4. HENRY W. LONGFELLOW….English descent.
5. RALPH WALDO EMERSON….English descent.
6. JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER..He was of Quaker and Huguenot descent.
7. WASHINGTON IRVING……Scotch descent.
8. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE….English descent.
III.—THE SAME LANGUAGE
I now come to consider the third element which goes to make up the natural character of the alliance.
We have the same language. The inhabitants of the United States of America, and of Great Britain, not only speak the same language, but it is their native tongue. How can we overrate in this respect the enormous value of a common language—an {109} influence which, according to the use made of it, may be either healing and remedial, unifying and progressive—the source of all that is most beneficial and delightful, or else jarring, discordant, retroactive, and pernicious. Ought it ever to be forgotten that to the mother country belongs the glory of originating and forming this great language?
It is one thing to speak and understand a language; but it is quite a different thing to have inherited it, to have been born with it; or even to have acquired it, as a necessary concomitant and auxiliary to citizenship. One may acquire a language as a traveller, linguist, or as an accomplishment; or from the temporary necessity of office, occupation, or livelihood; but language acquired, for either of these latter purposes, no matter how perfectly, is merely formal and incident to education, and creates no sentiment of country, home, patriotism, or national pride. An Englishman speaking French, or a Frenchman speaking English, has no sympathy with the customs, laws, manners, morals, legends, literature, or drama of the foreign country beyond the acquired one of scholarship. The range, influence, and effect of the native tongue, however, is that of the air. We cannot see it or touch it. We cannot transcribe, or limit, its scope or power. We only know that it was born with us; that it is our constant, ever-present companion. It is with us in our sleep, in our dreams. It is omniscient, and omnipresent. It is a heritage that no time, influence, or condition can take away {110} from us. He who would describe the influence and importance of language upon those who are born with it, must be able to encompass the air which we breathe, and say what are its limits and effects upon human life.
The intercommunication of ideas between people who use the same native tongue is a source of pleasure and joy, of pain and sorrow, of love and hatred. It brings to the surface from the innermost depths of the soul, from the hidden recesses of the mind, the sensations of home and country. It draws from the perennial and inexhaustible fountains of memory, genius, and inspiration the mysterious accumulations of thought harboured there, and sends them floating through the world to distinguish men from beasts. In some languages the same word expresses both speech and reason, and therefore conveys the distinctive idea of man.