TIES OF KINSHIP
From "Modern Eloquence," Vol. I, Geo. L. Shuman and Company, Chicago, publishers.
BY SIR EDWIN ARNOLD
When I was conversing recently with Lord Tennyson, he said to me: "It is bad for us that English will always be a spoken speech, since that means that it will always be changing, and so the time will come when you and I will be as hard to read for the common people as Chaucer is to-day." You remember what opinion your brilliant humorist, Artemus Ward, let fall concerning that ancient singer. "Mr. Chaucer," he observed casually, "is an admirable poet, but as a spellist, a very decided failure."
To the treasure house of that noble tongue the United States has splendidly contributed. It would be far poorer to-day without the tender lines of Longfellow, the serene and philosophic pages of Emerson, the convincing wit and clear criticism of my illustrious departed friend, James Russell Lowell, the Catullus-like perfection of the lyrics of Edgar Allan Poe, and the glorious, large-tempered dithyrambs of Walt Whitman.
These stately and sacred laurel groves grow here in a garden forever extending, ever carrying further forward, for the sake of humanity, the irresistible flag of our Saxon supremacy, leading one to falter in an attempt to eulogize America and the idea of her potency and her promise. The most elaborate panegyric would seem but a weak impertinence, which would remind you, perhaps too vividly, of Sydney Smith, who, when he saw his grandchild pat the back of a large turtle, asked her why she did so. The little maid replied: "Grandpa, I do it to please the turtle." "My child," he answered, "you might as well stroke the dome of St. Paul's to please the Dean and chapter"
I myself once heard, in our Zoological gardens in London, another little girl ask her mamma whether it would hurt the elephant if she offered him a chocolate drop. In that guarded and respectful spirit is it that I venture to tell you here to-night how truly in England the peace and prosperity of your republic is desired, and that nothing except good will is felt by the mass of our people toward you, and nothing but the greatest satisfaction in your wealth and progress.
Between these two majestic sisters of the Saxon blood the hatchet of war is, please God, buried. No cause of quarrel, I think and hope, can ever be otherwise than truly out of proportion to the vaster causes of affection and accord. We have no longer to prove to each other, or to the world, that Englishmen and Americans are high-spirited and fearless; that Englishmen and Americans alike will do justice, and will have justice, and will put up with nothing else from each other and from the nations at large. Our proofs are made on both sides, and indelibly written on the page of history. Not that I wish to speak platitudes about war. It has been necessary to human progress; it has bred and preserved noble virtues; it has been inevitable, and may be again; but it belongs to a low civilization. Other countries have, perhaps, not yet reached that point of intimate contact and rational advance, but for us two, at least, the time seems to have come when violent decisions, and even talk of them, should be as much abolished between us as cannibalism.
I ventured, when in Washington, to propose to President Harrison that we should some day, the sooner the better, choose five men of public worth in the United States, and five in England; give them gold coats if you please, and a handsome salary, and establish them as a standing and supreme tribunal of arbitration, referring to them the little family fallings-out of America and of England, whenever something goes wrong between us about a sealskin in Behring Strait, a lobster pot, an ambassador's letter, a border tariff, or an Irish vote. He showed himself very well disposed toward my suggestion.
Mr. President, in the sacred hope that you take me to be a better poet than orator, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your reception to-night, and personally pray for the tranquility and prosperity of this free and magnificent republic.