Part 3

I should more deeply regret my inability to be present at the interesting ceremonial of the 17th were it not that my countrymen will be more fitly and adequately represented there by their accomplished Minister, Mr. Phelps. The occasion is certainly a most interesting one. The monument which you accept to-day in behalf of your townsmen commemorates at once the most marvellous of Englishmen and the jubilee year of the august lady whose name is honored wherever the language is spoken, of which he was the greatest master. No symbol could more aptly serve this double purpose than a fountain, for surely no poet ever poured forth so broad a river of speech as he, whether he was the author of the “Novum Organum” also or not. Nor could the purity of her character and example be better typified than by the current that shall flow forever from the sources opened here to-day. It was Washington Irving who first embodied in his delightful English the emotion which Stratford-on-Avon awakes in the heart of the pilgrim, and especially of the American pilgrim, who visits it. I am glad to think that this memorial should be the gift of an American and thus serve to recall the kindred blood of two great nations, joint heirs of the same noble language and of the genius that has given it a cosmopolitan significance. I am glad of it because it is one of the multiplying signs that those two nations are beginning to think more and more of the things in which they sympathize and less and less of those in which they differ. A common language is not indeed, the surest bond of amity, for this enables each country to understand whatever unpleasant thing the other may chance to say about it.

As I am one of those who believe that an honest friendship between England and America is a most desirable thing, I trust that we shall on both sides think it equally desirable in our intercourse one with another to make our mother tongue search her coffers round for the polished rather than the sharp-cornered epithets she has stored there. Let us by all means speak the truth to each other, for there is no one else who can speak it to either of us with such a fraternal instinct for the weak point of the other; but let us do it in such wise as to show that it is the truth we love and not the discomfort we can inflict by means of it. Let us say agreeable things to each other and of each other whenever we conscientiously can. My friend, Mr. Childs, has said one of these agreeable things in a very solid and durable way. A common literature and a common respect for certain qualities of character and ways of thinking supply a neutral ground where we may meet in the assurance that we shall find something amiable in each other, and from being less than kind become more than kin.

In old maps the line which outlined British possessions in America included the greater part of what is now territory of the United States. The possessions of the American in England are laid down on no map, yet he holds them in memory and imagination by a title such as no conquest ever established and no revolution can ever overthrow. The dust that is sacred to you is sacred to him. The annals which Shakspeare makes walk before us in flesh and blood are his no less than yours. These are the ties which we recognize, and are glad to recognize, on occasions like this. They will be yearly drawn closer as science goes on with her work of abolishing time and space, and thus render more easy that peaceful commerce ’twixt dividable shores which is so potent to clear away whatever is exclusive in nationality or savors of barbarism in patriotism.

I remain, dear Mr. Mayor, Faithfully yours, J. R. LOWELL.

X.

AT THE DINNER TO AMERICAN AUTHORS.

The dinner of the Incorporated Society of Authors, on July 25, 1888, was given to the “American Men and Women of Letters” who happened to be in London on that date. Mr. LOWELL spoke as follows:

I confess that I rise under a certain oppression. There was a time when I went to make an after-dinner speech with a light heart, and when on my way to the dinner I could think over my exordium in my cab and trust to the spur of the moment for the rest of my speech. But I find as I grow older a certain aphasia overtakes me, a certain inability to find the right word precisely when I want it; and I find also that my flank becomes less sensitive to the exhilarating influences of that spur to which I have just alluded. I had pretty well made up my mind not to make any more after-dinner speeches. I had an impression that I had made quite enough of them for a wise man to speak, and perhaps more than it was profitable for other wise men to listen to. I confess that it was with some reluctance that I consented to speak at all to-night. I had been bethinking me of the old proverb of the pitcher and well which is mentioned, as you remember, in the proverb; and it was not altogether a consolation to me to think that that pitcher, which goes once too often to the well, belongs to the class which is taxed by another proverb with too great length of ears. But I could not resist. I certainly felt that it was my duty not to refuse myself to an occasion like this--an occasion which deliberately emphasizes, as well as expresses, that good feeling between our two countries which, I think, every good man in both of them is desirous to deepen and to increase. If I look back to anything in my life with satisfaction, it is to the fact that I myself have, in some degree, contributed--and I hope I may believe the saying to be true--to this good feeling. You alluded, Mr. Chairman, to a date which gave me, I must confess, what we call on the other side of the water “a rather large contract.” I am to reply, I am to answer to literature, and I must confess that a person like myself, who first appeared in print fifty years ago, would hardly wish to be answerable for all his own literature, not to speak of the literature of other people. But your allusion to sixty years ago reminded me of something which struck me as I looked down these tables.

Sixty years ago the two authors you mentioned, Irving and Cooper, were the only two American authors of whom anything was known in Europe, and the knowledge of them in Europe was mainly confined to England. It is true that Bryant’s “Water-Fowl” had already begun its flight in immortal air, but these were the only two American authors that could be said to be known in England. And what is even more remarkable, they were the only American authors at that time--there were, and had been, others known to us at home--who were capable of earning their bread by their pens. Another singular change is suggested to me as I look down these tables, and that is the singular contrast they afford between the time when Johnson wrote his famous lines about those ills that assail the life of the scholar, and by the scholar he meant the author--

Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the gaol.

And I confess when I remember that verse it strikes me as a singular contrast that I should meet with a body of authors who are able to offer a dinner instead of begging one; that I have sat here and seen “forty feeding like one,” when one hundred years ago the one fed like forty when he had the chance. You have alluded also, in terms which I shall not qualify, to my own merits. You have made me feel a little as if I were a ghost revisiting the pale glimpses of the moon, and reading with considerable wonder my own epitaph. But you have done me more than justice in attributing so much to me with regard to International Copyright. You are quite right in alluding to Mr. Putnam, who, I think, wrote the best pamphlet that has been written on the subject; and there are others you did not name who also deserve far more than I do for the labor they have expended and the zeal they have shown on behalf of International Copyright, particularly the secretaries of our international society--Mr. Lathrop and Mr. G. W. Green. And since I could not very well avoid touching upon the subject of International Copyright, I must say that all American authors without exception have been in favor of it on the moral ground, on the ground of simple justice to English authors. But there were a great many local, topical considerations, as our ancestors used to call them, that we were obliged to take into account, and which, perhaps, you do not feel as keenly here as we did. But I think we may say that the almost unanimous conclusion of American authors latterly has been that we should be thankful to get any bill that recognized the principle of international copyright, being confident that its practical application would so recommend it to the American people that we should get afterwards, if not every amendment of it that we desire, at least every one that is humanly possible. I think that perhaps a little injustice has been done to our side of the question; I think a little more heat has been imported into it than was altogether wise. I am not so sure that our American publishers were so much more wicked than their English brethren would have been if they had had the chance. I cannot, I confess, accept with patience any imputation that implies that there is anything in our climate or in our form of government that tends to produce a lower standard of morality than in other countries. The fact is that it has been partly due to a certain--may I speak of our ancestors as having been qualified by a certain dulness? I mean no disrespect, but I think it is due to the stupidity of our ancestors in making a distinction between literary property and other property. That has been at the root of the whole evil.

I, of course, understand, as everybody understands, that all property is the creature of municipal law. But you must remember that it is the conquest of civilization, that when property passes beyond the boundaries of that _municipium_ it is still sacred. It is not even yet sacred in all respects and conditions. Literature, the property in an idea, has been something that it is very difficult for the average man to comprehend. It is not difficult for the average man to comprehend that there may be property in a form which genius or talent gives to an idea. He can see it. It is visible and palpable, this property in an idea when it is exemplified in a machine, but it is hardly so apprehensible when it is subtly interfused in literature. Books have always been looked on somewhat as _feræ naturæ_, and if you have ever preserved pheasants you know that when they fly over your neighbor’s boundaries he may take a pot shot at them. I remember that something more than thirty years ago Longfellow, my friend and neighbor, asked me to come and eat a game pie with him. Longfellow’s books had been sold in England by the tens of thousands, and that game pie--and you will observe the felicity of its being a game pie, _feræ naturæ_ always you see--was the only honorarium he had ever received from this country for reprinting his works. I cannot help feeling as I stand here that there is something especially--I might almost use a cant word and say monumentally--interesting in a meeting like this. It is the first time that English and American authors, so far as I know, have come together in any numbers, I was going to say to fraternize when I remembered that I ought perhaps to add to “sororize.” We, of course, have no desire, no sensible man in England or America has any desire, to enforce this fraternization at the point of the bayonet. Let us go on criticising each other; it is good for both of us. We Americans have been sometimes charged with being a little too sensitive; but perhaps a little indulgence may be due to those who always have their faults told to them, and the reference to whose virtues perhaps is sometimes conveyed in a foot-note in small print. I think that both countries have a sufficiently good opinion of themselves to have a fairly good opinion of each other. They can afford it; and if difficulties arise between the two countries, as they unhappily may,--and when you alluded just now to what De Tocqueville said in 1828 you must remember that it was only thirteen years after our war,--you must remember how long it has been to get in the thin end of the wedge of International Copyright; you must remember it took our diplomacy nearly one hundred years to enforce its generous principle of the alienable allegiance, and that the greater part of the bitterness which De Tocqueville found in 1828 was due to the impressment of American seamen, of whom something like fifteen hundred were serving on board English ships when at last they were delivered. These things should be remembered, not with resentment but for enlightenment. But whatever difficulties occurred between the two countries, and there may be difficulties that are serious, I do not think there will be any which good sense and good feeling cannot settle. I think I have been told often enough to remember that my countrymen are apt to think that they are in the right, that they are always in the right; that they are apt to look at their side of the question only. Now, this conduces certainly to peace of mind and imperturbability of judgment, whatever other merits it may have. I am sure I do not know where we got it. Do you? I also sympathize most heartily with what has been said by the chairman with regard to the increasing love for England among my countrymen. I find on inquiry that they stop longer and in greater numbers every year in the old home, and feel more deeply its manifold charms. They also are beginning to feel that London is the centre of the races that speak English, very much in the sense that Rome was the centre of the ancient world. And I confess that I never think of London, which I also confess that I love, without thinking of that palace which David built, sitting in hearing of a hundred streams--streams of thought, of intelligence, of activity. And one other thing about London, if I may be allowed to refer to myself, impresses me beyond any other sound I have ever heard, and that is the low, unceasing roar that one hears always in the air. It is not a mere accident, like the tempest or the cataract, but it is impressive because it always indicates human will and impulse and conscious movement, and I confess that when I hear it I almost feel that I am listening to the roaring loom of time. A few words more. I will only say this, that we, as well as you, have inherited a common trust in the noble language which, in its subtle compositiveness, is perhaps the most admirable instrument of human thought and human feeling and cunning that has ever been unconsciously devised by man. May our rivalries be in fidelity to that trust. We have also inherited certain traditions political and moral, and in doing our duty towards these it seems to me that we shall find quite enough occupation for our united thought and feeling.

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XI.

BEFORE THE LIVERPOOL PHILOMATHIC SOCIETY.

The Hon. J. RUSSELL LOWELL, formerly the United States representative at the Court of St. James, was the special guest on Wednesday night, November 23, 1888, at a banquet of the Liverpool Philomathic Society, held at the Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool. In response to the toast, “The Guest of the Evening,” Mr. LOWELL, who met with a cordial reception, referred at the outset to what he termed a rather pathetic incident of his literary history. He said:

It is connected, with the first volume which introduced me to the English public. It was not the “Bigelow Papers” or “Biglow Papers”--I beg pardon--(_laughter_), but it was a little volume of rather immature poetry which some enthusiast on this side of the water reprinted privately. He was good enough to send me a copy. Perhaps it is known to you that we have a protective system. (_Laughter_.) The book was accordingly liable to duty as coming to its author, and for the information of whomsoever it might concern there had been written on the outside “Value 6d.” (_Laughter_.) I laid it to heart at once, and I said to myself, “Here is a piece of criticism you can appreciate, and which, perhaps, may do you a great deal of good.” (_Laughter_.)

As I was saying, I do not intend to make you any formal speech, and I should not have come here had it not been that I think it the duty of every man who can say anything that affects the people, whether by his pen or by his tongue, to go anywhere where expression is given to the friendly feeling which it is the desire of all wise and all honest men, I think, to deepen between the two countries which you and I represent. You have been good enough, Mr. President, also to refer to my career as a diplomatist in England, and you were quite right in saying that it was my endeavor to maintain those relations--those friendly relations--and I hope not without some success. (_Cheers_.) But I cannot listen to this compliment, I cannot accept it, without saying that I was followed by an American representative who has the same feeling, and who has represented America as ably in my judgment as she was ever represented in England. (_Cheers_.) That reminds me that we have been rather remarkably represented here in England. If you look over the list of our Ministers you will find that we have had three Adamses, one after the other, grandfather, father and son--one of the most really striking instances of heredity I know of (_laughter_); and the last Mr. Adams wore at the Court of Queen Victoria, as he told me, the regalia in which his grandfather was robed when he made his bow before George III. as the first American Minister in England, and was, I am bound to say, very civilly received by His Majesty. (_Laughter._) Those are only three illustrations, but we have many others. We have had Galitz, for instance, a prominent American diplomatist--though he was not an American by birth, but was a naturalized Swiss.

There has been lately--I am not going to say a word about politics; I always rigidly avoid them--but I have seen a number of allusions in the newspapers lately to a certain tension, as the journalists like to call it, between the two countries. I cannot help thinking it is the result of a little irritation on both sides; but I have always felt that nothing was more foolish and that nothing ought to be more rigidly left to children than the “You’re another.” (_Laughter and cheers._) Now, I dare say metaphysically, you are another; but there are occasions when the telling one that he is “another” is apt to have a disastrous effect, and I think we ought to avoid it. (_Cheers._) When we look at the enormous extension of the race which speaks English (as we call it, for I am always desirous to avoid confining it to the English race, as we used to term it in our pride); when we consider this growth (though I do not quite agree with the figures of some of my friends, I do not believe we shall be a population of one hundred millions or two hundred millions so soon as is expected); when we consider this growth we find a remarkable fact, and one which no thoughtful man can help observing and reflecting upon. England is the greatest of colonizing races. This is a great distinction, and ennobles a nation. England has put a girdle of three prosperous and vigorous communities around the globe. Of course, it is not for me to say a word about Imperial federation. I am not sure Imperial federation would be a good thing. I am not sure, even if it were a good thing, it is not a dream. It is not for me to say; but it seems to me nobody who looks far can help seeing that the time may not be far distant when the good understanding among all these English-speaking people and their enormous resources may have great weight in deciding the destinies of mankind. (_Cheers._) Now, I am one of those who believe that civilization and freedom are better married than divided, that they go better together. Nobody who has studied history would say they do not exist apart, but it is in divorce, and each is the worse for it. (_Cheers._) The duty which has been laid upon the English-speaking races, so far as we can discover, has been to carry ever the great lessons of liberty combined with order. (_Cheers._) That is the great secret of civilization. We may have our different laws and different forms of government; but so long as we sympathize with any idea that so far transcends all geographical boundaries and all municipal limits as that, I think you will agree with me that nothing can be more important than to preserve the friendliest relations between the two greatest representatives of this conquering and colonizing race. (_Cheers._)