The Portland daily press., 1881-12-01
"A British Defense of America.
TPall Mall Gazette.

| Pall MAIL GazetLo.l
We may take it for granted that, except in q
few centres of culture such as Boston and
Harvard, American life ls, and for some time
to come must be, wanting in certain refine
ments and amenities. There are flowers which
grow only in the soil of old societies. You can
no more expect them in young community
than you can expect to make lawn out OF
ploughed field in one season. But even in
these respects we must compare things fairly.
We must not 60 from Western prairie farm
to a London or Paris drawing-room and then
cry out that life in the United States is coarse
and common. We should compare farmer
with farmer, mechanic with mechanics
scholar with scholar. Farmers may be in
greater proportion to scholars in the
United States than here; and SO they ought to
be while the land has need of them. Be the
best few or many the Americans are no less
entitled than other people to be judged by
their best. We must put the case, then, red
dendo sinJula sang,tlis, as lawyers say. Are
American farmers ideas and purposes in life
SO much more narrow, SO much coarser and
commoner than the British farmers as to jus
tify us in holding him up as warning? Do
American workmanship and mechanical in
vention appear to proceed from type of mind
sunk in comfortable dullness? Are American
scholarship and literature as compared with
the same kind of work in Europe, of feeble
and commonplace character? We do not much
think that the answer to any one of these ques-
tions, if worked out would go to justify the
pessimlst view. For the present we shall con-
fine ourselves to the last.
We are told that the Americans have pro-
duced next to nothing in literature or art If
they had produced much in art it would be lit
tie short of a miracle. The materials for
school of art do not yet exist on the other side
of the Atlantic for the simple reason that all
the great works of art and architecture are on
this side. American artists have ito work
in Europe, and their country hardly gets cred
it for them. But let that pass. In literature
the United States have produced within this
century two historians whose works ION Euro
pean affairs, tOo) have taken the first rank in
their subjects; two or three considerable poets
(some would say more, but we keep within
safe limits); three or four humoristS whose hui
NOR has at least q touch of genius, and has
marked Individual stamp in each case; one of
the profoundest and most original of essay
writers of this or any other time; one novelist
of the first rank, and several who have attained
popularity here as we'll as in their own land
and much excellent criticism of which we will
not try to number the authors, as they partly
coincide with those already counted This-m
a new country, with ne capital in the Euro
pean sense, and with literary production of
necessity confined to few places. And if any
person of moderately good critical faculty and
moderately acquainted with the best Ameri-
Can literature be asked what are its principal
characters, we are pretty sure that he will not
mention commonplaces among them. But we
will take more special test. There are those
who happen TO have examined with some care,
and quite recently, the work OF certain Amer
lean scholars on subjects In which they take
special interest. And these competent
judges say positively from their own knowl-
edge thus acquired that the besetting fault of.
American scholarship is the very reverse of
what il ought to be If the ingenious pessimist
were right Our learned friends across the At
lantic, SO far from being commonplace in their
habit of mind, seem to an Englishman only to
want a little ballast OF commonplace to weight
their otherwise excellent inuention. Their
thought has certaiu over-subtilty and exag-
gerated novelty of view.
Then, as to the terrible dead level of unifor-
nifty, one should hardly be called upon to
point out that fortunes are no more equal in the
United States than in Europe, though the av-
erage level OF comfort is higher. And we
trust that few educated Englishmen are at this
day ignorant that the United States are as
their name imports, not one State, but many,
The Independence of the several States in their
domestic laws and government has its draw
backs; but it certainly fosters great variety of
local interests and great deal Of wholesome
self-reliance in both active and intellectual
life Finally, we are warned by our clever
pessimists with one accord against sentimental
ism and sentimental sympathies. We thor
oughly agree with them that sentimentalism Is
very bad thing. But we would observe that
a practical man must take men as ne finds
them and that the great bulk of mankind in
the great bulk of their actions are at this day
governed not by calculation but by sentiment.
Englishmen aud Americans will so on saying
and feeling that blood is thicker than water,
even If critics tell them they are sentimental
fools We would further observe that there
may be such thing as sentimental horror OF
being thought sentimental, and that it ID not q
mark OF strength, but the contrary, to be per-
petually haunted By it.