In 1842 Charles Dickens toured select portions of the United States. His observations were detailed in a book called American Notes. The work is a departure from his novels and provides a glimpse of America as seen through the eyes of a foreign visitor. Dickens was generally uncomfortable with the country he found. Slavery shocked him to the core and he spent an entire detailing the horrors of this institution. Additional upsets to his system came from the egalitarian nature of the American systems for travel, the food, the bumptious Americans, chewing tobacco, dueling, and the infestation of pigs in many midwestern cities. When he met a Choctaw chief he was greatly disappointed that the man was clad in European clothing, spoke perfect English, and was well-read in English literature. Dickens didn't recognize his own rudeness in expressing directly to the Choctaw how much he regretted that the man was not clothed in his native attire. Dickens was no usual tourist and took an unusual interest in visiting prisons, factories, and poor houses.
Here is how Dickens described his visit to the plains west of St. Louis.
"Looking toward the setting sun, there lay, stretched out before my view, a vast expanse of level ground; unbroken save by one thin line of trees, which scarcely amounted to a scratch upon the great blank; until it met the glowing sky, wherein it seemed to dip: mingling its rich colors, and mellowing in its distant blue... It was lonely and wild, but oppressive in its barren monotony. I felt that in traversing the Prairies, I could never abandon myself to the scene, forgetful of all else; as I should do instinctively, were the heather underneath my feet, or an iron-bound coast beyond; but should often glance towards the distant and frequently receding line of the horizon, and wish it gained and passed."
The vast expanses of the Plains often had a disconcerting effect upon Europeans, and Dickens clearly is a member of that fraternity. Many saw the Plains as like being in a punch bowl where the horizon at the same time receded in one's direction of travel and followed behind.
Here is how Dickens described his visit to the plains west of St. Louis.
"Looking toward the setting sun, there lay, stretched out before my view, a vast expanse of level ground; unbroken save by one thin line of trees, which scarcely amounted to a scratch upon the great blank; until it met the glowing sky, wherein it seemed to dip: mingling its rich colors, and mellowing in its distant blue... It was lonely and wild, but oppressive in its barren monotony. I felt that in traversing the Prairies, I could never abandon myself to the scene, forgetful of all else; as I should do instinctively, were the heather underneath my feet, or an iron-bound coast beyond; but should often glance towards the distant and frequently receding line of the horizon, and wish it gained and passed."
The vast expanses of the Plains often had a disconcerting effect upon Europeans, and Dickens clearly is a member of that fraternity. Many saw the Plains as like being in a punch bowl where the horizon at the same time receded in one's direction of travel and followed behind.
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