American ideas for English readers

by James Russell Lowell

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.)

I did not intend to detain you so long as I have (cries of “Go on”), but I have also in my experience of after-dinner speeches observed that a speech is like an ill-broken horse; it is apt to take the bit between its teeth and to bolt at the most unexpected moment. A speaker frequently brings up, not where he intended to bring up, but where his steed chooses to land him. I suppose that before coming here I ought to have studied carefully the history of Liverpool, with which I ought to have appeared to have been familiar from my earliest childhood. (Laughter.) 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 of literary gratitude to Liverpool, strange as you may think it. In my father’s library I remember very well three quarto volumes stood side by side more years ago than I like to say. Two of these volumes were “Lorenzo the Magnificent,” and the other was “Poggio Bracciolini.” I, of course, when I was a boy, did not know precisely the meaning of those books; but they did to a certain extent afford me an introduction to the “Renaissance in Italy.” I thought—but Sir James Picton corrects me—that it was Roscoe who translated the life of the second Lorenzo; but it was his son, I am informed, who translated another book which gave me my first acquaintance with the Italian Novelists, and which was a book which I remember buying when I was making a library of my own very early in life.