James Russell Lowell

“ Formerly Bristol was the great port through which intercourse with America was kept up, but now certainly Liverpool is one end of the three-thousand-mile loom on which the shuttles which are binding us all in visible ties more and more together are continually shooting to and fro. Liverpool is also the gate by which Americans leave the Old World to go home, and I am to a certain extent, as a person who crosses the seas not infrequently, interested in a discussion which I saw in the newspapers the other day as to the difficulties of embarcation at Liverpool. ”

“ 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 [Pg 62] 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. ”

“ In all his intercourse with the aristocratic representatives of privileged countries, he—the plain, untitled representative of a democratic government—proud to stand for a people with whom liberty and equality were supreme terms—more than held his own in every trial of intellect, of courtesy, of wit, of all that wins in society and the world. ”

“ In every one is to be found an earnest endeavor, first to secure a higher appreciation of his country than he found prevailing among that insular and self-contained people:—and next to encourage and stimulate the formation of a real and sincere friendship between the mother country and her over-grown child. He gained these ends by the exercise of unfailing tact, courtesy and courage, which first disarmed criticism; and then by presenting considerations which commanded respect and carried conviction. Even his American humor gained the appreciation of these lovers of Punch. ”

“ I have to measure my poets, my authors, by their lasting power, and I find Gray has a great deal of it. He not only pleases my youth and my age, but he pleases other people’s youth and age; and I cannot help thinking this is a proof that he touches on human nature at a great many periods and at a great many levels, and, perhaps, that is as high a compliment as can be paid to the poet. There is, I admit, a certain commonplaceness of sentiment in his most famous poem, but I think there is also a certain commonplaceness of sentiment in some verses that have been famous for more than 3000 years. ”

“ Lowell was not so good an American as some others. But, in the larger and truer sense:—in striving for all that goes to make a people more noble in aim, more humane, more intelligent, [Pg ix] more peace-loving, more free, more self-respecting, more artistic, in short more fully men and women of the best type,—Mr. Lowell may well be accepted as the representative American, of whom we should all be proud.
It was his rare fortune to be Minister of the United States to Great Britain during a most interesting period. ”

“ As I am one of those who believe [Pg 60] 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 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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 88] English-speaking people and their enormous resources may have great weight in deciding the destinies of mankind. ”

“ Beginning with that at Edinburgh, he claims—what we all conceive to be true—that the traditions of English freedom and English civilization have not only been maintained, but also extended, among us: and he refers, with evident and just pride, to the quick and intelligent appreciation of Carlyle in America, long before he won recognition in his own England. And, in his last speech, on the eve of leaving Liverpool to return home, he dwells with great earnestness on the duty laid on English-speaking races everywhere to carry with them the great lessons of liberty combined with order. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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) ; [Pg 87] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Unfortunately, there was no history of Liverpool in my friend Tom Brown’s library. (Laughter.) There were histories of inferior places—Chester, and so on—but no history of Liverpool; and I therefore cannot give you a great deal of information which I have no doubt would have been new and very interesting to you, and which would make the staple of a proper after-dinner speech. But there is one thing I remember about Liverpool. I have always felt a sort [Pg 91] of literary gratitude to Liverpool, strange as you may think it. ”

“ The individual man may set the impossible before him as something to be obtained, but I think those communities of men have prospered the best who have aimed at what is possible. We see daily illustrations of that, and anybody who has studied the history of France would be convinced that, though England has a form of Government not so free as that country, yet you have made a greater advance towards good will among men and towards peace than France has done. ”

“ You must not think that I have forgotten the part taken by the working men of England during our civil war—I won’t say on behalf of the North, because now we are a united people—on the side of good order and freedom; and on the only occasion when I had an opportunity of saying so—that was when speaking to the provincial press in London—I alluded to the subject. I agree with you entirely on the importance of a good understanding and much more [Pg 41] between England and the United States, and between the two chief branches of the Anglo-Saxon race. ”

“ As for me, Sir, the precious gift you have brought me, truly illuminated by its charming picture of buildings, some of them dear for their beauty, some because they recall your kindness or that of friends who have [Pg 37] made me feel as if, when I went to Worcester, I was going home, is only another witness of that universal kindness (may I not say affection?) by which the land of my fathers has gone near to make me fancy that I was a son rather than a far-off cousin. As such it will always be justly dear to me and mine. ”

“ Since I have been in England I have done something, I trust, to promote a cordial feeling between this country and the United States. That has been my earnest desire always, and I hope I have to some extent succeeded. You will allow me to thank you warmly for this address, which I shall always feel to be among my most precious possessions, and I shall carry to the workmen on the other side of the Atlantic the message expressive of your sympathy and hope. I hope the occasion will [Pg 44] not ever arise even for arbitration. ”

“ 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, [Pg 59] 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If there is now, in England, a clearer appreciation of American ideas: less of that condescension which was once so evident in foreigners: more readiness to see and to seek the best rather than the worst in our modes of life and thought: a clearer understanding that, at heart, we are one people—a very large share of that improved condition is due to James Russell Lowell. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Repeating what his Royal Highness the commander-in-chief has said, that every man is bound in duty if he were not bound in affection and loyalty to put his own country first, I may be allowed to steal a leaf out of the book of my adopted fellow-citizens in America ”

“ Yet in a society so largely conventional as all diplomatic society is, and of necessity must be, it is much that an American should, by common consent, stand at the head, even in matters of ceremonial. ”

“ I repeat, I have not been chosen so much for my own merits as for the opportunity afforded you of giving expression to your kindness and good feeling towards the country I represent— (cheers) —a country which exemplifies what the colonies of England may come to if they are not wisely treated. ”

“ Gray has expressed a simple sentiment, and as long as there are young men and middle-aged men, Gray’s poem will continue to be read and loved as in the days when it was written. There is a Spanish proverb which rebukes those people who ask something better than bread. Let those who ask for something better get something better than what Gray produced. For my own part I ask nothing better. He was, perhaps, the greatest artist in words that English [Pg 31] literature has possessed. ”

“ 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. ”