Morning journal and courier., 1881-02-03
Yale Kent Club.
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Charles Dudley Warner on ssEnglnndn-
 A Brilliant Scene.
 Charles Dudley Warner, of Hartford, lec- tured in the Yale Kent club course last even ing. His subject was England bril- liant scene was presented and one memora- ble in the career of the club, for all it's for mer successes were discounted and eciipsed last evening Many noted men have lectured before the club and attracted brilliant audi ences. but MT. Warmers lecture was the sig nal for grand outpouring of our best citi- gems and an array of blooming ladies most charming to behold, and all this with the weather lowering near zero. More than this, thronged as was the ample and elegant court room, every inch of standing and squeezing room accessible inside the four walls was oc- cupied by would-be auditors, and the throng overfowed into the lobby, while bevy of fair-cheeked and high-browed maidens, and several Yale professors and prominent law yers with their wives, clustered about in the judges room back of the magisterial bench. Here view of the speaker was afforded, and in that remote space they gathered such of the words of the lecturer as occasionally floated to them between the buzz of animated dialogues from ladies and their gallant attendants whose striving for possible va cant seat among the throngs inside had been fruitless and vain
 The lecturer began with referring to Eng lands geographical position, mineral and az ricultural resources, and other sources of power and wealth. He then spoke of Eng fish literature. He knew not how much i'm agination has had to do with shaping our na- tional character, but for one-half century English writers had the control of our market of fiction. During this period we had no fixed social status we were in transition state. The effect of the English press in general and their social and governmental in- stitutions upon the moral and intellectual character of the United States was glanced at. Proceeding the speaker showed how American writers had thrown off the domination of English litera- ture and struck out in literary achievements purely American, worthy of favorable com parison. The literary status of the South before the civil war was purely colonial, their itearies showed them still almost wholly tributary to the former mother country. The higher social status of the Southrons was of like ilk, reflection of the English social life. The speaker thence proceeded to glance at the policy of each of the great political parties of England, and at the social subdivisions. making an allusion to England's misgoyern- ment of Ireland or her failure to meet the Irish problem. He next alluded to England's foreign policy of aggrandizement, a policy which was dictated by the voice of trade in- terests. India was not directly paying con- cern to England, and the speaker unroI- led an array of many millions of pounds to show this, taken from | official data. England could not afford to re- linquish India. It was to her the key to great gains in trade and to the trade of Egypt, Central Africa and the valley of the Euphrates It opened the door to position and honor to ! tens of thousands of noble English youth | ruled out from inheritance by the law of primogeniture. The effect of the operation | of this law in the interminghng it caused be- | tween great social classes was an important factor in the political problem. England's policy of aggrandizement was upheld by Bea- consfield and Gladstone, and England could not abandon that position without sinking into third class power. The speaker would rather that England should have India and her other possessions than that she should retire to humble place among nations, yield her place to ignorant, barbaric Russia or even to the French,-this in the interests of progress and Christianity. The speaker regarded England's political complications as ! mt InV0lVInD RarinnG 6IaQatora and bod O most hopeful view for England's future pros perity. He then broached again the com parative merits of English and American lit erature. We were two great nations, one in great many important points. but in litera- I ture we were diverging, each having na- tional and social character and history unlike ! and literature to the manor born.