses. In reflecting on the complexity of “class” as an analytical category, Wai Chee Dimock and Michael T. Gilmore underline their sense “that the boundaries of class are unstable, that the experience of it is uneven, that it is necessary but not sufficient for the constitution of human identities” (2).10 Before considering the literary element of Berbineau’s diary in detail, or the tradition of travel writing in which she participates, it is important to frame the parameters of a discussion about class-inflected narratives. As Paul Lauter insisted we ask many years ago, “what do we mean by ‘working-class literature’? Literature about working-class people, literature by them, or literature addressed to them?” Lauter goes on to problematize each of these questions, ultimately arguing that flexibility in definition is most useful and that the best overall designation for “working-class people” is “those who sell their labor for wages; who create in that labor and have taken from them ‘surplus value,’ to use Marx’s phrase; who have relatively little control over the nature or products of their work; and who are not ‘professionals’ or ‘managers’ ” (Lauter 110, 111; see Olsen).11 Although we can argue that because of her position of relative authority in the Lowell household Berbineau should be called a “professional” or “manager,” we need only to turn to the diary to understand the potential limitations of applying such a definition to her. As readers will see, for example, she is bound by the demands of wage labor even when she has to ignore the urgencies of her own health to do so. This feature of her experience might propel us to highlight the embodied nature of class identity as we try to situate Berbineau. As Rita Felski has observed, much recent work has focused on the importance of the body in theoretical discussions of (working-class) identity but, as she warns, “while [critics] Stallybrass and White focus on the middle-class perception that the lower classes are little more than pure body, some cultural critics seem to endorse this perception as fact” (34–35).12 Berbineau’s example makes apparent both the complicated structure of class relations—for example, the inapplicability of definitions determined principally by reference to industrial work—and the necessity for us to consider the still-persuasive argument of British Marxist critic E. P. Thompson that class is best seen in terms of rela6

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tionships (9–11). Finally, we do well, in a discussion on a particularly fluid social identity, to heed Toni Morrison’s caution against the assumption that “race” refers only to “non-white” writers; that is, we need to be aware that all people have “class,” even if their situation is the normative one of the middle class (xii, 9, 12–13). Concerning the problem of defining working-class writing, Lillian Robinson has insisted that the traditional boundaries of this domain are far too limited and that we need to look beyond “high art” genres such as poetry and the novel to include shorter, more “temporary,” and less formal genres such as letters, diaries, and songs (223–53). Although the diary is often seen as a woman’s form, it can also be regarded as a working-class form by virtue of both its occasional nature and its structural qualities, yet private writing is not inherently working class. More affluent nineteenth-century women writers often chose diary literature as a form of expression because of its putatively “amateur” status; such work did not challenge the dividing line between defeminizing public expression and cultural femininity. For workingclass women like Berbineau, for whom such femininity was a more unstable and tentative possibility, diary writing was a convenient episodic form that permitted interruption and accommodated the variegated texture of her experience. In addition it provided her, like her wealthy contemporaries, with a potential freedom of expression that Stowe and other published travel writers lacked. Not necessarily aspiring to the aesthetic achievement and individual self-articulation that is more commonly considered the domain of the middle- and upperclass intellectual, a woman like Berbineau, while writing herself, also contributes indirectly to a public narrative of nation.13 We should contextualize both Stowe’s and Berbineau’s accounts within the period of intense cultural change in which they were written. Berbineau’s diary, however, explicitly reflects relatively few contemporary occurrences; only by reading between the lines in some places can we suggest their influence. Stowe’s, on the other hand, while it incorporates much personal experience, iterates much more often the perspective of a public person commenting on public matters. In the United States, these events included the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 and the growth of unionist movements in the Lowell mills, 7

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where, following strikes in the 1830s and protests between 1843 and 1848 about long working hours, the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association was formed in 1844, and the Voice of Industry, a radical newspaper, was published between 1845 and 1848. Berbineau arrived in Europe not long after the passage in England of the Ten Hour Bill (1847) and 1848 labor uprisings, both of which provoked heated public debates about conditions for working-class people, especially those in industrial occupations. Additionally, the Irish famines of the late 1840s and early 1850s propelled a large number of individuals to the United States; most of the women who immigrated became servants.14 With the midcentury rise of the middle class and increasing wealth of the upper class, the desire for servants, both as practical household assistance and as a status symbol, mushroomed. In this context, the “servant problem”—finding and retaining “good” servants—was widely discussed, in both England and the United States, eliciting numerous advice books for the employer and the domestic worker. In England in 1851, the largest plurality of working women (37 percent) were domestic servants, whereas across the Atlantic in Boston, 60 percent fell into this category. The largest number worked in private homes rather than, for example, in hotels. Most were young and single, and most disliked their occupation, which, although it often provided a measure of autonomy and financial independence, required separation from family and hard physical work and to many seemed to compromise their sense of pride and even, in some sense, to enslave them. In the “democratic” United States in particular, the status of servants, and their proper relation to their employers, was a fraught region, full of potential friction on both sides (Dudden 94–96, 108–14; Seccombe 32; Dublin, Transforming, 154–56). In understanding Berbineau’s complex situation as a workingclass individual, we need, finally, to contemplate more narrowly her unique position as the employee of Francis Cabot Lowell II. Lowell’s father, of course, was one of the founders of the Lowell textile mills in the city named for him. To counter prospective charges of female immorality and to attract an ample and able population of intelligent but inexpensive women workers from the New England countryside, Lowell and his associates established a system of boardinghouses headed 8

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by respectable matrons, and they fostered an environment of culture and refinement via Lyceum lectures, regular church attendance, and, ultimately, a magazine composed and edited by the “mill girls” themselves, The Lowell Offering, which was published between 1840 and 1845.15 The New England “girls” who moved to work in the factories in the early years were largely literate and often from farming families of modest or even significant means. Their motives for working in the mills ranged from earning money for new clothes to supporting a brother attending college to saving for marriage, and they did not perceive themselves as permanent workers. It was they who organized into unions to protest the long working hours and horrible conditions in the 1830s and 1840s. Preceding the wave of Irish immigrants mounting at midcentury, their sense of class identity was, to say the least, fluid. The Lowell mill girl Lucy Larcom, who began her career in the Offering and who would become one of the most famous literary figures of her time, records the discomfort of many nonworking women about this fluidity. In the first section of her verse narrative An Idyl of Work, one of Larcom’s protagonists muses on the definition of “lady”: “‘Lady.’ Who defines / That word correctly?” We discover that “There’s something more in it than feeding folks / With bread or with ideas.” In contrast to the views of the genteel mill girl protagonists on the subject, a “towndame” laments “that now even factory-girls / Shine with gold watches, and you cannot tell, / Therefore, who are the ladies” (14, 19, 20).16 Given these attitudinal differences that Larcom records, and the increasing pressure by factory owners in the 1830s and 1840s for greater productivity, longer hours, and lower pay, the conflicts of the period between workers and management were inevitable. What needs to be noted here is that Berbineau’s employer, Francis Lowell, was a major shareholder in the corporations that held the mills and determined management policies. Berbineau began her term of employment with the Lowells in October of 1830 (Taylor 90), so she was present during these turbulent times. We have no record of her attitudes toward these events, but we do have, in her diary, an account intimating that her own class perspective shares much with both the earlier generation of independent New England “help” and with her 9

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self-assertive counterparts in the mills. In this complicated cultural, historical, and personal environment, Berbineau’s relatively close and affectionate relation to the Lowells appears even more extraordinary. Reflecting a flexible sense of class and gender identity, her diary records a complex negotiation of femininity, domesticity, and leisure strongly influenced by the perspective of her paradoxical occupation as a “domestic abroad.”

“The whole face of the Country was perfect Emer ald”: Visions of Europe Americans who traveled to Europe in the nineteenth century possessed a variety of motivations (Schriber 19ff., Dulles 104–7, Lockwood 92, Mulvey 6– 8). For some, the journey represented an imaginative as much as actual journey back to the land of their predecessors; for others, it offered the opportunity for recreation and improved health; for some, it provided a means of making professional contacts or enhancing their value to their profession; and for many, it seemed to open the way for education and the acquisition of cultural capital (Guillory, Schriber 16). Antebellum American women traveled for most of these reasons and also as family members, companions, and domestic servants. For Berbineau, although one motivation for her trip was clearly to continue to serve the Lowell family loyally—not to mention her love for the children— others more characteristically affiliated with middle- or upper-class status, such as access to culture and the opportunity for novelty and beauty, figured as strong adjacent desires. She seems to have possessed a kind of double vision, participating in and enjoying the privileges of the wealthy while she documented the responsibilities of her position. Whether this double vision occurred because of her closeness to the family, whether it was a result of her travels, or whether it was prevalent among her fellow servants we can at present only speculate. Before we begin a closer investigation of parallels between Berbineau and Stowe, it is important to identify an attitude that characterizes much of middle-class nineteenth-century American women’s travel writing: sentimentalism. A common feature of nineteenth10

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century writing generally, sentimentalism and its cultural uses have been debated among scholars for many years. Ann Douglas and Jane Tompkins typify the poles of the debate, with the former arguing that sentimentalism reflected a weakening and dilution of American literature and culture, and the latter that sentimentalism was an important discourse that performed significant “cultural work.” Although in the nineteenth century a writer could be simultaneously sentimental and “serious,” Tompkins observes, “twentieth-century critics have taught generations of students to equate popularity with debasement, emotionality with ineffectiveness, religiosity with fakery, domesticity with triviality, and all of these, implicitly, with womanly fakery” (123). Taking sentimentalism “seriously,” more recent accounts have tried to refine the definition of sentimentalism as well as to elaborate on its manifold functions and effects. Although sentimental texts have in common a goal of evoking emotion, one important distinction is between the ultimate ambitions of that goal. Paula Bennett distinguishes between “high” and “low” sentimentalism, where in the former emotion functions as part of an epistemological system of identification, often with the victim of a social ill, aimed at cultural activism and amelioration, and the latter evokes emotion for its own sake (606, n. 2).17 The sentimental becomes important in this discussion because Stowe, like many of her middle-class counterparts, invoked sentiment— especially about motherhood, family, and home (including “America”)—as a way of creating audience identification. She acknowledges this perspective explicitly in the preface to her aptly titled volume, Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands: If there be characters and scenes that seem drawn with too bright a pencil, the reader will consider that, after all, there are many worse sins than a disposition to think and speak well of one’s neighbors. To admire and to love may now and then be tolerated, as a variety, as well as to carp and criticize. . . . The object of publishing these letters is, therefore, to give to those who are true-hearted and honest the same agreeable picture of life and manners which met the writer’s own eyes. She had in view a wide circle of friends throughout her own coun11

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try, between whose hearts and her own there has been an acquaintance and sympathy of years, and who, loving excellence, and feeling the reality of it in themselves, are sincerely pleased to have their sphere of hopefulness and charity enlarged. For such this is written; and if those who are not such begin to read, let them treat the book as a letter not addressed to them, which having opened by mistake, they close and pass to the true owner. (iii–iv) The language (“true-hearted,” “agreeable,” “sympathy”) invokes the sentimental perspective that will follow. We need to acknowledge here the close affiliation between idealizing attitudes that we might call “romantic” and those we might characterize as “sentimental.” Although Stowe’s perspective is admittedly “sunny” and explicitly attuned to audience identification, we see a more complicated attitude expressed by Berbineau, an attitude that arises in part because of the private form of the diary itself and in part, I will argue, as a consequence of her complex status as a working woman making home abroad. A number of common experiences and concerns inform the work of nineteenth-century women travel writers. For the contemporary reader, the difficulties and delights of travel, including the sea voyage, passing through customs, and the quality of conveyances and accommodations (Schriber 75, 18, 19), are perhaps most striking. Both Stowe and Berbineau open their accounts with narratives of the shipboard experience. Although by the 1850s this experience was considerably more refined and comfortable than it had been in the opening decades of the nineteenth century (Dulles 46– 47; Lockwood 32– 42, 145–72; Mulvey 249–50), it could be far from pleasant. Atypically unsentimental, Stowe records in her opening chapter the infiltration of workingclass life, with its odors and bodily fluids, into middle-class experience: “In the first place, it is a melancholy fact, but not the less true, that ship life is not at all fragrant; in short, particularly on a steamer, there is a most mournful combination of grease, steam, onions, and dinners in general, either past, present, or to come, which, floating invisibly in the atmosphere, strongly predisposes to the disgust of existence, which, in half an hour after sailing, begins to come upon you” 12

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(1: 2–3).18 In the next passage, she indicates how middle-class women, finding the reproduction of home and its values more difficult aboard ship, quickly reassert the norms of middle-class femininity and domesticity: “[T]here are young ladies— charming creatures,—who, in about ten minutes, are going to die, and are sure they shall die, and don’t care if they do; whom anxious papas, or brothers, or lovers consign with all speed to those dismal lower regions, where the brisk chambermaid, who has been expecting them, seems to think their agonies and groans a regular part of the play” (1: 4). Mocking the class privilege of “young ladies” who have the leisure to be luxuriously ill, Stowe underscores the competence of the working woman who attends them (Lockwood 157; see Herndl). Berbineau’s position as domestic servant parallels that of the chambermaid, and as at home she was expected (and usually did not question explicitly this expectation) to ignore her own (ostensibly “womanly”) maladies to fulfill her responsibilities to attend to the family. Gendered female by virtue of her caretaking, even maternal, role— especially her care of Eddie—Berbineau was, at times, simultaneously ungendered by her class status.19 She records without comment the Lowell family’s seasickness at the beginning of the voyage: “Mrs Lowell and miss Mary sick Nina & my self not neither Edie” (vol. 117, 9 July). The next day she notes, “Mrs Lowell somewhat sick,” and on the morning of the twelfth seems relieved by her employer’s improvement. Possibly as a result of her work in nursing Mrs. Lowell, or because of the vulnerability of passengers to additional illnesses, she writes on 15 July, “I feel very tired my throat not very well,” and on the eighteenth, “Mrs Lowell little sick althoug she was able to dress her self good Deal of motion through the night I have a bad head ach have not slept much” (vol. 119).20 Many middle-class American women looked forward to traveling because of the freedom from household responsibilities that it entailed (Schriber 38), but for domestics, however much these responsibilities might diminish or alter, they did not disappear.21 Although Berbineau’s diary entries often reflect excitement, the comparative leisure described in middle-class women’s narratives is far less evident, as class collides with gender. At the same time, as we see later in her trip, her class status becomes more indeterminate, as 13

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she seems to identify more with middle-class women than with her working counterparts. A recurrent concern for travelers was the ease or difficulty of transportation, including the quality of the roads and conveyances and the hurdle of customs. At a time when travel in most parts of the United States was difficult at best, many travelers appear to be pleasantly surprised by the comparative comfort of travel in Europe.22 Stowe expounds upon the quality of English trains, coaches, and roads, but she observes that this quality is contingent on wealth and social position: “As to the comforts of the cars, it is to be said, that for the same price you can get far more comfortable riding in America. Their first class cars are beyond all praise, but also beyond all price; their second class are comfortless, cushionless, and uninviting. Agreeably with our theory of democratic equality, we have a general car, not so complete as the one, nor so bare as the other, where all ride together.” Although the U.S. traveler must then “see things that occasionally annoy him,” she concludes by emphasizing “the general comfort, order, and respectability which prevail” (1: 43). Sensitive here to nuances of class distinction, Stowe highlights the hierarchies of comfort, at the same time affirming the superiority of “home”: the “democratic” American system.23 In this sense, she reaffirms her own national identity while constructing and deconstructing a class hierarchy in which she clearly participates from higher ground. Berbineau appears not to have noticed such distinctions because it seems that she traveled at the same level of comfort as the rest of the Lowell family, and so in some sense her identity becomes less available or transparent than that of Stowe. Although she remarks indirectly on the crush of voyagers on the Europa (“every nook and corner is filed”), she adds, “we are haveing a Pleasent time” (vol. 117, 10 July). Like Stowe, she seems impressed with the relative ease of travel. On more than one occasion, she highlights the modernity of the roads: “the sides of the street are paved & the centre is Mackadamized the cross walks are flag stone” (vol. 117, 20 July; see Stowe 2:193). A bit later, in a recurring vein, she describes the elegance of the equipage for the journey from Leamington, a popular spa, to Warwick, a regular tourist destination. What is perhaps most striking about this account in rela14

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tion to Stowe’s is her absence of remark on class difference in conveyance: “we went in a Coach with 4 horses 2 Postilions dress with Red Jackts white wash Leather pants little black Caps . . . the[re] was seats on top of the Carraige most of the Company preferred sitting up there because they had a better view of the Country” (vol. 117, 25 July). Reading for the level of detail in this description enables us to address her class situation; impressed enough to record the apparel of the retinue, Berbineau suggests her distance from such luxury. Simultaneously, her description may echo her interest elsewhere with how workers look and act, as part of an ongoing identification with servants. We have to read between the lines, to Berbineau’s level of detail about carriages generally—and to the number of references that her narrative contains—to glean a perspective that suggests she is both impressed by the elegance of European transportation and attentive to the servants that help enable it. That is, a working-class voice may emerge in the gaps and absences or repetitions and emphases in the narrative, as much in what Berbineau focuses on about wealth as what she says about being a servant or the poverty that she observes.24 Accommodation, and its corollary, the quality of service, was a concern shared especially by many women travelers.25 Stowe describes a French hotel in glowing terms reminiscent of the sentimentalized American home, with a “large, cheerful parlor, looking out into a small flower garden. . . . The sofas and chairs were covered with a light chintz, and the whole air of the apartment shady and cool as a grotto.” What makes this environment most appealing and satisfying, however, is its recuperation of the values of middle-class domesticity and femininity: “A jardinière filled with flowers stood in the centre of the room, and around it a group of living flowers—mother, sisters, and daughters—scarcely less beautiful. In five minutes we were at home” (2 :146). Gender and the transnational value of domesticity bridge the gap between “home” and “abroad” in part because of class similarity.26 As we shall see, however, Stowe’s pleasant vision represents more her own middle-class ideology and a desire to please her readers than a “realistic” portrait of her European counterparts.27 Unlike Stowe and many of her affluent contemporaries, Berbineau is rarely sentimental about accommodation; indeed, because of her 15

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practical responsibilities, she was forced to confront the underside of affluent comfort, which often meant little leisure. Although she describes a Liverpool hotel affirmatively (vol. 117, 20 July), grand accommodations are not necessarily the rule beyond London and Paris, as her account of one Italian hotel suggests: “went to a Hotel to dine large stone building stone step & entrys tile floors no carpet except a bit by the side of the bed the rooms look quite neat little Iron bed steds white Curtains & bed spread white muslin window Curtains the place we stoped in last night was very dirty we arrived late to our destination it is not a very elegant house tile floors no carpet in Edie and my room however we have a clean bed to sleep” (vol. 118, 4 September). Writing as if reporting to colleagues at home, she is even more severely judgmental of accommodations in Germany: “the Germans are not very neat some of the places we stop at are very dirty they generaly have wet sheets on the beds when we arrive and stop for the night we have a fire built in a stove which are generaly in the Chambers” (vol. 119, 2 October). Although all travelers were apt to complain about living quarters, especially in Italy,28 Berbineau’s assessment emerges at least as much from her position as household manager as from the characteristically critical view of her wealthier contemporaries; she expresses a stubborn attention to the tidiness of floors and bedchambers throughout her diary. For Berbineau as for Stowe, “home,” even abroad, requires comfort and cleanliness, but for different reasons. Even grand accommodations remain in the realm of everyday responsibilities; she did not, like Stowe, depict them as representative of American middleclass domesticity, with its investment in a feminine, maternal ideal. The construction of the domestic as her domain has less to do with Berbineau’s identity as a woman and more with her situation as a domestic servant, albeit a relatively privileged one. Stowe reinscribes the norms of domestic femininity and class privilege when she comments on the quality of service on her trip: “Generally speaking, the servants [in England] seem to me quite a superior class to what are employed in that capacity with us. They look very intelligent, are dressed with great neatness, and though their manners are very much more deferential than those of servants in our country, it appears to be a difference arising quite as much from self-respect and a 16

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sense of propriety as from servility” (1:37–38; Dulles 60, Lockwood 137). Even more revealing is her analysis of the relative health and beauty of affluent English women, which she attributes to the reliable servants in England: “They do not, like us, fade their cheeks lying awake nights ruminating the awful question who shall do the washing next week. . . . They are not obliged to choose between washing their own dishes, or having their cut glass, silver, and china left to the mercy of a foreigner, who has never done any thing but field work” (2:22). Expressing her desire for the proper relation of the classes, she makes apparent the necessity of working-class women for the construction of middle-class femininity and domesticity. Berbineau is attuned to the quality of service, but for different reasons and from a less condescending perspective. Praising her European counterparts at one London hotel, Berbineau notes that the Lowells “are now at dinner Edie & my self dine at one Ocloc I take tea at six they are very pleasent people here very good attendants” (vol. 117, 29 July). On her return voyage she praises the stewardess: “as for the Stewardess she is perfection her name is Mary” (vol. 119, 24 November). This difference in perspective is particularly noteworthy in view of the regular friction between servants and employers in the United States about the former’s status, with middle-class women (Stowe among them) increasingly, as the century progressed, seeking distinction from their domestics (Dudden 94; Stowe, House and Home Papers, 126–32). On the surface, Berbineau’s remarks could reflect an identification with her employers’ perspective, but given her indirect criticism of German servants, they suggest more her appreciation of work well done and savoring of brief moments of leisure. Coupled with her willingness to be critical of poor service, these remarks also suggest that unlike Stowe, Berbineau expresses a perspective that is less ideological about class and more fluid and pragmatic; class is a performance as much as an identity. Berbineau’s principal responsibility was the care of Eddie Lowell, and because he became ill when the family arrived in Paris from England, her labor increased proportionately. Her diary entries from 10 to 20 August reflect intense concern for him and her hard work feeding, watching, and preparing medicine: “Edie is quite sick he is very fever17

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ish has not been dress to day I gave him some oil the rest of the family gone out to walk or ride unfortunate for Edie & me” (vol. 117, 11 August). The next day finds Eddie “quite sick rather more comfortable than yesterday.” Again we hear a quiet disappointment tinged with protest in her diary: “I cannot realize I am in Paris I have not been out” (vol. 117, 12 August). Her work continued even though she herself was ill: “not well I have a bad diherea. as soon as it was light I got up took 20 drops of Laudnum” (vol. 117, 11 August).29 Domestic cares diminished only when Eddie’s health improved, at which point they were able to walk and ride around Paris, especially enjoying the Tuileries as Berbineau’s mistress had been doing since the family’s arrival. As her diary repeatedly reveals, being “abroad” did not mean the leisure that it did for such women and for those like Stowe, but rather transformed the meaning and location of “home,” as Berbineau assumes the “domestic” and maternal role of middle-class ideology without its privileges. Significantly, we rarely glimpse explicit complaints about the restrictions that her position imposed; rather, such restrictions seem to enhance her appreciation of the limited freedom and erratic pleasure that she does enjoy. Her selflessness in this context appears less a function of gender and more a consequence of her class position as, once again, she is paradoxically ungendered. This ungendering itself had complex consequences. As Harriet Blodgett observes, “Womanliness in culturally approved terms carries the satisfaction of being needed, of having others dependent upon oneself for nurturance. Nonetheless, such womanliness is also dependency” (Centuries, 159). We could argue that Berbineau enjoyed the benefits of being needed, as a mother would be, but that although she was not dependent on the Lowells as a woman, she remained dependent as a servant. Even when Berbineau returns to the United States several months later, her attachment to the family and especially her love for Eddie remains evident. In December she travels to the family’s house in Waltham in part, we might suspect, to gather some memorabilia: “I fetched in little Edies Deguarotype little dear I went into some of the Chambers I saw little Edies crib in his Mamas chamber I felt sad to know I could not see him & the rest of the family I am childish I acknoledge” (vol. 119, 13 December). This rare moment of self-revelation 18

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not only suggests the maternal element in her role as “domestic”— one that many of her successful and happy cohorts shared (Dudden 153– 54)—but also opens into an implicit recognition of her dependence on her “family” to provide her with an identity. In some sense child care, although it paradoxically prohibited the accomplishment of middleclass femininity, restored to her an experience of womanhood, as Berbineau appears to have had no children of her own.30 It is also important to observe that the only times in which Berbineau’s voice assumes a sentimental tone is when she has the leisure to do so; sentimentality appears to be a luxury for those with time to spare.31 Much of both Berbineau’s and Stowe’s accounts relates to what we might call loosely the aesthetics of travel: the art and culture of Europe, including the Great Exhibition of London, the homes of famous people such as Shakespeare, and grand museums such as the Louvre; the landscape; and popular tourist venues, including Warwick Castle and Blenheim Palace.32 Both writers seem aware of the virtual requirement imposed on U.S. travelers of cultural “improvement” through their travels (Schriber 20). Stowe comments indirectly on this expectation in her description of seeing two paintings of Salvator Rosa’s at Warwick Castle. Finding them “extremely ugly,” she is told that her aesthetic judgment is faulty and that she need only study them for a few months to see their merits. She affirms, “I utterly distrust this process, by which old black pictures are looked into shape . . . and [am] obstinately determined not to believe in any real presence in art which I cannot perceive by my senses” (1: 236). Resisting “self-improvement” that is externally dictated—and, indirectly, the expectations for middleclass femininity—she declares her independence from received aesthetic standards. Although Berbineau too seems strongly invested in self-improvement, perhaps in part because of her strong Congregationalist faith, she could also be participating in the broad cultural expectation that the privileged employer had a personal, moral duty to help her in this project (Dudden 155–92). From this perspective, we need to question the quality of the “leisure” that she enjoys when she is almost always accompanied by Eddie or other family members. If the sources of Berbineau’s interest in self-improvement remain ambiguous, her delighted 19

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responses to the art of Europe are as a whole much more laudatory and less judgmental than those of her famous counterparts, perhaps in part because they reflect welcome moments separate from domestic duties. Her descriptions of the wonders of the Great Exhibition (“It was magnificent”) are largely that— descriptions, with a frequent judgment that the work at hand is “beautiful”: “I saw things from the Unted States handsome lamps mechinery farming emplements . . . from France saw a splended door of Malichite . . . I saw the Horse & [Dragon?] in Bronze . . . I saw several things of Carved Ivory they were made in India I saw a beautiful Sofa made of Deers horn & a Chair made of Iron it was made to resemble the limbs of a tree Just as it grows bark and all on . . . there were great many Beautiful statues” (vol. 117, 31 July). What is particularly interesting about this description is its mingling of “high” and “low” art, or perhaps more accurately, of the purely beautiful with the beautifully functional. Many Americans were ashamed at the pragmatic and initially “meagre” nature of the United States’s contribution to the Great Exhibition, but Berbineau’s enthusiasm suggests a democratic and practical appraisal of the motley assemblage of objects from around the world (Dulles 70–71). Perhaps surprisingly, like Stowe, Berbineau seems acutely aware of the motive for the acquisition of cultural literacy. When she is sick during the family’s return to Paris in November, she observes that “the family are gone to the theatre to night they improve every minute to see all that is to be seen if I had been well I should seen great deal more Oh I must not murmur” (vol. 119, 7 November). In addition to commenting on her lack of opportunity, after a visit to the Louvre she expresses her shortcomings as an observer of art (“I did not examine [one important statue] as much as I should”); she also notes with evident frustration, “I did not see half of the things I ws there nearly three hours” (vol. 119, 9 November). Between her illness, her domestic responsibilities, and her relative lack of education, the opportunities and free time for self-improvement were considerably more limited than those of her employers.33 The ethics of self-improvement were both gendered and classed, in the sense that in the antebellum period, the rationale for many middle- and upper-class women’s expenditure of their husband’s or father’s money on travel was to acquire cultural cap20

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ital that would make them more valuable as representatives of their male counterparts and as mothers (Dulles 28–32, Schriber 18–19). For Berbineau, such emphasis on culture did not increase her worth as a woman, and although aesthetic experiences may have made her more valuable to her employers, they also offered personal pleasure and a source of self-esteem.

“The people seem to enjoy them selves so much”: America Revisited Margaret Fuller pointed out that “the American in Europe, if a thinking mind, can only become more American” (These Sad But Glorious Days, 161). According to Mary Suzanne Schriber, this experience is gendered: “Travel writing is about home in three of its dimensions: home as ideally imagined prior to travel, home as found to be in contrast with other lands, and home as it might be if women were allowed to implement the lessons of travel. Women’s travel accounts write the nation, the United States, in the image of womanly and domestic interests” (134).34 Stowe’s description of an invitation to take tea with a Scottish laboring family reinforces these assertions. The sentimentality that undergirds much of her account translates the family into a portrait of the American domestic ideal, with a “neat, stone cottage,” “a thrifty, rosy-cheeked woman,” and “a neat, clean kitchen.” In contrast to the realities for many workers in England and the United States, both her host and hostess are depicted in robust good health. When asked about their class position, they proudly assert their difference from the slaves of America. Stowe’s conclusion about this encounter is that, although the working class are paid “much less” than their U.S. counterparts, they are living a life of “comfort and respectability.” The closing account of the shared meal situates the working class within the norms of middle-class femininity and domesticity, passing quickly over the real questions of wages and hours that she discusses briefly with them to describe the food and arriving finally at an explicit affirmation of the connection between “Americans and Scotchmen” (1:147– 49). Once again, Stowe (re)constructs experience to fit her own (and her readers’) desires. 21

Introduct ion

As Fuller’s observation suggests, European travel often renders “thoughtful” Americans both more self-conscious about their identity and more strongly nationalistic. In a period of acute national selfawareness, intensified by European criticisms of the inconsistencies of slavery in a “democratic” country, American travelers might have felt isolated and even embattled abroad. Moreover, at the same time that they went to Europe to invest in its putatively superior cultural history, they often brought with them a sense of pride in the achievements of their home country.35 Like Stowe’s, Berbineau’s account indicates that women write nation from the perspective of class as well as gender. Shortly after the family’s arrival in London, she notes with a tinge of homesickness the visit of a passenger whom she met on the voyage: “Mary Guterson called to see me to day I was glad to see her I like to see American faces” (vol. 117, 27 July).36 Gender and class converge in a more whimsical report—perhaps reflecting middle-class norms for women of propriety and modesty—that may be implicitly critical of “home,” as she affirms, “the people seem to enjoy them selves so much they dont medle with their Neigbours Every body minds there own buisnes the woman go with out Bonets they live out of doors the French are a very healthy looking people after working through the day they enjoy themselves in the evening” (vol. 118, 15 August). Indirectly commenting on her own situation as a domestic abroad, she seems quietly envious of this leisure and the good health—an important concern for hard-worked servants—that appears to accompany it.37 Although we might be tempted to assert that like Stowe, Berbineau sentimentalizes and idealizes her European counterparts, her account seems more critical and more subtly probing. A description of riding down the Champs-Élysées concludes with an immediate observation about the people: “I dont think most of the people work very hard the[y] seem easy and contented they are not like the Americans in many things an American could not live as some of the french do very small apartments I mean among the poorer class of people” (vol. 118, 19 August). It is difficult to read the tone and content of this passage. Is Berbineau suggesting admiration for the French and a corresponding scorn for Americans in similar situations— especially their concern for material possessions? Or is she representing herself as occupying an 22

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intermediate level on a class hierarchy in which “poorer people” have inadequate homes? “Hard work,” certainly an “American” value from at least the time of Franklin, appears less meritorious from a European standpoint; on the other hand, she suggests Americans’ (rightful?) unwillingness to settle for inadequate accommodation. Poverty and hard work recur as important narrative threads.38 The Swiss appear “to be a very Industrious people” (vol. 118, 30 August) and the Dutch are “very neat they are very independent the poorest of them look clean” (vol. 119, 5 October), in implicit contrast, as the descriptions cited above indicate, to the Germans and Italians. In all of these observations, her class identification is difficult to locate, suggesting that her understanding of class identity may be more fluid, related to context rather than embodying a consistent perspective. Sentimentality, however, seems to be a mode more readily available to Stowe than to Berbineau; the latter’s more detached and restrained descriptions, although they too iterate American values, are less likely to impose norms of middle-class domesticity and femininity. Berbineau does, however, import American norms concerning religious observance. When faced with the prospect of people working and playing on Sundays in France—a feature that Stowe echoes—she is both more severe and more nationalist: “the women were at work in the fields cutting grain they look very poor nothwithstanding it was sabbath day th[e]y were at work or at play give me my own Country for the quiet sabbath where man & beast can rest and think of their Maker” (vol. 118, 10 August). Her remarks complicate the notion of leisure and may result in part from her observant Congregationalism: “rest,” not “play,” is the appropriate activity on the sabbath for both men and women. Comments about Sunday labor may also emerge from her understanding of the customary duties of American workers, domestic and otherwise. Although U.S. factory workers might have labored for as many as seventy-two hours a week, and live-in domestics were virtually on call, they expected to have Sundays for themselves.39 It is also possible that Berbineau is responding indirectly to the continuing debate, both in the United States and abroad, about the number of hours required of various workers and that her remarks revisit home by affirming the superiority of American customs. In contrast to Stowe, 23

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who more typically considers working women in an abstract context of labor law or reform 40 (or, as we have seen, focuses on individuals in their idealized and often rural homes), Berbineau repeatedly describes individuals working. Her comments on Sunday labor throughout Europe are ultimately silenced, however, by a conversation with an unnamed German: “I was talking with a person about working on the sabbath he said the people that are poor if they dont work they cant eat they earn so small a sum they were Obliged to work” (vol. 119, 28 September). This conversation throws the idea of “home”—America—into sharp relief for Berbineau; European workers are forced to choose between religious observance and food. Her subsequent silence about the practice of Sunday labor suggests empathy if not agreement with the workers she observes. In sharp contrast to Stowe’s recourse to sentimentality and domesticity in her account of the Scottish family, Berbineau’s narrative suggests the realities of European laboring life as it indicates her own relative privilege as a working woman who can afford to “rest and think of [her] Maker.” Moreover, it indicates her ability to modify even profoundly held beliefs in the face of concrete experience; her stern ideology about Sunday work is undone by the reality of poverty. For both Stowe and Berbineau, work takes on a more critical and ambivalent dimension when the worker is female, as both seem to affirm the superiority of women’s position in the United States. Unable to normalize certain women within the ideology of domestic femininity, Stowe feels singularly uncomfortable in an alpine village that possesses none of the elegance and comfort of the French hotel cited above: “[Y]ou have no idea what a disagreeable, unsavory concern one of these villages is”; the houses are not “much better than the log barns in one of our Western states,” and they are inhabited by “coarse, sunburnt women, with their necks enlarged by goitre” (2:260). Stowe’s disgust melds gender with class; in their poverty, these women are degenerate and deformed, in contrast to the women in France, who represent, on several levels, “the comforts of home.” 41 In France one of Berbineau’s first observations, coupled with a description of the landscape, is “the women were at work in the fields cutting grain they look very poor” (vol. 118, 10 August). She cannot see the beautiful in splen24

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did isolation from the material circumstances that engender it; the recurrence of such accounts suggests at least partial sympathy for the working poor. After leaving France, Berbineau again couples a description of the sublime (Mont Blanc) with the real, as she notes that the houses nearby “looked very poor many houses were built of stone and clay thatched roofs not any windows sometimes little holes in the side of the house.” This poverty seems to be reinforced by a scene of working women: “[T]he women were at work as hard as the men their skin was a perfect brown I dont think the women of America could work so” (vol. 118, 22 August). Given Berbineau’s rural Maine roots, it seems unlikely that she would be surprised or dismayed to see women involved with hard agricultural work, indoors or out. Here again, the real seems to subvert the ideal invoked by Mont Blanc. Significantly, idealized descriptions of the landscape were an important feature of much middle-class women’s travel writing, including Stowe’s, and in some sense a marker of both their cultivation and leisure to observe the beautiful, just as gardening at home was being fostered as a signifier of affluence (Leighton 83–100; Mulvey 15–16, 126). Forming a working woman’s counterpoint, Berbineau’s focus on the status of the people in the landscape rather than on the landscape itself highlights the middleclass and sentimental inflection of most women travelers’ writing. As Stowe’s account suggests, however, middle-class women were also concerned with poverty. Berbineau’s description parallels (if it transforms) those by other middle-class and wealthy counterparts, including a member of Berbineau’s traveling party, unpublished diarist Georgina Lowell. With ostensibly much less sympathy than Berbineau, the sixteen-year-old Lowell depicts a walk in one Italian village: “[T]he houses + inhabitants, as in all Italian villages, are dirty, and the beggars dreadfully importunate” (Lowell Papers, vol. 52, 29 February 1852).42 Another village provokes the description as “merely a few wretched houses, inhabited by the dirtiest + most importunate of beggars”; as Lowell continues, we learn that the family “enjoy[ed] the cold air, + agreeable conversation of the beggars” (1 March 1852). The waitress at an Italian hotel is “attentive, good natured + talkative” (3 March 1852).43 Diarist Katherine Bigelow Lawrence, who married into the Lowell family, represents a more sympathetic perspective than Lowell, 25

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for her 1851 trip to Italy is described in terms that are both ideal and dystopian. In driving through Naples, Lawrence describes “filthy and narrow and very damp” streets “filled with the most wretched looking people.” She reflects: “[I]t is a wonder that any one can live and I had never conceived of such misery. The Chiaja is the only part of Naples fit to live in, and after having seen such wretchedness it poisons one’s enjoyment of anything here” (1–2 January 1851). Here we see a wealthy young woman who is intensely moved by the misery that she sees.44 Despite its potential sympathy, however, Berbineau’s description records a simultaneous detachment, hinting at a gendered division of labor that may reflect middle-class expectations about women working. For example, we wonder, as we read, which “women” she refers to when she mentions “the women of America.” As is often true, her tone and stance are difficult to interpret; does she imply that American women are superior or inferior? The portrait of the women’s skin as “a perfect brown” suggests the former: In Europe, women have become like men (or worse, associated with animals [see vol. 118, 11 and 19 September]). Although Berbineau is herself sometimes ungendered by virtue of her work, she does not acknowledge that she shares this feature with these working women, perhaps in part because her work is “domestic,” that is, “womanly.” Paralleling Stowe’s description, this account also appears to evoke the stereotype of women as beasts of burden that was frequently applied to Native American women in the United States,45 as well as hinting at an affiliation between women and slaves at a time when the Fugitive Slave Law was very much on the minds of Americans, and early feminist activists such as Margaret Fuller were drawing precisely this comparison. Distancing herself (and by extension her American counterparts) rather than empathizing, Berbineau seems to participate in the “othering” of the foreign woman here as surely as her middle- and upper-class American counterparts.46 Finally, she concludes that England and America are more alike than not, and she notes with apparent relief in Lucerne that “there are several English familys here with their Maids I find very agreable company” (vol. 118, 21 September). Although Berbineau resituates herself in the company of domestics here, she seems to locate them (and herself ) on a much higher social scale than the brown-skinned rural work26

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ers, in perhaps the same manner that her counterparts in the Lowell mills of the 1840s and 1850s situated themselves in relation to the Irish workers coming to dominate the workplace. This perspective may be inflected by the understanding of native-born servants in the United States of their essential equality with their “betters.” Employers, in fact, often remarked with dismay about their domestics’ independent and equal self-concept; many, especially earlier in the nineteenth century when servants were more often considered “help,” worked because they chose to do so (Dudden 5, 12– 43). Berbineau’s indeterminate self-positioning emerges perhaps most prominently in her entries detailing the voyage home to Boston. She expresses recurring maternal thoughts about Eddie (“there was a french Ladie & Gentleman & a little Girl who were comeing to America they could not speak English the little girls was a little chatterbox she made me think so much of dear little Edie she played with her dol” [vol. 119, 19 November]). She also reflects on the comfort of her accommodations (19 November) and the excellence of the service on board: “[T]he people are all very pleasent & kind particularly the Stewardis” (21 November); “as for the Stewardess she is perfection her name is Mary” (24 November). As before, we can interpret such reflections from a dual perspective, for she could be echoing her middleclass counterparts’ concern with the quality of service, or she could be expressing appreciation for fellow workers. Despite the fact that she replicates her role as family attendant by helping seasick women and their children, she appears to interact with the other passengers in the first-class cabin in a relatively egalitarian manner. On the other hand, she remains at times self-effacing, as when a Mrs. Sellers importunes her to leave the Lowells to work for her: “I told her she would not get along very well with such a poor creature as I was she said she should not require much from me” (23 November). We might construe her account of the ladies’ appearance in a similarly bifurcated manner; either she catalogs the elegance (or lack of it) of women above her in station or, in a manner more characteristic of her affluent counterparts, gives gossipy record of her cabinmates. One repeated phrase, however, lends weight to the former interpretation. Describing a “Madam Chanceril” who is “as lively as a cricket . . . a 27

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nice old Lady,” she concludes, “one would be struck with her appearance at once & very much of a Lady.” She describes the wife of Hungarian leader Louis Kossuth in similar terms, observing that although she is “quite a plain looking woman she may be a very refined Lady” (vol. 119, 24 November). Berbineau repeats the phrase yet again when depicting the “Countess of Landsdale.” In contrast to her “mill girl” counterpart Lucy Larcom, who deconstructs such distinctions based on appearances, Berbineau here appears to accept normative class hierarchies. A final measure of her interstitial class position and fluid subjectivity surfaces in her tour of the ship: “I have been all over the Ship to day with Mr Greenfield the Steward the ship is very large the second class Cabin is very good nice state rooms.” She also records her approbation of the kitchen facilities: “I went into the Cook room it has a very large range in & a nice large oven they bake all their bread on board it was very nice bread I went into the pastery room w[h]ere they make pies and cake all sorts of Good things” (vol. 119, 3 December). Such comments intimate as much professional interest as the detached perspective of the middle-class woman tourist surveying the ship’s features. Viewed in relation to both Stowe and her Lowell contemporary Larcom, Berbineau teaches us finally that class is configured by a complex arrangement of perspective, place, time, and relationships. It is performed as much as it is inhabited, whether or not one is a domestic “at home” or, more ambiguously, is a woman traveler in the first-class cabin.

Word “Painter”: Writing Berbineau Some observations about the material and literary properties of the travel diary provide us with further insight into Berbineau’s experience and her situation as a working-class American woman abroad. A series of small bound volumes, they contain dated entries from various locations.47 Although Berbineau also kept a diary at home, these volumes are far less sustained or evaluative than the travel diary, perhaps because she had more work or because everyday life seemed less worth recording. The abbreviated character of the Boston entries may also 28

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have to do with their context—principally within “day-books,” organized under days of the week, with a standard space allotted for each. As Molly McCarthy’s work on such pocket diaries indicates, this system would have discouraged (although not necessarily prevented) the more discursive entries that we see in the travel diary, where Berbineau supplied the dates herself. In the latter, although class status and work form significant narrative themes, style and structure, as much as content, may provide the markers for Berbineau’s class identity. The most striking feature of the European texts is the sense of great haste they impart, as if (from one angle) Berbineau fears forgetting something or not being able to encompass all of her experience in the small volumes; or as if (from another perspective) she seeks to recapture an intensely visual experience for her imagined reader, becoming the word “Painter” that she claimed she could not be.48 Some of the indications of this haste include her willingness to truncate or omit words, especially if they fall in the crack of the binding; to pass quickly over words that she has difficulty spelling or to spell them in any way she can in order to allow her narrative to progress (substituting “Dr. Bertoe” for the later, corrected, “Dr. Berteau”); to omit virtually all periods so that sentences rush together; and to pile details one upon another with little or no commentary (as we saw in the description of the Great Exhibition). Elizabeth Hampsten argues that in working-class women’s diaries, such accretions of detail “take on the force that, in public literature, would fall to metaphor” (21) and that the intensely concrete diction of such diaries, “literal, immediate, [with] the grammar scarcely subordinated,” represents “a habit of language that finds much reflective generalization very difficult” (20). As an important corollary to this haste, however, we see Berbineau’s unmistakable self-awareness as a writer. Women diarists sometimes “lavished upon writing the same care for detail and pleasure in design we see and hear of in dressmaking, embroidery, quilting, darning and mending, baking,” and many other creative domestic endeavors (Hampsten 80). Again, Berbineau’s material text offers clues: Despite words misspelled or left out, she occasionally had time to reread her narrative and revise it for spelling and content, or she revised as she wrote. In describing the passing of Queen Victoria’s carriage, she ob29

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serves that “the Queens Carriage came first it was Elegant I cant describe the shape” (vol. 118, 8 August). In the manuscript, “Elegant” is preceded by a crossed-out word, “elegancy.” Berbineau also marks her self-consciousness by issuing a disclaimer or apology (“I cant describe”). Later, in Paris, she corrects several spelling and grammatical errors in one diary entry; for example, she describes the ChampsÉlysées (with several different spellings) as follows: “I have Just been out to ride with Mrs Lowell we rode by the Champs Elissa it was lighted up Beautifuly with different shaped lights some were in the shape of an arch made from very small lights” (vol. 118, 17 August). “Were” occupies a place above the line in which “was” is crossed out. Also in the day’s entry, she first writes “opesite” and later substitutes “opposite.” 49 That she had some education is apparent from her approving comments on the library of the ship that carried her back to New England (vol. 119, 26 November; see Taylor 103). Indicating a self-awareness that suggests both a desire for precision and the possibility of a larger audience for her diary, these textual features offer important evidence of Berbineau’s writerly intentions. This attitude of self-improvement was, as I have suggested, part of the broader initial motivation for many European travelers to go abroad, a particular rationale for women travelers, and a general directive for nineteenthcentury individuals. In some sense, keeping the diary itself evidences a motive for self-improvement (McCarthy 285– 86; Blodgett, Centuries, 65, 76, 78). Every diary writer must imagine some audience, even if that audience is only the self. In 1890 worker Emily French, discussed in more detail below, anticipates reperusing her diary: “I must rise though I am so sleepy, this abused little Diary I shall love to read in the future” (Lecompte 55). Although diaries have been frequently assumed to be purely personal documents, especially in their earliest incarnations, “there is no such thing as a totally private audience” (Kagle 5); moreover, the purpose of a diary can change over time (Lensink, “Expanding the Boundaries,” 47). As a working-class woman travel diarist, Berbineau participates in at least four different literary traditions, and her situation vis-à-vis audience is a complex one that we can glean only indirectly. Berbineau shared some common characteristics and motives 30

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with other diarists and autobiographers whose work was intended for a more public audience—such as to record her experience for later reminiscence and sharing with her fellow servants, perhaps acting in some sense as a preserver of family or community history (Culley, A Day at a Time, 3– 4; Friedman 38; Blodgett, Centuries, 68–70). Nevertheless, diarists might imagine their audiences as residing anywhere on a continuum from public to private, including a mixture of the two (see McCarthy 287–92, Hampsten viii). Lynn Bloom hypothesizes that truly private diaries are limited in purpose, scope, or style—“so terse they seem coded”—and are relatively homogeneous in form and typically un-self-reflective; they provide unselfconscious, factual details about contemporary life uncontextualized in a broader social or historical framework (25–27). In contrast, “public private diaries” (Bloom 28) are generally broader in scope, more expansive in perspective, more variable and even experimental in form and structure, more fully contextualized, more explicitly self-conscious, and more likely to be revised (28–32).50 Berbineau’s diary, with its relatively wide scope and revised content, but with omission of contextual details, for example, seems to fall somewhere between the private and public diary. Nevertheless, “even in diaries intended as private, women are wary of the outside eye” because they are “trained to believe that they must always create a good impression on others” (Blodgett, Centuries, 59). We may see the effects of this attitude in Berbineau’s occasional self-admonition that she should not complain about being ill and unable to participate in family activities, as well as in her suppression of complaints, so that some entries merely note without commentary that she has a headache. Such self-censorship must have been at least as complicated for a working woman as for her middle-class female counterparts, many of whom enjoyed the privilege of complaining, as Stowe so wittily underscores. The relatively private or public stance of a diarist clearly impinges on such matters as theme, emphasis, and tone (Blodgett, Centuries, 13–14). As my earlier remarks only begin to outline, however, publication too imposed a certain set of constraints upon writers, constraints that varied by gender and by historical moment. I have suggested that like her upper-class contemporaries writing in the diary form—and 31

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like women such as Emily Dickinson, who wrote in “high art” forms privately—Berbineau possessed a relative freedom to express herself that Stowe and other published travel writers lacked. But her willingness to avail herself of it is ambiguous at best, demanding an active reader to fill in gaps. All diaries to some degree “oblige the reader to stay imaginatively alive, to fill in around the mere framework offered” (Blodgett, Centuries, 8). The understanding of audience in Berbineau emerges via implication, through her use of the apology and of the second person. Both of these features construct Berbineau’s diary entries as created rather than as purely “natural” and “realistic” descriptions of “actual” events, while they propel the “domestic” writer beyond her culturally limited role. A commonality of much published travel writing in its situation as a marginalized genre, as well as of women’s writing more generally, is the apology or disclaimer, which invokes the fundamentally literary nature of the writer’s enterprise even as it calls into question the narrative’s aesthetic value.51 Stowe participates in this convention with regularity in Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, from the opening preface explaining her intention to frame her travels in affirmative rather than critical ways, to her explicit intertextuality with other travel writers and with classic “literature,” to specific meditations on “literature” itself. On reviewing an “old, original edition” of poems, she reflects, “Our American literature is unfortunate in this respect—that our nation never had any childhood, our day never had any dawn; so we have very little traditionary lore to work over.” This apologetic reflection is heavily mediated and interrogated, however, by her potentially ironic assertion of the poems that “I must confess I never read them” (1:184). Intimating a “domestic” perspective, Stowe’s account represents an unusually intimate, chatty, and often humorous narrative of her adventures. This attitude emerges in part from the structure of Sunny Memories, which includes letters home to various family members, snippets of poems, and accounts of the political meetings that the writer attended. Nevertheless, because of many passages similar to this one on the state of American literature and the text’s regular allusions to other authors, it remains a fundamentally literary enterprise meant for public consumption. 32

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Given these motives it seems initially surprising that Stowe’s disclaimers parallel some offered by Berbineau. Traveling in the area of Geneva, Stowe looks out the window of her hotel and wonders, “Now, would it be possible to give to one that had not seen it an idea of how this looks? Let me try if words can paint it” (2:206). Writing with similar thoughts if with less confidence, Berbineau records some of her observations when she drives around Mont Blanc: “[W]e had a beautiful view the sides of the mountain we[re] cultivated each kind of vegitable was devided in long strips several feet in width the gardens & some of the houses at the foot of the mountains looked very pretty & quite pictureesque as I am neither Painter nor Poet I cannot describe them all I can say it was a charming sight” (vol. 118, 22 August). Despite her apparent self-diminishment, she does in fact include numerous descriptions of the “beautiful,” one of the most prominent words in her diary; indeed, repetition (Hampsten 4) of the apology and of words such as “beautiful” constitutes a form of refrain that structures Berbineau’s narrative. At another point she notes self-consciously, “I should like to discribe the outside” of Warwick Castle (vol. 117, 25 July). Among the questions that emerge here are: Does this “apology” represent a sense of frustration at her lack of time or lack of words? Is it part of women’s traditional sense, in a patriarchal culture, of their own failings and feelings of low self-worth (Blodgett, Centuries, 209, 200), magnified by Berbineau’s class status? Is it merely a self-conscious rhetorical marker that situates her account once more in the realm of the literary and constructed (see Kagle and Gramegna 38)? Or does it function more as a textual marker, for herself or others, that signals an opportunity to imagine and embroider upon the idea of “Warwick Castle” at a later date, to anticipate a rereading (see Culley, A Day at a Time, 21–22; Blodgett, Centuries, 74)? Although we may think of the apology as a feature more appropriate to the published travel narrative than to the ostensibly private diary, Berbineau’s apologies are not unique to diary literature, suggesting the imagined presence of a broader audience than the self. Lowell relative Katherine Bigelow Lawrence engages in the customary apology but with greater formality and self-consciousness than Berbineau: “I am most prone to forget when I should remember, that my journal is 33

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decidedly a patchwork composition, my colours and the shades belonging to them, occurring in the most singular positions and anywhere but their proper places” (vol. 4, 11 August 1851). Here the audience seems more private, but the literary quality of this passage at least intimates the possibility that the writing may be read later to an educated audience of family and friends. The apology serves both to forestall criticism and to construct an implicit (“patchwork,” in her culturally feminine metaphor) aesthetic; yet her version of domesticity differs decidedly from Berbineau’s. Berbineau’s literal audience takes shape metaphorically in the diary through one recurring stylistic feature that seems peculiar and unexpected in this context: the use of “you,” as if she is addressing an imagined reader. On a number of occasions, of course, “you” merely means “I” or “one,” as when she notes that the summer weather in England is “quite cool very different from our Climate you need quite thick clothes” (vol. 117, 27 July). There are other moments, however, when the direction and intention of this rhetorical strategy change to a gesture of intimacy. Describing the arrival in Calais via steamboat, Berbineau describes the crush of people upon landing: “[B]y the time we got ready to get into the Cars they were all full and a great number that could not get in they put in extry Carraigs you would have laught to see the rush the moment the Carraige was on & we had to rush with the rest” (vol. 118, 10 August). Later, describing the French bread sellers, she observes, “the men have quite a large cart they drag round you would be amused to see the different shape loafs” (vol. 118, 18 August). Imagining a sympathetic spectator—from home—who could conjure up the scene later, Berbineau simultaneously constructs an audience of peers and situates herself among them (see Hogan 104). Although we might be tempted to assert that stylistic “correctness” or roughness is principally a feature of the diary form rather than a marker of class situation, we can confirm and complicate this hypothesis by looking again briefly at unpublished diaries by Berbineau’s upper-class counterparts. Both Georgina Lowell and Katherine Bigelow Lawrence write with more formality than Berbineau. Although Lowell’s diary has a certain level of casualness (like Berbineau’s use of 34

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the ampersand, Lowell is free with the use of “+” for “and”) it is particularly noteworthy for its self-conscious remark on linguistic correctness. Describing a visitor with scorn, she notes: “Mr. Hayes made the Lowells a call. He was quite as absurd as I had expected, indeed more so.—He said he ‘should have went up the Nile if he had not been detained by ilness.’ And many of his speeches were as elegant as this—” (Lowell Papers, vol. 52, 20 January 1852). Like Berbineau’s diary, Lawrence’s also contains a description of the Great Exhibition written only a few months later that contrasts sharply with the former’s breathlessness; each item is not only noted but secures significant commentary: “I saw the famous tea service of California Gold. . . . It is exquisitely wrought and does great credit to our jewellers, and it being quite free from alloy, the hue is beautiful. . . . Another curious thing, was the skin of the ‘Astracan Lamb,’ which is very rare. It is taken before the lamb is born, the dam being killed, and the fur of the paws is used for tails for the ermine, the rest of it being converted by Cossacks into coats for their Chiefs. It is jet black, and very soft and glossy” (13 October 1851). Possessing the leisure not only to pause and observe but also to write about her excursion afterward with reflective and correct detail, Lawrence inscribes her class in both the content and shape of her narrative. Berbineau’s text reflects a different form of representation than such formal written speech, one that we might describe as a dialogue between the literary and the oral. Whereas Stowe sought to create the illusion of intimacy, in a different way Berbineau’s narrative projects her presence from the opening pages. For example, some features of the diary that literary purists might consider to be “mistakes” reflect and represent her way of speaking. In the passage cited above, “you would have laught,” Berbineau’s orthography captures brilliantly the clipped ending of “laughed” in Boston dialect—a speech pattern common in many parts of New England even today.52 Another locution common in Berbineau’s time later occurs in her description of Italian working people: “[T]he people look very poor & work very hard they raise a good deal Maiz like our Indian corn” (vol. 118, 3 September). Here, “good deal” means “a lot” or “a significant amount.” Then in Brussels she observes that “it rained most of the fornoon” (vol. 119, 35

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10 October); “forenoon” bespeaks a colloquial, even intimate voice that recurs throughout. Perhaps we can best understand the class inflection of Berbineau’s diary if we compare it briefly with others by working women.53 Writing a diary at all represents a self-assertive act: “[D]iaries support and reinforce the sense of [the writer] being an important entity, someone whose perceptions matter” (Blodgett, Capacious, 8). The diary of Elizabeth Cullwick, an English domestic servant, reveals a voice that is if anything more outspoken than Berbineau’s; certainly, Cullwick more often questions gender norms than her American counterpart. Cullwick enjoyed a long-term, secret relationship with a relatively affluent man, Derek Munby, who eventually married her. The couple often lived apart, although for a period after their marriage Cullwick lived with Munby as his putative servant. In 1871, Cullwick writes: “I like the life I lead—working here & just going to M. when I can of a Sunday. . . . I never feel as if I could make up my mind to that [married life]—it’s too much like being a woman. Still I do think it’s bad that the world shd so interfere & mar one’s happiness if it chances to know of love ’twixt two different stations like we are.” Reemphasizing her independence, in 1873 she writes: “I am as I am. A servant still, & a very low one, in the eyes o’ the world. I can work at ease. I can go out and come in when I please” (quoted in Blodgett, Capacious, 94, 101). Written twenty years after Berbineau’s, Cullwick’s diary reflects the increasing self-awareness and self-assertiveness of women of all classes. Substantively and formally, however, it shares some features with the work of her American counterpart. The informal, “incorrect,” and paratactic speech patterns (framed on conjunctions) connect the two writers; however, these features may be as much a function of the diary form as of the class of the authors (Hogan 100–102, 104). More noteworthy for our discussion is the shared emphasis on work, articulated in constant movement and activity. In her entries about cleaning, Cullwick piles activities on top of one another much as Berbineau does when she describes her tour of the Great Exhibition, incurring the same sense of haste and emphasis: “I clean the water closet & privy out & the back yard & the area, the back stairs & the passage, the larder, pantry & 36

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boy’s room & the kitchen & scullery, all the cupboards downstairs & them in the storeroom.” The sense of busy-ness recurs in the short voyage she and her husband take to France, where Cullwick “passes” as a lady (quoted in Blodgett, Capacious, 93; see 98–99). Even more than in Cullwick’s diary, hard work forms the core of American Emily French’s 1890 diary. French labored as a “laundress, cleaning woman, and nurse” (Lecompte vii). Coming to Colorado from Michigan with her husband, Marsena, Emily enjoyed a middleclass life until her marriage, which reveals a process of gradual decline in social status due to her husband’s improvidence, possible alcoholism, and bad luck with a variety of enterprises. After one putative “business trip to Iowa”—probably a meeting with another woman— Marsena filed for the divorce eventually granted in 1889. The breakup of her thirty-nine-year marriage left Emily with two young children and an ailing sister to support (Lecompte 1–12). French’s diary reveals a number of affiliations in subject, tone, and intention with Berbineau’s. Like the travel diary, French’s emphasizes her work despite illness. On 2 January 1890, she records, “Got up early but was so choked up could scarcely breath, eat a hasty breakfast. . . . went to Mrs. Baltzells to wash, she had no wood so I could not.” Going to another woman’s home to sew, the last sewing machine needle breaks; she returns home for “dinner” (lunch) and then returns to Mrs. Baltzells to sew: “It verry cold so I could not speak out loud, my cold so very tight.” This pattern recurs throughout her diary, with her acknowledging explicitly, “I am not able to work a single minute, yet here I am & must do the work, well or sick” (Lecompte 15, 19; see 22, 34–36, 43, 65); such work includes heavy physical labor (19, 24). Another similarity with Berbineau emerges in French’s love and care for her children. Her entries during the necessary separations (when she worked away from their home) echo Berbineau’s feelings during the separation from Eddie: “How I do long to be near my children. God only knows the real desire of my heart.” Later, she describes in careful detail nursing her children through a difficult case of the measles, with high fever and regular vomiting: “The children are all sick. Agnes is broke out nice, Dannie does nothing but vomit poor 37

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boy” (Lecompte 24, 60). Although French is much more graphic than Berbineau,54 they both clearly love the children in their care and attend to their needs carefully despite their own illnesses and other responsibilities. This attitude parallels that of their more affluent counterparts, for most of whom children provided important forms of connection and identity (Blodgett, Centuries, 169–92). Connected to the subject of children, not surprisingly, is that of home, which forms an important refrain in French’s diary. In the passage cited above, immediately after expressing how much she misses her children, she opines, “how unhappy I realy am, will he [God] bring me a home?” Less than a month later, she reflects: “[W]hy is this life for me, a home lover? I do so crave a home, will I ever have a home?” (Lecompte 24, 31; see 33, 53, 63, 65, 73, 93). As her laments reveal, her situation is far more precarious than Berbineau’s; we might recall here Zandy’s observation that for the working-class person “home” represents both a place and an idea(l), a psychic location (see Lensink, “Expanding the Boundaries,” 42). We can fruitfully compare not only the subject matter of the two diarists but also their self-expressiveness and tone, noting especially how absences and gaps resonate in women diarists’ accounts. For example, Berbineau is essentially silent on the subject of her apparently absent husband, Henri, and Marsena French remains a shadowy figure in Emily’s diary. How to read into this “literature of omission” (Hampsten 88) challenges us, but it is not an impossible task. When placed against French’s hopeful mentions of a potential suitor, Berbineau’s omission of Henri reinforces our understanding that the Lowells had become her “family”; perhaps the diary’s address to “you” encompassed not just her friends and fellow servants but also her family in Maine. Not surprisingly, given its dimensions as a travel narrative, Berbineau’s account is somewhat more invested in contemporary events than French’s; but, as I have suggested, such issues as the raging antislavery debate emerge indirectly, if at all. We see a similarly local rather than national focus in French’s diary. A more telling gap is perhaps relayed in French’s willingness to complain, whether about the lack of a home or about fickle lovers. In 38

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keeping with her situation both in a later historical moment and as an independent worker—and also, perhaps, indicating the middle-class background in which she was raised, as well as the relatively poor treatment that she frequently endured working for numerous employers— French articulates her feelings about her employers more directly and explicitly than Berbineau. In contrast to one couple (“such nice, stirring people”), another person is “a verry strange selfish woman” and another is improvident: “[H]ow I do wish I had a little of what she wastes” (Lecompte 29, 95, 113). French also expresses her feelings about her own situation more fully and frequently, ranging from pride in her accomplishments (“I can make a dress sure”)55 to depression and exhaustion (“Am I soon to close this life, will be better”), whereas Berbineau admonishes herself, “if I had been well I should seen great deal more Oh I must not murmur” (Lecompte 95, 88; vol. 119, 7 November). In contrast to French, Berbineau also remains virtually silent on the matter of home, suggesting her relative satisfaction with her situation at the Lowells. Such differences caution us in generalizing even across working-class women’s diaries if such variables as time period or place vary substantially; they also remind us of the fluid class structures in the nineteenth-century United States, where a middle-class woman could quickly find herself laboring for pay in the absence of a male provider.56 We should explore, however, the possibility that Berbineau’s critique of her employers might have been coded.57 For example, Berbineau’s diary may engage in the strategy of juxtaposition, as we can see in one entry: “Overcast but quite a comfortable day I was disappointd not to go out I saw Dr Berteaun to day he thinks me much better Mr & Mrs Richard Parker & Mr Charles Appleton dined here to day quit a cozy party Mrs Crowningshield came in the eve with two of her Children” (vol. 119, 8 November). Although she is relatively straightforward about her disappointment, Berbineau does not express dissatisfaction with her employers but does juxtapose what she does (sees the doctor and, we and she know, takes care of Eddie) to what the Lowells do (enjoy a party with friends). We can read this potential dissatisfaction only in conjunction with her descriptions of the 39

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weather (perhaps a form of coding via the strategy of indirection) and with her later, obvious enjoyment of Paris. In another instance, a feature that we might call partial deletion occurs: In revising her diary, Berbineau strikes out the word “tired” in the 31 July entry describing the visit to the Great Exhibition so that it reads: “I was there about 3 hours to day I got very tired Mr & Mrs Lowll & Miss Mary gone to Mr Sturges to a party” (vol. 117). As I suggested above, her “leisure” may have been compromised by the near constant companionship of one of her employer’s family members, although at one point she observes, “I had a pleasent walk Considering I went a lone” (vol. 119, 15 November). We can conclude from these examples that earlier diarists may require readings more carefully attuned to nuances of coding than their later counterparts. On the other hand, we must be careful not to overread for coding—and hence to misread. Language, the marker that may most clearly reveal class differentiation, may offer us final insight into our comparison of the workingclass women’s diaries. Hampsten argues that in contrast to expectations for middle-class speakers, working people use fewer Latinate words, subordinate their language less, reveal a concrete rather than conceptual focus, and more closely replicate the speech of actual people (27, 50–54, 95).58 As readers will readily recognize, these features emerge in Berbineau’s travel diary; their orality in particular, as I have indicated, is quite striking. Similarly, both French and the earlier British Cullwick tend to use plain language, to structure their sentences accretively (“and . . . and . . . but”), and to speak with the informality that we commonly associate with oral speech; but both the middle-class-born French and the working-class daughter Cullwick offer readers more contemplative and distanced accounts than Berbineau, as their tart observations cited above about their own lives and those around them—more akin to those of the affluent Georgina Lowell and Katherine Bigelow Lawrence—suggest. Also in contrast to Berbineau, French’s and Cullwick’s diaries demonstrate “a rather striking absence of commentary about place and landscape” (Hampsten 226)— not surprisingly, given the complex blending of the genre of travel narrative into Berbineau’s diary. Finally, what such variations suggest is that generalizations about the conjunction of class and the genre of di40

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ary writing need to be tested further as we rediscover new diarists in a wide range of time periods. As a whole, Berbineau’s account provokes contrasts with many traditional views of the working-class writer. Although like Stowe she makes generalizations about groups of people, she does not necessarily regard herself as paradigmatic of a collective perspective— either of “American women,” like Stowe, or working-class people—and this individual stance emerges in flexible responses to her experience less obviously dominated by ideologies of gender or class.59 Like those of her counterparts, Elizabeth Cullwick and Emily French, Berbineau’s diary reminds us that working-class writing can emerge from the individual perspective more often seen as characteristic of middle- and upperclass writing and more evident in privileged genres such as poetry and fiction, rather than necessarily advancing the ambitions and desires of a working-class community.60 Traveling incognito, in contrast to Stowe’s high public visibility, Berbineau recorded private impressions that nevertheless suggest possible perspectives for a particular group of working-class people, domestic servants. Mary Louise Pratt underlines how affluent women travelers’ most important goal was not (like that of their male counterparts) to acquire objects but “first and foremost to collect and possess themselves” (160). Although we must often read Berbineau’s identity indirectly, via the shape, structure, and content of her descriptions rather than through an explicit self-awareness, the mere writing of the diary performs a self-assertive act—possibly invested in self-improvement—that claims her experience is worth preserving, whether for herself, her family in Maine, or her fellow servants. Her writing afforded a means of self-expression that, however mediated by her relationship with the Lowells and its nexus of expectations for her as a domestic abroad, represented an independent, “American” self. Counterpointing while it sometimes parallels the account of her famous contemporary, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Berbineau’s characteristically unsentimental delineation of domesticity underscores the complex negotiation of femininity and class that resonates throughout her moments of leisure and work, both abroad and at home. 41

Notes to the Introduct ion

Notes to the Introduction 1. Both Georgina and Eddie celebrated birthdays during the family travels, Georgina turning sixteen in January 1852 and Eddie turning six in October 1851. 2. I am indebted to Mary Suzanne Schriber’s excellent volume for much of the background on women’s travel writing. Schriber focuses on white middleand upper-class women, although she does include many unpublished writers in her account. Terry Caesar discusses women travel writers’ search for narrative authority (53– 61). 3. Philip Taylor’s essay provides an excellent reconstruction of Berbineau’s trip and biography, as well as valuable information about the social and cultural context in which her diary was written. I am indebted to this work for much of my background material. He underlines the importance of the trip to Berbineau: “Soon she was keeping alive the memory of her great experience by paying 25 cents to see a panorama of the Crystal Palace, and in January 1852 by looking over her diary and reading portions of it aloud to her fellow servants” (95). Taylor does not specify how he learned of the latter event. Given the composition of the Lowell staff, it is tempting to speculate about the range of interested auditors— especially of the foreign-born servants such as Bridget, whom we know was on the Lowell staff at least as early as July 1, 1851, and as late as October 23, 1868 (Taylor 96, n. 23). 4. On Stowe’s dislike for housework, see Hedrick 110–11. On Sunny Memories and Stowe’s visit to England, see Lockwood 218–26 and Schriber 172– 80. 5. “Home” is, of course, an important concept for all nineteenth-century women, as Sam Curd’s longing in her diary for her Virginia home reveals (see Arpad 53, 60, 104, 113, 121, 127). 6. We have only Berbineau’s cryptic notation, on October 3, 1866, concerning her marriage in 1842, and another reference, mentioned in Taylor, that I have yet to find (Berbineau, vol. 125). After extensive searching I have been unable to locate any additional references for Henri Berbineau, either in Boston or elsewhere. I did find a reference to a François Deslauriers Babineau (or Barbineau), who married one Cecile Ratier, probably born in Trois Rivières, Québec, in 1764, on 20 April 1795 in Nicolet, Portneuf, Québec. Whether they are Henri Berbineau’s parents is at present uncertain. (See http://www.gencircles.com/ users/3-cats/1/data/3062.html; http://www.gencircles.com/users/3-cats/1/data/ 3061.html.) A Babineau/Deslauriers family was present in Grand Pré after the deportation of a number of Acadian families in 1755. (See http://www.geocities .com/lucieleblanc.geo/frames.html.) The Center for Acadian Studies at the University of Moncton, New Brunswick, lists a Barbineau family genealogy at http:// www.umoncton.ca/etudeacadiennes/centre/white/babino.html, but there are numerous possibilities for Henri Berbineau’s parents. To further complicate matters the name Berbineau has a variety of additional permutations, including Ba42

Notes to the Introduct ion bino, Babinot, Barbino, Barbinot, Barbineaux, Babineaux, and so on. At present I have no evidence that Henri Berbineau or his family came from France rather than from Qúebec. For more information on Lorenza’s family and on her later life, see Taylor 98–99, 100. Further searching revealed no additional confirmed information about Henri Berbineau’s family. 7. The diary reveals payments in various amounts, ranging from $10 to $55. At her death, her estate was worth about $800 (see Taylor 95–96, n. 20). Thomas Dublin suggests that in 1866 Berbineau earned $98, in 1867, $140, and in 1868, $224. He also notes that in the same period she received payments totaling $260 from Georgina Lowell that he speculates were dividends from shares in textile mills (Transforming 189). What seems most remarkable about Dublin’s figures is that they reflect the years during which Berbineau’s health was very poor; hence, his work confirms Taylor’s assertions about the exceptional treatment she received from the Lowells. 8. See Dublin, Transforming, 188–90. In some sense Berbineau was already a traveler, a foreigner in a strange land. 9. Lowell Papers, General Correspondence, Box 3, Lorenza Stevens Berbineau to Mary Lowell (Gardner) Lowell, July 4, July 12, August 1, 1852; Box 2, July 21, 1850. See Taylor 104–5. 10. In her introduction to a recent issue of PMLA called “Rereading Class,” Cora Kaplan reaffirms this point: “The critiques of social class that have flowed from the scholarship inspired by the postwar social movements have made it conceptually a more slippery object of analysis, its internal relations as unequal and hierarchical as its external ones, its past national and regional variations less easy to assimilate in a single framework, and its horizon open to speculation” (13). See also Hall. 11. Lauter goes on to distinguish between “popular” culture and “mass” culture artifacts, with the former including “what people who share class, ethnicity, and/or race produce in communicating with one another, as distinguished from what is produced for consumption by the masses” (113). This distinction is less useful for private writing such as Berbineau’s diary, which was written principally and initially as a personal record. Much of the scholarship and criticism on “class” in nineteenth-century American literary studies has been done on writing about working-class people rather than by them; the work of Rebecca Harding Davis and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps on the New England textile mills, for example, has received much more attention than the work of writers such as Berbineau, who are more frequently addressed from a historical perspective. For one recent example on Davis, see Hughes; on Phelps, see Lang. For a recent historical view of working-class women, see Enstad. For a study of working-class women’s poetry, see Alves. 12. Felski argues persuasively that we need to consider the emphasis on “frugality, decency, and self-discipline” that has frequently characterized “the 43

Notes to the Introduct ion poor.” She underscores how “working-class women, in particular, often have a powerful interest and investment in respectability, as a means from distancing themselves from sexualized images of lower-class women’s bodies” (35). 13. In recent years, both literary scholars and historians have done much important work on diary and autobiographical writing (see, for example, Bunkers and Huff, Gilmore, Kagle, Kelley, Hogan, and Ulrich). Although situating Berbineau’s diary in the genre of diary literature is clearly not my focus here, I do return below to a brief discussion of her work in the context of the critical literature. We need to be cautious, however, about the application of diary theory because of the genre hybridity of her work, because of the short time period her travel diary encompasses, and because many generalizations are based on writing by middle-class or English women. On the mixing of modes in the diary form, see Hogan 100, 105. 14. Both Berbineau and Stowe express anti-Catholic sentiments. Berbineau’s remarks may have been affected by the fact that a huge number of Irish Catholic women emigrating to America came to Boston as servants. See Stowe, Sunny Memories, 2:330–33; Berbineau, vol. 118, 21 September. On the immigration of the Irish and employers’ prejudice against Catholics, see Dudden 60, 67– 71. For a discussion of Lowell mill girls, see Dublin, “Women, Work, and Protest.” For a discussion of the larger industrial environment and its relationship to domestic ideology, see Kessler-Harris, chapter 3. The situation was somewhat different in New York City, as Stansell documents. 15. See Eisler and Foner for recent reprintings of some of this work; see also Harriet Robinson for another look at mill girl life. 16. It is useful to note Larcom’s own intermediate class status: Born in comfortable circumstances and possessing a good education, she moved to Lowell with her mother and siblings after the death of her father propelled them into poverty. Her literary work eventually enabled her to rise once again into the middle class. For additional discussion of Larcom, see Kilcup, “‘Something of a Sentimental Sweet Singer,’” and Marchalonis. 17. See Tompkins, 17, 32. Tompkins is of course writing about novels, but the responses that she cites apply equally to other genres (160); see Clark. For recent discussions that seek to complicate the definition of sentimentalism, see Bennett and Kilcup, Robert Frost. 18. Chapter 1 of Stowe’s book, including all the details of sea travel, is reprinted in Kilcup, Nineteenth-Century, 132–38. 19. The ungendering of working women (especially black women) was certified most visibly and eloquently in the famous assertion attributed to Sojourner Truth: “Ain’t I a woman?” For some excerpts from Berbineau’s diary, see Kilcup, Nineteenth-Century, 98–103. 20. On Berbineau’s lingering illness, see Taylor 94. Interestingly, she suffered very little from seasickness on the return voyage and was in fact able to help 44

Notes to the Introduct ion several ladies and their children. See vol. 119, 20 November–5 December. See also Arpad 54, 59, 67; Riney-Kehrberg 42, 47, 92, 130. 21. After the return to Paris, for instance, Berbineau describes a busy day supervising dressmakers, milliners, and laundresses (vol. 119, second entry for 11 November). 22. Mulvey, 249, 250. A number of writers emphasize the origin of the word “travel” in “travail.” 23. In contrast to Schriber’s account of middle- and upper-class travelers who tried to separate themselves from the poor, Mulvey cites women writers uncomfortable with the privilege of class difference in England (129). See also Dulles 73, Lockwood 227–34. 24. Diarist theorists have explored the resonances of narrative gaps and absences; for one of the most provocative accounts, see Elizabeth Hampsten. I discuss below in more detail Berbineau’s gaps. 25. All travelers shared these concerns (see Dulles 60), but as those responsible for domestic comfort at home, women were even more attentive to comfort (and style). See Pratt 159. 26. Both Mulvey (19, 30, 37, 81– 83) and Schriber (172– 81) discuss Stowe’s sentimentality; as my account suggests, the writer was not always able to assume this stance. 27. On the confirmation of travelers’ expectations (and prejudices), see Dulles 6, 73. As Dulles’s account suggests of Margaret Fuller, however, such sentimental accounts as Stowe’s were not the only response of American women to occasions that challenged their expectations (73). 28. Dulles 62. This concern was not only “American”; European travelers in the United States also complained about dirty accommodations. 29. It is unclear whether Berbineau took opium for pain or in order to sleep; both possibilities suggest the stress of hard work. 30. Harriet Blodgett discusses middle-class women diarists’ attitudes toward child care and children (181– 89); Berbineau seems to share some of their attitudes. 31. Molly McCarthy observes that for many women, diaries were themselves objects of sentiment, coming as gifts from husbands, friends, or family members (292). 32. A near contemporary of Stowe and Berbineau, Sophia Hawthorne is effusive on the beauty and cultural richness of England (189). See also Mulvey 16. 33. In January 1852, fifteen-year-old Georgina Lowell remarks upon her desire to “improve” herself with Italian lessons while the family stayed in Rome (Lowell Papers, vol. 52, 4 January 1852). Berbineau’s desire for self-improvement is evident as well in the Boston diary; for example, she notes on 8 March 1852 that “I went to lecture this eve . . . to hear Mr. Ayrs lecture on Natural History” (vol. 121). 45

Notes to the Introduct ion 34. Many critics have written about Americans defining themselves against the Old World; see Strout 1–2. David Spurr’s discussion of the tropes and interpretive strategies commonly applied by travelers to the colonial “other” has powerful resonance even for American travelers in Europe such as Stowe and Berbineau. 35. For example, Allison Lockwood remarks on the paradoxical embarrassment engendered by Hiram Powers’s prizewinning statue The Greek Slave, which suggested to many viewers the injustice of slavery in America (262– 67). Lockwood also discusses the connections often made between slavery and the English factory system (208–26, 236– 45). On Americans’ sense of superiority, see Dulles 5. 36. Many writers discuss homesickness. See Mulvey 34, 37. 37. On the question of servants’ health, see Dudden 194, 208. 38. On the poverty in various European countries, see Berbineau (vol. 117, 24 July; vol. 118, 1 and 22 August). For two different perspectives on the subject, see the diaries of Georgina Lowell (Lowell Papers, 29 February and 1 March 1852) and another family member, Katherine Bigelow Lawrence, discussed below in more detail. 39. As Faye Dudden documents, this expectation was not always a reality for servants; see 178– 82. Farm women almost always worked on Sundays, as Mary Knackstedt Dyck’s diary reveals (Riney-Kehrberg 84). 40. See Dulles 90–91. Mary Louise Pratt remarks on the class- and genderbased nature of social reformism (160). 41. Lockwood discusses at length Stowe’s hypocrisy and her willed blindness about class disadvantage and power relations in her friendship with the Duchess of Sutherland and her family (223–26). On middle-class women travelers’ magnifying the difference between themselves and working-class women, see Schriber 88– 89. 42. Lockwood discusses the poverty in England (126, 140, 227). 43. Although her diary reveals her to be spoiled and often condescending to her “inferiors,” Georgina could also be more even-handed and generous. We need also to recall that she was barely sixteen years old (she had had a birthday in January) at the time she wrote this entry. Unfortunately, there is no overlap between Berbineau’s and Georgina’s diaries, for the latter begins 1 January 1852, and Berbineau leaves Europe on 19 November 1851. Berbineau’s diary entries give no indication of the warm relationship that appears to have developed between the two later; there is only one direct reference to Georgina on 29 October, when Berbineau apparently accompanied Georgina to school. Berbineau’s diary volumes, like Georgina’s, were the commercially produced variety; there is no way to determine whether they purchased the journals at the same time or whether one gave the other a volume or volumes as a gift. However, the dissimilarity of 46

Notes to the Introduct ion size—Georgina’s is much larger than Berbineau’s—suggests that these are unlikely possibilities. 44. We should compare this account with Stowe’s visit to a home for indigent children (1:110ff.). Interestingly, Stowe, Berbineau, and Lawrence all remark with interest on their visits to medieval dungeons and the torture devices that they were shown. Such “attractions” were as important a part of the United States traveler’s itinerary as the museums—part of (ancient and barbaric) European culture. What Lowell and Lawrence did not share with Berbineau was her concern for the demands of housekeeping, although, as noted above, all travelers remarked on the cleanliness of accommodations. 45. It was commonplace in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American culture to see Native American women in this manner; even Margaret Fuller falls into this position in her travel narrative Summer on the Lakes, in 1843. See especially chapter 6, “Mackinaw.” For a discussion of the covertly racialized content of some nineteenth-century fiction on the working class, see Schocket, who rightly points out that “the interplay between race and class is considerably more complex than the current shorthand—‘mutually constitutive’— will allow” (57). For an important study of the uses of race in the construction of class, see Roediger. Blodgett discusses the relative conservatism of the British women diarists she studies; this conservatism encompasses matters ranging from women’s roles to religion (103, 169, 203). 46. Schriber 6, 34, 52–53, 77ff., 85. Sedgwick’s remarks on the inappropriate dress of older British women represent a different kind of “othering”; in Kilcup, Nineteenth-Century, 35–36. 47. See page ix for a description of the volumes. McCarthy describes how women appropriated these pocket diaries, initially produced for middle-class men, and often transgressed their formal constraints of three days on each page (278– 83). For a discussion of the relationship between journals, diaries, and autobiography, see Hogan and Lensink, “Expanding the Boundaries.” Margo Culley (American Women’s Autobiography, 5) and Hertha Wong highlight forms of material culture as kinds of autobiographical expression. In addition to the material form of Berbineau’s diary volumes and the way that she wrote in them, we can include such features as the flowers she pressed in one travel volume, as well as the prescriptions, notices of payments by Lowell family members, and a tiny packet of scrap paper containing four of Eddie’s baby teeth that are tucked into back pockets of various Boston diary volumes. 48. Our understanding of Berbineau’s haste is enhanced when we examine her letters to Lowell family members, which seem to have been written in a more leisurely fashion but with the same colloquial, intimate voice and stylistic quirkiness that the travel diary reveals. 49. On a few occasions Berbineau’s corrections are incomplete, or she 47

Notes to the Introduct ion makes a correct phrase incorrect, as we see in the entry for 25 July. Here, she originally writes, “the late Countess she died about six months ago.” Her “revised” version reads, “the late Countess has she been died about six months ago.” In this case I have retained the original phrasing. 50. Harriet Blodgett distinguishes between diaries that are private and those that are personal; the latter refers to those “not written or revised by the diarist for publication or intended for immediate reading by a second party” (13). See Blodgett, chapter 1, for an extremely helpful review of the history of diary keeping. For one example of the changing audience for a diary, see RineyKehrberg 25, 327–28, 344 n. 5. 51. Schriber 72–75. As Schriber observes, however, this convention was not limited to the travel genre. 52. Similarly, in Lucerne Berbineau observes, “we walked by the shops lookt at the windows” (vol. 118, 20 September; emphasis added). 53. Very few diaries exist from working-class American women from Berbineau’s period. Reemphasizing the discussion above about the problematic definition of “working-class,” I am excluding here certain relatively well-off farmers’ wives and daughters, for although these women clearly worked very hard, they enjoyed a different kind of position in their families and communities. Hence, I omit discussion of the compelling diaries of Midwesterners Sarah Gillespie Huftalen and Emily Hawley Gillespie (edited by Bunkers and Lensink, respectively), Sam Curd (edited by Susan S. Arpad), and Mary Knackstedt Dyck (edited by Pamela Riney-Kehrberg), which will be more appropriately detailed elsewhere. For an illuminating discussion of the concept of class in relation to work, see Hampsten 48–50. 54. Later writers were more likely to express their feelings and to discuss bodily functions, in part because of changing expectations for women and in part because of changes in the diary form. Emily French, for example, recorded information about menstrual periods (Lecompte 82, 126, 128; see Riney-Kehrberg 65). 55. French is not alone in praising her own work; Hampsten highlights the self-assurance and self-regard of many working women (68– 69). 56. Here I diverge somewhat from Hampsten, who sees in class a more overarching connection between women diarists across time, space, and region (27). 57. Joan Radner and Susan Lanser offer a probing analysis of the potential ways in which women’s perspectives, sometimes challenging to mainstream culture, may be concealed. Acknowledging the difficulty of ascertaining the intentionality of the writer, they propose a range of strategies—including appropriation, juxtaposition, distraction, indirection, trivialization, and incompetence— by which women writers subversively express their authentic feelings. To this I would add partial deletion, as I describe below. 58. Such contextualized formal analysis as Hampsten’s is particularly important in relation to working-class writers because of the hierarchized academy’s 48

Notes to the Introduct ion tendency to discount the aesthetic qualities and merit of their writing and hence to read them principally in biographical, historical, or cultural terms—just as has been true of diaries, as Cynthia Huff notes (6). A number of aesthetic features in Berbineau’s writing would bear additional examination, such as rhythm, patterns that emerge over time (even though the diaries encompass only about seven months), and density or compression. It should be noted that, extrapolating from a study of nineteenth-century grammar volumes, Hampsten is writing principally about diaries composed between 1880 and 1900; historical moment may influence language usage in ways that bear further exploration. 59. We might compare Berbineau’s account with the work of Lowell Offering writers, such as Betsey Chamberlain’s “A New Society,” which clearly expresses a collective perspective. See the Lowell Offering stories collected in Kilcup, Nineteenth-Century, 90–98. 60. Numerous writers, from Lauter and Lillian Robinson to Zandy, have argued for the presence of a collective or community consciousness in workingclass writing, probably because of the frequent focus on the factory worker as the representative of that perspective. In the complex case of Berbineau, the fact that she read parts of her diary aloud upon her return to Boston, as well as certain other rhetorical features, suggests her sense of being part of a community as well as an individual voice.

49

The Diary

The Vo ya g e O u t

“We are haveing a Pleasent time” Mr. and Mrs. Lowell, eighteen-year-old Mary, fifteen-year-old Georgina, and five-year-old Edward, Berbineau’s principal responsibility—whom she calls “Edi” or “Edie”—left Boston in mid-July 1851 on the paddle wheeler Europa. After a short stop in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where they went ashore to sightsee, they crossed the Atlantic, arriving in Liverpool and passing uneventfully through customs eleven days after setting out. Although Berbineau is characteristically terse about her responsibilities to seasick family members, she hints that she has to care for them even though she does not always feel well herself. Nevertheless, she records some entertaining moments that she shared with Eddie on the journey as well as her pleasure in the church services on board. In Liverpool, she appears impressed by the modernity of the streets and the elegance of the hotel; she also enjoys socializing with a Miss Clink, a fellow passenger. Even this early in the diary, her love for Eddie forms a subtle refrain for her own story.

The Diary

July 1851 Sailed from Boston July 9 th in the Europa Capt Lott we went over to East Boston went on board the Canada a fine steam ship we took the steam boat Deleware went down blow the light house to meet the Europa we then sailed with a hundred and fifty two Passengers Mrs Lowell and miss Mary sick Nina & my self not neither Edie [ July] 10 t h Ma[r]y Mrs Lowell somewhat sick Mr Lowell was not sick we arived in Halifax on the 11th we went on shore took a walk we saw were 1 the Barracks were burnt we see the Soldiers review we went into the Province house fine large stone Building the harbour was very Beautiful as for the town of halifax I cant say much for Its Beauty 14 passengers were left at Halifax and 30 more came on board every nook and corner is filed & we are haveing a Pleasent time [ July] 12 t h very Pleasent weather Mrs Lowell took her Breakfast at the table this morning for the first time also on deck the Europa fine steam packet good accommodations nice state rooms two births in each room two wash stands & two [seats?] July 13 t h the Captain read the Church service this morning It very pleasant weather I have been reading the type of the Old and new testament by the R J Jones we are all well to day little Edi enjoyes the voyge much as there are several children he is perfectly well breaths very quietly at night I forgot to say the seamen came in to the church service dressed in their sundy suit there are 90 persons on board the crew and waiters one of the Passengers is an Mexican officer he had one arm shot of in the war 2 July 14 t h very pleasent been on Deck a good deal to day we are all pretty well Edie has a fine time with the Children there are two french families here 54

The Voyage Out

July 15 t h Pleasent quite warm staid on Deck most of this forenoon I feel very tired my throat not very well Edie s haveing a fine time with the Children I went to the other part of the ship looked at the enormos Engines also the large paddle wheels some Ducks flew around the ship Edie went on Deck and see them [had?] danceing on the Deck this eve July 16 t h Pleasent staid on deck most of the day rainy this afternoon & eve July 17 t h rainy this morning pleasent most of the day we have a very pleasent Stewardess Mrs Berry she is very kind to all the passengers Edi & I have just been [loft?] to see the Sailors perform some tricks about half past seven they have some fun they were sewed up in canvas bags all accept their heads they looked like mumies another sailor took a stick went in front of them made them Jump until they went half way across the ship another one of their tricks was a rope the two ends attached to something an oar was placed in the centre a hat on the end of it one of the Sailors sat cross legged on the oar he had to reach a stick which he had in his hand to a certain length if he did not fall of he won the game the was great danger of their falling of July 18 t h Pleasent very rough this morning Edie little sick from eating something which disagreed with him Mrs Lowell little sick althoug she was able to dress her self good Deal of motion through the night I have a bad head ach have not slept much July 19 t h Pleasent this morning Edie sea sick we saw the Coast of Ireland this morning the first land since we left Halifax July 20 t h rainy this morning a Pilot came on board quite early we did not go into the Dock a steam Boat carried us to the warf it look very pretty when 55

The Diary

we came in sight of Liverpool we arrived there about 2 Oclo we got into a carraige went to the Adelphi Hotel, kept by James Radley. the sides of the streets are paved & the centre is Mackadamized the cross walks are flag stone Mr Putnam & Mr Allen & Mrs Snodgrass families came to the Hotel were we are we took clothing in Carpet bags for the night the Custom House officers came on Board examined what things we took. we dined to day at five Oclock I have just came in from a walk One of my fellow passengers went with me Miss Clink we saw several fine buildings we walk in St James Cemetry 3 fine looking place we took tea half past eight. the room Edie & I have nice room a mahogany bed sted the posts are as high as the ceiling with red damask wosted curtains and the same at the windows

56

Enjoying England

“A Beautifull prospect” The family’s one night in Liverpool was followed by a journey to the popular tourist destination of Chester. Although the landscape seems to have disappointed Berbineau, the buildings and hotel, like the city as a whole, impressed her with their antiquity. One house, whose inhabitants escaped the plague epidemic in the Middle Ages, particularly interested her, for she records her visit twice. Writing of the train trip to Leamington, still an attraction for visitors to England, and the coach journey to Warwick, she admires the scenery and at the latter describes the sights and historical contexts in vivid detail, suggesting her delight in learning and self-improvement, as well as her critical eye for the “beautiful,” one of her favorite descriptives. Shakespeare’s birthplace elicits sharp commentary and Blenheim Palace sparks admiration. London offers new opportunities for socializing and sightseeing, with the Great Exhibition and Queen Victoria principal attractions. As the accelerated pace of the narrative suggests, her keen observational

The Diary

abilities are sometimes frustrated by the sheer quantity of noteworthy sights. Nevertheless, her interest in people as well as in places and things resonates repeatedly, as when she ponders the oddity of a woman sexton in a church she visits. A note of homesickness emerges in her assertion in London that “I like to see American faces.”

July 21 s t Pleasent went shopping bought small leather bag gave five & sixpence english money bought some ribbon 17cts yard american money 62 cts they have some very nice shops. been packing for chester left in Liverpool m[y] Carpet bag and Mrs Lowells sea things Miss Clink gone to London to day. July 22 d We left Liverpool this morning for Chester we left the Adelphi house about 9 Oclock AM we went in a Cab to Monks ferry went on board of a small steam Boat which Carried us to Booking were we got out and went to the Rail way got into the Cars and went to Chester which is 15 miles from Liverpool we saw various Gardens with Hawthorn hedges nothing very beautiful the grass did not look as well as in America perhaps this was not a specimen this is a very Ancient place the Houses look as if they were Built hundreds & hundreds of years [ago] the Houses are of Stone & brick the roofs of the Houses look very Curious some of them they have been patch and re patched,4 the stories Jet out one over an other which gives it a very Curious appearance we have all been to walk we saw the Soldiers reviewing there was a large stone Building which a person told us it was a Castle the Barracks were on each side of it a large Yard in front with a high stone wall around it. at the entrance there was a sort of stone Building with several Pillars we walked along at a little distance saw several fine buildings we saw a beautiful arched Bridge which 4 years ago the 20 of last May it Broke down Cars & passengers went into the warter it is rebuilt I saw a train of Cars go over we went down a bridge we see the Race Course a fine level Green the was a wall at one side of this Bridge built of Brick & capt with stone every now and then there were large gaps in the stone 58

Enjoying England

at the top of the wall were the Enemy fired at Cromwell I saw his Residence in the Distance not very distinctly some of the People look as antient as the place the house we are stopping at Is the Albion kept by Mr Tomas Whaley it is very antque the floors ar Oak Oak stairs I forgot to give a discription of the Adelphi Hotel it is a very large stone building when you enter the lower floor it is large flag stones the steps up to the Parlour & Chamber were stone with carpet on them there were many rooms in it Mrs Lowells Parlour was 25 her sleeping rooms were No 29 and 30 Edies and mine were 22. the House was full of People

July 23 [ d ] rainy this morning we have Just been to walk the City of Chester is enclosed by walls all around it I have Just been walking on its walls & looking down upon the City below I saw King Charles Tower were he stood when he see in the distance his Army was defeated as we were walking along we met an old Gentleman on the wall we were asking him some questions about Chester Cathedral 5 which we had Just seen he told us he would go in with us and look at the inside we thanked him and were glad to go in it is Built of redish Stone it is very old some part of it has been rebuilt they perform service there 3 times a day at seven in the Morning & Elevn in the forenoon at five in the afternoon there were tablets there of many persons who were buried there there were large opnigs [openings?] of gothic form it is the Church of England w[h]o have these service there there are great many rooms & dark passages in there it is enclosed by the wall which is covered with Ivy I broke a leaf or two of he then shewed us the house in the time of the Plague 6 it viseted every house in the City but this one there was not an inmate which had it it is written in front of the House Gods Providence Is mine Inheritance it is a very old house with Curiously Carved figures in front upon stone I cant very well describe the houses some of them [there?] a large block of Houses you go up a flight of steps you go through sort of walk there are great many shops of all kinds and some very pretty things. Just been out to walk again with Edie & Miss [Willis?] we walked on the walls to the Phoenix Tower on the City Walls we walked up the step to the door King 59

The Diary

Charles stood upon the tower sep 24 th 1645 and saw his army defeated on Rowdon Moor.

July 24 t h Just been to walk I went to see St Johns Church it is very old some parts have been replaced it is still in use It has a very high tower and several Arches the Ivy has grown over some parts of it in the yard there are many tablets of persons there were some very large trees in the yard we went to see the house that escaped the plague In front is written in large letters Gods Providence mine Inheritance very old looking many of the buildings here have been rebuilt It has rained every day since we came I walked through the covered side walks looks curious some of the streets and side walks are paved some are mackadamized some of them are very Broad & clean I have seen some miserable looking objects every now and then a beggar comeing to me for something but as a people they seem very happy there is one Catholick Chappel I was told one Desenter 7 the rest are the Church of England it is very wet to day fine rain or scotch mist we left Chester to day at 12 Oclock for Leamington which is 75 Miles from Chester we went in Carraiges on railway what we call Cars the English say Carraiges they look inside like a coach they have two seats Just the same as in a Carraige with arms like a Chair between each person it will 6 persons can sit in one I must say the country we past through to day looks beautiful the fields and pastures were devided by a Hawthorn Hedge the whole face of the Country was perfect Emerald the fields were so level they look like green carpets and every nook & Corner is cultivated the houses looked well they were not as I expected they were small & made of brick & very neat pretty little flower gardens to each house I saw some houses that were thatched they looked very neat there were large hay ricks standing in the fields some of them were as large as a good size cottages I saw fields of Potatoes & turnips they looked very nice the fields that were mown had ridges I should think four or five feet apart the folaige of the trees were very thick Leamington is a very pretty place [we] are stopping at Regent Hotel we arived about six I & Edie just been out and had a little walk Mrs Lowell & the rest of the party have gone out to see Kenelworth Castle 8 its about 5 miles they rode on top of a stage 60

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Coach with four Horses & two Postilions which rode on the horses backs they wore red Jackets white top boots & white pantaloon and blue cloth caps on their head the house we are in is a large stone house white as we enter we go up a flight of stairs made of Oak they are not painted they are kept very nice the is a large window of stained glass with the English coat of arms the windows many of them are gothic when Edie & [I] walked out we saw several pretty buildings one church built of stone with several spires the windows were Gothic the Glas was in small diamonds as we came on the rail way the banks each side of the road was turfed with grass they looked very green there was some shrubery growing and some places was improved by vegetables being cultivated the depot at Chester was built of stone & brick and Iron every thing looks so strongly built I think there must be plenty of Iron in this Country

July 25 t h very pleasent we left leamington this morning for Warwick we went in a Coach with 4 horses 2 Postilions dress with Red Jackts white wash Leather pants little black Caps there were twelve of us Mr & Mrs Lowell consisted of 6 Mr Putnams Party consisted of 7 the was seats on top of the Carraige most of the Company preferred sitting up there because they had a better view of the Country It is a charming Country the fields of Grain & Potatoes & Grass did look Beautifull It has been a very Pleasent day it has been whet most of the time since we arrived here the streets are very broad & level also clean each is devided with a hawthorn Hedge we saw very few rail fences or stone walls occasionely we saw them the common houses on the roads were built of stone or brick with thatched roofs they looked very clean & tidy every inch of ground was cultivated either vegetable or flowers we left Leamington this morning for Warwick Castle 9 we drove up to the Lodge the Postilion nocked at the door when a nice looking old servant came out Mr Lowell gave him an address he took it up to the Groom of the House we were shown in we went up a flight of stone steps through an Arch door the first room we entred was called the Entrance Hall the flour [floor] ws squares of Marble I think two colours red & white there was a person there to show the visitors & tell them about the things in that 61

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room was a large frame it was some battle in cuaved [carved?] oak it was beautifuly done there was a buff Doublet Coat which Lord Broke wore when he was kiled in the time of Oliver Cromwell there were some Paintings of Portraits Ignatious Loyolya the founder of the Jusiets 10 as large as life there were some Beautiful tables enlaid with different marbles & stones also Cabinets there were two large horns of Stags one was an American stag in looking from the window there was a beautiful view the river ran throug the lawn there was a beautif arch bridge built over it Grand forest of trees va[r]ious kinds very fine oaks & Cedars of Lebenon I cannot describe the place well. the next room we entred I think was called the Ceder room I cant tell all the things there was in it there were great many Portraits of Kings and Qeens some Kings in armour the floors were oak several cabinets & vases a head of Menirva in white Marble also a bust of the Countess in marble the next room we entered was called the Gilt room the walls and Ceiling was pale green panneled with Gilt it was very hansome several Portraits in that they were done by Vandyke 11 I must say they were splend paintings such as I never see before several handsome tables desks chairs I cant Enumerate the things the next room we went in was the state Chamber belonging to Queen Ann it was Just as it was in her time the walls were covered with tapestry all sorts of figures on them the bed stead high Posts very high with tapestry Curtains and the quilt of the same metereal with three cushions at the head of the bed it look very ancient I dont remember all I saw in it there was a portrait of herself in it the next room was called the Bordoir with satin & velvet walls an elegant Ceiling there was some splendid paintings in this also a handsome table arainged with [ornaments?] such as vases I cant recolect what else there is a room we went in called the red room the walls were red paneld with gilt it had [?] some beautifull picture of Portraits & there were handsome tables vases there was a large vase seaweed China it was a light green we came from the Bordoir through an entry were some paintings one king Charles on a horseback we then went into a small room and saw a cut Glass vase & some pictures we then went into the Chapel were the family have prayer at half past eight oclock in the morning there was a Pulpet it was dressed in black with blk cloth for the late Countess she died about six months ago the Earls pew was 62

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lined with black the was a place for the Chorister & several pews we came from there into the entrance Hall again and see the armor which was worn by different Kings there was a Whole suit of armour put together It looked very curious I have not given half discription of the things the walls of the Castle is ten feet deep that is thicknes through. it is all walled around Immense Iron doors to fasten up the present Inhabitants of the Castle is the Earl of Warwick & his son Lord Brooke the Earl is over seventy his son is 30 two or three that is all the Child there is if he out lives his Father he will be Earl I should like to discribe the outside the growns are Beautiful the Countess died a few months since the Castle is build of stone a tower at each end some of the windows a stained glass set in small diamon we next went into Guys tower It has a hundred & 25 steps leading to the top it was built in 18 hundred there was a beautifull prospect from the top it was built of stone there were two or three rooms the floors were stone part of the stairs were stone part of wood when we came from there we went into the Porters Lodge the porter spoke of the late Countess with a great deal of feeling he said he had been Coach man to her for 25 years he said she was a fine Ladie she was very much mised the[y] showed us porridge pot I think it is copper or brass It is now used as a punch bowl it holds over a hundred Gallons it formerly belonged to Earl Guy we left there and drove to stratford Shakespear birth place Stratford on the avon we saw his house it is a very shabby looking house we went in we saw the room were he was born when we first entred the room we went into was a stone floor very much worn and broken we then went up a flight of stairs rather dark we went up into his room it was very old white washd walls they were marked all over with every bodys name there is an old Lady takes care of & shows it Strangers she has prints the exterior & Interior we then drove to Woodstock Oxfordshire & passt the night at the Bear Inn John Gilliam near Bleinheim Park

July 26 t h this morning we drove around Bleinheim Park we went into Bleinheim Palace 12 which was very old & not very large there was not much to be seen there was an old Bedstead with Curtains round it. it is said to 63

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be Queen Anns bed there was an old coat of arms the floors where white also the stairs we went up to the top had a fine view of the Park we then drove all round the Castle and went near a Monument Erected to Queen ann its base was stone I do not know the hightt & depth the was an inscription written upon it the whole heighth of the monument was a pillar a great many feet on the top was a Statue & an Eagle an Iron fence around the monument we then drove to Bleinheim Castle and got out of the Carraige and walk around the grounds it look very pretty we did not go into the Garden the lawn we walked on was very soft there were some very fine trees both Oaks & Elems very large there were a great variety of trees we saw som Deer horses and cows there was a beautifull river I think one side of the Castle a bridge to go over built of stone a beautifull Arch they told me that Queen Ann built this Castle for the Duke of Marlbourgh for some great Battle he fought Duke Marlbourgh & family live there the Duchess is dead the Duke has 6 Children 3 sons & a Daughter by the first & a son and a Daughter visiting the Park we drove back to the Inn & we then went to Oxford and took a lunch I & Edie went out to walk a little way we saw the Colledgs I saw Essex Colledgs & Lincoln & Jesus Colledge and Clarendon Printing office were they used to print Bibles but it is used now as a lecture rooms we saw the theatre a large round stone building with stone pillars in front with heads on the top looking very old we also saw the Museum another old stone building. we arrived in London about 7 Oclock pm St Thomas Hotel the Landlord name [Satlen?] Berkley Square

July 27 t h Pleasent this Morning & [are?] quite cool very different from our Climate you need quite thick clothes Edie has not yet worn any thin clothes since he left home July 27 t h London I went out to walk with Edie we went into the Park there were several Children running about there Mary Guterson called to see me to day I was glad to see her I like to see American faces we had some sprinklings of rain 64

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July 28 t h went to Hanover Square to see Mis Williams I went into some shops bought me a bible gave 4 shillings English money blank Book sixpence match box 25 cts cap several sixpence we saw some pretty shops with every thing in them the streets are very broad the side walks are flag stone very broad July 29 t h very pleasent has not rained to day I called to the Clarendon Hotel for Miss Guterson we went to walk through the arcade we saw many pretty things fine shops it sprinkles this minute I thought we should have one day without rain there is quite a shower Miss Wilcox called here to day I was glad to see her Mr & Mrs Lowell & the Ladies went to the Exibition 13 this morning the streets of London are very fine nice broad streets also broad side walks made of flag stone there is a fine Park in front of The Tomas Hotel I went to walk with Edie there the coachmen look very curious dressed in livery there are different colours to their dress I was told the queens Carraige is a bright red and her servants wear bright red Livery I saw a carraige the drivers had on red livery red Jackets red what we call small cloths to the knees snow white stockings & black shoes & white gloves black hat with some sort of badge [on] it some of the Carraiges look very funny they are shaped something like our Chaise only larger they have a seat behind were the driver sits there are all sorts of Carraiges Mr & Mrs Lowell & the young Ladies dine a 7 Oclock in the eve they are now at dinner Edie & my self dine at one Ocloc I take tea at six they are very pleasent people here very good attendants July 30 t h Pleasent went to walk with Edie in Hanover square we went to the Brunswick hotel to see Miss Williams there is a pretty Park in Hanover square and a large Statue of William Pit 14 Mr & Mrs Lowell & Miss Mary have gone to dine at the Star and Garter House at Mrs Peabodys It began to rain at five Oclock this afternoon although it was very bright & pleasent this morning I think there has been a shower every day since we left the Ship. 65

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July 31 s t went to Hyde Park to the great Exibition It was magnificent I saw things from the Unted States handsome lamps mechinery farming emplements also [things?] from France saw a splended door of Malichite green also tables Chairs vases some say it is stone some say it is a Metal it was taken from a mine I saw the Horse & [Dragon?] in Bronze the wild horse there was two men tying a man on to him I saw a wrought silks & caps wrought with gold thread a great many Swiss things cut from wood I saw several things of Carved Ivory they were made in India I saw a beautiful Sofa made of Deers horn & a Chair made of Iron it was made to resemble the limbs of a tree Just as it grows bark and all on some Turkey Carpets also French Tapestry Carpets there were two large Diamon I was told the man who cut it was put in Prison for 21 years for cutting it so badly he cut a good deal of it they were very large I saw many preceious stones there was a Crystal with one drop of water in it I saw the queens of Spains diamond it was a stomacher her Likeness in the Centre there was small & large diamonds there was to Indians in there natural Costume they were in England some time ago with this dress they were taken in I saw a Statue of the wounded Indian also the Statue of the Greek [Hure?] she was very beautiful it was done by Powers an American sculpture 15 there were great many Beautiful statues in the Centre of the Building was the Crystal Fountain made entirely of Glass it was full of water playing beautifuly there were several fountains there were Number of Palmtrees from India I think. [Gillots pens?] fine pens and holders there were great many other things in the same place I cant remember there were some splendid fine places Marble & gilt specimens of all sorts of Coal I saw some Vases made from [Yannel?] Coal they looked like black Ebony there was a Modle of Liverpooll the water on one side the City on the other the Docks look very natural the Ships in the water there was a very large Organ an large bell there was a good deal of mechinery from Different parts of the world som of it was in motion I saw them make bricks they put the clay in it came out formed into brick I saw a very pretty vase that came from the United States clay such a[s] bricks were made from I saw a statue of Eve made from unbaked clay & the serpent there were some revolving lights for light houses they were very curious there was an Enormous 66

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Lion in Bronze Akles 16 who was wounded in his heel it was in Marble I saw a chair made from Spar I saw something made from refined spermicity it was made in the shape of a Dog kennel I saw differet sorts of Ore that was taken from the mines there wer tapestry carpet from France the was one with the English coat of arms the Lion Unicorn and other figures very handsome there were Beautiful silk & Brocades silk velvets some Elegant table enlaid with pearls a side Board with the Bear & [rugged?] staf also Kings carved on it I think it was oak there was a modle of the queens theatre several beautiful Clocks & Cabinets Beautiful China Vases & bowls very large Turkey carp[et] handsome needle work I was there about 3 hours to day I got very tired Mr & Mrs Lowell & Miss Mary gone to Mr Sturges to a party Mrs Lowell wore her white Brocade silk Miss Mary wore a plain white silk Miss Wilcox came in this eve

London, August 1 s t , 1851 1 7 it rained this morning a little Mr & Mrs Lowell gone to Hyde Park Edie & I went to walk in Regent street 18 I bought a parasol gave 5 English shillings and some lace [gave?] 1 shilling Mary Guterson called to see me this afternoon there is an old woman or an old man stands the corner of every street almost they brush the side walk they expect you to give them a penny if you look at them they expect you to pay I think things are high in price August 2 d I have not been out to day Edie was not well this morning I have not felt well to day I feel weak it has been quite warm Mr Lowell & the family have been to the Exebition Edie has gone out to ride this afternoon to see the city it has not rained to day yet. August 3 d Pleasent went to church this morning Miss Wilcox met me in Oxford street took me to Edge Ware road to Mr Chalmers Church he did not preach stranger preach a most excelent sermon from Ephesians 1 st chap 19 th and 20 th verses 19 Miss Wilcox came home with me and dined. I saw the Marl [C?] gate way at the entrance of the Park the great 67

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exibition beautiful arch gate way wrought iron gate Mary Gutterson just called for me to take a walk I[n] St James Park in front of the Queens Palace it is very large enclosed with an Iron fence there is a large Pond in it there were swans & ducks swiming in it there were many little sheep folds inside the park the walks were very broad there were some flower gardens & many beautiful trees we then walk up to the queens Palace it is very large there is an Iron fence round the queens soldiers were near the entrance in the Centre of the building was a very large Iron Gate with the Coat of Arms and some other figures the yard was Graveld we next saw what used to be the Queens Palace it now used as the Barracks for the soldiers I saw many fine buildings they are built of stone very large Hotels some of them very handsome I forgot to mention Mr Chalmbrs Church the out side is Brick you entre you go up 1 flight of stone steps it is very plain the pulpit is arch over head painted to Imitate marble a red sofa & the desk was red there were two galeries one above another the singers sat near the pulpit I think the was an Organ but noone played it some of the seats were cushioned some were not there was a woman who acted as a sexton it looked strange to me

August 4 t h Pleasent I went the Exibition I saw everything I saw some splended cut glass Chandeliers some of them belong to the Queen there was some beautiful wax Dolls & flowers also artificial flowers I saw the Queen on horse Back in marble some curious vases from Pompei some splended wrought [dresses?] & some Chinese umberilla many China vases some beautiful plate glass different colours there was a table of plate glass it was blue we saw Guterpercher 20 things writeing apperatus saw India rubber in its raw state many beautiful statues in marble & Bronze one of the Entrances to the exebition large marble gate way with the Duke of Welington on a horse on the top he and the horse was Iron it stood at the entrance of Hyde Park we passed by Buckinham Palace the queen residence August 5 t h Pleasent day not well got Bad Dierhera took rheubarb & Laudanom 21 the family all gone to the Crystal Palace I sent a letter to Gilly to day 68

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August 6 t h cloudy the family gone to the house of Parliment to day I have not been out I feel better been writeing to [Knighty?] August 7 t h not well this morning better this afternoon did not go out to day very pleasent Edie had a rash August 8 t h went to see the Queen pass to the hous of Parliment it was called the prorouge 22 the streets were thronged with people & Carraiges we were in Parliment street we went into a house there was Mr & Miss Brook & Mis Winthrop Mr Lowell Mis Nina & Edie & myself we had a good view first came the Troop on horse with red Jackets white wash leather pants boots to the knees & spurs helmets of brass on their heads instead of a plume some sort of white hair they had breast plate of armour they Carried a gun & a Sword white Gauntlets on their hands on black horses there was an Elegant band there were six hansome Carraiges with six beautiful blk Horses very hansomely trimed with gold lace two stood on Behind the Carraigs drss in Livery very handsome the Queens Carriage came first it was Elegant I cant describe the shape it was mostly Gilt the top was red in the Center was the Crown there were four figures of Gilt it was drawn by eight cream coloured horses a driver sat in front & two Postilions the driver wore a three cornerd hat or cap trimed with gold lace his dress was I think red trimed with gold lace there were four Grooms who walked by the side of the horses the horses were caprisoned with blue & a great deal of gilt then came several Men of state which they called Beaf eaters they were dressed in the time of some King of antient date they had broad ruffles around their necks caps on their heads they carried some weapons in their hands they had on small cloths to the knee white silk stockings buckles on their shoes the Livery of all the servants was very elegant most of the livery coats was red and gilt there was one beautiful carraige the servants livery was salmon colour three cornerd hat we saw the procession pass twice & very good order there were great number of Police men there were several thousand people collected from the Great down 69

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to the poorest the people seemed to Love her they gave her & the Prince many cheers I could not see her dress. her hair was dress plain with a crown upon her head the Gentlemen who rode in the beautiful carraiges wore there Court dress they looked very handsome we went to White Hall Chappel to call for Mrs Lowell we saw Mr Laurence he was dressed in his court dress he look well Mrs Lowell & Miss Mary with Mr Lawrence to see the procession it is called the royal Chapple the many people let there rooms for so much a head for the people to see I think they paid two pounds for the room we were in I saw many fine buildings in rideing we rode by Trifalgar Square I saw a monument erected to Lord Nelson 23 the queen made a speech in the house of Parliment she is said to be very industrious and very punctual in all her performances she rises early and is very benevolent to most Institutions

Paris August 9 t h left London this afternoon for Dover which is 86 miles from London it took 3 Carriages to take us and our luggage to the sail way in going to Dover the Country look very Beautiful we pass many fields with Golden Grain some was already cut like the other places we pass well cultivated beautiful Hawthorn hedges every thing so perfectly neat small Cottages with thatched roofs also tiled roofs and nice little gardens attached to them we passed through several dark tunnels sometimes for four or five minutes we arrived at Dover at 10 oclock in the eve we went to the Bermingham Ship Hotel close to the water it was very pretty to look out the window at the back of the house and see the ships & Boats in harbour we were Close by the Dover Cliffs 24 they were very high the tops beautiful green the sides white there was a Castle on the top of one of them we stoped there one night I was very tired when I got there the Courier & I went together Mr & Mrs Lowell went in an earlier train as we did not arrive there in season with the Baggage

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“Every body seems happy & independent” Passing through customs in France—first at Calais and again late at night in Paris—was more difficult (“strict”) than in England, and traveling more hectic. Berbineau’s fascinated descriptions of the countryside conclude with her exhaustion and relief on arrival. Although interior and exterior landscapes provoke detailed commentary, she was equally interested by the people of France, especially in Paris, and she remarks on her own faulty stereotypes, especially of French women. The water quality may have been poor, for both she and Eddie were ill for several days. Her discomfort does not inhibit Berbineau from remarking on the elegance and comfort of their surroundings, which she records as carefully as she does the medicine she prepares for him and herself and the food they eat. Although her worry about Eddie’s health is palpable, her personal remarks again emerge only in glimpses, such as when she notes the “Inconvient” cooking facilities in the family’s rooms. As in England, Berbineau observes the religious customs with a care-

The Diary

ful—and here, disapproving— eye, although she appreciates Parisians’ ability to enjoy themselves and to “[mind] there own buisnes.” She is delighted by the famous Tuileries gardens, among other attractions, and admires the countryside en route from Paris to Dijon. Travel to Mont Blanc provokes awe, cultural criticism, and renewed thoughts of home.

August 10 t h we left Dover this morning at 10 Oclock for Calais in a steam Boat it is 25 miles from Dover to Calais many of the passengers was sick crossing the Chanel Mrs Lowells family was not sick it was very smooth we arrived in Calias about two Oclock when we arived there the luggage hat [had] to go through the custom we even had to have our small carpet bags to be examined by the time we got ready to get into the Cars they were all full and a great number that could not get in they put in extry Carraigs you would have laught to see the rush the moment the Carraige was on & we had to rush with the rest but however we got a very Comfortabl seat there were two French Gentlemen in also the Carraige held eight when we got started they went at a rapid rate a very different scenery from what we had seen the land was well cultivated it seemed to be very wet there were ditches cut in each patch of land that was culti[vated] a great many willow trees by the water not many pretty Hawthorn hedges sort of rail fences pointed at the top & a wire went through them you could see for many miles one vast plain squares planted with different things a good deal of grain & then you would see a patch of potatoes & a spot of mustard and another of Popies and so on with different sorts of vegitables hop fields and then ocasionaly were clumps of trees some neat little houses & then again some very shabby looking built of Clay & plastered thatch roofs they were quite small & very low not much heigth to them the banks by the side of the road with a good deal of lime in them the women were at work in the fields cutting grain they look very poor nothwithstanding it was sabbath day th[e]y were at work or at play give me my own Country for the quiet sabbath where man & beast can rest and think of their Maker they stoped sometimes ten minuets the passengers would get out to get something to eat we arrived in Paris at ten Oclock in the evening we all 72

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had to go through the custom house deliver up the passports all the luggage had to be examined we had no difficulty however I must say they are very strict a Police man stands at every corner there is no excapeing them we all went in and sat down while Mr Lowell & Berto went to see about the luggage and while we sat there the was a train of Cars got in they had been to carry people on some pleasure party some had been a fishing they all seemed very merry you would not suppose it was Sabbath day there were hundreds of people old and young some Infants after they all got through with there luggage we got into an Omnibus with all the baggage on top & drove to a Hotel Mr Lowell went into enquire before we got out they were all full he then went to an other place were we were all alighted I went up stairs we had some very fine rooms I must say a little about rideing through the streets from the Depot many shops were lighted they were Saloons we came through the Boulevards it was thronged with the people there were Chairs on the side walk filled with people very gay & lively when we came to our rooms we were glad to go to bed poor little Edie was very tired we were all very much tired. I felt quite sick when I went to bed.

August 11 t h Pleasent very warm not well I have a bad diherea. as soon as it was light I got up took 20 drops of Laudnum Edie is quite sick he is very feverish has not been dress to day I gave him some oil the rest of the family gone out to walk or ride unfortunate for Edie & me the street Rue Neuve St Augustine where we are August 12 t h Pleasent very warm Edie quite sick rather more comfortable than yesterday the Dr left me some medicene it was liquid to day he left some powders I cannot realize I am in Paris I have not been out I see many Curious things in looking out the window some of the Houses are five and six stories high they are built of stone the Hotel we are in quite curious in some respects when we entre the floor is large flag stones then you go up a winding stair case some of the stairs are stone some are wood I think mahogany Banisters & Iron rails we are up to flights Mrs Lowells rooms are three Bed chambers a parlour & a dineing room 73

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there is a kitchen attached to it with a little convienent range it is curious in its structure I had a Charcoal fire made up to day I have been cooking arrowroot 25 & gruel & cataplasms for Edie It is rather Inconvient to cook little messes in down stairs as you go out the door pass by one door to get to the kitchen it looks funny the rooms we have a[re] very pleasent & handsomely furneshed they have very Elegant curtains & Chairs in the Parlour satin damask red and yellow what they call velvet carpets my room has a handsome carpet two shades of red blue & Brown paper on the walls blue chintz bed curtains mahogany bedsted mahogany plush chairs the curtains and paper match this Hotel is opposite Guerlain the perfumer makes those nice shaveing soaps the people in the Hotel are french one or two speak English [Bartoe?] our Courier Interprets for me when I want any thing. he is a German. you see the woman walking out here all parts of the day with a cap on their head without a bonnet they look very neat they are not at all noticed you would soon get accustomed to their looks I like here although I have not been out any every body seems happy & Independent

August 13 t h very warm Edie quite poorly though Dr [Tusole?] thinks him quite well had an other Doctor this eve he has ordred him some more medicine two powdres of calomile 2 grains each also a dose of medecine Castor Oil for nourishment beef tea arrow root & toast water Nina not well this afternoon diherea they think the water very bad I have used a little brandy in my water for diner very warm day I feel the heat I feel languid very little strength August 14 t h Pleasent very warm Edie a little better but quite feeble the Dr ordred him to take soup or beef tea as we call it he told me to take a lb of Beef cut of all fat then cut it up in small pieces put it in an earthen pot put a quart of water to it put in a carrot & a turnip and a little salt and boil it 3 hours I made it in our kitchen with a little Charcoal put into the Grate Bartholo bought me an earthen pot to cook in. it is eight Oclock in the evening I have been looking out the window to see the people pass by there are all sorts old and young rich and poor they seem so happy 74

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walking out with their Children most of them look like the Boston people in their dress much more so than the English do particularly the Children the Hotel were we are is kept by Mr Bustiel it this moment the house very full

August 15 t h very warm Edie better I made him some beef soup put in a little rice I am now looking out the window to see the people pass the streets are thronged Mr & Mrs Lowell the Young Ladies have gone out to dine they have gone to a restaurant to dine you can run out anytime and get your dinner it is very convient I have Just been out to ride with Mrs Lowell we rode through the Bolevard. it looked very pretty the buildings are very high Beautiful lighted with gass splended Cafe houses Elegantly furnished the shops looked very pretty the Bolevards thronged with people thousands of people walking they walk so every night a great day of the Church fate day of the Virgin Mary 26 the people seem to enjoy them selves so much they dont medle with their Neigbours Every body minds there own buisnes the woman go with out Bonets they live out of doors the French are a very healthy looking people after working through the day they enjoy themselves in the evening August 16 t h Pleasent very warm Edie better to day I went out to ride with Miss Mary & Nina we rode by the Tweleries & the Concord the Tweleries & very pretty beautiful trees & grass there were good many people walking and setting there the Concord is a place some what like the Common 27 a great many trees there was not any grass the walks looked like cement I also like the roads we rode around the triumphal Arch Erected to the Honour of Bonapart It was very high & built of stone a great many [figures?] carved on it there were Battles carved also war instruments I saw some handsome buildings some of the streets are very broad they are paved with square paveing stones the sidewalks are broad very large flag stones the largest I ever saw we saw several beautiful fountains one or two churches there were severall tents & chairs in the Concord we next went through the Boulevarts it was alive with People the people 75

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take things fair & easy the family gone to dine to a Caffe restaurant Mrs Crowningshield just called with her little girl

August 17 t h Sabbath morning I was awakened early this morn hearing the Cries of men & woman going about selling their vegetables & bread just the same as any day when I got up this morning I looked out the window opposite our Hotel the shops were all open a strange sight Edie better he has gone to ride with his papa & Mamma I have a bad head ach I did not sleep much last night the streets were not quiet until one or two oclock I have Just been out to ride with Mrs Lowell we rode by the Champs Elissa it was lighted up Beautifly with different shaped lights some were in the shape of an arch made from very small lights we rode by the monument Erected to Bonaparte its Base is 21 feet high I dont know how high the Shaft is but some hundred feet there are large figures carved on it there are two splended Fountains in the Champs Elissius they were playing beautifuly there was a large Obelisk the Shaft was brought from Egyepte some year ago there were two Beautiful horses they wer carved from stone they were in imitation of some Bronze Horses in rome that were in some battle we went nearly to the triumpal Arch it was begun by Bonaparte & finished Louis Philleppe on the Champs Elissea were many places of refreshments and hundreds of People sitting there the streets thronged with carraiges it looked like a City of lights every body lives out of doors men women and Children we rode by the Tuleries August 18 t h Just been out to ride with Mrs Lowell & Edie we rode by the Champs Elyses also by Champs de Mars 28 we saw a large building of it was the Miletary School in front was the [field?] Mars the ground white & hard we saw suspemtion Bridge the weather is very fine the fountains were playing this after noon they look splendid they were very large they were Bronze there were large figuers of men & women in the Bason holding dolphins up to them the water came out of the Dolphins mouths I cant describe the shape of the fountains we rode by the Presidents House Lours Nepolion it was a very large Ston buildin Surrounded by a wall we also saw his garden his house looked very old we 76

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looked through the arch way as we pass. close by were the Miletary who guarded his person we stoped the Carraige & examined the monument Erected to Napolion Bonapart it was carved all over with armour & Miletary instruments there were Immortal wreaths hung on some parts of it made from different everlastings yellow & other col[ours] we went to the Boulevards to a toy shop bought Edie something Edie has been out to ride twice to day he enjoyed it very much Dr. Bertoe thinks him quite well to day he eat roast chicken for his dinner he had tea bread & butter & stued appricots he has a very good appetite. the streets and side walks look very clean the shops also they wash the shop windows every morning they look so bright people often stand and look at themselves and adjust their dress every morning you see little heaps of dirt & litter thrown into the street there are men who come round with a cart and broom and take it up & sweep the street I had a very different Idea of the French as to their neatness and the women look neat they seem to be dress so as to run out any time always tidy of course there are acception a very few it is amuseing to see them go round and sell bread in the morning the men have quite a large cart they drag round you would be amused to see the different shape loafs there are some that are three feet in length then there are smaller sizes they have very good bread and butter here the women sell milk they have several cases they take their stand on the side walk and deal it out to the passers by we had a new Courier came to day he is Italion his name is Phillepe

August 19 t h we went to ride twice to day we went this morn on the other side of the Tueleris on the side of the River Siene we went in several parts of the City we went into the Garden of Plants it was Beautiful there were a great many beautiful flowers nice broad mall trees each side the lower part of the tree is trimed the foliage was thick at the top it formed an arch over head they have Animals from all parts of the world there we were five minutes to late the gate was shut we saw a few that were out side the gate we saw two black Bears & one white one some goats & some sheep it was a very large garden there wer some very large green houses in the garden we did not go up to them they were quite a dis77

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tance I believe any one can go in Certain hours of the day the river Siene looked very pretty there were two or three suspension Bridges there were three large Arches built of stone the bridge was mad of Iron Chains & railing the people go to the river and wash they have large boats & places fixed to wash in and places fixed to dry on I saw a church or Cathedral it look very old and it was Beautifuly built I think they call it Notre Pari 29 all the houses are very greath heigth I saw some very pretty Iron fences the tops or points were gilt many of the People have green houses on the top of their houses we went to ride about six in this afternoon we rode by the Champs de Elyses it looks so Beautiful you would never get tired going there there are so many beautiful Statues basis of Stone I saw a beautiful Arch on the top was four large horses & 3 Statues they look like Bronze the eyes would never get tired seeing the streets and side walks look so clean I dont think most of the people work very hard the seem easy and contented they are not like the Americans in many things an American could not live as some of the french do very small apartments I mean among the poorer class of people many of the shop here are very small you see in some of the shops in Boston as handsome things as there are here there are some Beautiful shops here Edie is quite well to day Phillipe has left us to day

Paris August 20 t h I went to ride with Edie went to the Tueileries we walked inside there were several flower gardens & Statues the trees look very pretty they grew [stout?] the lower part of the trunks were kept trimed the foliage was very thick on the top they were in Order Each side of the Mall there were many Orange trees in the Centre of the walks they were in large Boxes with castors on the bottom they could be moved easily I suppose they are kept in green house in cool weather Mrs Lowell not well to day packed the [trunks] August 21 s t we left Paris this morning at 9 oclock for Dijon which is a hundred & ninty miles we arrived at Dijon about 7 oclock in the eve the country was beautiful we passed through it is vintage season there were large fields of Grapes they run up on sticks they look in rows as our rasp78

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beries do the trees looked very pretty very different scenery from what we saw in going from Calis to Paris the land was well cultivated but still there were good many trees & Shrubery we saw some beautiful hills all the slope of the hill culterd then the valley look beautiful we saw many women at work the houses along the country were ston most of the roofs stone the Poplar tree grows in great abundance they seem to be planted in rows they look very pretty we passed throug several tunels perfect darkness the fences were sticks driven into the ground one or two wires passed through them

August 22 d we left Dijon this mornin, the name of the Hotel we stop de la [Glouctr?] we did not see much of the place the streets & side walks were paved they were narrow and dirty perhaps we did not see the Pleasent part of it we saw great many vinyards als a good deal of other fruit apples & pears the grounds were well cultivated all the hill sides. there were no fences between the cultivated part & the Public road many places you would see the sheep a feeding and little Shepherdess watching them also you would see horses & Cows feeding always some Man or women watching them the roads are very good they are Mcadamized we came post with Coach & four horses & postilion I think we changed horses four times before we arrived at Champagnols Hotel de la Porte we arrived here at half past 7 Oclock in the Eve I think we all felt pretty tired we rode round the mountain we had a beautiful view the sides of the mountain we[re] cultivated each kind of vegitable was devided in long strips several feet in width the gardens & some of the houses at the foot of the mountains looked very pretty & quite pictureesque as I am neither Painter nor Poet I cannot describe them all I can say it was a charming sight we had a faint view of Mount Blanc 30 some of the places we passed they looked very poor many houses were built of stone and clay thatched roofs not any windows sometimes little holes in the side of the house the women were at work as hard as the men their skin was a perfect brown I dont think the women of America could work so they wore straw hats & Broadbrims we now and then saw a large wooden crox [cross?] put in the fields they seemed to have pretty good taste about gardning I think they might have better taste 79

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about building their houses they also have on wooden shoes they were not vain particu in their dress at one post were we stoped there were several poor looking Chldren came beging for Charite one brought a babe in her arms another brought a bunch of flowers and so you see them at every place you stop at sometimes half Doz old men they did look like Objects of Charity certainly

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“The bells are Chimeing among the mountains” The rapid journey through many popular tourist destinations in Switzerland and Italy inspires some of Berbineau’s strongest admiration: Mont Blanc is the “Monarch of Mountains”; Lake Geneva’s “palish green” is “shaded like the colours of the rainbow”; the landscape as a whole is a manifestation of God, inspiring one of the most revealing comments in the entire narrative. On the secular side, we see her taking in sights popular with American tourists, most notably the torture chambers in Chillon Castle. A note of quiet humor or subtle irony echoes in her account of the woman tour guide’s remark about letting people “die by inches” in “good old times,” and the castle itself sparks her imagination of perpetual entrapment. While Berbineau and Nina suffer consistent stomach ailments—again probably because of the poor water quality, reminding us that the root of the word travel is travail, or hardship—Berbineau also endures a toothache. Her depiction of “Paradise” is flawed by the sight of poor people and “very dirty” accommodations.

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Here, as earlier, she reflects repeatedly on the appearance and labor of local women. Asserting her faith and gratitude for “eyes to behold” the beauty around her, she also contemplates religious practices, evincing at times a perspective that is both critical and disturbing to contemporary readers.

August 23 d left Champagnaie about 9 oclock this morning for Geneve Nina was not well which prevented going as early as they had anticipated she was sick at her stomach two or three times she bour the journey very well we had a very pleasent day we had some Beautiful views to day in rideing over the Jura Mountains 31 the houses were at the foot of the mountains it was a beautiful winding road round the mountains they were covered with balsom firs beautiful shape when on the mountain the plain below was beautiful well cultivated we had a beautiful view of Mont Blanc while changeing horses at Faueille we got out and walked a little way I picked a few flowers we saw the Lake of Geneve when on the Jura Mountain there was a beautiful plain below and many Villages at the sides of that was the Lake then beyond that were the Mountains again above them all arose Mont Blanc they were white with snow then the sun being bright they looked splendid it may well be called the Monarch of Mountains I cannot describe the beauty we saw. rode into the City in the evening we could not see how it looked we rode over the bridge which crossed the Lake it looked very pretty by the gas light the Hotel was full we went back again over the bridge out of the City to the Hotel des Tranger Nina sick to day I gave here two calomel pills 32 she has been sick at her stomach Geneva Aug 24 t h I have not been out and dont feel well very warm and pleasent August 25 t h Pleasent Miss Nina sick at her stomach I have been sick also we left the Hotel des Tranger for the Hotel de la Couronne on one side of the Lake there are beautiful views from the window of the Mountains the lake is beautiful 82

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August 26 t h Geneva I went out to walk a little way with [Heneneta?] the streets are paved the buildings are of stone some are brick and plaster I have not seen much of the City yet I bought a watch at Mr Malingnon I took some medicine which Mrs J A Lowell gave me Nina very much better I sent a letter to Gilly to day August 27 t h Mr & Mrs Lowell & Miss Mary have gone to Shamony 33 with Mrs Lowells family to pass two nights Miss Nina Edie myself & Charles the courier are at Geneva. Shamony is said to be a beautiful place some one at the Hotel told me she had been there she said Mont Blanc was splended you could plainly see the large sheets of Ice she rode over one of the Mountains she got thrown once or twice very narrow path upon a very high Precipice sometimes she felt as if she should be dashed to the Bottom of the mountain I am now sitting by the window which looks out upon the Beautiful lake. Just beyond are the Alps very high mountains there are several bridges to go in and out the city the People go down to the Lake and wash their cloths there are 20 women now down there washing Edie & I went out to walk we walked by the Lake there are several boats to take People out when they want to take a sail the water looks Green & very clear you can see the stones at the Bottom very plain there are a good many Donkeys here they are used here a good deal for labour when they bray they make a horid noise I have Just come up from dinner some times there are from 20 to thirty People there Ladies Maids & Couriers Italion french English they have a very good table breakfast at eight dine half past one Soup at eight they have what is called Table d’hote at one Oclock People can dine at that hour or lunch and dine at five Edie takes his dinner then he took a sail on the Lake this after with Charls they were gone an hour he enjoyed it highly August 28 t h Pleasent this morn I awoke this morning with a bad swelled face my teeth ach very bad I am also suffering from dyspepsia I have been quite 83

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poorly for two days five oclock in the afternoon it rains fast with thunder & lightning the wash women all scampering from the river wet to the skin

Geneva August 29 t h suffered a good deal of pain in my face an abcess formed inside my mouth face very much swolen Charles brought me some flax to put on the outside of my face to keep it warm he got me some marsh Mellow leaves & had them boiled in milk to put on the roof of my mouth I have felt poorly all day Nina has had swoolen eyes for two days she has been bitten by some insect my stomach has troubled me a good deal I took some of Gregorys powder 34 last night given me by a Lady at the Hotel she also gave me a prescription to get some made it was very kind of her August 30 t h Veva 3 5 we left Geneva this morning at ten Oclock for Lousanne there was a shower in the morning it was pleasent the rest of the day I suffered very much from face ach it was very much swoolen I tyed it up with a hankercheif I had a pleasent days Journey considering all things. we went to Lousanne in a steam boat we had nice view of the Jura Mountains they were covered with snow on one side were pretty little villages so beautifuly cultivated it was rather cool on the water the air generaly is very fine we took dinner in Lousanne I felt so poorly I did not walk out the rest of the party did it is a very pretty place they seem to be a very Industrious people I laid and rested myself while the rest went to walk they had a very pretty garden at the back of the Hotel a fine view of the lake & Mountains we took a Carraige & rode to [?] the country we passed through was Charming there was acres & acres of Grapes cultivated in that part of the country on the hill side was very steep there were turrets one above another for the Grapes to lean against I must say I never saw so well cultivated a place most of the way was the hills of grapes one side and the Lake the other which gave a very pretty contrast and the mountains beyond I cannot describe the beauty of this great sheet of water with a ripple it was a palish green sometim 84

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it shaded like the colours of the rainbow the tops of the moutains were white with snow the reflection of the Sun on the mountain and on the water was Beautiful & the Silver Clouds as it were on the mountains we can truly say God is the maker of them all. while admireing his works may we have hearts to love and serve him we arived in Vevay at 7 oclock the finest Hotel was filled with people we go[t] very good rooms at Hotel Trois Rois nothing splended

August 31 s t we left Vevy this morning 9 Oclock it rained part of the time the Alps look so Beautiful we were quite near to some of them saw the snow we went to Chillon Castle 36 were prisnors had been keept there was a woman who went through several apartments the Duke of Savoy used to live there I think they said it was built in 13 hundred it look very old it stands close to the water the water dashes on the base after we got out the Carraige we went across a little bridge to [enter?] we saw the place were the Gibbet it was rather dark I could not see it very distinctly there was a place built of stone they called the place of Judgment we also saw a place it was a very high post with a sort of truck at the top were people were drawn up by the arm sometimes break a limb an let them down again let them die by inches the woman would make this remark that was the way they did in good old times she next showed a nich in the walk were they had to pray to the Virgin Mary then you decend three steps you were inclosed in a dark place to starve to death when they wanted them to die quickl they stood on a trap door they went down many feet were they were cut to pieces with knives & other things we went into quite different apartments the Duke reception room his bed chamber his kitchen the Ceiling of these rooms were larch wood that is never eaten by worms the Ceiling was panneled we saw his bedsted it Carved wood dark col[our] the fireplace in his reception room was very Curious it was round sort of tower shape we all went into the fireplace and looked up the kitchen fire place was Enormous large the woman said they used to roast Oxen by it the Castle was stone you can Imagine once to get in the[re] and have the bolts and bars fastened upon you. you could never et out large Iron doors & 85

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gates we stoped in [box?] took lunch Edie was [sick?] also myself we went to Martigny passed the night

Sep 1 s t left Martigny this morning 9 Oclock we continued our rout at the foot of the alps we could see the snow very plain on top the people & every thing else have an intire change in looks from those of the Canton to Geneva I think the [?] Republic what we [passed?] through to day Is governed by the King of Sardinia the people look miserable poor the streets are dirty their houses miserable looking the women wear upon their head a small hat with a broad band round it which looked very laughable they are dressed poorly the people of Geneva wore large straw & Leghorn hats very broadrims were we stop tonight the Chamber window looks directly on the Alps and not very far of my stomach feels very bad lived on arrow root to day Sep 2 d We crossed Mont Semplon 37 one of the Alps it was pleasent most of the day it was very cold Charles said that was the road Napoleon Bonapart made when he crossed with his army we went throug two or three Galeries ther were arches covered at the top we went through a place cut in the solid rock it was a very cecuitus road as we wound along we could see in the distan how we came no one would ever think horses & Carraige could come on the side of the mountain when we were at the top I see what emmence higth the precipice it looked frighten to be on the top we were very near the snow large white sheets we felt pretty cold the side of the mountain was doted here and there with houses the houses we passed were miserable looking we saw Number of people who live among the mountains have swelled throats it is caused by the water they drink which runs from the Mountains there are pines and shrubery which grow on the side of the Mountain we saw a great many goats feeding on the side of the mountains they use them for their milk we went into a Convent the priest or monk shewed up different apartments I did not much interest in it I felt sick my stomach troubled me very much to day we arrived about 8 Oclock this eve all the houses are 86

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built of stone stone stairs stone floors very cold here to night we saw several cascades comeing down the mountains they look so pretty we saw several Crosses with Crucifix upon them.

Sep 3 d we left Semplon this morning at 8 Oclock fine weather it was cold when we set out in a few hours it was quite warm we arrived in Italy in the forenoon we had our luggage examind it was a very different climate what we had left it was quite warm the air was fine the grapes are cultivated differently from what they were in Switzerland they are trained up on trelis and on trees the mountains looked beautiful some of the mountains looked like antient Castle the stone perfectly free from green then we rode by some that was covered with trees & shrubery we see many Cross with a crusfix the people look very poor & work very hard they raise a good deal Maiz like our Indian corn. Sep 4 t h we had a very pleasent morn to Continue our Journey we rode by the Lake Maggion it was a beautiful ride quite a distance in the Lake is a little Island Isolabella quite a little village there is a Castle upon it it looked very pretty this part of the Country seems to abound with Graps & other fruit such apples pairs plumbs figs we lost the mountains to day we assended the hill of Arona where stands a Statue of St Carlo Beromio 38 made of Bronze it is Enormous he has a large book under his arm which 20 persons can stand upright I think 10 persons can get into the head his arm is so large several persons can walk upright there is a window in the back of the neck it stands on a very high base built of stone I saw it in Waugh Panorama of Italy 39 it looks very like it there were some persons there who went up inside while we were there the hill was very steep to go up I got very tired I picked two or three flowers we then came down went to a Hotel to dine large stone building stone step & entrys tile floors no carpet except a bit by the side of the bed the rooms look quite neat little Iron bed steds white Curtains & bed spread white muslin window Curtains the place we stoped in last night was very dirty we arrived late to our destination it is not a 87

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very elegant house tile floors no carpet in Edie and my room however we have a clean bed to sleep I saw several Priests at the place we stop at with long black dresses cocked hats we had to cross the lake in boats funny looking boats to the Climate is beautiful the air so fine & soft we met many miserable looking objects I have not seen many handsome women yet they are very dark I think they live out of doors we had our luggage examined again to day they are very strict I have felt a little better to day all this week every time we stop to take our meals I have to make me arrow root this is the sixth day of our Journey we ride all day stop at night set of the next morning at 8 oclock we are now traveling through the North of Italie

Sep 5 t h we started this morning a half past 8 this morning we had a very pleasent ride to Melan a City about as large as Boston in rideing into the City we rode by a Beautiful arch built of Stone with several large Bronze horses on the top we rode by a beautiful Cathedral looked very old the party had to produce their passport the Hotel we are stopping at is very large stone building mosaic stone floors & entry also chambers the Ceiling Beautifuly painted I felt better to day though not quite well Milan Sep 6 t h just been out to walk we saw the Cathedral it has a great many spires large figures carved on them and on the front and sides handsome stained glass windows Gothic they were perfoming Mass the twelve apostles were dres up Candles were burning the Priest had some sort of Incense with smoke ascend some of the Priest went down stairs were I think they Partook the Euchrist they had the Crucifix and had Candles burning the Inside of the Cathedral was Beautiful the Carvings & paintings the floor was mosaic we saw several houses with large statues on them the houses are very strongly built many of the windows have Iron bars & Iron net beside the glass window & wooden shutter the streets are paved flag stone side walks. I have Just come up from the dinner table were they had five Courses of meat & then pudding & 88

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fruite & wine every body drinks wine I take a little brandy in my water as the water is bad some drink wine for breakfast dinner & supper they have beautiful fruite grapes pears & fresh figs the people seem happy I am told they look sad since the revolution 40 I enjoy the weather it is very fine the air so soft

Sep 7 t h rainy this morning the Bells have been chimeing this morning for Church I though of the Churches in america I had Church in reading my Bible and in Meditation God is every where when we call upon him he will hear us in Italie as well as in America I have been poorly to day I took arrowroot last night & this morning I Suffered a good deal I took a Bismoth powder 41 this morning. I have just been looking out the Window I see people going into Chappel many of the women wear veils & also Children they look so funny some are white and some are black Sep 8 t h Italy Milan rainy this morn, pleasent this afternoon have not been out to day feel very poorly my food distresses me very much took Bismoth powder Sep 9 t h we left Milan this morning at half past five we took the Cars for Como 42 we Breakfasted at Como we then took the steamboat sailed up Lake Como it was very beautiful the scenery was very beautiful we saw the alps the[y] looked as beautiful as ever as we came to villages there were miserable looking houses the people looked very poor Switzerland Sep 10 t h we continued our Journey over the Alps we went over Mount Spugen 43 it is the highest mountain we have been over snow was below us it was very cold we had all the cloaks & shawls we could get we had a very pleasent drive we saw a Magnifecent water fall from the water coming down the mountain & going up the Mountain it was very 89

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rocky and barren but comeing down it look very beautiful it ws covered with pines we rode though two or three Galeries cut through the Mountain in comeing down the road was very zigzag no one could hardly believe horses & Carraiges could come down we found quite a differ climate below from what we found above we went to a very good Hotel they made large fire we got warm and comfortable had good beds we had Eider down comforters which was beautiful & warm after cold days ride

Sep 11 t h we continued our Journey over the Splugen this morning when I got up & looked out of the window the plains were covered with a heavy white frost it put me in mind of Walthm 44 the latter part of October it was quite cold but the air very fine we lodge at the foot of the mountain there was a splended view from the window we continued over the splugen we came through a very narrow pass through the mountain it was called vea Mala very narrow road after Rideing a little way in loking back the pass look entirely enclosed the Mount was beautiful I enjoyed the day as I had felt much better I hope I am recovering from my Dyspepsia we arrived at [Ragurre?] at half past five were we stop for the night. this morning in rideing through many places we saw the women mowing not very long grass we saw several women driveing Cows tackeled into a Cart they look very funny nothing on their heads their skin perfect Brown they are very poor looking we saw many grape fields we are in a very good Hotel Nina has been sick all day although so cold the air is very pure in rideing between the mountains Sep 12 t h we Continued our Journey by Carraige for 2 hours it was a very pleasent morning and a very pleasent ride the plains & Mountains looked Beautiful we went on a Steam Boat far up the lake for a few hours we then got into a Canal Boat went up the Canal were it met the Zurich Lake we then got in to a steam Boat went up the zurich Lake which was very Beautiful we landed at Zurich at half past five the scenery was beautiful the air very fine Miss Nina quite poorly. 90

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Switzerland Zurich Sep 13 t h Pleasent I have not been out to day Miss Nina quite sick we are stopping at Hotel Baur fine Hotel beautiful rooms & furniture very handsome paper on the rooms white muslin Curtains at the windows also bed curtains stone stairs stone entrys quite cold here Sep 14 t h I have not been out to day I took medicine last night I feel little better to day I have not seen any of Zurich yet I hope I shall go out tomorrow Nina better to day Mr & Mrs Lowell went to Church this morning Sep 15 t h I have been to walk I feel better I did not go far as I so soon get tired Sep 16 t h Zurich Pleasent day I feel better have not been out to day Mr & Mrs Lowell & Edie gone to ride Miss Nina better she staid at home [wadded?] the Mantillas to day the air is very fine to day Sep 17 t h rainy this morn I feel better to day I take beef steak & bread for breakfast & dinner arrowroot for Supper most every stopping place I have to make arrowroot or Charles makes it for me I have not been out to day Miss Nina better Edie has gone to walk with his papa & Mama when in Milan Mrs Lowell sent for an Italion Doctor he came to see me he gave me a prescription for some medecine I was to take four spoonfulls a day two before Breakfast two before dinner I think it has helped me with dieting I suffer exceedingly from thirst but cannot drink as liquids oppress me very much Sep 18 t h Zurich rainy this morning feel much better today Miss Nina walked out to day for the first time since we came to Zurich I have been packing as we leave tomorrow morn 91

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Sep 19 t h we left Zurich this morning at half past [e]ight Zurich is a very pretty place w some pretty houses nice little flower gardens every thing looks so neat in Switzerl we had a beautiful view of the distant hills we rode in sight of the Lake of Zurich some ways beyond the plain with little villages we also saw Lake Zug 45 we dined at Zug we went up the Albus we had a fine view the fields looked so pretty and the spruces were very Beautiful the people look very healthy they live out of doors the women & children work as hard as the men & the Cows as hard as the Oxen they shoe the Cows as they do the Oxen we did not see any beggers in this part of Switzerland it is the south west part we are traveling now we arived at Lucerne five Oclock this afternoon a fine Hotel close to the lake Just beyond are the Mountains covered with snow they look beautyf the air is very fine but rather cool I have felt much better to day I enjoyed the ride very much Lucerne Switzerland Sep 20 t h the bells are Chimeing among the Mountains the weather is [?] one would think they were in Paradise in looking out of the Back window you see the mountains the well cultivated Gardens which looks so pretty in looking out the front window you see the Beautiful Lake as far as you can see beyond the mountains whose tops are covered with snow the whole prospect is a beautiful view how much we see in the works of nature how much we ought to love & Praise God who made every thing & gave us eyes to behold them. they have a great deal of fruit here apples & Pears & plums very large Pear trees also Apple trees I feel better this morning the family have gone out to walk I went to walk this afternoon I went to see a Lion Carved in a Solid Rock 46 he is represented as dieing there is some sort of a weapon broken in Its side there is a battle Ax and a Shield by it head it features look as if it was in great agony It is most beautifuly executed Just below there is a pond it is a beautiful spot we next went into the Cathedral they were performing service it was all mum to me when they went out they bowed to the Virgin Mary the alter was filled with trappings Candles were burning we next went over two bridges which crossed the Lake they were built something like a rope walk with a roof on there were fresco painting all 92

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through on different subjects the writeing on each picture was German I could not read it we walked by the shops lookt at the windows we saw many pretty things make by the swiss many Curious things cut out of wood I feel much better to day took milk for my supper

Sep 21 s t Sabbath day Lucerne Switz it has rained all the morning I intended to go to Church as they have English preaching in the morn at the German Protistant church but it was to wet to go out It has been a pleasent day to me as I have the word of God to read I can meditate & pray in looking at the beautiful Mountains this morning they are white with snow they look Grand the plain below is ve[r]y green Lucerne is quite pretty place there are several English familys here with their Maids I find very agreable company Mr & Mrs Lowell & the young Ladies have gone to sail on the Lake which looks like a sea of Glass the women here wear their hair braided hanging down their back generaly ribbon braided in with it & black caps on their head some wear broad rim hats which look very pretty they look very healthy quite stout & a good deal of Colour to day is feat day as it is St Matthew day 47 the womens dresses are made curiously they wear sort of stomachers white [piece?] in front some wear black different col waist from the skirt they wear aprons. I feel very well to day it is very cold here I have Just been out to walk we went into the Cathedral they were performing service that many Candles lighted several pieces of music and Chanting the bells it did not seem much like divine service they all bowed to the Virgin Mary Counted their beads poor deluded people Sep 22 d we left Lucern this morning for Olten it rained all day very hard we had nice views of Mountains plains & rivers we arrived at Olten at five Oclock pm we found a comfortable house Sep 23 d left Olten this morning Berne it was cloudy but the country looked Beautiful the [?] on the hills looked very pretty the trees changeing colour the different shades of green gave it a beautiful appearence the 93

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plains are all cultivated not an inch of land wasted we saw some pretty houses & beautif gardens the Rhine was on one side as we rode along look thick & muddy Berne is quite a large place we are at Hotel Aux Trois Rois a nice Hotel at the back part of the house looks out upon the Rhine which looks very pretty there is a room fitted up in the Hotel as a Church it has nice pews & a pulpit round the room

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“All the liveing is very good indeed” As the journey continues, Berbineau takes advantage of time to sightsee in the Rhineland, where she underscores the many vineyards in this famous winemaking region. Learning of local customs, she comments on universal military service. Like many of her wealthier American counterparts, she also enjoys a voyage on the Rhine, with its picturesque castles and villages, although she drops the keys to her bag in the river. She is attuned here, as throughout, to the comfort of the accommodations and the beauty of the countryside. Germany’s hilly country contrasts with Holland, which impresses her with its “good deal of made land.” The home of royalty—King William the third of Holland— evokes her admiration, as do the paintings in a museum in The Hague. Here, as elsewhere in Europe, Berbineau expresses her disappointment with opportunities to worship in her own manner. She also continues her criticism of local people working on Sunday—“which is a great mistake”—until she learns that poverty forces them to do so. Nevertheless, and de-

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spite continued ill health, she expresses her delight with the journey, wondering at the magnificence of the furnishings in Heidelberg Castle and appreciating the local people in Holland, who “are very independent the poorest of them look clean.”

Sep 24 t h Germany Badenbaden we left Olten this morning in the Cars at 8 Oclock we arrived at Strasburgh 48 at haf ps 12 Oclock were we dined Strasburg Is quite a large place there is a fine Cathedral with a very high spire I did not go into it as I did not feel very well we had a pleasent ride in the Cars the country looked Beautiful Dahlias grow here in great abundance they look very pretty Strasburgh is in france after we crossed the Rhine we were in Germany we had our luggage examined twice to day we arrived little past seven 49 Germany Hedelburgh Sep 25 t h Left Strasbourgh this morning at Eight Oclock in the Cars the country was very pleasent the men & women were diging potatoes and Gathering apples & pears they raise a good deal of Hemp in Switzerland & Germany the stations for the railway were very prettily built they had some vine running up the side of the house & in front and a pretty little flower garden to each Hedelbourgh Depo was very handsome. all through Switzerland & Germany there is no fences not even beside these pretty flower gardens Hedleburg is quite a large place I have Just been to see Prince Carls Castle 50 it ws a very steep Hill to Climb when we got to the top there was a splended view of the Country looking down upon the Rhine Helleburg is on the side of the Rhine the dark Green forest below the Castle was beautiful some parts have been rebuilt a part of the tower was quite in ruins the out side had figures carved upon it there were statues on the top we stood upon the terrace & saw the most Beautiful sunset see him sink behind the distant hills & the scenery all round and the Rhine below us had a beautiful effect we went inside the Castle there were splended things to be seen there was beautiful China tea cups & saucers pitcher plates bowls knifes & forks great number of paintings all sorts of armour Statuary medals coins fans briliant buttons looked like diamonds minerals many things 96

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I cant mention as it was late when we got there we had not time to see all the things little Edie rode upon a Donkey the way was very steep a boy walk beside him I got very tired but I am glad I went the Hotel is near the Castle it is called Prince Carl Hotel. The Castle is quite in ruins

Sep 26 t h Germany Fr ankfurt we left Heidleburg this morning at half past ten for Frankfurt were we arrived at 2 Oclock the family have gone to ride Edie & I have Just taken our dinner up stairs nice Hotel Frankfurt is a large place it is wet or I should go out the rail way station is very handsome built of Stone some parts carved pretty gardens nice looking people. I have Just been out to walk fine broad streets & side walks nice shops the people make a great many things cut from the Deers horns they make all sorts of things there are fine Large buildings the country we have passed through I think very fine. Rhine Sep 27 t h We left Heidleberg 51 this morning at 9 Oclock in the Cars for Maintz the country looked pretty when we got to Maintz we took the Steam Boat went down the Rhine it was Cloudy rather cool but we had very pleasent sail the Boat stoped now and then for passengers to get out it was Beautiful sailing down the Rhine the neat little villages at the edge of the Rhine and a neat little Church in the midst of the village I saw one fine looking Castle some very pretty Houses neat Gardens here as every where else well Cultivated they raise great many graps and other sorts of fruit there were many little Islands in the Rhine then beyond were the Beautif hills I am sitting where I can look out upon the Rhine on the other side of the Rhine is a beautifull hill its slopeing sides are filled with Grape vines look out the window the back of the house is a hill again full of Grapes we are in the Hotel Victoria Just on the edge of the Rhine it is a very pleasent place the family have gone on an expidition they think of traveling on Donkey back up the hills I did not go as I thought it would tire me to much as I have not been well of late I feel quite encouraged as I am very much better. I have just taken a long walke by the side of the Rhine there are fields of Grapes each side of 97

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the road they grow nearly down to the waters edge the water looks thick and muddy.

Rhine. Bingen Sep 28 t h 1851 Cloudy to day I have not been out to day Bingen is a quiet place the Steam Boats go on Sunday as any other day they carry passengers from different places as I am writeing a Boat has Just come to the warf close by the Hotel the people work on Sunday as any other day all over the Continent which is a great mistake God tells us to work six days and rest the seventh I have had a very quiet day from reading meditation and prayer as there is not any Church to Go to we can serve God in our private rooms if we have a heart to do so I was talking with a person about working on the sabbath he said the people that are poor if they dont work they cant eat they earn so small a sum they were Obliged to work Sep 29 t h rainy we expected to leave Bingen this morning the rain has prevented we shall pass another night it rains so hard we cannot go out to walk the little Boats also steam Boats are constantly going up and down the river they look very pretty the water looks thick and muddy. although it has been so rainy all day and rather cool it was a pleasent cool it did not feel like one of those Easterly storms in america the air is very fine the people live out of door they look very healthy I think the Climate is very fine I have felt very well for the last week. Rhine Sep 30 t h we left Bingen to day at twelve Oclock we had a beautiful sail on the Rhine it has been very pleasent we saw a good deal to Interest us we saw Bishop Hattos Mouse Tower 52 It is in the Rhine a little way from the shore it was small it looked as if the rats had eaten it there is a Story attached to it written by Southy. the hills looked beautifuly all cultivated as far as they can be covered with grapes growing on teraces every now and then the steamboat stop to take passengers or put them on shore we saw many Castles several were in ruins they were built on the top of the hill or near it on a rock some the hills were rock sometimes 98

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shubery some parts was low quite level the pretty little villages neat houses I must say we saw a great deal. we arrived at Coblenz at three Oclock it is a very pretty place the window I am sitting at over looks the Rhine Opposite the Hotel Giant were we are is the fort and its fortifications it is very large and strongly built. the whole scenery before us is truly magnificent the family have gone out to walk. there is a Bridge goes acros from one side of the rhine to the other it looks very curious the foundation seems to be boats there is a part they open for the steam Boats to pass the water looks thick and muddy here as it did in Bingen. it is a boat bridge the foundation is intirely of boats several boats seperate and make a Gap for the steam Boats to go through the steam boats tow other boats up the Rhine they can come down but cant go up they are very curious shaped boats they are quite long & narrow some have two masts some have three there are many small boats which the people row from place to place.

Coblenz Rhine Oct 1 s t I have been out to walk had very pleasent walk went with Charles we went by what used to be the King s palace it is a very large building it is now used by the soldiers as barracks the City is walled it is very strongly fortified there are a great number of Prussian Soldiers stationed here it is said every young man in Prusia has to be drilled for a Soldier he commences at the age of 20 and stays three years if he chooses after he has served his three years he can go home or remain Just as he likes if he goes home and if there is a war he is Obliged to come and fight. the fore part of the day was wet and cool it was a very pleasent cool the air is beautiful many Invalids are advised to come & live on the Rine & eat grapes. the streets & side walks are paved some of the side walks are flag Stone. Dosseldorf German Oct 2 d left Coblenz this monring at half past seven in the steam boat we had a beautiful sail down the Rhine we saw several Castles some were perfect some were in ruins the hills which were pretty high some of them with their slopeing sides covered with grapes with terraces built upon them some of the hills were covered with trees or shubery with the different 99

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col[or] greens some of them little changed which made the whole scenery look beautiful I enjoyed it very much I have felt very well to day the boat stopped Occasionly at the villages neat little houses some of them very pretty & some elegant houses and gardens the roofs of the houses were slated some parts of the Rhine was very low almost level with the water. the Castles we generaly built up very high upon a rock we sailed as far as Cologne we stoped there two or three hours we dined there at the Hotel Royal we left Cologne at four Oclock in the Cars arrived at Desseldorf at half past five the Country still look beautiful I think it looked very green for the time of year Cologn Is a large place I went out to walk I went into the Cathedral which was begun some hundred years ago and it is not finished yet I saw the old part and the new part the old part I[s] crumbling away It is beautifuly constructed the windows are very beautiful of stained glass with the Prophets & different saints as you enter the f[l]oor is flag stones the Chappel were they have services was shut up. I looked into it. the windows in there was very beautiful there was several statues there by the time it is finished I think the first part will tumble down 53 I saw some quite pretty houses & nice shops the Germans are not very neat some of the places we stop at are very dirty they generaly have wet sheets on the beds when we arrive and stop for the night we have a fire built in a stove which are generaly in the Chambers I take the sheets and air them. it seems to be the Custom of Germany to have wet sheets and towels in some parts of Germany were we have stoped they have very pretty stores or fine places the foundation is Iron the out side is China generaly white some places they have carpets on the floor some places they have none I am now sitting in a room with a carpet on the floor which adds good deal to the comfort and warmth.

Holland Oct 3 d we left Dusseldorf this morning qr [quarter] before 9 Amheim were we arrived half past four we sailed up the Rhine the scenery very different from what we see yesterday there were no hills the land was most level with the Rhine many willow trees by the side of the Rhine we had a pleasent sail the Boat stoped Occasionaly at the little villages & took passengers I met with an accident I was opening my Carpet Bag the 100

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keys droped into the Rhine. when we arrived we sent for a man to fetch some keys he had to take my lock of the trunk, and make a key he fetched the next morning a six Oclock and put it on as we were Just going to start

Holand Amsterdam 5 4 Oct 4 t h I arose this morning a few minutes past five as we were to go of at an early hour I dressed by Candle light took our Breakfast at six I did not awake Edie until the last thing he did not like getting up so early we[nt] to the Cars at half past six for Amsterdam we arrived here at ten Oclock Holland is a very flat Country at least the parts we have traveled I did not see any hills or mountains some parts seem to be sandy and barren the parts which could be cultivated seem well cultivatd neat little Cottages some of brick some of plaster tiled roofs we saw some handsome Houses and Gardens when we got out the Cars we took two Carraiges and drove to the Hotel du Doelen it was quite a long ride we went over several bridges the City seems to be built on the water a good deal of made land there are a great many Canalls the land is lower than the water the Hotel were we are is built in the water with pikes or piles drove down such as the do when they make bridges the Houses mostly are brick with tiled roofs some are made of plaster many of them are built high and narrow they are from four five and six stories the streets are paved & not very broad I went out to walk with the family to see the Kings Palace William the third is King of Holland we went up to the top where we first went in there was a fine view from the top as it is very high I counted a hundred & eighty steps to the top there was a fine view of the City Amsterdam is a large place there was a fine view of the river and a bend of the Atlantic Ocean we saw a great many wind mills they are used for various purposes grinding corn pumping water draining lands the Kings Palace was very Beautiful we went into good many rooms some of the rooms marble walls with statuary beautifuly Carved also armour & in some of the rooms was some beautiful paintings one was Moses on the Mount one or two of the rooms had satin walls the Kings bed chamber had yellow silk curtains with purple silk drapery the Queens bed curtains were yellow silk or damask we went into the ball room it was vey beautiful the walls were white marble a 101

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number of statues very beautiful Atlas was white marble Carrying the world on his shoulders it was beautifuly done there were eight very large cut glass Chandiliers I think they must look like diamonds when lighted there were [taborns?] without backs they were red damask silk the carpets were nothing extra some of them were very much worn this Ball room was a hundred & 25 feet Long and Sixty wide and over a hundred feet high I think the man said the floor was marble it was covered with a carpet the guide said the King comes there in april and stays through the hot weather the whole building is very large there were several statues of bronze on the out side the Palace is built of stone I cannot describe the half of it while we were out walking we saw a good many females very much dress they had caps on their heads instead of Bonnets they were Jews it was their sabbath it was on Saturday. Edie had not been very well to day.

Amsterdam Oct 5 t h I have not been well to day I have not been out Mr & Mrs Lowell & the young Ladies went to church this morning a Scotch clergiman preached there are a great variety of dresses worn here some of the people dress as they do in America. some wear black dress a white hankerchief folded corner ways short sleeves long white mits or gloves white caps on their heads comes quite over the face broad ruffle quiled [coiled?] round the front another dress I saw the skirt of the dress one part black the other red with caps on they look very curious they wear some very curious head dress their hair is combed entirely back they wear an ornament made of tinsel of gold or silver fitted to the head they look very curious I saw a carraige to day which was on a sort of [dray?] with one horse the man led the horse he had an Oiled rag in his hand which he occasionaly put under the [dray?] to make it go easy that was formerly the sort of carraige they used to have they have very few of them now. the Hotel we are in have the windows to push up as we do at home all the windows I have seen on the Continent open in the centre like a door many of the houses here have their windows to push up there is another curious thing there are great many boats in the Canal familys live in them in front of the Hotel there are two or three boats with man & his Wife & two or three children a funny way to live. the 102

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people look very neat they are very independent the poorest of them look clean their caps as white as snow quiled borders If it rains it does not affect the shape of them

Holland Hague Oct 6 t h Mr Lowell and the Young Ladies left at 8 Oclock this morning Mrs Lowell Edie Charles left Amsterdam half past ten. we arrived at Hague at one the country we traviled through was very flat you could not see any hills in the distance the Dutch make great use of the Windmills we saw a great many to day we crossed many Dyks & Canals we see many cows and sheep the Dutch put blankets on their cows as we do on horses. neat little stations we stoped at the rail roads are graveled in Holand It is a very pleasent place were we are now out of the front of the house is a canal beyond that is a large Park belonging to the King of Holland I saw several Deer feeding they look so pretty & graceful with their heads very erect they are a smaller animal than I supposed the Hotel we are in is very neat much more so than those in Germany. every body you meet here has a pipe or cigar in their mouth particularly in Germany. at the back part of the Hotel is a Beautiful garden with fruit and flowers Holland Hague Oct 7 t h Pleasent this morning went with Mrs Lowell to the museum I saw some fine paintings one of a Bull as large as life there was also a Cow a Ram & a Sheep & lamb two trees one seemed to be a willow with the top sawed of & young shoots sprouting out the other tree had few branches on it an Old Man was leaning against [one] of the trees apparantly watching the animals there were some small animals in the distance the picture most Beautifuly done it looked like life. there was an other by the side of it some Artist was copying it that also was well done. there were several young men there copying pictures also a young Lady there were pictures of dead game & of fruit and flowers. many beautiful portraits several Busts in Marble of different Kings and Queens they were very beautifuly [done] lace was exquisetly curved around the neck. there was one painting of Candle light of a Lady dressing she was putting an ear ring in her ear it was very pretty there was a portrait of 103

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Paul Potter.55 there were a great number of Paintings. I have been out to walk this afternoon Hague is a pretty place some very pretty houses I saw the Kings Pallace & I look through the gate saw a pretty garden the streets are broad & paved also the side walks are broad & are of brick Most of the Houses are brick there are several Canals nice looking People they have beautiful complexions very healthy looking they do not wrap up as the americans do now you see some with their summer dresses on the Children have no out side garments on yet they look very rugged I passed by some very nice looking shops to day. Edie very much better to day I am very well the air is very fine here although it has been raining hard it is not uncomfortab chilly we are at the Hotel Beleview it is a nice place they have very nice Butter & milk cheese I have taken to drink milk the last week or two it agrees with me very well

Rotterdam Oct 8 t h left Hague this afternoon four Oclock we arrived at Rotterdam qr before five the country perfectly flat not a Hill to be seen as far as the eye could see we saw great many Windmills Holland seems to be all Canals & dyks. the people here both men & women & children wear wooden shoes they look very curious they are pointed at the toes the women wear short loose gowns they have tight waists the skirt is gathered on about half yd in depth they wear a blk shirt and a white cap white as snow they look very neat. Rotterdam seems to be built in the water like Amsterdam in rideing from the Cars I saw some very pretty houses & gardens they all have a great taste for flowers all the little stations look so neat all the larger stations have an Iron fence. passengers can neither go in nor come out until the Police unfastens the door they are very Particular all over the Continent I have seen several both men & women with a yoke on their shoulder and milk pail attached to looking like doll the dairy maid they have most excelent milk and butter here in fact all the liveing is very good indeed good apartments and every thing comfortable ever since we left home very pleasent time

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“Every body seems happy and gay” More water travel is involved in the journey from Rotterdam to Antwerp. Out walking in Brussels as she has done throughout the European tour, Berbineau notes the beauty around her, including a “Pond full of Gold & Silver fishes” and little Belgian girls with “two & three flounces on the dresses.” Her interest in local religion continues, as does her frustration, here at the lack of a sermon in the English church. Back in Paris, she is happy to encounter other English-speaking families and their servants, and she breakfasts with “two English Maids & Courier.” She highlights the crush of travelers and the Lowell family’s difficulties in securing comfortable accommodation. By this time her poor health has become a regular refrain, and the journal entries at the end of October and beginning of November are uncharacteristically terse. She also chastises herself for a rare complaint about being unable to accompany the family to the theater. She recovers enough to walk through the Tuileries, go to the Louvre, visit Notre Dame, and stop at the dead house next

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to the Seine, but she is also occupied by household responsibilities, overseeing “dressmakers Mileners & washerwomen all in a bunch.” Her gregarious nature emerges in her assertion about a stroll down the Champs-Élysées: “I had a pleasant walk Considering I went a lone.”

Belgium Antwerp 5 6 Oct 9 t h I arose this morning at 4 Oclock we left Rotterdam at six in a SteamBoat it was cold and windy on deck also rainy we staid in the Cabin most of the day we dined on board the boat. there were a number of passengers I did not see much of Rotterdam as we arrived there last night & left early this morning it seems to be built on the water the land is lower than the water piles are driven down where the Houses are built we arrived at Antwerp four Oclock it rained very hard when we landed Belgium Brussels October 10 t h went this morning to see the Cathedral before we left Antwerp it is a very beautiful building there are many fine paintings painted by Rubins 57 there were performing service in different parts of the Cathedral there were candles burning I could not learn any thing as to the state of Religion I think most of the places we have been at they are pretty much Catholic. I did not go any where else in Antwerp it rained most of the fornoon the people wear wooden shoes blk stockings white footings I suppose to prevent the shoe wearing the stocking out they wear a cap with [lappet?] hanging down at the ears some of them wear large ear rings there is a curious sort of Bonnet they also wear it is straw the edge [?] up in front about two inches they wear a blk petticoat short loose gown the waist made tight the skirt about half yd in length we left Antwerp this afternoon at four Oclock we arrived Brussels at six we went by the rail way we are at the Hotel de Bellevue it is a fine large House Oposite the Kings Park. Brussels Oct 11 t h cloudy Edie & I walk out we went into King Leopolds 58 Park fine large Park very high trees Several Statues and a Pond full of Gold & Silver 106

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fishes we saw the Kings Palace Brussels is a Beautiful place broad streets & side walks fine large Buildings we walked through the Arcade which had splendid shops the roof was covered with glass it is a great place for lace it is manufactured here I saw some splended laces Brussels is a large place

Brussels Oct 12 t h Pleasent quite warm to day we have not had any fire I saw many people walking out to day with thin dresses on I went to the English Church this morning I heard the Church services read I was quite disappointed in not hearing a sermon I sent into the Park to walk with Edie he took a piece of bread with him to feed the fishes in the Pond I believe all the fishes in the pond swam towards him to get their share it was quite amuseing to see them open their mouths an snap at the bread there were a great many People & Children walking there the Children dress very pretty here the little Boys wear socks with a patent leather belt the little Girls about 7 or 8 years old wear two & three flounces on the dresses made some what short with white pantalets leghorn hats with broad brims & broad ribbon tied around the crown hanging down about half yard. Brussels Oct 13 t h it has been very warm to day the family have gone to Waterloo to day I went to walk through the Arcade I then walked through the park I had a very pleasent walk the air is very fine to day many people are walking out with summer dresses on I think Brussels is a beautiful City. the Cathedral bell rings almost every hour in the day I think they have service every day in the week & several times a day I have seen several Priests when I have been walking they wear long black loose dresses Black hat broad brim sort turned up at the sides. the Hotel de Belevue is a nice house they have very good eating it is now filled with people it is very large. Paris Oct 14 t h left Brussels this morning half past eight arrived at Paris 5 Oclock pm it has been raining all day hard the country we passed looked Beautiful 107

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the trees Just beginning to change vegetation looked very green for the time of Year when we arrived at Paris we drove to eight Hotels before we could get lodgings we stoped at Hotel de Hollond In Rue de la Paix were we staid when we first came to Paris.

Oct 15 t h cloudy I went to some shops to get some sewing silk Edie went with me I was quite fortunate to find people who could speak English they have splended things in the shops every body seems happy and gay I went down to breakfas this morning I found two English Maids & Courier it is pleasent to find those you can talk with this Hotel is full our rooms are not so pleasent as they were last time we are to change & go to another Hotel. Paris October 16 t h we moved from Hotel de la Holland to Hotel de Brighton the apartments in Holand very small I went to walk with Edie had his hair cut bought cotton flanel gave one frank 17 sues pr yard I went to walk in the Tweileries very pleasent. Paris Oct 17 t h Pleasent I have not been out to day I have not been well my Chapeau came home to day I payed 16 franks 90 centimes. Paris Oct 18 t h I have just been to walk in the Tuileries its full of People Children playing with hoop & ball it has been a very fine day Edies birth day six years old the Laydes go there and sit & take their work the people who take care of the Children wear no bonnets Oct 19 t h rainy I have been in bed all day I have had a grat deal of pain I took two calomel pills this morning & two colosinth pills 59 this eve I had a very heavy cold upon me. pain in my limbs took no nourishment except arrowroot once through the day. 108

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Oct 20 t h I fell better this morning feel quite weak Oct 21 s t not very well to day I Saw Dr [Bertoun?] he gave me a recipe for medicine cloudy Edie just gone to walk there has been a dress maker & a corset maker here to day Oct 22 d we left Hotel Brighton to day for Hotel Windsor were the apartments are much larger I took a powder Dr Bertoe recomend I have not been well to day Edie & Louise is out walking. Charls bought me a little french Book gave 2 franks & half Oct 23 d pleasent day I was quite sick last night Paris Oct 24 t h I feel better to day I took a blue Pill last night and some medicine to day an hour before dinner three table spoonfulls to be taken twice a day. Miss Nina has gone to school which is kept for Young Ladies Oct 25 t h Cloudy Dr Berteau called to see me to day thinks I am better I took a pill at bed time last night took other medicine to day three large spoonful twice a day an hour before eating. we have very comfortable apartments at Hotel Windsor the paper on the parlour is moroon col & gold very handsome curtains which are moroon chairs and Sofa to match handsome carpet also handsome wrought Muslin Curtains the Salamange 60 were they dine has a Marble floor black and white with a large crumb cloth under the table the Ladies Chanber is very pretty the paper on the walls are two shades of blue Edie and I have a very nice room tapestry carpet mahogany bed sted damask wosted 61 Curtains moroon col the parlour has four large 109

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mirrors handsome clock very pretty clocks in all the rooms I do not like the fire places very well they are built in very deep.

Paris Oct 26 t h Pleasent day I did not think it prudent to go out I staid in the house all day though I feel better I long to go and hear a good sermon it does not look much like the sabbath here to day the Tuileries are filled with people the Children are playing ball & Jump rope One would think it was a great Holiday. I feel much better to day I took a pill last night and a tonic to day Dr Berteau gave me a recipe for a drink as I have been very thirsty pare the rind from one lemon cut it in some small pieces put it into a bottle pour on to it four large spoonfulls boiling water cork it up let it stand 15 minuets three common sized lumps of loaf sugar One glass of good brandy and one pint of cold water when thirsty take two or three large spoonfulls. Paris [Oct 27 t h ] Pleasent Edie & Louise have been out in the Tuilieries most of the day warm enough for Edie to wear his this outside sack I put letter in the office for Miss Cook to day also one for Sister Lydia I have felt very much better to day Paris Oct 28 t h Pleasent Dr Berteau called to se me to day he ordred me some more tonic he thinks I am much better Mr Edward Jackson dined here to day the family have gone to the Opera to night Miss Nina to well to day. Paris Oct 29 t h rainy all day I went to school with Miss Georgina to day I rode I have felt pretty well to day. Paris Oct 30 t h cloudy cold Oct 31 s t cloudy quite cold I have not been well I saw Dr Berteau this eve he gave me some powders he also gave me different tonic 110

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Paris Nov 1 s t Pleasent beautiful day I feel better Nov 2 d it has rained most of the day I have not been out I took a powder this morning I am better today Miss Tudor & Miss Georgina Putnum and Master Storrow dined here to day Nov 3 d rainy part of the day quite cold Nov 4 t h wet and cold I saw the Dr to day. I feel much better Paris Nov 5 t h Pleasent not well to day took a powder I have been makeing over Ninas cloak Paris Nov 6 t h rainy most of the day I feel much better to day Paris Nov 7 t h rain most of the day I have been looking forward for three days to take a walk the weather has been to bad it is quite cold we have a fire in the Saloon and one in the Salamange they kindle the fire with pom de pun a cone from the pine tree they charge you so much for every one you burn you cannot get things for nothing in paris the family are gone to the theatre to night they improve every minute to see all that is to be seen if I had been well I should seen great deal more Oh I must not murmur. Nove 8 t h Overcast but quite a comfortable day I was disappointd not to go out I saw Dr Berteaun to day he thinks me much better Mr & Mrs Richard Parker & Mr Charles Appleton dined here to day quit a cozy party Mrs Crowningshield came in this eve with two of her Children 111

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Paris Nove 9 t h Pleasent I went to walk in the Tuileries I went through the Palace of the Tuileries I went through the Arch built of white Marble with four large bronze Horses on top figures carved on the out side I & Edie & Louise went into the Louvre It is a very large building when we went in I had to leave my parasol with an old woman at the door You are not allowed to take in a cane or umberilla or any thing in your hand the enterance was a marble floor we went up a flight of stone steps the first floor was filled with statues we went through the long Picture Galery of most splendid paintings of all kinds great many Portraits the Crusifixion of Peter with his head downwards there was several paintings of the Marriage of Cana 62 many Beautiful Pictures of our saviour we went into the curiosity room there was enameled China and some other very corious China with fish & snakes & several sorts of things made on these plates and dishes & glazed & painted they were very curious there was a fire place of white China with carved ivory over the top Gothic Architecture with great many little figures carved on it I dont know what it was intended for we went into the Egyptian curiosities room there were several large wooden mumies with hyrogliphics som coins & other things & spyhnxs I saw the great Bull brought from Ninevah 63 it was grey stone not knowing what it was I did not examine it as much as I should there were other stones white with marks upon them I Suppose came from there the Louvre is very large the walls & ceiling had fresco paintings they were paneled with gilt Most of the floors were oak sort of Mosaic work some of the floors were tile there were some very large bases & very Beautiful among the antient curiosities were some stone Bathtubs some Horses I think were white marble I did not see half of the things I ws there nearly three hours it has not seemed at all like the Sabbath day I should not have taken to day to go to the Louvre it was the last opportunity I have I have not been out the house for three weeks before. there is a square round to one side of the Louvre with a fence it looks very pretty there were a great many of Rubens pictures in the Galery Miss Nina has gone to dine with Mrs Wainright this eve I take my Breakfast at half past eight I dine at two & supper at 7 Oclock 112

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Paris Nov 10 t h rain all day I went shopping bought me silk dress gave 5 franks pr yard bought 15 yds it was very wet & mudy I went through the Palace Royal some Beautiful shops there Paris Nov 11 t h 1851 I went to walk with Charles we went through the Boulevards peeped at the shop windows & see the pretty things some most Beautiful Clocks & watches & elegant Jewelry we then went to the place de la Concorde which is very pretty several beautiful fountains they were playing we saw the Beautiful Egyptian obelisk full of Hyreogliphic an Iron fence arond it painted bronze with the tops gilded this Obelisk was brought from Eygpt some one said twelve years ago 64 we walked through the Tuileries home Just dinner time Master Edie eating his dinner he said he waitied for me but finding I did not come directly he began eating before I came in he went this afternoon to viset Master Curtis in Rue de la Paix It has been quite pleasent to day Paris Nov 12 t h Pleasent Mrs Miller called to see me to day she lives with Mrs Goodhue they are going to spend the Winter in Paris Master Horatio Custis dined with Master Edie to day they had a very happy time together. Mrs Lowell received letters to day from America. Paris Nove 11 t h 6 5 Pleasent I have not been out to day I have been quite busy at home we have dressmakers Mileners & washerwomen all in a bunch It Is quite laughable to see so many in at once & they all speak french. Master Edward dined with Master Curtis he had a pleasent time a dress maker came to day & took my measure for a dress the family have gone out this eve I saw Dr Berteaun today he gave me some prescriptions for medicene to take home with me he thinks I am very much better I feel a great deal stronger. Paris Nov 14 t h Pleasent went to walk with Monsieur Rinaldi & Master Edie we walked through the boulivard looked at the pretty things I bought Edie some 113

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socks & a cloths brush we have had dress makers boot Makers & several people they all come in a bunch Mrs Lowell has a head ach this eve she has not gone out Mr Lowell & the Young Ladies are gone out to dine at a Caffa I rode out this morning to Rue Cisalpine [Gisalpine?] to fetch Miss Nina Lowell Edie went with me

Paris Nov 15 t h Pleasent to day I went to walk this afternoon I went to Place la de Concorde the Fountains were playing I will try to describe them there is a large Bason built of Stone & in the Bason stands six large Bronze Statues larger than life holding a Dolphin & which the water plays through their mouths In the Centre of the Bason Is a very large bronze fountain it is round sort of a base fashion and round it are six more Statues it is very high there is still an other group of figuers & the water plays at the top of the fountain there are two of them they are not very far apart there are statues of horses In Marble I should think & statues of men I stood some time and looked at the beautiful Obelisk which was brought from Eygypt filled with Hyeroglyphics a beautiful Iron fence round it the top is gilded I walked through the Champs Elyssa I had a pleasent walk Considering I went a lone I then walked down Rue de Rivoli took a peep at the shop windows and came home. Master Curtis dined with Edie to day they had a nice time together we have had dress makers boot makers trunk makers and all sorts of people. Paris Nov 16 t h Cloudy Cold & some rain I went to walk with Edie this morning in the Tuileries & looked at the statues there is one very large Statue I believe it is meant to represent the river with Children playing around it there are several small Children with most perfect shape playing with Crockodiles there were several large Statues I think they were white marble Mrs Miller Called in to see me this afternoon I went out to walk with her we walk to place la Concord it was filled with people the fountains were playing beautifuly we went over a bridge over the river siene there we saw some enormous Statues I think one was Minerva we had a pleasent walk. 114

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Paris Nov 17 t h Cold but quite pleasent I have been packing this morning for Madam. Charles went with me this afternoon to see Notre Dame a very large & Old Cathedral the windows most of them were stained glass they were very beautiful they were some of them Gothic two very large windows were round very large pillars inside the Arches were very high there were many pictures of paintings & also Crusifix Candles were lighted they had service while we were there the priest was Christning a Child some parts of it is going through repairs it is over the other side of the river from Rue de Rivoli we went by the dead house we went in there was a young man lay dead there that had Just been drowned in the Seine Charles told me there is sometimes one or two drowned there every day & sometimes more they are Carried into this house for their friends to Come & recognize them we went over what was called Louis Phillipe s bridge it was a suspention bridge we walked through different parts of the City went though several Arcades & through the Boulevards It was lighted the shops looked very pretty I saw two or three old Churches we went by the fruit market & vegitabl & butter evey body as buisy a they could be there was baked pears & apples some frying pancakes they were assorted in little piles with the price marked on them and meat so many sous for a slice you can buy the smallest peace the houses are all built very high the rooms are quite expensive we went through several parts of the City I felt quite tired when I got home Mr & Mrs Lowell were Just going out to dine. Paris Nov 18 t h Pleasent very buisy packing have not been out to day Mr & Mrs Lowell & Miss Mary gone to dine at Mrs Ridgway this eve Mrs Lowell wore her white Brocade silk & Old fashion lace Felix dressed her hair she looked very pretty Miss Mary wore a new pink silk low neck & short sleevs Felix dressd her hair it is the fashion to dress it low behind she looked very pretty white satin shoes her dress fit beautifuly.

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“I sat for a long time wraped up in thoughts” On the journey home we see Berbineau both as a woman traveling alone—when left on the ship, she acknowledges, “I must say I felt disconsolate”—and as an efficient aid to seasick passengers. Clearly flattered by the requests of one passenger to become her housekeeper, Berbineau also people-watches, sometimes with amusement and sometimes with gentle criticism, describing the behavior of the Hungarian patriot, statesman, and writer Lajos Kossuth and his entourage, as well as various counts and countesses. She enjoys the elegance and comfort of her surroundings and the “very pleasant and kind” service people, including the stewardess, Mary, whom Berbineau pronounces “perfection.” Happily, her appetite returns, and she appreciates the stalwart efforts of the ship’s cook under trying conditions: One morning she writes “in my little Cabin with my back pressed up against the side & my feet against the berth to steady myself.” After landing at New York very early in the morning of 5 December, she passes through customs and then

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boards a steamer to Fall River, Massachusetts, and a night train to Boston, arriving home at seven in the morning on 7 December. Although the European diary underscores her pleasure with her great adventure, it concludes with her poignant acknowledgment that she misses the family and with a return to the routine and economics of everyday life.

Havre 6 6 Nov 19 t h on Board steamer Humbolt Cap Line. I arose this morning at half past 5 Oclock left Hotel Windsor at little past seven for the railway Charls came with me we left Paris at eight arived at Havre qr past 3 p m it was a very cold morning the fields and gardens were covered with a white frost after a few hours it melted away the vegetation looked very green in some places when we had gone a third of the way the scene was alltogether changed it was one mass of white with snow it looked and felt like winter I should think the snow was two inches in depth although I had pleasent company I sat for a long time wraped up in thoughts they would wander back to paris on the Objects I had left there when we arrived at Havre I and my luggage was on board and when Charles came to go away I must say I felt disconsolate there were several Passengers on Board I found some who spoke English I felt a little more at home there was a french Ladie & Gentleman & a little Girl who were comeing to America they could not speak English the little girls was a little chatterbox she made me think so much of dear little Edie she played with her dol she made cats cradles she had plenty of amusements I am now in my state room how I should like to see some of the folks it is a nice room there are two births nice curtains two nice setees it is very comfort able. the passengers are all requested to sleep on board to night Nov 20 t h On board steam ship we left Havre this morning about seven Oclock raining fast I felt very well when I took my breakfast I then came into the Saloon took my kn[i]ting there I saw a very handsome Ladie lying on one of the sofas she was sea sick her features were pretty. black eyes dark brown hair most beautiful complexion I had not sat very long be117

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fore a french woman came to the door and Oh Lady Malad I Jumped up ran into her room she was very sick she had two Children one 3 years old the other between one & two they were also sick the youngest had vomited over itself & it bed I took it up changed its night gown held it a little while I then put it into bed with its Mother & made them as comfortable as I could put a bason by her bed they all went to sleep I went back into the Saloon I felt sick myself Mrs Seller was still there the pretty lady she became quite talkitive & asking me if I was an American she said she should think I was a Southerner by my appearance she belonged in Virginea she had lived some time in Cuba she told me she had been all over the Continent she told me the many things she had seen she seemed quite interested in me she told me if she could render me any assistance in any way she would I thanked her & told her she was very kind. we arrived at Southampton at half past eight this eve where Kossuth 67 [in?] his suit came on board & several other passengers Lolimonte 68 she is a nice looking person rather small she had a Maid & Man servant & a little pet Dog Mr Richard Willis seems to be her Companion here Gov Kossuth is a fine looking man I should think about 35 years of age he is tall dark complexion black hair & eyes long blk moustach on his upper lip. there are seventy passengers on board.

Steam Ship Humbolt Nov 21 s t pleasent & smooth this morning rough this afternoon most of the passengers are sick to day I have felt very well I have been waiting on the sick Miss Richardson from London has been very sick she seemed very grateful for what I did for her Mrs Sellers has been sick to day she quite amused us by telling over he[r] adventures she is a great talker very pleasent & agreable I told her I thought this would be my last voyge across the Atlantic she thought I might go with her some day she took quite a fancy to me she wished I would go and live with her she had a little boy it died 2 years ago she mourns its loss very much its name was Edward I talked of little Edward I left in Paris she then told me all about her Child. this Steamer is very large it carries a hundred & 60 passengers a nice large Saloon were they dine & Ladys Saloon also Gentlemans nice paint ground glass windows red plush sofa 2 hand118

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some mirrors nice little state rooms the people are all very pleasent & kind particularly the Stewardis.

Steamship Nov 22 d Pleasent the passengers better not quite so rough I have been on deck this morning also yesterday it is rather cold to day but pleasent the waves washed over the bulwarks yesterday very much. Humbolt Nov 23 d 1851 Pleasent many of the passsengers are quite sick particularly Miss Draper she suffers very much from neuralga had a very poor night last night I have been on deck twice to day every now and then a great wave breaks over the upper deck the Ladies were drenched once or twice they were quite wet I am not at all sea sick I have a little sore throat Mrs Sellers has been asking me to day If I will go home & live with her & be her house keeper & when she travels to travel with her I told her she would not get along very well with such a poor creature as I was she said she should not require much from me If I would over see. Madam [Chermbra?] Is on board the steamer she is a nice old Lady she keeps a large embroidery shop in New York. she took quite a fancy to me she says [moir treasurely?]. Nov 24 t h Humbolt Pleasent but windy most of the passengers sick the ship both pitches and rolls and the waves continualy breaking over the deck but no more than useual for the time of year I have not been on deck to day I went up & peeped out the door I have had some head ach to day but have been able to set up & go up and take my meals Mrs Sellers says I must certainly come and live with her & be her house keeper I tell her there is an other one to ask Madam Chanceril has been as lively as a cricket She is a nice old Lady I should think she might be between sixty & seventy her hair as white as snow she has it curled in front she wears a very pretty cap & blk dress and such the Material like Miss Ninas she is tall & very straight a very commanding figure any one would be struck with her appearance at once & very much of a Lady the pas119

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sengers are all very attentive the Captain makes it his buisness at least once a day in takeing the round & speaking to all the passengers to see if they have all they want as for the Stewardess she is perfection her name is Mary I believe there is a goodness in the name of Mary I do not see much of Gov Kossuth & his party they seem to keep in their own rooms pretty much the Gov was quite disappointed not to to have a Saloon to himself to write in I believe his state room was the best or one of the best as for a Salloon to himself the Captain said it was quite imposible that the Saloons belonged to all the passengers & he could share with the rest I suppose he writes in his own room Madam Kossuth is quite a plain looking woman she may be a very refined Lady. I did not think she was in hearing her talk to the Captain about the rooms they ought to have Coutes Pulski is one of their party she is a very plain woman. the Countess of Landsdale Is thought by some to be very beautiful I think she is very much of a Lady I was told Mr Willis was her agent he is very attentive to her.

Nov 25 t h Pleasent a beautiful morning I feel very well went up to my breakfast at half past seven after breakfast I went to walk & walk for half an hour I was in a perfect glow it seemed like a may morning the sea is not quite so rough it has been a very fine day I staid on the deck a good part of the day most of the Passengers were on deck all day Nov 26 t h Pleasent this morning I arise in the morning about 7 Oclock breakfast qr before eight I have an exelent appetite a hot beef stak nice potatoes tea & bread and butter all very nice it has rained most of the day notwithstanding the rain I have had a nice walk there is a very nice library of Books in the Humbolt it makes the time pass very pleasently if not sea sick there are three or four Ladies in the Gentlemen Salloon who have been quite sick all the time & have to keep in bed Nov 27 t h Pleasent this morning I have Just eaten my breakfast with a most hearty appeticte I do truly feel grateful that I feel so well I wish I could have 120

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felt so on the Continet. it has been very rough through the day I have not been on deck to day nor the Passengers the waves continually Breaking over the ship the Cook had to stand up to his knees in water to cook the dinner the water came into the gally so much Countess Loli came into the Saloon this eve & talked about her danceing in America she said her dresses cost four hundred pounds she practice some of ther steps she put her leg upon the table she says she practices two hours every day when she is a going to perform if she mised one day she must practice four hours the next she says it is very hard work she says she is completely unjointed her limbs. she is a very good looking woman by some she is thought to be handsome she has blk hair large grey eyes well shaped which I think are pretty quite a low forehead she is not a very large person rather slim her travling dress is a plaid woolen dress & [sack?] she wears a white wrought cap on her head & a blk lace one over it in the shape of half hankerchief she spoke of Talioni Celest [Tiany?] Elsler the Mexican Admiral came in to the Saloon who went out with us in the Europa he has but one arm he asked me If I went out in the Europa he Remembered me his wife was with him

Nov 27 t h 6 9 it has been very rough through the night I have had very little sleep it continues to be rough this morning I have Just been up to my breakfast I could hardly keep on my feet every now and then a tremendous wave comes against the ship you would think she would upset I am now writeing in my little Cabin with my back pressed up against the side & my feet against the berth to steady myself. it has been very rough through the day every time the sea brakes over the ship one would think she would break the Ladies in the Saloon have been very much alarmed the Ship pitches and rocks so as for myself I curled myself upon one of the sofas & kept myself as calm as I could every now & then the Ladies would pop up their head & ask me if I was frightened there was no danger but I must say I felt very disagreeable Madame Loli took up her abode in the Saloon on the Sofa to day & Mr Willis sat beside her she sung some spanish & Italian songs in eating to day you could hardly keep the things on the table although the racks 121

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were on & it was very hard work to cook however we had a very nice dinner

Nov 29 t h Pleasent this morning but very cold we are near the banks of NewFoundland it is not so rough this morning I had a very good night last night I slept very well the lights are all put out in the state rooms at half past eleven & at twelve in the Saloon every thing is in very good order Nov 30 t h It is very rough to day I have laid in bed all day from severe headach the first time I have lain in my berth in the day time since I came on board the Ship rocks and tosses a good deal to day Humbolt Dec 1 s t , 1851 It is very cold this morning it has been snowing it is very rough my head is better this morning I went up and took my breakfast and staid in the Saloon the rest of the day Madam Loli took up her abode in the Saloon she was dressed in white a white skirt with a white flounce on it a white cambrick sack 70 with flowing sleeves two broad ruffles of wrought cambrick a white lace cap on her head Mr Willis sitting beside her he is very attentive to her—the passengers most of them pretty well to day. Dec 2 d Pleasent the sun is shineing but very cold I feel pretty well to day I have just been up and looked out on deck it is to wet to go out. some of the passengers Saw Table Island to day & espied to wrecks upon it It has not been very rough to day the passengers all pretty well accept two or three Loli has been danceing her little pet dog at the sound of the Violin which looked very funy. Humbolt Dec 3 d pleasent this morning we are going along very smoothly at present. I looked out upon the deck it is very cold & very wet. Caty [&?] I have been all over the Ship to day with Mr Greenfield the Steward the ship 122

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is very large the second class Cabin is very good nice state rooms I went into the Cook room it has a very large range in & a nice large oven they bake all their bread on board it was very nice bread I went into the pastery room were they make pies and cake all sorts of Good things there were two Cows came over as passengers they had a good deal of live poultry it was a very pleasent sound to hear the Cockrells crow several times in the course of the day. Lola Montes Came down into the Saloon this eve and scolded her Maid Anna because she wanted to go directly back to Paris she was very unhappy poor thing I [pitied?] her. Lola has a little pet dog which she calls Flora it is a funny little thing with its tongue hanging out the side of its mouth. the Admiral used often come into the Saloon & amuse the Ladies with his funny Jokes Madam Chanceril Is a nice old Lady

Humbolt Dec 4 t h Pleasent this morning very cold I saw a steam Ship this morning in the distance going the other way Humbolt Dec 5 t h Pleasent the ship went to quarentine this morn at 3 Oclock a boat came out & took Gov Kosuth & Suit to Staten Island he made a speech on board ship I did not hear him we arrived at New York about 5 Oclock this morning the Custom House officers came on board examined the luggage I had mine taken to the next pier I sailed at four Oclock this afternoon in the Steamer state of Main to Fall River 71 I took the Cars there at half past for for Boston. Boston Dec 6 t h 1851 arrived here this morning at 7 Oclock found the family all well I went to see Miss Parker she was very much better I carried the things Mrs Lowell sent she was very much pleased I went to Mrs Eliot left the letters I saw the young Ladies they made many inquiries about the family Boston Dec 7 t h snowing hard did not go out very cold 123

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Dec 8 t h the snow mostly Melted unpleasent Dec 9 t h quite pleasent Dec 13 t h I went out to Walltham to day quite pleasent Mrs Farnsworth & her family all well I went over to the other house to get some things I fetched in little Edie s Deguarotype little dear I went into some of the Chambers I saw little Edie s crib in his Mamas chamber I felt sad to know I could not see him & the rest of the family I am childish I acknoledge. Dec 14 t h Pleasent quite cold I went to Church this morn Mr Kirk preached the text Heb 12 th chap 23, 24, 25, 26 verses 72 a most exelent discourse the first sermon & prayer I have heard for four months did not go out this afternoon I have a little sore throat. Miss Helen & Julia & Eliza Gardner dined here to day Eliza Winthrop here this afternoon. January 29 t h 1852 Pleasent quite warm the snow has melted very much very bad walking I took the Brookline Omnibus to go to Mrs Duttons the Driver told me he would carry me pretty near there I got out of the Carraige in Brookline at the head of a long lane he told me to make enquireis any one would tell me I enquiered of several persons no one knew of such a place I walked about a mile to the Brighton Depot I enquired there the man at the station told me to go up a hill which was back of the station I went at the top. the snow was a foot deep it was so soft I slumped above my boots after looking north East West & South I see nothing of the house as the walking was so bad I gave it up I took the qr before three train of Cars & came home tired enough paid 20 cts.

124

Afterword

After Berbineau left France, her “family” continued their European tour. Her young mistress, Georgina Lowell, began a diary in January of 1852 after Berbineau had resumed her responsibilities at home in Boston. A quick examination of Georgina’s diary reveals the different positions of the two and also a telling similarity. As we have seen, Berbineau’s health was frequently compromised while she was abroad, and although the Lowells treated her generously, calling in a physician and ultimately sending her home, she nevertheless continued her customary duties, including feeding Eddie, mixing his medicine, and comforting him, even when she herself felt unwell. Shortly after Berbineau’s departure, sixteen-year-old Georgina also became ill, but the shape of her life diverged sharply from that of her servant’s: She practiced her piano, took Italian lessons, visited with friends, and wrote letters. One entry in Rome offers a feeling for her routine: “Sunday 4th. Our new Italian woman arrived this morning de bonne heure. She seems lively talkative and good-natured, and I hope to improve with her. I managed already to say a few short sentences. Have suffered all day from a very bad cold in my head + sore throat, so did not venture out as it was cloudy. Wrote letters home and talked with Ella.” In the previous entry, she notes casually that the music teacher “is a reduced Contessa” and a few days later writes: “I expected my Contessa at three, but she did not make her appearance. If she proves an unpunctual person I shall give her up.” On 10 January, she appears pleased with her mother’s present of a pin for her sixteenth birthday, although she ends, “I have not spent a very happy birth-day, perhaps because I felt homesick” (Lowell Papers, vol. 52). 125

Af terword

We might recall that when Berbineau arrives in Paris, she recounts her responsibilities during the first day, 11 August: “Pleasent very warm not well I have a bad diherea. as soon as it was light I got up took 20 drops of Laudnum Edie is quite sick he is very feverish has not been dress to day I gave him some oil the rest of the family gone out to walk or ride unfortunate for Edie & me” (vol. 118). In the succeeding days, we hear of her concerned caretaking on the one hand and on the other her quiet refrain wishing she could be outside in Paris during the first visit. On the return, she comments on the lively scene at “home” in the Lowells’ apartments only a few days before leaving for Boston: “Pleasent I have not been out to day I have been quite busy at home we have dressmakers Mileners & washerwomen all in a bunch It Is quite laughable to see so many in at once & they all speak french.” Again, she is working although she feels ill: “I saw Dr Berteaun today he gave me some prescriptions for medicene to take home with me he thinks I am very much better I feel a great deal stronger” (vol. 119, 11 November). As her diary clearly indicates, she feels “at home” with the Lowells, but while at times she shared Georgina’s homesickness for the United States, she appears not to have discussed these feelings with the Lowells. We might speculate that despite her excitement about the European journey, her own illnesses manifested another kind of “homesickness,” for her rapid recovery during the return voyage and participation in her normal responsibilities in Boston suggest her attachment to “home,” however mediated and complex such a place— or idea— may have been for her. One of Berbineau’s daybooks that overlaps with the travel diary 73 provides indirect evidence of her sympathetic attention to Eddie during the voyage as well as of her lifelong devotion to the members of the Lowell family. On the day before she left Paris, Mr. Lowell, who had paid for her first-class passage to New York, gave her an additional sum: “received of Mrs. Lowell 17 dollars & 50 cts American money to pay my fare from New York” (Lowell Papers, vol. 120). The Lowells appear to have been unfailingly generous in supporting Berbineau, both financially and in her efforts at self-improvement. As her diary amply reveals, however, money could not express the complex 126

Af terword

bond between this caring, imaginative servant and her “family.” Although seriously ill in the months before her death in late 1869, Berbineau nonetheless records, in one of the last entries in her Boston diary, “Happy I was every body has been very kind to me” (Lowell Papers, vol. 128).

127

Notes to the Diary

1. Here Berbineau means “where.” Throughout the diaries, readers often have to supply missing letters, endings of words, or even words themselves. Her most common omissions are the “h” in “where,” the second “f ” in “off,” the “w” in “two,” the “t” in “at,” the “re” in “there” (which becomes “the”), the “ck” in “o’clock,” and the “h” in “who.” 2. Presumably the Mexican War, between Mexico and the United States, which ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on 2 February 1848. Interestingly, Berbineau travels back to the United States on the same ship with this officer, who recognizes her. 3. A popular tourist attraction, the St. James cemetery began burying people in 1829, only twenty-two years before the Lowell party’s arrival. St. James’s had been a massive stone quarry that supplied much of the material to build old Liverpool. With the aid of famous architect John Foster, Sr., the Corporation of Liverpool decided to transform what was an eyesore into what would become a final resting place for rich and poor, noteworthy for its impressive ramps and catacombs. Today it is a public garden. Images of the cemetery and of many of the other tourist destinations that Berbineau describes are readily available on the Internet. 4. In this phrase, “patch and re patched,” the first word falls into the gutter of the binding and so Berbineau simply truncates it. This truncation occurs a number of times in the diary, becoming a kind of “dialect” where the reader can easily fill in the blank. 5. King Charles I (1600–1649) was at the center of civil wars several times over the course of his turbulent reign. The tower at Chester named for him (also known as the Phoenix Tower, as Berbineau calls it below) is part of the city walls. From this vantage he saw his Royalist forces defeated by those of the Parliamentary challengers at the Battle of Rowton Moor in 1645, as Berbineau notes. After this battle Charles fled to Wales while Chester bravely battled on under siege for five months, finally surrendering to the parliamentary forces led by Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) in February of 1646. 129

Notes to the Diary Chester Cathedral was originally the church of a Benedictine monastery founded in 1092. In 1541 it became a cathedral church. Both the tower and the cathedral remain popular tourist destinations today. 6. The Black Death, or bubonic plague, ravaged medieval Europe, settling in England between 1348 and 1350 and again between 1539 and 1640. The swiftness and terrible pain of the disease made it one of the most terrifying illnesses of the time. 7. Dissenter was a widely used term from the Reformation onward, and it could signify any number of groups challenging various forms of religious authority. Given her historical moment, her own religious beliefs, and her attitude toward Catholics, Berbineau probably refers to the Enlightenment tradition of Protestant dissent against high-church forms dictating an intermediary between the individual worshipper and the deity. Embracing the revolutions in France and the United States, this tradition emphasized social and political equality; rational, scientific attitudes; and bourgeois values. 8. Begun around 1125, Kenilworth is a grand walled castle that successive English monarchs expanded over many years. In its early history it was regarded as more of a military fortress, but in the latter half of the fourteenth century John of Gaunt began its transformation into a palace. In ruins long before Berbineau’s visit, it nevertheless remained (and, like Warwick Castle mentioned below, continues to be) a popular tourist destination. 9. Generally considered the finest medieval castle in England, Warwick Castle sits on the banks of the River Avon near Shakespeare’s Stratford. Like Berbineau, Stowe and other influential nineteenth-century American writers visited the castle; many take note of the famous dungeons and torture chamber. 10. Born to an affluent family in northern Spain, St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556) was a soldier and courtier in his early years. While recovering from a battle injury in his early thirties, he decided to devote himself to his spiritual life. He founded the Society of Jesus, which was approved by the pope in 1540 and today is particularly known for its commitment to education. He was canonized in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV. 11. Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641), one of the greatest Flemish painters of his era. 12. Near Oxford, the birthplace of Winston Churchill and home of the current eleventh duke of Marlborough, Blenheim Palace was built between 1705 and 1722 by the order of Queen Anne for John Churchill, first duke of Marlborough, as a reward for outstanding military service to England. During the building process, Churchill’s absence in successful military actions abroad enabled others at court to supplant him in the queen’s favor, and much of the funding she had promised failed to arrive. After the queen’s death in 1714, the duke and duchess negotiated with the unpaid workmen for the outstanding debt of £45,000 and completed the work at their own expense. 130

Notes to the Diary 13. The most famous public event of Berbineau’s time, attended by six million people, the Great Exhibition of 1851 represented a celebration and display of the Victorian era’s manufacturing and cultural achievements. The eighty-two hundred exhibitors’ contributions were displayed principally in the enormous Crystal Palace, designed by Joseph Paxton and built from nine hundred thousand square feet of glass and four thousand tons of iron. Although British exhibitors formed the core of the event, foreign nations eager to display their technological and cultural advancement—including, as Berbineau notes, the United States— participated. As her diverse catalog indicates, the displays included items ranging from surgical instruments to sculpture, household goods, and manufacturing machines. 14. William Pitt, the first earl of Chatham (1708–1778), for whom Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was named, and whose generous and supportive policies toward the American colonies Berbineau may have been indirectly acknowledging by mentioning him here. 15. Renowned American sculptor Hiram Powers’s (1805–1873) The Greek Slave (c. 1843) was one of the most popular—and in view of the recent passage in the United States of the Fugitive Slave Act (1850)— one of the most controversial displays, and it was known throughout the world. In the style of the Uffizi’s Medici Venus, the nude figure with chains around her wrists depicts, as Powers himself described, a slave “taken from one of the Greek Islands by the Turks, in the time of the Greek Revolution.” Alone among “barbarian strangers . . . she stands exposed to the gaze of the people she abhors, and awaits her fate with intense anxiety.” 16. Achilles, the great hero of Homer’s The Iliad and the Trojan War. 17. This entry is a corrected repetition of the last one in volume 117; it begins volume 118. 18. Like St. James Park (mentioned below), which abuts Buckingham Palace (then the residence of Queen Victoria), Hyde Park is a 615-acre park in central London that was and still is a popular tourist destination, with a huge statue of the Duke of Wellington at one entrance, as Berbineau describes below. Regent Street was, and continues to be, a shopping mecca. 19. “And what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, / Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places.” 20. The resiny rubber of a tropical tree, guttapercha was brought to England in 1843, only a short time before Berbineau’s trip. Its applications included photography and printing. 21. A derivative of opium, laudanum was an addictive painkiller common in the nineteenth century; it also relieved intestinal cramps and diarrhea and promoted sleep. Berbineau used it repeatedly for these purposes. 131

Notes to the Diary 22. Prorogue: to end the session of Parliament. Berbineau describes the ceremony led by Queen Victoria that accompanied the adjournment. 23. Laid out between 1825 and 1841, Trafalgar Square contains a 185-foothigh column topped with an eighteen-foot statue of Lord Nelson (1758–1805), Britain’s most famous admiral during the Napoleonic Wars, who was killed at the battle of Trafalgar. 24. The closest point of England to continental Europe, Dover has been a point of entry to and departure from England for centuries. Its white cliffs and Dover Castle are famous landmarks. 25. A white powder extracted from the root of a plant native to the West Indies. Today used as a thickener for soups and gravies, in Berbineau’s time arrowroot was used for dyspepsia. 26. The Feast (fête) of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven, celebrated on 15 August. 27. Another “must” for the nineteenth-century middle-class American tourist in Europe was the Tuileries, a large park in central Paris stretching from the Louvre to the Place de la Concorde. “The Common” refers to the Boston Common, a park near Berbineau’s home in the United States. Her comment here suggests at least a hint of nationalist or regional pride. 28. Another famous park, the Champs de Mars abutted (and was named for) the nearby military school, attended by Napoleon Bonaparte; the school conducted military exercises in the park. In Berbineau’s time it was much larger than today and was sometimes used for horse racing. Today, it extends outward from the Eiffel Tower, which was not yet built in 1851. 29. Constructed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and restored in the nineteenth from 1845 to 1864, Notre Dame Cathedral, a masterpiece of Gothic architecture, attracted numerous nineteenth-century foreign tourists. 30. At nearly 15,800 feet the highest mountain in Europe, Mont Blanc provided an early goal for alpinists. It also inspired pilgrimages by nineteenthcentury artists and writers, including Percy Bysshe Shelley and Harriet Beecher Stowe, for its sublime appearance. In writing of the mountain here and below, Berbineau is consciously following established literary tradition. 31. Champagny is in the French Alps; Geneve refers to Geneva, Switzerland. The Jura Mountains form part of the Alpine system in eastern France and northwestern Switzerland. 32. Calomel presumably refers to mercurous chloride, a dangerous substance used in the nineteenth century as a purgative and to treat fevers. 33. As is true for so many of the locales Berbineau mentions, Chamounix, near Mont Blanc, was popular with nineteenth-century romantic writers and travelers. For example, Shelley describes it in his History of a Six Weeks Tour (Letter IV). A view of Chamounix from Mont Blanc was featured later in a standard 132

Notes to the Diary guidebook, Edward Whymper’s Chamonix and the Range of Mont Blanc (London: John Murray, 1896). 34. Traditionally used to aid appetite and digestion, Gregory’s Powder was a compound with rhubarb as the active ingredient. Paradoxically, it was used to treat both constipation and diarrhea. 35. Vevey (also known as Vevay) and Lausanne, mentioned below, are popular tourist destinations on the northern shore of Lake Geneva (Lac Léman). Martigny, also mentioned below, is in southwestern Switzerland. 36. Although parts of it may date as early as the eleventh century, the current Chillon Castle was built by the counts of Savoy in the thirteenth century. On the shore of Lake Geneva, it became famous through the work of such romantic writers as Rousseau, Victor Hugo, and Byron, inspiring the latter’s poem “The Prisoner of Chillon.” It was used as a prison in the sixteenth century; in Berbineau’s time, as today, Chillon was famous for its dungeon. 37. The Simplon Pass, crossed by such writers as Lord Byron, John Ruskin, Charles Dickens, and Edith Wharton, is the highest and most treacherous route over the Alps. As Berbineau mentions, the road was built by the French from 1800 to 1806. 38. St. Carlos Borromeo (1538–1584) held many high positions in the Catholic Church, including a period as the archbishop of Milan. Born in Arona, a town on Lake Maggiore’s southern shore, he is perhaps best known for his relief work during the plague in 1576 and early 1577. 39. Made of numerous individual scenes sewn together, painted panoramas were popular forms of entertainment in the nineteenth century; they were often unrolled on a theater stage. Among the works of Pennsylvania native Samuel B. Waugh (1814–1885) was the massive fifty-scene panorama The Mirror of Italy, which was first exhibited in Philadelphia in 1849. It toured the United States under the name Italia. About eight hundred feet long, the romantic panorama drew from the artist’s residence of several years in Italy. The fact that Berbineau had seen it in the United States highlights her interest in culture and self-improvement. 40. The Italian Revolution of 1848–1849, on which Margaret Fuller reported for Horace Greeley’s newspaper the New York Tribune. In the midnineteenth-century, Italian patriots led by Giuseppe Mazzini, Giuseppe Garibaldi, and Camillo Cavour sought to unify Italy into the Roman Republic. With the help of the French, the pope regained control of Rome and the Republican forces were defeated, to the dismay of many Americans. 41. Bismuth powder was another remedy for gastrointestinal disorders, akin to today’s Pepto-Bismol. 42. Lake Como is located in the lake district of northern Italy and has long been famous for its beautiful scenery. 133

Notes to the Diary 43. More than sixty-nine hundred feet high and used since Roman times, Splügen Pass lies on the border of Italy and Switzerland. The road through the pass lies above the sixteen-hundred-foot high Via Mala, one of the most picturesque gorges in Switzerland, which Berbineau mentions in her next entry. 44. The Lowells owned a summer property in Waltham, Massachusetts, outside of Boston. It was Berbineau’s responsibility to oversee the move there and back each year. 45. A beautiful lake in central Switzerland, bordered by the historic town of the same name. Lucerne and Olten, which Berbineau mentions on 22 September, are in the same region. Berne, mentioned on the twenty-third, is in central western Switzerland. 46. Long famous for their neutrality, the Swiss were often hired as soldiers by foreign governments. Lucerne’s Lion Monument, completed in 1821, commemorates the deaths of seven hundred members of the Swiss Guard who tried to defend the French King Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, and their children when the Tuileries Palace in Paris was attacked by French revolutionaries in 1792. The tragedy was compounded by the fact that, unknown to the soldiers, the royal family had already fled the palace. 47. September 21 is the feast day of St. Matthew, patron saint of tax collectors, bankers, accountants, customs officers, and security guards. 48. All ancient cities at one time visited or occupied by the Romans, BadenBaden, Strasbourg, and Heidelberg continue to be popular tourist destinations. Close to the northern part of the Black Forest in southwestern Germany, BadenBaden has long been famous for its hot springs; Strasbourg, France, on the Rhine River border with Germany, is known for its cathedral. Heidelberg, about fifty miles north of Baden-Baden, is noted for its castle, old town, and university. Mainz, Bingen, Koblenz, Düsseldorf, and Cologne, Germany, mentioned below, are picturesque cities on the Rhine River. Like Berbineau and the Lowells, many nineteenth-century writers took trips on the Rhine and explored its cities and towns. 49. Volume 118 ends here and volume 119 begins. 50. Rising majestically above the city, Heidelberg Castle was and is popular among U.S. travelers. Built between about 1400 and 1620, the castle contains the world’s largest oak wine barrel (fifty-eight thousand gallons), which was commissioned by Prince Karl Theodor. 51. Berbineau probably intended to write “Frankfurt” here, as the family traveled from Heidelberg to Frankfurt on the previous day. 52. According to one version of the legend associated with the Mäuseturm (Mice Tower), in 970 Germany suffered from a great famine, and the unpopular Hatto, archbishop of Mainz, sought to protect the rich by luring the poor to a barn with the promise of food and then burning them to death. Of the poor he said, “They are like mice, only good to devour the corn.” Soon an army of mice 134

Notes to the Diary attacked the archbishop, consuming him after he removed to a tower on the Rhine. The British poet Robert Southey composed a ballad, “Bishop Hatto,” on the subject. According to another source, the name is a variation of Mautturm, or toll tower, because of the efforts, two hundred years later, by Bishop Siegfried to collect duties on goods passing on the river. 53. Berbineau was visiting the Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom) in the midst of its completion. Although the building was begun in the thirteenth century, work was suspended in 1560 for lack of funds. The cathedral was halffinished for nearly three hundred years, when in the 1820s, the original architectural plans were found. A massive building campaign by the Prussians began in 1842, and the cathedral was finally finished in 1880. 54. Amsterdam (“Venice of the North”), The Hague, and Rotterdam all offered new sights and people to Berbineau’s appreciative eye. Amsterdam became the constitutional capital of the Netherlands in 1814, but The Hague is the seat of government, where the legislature, the Supreme Court, the International Court of Justice, and foreign embassies reside. When Berbineau went there, The Hague was in the process of expansion and beautification. The Hague is on the North Sea; Amsterdam and Rotterdam have access to it. 55. Probably Dutch painter Paulus Potter (1625–1654), famous for his paintings of animals. 56. The museums and architecture of Antwerp, Brussels, and Waterloo attracted nineteenth-century visitors. Antwerp has many famous paintings in museums and churches, as Berbineau suggests, as well as the Gothic Cathedral of Our Lady (Onze Lieve Vrouwe Cathedral; fourteenth to sixteenth centuries). The Palais du Roi (royal palace), which she visited, is one of the noteworthy buildings in Brussels, which also had a famous botanical garden and numerous parks. Nearby Waterloo was the site of Napoleon I’s famous defeat; the battle is marked by a monument built between 1823 and 1827. 57. Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), one of the finest painters of the baroque period, is now regarded as one of the greatest artists of all times. Stowe comments on him at length in Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands. 58. Elected the first monarch of Belgium after its separation from the Netherlands in 1831, King Leopold I (1790–1865) was Queen Victoria’s uncle. His son, Leopold II, was responsible for the exploitation of the Kongo (Congo) Basin region of Africa. 59. Colocynth, or bitter apple, was a very strong laxative. 60. Salle à manger, or, as the context makes clear, dining room. 61. Damask worsted is fine quality, tightly woven patterned wool fabric. Given her responsibilities in the Lowell household, it is not surprising that Berbineau was both knowledgeable about and interested in textiles. 62. The marriage in (or at) Cana describes Christ’s first miracle, the transformation of water into wine at a wedding of people too poor to afford wine. It is 135

Notes to the Diary described in John 2 :1–12. The Louvre holds several paintings on this popular subject. 63. In what is today northern Iraq, the Assyrian ruler Sargon II (r. 721–705 BCE) constructed his capital palace at Dur Sharrukin (the modern Khorsabad) about fifteen miles outside of Ninevah. The gates, which reside in the Louvre, were sculpted from stone in the form of fanciful winged bulls. 64. The Place de la Concorde contains two large fountains, which Berbineau describes below, and an ancient (thirty-three-hundred-year-old) Egyptian obelisk from Luxor, donated to France in 1829 by the viceroy of Egypt. 65. Berbineau wrote November 11 here rather than November 13. 66. At the mouth of the Seine River on the English Channel, Le Havre was an important departure point for many nineteenth-century travelers to the European continent. 67. A hero to many nineteenth-century Americans because of his democratic views, the leader of Hungary, Lajos Kossuth (1802–1894), sought to engage all the nationalities of his country, then part of the Hapsburg Empire, in a system of representative government. He unsuccessfully defended the country in its 1848–1849 struggle for independence and democracy against the allied forces of the royalist Austrian Habsburgs and Russian czar. On 7 January 1852, given an honor previously accorded only to the Marquis de Lafayette, he addressed the U.S. House of Representatives, which was nervous about the racial tensions that would ultimately lead to the Civil War. It was an event of some note that Berbineau traveled on the same ship. 68. Lola Montez (1818–1861)—whom Berbineau refers to as Lolimonte, the Countess of Landsdale, Countess or Madame Loli, and Lola Montes—was a famous dancer and courtesan whose romantic partners included Franz Liszt and King Ludwig I of Bavaria. Born in Ireland to a Spanish woman and a British soldier, Montez rejected Victorian behavioral norms for women, traveling around the world and becoming perhaps the most talked-about woman of her era. Berbineau’s several remarks about her during the journey reveal considerable sophistication, in that they show mere interest rather than make judgments. 69. Berbineau wrote November 27 here again rather than November 28. 70. Cambric is a finely woven (hence, expensive) linen or cotton fabric. 71. Fall River is port city in southeastern Massachusetts. Its most famous resident came after Berbineau’s time: Lizzie Borden (1860–1927) was tried for and acquitted of murdering her father and stepmother with an axe. 72. Mr. Kirk would be Edward Norris Kirk, at Mount Vernon Church, very close to the Lowells’ home. Taylor calls Kirk “a man of powerful personality and a great talent” and asserts that “Lorenza was devoted to minister as well as to church” (101). Dr. Kirk’s text: “To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which 136

Notes to the Diary are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, “And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. “See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: “Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.” 73. Berbineau kept a daybook in tandem with the more expansive travel diary, with entries representing much abbreviated versions of the travel diary entries.

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Works Cited Spurr, David. The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing, and Imperial Administration. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1993. Stansell, Christine. City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789 –1860. New York: Knopf, 1986. Stowe, Harriet Beecher. House and Home Papers. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1865. ———. Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson, and Company, 1854. Strout, Cushing. The American Image of the Old World. New York: Harper and Row, 1969. Sutherland, Daniel E. Americans and Their Servants: Domestic Service in the United States from 1800 to 1920. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981. Taylor, Philip. “A Beacon Hill Domestic: The Diary of Lorenza Stevens Berbineau.” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 98 (1986): 90–115. Thompson, E. P. The Making of the English Working Class. Rev. ed. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978. Tompkins, Jane. Sensational Designs, The Cultural Work of American Fiction 1790 –1860. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Ulrich, Laurel. A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785 –1812. New York: Knopf, 1991. Wong, Hertha D. Sending My Heart Back Across the Years: Tradition and Innovation in Native American Autobiography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Zandy, Janet. Introduction. Calling Home: Working Class Women’s Writings, An Anthology. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1990.

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Index

accommodations, 12–13, 15–16, 21, 54, 56, 59, 63, 64, 74, 85, 87, 88, 90, 91, 94, 97, 100, 103, 104, 108, 109, 111, 117, 123 aesthetics and the aesthetic: beauty, 2, 7, 15, 19, 20, 21, 24, 28– 41, 47 nn.48, 49; 48 nn.52, 57, 58; 49 n.60; 79, 82, 83, 84, 85, 89, 90, 92, 93, 96, 99, 100, 101, 103, 107, 112, 114 Alves, Susan, 43 n.11 America and Americans, 7, 23, 26, 41, 51, 64, 66, 72, 75, 78, 79, 87, 89, 90, 113, 117, 118 apology, 32–34, 69, 79 architecture, 54, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64, 68, 72, 73, 75, 78, 79, 83, 87, 88, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104, 106, 112, 115 Arpad, Susan S., 42 n.5 art, 19, 20, 62, 64, 65, 66– 67, 68, 70, 76, 77, 78, 87, 88, 92, 96, 102, 103, 106, 112, 113, 114 Belgium, 106–7; Antwerp, 106; Brussells, 106–7; Waterloo, 107 Bennett, Paula, 11, 44 n.17 Berbineau, Henri, 4, 38, 42– 43 n.6 Berteau, Dr., 49, 77, 110, 111 Bertoe, Dr. See Dr. Berteau. Blenheim Palace, ix, 19, 63– 64 Blodgett, Harriet, 30, 31, 32, 33, 36, 37, 45 n.30; 47 n.45; 48 n.50 Bloom, Lynn Z., 31

Bonaparte, Napoleon, 75, 76, 77 Bunkers, Suzanne, 38, 44 n.13; 48 n.53 Caesar, Terry, 3 Chamberlain, Betsey, 49 n.59 Champs-Élysées, 22, 31, 76, 78 Chanceril, Madame, 119, 123 children, 1, 4, 5, 10, 17–18, 19, 37–38, 54, 55, 64, 75, 76, 89, 104, 107, 108, 111, 114, 117, 118, 124 Chillon Castle, 85 church. See religion. Clark, Suzanne, 44 n.17 cleanliness, 77, 79, 87, 100, 103 Clink, Miss, 56, 58 clothing and dress, 61, 64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 75, 86, 89, 93, 102, 104, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 115, 119, 121, 122 Countess of “Landsdale.” See Montez, Lola. Cromwell, Oliver, 59, 62 Culley, Margo, 31, 33, 47 n.47 Cullwick, Elizabeth, 36–37, 40, 41 customs process, 56, 72–73, 87, 88, 96, 104, 123 diary form, 7, 28– 41 Dickinson, Emily, 32 Dimock, Wai Chee, 6 Douglas, Ann, 11 Dublin, Thomas, 8, 43 nn.7, 8; 44 n.14

145

Index Dudden, Faye E., 4, 8, 17, 19, 27, 44 n.14; 46 nn.37, 39 Dulles, Foster Rhea, 1, 10, 12, 17, 21, 45 nn.23, 25, 26, 28; 46 nn.35, 40 Eisler, Benita, 44 n.15 England, 26, 34, 58–72; Chester, 58– 60; Dover, 70, 72; Leamington, 14, 60– 61; Liverpool, 55, 58; London, 22, 58, 64–70; Oxford, 64; Warwick, 14, 19, 33, 61– 63 Enstad, Nan, 43 n.11 Europa, 54–55 Felski, Rita, 6, 43 n.12 femininity, 3, 7, 10, 13, 15, 16, 18, 21, 26 Foner, Philip S., 44 n.15 food, 12, 28, 54, 63, 65, 72, 74, 75, 77, 83, 84, 85, 88, 89, 91, 93, 97, 100, 101, 104, 106, 107, 112, 113, 114, 115, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123 France, 24, 72– 80, 107–15; Calais, 72; Dijon, 78, 79; Havre, 117; Paris, 18, 20, 72–78, 107–15; Strasbourgh, 96 French, Emily, 37–39, 40, 41, 48 nn.54, 55 Friedman, Susan Stanford, 31 Fugitive Slave Law, 26 Fuller, Margaret, 21, 22, 45 n.26; 47 n.45 Germany, 96–100; BadenBaden, 96; Bingen, 98; Cologne, 100; Dusseldorf, 99, 100; Frankfurt, 97; Heidelberg, 96, 97; Koblentz, 99; Maintz, 97 Gilmore, Leigh, 44 n.13 Gilmore, Michael T., 6 Gramegna, Lorenza, 33 Great Exhibition, 19, 20, 65, 66– 68 Guillory, John, 10 Guterson, Mary, 64, 67

Hall, Stuart, 43 n.10 Hampsten, Elizabeth, 29, 31, 33, 40, 44 n.24; 48 nn.53, 55; 48 n.58 Hawthorne, Sophia, 45 n.32 Hedrick, Joan D., 42 n.4 “help” vs. servant, 9, 17 Herndl, Diane Price, 13 Hogan, Rebecca, 36, 44 n.13; 47 n.47 Holland, 100– 4; Amsterdam, 101–3; The Hague, 103– 4; Rotterdam, 104, 106 home, 1, 2–5, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 32, 34, 37, 38, 39, 41, 64, 67, 91, 99, 102, 104, 108, 113, 114, 115, 117, 119, 124, 125, 126, 132 n.27; 136 n.72 Huff, Cynthia A., 44 n.13 Hughes, Sheila Hassell, 43 n.11 Humboldt, 117–23 illness and medicine, 13, 17, 18, 20, 22, 31, 37, 39, 44 n.20; 45 n.29; 48 n.54; 54, 55, 59, 60, 67, 68, 69, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 82, 83, 84, 86, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 96, 97, 98, 99, 102, 104, 108, 109, 110, 111, 113, 115, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 124, 125, 126, 127 interiors of palaces and castles, 62, 63, 85, 101, 102, 118, 122 Irish workers, 1, 8, 9, 27, 44 n.14 Italy, 87– 89; Como, 80; Milan, 88, 89 Kagle, Steven E., 30, 33, 44 n.13 Kaplan, Amy, 3 Kaplan, Cora, 43 n.10 Kelley, Mary, 44 n.13 Kenilworth Castle, 60– 61 Kessler-Harris, Alice, 44 n.14 Kilcup, Karen L., 38, 44 nn.16, 17, 18, 19; 49 n.59 Kossuth, Louis, 118, 120, 123

146

Index “lady,” 9, 13, 17, 27–28, 77, 78, 79, 82, 84, 93, 108, 109, 117, 119, 120, 121, 123 landscape, 25, 33, 40, 58, 60, 61, 64, 70, 72, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 82, 83, 84, 86, 87, 89, 90, 92, 94, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103, 104, 106, 115, 117 Lang, Amy Schrager, 43 n.11 Lanser, Susan S., 48 n.57 Larcom, Lucy, 9, 28, 44 n.16 Lauter, Paul, 6, 43 n.11; 49 n.60 Lecompte, Janet, 30, 37, 38, 39, 48 n.54 Leighton, Ann, 25 leisure, 13, 16, 17, 18, 75, 76, 107 Lensink, Judy Nolte, 30, 47 n.47; 48 n.53 Lockwood, Allison, 10, 12, 13, 17, 44 n.23; 46 nn.35, 41, 42 Louvre, 112 Lowell, Edward Jackson, 1, 4, 5, 13, 17–19, 47 n.47; 54, 55, 64, 65, 69, 73–75, 76, 77, 83, 86, 88, 91, 97, 106, 107, 108, 109, 112, 113, 114, 118, 124 Lowell, Francis Cabot, II, 1, 4, 8, 9, 54, 61, 65, 67, 69, 70, 73, 75, 83, 91, 93, 102, 103, 115 Lowell, Georgina, 1, 5, 13, 25, 34–35, 40, 43 n.7; 45 n.33; 46 nn.38, 43; 54, 65, 69, 75, 78, 82, 83, 90, 91, 93, 102, 103, 109, 110, 112, 114, 119, 125, 126 Lowell, Katherine Bigelow Lawrence, 25–26, 33–35, 40, 46 n.38; 47 n.44 Lowell, Mary, 1, 4–5, 13, 54, 65, 67, 70, 75, 93, 102, 103, 114, 115 Lowell, Mrs. Mary, 1, 5, 13, 30, 54, 58, 59, 60, 61, 65, 67, 70, 71, 73, 75, 76, 78, 83, 91, 102, 103, 113, 114, 115, 123

Lowell Mills “girls,” 8–9, 27, 28, 44 n.14 Lowell Offering, 49 n.59 Marchalonis, Shirley, 44 n.16 McCarthy, Molly, 29, 30, 31, 45 n.31; 47 n.47 Mexican-American war soldier, 54, 121 Mont Blanc, 79, 82 Montez, Lola, 120, 121, 122, 123 Morrison, Toni, 7 motherhood, 11, 18, 27 Mulvey, Christopher, 10, 12, 25, 45 nn.22, 26, 32; 46 n.36 nationalism. See America and Americans. Native Americans, 47 n.45 Notre Dame cathedral, 78, 115 Nova Scotia, 54, 55 orality and oral literature, 35–36 poor people, 22–23, 24–27, 35, 43– 44 n.12; 45 n.23; 60, 67, 70, 72, 74, 78, 79, 80, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 98, 103 Powers, Hiram, 46 n.35; 66 Pratt, Mary Louise, 41, 45 n.25; 46 n.40 Queen Victoria, 29–30, 65, 68, 69, 70 Radner, Joan N., 48 n.57 reader, implied, 34 religion, 19, 23–24, 54, 59, 60, 62, 64, 67, 68, 70, 72, 73, 75, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 91, 92, 93, 94, 97, 98, 100, 102, 106, 107, 110, 112, 124 Riney-Kehrberg, Pamela, 45 n.20; 46 n.39; 48 nn.53, 54 Robinson, Harriet, 44 n.15

147

Index Robinson, Lillian S., 7, 49 n.60 Roediger, David, 47 n.45 sabbath. See religion. Schocket, Eric, 47 n.45 Schriber, Mary Suzanne, 3, 10, 12, 13, 21, 45 nn.23, 26; 46 n.41; 47 nn.46, 51 Seccombe, Wally, 8 Sedgwick, Catharine Maria, 47 n.46 self-improvement, 19–21, 30, 31, 41, 45 n.33; 111 Sellers, Mrs., 118, 119 sentimentalism, 10–11, 12, 15–16, 21, 22, 23, 25, 41, 45 nn.26, 31; 117, 124 servants, 16–17, 28, 61, 63, 73, 74, 77, 83, 84, 93, 99, 108, 113, 117 Shakespeare, 19, 63 shopping, 58, 65, 67, 78, 97, 108, 113 Spurr, David, 46 n.34 Stansell, Christine, 44 n.14 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 2, 10–20, 32, 35, 41, 44 n.14; 45 nn.27, 32; 46 nn.34, 41; 47 n.44 Strout, Cushing, 46 n.34 Sutherland, Daniel E., 4 Switzerland, 82–94; Berne, 93, 94; Geneva, 83, 84, 86; Jura Mountains, 82; Lucerne, 92, 93; Olten, 93; Simplon Pass, 87; Vevey, 84, 85; Zurich, 90, 91, 92

Taylor, Philip, 2, 4, 5, 9, 31, 42 n.3 Thompson, E. P., 6 Tompkins, Jane, 11, 44 n.17 transportation, 54, 58, 60, 61, 65, 69, 70, 72, 73, 86, 88, 89, 90, 96, 97, 98, 99, 101, 117, 121, 124 travel literature, 10, 12–20, 25, 28– 29, 40 Tuileries, 75, 77, 78, 108, 110, 112, 113, 114 Ulrich, Laurel, 44 n.13 Warwick Castle, 61– 63 weather, 54, 55, 64, 65, 67, 68, 69, 73, 74, 75, 82, 83, 84, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 93, 97, 98, 99, 102, 106, 107, 108, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 119, 120, 122, 123, 124 Wilcox, Miss, 65, 67 Williams, Miss, 59, 65 Wong, Hertha D., 47 n.47 Woolf, Virginia, 3 working people, 7–9, 17, 22, 25, 26, 27, 36–39, 55, 72, 73, 77, 78, 79, 84, 86, 87, 90, 92, 96, 98, 113, 114, 119, 120, 121, 122 working-class writing, 5–7, 15, 23, 25, 29, 30, 31–32, 34, 36– 41 Zandy, Janet, 3, 49 n.60

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