North America Volume II Part 15

But he reads Shakespeare through the medium of his own vernacular, and has to undergo the penance of a foreign tongue before he can understand Moliere. He separates himself from England in politics and perhaps in affection; but he cannot separate himself from England in mental culture. It may be suggested that an Englishman has the same advantages as regards America; and it is true that he is obtaining much of such advantage. Irving, Prescott, and Longfellow are the same to England as though she herself had produced them. But the balance of advantage must be greatly in favour of America. We have given her the work of four hundred years, and have received back in return the work of fifty.

And of this advantage the Americans have not been slow to avail themselves. As consumers of literature they are certainly the most conspicuous people on the earth. Where an English publisher contents himself with thousands of copies an American publisher deals with ten thousands. The sale of a new book, which in numbers would amount to a considerable success with us, would with them be a lamentable failure. This of course is accounted for, as regards the author and the publisher, by the difference of price at which the book is produced. One thousand in England will give perhaps as good a return as the ten thousand in America. But as regards the readers there can be no such equalization. The thousand copies cannot spread themselves as do the ten thousand. The one book at a guinea cannot multiply itself, let Mr. Mudie do what he will, as do the ten books at a dollar. Ultimately there remain the ten books against the one; and if there be not the ten readers against the one, there are five, or four, or three. Everybody in the States has books about his house. "And so has everybody in England," will say my English reader, mindful of the libraries, or book-rooms, or book-crowded drawing-rooms of his friends and acquaintances. But has my English reader who so replies examined the libraries of many English cabmen, of ticket porters, of warehous.e.m.e.n, and of agricultural labourers?

I cannot take upon myself to say that I have done so with any close search in the States. But when it has been in my power I have done so, and I have always found books in such houses as I have entered.

The amount of printed matter which is poured forth in streams from the printing-presses of the great American publishers is, however, a better proof of the truth of what I say than anything that I can have seen myself.

But of what cla.s.s are the books that are so read? There are many who think that reading in itself is not good unless the matter read be excellent. I do not myself quite agree with this, thinking that almost any reading is better than none; but I will of course admit that good matter is better than bad matter. The bulk of the literature consumed in the States is no doubt composed of novels,--as it is also, now-a-days, in this country. Whether or no an unlimited supply of novels for young people is or is not advantageous, I will not here pretend to say. The general opinion with ourselves I take it is, that novels are bad reading if they be bad of their kind. Novels that are not bad are now-a-days accepted generally as indispensable to our households. Whatever may be the weakness of the American literary taste in this respect, it is, I think, a weakness which we share. There are more novel readers among them than with us, but only, I think, in the proportion that there are more readers.

I have no hesitation in saying, that works by English authors are more popular in the States than those written by themselves; and, among English authors of the present day, they by no means confine themselves to the novelists. The English names of whom I heard most during my sojourn in the States were perhaps those of d.i.c.kens, Tennyson, Buckle, Tom Hughes, Martin Tupper, and Thackeray. As the owners of all these names are still living, I am not going to take upon myself the delicate task of criticising the American taste.

I may not perhaps coincide with them in every respect. But if I be right as to the names which I have given, such a selection shows that they do get beyond novels. I have little doubt but that many more copies of d.i.c.kens's novels have been sold during the last three years, than of the works either of Tennyson or of Buckle; but such also has been the case in England. It will probably be admitted that one copy of the "Civilization" should be held as being equal to five-and-twenty of "Nicholas Nickleby," and that a single "In Memoriam" may fairly weigh down half-a-dozen "Pickwicks." Men and women after their day's work are not always up to the "Civilization."

As a rule they are generally up to "Proverbial Philosophy," and this, perhaps, may have had something to do with the great popularity of that very popular work.

I would not have it supposed that American readers despise their own authors. The Americans are very proud of having a literature of their own. Among the literary names which they honour, there are none, I think, more honourable than those of Cooper and Irving. They like to know that their modern historians are acknowledged as great authors, and as regards their own poets will sometimes demand your admiration for strains with which you hardly find yourself to be familiar. But English books are, I think, the better loved;--even the English books of the present day. And even beyond this,--with those who choose to indulge in the costly luxuries of literature,--books printed in England are more popular than those which are printed in their own country; and yet the manner in which the American publishers put out their work is very good. The book sold there at a dollar, or a dollar and a quarter, quite equals our ordinary five shilling volume.

Nevertheless English books are preferred,--almost as strongly as are French bonnets. Of books absolutely printed and produced in England the supply in the States is of course small. They must necessarily be costly, and as regards new books, are always subjected to the rivalry of a cheaper American copy. But of the reprinted works of English authors the supply is unlimited, and the sale very great. Almost everything is reprinted; certainly everything which can be said to attain any home popularity. I do not know how far English authors may be aware of the fact; but it is undoubtedly a fact that their influence as authors is greater on the other side of the Atlantic than on this. It is there that they have their most numerous school of pupils. It is there that they are recognized as teachers by hundreds of thousands. It is of those thirty millions that they should think, at any rate in part, when they discuss within their own hearts that question which all authors do discuss, whether that which they write shall in itself be good or bad,--be true or false.

A writer in England may not, perhaps, think very much of this with reference to some trifle of which his English publisher proposes to sell some seven or eight hundred copies. But he begins to feel that he should have thought of it when he learns that twenty or thirty thousand copies of the same have been scattered through the length and breadth of the United States. The English author should feel that he writes for the widest circle of readers ever yet obtained by the literature of any country. He provides not only for his own country and for the States, but for the readers who are rising by millions in the British colonies. Canada is supplied chiefly from the presses of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, but she is supplied with the works of the mother country. India, as I take it, gets all her books direct from London, as do the West Indies. Whether or no the Australian colonies have as yet learned to reprint our books I do not know, but I presume that they cannot do so as cheaply as they can import them. London with us, and the three cities which I have named on the other side of the Atlantic, are the places at which this literature is manufactured; but the demand in the western hemisphere is becoming more brisk than that which the old world creates. There is, I have no doubt, more literary matter printed in London than in all America put together. A greater extent of letter-press is put up in London than in the three publishing cities of the States. But the number of copies issued by the American publishers is so much greater than those which ours put forth, that the greater bulk of literature is with them. If this be so, the demand with them is of course greater than it is with us.

I have spoken here of the privilege which an English author enjoys by reason of the ever widening circle of readers to whom he writes.

I speak of the privilege of an English author as distinguished from that of an American author. I profess my belief that in the United States an English author has an advantage over one of that country merely in the fact of his being English, as a French milliner has undoubtedly an advantage in her nationality let her merits or demerits as a milliner be what they may. I think that English books are better liked because they are English. But I do not know that there is any feeling with us either for or against an author because he is American. I believe that Longfellow stands in our judgment exactly where he would have stood had he been a tutor at a college in Oxford instead of a Professor at Cambridge in Ma.s.sachusetts. Prescott is read among us as an historian without any reference as to his nationality, and by many, as I take it, in absolute ignorance of his nationality. Hawthorne, the novelist, is quite as well known in England as he is in his own country. But I do not know that to either of these three is awarded any favour or is denied any justice because he is an American. Washington Irving published many of his works in this country, receiving very large sums for them from Mr. Murray, and I fancy that in dealing with his publisher he found neither advantage nor disadvantage in his nationality;--that is, of course, advantage or disadvantage in reference to the light in which his works would be regarded. It must be admitted that there is no jealousy in the States against English authors. I think that there is a feeling in their favour, but no one can at any rate allege that there is a feeling against them. I think I may also a.s.sert on the part of my own country that there is no jealousy here against American authors. As regards the tastes of the people, the works of each country flow freely through the other. That is as it should be. But when we come to the mode of supply, things are not exactly as they should be; and I do not believe that any one will contradict me when I say that the fault is with the Americans.

I presume that all my readers know the meaning of the word copyright.

A man's copyright, or right in his copy, is that amount of legal possession in the production of his brains which has been secured to him by the laws of his own country and by the laws of others. Unless an author were secured by such laws, his writings would be of but little pecuniary value to him, as the right of printing and selling them would be open to all the world. In England and in America, and as I conceive in all countries possessing a literature, there is such a law securing to authors and to their heirs for a term of years the exclusive right over their own productions. That this should be so in England as regards English authors is so much a matter of course, that the copyright of an author would seem to be as naturally his own as a gentleman's deposit at his bank or his little investment in the three per cents. The right of an author to the value of his own productions in other countries than his own is not so much a matter of course; but nevertheless, if such productions have any value in other countries, that value should belong to him. This has been felt to be the case between England and France, and treaties have been made securing his own property to the author in each country. The fact that the languages of England and France are different makes the matter one of comparatively small moment. But it has been found to be for the honour and profit of the two countries, that there should be such a law, and an international copyright does exist. But if such an arrangement be needed between two such countries as France and England,--between two countries which do not speak the same language or share the same literature,--how much more necessary must it be between England and the United States? The literature of the one country is the literature of the other. The poem that is popular in London will certainly be popular in New York. The novel that is effective among American ladies will be equally so with those of England. There can be no doubt as to the importance of having a law of copyright between the two countries. The only question can be as to the expediency and the justice. At present there is no international copyright between England and the United States, and there is none because the States have declined to sanction any such law. It is known by all who are concerned in the matter on either side of the water that as far as Great Britain is concerned such a law would meet with no impediment.

Therefore it is to be presumed that the legislators of the States think it expedient and just to dispense with any such law. I have said that there can be no doubt as to the importance of the question, seeing that the price of English literature in the States must be most materially affected by it. Without such a law the Americans are enabled to import English literature without paying for it. It is open to any American publisher to reprint any work from an English copy, and to sell his reprints without any permission obtained from the English author or from the English publisher. The absolute material which the American publisher sells, he takes, or can take, for nothing. The paper, ink, and composition he supplies in the ordinary way of business; but of the very matter which he professes to sell,--of the book which is the object of his trade, he is enabled to possess himself for nothing. If you, my reader, be a popular author, an American publisher will take the choicest work of your brain and make dollars out of it, selling thousands of copies of it in his country, whereas you can, perhaps, only sell hundreds of it in your own; and will either give you nothing for that he takes,--or else will explain to you that he need give you nothing, and that in paying you anything he subjects himself to the danger of seeing the property which he has bought taken again from him by other persons.

If this be so that question whether or no there shall be a law of international copyright between the two countries cannot be unimportant.

But it may be inexpedient that there shall be such a law. It may be considered well, that as the influx of English books into America is much greater than the out-flux of American books back to England, the right of obtaining such books for nothing should be reserved, although the country in doing so robs its own authors of the advantage which should accrue to them from the English market. It might perhaps be thought anything but smart to surrender such an advantage by the pa.s.sing of an international copyright bill. There are not many trades in which the tradesman can get the chief of his goods for nothing; and it may be thought, that the advantage arising to the States from such an arrangement of circ.u.mstances should not be abandoned. But how then about the justice? It would seem that the less said upon that subject the better. I have heard no one say that an author's property in his own works should not, in accordance with justice, be insured to him in the one country as well as in the other. I have seen no defence of the present position of affairs, on the score of justice. The price of books would be enhanced by an international copyright law, and it is well that books should be cheap. That is the only argument used. So would mutton be cheap, if it could be taken out of a butcher's shop for nothing!

But I absolutely deny the expediency of the present position of the matter, looking simply to the material advantage of the American people in the matter, and throwing aside altogether that question of justice. I must here, however, explain that I bring no charge whatsoever against the American publishers. The English author is a victim in their hands, but it is by no means their fault that he is so. As a rule, they are willing to pay for the works of popular English writers, but in arranging as to what payments they can make, they must of course bear in mind the fact that they have no exclusive right whatsoever in the things which they purchase. It is natural, also, that they should bear in mind when making their purchases, and arranging their prices, that they can have the very thing they are buying without any payment at all, if the price asked do not suit them. It is not of the publishers that I complain, or of any advantage which they take; but of the legislators of the country, and of the advantage which accrues, or is thought by them to accrue to the American people from the absence of an international copyright law. It is mean on their part to take such advantage if it existed; and it is foolish in them to suppose that any such advantage can accrue. The absence of any law of copyright no doubt gives to the American publisher the power of reprinting the works of English authors without paying for them,--seeing that the English author is undefended. But the American publisher who brings out such a reprint is equally undefended in his property. When he shall have produced his book, his rival in the next street may immediately reprint it from him, and destroy the value of his property by underselling him.

It is probable that the first American publisher will have made some payment to the English author for the privilege of publishing the book honestly,--of publishing it without recurrence to piracy,--and in arranging his price with his customers he will be, of course, obliged to debit the book with the amount so paid. If the author receive ten cents a copy on every copy sold, the publisher must add that ten cents to the price he charges for it. But he cannot do this with security, because the book can be immediately reprinted, and sold without any such addition to the price. The only security which the American publisher has against the injury which may be so done to him, is the power of doing other injury in return. The men who stand high in the trade, and who are powerful because of the largeness of their dealings, can in a certain measure secure themselves in this way. Such a firm would have the power of crushing a small tradesman who should interfere with him. But if the large firm commits any such act of injustice, the little men in the trade have no power of setting themselves right by counter injustice. I need hardly point out what must be the effect of such a state of things upon the whole publishing trade; nor need I say more to prove that some law which shall regulate property in foreign copyrights would be as expedient with reference to America, as it would be just towards England. But the wrong done by America to herself does not rest here. It is true that more English books are read in the States than American books in England, but it is equally true that the literature of America is daily gaining readers among us. That injury to which English authors are subjected from the want of protection in the States, American authors suffer from the want of protection here. One can hardly believe that the legislators of the States would willingly place the brightest of their own fellow countrymen in this position, because in the event of a copyright bill being pa.s.sed, the balance of advantage would seem to accrue to England!

Of the literature of the United States, speaking of literature in its ordinary sense, I do not know that I need say much more. I regard the literature of a country as its highest produce, believing it to be more powerful in its general effect, and more beneficial in its results, than either statesmanship, professional ability, religious teaching, or commerce. And in no part of its national career have the United States been so successful as in this. I need hardly explain that I should commit a monstrous injustice were I to make a comparison in this matter between England and America. Literature is the child of leisure and wealth. It is the produce of minds which by a happy combination of circ.u.mstances have been enabled to dispense with the ordinary cares of the world. It can hardly be expected to come from a young country, or from a new and still struggling people.

Looking around at our own magnificent colonies I hardly remember a considerable name which they have produced, except that of my excellent old friend, Sam Slick. Nothing, therefore, I think, shows the settled greatness of the people of the States more significantly than their firm establishment of a national literature. This literature runs over all subjects. American authors have excelled in poetry, in science, in history, in metaphysics, in law, in theology, and in fiction. They have attempted all, and failed in none. What Englishman has devoted a room to books, and devoted no portion of that room to the productions of America?

But I must say a word of literature in which I shall not speak of it in its ordinary sense, and shall yet speak of it in that sense which of all perhaps, in the present day, should be considered the most ordinary. I mean the every-day periodical literature of the press.

Most of those who can read, it is to be hoped, read books; but all who can read do read newspapers. Newspapers in this country are so general that men cannot well live without them; but to men, and to women also, in the United States they may be said to be the one chief necessary of life. And yet in the whole length and breadth of the United States there is not published a single newspaper which seems to me to be worthy of praise.

A really good newspaper,--one excellent at all points,--would indeed be a triumph of honesty and of art! Not only is such a publication much to be desired in America, but it is still to be desired in Great Britain also. I used, in my younger days, to think of such a newspaper as a possible publication, and in a certain degree I then looked for it. Now I expect it only in my dreams. It should be powerful without tyranny, popular without triumph, political without party pa.s.sion, critical without personal feeling, right in its statements and just in its judgments, but right and just without pride. It should be all but omniscient, but not conscious of its omniscience; it should be moral, but not strait-laced; it should be well-a.s.sured, but yet modest; though never humble, it should be free from boasting. Above all these things it should be readable; and above that again it should be true. I used to think that such a newspaper might be produced, but I now sadly acknowledge to myself the fact that humanity is not capable of any work so divine.

The newspapers of the States generally may not only be said to have reached none of the virtues here named, but to have fallen into all the opposite vices. In the first place they are never true. In requiring truth from a newspaper the public should not be anxious to strain at gnats. A statement setting forth that a certain gooseberry was five inches in circ.u.mference, whereas in truth its girth was only two and a half, would give me no offence. Nor would I be offended at being told that Lord Derby was appointed to the premiership, while in truth the Queen had only sent for his lordship, having as yet come to no definite arrangement. The demand for truth which may reasonably be made upon a newspaper amounts to this,--that nothing should be stated not believed to be true, and that nothing should be stated as to which the truth is important, without adequate ground for such belief. If a newspaper accuse me of swindling, it is not sufficient that the writer believe me to be a swindler. He should have ample and sufficient ground for such belief;--otherwise in making such a statement he will write falsely. In our private life we all recognize the fact that this is so. It is understood that a man is not a whit the less a slanderer because he believes the slander which he promulgates. But it seems to me that this is not sufficiently recognized by many who write for the public press. Evil things are said, and are probably believed by the writers; they are said with that special skill for which newspaper writers have in our days become so conspicuous, defying alike redress by law or redress by argument; but they are too often said falsely. The words are not measured when they are written, and they are allowed to go forth without any sufficient inquiry into their truth. But if there be any ground for such complaint here in England, that ground is multiplied ten times--twenty times--in the States. This is not only shown in the abuse of individuals, in abuse which is as violent as it is perpetual, but in the treatment of every subject which is handled.

All idea of truth has been thrown overboard. It seems to be admitted that the only object is to produce a sensation, and that it is admitted by both writer and reader that sensation and veracity are incompatible. Falsehood has become so much a matter of course with American newspapers that it has almost ceased to be falsehood. n.o.body thinks me a liar because I deny that I am at home when I am in my study. The nature of the arrangement is generally understood. So also is it with the American newspapers.

But American newspapers are also unreadable. It is very bad that they should be false, but it is very surprising that they should be dull. Looking at the general intelligence of the people, one would have thought that a readable newspaper, put out with all pleasant appurtenances of clear type, good paper, and good internal arrangement, would have been a thing specially within their reach.

But they have failed in every detail. Though their papers are always loaded with sensation headings, there are seldom sensation paragraphs to follow. The paragraphs do not fit the headings. Either they cannot be found, or if found they seem to have escaped from their proper column to some distant and remote portion of the sheet. One is led to presume that no American editor has any plan in the composition of his newspaper. I never know whether I have as yet got to the very heart's core of the daily journal, or whether I am still to go on searching for that heart's core. Alas, it too often happens that there is no heart's core! The whole thing seems to have been put out at hap-hazard. And then the very writing is in itself below mediocrity;--as though a power of expression in properly arranged language was not required by a newspaper editor, either as regards himself or as regards his subordinates. One is driven to suppose that the writers for the daily press are not chosen with any view to such capability. A man ambitious of being on the staff of an American newspaper should be capable of much work, should be satisfied with small pay, should be indifferent to the world's good usage, should be rough, ready, and of long sufferance; but, above all, he should be smart. The type of almost all American newspapers is wretched--I think I may say of all;--so wretched that that alone forbids one to hope for pleasure in reading them. They are ill-written, ill-printed, ill-arranged, and in fact are not readable. They are bought, glanced at, and thrown away.

They are full of boastings,--not boastings simply as to their country, their town, or their party,--but of boastings as to themselves. And yet they possess no self-a.s.surance. It is always evident that they neither trust themselves, nor expect to be trusted.

They have made no approach to that omniscience which const.i.tutes the great marvel of our own daily press; but finding it necessary to write as though they possessed it, they fall into blunders which are almost as marvellous. Justice and right judgment are out of the question with them. A political party end is always in view, and political party warfare in America admits of any weapons. No newspaper in America is really powerful or popular; and yet they are tyrannical and overbearing. The "New York Herald" has, I believe, the largest sale of any daily newspaper; but it is absolutely without political power, and in these times of war has truckled to the Government more basely than any other paper. It has an enormous sale, but so far is it from having achieved popularity, that no man on any side ever speaks a good word for it. All American newspapers deal in politics as a matter of course; but their politics have ever regard to men and never to measures. Vituperation is their natural political weapon; but since the President's ministers have a.s.sumed the power of stopping newspapers which are offensive to them, they have shown that they can descend to a course of eulogy which is even below vituperation.

I shall be accused of using very strong language against the newspaper press of America. I can only say that I do not know how to make that language too strong. Of course there are newspapers as to which the editors and writers may justly feel that my remarks, if applied to them, are unmerited. In writing on such a subject, I can only deal with the whole as a whole. During my stay in the country, I did my best to make myself acquainted with the nature of its newspapers, knowing in how great a degree its population depends on them for its daily store of information. Newspapers in the States of America have a much wider, or rather closer circulation, than they do with us. Every man and almost every woman sees a newspaper daily.

They are very cheap, and are brought to every man's hand without trouble to himself, at every turn that he takes in his day's work. It would be much for the advantage of the country, that they should be good of their kind; but, if I am able to form a correct judgment on the matter, they are not good.

CHAPTER XVI.

CONCLUSION.

In one of the earlier chapters of this volume,--now some seven or eight chapters past,--I brought myself on my travels back to Boston.

It was not that my way homewards lay by that route, seeing that my fate required me to sail from New York; but I could not leave the country without revisiting my friends in Ma.s.sachusetts. I have told how I was there in the sleighing time, and how pleasant were the mingled slush and frost of the snowy winter. In the morning the streets would be hard and crisp, and the stranger would surely fall if he were not prepared to walk on glaciers. In the afternoon he would be wading through rivers,--and if properly armed at all points with india-rubber, would enjoy the rivers as he waded. But the air would be always kindly, and the east wind there, if it was east as I was told, had none of that power of dominion which makes us all so submissive to its behests in London. For myself, I believe that the real east wind blows only in London.

And when the snow went in Boston I went with it. The evening before I left I watched them as they carted away the dirty uncouth blocks which had been broken up with pickaxes in Washington Street, and was melancholy as I reflected that I too should no longer be known in the streets. My weeks in Boston had not been very many, but nevertheless there were haunts there which I knew as though my feet had trodden them for years. There were houses to which I could have gone with my eyes blindfold; doors of which the latches were familiar to my hands; faces which I knew so well that they had ceased to put on for me the fict.i.tious smiles of courtesy. Faces, houses, doors, and haunts, where are they now? For me they are as though they had never been. They are among the things which one would fain remember as one remembers a dream. Look back on it as a vision and it is all pleasant. But if you realize your vision and believe your dream to be a fact, all your pleasure is obliterated by regret.

I know that I shall never again be at Boston, and that I have said that about the Americans which would make me unwelcome as a guest if I were there. It is in this that my regret consists;--for this reason that I would wish to remember so many social hours as though they had been pa.s.sed in sleep. They who will expect blessings from me, will say among themselves that I have cursed them. As I read the pages which I have written I feel that words which I intended for blessings when I prepared to utter them have gone nigh to turn themselves into curses.

I have ever admired the United States as a nation. I have loved their liberty, their prowess, their intelligence, and their progress. I have sympathized with a people who themselves have had no sympathy with pa.s.sive security and inaction. I have felt confidence in them, and have known, as it were, that their industry must enable them to succeed as a people, while their freedom would insure to them success as a nation. With these convictions I went among them wishing to write of them good words,--words which might be pleasant for them to read, while they might a.s.sist perhaps in producing a true impression of them here at home. But among my good words there are so many which are bitter, that I fear I shall have failed in my object as regards them. And it seems to me, as I read once more my own pages, that in saying evil things of my friends, I have used language stronger than I intended; whereas I have omitted to express myself with emphasis when I have attempted to say good things. Why need I have told of the mud of Washington, or have exposed the nakedness of Cairo? Why did I speak with such eager enmity of those poor women in the New York cars, who never injured me, now that I think of it? Ladies of New York, as I write this, the words which were written among you, are printed and cannot be expunged; but I tender to you my apologies from my home in England. And as to that Van Wyck committee! Might I not have left those contractors to be dealt with by their own Congress, seeing that that Congress committee was by no means inclined to spare them? I might have kept my pages free from gall, and have sent my sheets to the press unhurt by the conviction that I was hurting those who had dealt kindly by me! But what then? Was any people ever truly served by eulogy; or an honest cause furthered by undue praise?

O my friends with thin skins,--and here I protest that a thick skin is a fault not to be forgiven in a man or a nation, whereas a thin skin is in itself a merit, if only the wearer of it will be the master and not the slave of his skin,--O, my friends with thin skins, ye whom I call my cousins and love as brethren, will ye not forgive me these harsh words that I have spoken? They have been spoken in love,--with a true love, a brotherly love, a love that has never been absent from the heart while the brain was coining them. I had my task to do, and I could not take the pleasant and ignore the painful. It may perhaps be that as a friend I had better not have written either good or bad. But no! To say that would indeed be to speak calumny of your country. A man may write of you truly, and yet write that which you would read with pleasure;--only that your skins are so thin!

The streets of Washington are muddy and her ways are desolate. The nakedness of Cairo is very naked. And those ladies of New York--is it not to be confessed that they are somewhat imperious in their demands? As for the Van Wyck committee, have I not repeated the tale which you have told yourselves? And is it not well that such tales should be told?

And yet ye will not forgive me; because your skins are thin, and because the praise of others is the breath of your nostrils.

I do not know that an American as an individual is more thin-skinned than an Englishman; but as the representative of a nation it may almost be said of him that he has no skin at all. Any touch comes at once upon the net-work of his nerves and puts in operation all his organs of feeling with the violence of a blow. And for this peculiarity he has been made the mark of much ridicule. It shows itself in two ways; either by extreme displeasure when anything is said disrespectful of his country; or by the strong eulogy with which he is accustomed to speak of his own inst.i.tutions and of those of his countrymen whom at the moment he may chance to hold in high esteem.

The manner in which this is done is often ridiculous. "Sir, what do you think of our Mr. Jefferson Brick? Mr. Jefferson Brick, sir, is one of our most remarkable men." And again. "Do you like our inst.i.tutions, sir? Do you find that philanthropy, religion, philosophy, and the social virtues are cultivated on a scale commensurate with the unequalled liberty and political advancement of the nation?" There is something absurd in such a mode of address when it is repeated often. But hero-worship and love of country are not absurd; and do not these addresses show capacity for hero-worship and an apt.i.tude for the love of country? Jefferson Brick may not be a hero; but a capacity for such worship is something. Indeed the capacity is everything, for the need of a hero will at last produce the hero needed. And it is the same with that love of country.

A people that are proud of their country will see that there is something in their country to justify their pride. Do we not all of us feel a.s.sured by the intense nationality of an American that he will not desert his nation in the hour of her need? I feel that a.s.surance respecting them; and at those moments in which I am moved to laughter by the absurdities of their addresses, I feel it the strongest.

I left Boston with the snow, and returning to New York found that the streets there were dry and that the winter was nearly over. As I had pa.s.sed through New York to Boston the streets had been by no means dry. The snow had lain in small mountains over which the omnibuses made their way down Broadway, till at the bottom of that thoroughfare, between Trinity Church and Bowling Green, alp became piled upon alp, and all traffic was full of danger. The accursed love of gain still took men to Wall Street, but they had to fight their way thither through physical difficulties which must have made even the state of the money market a matter almost of indifference to them. They do not seem to me to manage the winter in New York so well as they do in Boston. But now, on my last return thither, the alps were gone, the roads were clear, and one could travel through the city with no other impediment than those of treading on women's dresses if one walked, or having to look after women's band-boxes and pay their fares and take their change, if one used the omnibuses.

And now had come the end of my adventures, and as I set my foot once more upon the deck of the Cunard steamer I felt that my work was done. Whether it were done ill or well, or whether indeed any approach to the doing of it had been attained, all had been done that I could accomplish. No further opportunity remained to me of seeing, hearing, or of speaking. I had come out thither, having resolved to learn a little that I might if possible teach that little to others; and now the lesson was learned, or must remain unlearned. But in carrying out my resolution I had gradually risen in my ambition, and had mounted from one stage of inquiry to another, till at last I had found myself burdened with the task of ascertaining whether or no the Americans were doing their work as a nation well or ill; and now, if ever, I must be prepared to put forth the result of my inquiry. As I walked up and down the deck of the steamboat I confess I felt that I had been somewhat arrogant.

I had been a few days over six months in the States, and I was engaged in writing a book of such a nature that a man might well engage himself for six years, or perhaps for sixty, in obtaining the materials for it. There was nothing in the form of government, or legislature, or manners of the people, as to which I had not taken upon myself to say something. I was professing to understand their strength and their weakness; and was daring to censure their faults and to eulogize their virtues. "Who is he," an American would say, "that he comes and judges us? His judgment is nothing." "Who is he,"

an Englishman would say, "that he comes and teaches us? His teaching is of no value."

In answer to this I have but a small plea to make. I have done my best. I have nothing "extenuated, and have set down nought in malice." I do feel that my volumes have blown themselves out into proportions greater than I had intended;--greater not in ma.s.s of pages, but in the matter handled. I am frequently addressing my own muse, who I am well aware is not Clio, and asking her whither she is wending. "Cease, thou wrong-headed one, to meddle with these mysteries." I appeal to her frequently, but ever in vain. One cannot drive one's muse, nor yet always lead her. Of the various women with which a man is blessed, his muse is by no means the least difficult to manage.

But again I put in my slight plea. In doing as I have done, I have at least done my best. I have endeavoured to judge without prejudice, and to hear with honest ears, and to see with honest eyes. The subject, moreover, on which I have written, is one which, though great, is so universal in its bearings, that it may be said to admit of being handled without impropriety by the unlearned as well as the learned;--by those who have grown gray in the study of const.i.tutional lore, and by those who have simply looked on at the government of men as we all look on at those matters which daily surround us. There are matters as to which a man should never take a pen in hand unless he has given to them much labour. The botanist must have learned to trace the herbs and flowers before he can presume to tell us how G.o.d has formed them. But the death of Hector is a fit subject for a boy's verses though Homer also sang of it. I feel that there is scope for a book on the United States' form of government as it was founded, and as it has since framed itself, which might do honour to the life-long studies of some one of those great const.i.tutional pundits whom we have among us; but, nevertheless, the plain words of a man who is no pundit need not disgrace the subject, if they be honestly written, and if he who writes them has in his heart an honest love of liberty.

Such were my thoughts as I walked the deck of the Cunard steamer.

Then I descended to my cabin, settled my luggage, and prepared for the continuance of my work. It was fourteen days from that time before I reached London, but the fourteen days to me were not unpleasant. The demon of sea-sickness usually spares me, and if I can find on board one or two who are equally fortunate--who can eat with me, drink with me, and talk with me--I do not know that a pa.s.sage across the Atlantic is by any means a terrible evil.

In finishing these volumes after the fashion in which they have been written throughout, I feel that I am bound to express a final opinion on two or three points, and that if I have not enabled myself to do so, I have travelled through the country in vain. I am bound by the very nature of my undertaking to say whether, according to such view as I have enabled myself to take of them, the Americans have succeeded as a nation politically and socially; and in doing this I ought to be able to explain how far slavery has interfered with such success. I am bound also, writing at the present moment, to express some opinion as to the result of this war, and to declare whether the North or the South may be expected to be victorious,--explaining in some rough way what may be the results of such victory, and how such results will affect the question of slavery. And I shall leave my task unfinished if I do not say what may be the possible chances of future quarrel between England and the States. That there has been and is much hot blood and angry feeling no man doubts; but such angry feeling has existed among many nations without any probability of war. In this case, with reference to this ill-will that has certainly established itself between us and that other people, is there any need that it should be satisfied by war and allayed by blood?

No one, I think, can doubt that the founders of the great American Commonwealth made an error in omitting to provide some means for the gradual extinction of slavery throughout the States. That error did not consist in any liking for slavery. There was no feeling in favour of slavery on the part of those who made themselves prominent at the political birth of the nation. I think I shall be justified in saying that at that time the opinion that slavery is itself a good thing, that it is an inst.i.tution of divine origin and fit to be perpetuated among men as in itself excellent, had not found that favour in the southern States in which it is now held. Jefferson, who has been regarded as the leader of the southern or democratic party, has left ample testimony that he regarded slavery as an evil. It is, I think, true that he gave such testimony much more freely when he was speaking or writing as a private individual than he ever allowed himself to do when his words were armed with the weight of public authority. But it is clear that, on the whole, he was opposed to slavery, and I think there can be little doubt that he and his party looked forward to a natural death for that evil. Calculation was made that slavery when not recruited afresh from Africa could not maintain its numbers, and that gradually the negro population would become extinct. This was the error made. It was easier to look forward to such a result and hope for such an end of the difficulty, than to extinguish slavery by a great political movement, which must doubtless have been difficult and costly. The northern States got rid of slavery by the operation of their separate legislatures, some at one date and some at others. The slaves were less numerous in the North than in the South, and the feeling adverse to slaves was stronger in the North than in the South. Mason and Dixon's line, which now separates slave soil from free soil, merely indicates the position in the country at which the balance turned. Maryland and Virginia were not inclined to make great immediate sacrifices for the manumission of their slaves; but the gentlemen of those States did not think that slavery was a divine inst.i.tution, destined to flourish for ever as a blessing in their land.

The maintenance of slavery was, I think, a political mistake;--a political mistake, not because slavery is politically wrong, but because the politicians of the day made erroneous calculations as to the probability of its termination. So the income tax may be a political blunder with us;--not because it is in itself a bad tax, but because those who imposed it conceived that they were imposing it for a year or two, whereas, now, men do not expect to see the end of it. The maintenance of slavery was a political mistake; and I cannot think that the Americans in any way lessen the weight of their own error by protesting, as they occasionally do, that slavery was a legacy made over to them from England. They might as well say, that travelling in carts without springs, at the rate of three miles an hour, was a legacy made over to them by England. On that matter of travelling they have not been contented with the old habits left to them, but have gone ahead and made railroads. In creating those railways the merit is due to them; and so also is the demerit of maintaining those slaves.

That demerit and that mistake have doubtless brought upon the Americans the grievances of their present position; and will, as I think, so far be accompanied by ultimate punishment that they will be the immediate means of causing the first disintegration of their nation. I will leave it to the Americans themselves to say, whether such disintegration must necessarily imply that they have failed in their political undertaking. The most loyal citizens of the northern States would have declared a month or two since,--and for aught I know would declare now,--that any disintegration of the States implied absolute failure. One stripe erased from the banner, one star lost from the firmament, would entail upon them all the disgrace of national defeat! It had been their boast that they would always advance, never retreat. They had looked forward to add ever State upon State, and territory to territory, till the whole continent should be bound together in the same union. To go back from that now, to fall into pieces and be divided, to become smaller in the eyes of the nations,--to be absolutely halfed, as some would say of such division, would be national disgrace, and would amount to political failure. "Let us fight for the whole," such men said, and probably do say. "To lose anything is to lose all!"

But the citizens of the States who speak and think thus, though they may be the most loyal, are perhaps not politically the most wise. And I am inclined to think that that defiant claim of every star, that resolve to possess every stripe upon the banner, had become somewhat less general when I was leaving the country than I had found it to be at the time of my arrival there. While things were going badly with the North,--while there was no tale of any battle to be told except of those at Bull's Run and Springfield, no northern man would admit a hint that secession might ultimately prevail in Georgia or Alabama.

But the rebels had been driven out of Missouri when I was leaving the States, they had retreated altogether from Kentucky, having been beaten in one engagement there, and from a great portion of Tennessee, having been twice beaten in that State. The coast of North Carolina, and many points of the southern coast, were in the hands of the northern army, while the army of the South was retreating from all points into the centre of their country. Whatever may have been the strategetical merits or demerits of the northern generals, it is at any rate certain that their apparent successes were greedily welcomed by the people, and created an idea that things were going well with the cause. And, as all this took place, it seemed to me that I heard less about the necessary integrity of the old flag.

While as yet they were altogether unsuccessful, they were minded to make no surrender. But with their successes came the feeling, that in taking much they might perhaps allow themselves to yield something.