McCook weekly tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 188?-1886, 1884-08-07
The Americans England.


It is upon the pages Of Washington
Irving that we must look for the most
fascinating picture OF the traditional
and ideal England. His imaginative
fondness for old English customs and
life led him to describe them with
charming grace, and to decorate them
with quaint illusions and quotations,
50 that he throws delicate glamour
over England, which makes it to the
half English American heart the moot
romantic of lands. Tho very warmth
of jealousy with which We often speak
Of England is due to the family feel.
ing. With the advent of universal suf.
frage, and the Irish immigration, it has
been part of the politics of great
American party to appeal to q hostile
sentiment which has a mixed origin.
Indeed, politicians of all schools find it
convenient and easy to stir the British
lion. That kind of appeal is the stock
gag" of the political scene, but tbs as
innocent as "Thisne, DEAR"
Irving, indeed, was reproached with
unpatriotic fondness for the old home.
This was natural enough, for he lived
long in England, and his favorite
themes were often enthusiastically
English. But little reflection shows
that they are thoroughly American
sketches both in their spirit and their
point of view. England is not roman
tic to Englishmen in Irving's way. In
deed, it can be so only to the descend
ants of Englishmen in other lands, who
with perfect satisfaction with their lot,
and pride in their own career. tErn with
sweet pensiveness of "reminiscences to
their fathers country-reminiscence
which is tenderly imaginative, and
which invests its subject with faery hues.
An American who finds his own coun-
try inspiring and ennobling in its OPP
portunity and its prospect often con-
fesses that it lacks soft poetic per-
spective, and signs for ivied castles and
ancestral trees in whose shade Sidney's
sister walked. But, were he born
among them, they would have lost the
spell that he now feels, and mis- life
would have lost the richness of that re-
greet. As you look up the Val Anzasca:
Was Monte Rosa hanging there!
A thousand shadowy penciled valleys
And snowy dells in golden air.
But it is only so from the Val Anzas-
ca. It is not SO when you try the terri
bic ascent.
Indeed, tits one of the advantages of
America that with the modified En-
glish blood in our veins we have En-
gland to go to. The consciousness of
being in London is second only to that
of being in Rome or Jerusalem. Is it
second? Is the soul of the American
more stirred by st. Peters, by the yell
low Arno, by the Coliseum, by the
tomb in Arqua, than by London, by the
daisy in the field, the hawthorn hedge,
the lark in the sky. Westminster
Runnymede? And the fond regard,
the surprise, eager delight, the pathos
of pleasure, do not weaken, they do but
strengthen, that lettering scion of kin
beyond the sea. The stronger and
deeper mis- romontic reverence for En-
land, the better American is he, because
less narrow and prejudiced. Generosi-
ty of soul is greatness of soul. With
gratitude and sympathy and joy the
sincere American wanders through Eng
land; and yet, childof his country and
time, he still murmurs, wistfully:
like monk, like cowl,
Hove prophet of the soul;
And on my heart monastic aislef
Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles;
Yet not for all his faith ~ see
Would that cowled churchman be.