We all have our ideas of
Paradise, and if other authors think like me, the most pleasurable
portion of anticipated bliss is that there will be no publishers
there. That idea often supports me after an interview with one of your
fraternity."
Marryat only returned to England a few months before hurrying off to
America in April 1837. The reasons for this move it is impossible to
conjecture, as we can scarcely accept the apparent significance of his
comments on Switzerland in the _Diary on the Continent:--_
"Do the faults of these people arise from the peculiarity of their
constitutions, or from the nature of their government? To ascertain
this, one must compare them with those who live under similar
institutions. _I must go to America--that is decided_."
He was received by the Americans with a curious mixture of suspicion and
enthusiasm. English men and women of letters in late years had been
visiting the Republic and criticising its institutions to the mother
country--with a certain forgetfulness of hospitalities received that was
not, to say the least of it, in good taste. Marryat was also an author,
and it seemed only too probable that he had come to spy out the land. On
the other hand, his books were immensely popular over the water and, but
for dread of possible consequences, Jonathan was delighted to see him.
His arrival at Saratoga Springs produced an outburst in the local papers
of the most pronounced journalese:--
"This distinguished writer is at present a sojourner in our city.
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