"THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE"
[Speech of James Russell Lowell at the annual Ashfield Dinner at Ashfield, Mass., August 27, 1885,—the harvest-time festival in behalf of Sanderson Academy, given for several years under the leadership of Charles Eliot Norton and George William Curtis, long summer residents in this country town. Mr. Lowell had recently returned from his post as Minister to England; and he was presented to the literary gathering by Professor Norton, President of the day. Professor Norton closed his eloquent words of introduction as follows: "On our futile laurels he looks down, himself our highest crown.—Ashfield speaks to you to-day, and the welcome is your own to New England.">[
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:—I cannot easily escape from some strength of emotion in listening to the words of my friend who has just sat down, unless I receive it on the shield which has generally been my protection against many of the sorrows and some of the hardships of life. I mean the shield of humor, and I shall, therefore, take less seriously than playfully the portrait that he has been kind enough to draw of me. It reminds me of a story I once heard of a young poet, who published his volume of verses and prefixed to it his own portrait drawn by a friendly artist. The endeavor of his life from that time forward was to look like the portrait that his friend had drawn. [Applause.] I shall make the same endeavor.
It is a great pleasure to me to come here to-day, not only because I have met some of the oldest friends of my life, but also that after having looked in the eyes of so many old English audiences I see face to face a new English one, and when I looked at them I was reminded of a family likeness and of that kinship of blood which unites us. When I look at you I see many faces that remind me of faces I saw on the other side of the water, and I feel that whether I speak there or here I am essentially speaking to one people. I am not going to talk about myself, and I am not going to make a speech. I have spoken so often for you on the other side of the water that I feel as though I had a certain claim, at least, to be put on the retired list. But I could not fail to observe a certain distrust of America that has peeped out in remarks made, sometimes in the newspapers, sometimes to myself, as to whether a man could live eight years out of America, without really preferring Europe. It seems to me to imply what I should call a very unworthy distrust in the powers of America to inspire affection. I feel to-day, in looking in your faces, somewhat as I did when I took my first walk over the hills after my return, and the tears came into my eyes as I was welcomed by the familiar wayside flowers, the trees, the birds that had been my earliest friends.
It seems to me that those who take such a view quite miscalculate the force of the affection that a man feels for his country. It is something deeper than a sentiment. If there were anything deeper, I should say it was something deeper than an instinct. It is that feeling of self-renunciation and of identification with another which Ruth expressed when she said: "Entreat me not to leave thee nor to depart from following after thee, for whither thou goest I will go: where thou livest I will live, and where thou diest there will I die also." That, it seems to me, is the instinctive feeling that a man has. At the same time, this does not exclude the having clear eyes to see the faults of one's country. I think that, as an old President of Harvard College said once to a person who was remonstrating with him: "But charity, doctor, charity." "Yes, I know; but charity has eyes and ears and won't be made a fool of." [Laughter.]
I notice a good many changes in coming home, a few of which I may, perhaps, be allowed to touch upon. I notice a great growth in luxury, inevitable, I suppose, and which may have good in it—more good, perhaps, than I can see. I notice, also, one change that has impressed me profoundly, and when I hear that New England is drawing away, I cannot help thinking to myself how much more prosperous the farms look than they did when I was young; how much more neat is the farming, how much greater the attention to what will please the eye about the farm, as the planting of flowers and trimming the grass, which seems to me a very good sign. I had an opportunity, by a strange accident, of becoming very intimate with the outward appearance of New England during my youth by going about when a little boy with my father when he went on exchanges. He always went in his own vehicle, and he sometimes drove as far west as Northampton. I do not wish to detain you on this point, except as it interested me and is now first in my mind.
While I was in England I had occasion once to address them on the subject of Democracy, and I could not help thinking when I came up here that I was coming to one of its original sources, for certain it is that in the village community of New England, in its "plain living and high thinking," began that social equality which afterwards developed on the political side into what we call Democracy. And Democracy—while surely we cannot claim for it that it is perfect—yet Democracy, it seems to me, is the best expedient hitherto invented by mankind, not for annihilating distinctions and equalities, for that is impossible, but, so far as it is humanly possible, for compensating them. Here in our little towns in the last century, people met without thinking of it on a high table-land of common manhood. There was no sense of presumption from below, there was no possibility of condescension from above, because there was no above and below in the community. Learning was always respected in the clergyman, in the doctor, in the squire, the justice of the peace, and the rest of the community. This made no artificial distinction.
I observe, also, that our people are getting over their very bad habit with regard to politics, for Democracy, you must remember, lays a heavier burden on the individual conscience than any other form of government; and I have been glad to observe that we have been getting over that habit of thinking that our institutions will go of themselves. Now it seems to me that there is no machine of human construction, or into which the wit of man has entered, that can go of itself without supervision, without oiling; that there are no wheels which will revolve without our help, except the great wheel of the constellations or that great circle of the sun's which has its hand upon the dial plate, and which was made by a hand much less fallible than ours.
It also pleases me very much to see a friend whose constancy, whose faith, and whose courage have done so much more than any other man's to bring about that reform [great applause], though when I speak of civil service reform the friend who stands at our elbow on all these occasions will suggest to me a certain parallel, that is, that as Mr. Curtis is here to-day and I am here to-day, it reminds one of the temperance lecturer who used to go about carrying with him an unhappy person as the awful example [great laughter], and it may have flickered before some of your minds that I was the "awful example" of the very reform I had preached. However, I say that it is to me a very refreshing thing to find that this old happy-go-lucky feeling about our institutions has a very good chance of passing away.
One thing which always impressed me on the other side of the water as an admirable one, and as one which gave them a certain advantage over us, is the number of men who train themselves specifically for politics, for government. We are apt to forget, over here, that the art of governing men, as it is the highest, so it is the most difficult, of all arts. We are particular how our boots are made, but about our constitutions we "trust in the Lord," without even, as Cromwell advised, keeping our powder dry. We commit the highest destinies of this Republic, which some of us hope bears the hope of the world in her womb—to whom? Certainly not always to those who are most fit on any principle of natural selection: certainly, sometimes to those who are most unfit on any principle of selection,—and this is a very serious matter, for if you will allow me to speak with absolute plainness, no country that allows itself to be governed for a moment by its blackguards is safe. [Applause.] That was written before the United States of America existed. It is one of the truths of human nature and of destiny. If I were a man who had any political aspiration,—which, thank Heaven, I have not,—if I had any official aspiration—which, thank Heaven, also, I have not,—I should come home here, and when I first met an American audience I should say to them: My friends, America can learn nothing of Europe; Europe must come to school here. You have the tallest monument, you have the biggest waterfall, you have the highest tariff of any country in the world. [Great laughter and applause.] I would tell you that the last census showed that you had gained so many millions, as if the rabbits did not beat us in that way of multiplication, as if it counted for anything! It seems to me that what we make of our several millions is the vital question for us.
I was very much interested in what Prof. Stanley Hall said. I am heretic enough to have doubted whether our common schools are the panacea we have been inclined to think them. I was exceedingly interested in what he said about the education which a boy gained on the hills here. It seems to me we are going to fall back into the easy belief that because our common schools teach more than they used—and in my opinion much more than they ought—we can dispense with the training of the household. When Mr. Harrison [J. P. Harrison, author of "Some Dangerous Tendencies in American Life," one of the preceding speakers] was telling us of the men who were obliged to labor without hope from one end of the day to the other, and one end of the year to the other, he added, what is quite true—that, perhaps, after all, they are happier than that very large class of men who have leisure without culture, and whose sole occupation is either the killing of game or the killing of time—that is the killing of the most valuable possession that we have.
But I will not detain you any longer for, as I did say, I did not come here to make a speech, and I did not know what I was going to say when I came. I generally, on such occasions, trust to the spur of the moment, and sometimes the moment forgets its spur. [Laughter and applause.]